Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 09:26:40
From: Guy Trache <pfantazm@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Procurers: The Zymobius File

The Procurers - Part 1

By Pfantazm

~~~

Author's Note:  This story contains depictions of the future.  If they are
proved to be inaccurate several hundred years from now, enh, that's
science fiction for you.

The characters in this story have unprotected sex, with the basic
assumption that anything that can do them in will have been cured by the
time the story takes place.  If you think you can hang on that long
(especially given the previous disclaimer about accuracy), then, by all
means, follow their example.  Otherwise, stay safe.

Direct interpersonal contact is feasible via pfantazm@hotmail.com.  To
access and review other documents of a similar derivation to the one
herein, locate the relevant directory at
www.pridesites.com/pfantazm/index.html.

~~~

1.1 - THE ZYMOBIUS FILE

Evan gazed into the eyes of the man whose bed he was on.  They were a
bright, shiny gold, and the mood tint showed that he was getting close.

Evan bounced his ass up and down on his trick's cock, letting it pierce
upwards into him.  He grabbed his own hard dick in an iron grip and pumped
it, root to tip, root to tip.  It wouldn't be long now.

The golden-eyed man pressed his thumbs into Evan's flesh around his
nipples.  Evan groaned and his head bowed.  He sped up slightly (he
couldn't go too much faster, though he wanted to) and took his hand off
his cock to reach around his partner's arm and give him a little tit
action of his own.  If Evan worked that fuckstick into his ass just right,
he wouldn't need his hand.

Evan let his eyes roam over the body beneath him as nature took its
course.  The guy had assured him that he was all-natural, and Evan
believed him.  The boy was pretty, but nothing you couldn't buy genetics
had given him without human help.  It turned Evan on knowing (or at least
thinking) the boy fucking him was real.

His hair was prepared so that it looked like it smoldered like fire: black
at the roots and red shading to bright yellow at the tips.  His perfect
teeth were gritted behind full lips, and tiny beads of sweat glistened in
the smoggy daylight from the half-drawn shades.  He'd caught Evan's eye as
he was leaving the athletic complex and Evan was going in.  He was only
there to talk to someone, not to exercise, but the Fates had decided Evan
was to get a workout after all.  When they returned to his nameless pick-
up's apartment, he'd stripped off his clothes (which hadn't been many) and
showered.  He'd obviously done so while at the gym, but this time it was
for show, just for Evan.

As he turned under the spray, Evan got to see what the boy had been doing
for himself.  He was into his own body, an athlete in the purest sense,
and he shunned meds and pads in getting himself built up.  To a
connoisseur like Evan, it showed.

When he'd decided Evan had seen enough, he'd pulled Evan into the shower
with him, still dressed in street clothes, and started making out with
him.  One thing led to another, and, after a quick detour past the mini-
laundry, Evan found himself with this darling man's prick all the way up
his ass.

And now that man's face turned from one wincing in effort to one slack
with euphoria as hot spunk splashed out of his manhood.  In a flash, Evan
had let go of the nipple he was fondling and jacked his own cock fast.
He'd worked hard for this orgasm, and he was going to enjoy it.  Evan felt
his lover's balls empty into him, and he rode the thought to climax.  He'd
shot a lot, and Evan made to catch up.  He spurted again and again up his
top's chest and onto his face, and he opened wide to catch what he could
on his tongue.

Evan leaned down, still joined at the hips, as it were, to taste the juice
on the other man's tongue, and to taste him as well.  He chuckled as their
tongues played in each other's mouths.  "You're a real cumhound, ain'cha?"
he asked Evan.

"Can't get enough," he purred back.

They engaged in an acceptable amount of post-coital fooling around before
Evan declared that he should get going.  He still had someone to meet at
the athletic complex.  Evan slipped into his bikinis, and then his torn
coveralls.  Once the pockets were where he could find them, he pulled his
ID agent out and pointed it at the one belonging to the other guy, who was
still lying in the bed.  "My contact info," he said, pushing the Transfer
button.  "Give me a call sometime."

"Yeah-huh," was the reply.

`I doubt it,' Evan translated.  Oh, well.  His loss, whatever his name
is.  "See y'around."

As he figured his way back to where he was parked, Evan again tried to
figure out why so many guys did that, practice the freighter-watcher
approach to sex.  I've seen that one, check it off, and if I go looking
for that one again, I'll never get the whole fleet.

He wasn't looking for anything permanent, and he made it clear to anyone
who got romantic ideas in their heads about him.  On the other hand, when
you have a good time with someone, like he'd just done with Unknown back
there, why *wouldn't* you want to go back to play with him again?

Evan had accumulated a long list of guys who felt the way he did, and
occasionally when he could afford a night out of fun, he'd call the rounds
and see who wanted to get together.  They all knew the situation, hell,
they played the same way themselves, and their address lists consisted of
mostly the same names.  Maybe he should just invite them all over one
night and watch what happened.  Evan was grinning wickedly when he found
the door to the garage.

He looked around, wishing he'd remembered to log which quadrant his bike
was in.  He wandered until he ran across it again.

It was a nice arrangement he and the others had, he thought as he looked
for his ride.  You're pretty sure you're going to get a good fuck, or you
wouldn't have the guy's id in your list, and you cut down on the chances
something nasty will get introduced into the group, little flings like
today's aside.  The way that beautiful boy took care of himself, he was
sure he wouldn't let himself catch anything inconvenient and leave it in
his system.  There hadn't been a plague on Halvaga III in decades that
couldn't be cured.  And Evan made sure his own health was kept up-to-date.

He spotted his red airbike off to the side, and he strode over to it.
Still there, nothing stripped from it, and no one had come along and
hacked an obscene graphic into the side.  Bonus.  Evan had spent a long
time programming the skin on his bike just right, and nothing pissed him
off more than having to erase some asshole's idea of fine art from it.

He swung a leg over it and started the drive.  The airbike lifted off the
ground, and Evan coasted away toward the exit.  He took the transition to
the gravity field in the road with practiced ease and headed back to the
gym.

He went a fair clip over the speed limit.  He'd be a good hour or so late
by the time he caught up with OxygenJim, assuming he'd decided to hang
around that long.  He dodged over and between the other cars, surfing over
the fields expertly.  It was kinda dangerous, and he logged a couple of
nominations for demerits on his license on the way from various outraged
drivers, but his record was clean enough he could afford it, and he never
touched anybody.

The smoggy air whooshed through Evan's short hair.  Some bikers used
helmets, but on the elevated streets in this city, there was no point.
This was literally the open road: no physical surface, just four long,
flat, invisible anti-grav fields to hold the cars up.  One long square
tube maintained at intervals, allowing you see the wonderful, run-down,
grey, decrepit scenery around you.  The buildings in this hole were older
than Damascus, and they were falling apart from acid pollution.
Somewhere, a few kilometres below you, you could be convinced there was a
planet down there somwehere, and if you fell off the road accidentally (no
documented cases this century), no helmet would save you on impact, even
if you only nailed yourself into the side of one of the buildings instead
of the ground.

Eighty percent of Halvaga III was urbanized.  (No one wanted to develop
the poles.)  The place was oppressive in its population.  There were
people everywhere.  Humanity on the whole was coming up on a hundred
billion members, not even counting the Pictavian refugees.  Humans were
just not equipped to deal with numbers like that. Even the five billion on
this small planet were too many to contemplate.  If you met an inhabitant
of Hell-vaga a second, you might just live long enough to shake hands with
them all.  By God, how he wanted off this rock.  That's why he made sure
he kept his health up, even when he didn't quite have the credits to spare
for it:  if the opportunity to leave ever came, he didn't want a medical
restriction to fuck it up for him.  And with any luck, he had a deal
cooking that would do just that, and it was even legal besides.

He found a space for his bike and dashed into the complex, looking for
Jim.  He asked the registration computer if he was still there.  After it
verified that Evan was on Jim's contact list, it informed him that he
logged out less than a minute ago.  Evan turned and ran.

They finally caught up to each other at the entryway to the garage.

"What kept you, E-male?  I was waiting for you over an hour.  Fortunately,
I found something to amuse myself with.  Evan, meet Free."

Evan shook hands with a tall, boyish-faced man with blue, almost purple,
eyes, and hair to match.  Evan looked him up and down.  The blue hair
looked to be Free's natural colour, but the body looked more than a little
store-bought, in his amateur, but informed, opinion.  He wondered why he
was at the gym.  Trying to pick someone up, maybe?  "Nice to meet you,
Free."

"Same here."

"So where were you?  Your cell is off."

"I met somebody here and we went off to his place," Evan explained.

"There's a lot of that going around," OxygenJim said, his grass-green eyes
on Free.

Satisfied that he'd called the situation, Evan teased him.  "That's so
unlike you, OJ.  I mean, it only took you fifteen minutes to get me in bed
that first time."

"Ha!  You need a memory chip installed.  You came over to me, bottom-boy,
not the other way around.  Now who was this who kept you away for so
long?  I bet he didn't last an hour of waiting before he was naked."

Evan grinned.  "I was in a hurry.  Anyway, he never gave his name.  Fire
tint to his hair, gold eyes,..."

"That go really shiny when he gets excited?  Oh, Temple's a pretty good
lay."

"Temple?  There's no way that's his UID."

OxygenJim, one of thse rare few whose unique Universal Identifier was
good for an everyday name as well, said, "Nah.  It's just his body is one."

"Ohhh," Evan said.

"Yeah.  He's careful about what he lets into it, you see.  Your legs were
in the air this time out?"

"I sat on it, for the record."

"Whatever.  You'll never hear from him again either way.  Now I bet you're
too tired for action now, and I was going to invite you to join Free and
me.  See?  If you'd waited you wouldn't have wasted a load on Temple."

Free started feeling up Evan's muscular arm.  Evan sized him up once
more.  Tall guy with a big frame.  Could be something special if he was
using the gym instead of just cruising it.  Looked like he's using
stimulation pads to get his muscle, and even then, not on high enough
settings; Free was a bit lanky.  Still, fun with Jim would offset anything
Free might lack.

"What makes you think I'm that tired?" Evan asked, smiling.

  * * *

"Minder, collect my messages, please."

There really was no need for Scott to be polite to the machine.  It could
never be offended.  The agent orb would simply hover there, doing anything
he asked.  It wasn't quite sophisticated enough to get a full AI, though
its owner found it to almost as necessary as his own internal computer.

Unable to appreciate the finer touches of the command, Minder executed
it.  It connected to the internet of the planet around which Scott_Quinn's
ship orbited through the ship's computer.  From there, it linked to the
interplanetary 'net, and downloaded all messages sent to Scott's Universal
Identifier.  All this took less time than Minder would take to beep,
indicating that the whole procedure was finished.

Scott turned away from the database he was examining and saw Minder had
constructed its viewscreen to display the messages.

The first v-mail was brief.  Scott's services were requested on Panopia.
It seemed there was something of a scandal developing, and he seemed to be
the ideal candidate to clean it up.  Scott couldn't imagine how this could
be, he was little more than a small-time data miner, but he flagged it so
that he would reply later.  The animated signature was that of a hotel,
and he doubted a company like that on a pleasure planet would make such a
mistake.

The second one was longer, but more enigmatic.  A wryly smiling man with
aquiline features appeared on the screen this time.  Instantly, Scott
didn't trust him.

"Hello, Scott_Quinn.  My name is Evan.  I understand that you studied
under a Dr. Zymobius, the Pictavian terranthropologist.  If my sources
are right, you also inherited his archives when he passed away.

"The reason I'm in contact with you is that I have a file here that seems
to be incomplete, and I have reason to believe that another piece of it is
in Dr. Zymobius' collection.  I was wondering if you would be willing to
allow me to search for the counterpart to my file.  The filename should be
something like `Jasper 220'.  That's what my piece is called.  I hope to
hear from you soon."  A generic animation signed the message off.

"Minder, run a search on this Evan from the second message, name and
face.  See if he's corporate."  Evan's request intrigued him.

Dr. Zymobius had been, in Scott's opinion, one of the most methodical men
he'd ever known.  While all Pictavians can tend to be single-minded,
Zymobius was extreme even for his species.  The simple thought that he had
a file anywhere in his archives that was incomplete, one that had another
piece lying around somewhere, was unbelievable.

Still, if this were a trick, using his connection to the Zymobius estate
was a tenuous way to draw him out.  Why not just hire him with a job that
sounded typical?  Then his suspicions would not be aroused.

It would cost him nothing to search for a file like this, he thought.

Scott shut down the database program and locked the terminal he was
working at.  This search would take a bit more power.  He'd need to go
through Ganymede.

Scott's ship was too small to have a CGS system to provide gravity.  A
Centripetal Gravity System would spin the ship to keep things on the outer
hull of the vessel, like swinging a full pail of water in an arc over your
head keeps you from spilling a drop.  The _Daybreaker_ was the right size
for Scott's needs, and used artificial gravity fields to keep things
down.  The fields were weak, or else the gravity from one side of the ship
would affect the other, and you'd reduce the number of Gs either way.

Scott walked through the galley and through the hatch into what he called
the flip room.  He grabbed the bar above the doorway and hauled himself
up.  He pushed off with his feet and turned himself upside down.  The
fields didn't reach into this rearmost part of the ship, and he was nearly
weightless.  Once he'd gone one-eighty degrees around or so, he kicked
into the room and let his feet get pulled to the "floor", which he might
have thought of as the roof a minute ago.  Getting around like this could
be confusing, but gravity was just too handy to do without.

He settled himself in front of Ganymede and asked for all files from
Zymobius' section of the hierarchy with "Jasper" in their names.  There
were no matches.

"Ganymede, return all file names containing the number 220, plus or minus
one, please."

>No matches, said the computer.

Scott thought a second.  He was not going to hand-search the whole
section.  It was huge.  Even if he inloaded the file list to his implant,
it would take hours.  "Ganymede, isolate all filenames containing a string
of alpha characters followed by a number."

The main computer worked a moment, then announced, >List compiled.

"What is the range of the numbers in these filenames?"

>The lowest is one. The highest is 1,768.

"How many have three digits?"

>Three hundred fifty-four.

"Let's try a different approach, then.  How many of these files have a
personal name as their alpha part.  Restrict the search to traditional
Earth names."

>Zero.

Scott accessed the dictionary in the implant in his head.  It contained a
large amount of data about the known galaxy, and provided much helpful
information.  Among other things, "jasper" was a mineral.

"Ganymede, how many of these filenames have the name of a mineral found on
Earth as their alpha part?"

>Two.

Knowing Scott would be happy with this quantity, Ganymede displayed the
filenames on the monitor.  They were "Malachite 284" and "Diamond 9".
Playing a suspicion, Scott checked the second file first.  As he thought,
it was about baseball.

"Close that and please open Malachite 284."

The computer made a sort of electronic crunching noise, then asked,
>Specify application to use in opening this file, please.

"Ganymede," Scott said, offended, "you're supposed to know better than
that.  What type of file is Malachite 284?"

Ganymede paused and made the same noise as before, and stated, >A graphic
file.

"Then use Visionary 7, please."  Scott mentally instructed his implant to
remind him to check Ganymede's file recognition software.

An image of a piece of a broken tablet appeared on the monitor.  It had
some kind of script on it, one that neither Scott nor any of his internal
data systems recognized.  Only its orientation in the picture suggested
that the end of the complete tablet he was seeing was its top.

`He wants a copy, he can have it,' Scott thought.  "Minder, send a message
to that person who was interested in one of Zymobius' files that I think
I've found the one he's looking for, and he can get his copy as soon as he
gives me an address to send it to.  I won't even charge him."

>Done.

  * * *

The man in the black leather jacket put his hi-res binocs away.  There was
a solid association between the target and the man at this address.
Perhaps there was some way to use a little leverage through the target's
friend.  The friend's UID was OxygenJim.