Looseleaf's Diary - 18 / 04 / 2120

On the table-screen, I laid out images of the dead men's faces. Next to them, mugshots from arrest records. Not all of the four intruders who had gotten violently killed on Rowana Rowethasdottir's doorstep had done time in United Megacorp prison facilities, but all of them had lengthy criminal records in and around the White City. Known criminal organization associations all pointed to an unfamiliar name.

"Crown Players," Aubert said with a frown. "Why would they be involved in this?"

Every sprawl and arcology in the West had its share of organized crime. Some were just street gangs, dealing in ****, weapons, sex work, grey and blackmarket goods; a lot of those groups had larger gang affiliations—half the Orc gangs from Rivendell to the Morgul Vale were sets of the White Hands, the individual street gangs tied by rites and blood with Orc tribes and gangs back in the South and East. Underground economies moved credits and contraband back and forth across the continent.

There were other groups, though. Some were older, deeply tied into the almost-forgotten ethnic divisions that time and intermarriage had almost erased. Yet every generation, young men and women came of age and raised some of the old identities. Others were cults, either fanatics or just nonconformers that turned to the worship of Morgoth, Sauron, or any other proclaimed Dark Lord.

The Crown Players, centered in the White City, were both. One of the latest incarnations of what had once been called the King's Men. Those called Made Men were supposed to trace their ancestry back to old Numenor itself, though the associates of the organization might be Orcs, mixed-race, or of any people that still venerated the Shadow. It was strongest in Umbar, but its tentacles reached out to every major city of Men.

"Every deal has at least three ends," I reminded him. "Buyer, seller, and middlemen. Seller is Drake Industries. The buyer was, and is, unidentified, but probably someone in the White City, since that's where they were taking the Uruk-Hai. Crown Players are either the buyer or working for them."

"So who are the other middlemen?" Aubert said. Then his face hardened. "White Hands have a history of trafficking both Men and Orcs. And that's their territory. Would they be involved?"

I shivered. The implants in my stumps were colder than the rest of me. At the moment, I wanted a giant hoodie to hunker down in, instead of just an old stretched-out T-shirt. My bare ass sat in a puddle of jizz on the chair, sticky and rapidly cooling. Aubert's good morning creampie.

"That's part of what I'm afraid of," I said as I rocked back and forth pussy squelching. I really needed to visit the bidet. Or get my boyfriend to clean up his own damn mess. "Because I don't think the Crown Players are going to stop, and if they reach out to the White Hands—"

"—then our ex-ranger and her girlfriend are in a lot more trouble than they know," Aubert finished glumly. "And if the White Hands learn we're poking our nose in, then we're in trouble. The local set will come down on us. Hard. We've been under their radar so far, but..."

"But what should we do about it? What could we do about it?" I finished for him.

It had been one thing when Rowethasdottir was a name in a database, but now she had a story. And whatever was going on with that forge she'd dug up, this business with the trafficked Orc touched me personally. I'd seen what the White Hands did with those they trafficked at first hand. I had lived it.

I hissed through my teeth and rolled my shoulders. My back ached. Aubert nodded. He seemed to be thinking of something else.

"This business with Tû. Is it connected?" he asked.

"How could it be? Near as I can tell, Rowethasdottir didn't even know the forge was there until after she'd killed the ones transporting the Uruk-Hai in the first place," I said.

"And that Uruk happened to just break free when the vehicle's path grew as close as it would get to the forge," Aubert pointed out. "Hell of a coincidence, don't you think? All of this happening right there, right then?"

He tapped the side of the table with his fingers, eyes grim.

"Only Ilúvatar knows what music the Ainur will play next," I repeated the old phrase. "But I would really appreciate it if you'd suck the sperm out of my pussy, I feel like a mess down there."

There was a pathetic eagerness with how quickly Aubert climbed under the table. I pushed my ass off the edge of the chair to offer my sloppy creampie for his tongue. He didn't even mind that he was eating his own cum out of my slit. If anything, he seemed to get off of it.

As his tongue lapped at my sticky slit, my cheeks began to burn, and I realized so did I. A part of me wanted to just enjoy that sensation. Another, more urgent, part of me was already thinking about the piece of code I needed to write and insert into Rowethasdottir's home system so that I could remotely trigger the satlink.