Chapter 29

When the group split after lunch, Mat wandered around the lobby aimlessly. He planned to actually use the time to work on some articles, but now he was not in the mood and so he just looked at random presentations. He found most of them boring until he stumbled on a hall with small booths. It reminded him of the club recruitment from his school and so he went inside.

They were actually even more similar as they also were trying to recruit people to societies, social clubs, and other organizations. He was too young for most of them and half of them were regular job offers, but still, they were interesting and mostly off-world. He slowly looked around, thinking just how many possible options exist outside of Earth. Of course, he knew about it in general but seeing so many societies and specific scientific organizations was overwhelmingly positive. Maybe the next one will be a solution to his financial problem!

That did not happen, but at least he joined with his friends in a good mood with half a dozen of new WW subscriptions.

"So do you have enough information for a report?" Mat asked Ember.

"Of course! Do not worry, I will do everything,"

"Ember!" Norr scolded her.

"What? I am being nice, he has a lot on his plate and I did promise no work. I will not break my promise," Ember said quickly.

"Alright…It's your time," Thomas shrugged.

"What did you do anyway? I did not see you anywhere!" Ember asked.

"I was with Norr, looking at random posters,"

"Oh, you also found the big hall with stands?"

"It was a hallway, so probably something else," Norr explained.

"I guess there were more of those places,"

"You went on the other side of the complex for that?" Suzy asked.

"There is a small park, we walked through it. It also had some discussions," Thomas explained. "But how do you know where we went?"

"I memorized the map, It was useful to look for some celebrities. In any case, we are here," Suzy showed them the restaurant. They had to enter a small tunnel to get into a small blind alley with a smaller restaurant. They could see both of the men from Ox company right away since they were sitting in the shop yard. Both had half-empty sodas and were talking with each other. There was nobody else in the shop and so they noticed them right away.

"Oh! I knew you would come! Great! Take a seat!" Rostja smiled at them and showed them all the empty chairs. Suzy easily took one and joined them first, while others slowly followed.

"I did not expect all of you to come, though," Merik said and then he silently tapped his WW, while his eyes looked quickly around.

"You want to connect our WW?" Suzy smiled and turned her on to show the holographic screen.

"No, but thanks for asking," he awkwardly nodded and Rostja laughed.

"You want to make an article about us? If so, we are not interested…" Rostja said and Suzy laughed and showed them, that her WW was not connected to the Internet anyway.

"You got me there…" Merik said and pointed at the menu.

"Order something, it's on us," he said.

"Great! Thanks!" Norr said and they quickly ordered.

"So what do you want to talk about with me?" Mat asked and Rostja shrugged.

"We felt like you would want to talk with us. Having a planet as shitty as yours is more pain than fun," he said.

"It is still a planet, do you have a planet?" Mat asked nervously preparing the sentence.

"No, why would I want a planet? So much work!" Merck said.

"What would you even do to help him with it? He cannot sell it…" Thomas asked and they both look confused.

"What kind of bullshit is that? Why not?"

"You don't know? It is illegal…" Mat started talking but Rostja shook his head.

"Trust me, I deal with Earth laws a lot and that is some A grade bullshit. On contrary, your owning a whole planet is highly abnormal. Earth is very strict with the property after all," Rostja explained.

"Well anyway, I was told I cannot sell it, so how else could you help me?" Mat asked brushing it off.

"We could offer you security around the planet and help you handle any business you would have there. While not technically selling it, you would in practical terms sell some rights for mining, research, and well…everything else but some basic legal bullshit for bureaucracy's sake. Of course, you wouldn't really get much profit due to your Earth's idea of exploitations, but you wouldn't have to deal with maintaining it,"

"You would pay me in some roundabout way at least the taxes ?" Mat asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Hmm, I like how you think, that would be easy…"

"So I would only have to sign several contracts giving you full control and responsibility over the planet. I would probably still have to deal with the mandatory research papers since they need my signature. Also since this would be a deal with a private company outside of Earth, I would have to go through the clearance and surveillance. This would have to be officially recognized by my handler and he would lose his shit. Dealing like that would be disastrous in his eyes, he would definitely try to stop me or manipulate me. In any case, I would have to deal with a much bigger media shit-storm. Not to mention the enormous cost of the lawyers to check everything, which you would also pay for?"

Everybody was silent and looking at Mat, especially his friends. Rostja and Merik smiled and nodded. "Yes, that is generally what would happen. We would give you our lawyers for cheap so…"

"Are you stupid? Who would ask for biased lawyers?" Ember said without thinking.

"You have good friends," Rostja said unmoved.

"But the handler might be a problem," Merik mused out loud.

"Hmm, it could actually be a blessing," Swen said and everybody's look makes him continue.

"They might get annoyed to just allow you to sell it," he explained.

"Wouldn't they rather shut him down completely?"

"That would be difficult, the idea of not selling the prize was in the terms of service," Ember explazned.

"Sure, but this is the government we are talking about. They already fucked up by having him the lottery prize contradicts other laws. Contradicting the terms by allowing him to sell it, or by forcing him not to deal with the private company doesn't seem much different. You could easily spin it, as them intimidating or blackmailing you," Swen suggested.

"Not to mention that their company is relatively weak, and Earth could easily find some dirt or frame some shit," Suzy sighed and this whole exchange made both Merik and Rostja laugh.

"You are a very fun bunch! Ahh! You remind me of when I was young!" Meriks said and his eye stopped moving and focused on the drinks that came to their table. Norr and Thomas also ordered hot pancakes.

"But do not worry there is no dirt on our company, we…"

"Please stop, it is okay, no need to preach," Ember stopped Rostja and drank her coffee.

"So what would you offer us?" Swen asked and Rosjta nodded.

"We are looking for talented kids and would love you to join our private undetectable forums, so nobody can listen to your private talks. If you are interested in work outside Earth we could help you easily get it at our company,"

"What kind of jobs?"

"Honestly the demand changes regularly. This is why we offer the application,"

"Is it on the D-Tablet network?"

"No, nothing fancy like that," said Merik and pulled out a small box that fit right into his hand. It flashed and showed a similar holographic window as WW.

"I see…" Swen looked slightly disappointed but still took it to check out.

"So what would you do with the planet?" Mat asked them.

"Nothing much for now, there is no gate nearby. But having it would be a nice investment,"

"So for me, it would just be like I never won it,"

"Generally speaking yes, isn't that great since you cannot make a profit from it,"

"Profit? I could use it as a vacation planet or for research. Or just to live with my family and friends and create a society,"

"Vacation planet without a gate is impossible, research costs money, and creating society just means you will stop being part of Earth, which would also cost you a lot of money giving the place of the planet,"

"Yeah, I know," Mat nodded.

"Not to mention pirates could attack you, so in the end even if that worked you would need us,"

"Do you deal with them a lot?" Ember asked curiously.

"It is practically our job as a company, so yes,"

"How often do you have to fight?" Swen asked and earned some surprised faces.

"Some of my friends think they are violent savages, so I want to know what you think," Swen could see Merik's eye stop moving for a few seconds.

"They are arrogant individualistic nihilistic anarchists," Merik said annoyed.

"But we do not have to fight that often. Nobody wants a fight, so we mostly come to an agreement."

"That is nice," Ember smiled.

"What kind of agreement? If you need to get involved it means they are threatening somebody or stealing from them. So why would they give the stolen shit back?" Norr asked.

"We rarely get the opportunity to face them when they steal something. They get away before we can arrive at that unprotected place. If they come when we are protecting the place, most of the time they just leave or we talk. They sometimes bring a claim over something of the protecting party and we have to negotiate. After all, we also work on contracts and have to honor them in the same way, since free pilots are our customers as well,"

"Interesting, so since there are unprotected places it means you cannot protect everything everywhere. How do you deal with pirates that just wait for you to leave?"

"That is a trade secret miss reporter," Rostja smiled.

"You also deal with free pilots?" Swen asked.

"Yes,"

"What is the difference between you?"

"I think you know the reason, but to be more specific, they are much more variable. While we have a few people on top who call the shots, they are not like that. Every ship, every community, and every satellite is different. We call them Free pilots mostly as a shortcut to, well, people who live freely in space,"

"Some also created societies recognized by Earth and us," Merk added.

"What about Goloka?" Swen asked and at that point, Merk looked straight into his eyes.

"You want to be a Free, boy?"

"Y-yes,"

"Hmm, stop dreaming. Goloka is a dream. It started as a fairy tale for Hindu migrations and never stopped being one,"

"What is it?" Suzy asked and Swen looked at her.

"You know that free people venture to the unknown universe more than others, right? It is said, that they have their own Earth. Their own planet, a society where they act and do the same as they do in space,"

"See? Fairy tale. You cannot be free on a planet with so many people. Your fart is literary forcing in your neighbor's nose,"

"Merik, please. That is not the point. The point is, that free pilots are dangerous and unpredictable. If you would want to join them though, coming with us would be the simplest way,"

"I do not think that at all," Swen said and even Mat looked at him surprised.

"Why not?"

"Trade secret," he only said and Suzy smiled. Merik was about to say something, but Thomas of all people clapped his hands.

"Well, that was a great free meal. I think we are done here," both Ox members looked at him standing up with annoyed looks, but he just scoffed without any care in the world.

"You said, you are paying, right?" Rostja ignored him and looked at Mat and Swen.

"Do you want this?" he points at the device still in Swen's hands.

"Yes,"

"That would be 5000 credits," Rostja showed his WW.

"Five Thousand!?" he said surprised and pondered about it while others stood up and started pulling out chairs.

"I will turn the internet and record this purchase so I hope you are not ripping him off and that this device is indeed connected to your web," Suzy suggested, but Ember put her hand on Swen's and shakes her head.

"It might not be watched by the government, but it is going to be watched by them, after all they maintained it. It is just like with the lawyers…"

"What? That is not…" Rostja was cut by Swen.

"I know, but it is still valuable information... Suzy could you please turn the internet though?"

"I would but, I cannot, there is low coverage here," she said while staring daggers at the two adults who also stood up.

"No need to be so hostile, the device is as valuable as the price suggests. You can turn your Internet now, can't you?" Merik sighed.

"Yes, you can talk," Suzy nodded.

"Is it as I said, using that device gives you access to Ox company forums where you can browse and talk without our people. There is a limited number of users so the price is 5000 credits," Rostja said and Swen smiled and accepted the trade.

"Thank you, you want one too?"

"No, I am good," Mat waved his hand.

"Great pancakes! Thanks! Goodbye!" Norr was already leaving and so the rest quickly followed her.