My Best Friend is a Hall Monitor

 

            He’s not really a hall monitor. That’s just what I like to call their “profession”. Technically they are called subspace sentries. I think my term for them is more accurate.

            Don’t get me wrong. What they do is absolutely necessary. Ever since we found out about multiverse travelers the Star Force patrol has been overwhelmed. The passages between universes have to be monitored and regulated. That’s where my friend, Ahlan, comes in.

            Ahlan Gaines and I both started out as bounty hunters. We were trained by the great Pollux Holden. Pol might be too slow to hunt anymore, but his alumni have the highest success rate in the Solar System. Before he got hired by Star Force, Ahlan was well on his way to breaking the record of confirmed catches. It was a record I was never going to approach.

My expertise was in hunting the apex predators of the galaxy. In fact, my last hunt was also the last time I partnered with Ahlan. It’s what started this whole mess.

Her name was Fleur Whelan. She was a biochemist who had been caught stealing vaccines from the medical vault on Europa. Ahlan thought it was going to be an easy hunt. She didn’t have a criminal history and none of his contacts in the underworld had even heard of her. That usually signifies a novice.

There was just one problem. When Ahlan ran a background check on her, he found out that all her vital records were fake. Her colleagues on Europa said she was a loner and knew nothing about her. Her living quarters looked like no one had lived in them.

So Ahlan called me in to help.

**********

“I’ve done everything I know to do, Philo. It’s like she vanished as soon as she walked through the airlock.”

“We can resort to wild speculations later, Ahl. You’ve done what you know. Let’s try some of my tricks. You say you found nothing in her living quarters. Did you run a DNA test on her bed?”

“Philo, I’m telling you that bed looked like it was in a show room. There wasn’t even a single hair on it.”

“You have the eyes of a lemur, my friend. I have no doubt you would have found a hair.”

Ahlan glared at me.

“Ha. Ha, ha, ha. If you’re done messing with me, can we be serious?”

I laughed, but held up my hand.

“What I’m getting at is that cleaning crews aren’t as thorough as you might think. In my experience, there are always traces left on the sheets that even your eyes can’t see.”

“Artemis is testifying for a trial in New Vegas. You know how long those things last. Can we use your forensic whiz?”

“No problem. May has better tech than Artemis, anyway. I’ll put her on it. In the meantime, I would like to run down all the shuttles that were on the dock during this miraculous escape.”

**********

I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, May’s collection and analysis turned up six DNA profiles that we ruled out and a seventh that she said had been corrupted. I had a hunch about it, so I asked her to hold on to it.

Our investigation into the dock showed that four of the shuttles were vulnerable to stowaways. Three of them were enroute to other planets. By interstellar law, only Star Force patrol is allowed to board shuttles in the space lanes, so I reluctantly turned over our evidence to them.

That left one shuttle for us to check.

**********

“I assure you that my yeomen canvassed this entire vessel from bow to stern two standard hours ago.”

“That may be true, Captain,” said Ahlan. “But your ship’s log shows that you only perform that search upon arrival.”

“And only after you have offloaded your cargo,” I added.

“Which leaves plenty of time for a stowaway to disembark,” said Ahlan.

The shuttle captain’s face turned several shades of red.

“What are you implying?!”

“Look,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re guilty of smuggling fugitives or gross negligence. We are duly authorized to search this vessel while it is docked. Now stand aside.”

For a moment, I thought the captain was going to fight us. Then I think he changed his mind when he saw the dock security officers reaching for their guns.

“Let’s go.”

May pushed her instrument cart up the ramp behind us. She blew a strand of her black hair out of her eyes and looked at me.

“Where do you want to start?” she asked.

“We both know she didn’t stay in the cargo bay after they took off, Philo,” said Ahlan.

“Which is why we’re going to check the passengers’ quarters,” I said.

**********

Thanks to a combination of luck and my intuition, we found traces of Fleur Whelan’s corrupted DNA in one of the passenger compartments.

I should take this time to tell you that the samples collected for Ms. Whelan were not corrupted but were actually GNA. Forensic experts like May don’t tend to think outside their field of study. I had to confirm my hunch by sending a sample to a research facility on Io.

At this point in our hunt, the nature of our fugitive was not our concern. I assumed that we could save our speculations for after we reacquired her.

I wish now that I had been more curious.

**********

“She’s trying to leave the Solar System,” said Ahlan.

“Intergalactic cruisers are almost impossible to board undetected,” I said.

“Almost means it’s only improbable. If we hurry, we can get there before she beats the odds.”

“The Kuiper Belt isn’t what I would call a fast trip. I hope you’ve updated your tune files. A week listening to neodisco is grounds for justifiable homicide.”

“Neodisco?!” said May. “How much are you paying Artemis to put up with you?”

“Don’t worry,” said Ahlan. “I was feeling nostalgic last time, but I’m over it.”

Something about his grin made me uneasy.

“Spill it,” said May.

“Country funk,” he said.

I groaned.

“I think I might have some noise cancelling earbuds somewhere,” said May.

“Find me a pair, too, and I will double your rate for this job.”

**********

After ten solar days spent curbing my darker impulses, we arrived on Eris. I had already forwarded a file of our evidence to the authorities at the base.

My first hint of trouble was when we initiated docking procedures. It wasn’t that they were unpleasant so much as they were distracted. I began to wonder how much cooperation we could expect from the Eris security forces.

As it turned out, they weren’t unwilling. They were just out of their depth.

**********

“It started about ten solar weeks ago. H-Sector suddenly stopped reporting in. I’ve sent two patrols in to investigate since then, but neither have returned.”

“Why didn’t you send in heavy troops, Commander?” asked Ahlan.

Commander Willem Gibson was a beefy man who had aged poorly out on the frontier. He ran his hand through his white curls and rubbed his neck with the other.

“There are civilians in that sector, Mr. Gaines. We can’t risk it.”

“Has there been any attempt at communication, Commander?” I asked.

“Tried and failed,” he said.

“Well then there’s no guarantee the civilians are even still alive,” said Ahlan.

“And no evidence they are dead, either,” he countered.

They both looked at me for support. An idea had begun to form in my head.

“I assume H-Sector is equipped with emergency bulkheads, correct?”

“Yes, but...”

Commander Gibson’s face turned white.

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?” asked Ahlan.

“It’s the only way,” I said.

**********

My plan was simple, and it worked. When the bulkheads were dropped into place, we slowly began to depressurize the sector. The unseen assailants were cut off from any suits that might have helped them survive a vacuum. It only took two standard hours for the first call to come in.

The next hour followed a predictable pattern. False bravado followed by false promises. The last call was a genuine attempt at bargaining. By then they lacked the strength to continue.

I said that they had no suits, but there was one single suit in the airlock leading to the outside hatch. I didn’t know who they would leave in the airlock as a welcome committee, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. We sent ad drone to open the hatch and then launched a stun grenade into the airlock from a safe distance.

It turns out our missing fugitive was in the suit. She had dropped whatever weapon she had been brandishing and floated right into Ahlan’s arms.

The rest of the action went fairly quickly. There were four male assailants in addition to Ms. Whelan. We immobilized all of them and sealed them in the airlock. The sector was repressurized and the bulkheads lifted.

The good news was that we had captured our fugitives and her accomplices. We had also confiscated all their weapons and tech. (Which were far more advanced than anything I had seen.)

The bad news was that not all the civilians survived. The civilian governor and two of his aides died from lack of air. The inquest found that my actions were not malicious, but they took away my bounty hunter’s license anyway.

What does all this have to do with hall monitors and the multiverse? That is an excellent question.

Our fugitive and her gang all had the same genetic makeup. They looked human, but their cells were made from GNA. Further investigation into their history shows that they are not aliens to the solar system, but aliens to our universe.

How did we find this out? Oh, did I forget to mention that one of them escaped? It must have slipped my mind.

The largest of the males recovered quickly and feigned unconsciousness. While he was being transferred to a cell, he broke free and ran to the docks. Ahlan chased after him only to be captured himself.

I’m sure you can guess what happened next. The alien (or Numan as we now call them) dragged Ahlan on to our ship and compelled him to pilot them both off Eris.

Ahlan is a complicated guy. Yes, he was scared and angry about being hijacked. But he wasn’t looking to escape. He wanted to know where the alien was going.

**********

“A blur in space? What does that even mean?”

“Just what I said. Right in front of us was a patch of space about three times the size of your ship. The only word I can think of for it is a blur.”

“And you cruised into that?!”

“Coasted, actually. He told me to cut the power before we hit the event horizon. I’m glad I did cause it was a bumpy ride.”

“A ride to where?”

“It was like a long hallway or corridor of white light. There are walls of pitch black on either side of it. I could cruise through it like normal space as long as I stayed in the light.”

“Was it just the one hallway, or…?”

“There were others that branched off, but we never turned into any of them. As for where we ended up. There was another blur in one of the walls. That’s where they were waiting for us.”

“They? His friends?”

“Definitely not friends.”

**********

We have come to refer to their universe as Techspace. Their version of Space Force patrol had already captured the rest of Fleur Whelan’s crew. They disabled our ship and boarded it. The fugitive Numan tried to put up a fight, but they were too well armed.

The Numen have a universal translator that enabled them to interrogate Ahlan. He didn’t have to try very hard to persuade them of his story. Apparently, ours isn’t the only other universe that they have encountered. There has been a loose alliance formed between them to keep the peace.

As for Ahlan, the Techspace patrol became one of his clients for hunting bounties. He became so familiar with the corridors outside the universes that he was asked by the alliance to join a new force that will patrol them. Like I said- hallway monitor.