Remote Storage (Otherwise Untitled)
#171 of Short Stories
Detective Clip, Jackalope of the law, heads out in person to investigate a company's books.
~ It had been a brisk week's turnaround between the advice Detective Clip had gotten from the kobold that Bell was dating, and her crouched slinking across the grassy field. Nothing of the task at hand was particularly difficult, and the jackalope's mind was free to wander.
~ "Yeah, there's something awry here, though all the numbers are made to look legal. This is all the public filings you were able to find about this likely crime business?", the kobold had inquired. Clip was thankful for Bell's fondness for accountants, at that stage.
~ Consulting her map for a moment, Detective Clip ducked down into a ditch to verify that the loading docks would be over the next hill. She gave the sky a deep look, waiting for any signs of a ship. With her eyes busy, her mind again wandered.
~ "See here, these are all probably shell companies they made. Look at how they keep shuffling money between each other, with goods that never leave this cluster of companies.", the kobold a week earlier having gestured across tables of numbers in varying shades of blue and purple, "Though, I think what you're looking for is right here.", pulling out a manifest record, "If these are all legit, there should be a bunch of titanium bar stock laid up on pallets in this loading yard for a couple of months. " The kobold had smiled up to the Detective as he noted, "Photos of an empty lot should make for plenty of warrants."
~ For the lack of anything in the sky or sounds from the ground, Detective Clip scrambled up out of the ditch and over the hill top. Laid out before her was the sight of a nearly abandoned spaceport, the conning tower a rusting hulk of concrete and glass. There was not a soul to be seen, nor any of the titanium that was supposed to have been laid over here for a month. The jackalope reached into her bag for the camera.