Adventures of an Ancient Space Battleship

Qei followed the woman into the bank. Just as she had expected the young woman had come back out of her apartment not long after the courier had left, and she had followed her straight to the local bank. As she entered the building with the woman, Qei noted the people around. The receptionists were all Neku, but she did note one Irini in the building. Qei made a mental note to keep her distance from her in case she was one of the stronger ones.

She closely followed the woman up to the counter to observe, not worried about being seen since she was still cloaked. Qei honestly enjoyed how much easier having a cloak made her job. It helped that the Irini and the Neku both lacked proper defenses against cloaked spies.

When the woman finally reached the receptionist, she said, “I’m here to consolidate my accounts, and to make a deposit.”

The receptionist smiled, “Certainly. What accounts are you closing, and where am I putting the money?”

The woman gave the receptionist the details, and she started working on the computer. After a moment, she looked up, “the deposit please?”

The woman handed it over and told her which account to put it in. The receptionist took the credit chit, ran it, and did a few things on the computer.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to come with me now to sign a few documents to finalize the closing and transfer of the money in your old accounts.”

The woman nodded. The receptionist stepped away from the counter and opened a small door near the counter. Leading the woman into the back. Qei followed.

They ended up in a small office. The woman was asked to sit, and the receptionist left for a moment. She came back with a stack of papers. What followed was the ordinary paperwork involved with closing the accounts.

When the last document was signed, the receptionist smiled, “Alright we are done here. Now then do you need anything else?”

The woman nodded, “I do have a call I need to make. Can I make it here?”

The receptionist smiled, “Of course. There is a comm terminal on the desk. I’ll leave you alone while you make the call.”

The receptionist walked over to the desk in the small office and activated the comm terminal. She then left the room. The woman walked over to the desk, and sat in front of it. Then she made the call, Qei noted that this was the contact she was instructed to contact. It seemed it was a very good thing she followed her in here.

The familiar naked form of an Irini appeared on the screen. The woman gave her details, and then said, “I have finished closing my accounts and transferring all my money into the new account you have provided.”

“Good. Thank you for cooperating. I’m sending you details on a second account. This will be your new spending account. As for the first account until instructed otherwise you will not touch the money deposited in the account. You will also be depositing all of your future wages into that account. Money may disappear from that account, pay no attention to that, it's normal.

“Now about the spending account. You will be paying all your bills out of that account from now on. Make sure you pay them on time. You will also be submitting to us a log of all purchases you plan to make weekly for review, and approval. You may not make any purchase with the account without our approval.”

The woman nodded, “understood.”

The Iniri glanced at a screen. “Also I would like you to make yourself available for an extended four-day weekend trip next week. Make sure all bills are paid for that period as well. A courier will come by to collect you for the trip, at 0500 Rensday. Wait by the door, wear nothing. Do not pack any bags, and remember to leave the door open for the courier.”

The woman nodded again, “I understand.”

“Good. Now I would like you to submit this week's planned purchases by the end of the day. We will have them reviewed, and the approved list sent to you by tomorrow morning.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you for your cooperation on this matter. You may forget this call. Just remember to follow your instructions.”

The woman nodded, and the call ended. Qei found watching this call rather informative. There was a lot to think about after this. She had considered the possibility that this was a precursor to the woman being disappeared, but it seemed that they only wanted her gone for four days. Not that long a period, but maybe they did this account thing with everyone. As she thought about it, there wasn’t any reason for them not to take control of their money like this. The whole thing brought more questions, even as it answered others.

The woman closed the terminal, and Qei followed her out of the room. Where she was met by the receptionist. “Done?”

The woman nodded.

“Great! This way please.” With that the receptionist led her back out to the front. Qei followed, and they headed right out of the building Qei had a lot to think about, and glancing at the time, she had somewhere else to be soon. So once they were outside, she parted with the woman she was observing.

May looked around the outside of the facility she had arrived at. Following the lead on the storage location had brought her here. At first glance, it was a storage facility alright, but she noticed an odd building among the collection of storage sheds and warehouses. Another oddity about the place was that there were a fair number of Neku about, all of them were naked. Many of them did have a belt though, but that was all they wore, if they were wearing anything at all.

There was a fence around the perimeter of the facility, but that wasn’t an obstacle for her. She was already cloaked, and it was designed to keep normal Neku out, not her. She jumped it. As she entered, she noticed the large number of sensor clusters set up around the buildings. There were also a few force shield emitters. The fact that it was currently busy with trucks coming in and out was likely why the shield wasn’t in place at the moment. It wouldn’t have stopped her though. Their being down simply made it easier to get in.

Now that she was in, May started to poke around the facility. She knew better than to open doors with so many active sensors around, but that only made things a little harder. She headed toward a storage shed with a truck parked in front of it, and a couple of working Neku.

When she got close, she noted them maneuvering several large boxes marked for storage with labels on them into the shed. Another Neku scanned the labels as they moved past her with her datapad. It seemed they weren’t doing individual storage for the people they were brainwashing and taking this stuff from. As May noted the labels indicated the boxes came from different residences. Glancing over the shoulder of the girl with the datapad, she noted she was logging the boxes in their database, and their location. Then she noted something else, each box also had a list of contents noted in the database. Yet she didn’t recall them going over that back at the house. Each item also had accompanying images.

Her question was answered in a moment when a girl wearing a headband in addition to a belt pulled a new box out of the truck. She placed it down on the ground, unsealed it, and called out a box number. The woman with the datapad opened a new entry with that box number. The datapad girl signaled she was ready, and the girl at the box started going through it listing the items in it. She was very thorough and detailed about it. Not to mention efficient. She not only gave detailed descriptions of each item be it photo, art, or knickknack, but she gave these descriptions in clean precise phrases. Doing it in seconds per item. As she did each item May noticed images being added to the file, and the datapad girl would attach them to each description. Despite the size of the box it only took her a few minutes to go through it, and to neatly pack the stuff back in. She resealed it, and then pushed it up, while a second girl was readying the next box to be gone through. May guessed the headband had an optical sensor pod on it.

When it reached the girl with the datapad she scanned it, and May noted how the new box entry was updated with the scanned info from the label. It seemed that they did this often, but it surprised her little that they were going through what amounted to private stuff. They had a full system for it after all.

It did look like they were actively storing the stuff though. Yet this little sight did raise the question. Why were they taking so thorough an inventory of what each individual had stored? There was no reason to do that. Although it made perfect sense if they planned to alter the contents of the storage box at a later date. There were a few possibilities of how they would be doing that.

She didn’t think the answers were here so she left the naked workers to their jobs, and moved on. May had a few other places in the facility she wanted to check out. That suspicious building she noted earlier might be a prime spot to check out. As a bonus she hadn’t spotted any Iniri yet. So it might be safe. Then again they might be concentrated at that suspicious building.

With nothing else seeming to be of interest, she headed straight for the most suspicious building in the facility. It wasn’t too far of a walk, so it only took her a couple of minutes. Although she did take a bit of a shortcut to save time. Afterall why go around several lines of storage sheds when you can easily go over them?

The strange building was a large structure with its own fence, and checkpoints at the entrances. That fence and checkpoints were part of what made it suspicious. That, and it clearly wasn’t an office complex or a warehouse. There was another building over by the main wall that she was pretty sure was the main office.

She worked her way around the building. Surveying the checkpoints. Most of them were closed, with a forcefield blocking entry, and a naked Neku standing guard. As she was completing her external survey of the building, she neared one of the checkpoints and she noted it was open. A naked Neku with a scanner was waving another nude Neku into the building. The girl was pushing a cart of large boxes into the gate. Qei followed her in, and studied the boxes. They had labels indicating varying residences, and box numbers. All of them however had been marked as ‘for storage’ She also noted that the registered addresses on the labels all seemed to be from the same area. That seemed curious to her.

May followed the girl down the hall that the checkpoint led to. Already she figured the cart full of boxes might be going somewhere interesting.

It turned out that she was right. After going past several doors, and a turn, the cart was brought to a large workroom filled with naked neku. The worker hit a button on her grav cart, and it set gently on the floor. She then announced to the group, “Here is lot ****.”

One of them walked over and thanked her. She left without the cart, and a second Neku was signaled to remove a box. Which was promptly placed next to a worktable, and unsealed. Someone brought a pad and began checking the items against an inventory as they were unpacked onto the table. Another box was dragged to a second table, but May stayed near the first to watch.

They were quickly sorted, and then the knickknacks and art were placed back into the box carefully. Someone took the photos and started running each through a scanner. May moved closer wondering what they were doing, and watched as each photo was loaded onto a screen. A few of them started working on the digital copy that had been created. Elsewhere she noted the originals being run through a laser shredder reducing them to piles of ash.

It seemed she was right about the inventory thing, in at least some cases they were going to alter the stuff later. The question was why were they altering these photos. She watched and noted that they were focusing on changing a specific individual in each photo. Removing her clothes in every instance. Why they were doing that, she didn’t know.

It took them a while, but they had some rather powerful digital tools. Allowing them to alter a single photo completely in just a few minutes. It even looked natural, as if it had always been that way.

As each altered photo was completed they printed it out, and repacked it into the box as it had been before.  Then she noticed that in some of the photos they were also removing the clothes of the other individuals and not just that one girl.  A quick glance at the dating watermark that was hidden in the frame of the photo showed that it was the more recent ones in which they were making everyone naked.

It took the group of Neku a very short period of time to work through the box and repack it. They moved it aside and opened a second.  Continuing the same process. One thing she did note was they were again focusing on specific individuals, and like before it was the younger ones. The question was why were they altering these photos? Unfortunately merely watching these girls work wasn’t going to answer that question. Perhaps there were answers elsewhere in the building?