text: No one paid any attention to the ragged old man on his hands and knees vomiting in a corner of one of the numerous dark corridors of the Dredges. If they had, they may have noticed that he wasn’t so old, perhaps in his mid-thirties, and that he wore the stained and faded uniform of a vice captain of the Inter-Solar Exploration Agency beneath his tattered long coat. But his unkempt hair and over-grown beard, along with the condition of his clothing gave off the impression of both old age and bitter hardship, so no one bothered to take further note of him. Gregor Thames picked himself up off the ground slowly, the churning in his stomach subsiding for the time being. He slowly made his way down the poorly lit hall, using the metallic wall to support his trembling legs while trying to avoid stepping on the other denizens that lay slumped over on the floor. They were either in the throes of a drug-induced paralysis, the welcome abyss of sleep, or dead. Here in the Dredges, deep in the bowels of Salvation, life was about oblivion, and whatever brought it on was far better than the cold reality of the waking world. As he stumbled along, Gregor couldn’t help letting his mind wander back to his past. Indeed, it was due to his past that his mind would often take off on its own, to times when his name and position had meant something more. He was one of the first explorers to ever cross the Outer Quadrant, beyond Pluto, reaching into the darkness of Void space to find what lay beyond the solar system. He had been an ace pilot, able to skim through the Void with the ease of one born for the task. He had earned commendations and medals, exalting his bravery and dedication to the furtherance of mankind’s ambitions. That last thought made him angry. All the medals in the known galaxy wouldn’t do him the least bit of good now. He, like so many before, had become addicted to Irellium-9, the drug required for quantum-space travel. Without it, humans would go mad in the Void, their brains unable to process the absence of time. After so long, the mind became so dependent upon the drug that without it, a person’s perspective would become permanently altered. It would sometimes take seemingly hours for a drop of water to fall from a leaky faucet into the bottom of a sink. At other times, days would pass in the blink of an eye, and the one experiencing it would sometimes die of dehydration without even realizing it. After his symptoms became too evident to hide anymore, the Exploration Agency had thanked him for his service and discharged him with a moderate severance. The credits spent faster than he imagined they would, and before long he was homeless and wandering around Salvation, doing odd jobs that didn’t pay much, but allowed him to purchase black market rations of I-9. As the months rolled by, his condition grew worse, so much so that those that had been willing to offer him work finally began turning him away. He had turned to theft, robbery and at times, murder, to acquire the drug he needed. He had been without it for days now, if his mind could be trusted (it couldn’t), and his withdrawal symptoms were reaching an unbearable state. He was out of money, and here in the foul Dredges no one had anything worth stealing. He was going to have to make his way up to one of the main decks to see if he could find any way of obtaining more I-9. He worked his way up the various corridors and stairwells till he reached the sub-level of the cargo deck. His stomach had begun churning again, and time distortions were threatening to overtake his mind, so he moved as fast as he dared, lifting a deck plate and climbing out onto the loading floor before anyone could notice him. Staying out of sight behind the various shipping containers and storage units, he snuck around to where he knew ships would be offloading illegal cargo to sell to the highest bidder. He had to be careful; these were pirates and smugglers. They’d kill him without hesitation if they caught him trying to steal from them. Stepping behind a stack of metal crates he almost ran directly into a tall man wearing what appeared to be an exo-suit. He began to stammer drunkenly about being lost, in the hopes this stranger wouldn’t decide to end his life right there and then, when the man shushed him and pulled him in close to the crates. “Who are you?” The man asked, his voice somewhat muffled by the breather on the exo-suit’s mask. “My name’s Jon.” Gregor lied. “I was just lookin’ for a place to sleep.” “Well, Jon, this looks like it might be your lucky day.” The muffled voice replied. “I need some help, and by the looks of you, you need a fix. I think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Gregor tried to back away, not wanting to have anything to do with whatever this guy planned, when the man reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a hypo-pak. Gregor’s heart almost leapt from his chest. It was I-9! He instinctively reached for it, and the man pulled it back away. “First, you help me. Then, I’ll see to it you have enough of this to last you a long time.” He said, wiggling the pak between two fingers. It only took a second for Gregor to make up his mind. He nodded at the man in agreement. The figure in the mask nodded back, and then turned his attention back to the storage units. “See that unit there, number four-twenty-one?” He asked. Gregor peeked around the stranger’s shoulder at the small building. It looked to be about ten meters square with a typical coded lock door. Two men armed with plasma rifles stood next to the door, talking quietly while casting searching glances around the dock. “I need to get inside that unit, and to do that I’m going to need a diversion to get those guards away from the door.” The man said. He turned back to look at Gregor. “Jon, I need you to set a charge back towards the loading area. The explosion should get their attention long enough to let me get past that door.” “How are you going to get past that lock?” Gregor asked. “Those aren’t easy to bypass.” He should know, he’d tried several times to get into a storage unit in this area, and had never been successful. “Don’t worry about that,” The man replied, “just take this and set it off where I told you.” He handed Gregor a small pulse charge, nothing that would cause much damage on its own, but would make a loud enough noise to bring the whole dock running to see what had happened. “How am I supposed to get away when they come looking?” Gregor asked. He wasn’t comfortable about being someone’s stooge. “You look resourceful. You’ll figure out something.” The man said. “When you get clear, meet me back here and I’ll make good on my word. Now go!” Gregor hesitated for a moment, then started making his way back toward the loading areas. He felt queasy about this whole deal, and he was sure it wasn’t the withdrawal pains. He didn’t even know what this guy looked like under the exo-suit, but the thought of landing a nice stash of I-9 drove him. He hoped the stranger would keep his word and not leave him empty handed. He reached the loading area and squatted down behind several skids stacked high with barrels. He fumbled around with the charge, trying to recall his military training on how to set the timer. After a few minutes he managed to get it set for one minute. He set it down behind a barrel and slipped away to find a hiding spot before it went off. He had just ducked under a plastic tarp when the charge went off. It was louder than he had expected, and when he heard several more explosions go off he realized something hadn’t gone as planned. Peeking out from his hiding spot, he saw the reason for the additional explosions. Apparently, those barrels had contained something volatile, and the charge had ignited them. There was a huge fire burning on the dock, and several people were running around trying to save their goods from the flames. Auto-drones came whizzing in and began spraying flame-suppressing foam on the fire, but it would take some time before they would have it out. With everyone distracted by the fire, it seemed like a good time to vacate his hiding spot and make his way back to the stranger. He was able to get back to the storage unit without drawing any undue attention. He saw that the guards had indeed left their post to investigate the disturbance, and the door to the unit was standing open. He thought about going back to where he and the stranger had agreed to meet, but curiosity got the better of him and he decided to go have a look at what was worth all this trouble. Looking around to be sure no one was coming, he made his way up to the open door to peer inside. What he saw was the man in the exo-suit loading up a pack with small metal cartons out of a fibresteel crate on the floor. There was nothing else in the room. He started to enter the room when the man spun around, a small pistol appearing in his hand from seemingly nowhere. “Hey!” Gregor whispered harshly. “Take it easy, man!” The stranger lowered the pistol. “I thought I told you to wait for me back behind the crates.” He said. “What did you do out there? It sounded like you tried to blow up half the station!” “Hey, I got you your distraction, didn’t I?” Gregor retorted. “Now give me what you promised, so I can get the hell outta here!” The stranger chuckled through the mask, “Ok, pal. You’re right. Here.” He tossed one of the small cartons to Gregor. “Take it easy with that. It’s not your average stuff.” Gregor opened the carton to reveal at least two dozen hypo-paks neatly arranged into three rows. It was easily worth a couple of thousand credits on the market. He’d be set for weeks on this. He turned to leave and a voice barked out, “Who the fuck are you?!” The two guards had returned, and were taking aim at Gregor and the stranger inside the unit. Reflexes took hold and Gregor dived to one side of the door just as plasma bursts came screaming through the doorway. The smell of burnt ozone quickly filled the room as Gregor watched the man in the exo-suit duck behind the crate and begin to fire back. Realizing that he was most likely about to die, Gregor pulled out one of the hypo-paks. If he was going to be killed, he’d be killed while riding a wave of I-9 to the afterlife. He stuck the needle into the carotid artery just beneath his right ear, closed his eyes, and squeezed the injector. Instantly, the sensation of transcending time and space engulfed him, and his consciousness soared with a euphoria born of the quantum stimulant. It was powerful stuff, like the stranger had said, and his mind reeled at the potency of the drug. It was some time before he realized that he could no longer hear the gunfight taking place. He opened his eyes and looked around. What he saw, he simply couldn’t believe. Time had been frozen. Blazing ribbons of plasma energy hung motionless in the air. The combatants were as still as statues, poised in fighting positions on both sides of the doorway. Even the smoke from where the bolts had burned into the walls behind the stranger wasn’t drifting away. All around was absolute silence. Gregor had a wild guess of what had happened, but it defied logic. He’d been here countless times, but never like this. Before, he was always at the helm of a ship equipped with a powerful rift drive capable of punching holes in the sub-quantum field and traveling great distances in an instant. Time would stop, and he would be left alone to pilot the ship through the dimensional rift while periodic doses of Irellium-9 were administered by an automated system. Still, even though he lacked a ship, or a rift drive of any sort, he knew where he was. He was in the Void. He slowly stood up, his mind trying to make sense of what had just happened. It took an enormous amount of energy to open a rift. Yet here he was, outside of time with nothing more than a dose of I-9. The drug! He looked at the drained hypo-pak still in his hand, then at the fibresteel crate it had come from. On the side were printed the words: EXPERIMENTAL USE ONLY IRELLIUM-13 PROPERTY OF CENTAUR CORP Irellium-13? What the hell was that? Centaur? That was the biggest pharmaceutical company in the solar system. They had invented I-9 back during the solar expansion. It seemed they had been working on improving their formula. But this? How long was this going to last? Would it be permanent? Gregor shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He was on the verge of a panic attack. He needed to calm down. He walked over to the door and stepped past the two armed men. Walking across the dock was as eerie a sensation as anything he’d ever experienced. The silence was palpable, and the scenery around him was beyond surreal. People were frozen in place, rushing to fight a fire that was unmoving. Waving his hand through the flames he could feel no warmth at all. He walked to the lifts and pressed the call button. Nothing. He was wondering what to do about his current situation when a thought occurred to him. He walked back to where the crate containing the Irrellium-13 was located. Taking the pack the stranger had been filling, he emptied the rest of the contents of the crate in the pack and slung it over his shoulder. If and when this stuff did wear off, there was no sense in just leaving it laying around for someone else, he figured. He headed back down into the Dredges with his stolen goods. There was no way to tell how long he was under the influence of the drug. Time held no meaning in the Void. He had hidden the pack, and then went around the station, taking food, clothing, and other valuables as he came across them. He even went as far as to give himself a clean shave and trimmed his long hair into a more manageable length. In the back of his mind was the fear that he would never leave the Void, that he was doomed to an eternity of being alone in a dimension where there was no sound, movement, or anything. He tried to keep his mind occupied and not think of it, but it was difficult. He was in the process of rummaging through a cabinet of fine wines in the Paramour Club when suddenly it felt like everything shifted. His equilibrium was thrown off and he almost fell down. Suddenly, the air was full of sounds. Music was playing, people were talking, and the smells of cooking food filled his nose. He stepped back away from the cabinet just as a burly man in an apron came through the door of the room he was in. “Hey, what are you doing back here?” The big man demanded. “Sorry,” Gregor apologized, “I was trying to find the restrooms.” The man fixed him with a suspicious look. “Well, they’re not in here. Get out!” As Gregor left the club, he stopped and reconsidered his situation. He now knew the effects of the drug weren’t permanent. Relief washed over him, and at the same time the knowledge struck him as unbelievably humorous. He could escape time at will! He began laughing, first to himself, then out loud. Passers-by gave him odd looks, but he didn’t care. He could do anything he wanted! Anything! He walked along, still laughing at his fortune. Salvation station, hell, the entire solar system, was his for the taking! In an opulent office, high up in a skyscraper overlooking Mars City, a meeting was taking place between two powerful men. “Mr. Lions, I assure you that the agent we sent was of the highest caliber. If I had any doubts of his skills, I would never have sent him.” Said the first, a younger man in his late twenties with short dark hair and wearing an expensive suit. “I believe you, Mr. Drake, but nonetheless, the samples are missing, your man is dead, and I am at a loss of approximately two and a half million credits. This must be rectified.” Replied Mr. Lions, a gentleman whom most would consider being in his late sixties, but in fact was much older. He wore an even more expensive suit of clothes. “I’ve had reports that at the time of the gunfight between your man and the smugglers, several people on the station noticed certain items missing. Some items were of value, and some were rather mundane. Though Salvation is well known as a den of thieves, this particular rash of thefts were carried out, in some circumstances, before the very eyes of the victims. One instant the items in question would be there, and the next, they were simply gone. This lends one to the possible conclusion that a third party has become involved, and is using the samples in a most irresponsible way,” He finished. “I’ve had those same reports, Mr. Lions, and I already have agents scouring the station looking for anyone who may have been in the vicinity of the loading docks at the time of the incident in question.” Mr. Drake responded. “Have faith, sir, we will find and deliver your property, as promised.” Mr. Lions rose from his seat. “I do hope so, Mr. Drake. I do hope so.” He turned and began walking toward the door. “If this person continues to abuse the samples in the same manner they have already demonstrated, we may end up with a much larger problem than we face now. You know of what I speak.” Mr. Drake waited until his guest had left, and then opened a comm unit on his desk. The holocron display lit up and a dark-skinned man wearing a visor came into view. “Yes, Mr. Drake?” The man asked. “Leon, we will need to commit more resources to finding the thief. I want two more units dispatched at once to Salvation.” Mr. Drake ordered. “Yes, sir.” Leon replied. The holocron blinked out. Mr. Drake sat back in his chair. The situation had spiraled out of control, and now someone had a chemical that was potentially the most dangerous substance in the galaxy. The fool couldn’t possibly realize the catastrophe using the Irellium-13 could bring about. If this went wrong, and his and Mr. Lions’ worst fears became reality... He got up from his desk and walked over to the window overlooking Mars City. Its gleaming lights and towering buildings stretched all the way to the horizon. Millions of citizens lived here in a splendor never thought possible a scant few decades ago. The three mega corporations that had built the Inter-Solar Union were headquartered here. Wealth, power, and ambition radiated from the very streets themselves. It was the shining jewel of the solar system; a living monument to the greatness of all mankind. And one ignorant thief was on the verge of destroying it all without even realizing it.