Tevun-Krus #120 - MergePunk

Snake Oil - A Story by @johnnedwill

Snake Oil

By johnnedwill

My local liaison was waiting for me in the arrivals lounge of the spaceport. he was haloing up a lightboard with my cover name scrawled on it in neon-green, block capital letters. I looked around the crowd to check there was nobody else looking for someone by that name, then went to introduce myself.

"Good morning, I said, and stuck my hand out. "I'm here about the problem."

My contact fumbled his reply, "G-good ... Actually, it's after noon, local time. M-m-mist, err Miss Koenig?"

I handed him my valise. "If you think jet lag is a bitch, then you should feel try getting to work after a star hop." I smiled to reassure him. "I'm not even sure what year it is."

"W-well," the liaison stuttered. "It's - ."

I cut him off. "Relax. I'm just trying to break the ice. We're supposed to be working together. Now, shall we get going? You can brief me on the way."

"S-sure."

I followed my contact out to the taxi rank. A robohack was there, waiting for us. As soon as it took off, I gave an order to the controller: "Privacy mode, please." The robohack obliged, blacking out all the windows and setting up a pink-noise field to screen us from any eavesdroppers. Then I turned to my contact. "Right. What do I call you? I can't just call you 'Hey'. It's only good for horses and dogs."

He stared blankly at me. "Horses?"

"Old Earth creature. People used to ride on them and reach them."

"Oh. R-right. My name is Creighton. Ward Creighton." He fidgeted in his seat. "What do I call you?"

I smiled back at Creighton. "My name is Yeovil. You can call me 'Agent Yeovil' or 'ma'am' when we're on duty. And - as far as I'm concerned - that is until such time as my target is safely in custody. Clear?"

Creighton swallowed. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good." I took my lipstick and compact out of my purse and started on touching-up my makeup. "Now, tell me what my target has been up to." I crossed my legs and put myself into 'listen mode'.

Creighton had a lot to tell me. According to him, my target had arrived on-world two years ago. The first thing he had done was insinuate himself into the local society. He did this by throwing credits around like they were going out of fashion. Not surprising, that. My target had come from a rich, Old Earth family. The fates had blessed him with a combination of natural charisma and manners that was enough to impress the shallow climbers. There had been a theory that this was the result of some latent psi-power, but that had never been proven one way or the other.

The local authorities had only taken an interest in my target when there had been complaints about phoney businesses - schemes that had promised big returns for investors, but which had always just failed to deliver on those promises. It had taken a lot of effort to get these investigations off the ground. The local leaders and influencers had fallen under his spell and had tried to obstruct every avenue of inquiry. However, if you fling enough mud at a wall, someone will eventually decide to clean house.

While looking into what seemed to be a particularly fraudulent piece of marketing, the local investigators had come across something much worse. My target had been memehacking: using illegal memetic techniques to convince marks to sign up and give him their hard-earned savings. This should have been enough to get him a hearing from the judiciary, but, in the course of their inquiries, it had been found out that the target had been promoting subversive economic systems.