Part 6 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

Captain Eversyn held a rag over his mouth and nose, to filter out the stench of the sewage plant. He had been there less than five minutes and already he had reached a conclusion concerning the explosion investigation. A big fat So what? It was a sewage plant and the smell was so overpowering that Eversyn could not care less what went on down there, past, present or future.

All he wanted now was to get out of the place.

The plant overseer was short, fat, bald and shirtless… well…shirtless only in a literal sense, since every inch of the man's pallid flesh was coated in…Eversyn did not care to know. The husky Human stood nearly waste-deep in the sludge, apparently without wading boots. He looked up at Eversyn.

"So, what'ch figgered out, Cap'n?" He hocked a loogie, and spat it out.

Eversyn pressed the cloth more tightly to his face and suppressed a gag. Why had he come down here? He could have sent someone else to check into this; Benn, for instance.

"You said…you said that one of your people is missing?"

"Two. I said two."         

"You're sure?"

The man snorted and held up three knobby fingers. "I kin count."

All right, be quick, give the pretense of an investigation and get out of here.

"Let me get their names."

"They was Neeks. I'm 'posed to know their names?" The overseer guffawed at the very thought, waving it away dismissively. "Look, alls I wanna knows is what cause the 'splosion. I don't needs to be around here if they's gonna be another one, if you knows what I mean."

"Believe me, I can understand not wanting to be around here." Eversyn glanced around the tank. "You say they use electric prods to herd the fungus?

"Tha's right. Like this un." The overseer drew a grimy prod from a hip pocket and handed it over.

Eversyn braced himself before taking the cloth from his face and using it to hold the prod.

The overseer rolled his blubber-squinched eyes. "Low voltage. Nothin' special."

Eversyn considered the wisdom of using an electrical prod, however low the voltage, while standing in liquid.

It was a wonder something like this hadn't happened before now.

He handed the prod back. "Well, if I had to guess, I'd say one of these prods malfunctioned, exploded. That reacted to the gasses in the air, resulting in the fire."

That sound like enough of an answer. It was enough for him anyway.

"I would recommend you have someone perform a safety check on all of the prods. No doubt they could all stand a little maintenance."

Part 5 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

Simikus Giff was euphoric as he pried the floor plating up and looked inside the secret compartment. Icy air issued from the opening in white, misty swirls.

Although he had already checked more than once and knew himself to be alone in the maintenance corridor beneath the Wayamr district's atmoscyke plant, Simikus nevertheless looked about the shadowy space before setting the panel aside.

Deep within the compartment, nestled snuggly against the coolant pipes, were dozens of frosty vials—each laden with the frozen ka'frindi he had patiently smuggled from the sewage plant.

As ka'frindi, the fungus could have provide him with a comfortable lifestyle—by Nicovan standards anyway—for years to come. But, with the secret he had discovered about the delicacy, instead of comfortable, Simikus was going to be rich beyond his most outlandish imaginings.

He ran a hand across his chilly stash, noting his missing finger.

"Ah, yes. Time to fix that." He reached around one of the frigid conduits and brought forth his long absent appendage. Using the pilfered medical device, he thawed and reattached the finger.

"Welcome back, my little friend," he said, flexing the finger until it regained its former flexibility.

Dressed in Ograd's yellow suit, his ka'frindi horde safe, and his finger reattached, Simikus was ready for business. He replaced the floor plate and then quietly stole away from the maintenance corridor.

Part 4 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

Captain Carle Eversyn read over the incident report as it scrolled across his desktop holoscreen. Unless he was mistaken, there hadn't been any explosions in any of Omega Station's sewage treatment plants since long before he'd arrived as head of the Consolidated Guard a few standard months ago. An addendum tagged to the end of the report confirmed what he'd already been thinking, and then some.

There hadn't been an explosion in over a hundred cycles.

He wondered how he should take the incident. On the one hand, it was just the sewage plant, and the Rock had more than enough of those.

On the other hand, this was Omega Station and everything meant something more than was apparent at first glance.

Eversyn sighed and called his secretary.

"Yes, Captain?" The young Halsan woman's voice practically sparkled over the intercom.

"Please call Master Dyll and express my apologies, but I will have to cancel our dinner meeting. Explain to him that an emergency has arisen and duty calls."

"Yes, Sir. Will there be anything further?"

"That will be all, Lisolia, thank you."

He clicked the comsys off, then took his standard issue sidearm from his desk drawer and holstered it, picked up his data pad and stylus, pocketed them in his flack vest and headed for the door.

He hated missing his meeting with Rudof Dyll. From what he knew of Dyll—and that wasn't very much—Eversyn was fairly confident that the most influential sentient on the Rock would not take offense. On the contrary, thought Eversyn, Dyll always seemed to take particular interest in his job. Why was beyond Eversyn's ability to grasp. Politeness? Dyll didn't need to be polite to anyone; he was too rich. Sincere curiosity in the routine headaches of the head of the Consolidated Guard's presence on Omega Station?

Or perhaps Rudof Dyll simply sees me as an equal.

That was a comforting thought and it kept him smiling all the way down to the still flaming tanks of the sewage plant.

Part 3 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

An hour from now, he would be Ograd Paxa, a Nicovan of means fresh off the transport—registered this time with a hastily, albeit convincingly, forged I.D. packet—come to Omega Station for entrepreneurial reasons.

Six levels up, the lift's doors opened Simikus stepped out onto the crowded public mall of the Wayamr commercial quarter—and straight into the broad chest of a Consolidated Guardsman.

"Slow it down," said the Connie.

Simikus felt numbed to the core, as if one of his prods had misfired in its holster and paralyzed him. With a look of disgust, the Connie brushed him aside and continued walking his beat. Simikus watched the officer's back until the burly Human became lost in the crowd.

When he could feel his legs again, Simikus started walking…more slowly this time.

"Lighten up," he muttered. "There's no need to get all paranoid just yet. The plan is good, it's working perfectly." He looked around, found the corridor he was looking for and headed down it.

Several turns later, Simikus stopped outside the door of his new home, the pod of Ograd Paxa. Ograd Paxa. He smiled; he would have to get used to using that name from now on. Looking to his left and right, Simikus double checked for any passersby. Seeing none, he drew Paxa's finger from his breast pocket and pressed it to the access panel next to the door.

The door to the pod clicked open.

He was in.

Simikus closed the door and immediately reprogrammed the pod to accept his own fingerprint. He then disposed of the lonely digit in the recyke vat. He would be glad once he'd reattached his own finger.

He looked around the tiny dwelling. For a sewer worker, Paxa kept an amazingly clean home. It had been years since Simikus had been inside a room that didn't smell of sludge.

"Well, never you mind keeping this hole in order. By this evening you'll be shopping for something much roomier and a maid service to keep it clean."

Simikus rummaged through Ograd's closet. Ograd Paxa had a surprisingly large wardrobe.

"Five outfits!" Simikus was flabbergasted. Then his eyes alighted on one in particular. "What style! Who would ever have guessed you had such taste, Ograd?" He pulled a dapper coverup from the rack.

Dressed in the dead Nicovan's clothes, Simikus apprised himself in the mirror. The deep yellow coverup with its dark blue piping contrasted nicely with his creamy green skin and black eyes.

"You already look rich," he cooed to himself.

He angled his head for one last look at the lobe pointing straight off the back of his skull; nice and shiny. He looked great. He felt great. He was great!

Part 2 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

Simikus twisted his sudden scowl into a smile. "Back here. Follow me." He led Ograd deeper into the shadows behind one of the huge sewage flumes that delivered the Rock's waste to the recyke center. With his face concealed in shadow, Simikus allowed himself a wicked grin as he thought back to the day, just a cycle ago, when Ograd Paxa had shipped in to Omega Station and come to work at the plant, one of the few places that asked no questions when hiring.

They bore a striking resemblance to one another, he and Ograd, more than enough for his purposes. Simikus was hard pressed to view Ograd's arrival as anything short of divine intervention; it was as if he'd been sent straight from the Core.

And that being so, Simikus had promptly adapted his plan to incorporate the convenient newcomer.

"That's far enough, I haven't got all day," spat Ograd. "Give it to me."

Simikus turned to face his co-worker. "My pleasure," he hissed just as he jabbed one of his prods into Ograd's throat and activated it.

Ograd went rigid, gagged once, then collapsed into the sludge. Simikus was on him at once, holding him below the viscous filth.

At last Ograd ceased thrashing and floated limply, face up in the sludge. Simikus stood up and checked the time. Five minutes before shift change. He glanced back toward the main sludge tank. No sign of the surveillance drone.

"Nub, eh. Thought that was funny, did you?" he asked Ograd's corpse. "Well, it's a pity you're no longer here to appreciate this." Simikus removed a small surgical device from his coverup pocket. Acting quickly, before Ograd's tissues began to die, Simikus removed the third finger of the dead Nicovan's left hand. Then, resetting the device, he used it to heal up the wound.

"There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

As he put the surgical device away, Simikus congratulated himself for having thought of amputating his own finger, which would serve as an identifying mark. He missed the digit, but not for much longer.

Next, he took the prod he had used to incapacitate Ograd, one of many he'd modified over the years for various purposes, and set it to overload. He stuck it in the dead Neek's right hand. Everything was in place. As the prod began to whine, Simikus turned and splashed a safe distance away, into a side corridor.

Only a few seconds later the prod exploded. Sludge and sewage ignited in a rolling wave of fire. Alarms wailed and frightened workers headed for the exits, on to meet the incoming shift in a rush of panicked chaos.

Amid the confusion, Simikus slipped away, leaving the sewage plant and his past behind him…forever.

Part 1 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

Simikus Giff sloshed through the waste deep sludge of Omega Station's sewage treatment plant. Each hand held a low-voltage prod with which he shepherded the highly prized ka'frindi fungus into the floating collection bins.

He had come to work in Omega Station's sewage plant almost thirteen standard months ago. And he might have lived that miserable period under some illusion of contentment had it not been for a moment of enlightenment during his second cycle on the job; a moment in which he learned that the slimy film he and his co-workers were forever cleaning from the sludge tanks was not simply sewage scum but rather the valuable ka'frindi fungus, renowned as a food additive for its flavor enhancing and endorphin releasing qualities.

The major export—in fact, pretty much the only export—of Omega Station.

From that fateful moment on, the irony of his station in life had not been lost on the Nicovan, and harvesting the valuable delicacy—a mere gram of which sold for more than he earned in a full pay-cycle—had become both the bane of his existence as well as the promise of a better future.

That future, he decided, was just about to begin.

Simikus's work shift would end in another few minutes. He surreptitiously glanced around for the plant overseer's patrolling surveillance drone. He caught sight of the floating machine just as it drifted off into the neighboring tank-room.

Now was his chance.

There was only one other crucial detail to confirm. He looked around through the fetid vapors rising from the sludge, his anxiety mounting, until he saw the next part of his plan.

"Ograd!" he hissed. "Over here."

 Ograd, another a Nicovan like himself—nearly all of the plant's workers were Nicovan, a laxly regulated, cheap labor force—stopped pretending to herd the still yellow fungus and squinted his black eyes to see through the gloom.

"There you are, Nub," growled Ograd. The nickname referred to that fact that Simikus's left hand was missing its third finger. Simikus grinned, though the expression held anything but humor.

"Be quiet. Come here." Simikus kept a nervous eye out for the surveillance drone as Ograd splashed towards him.

"I want my money now," demanded Ograd without delay.

"Sure, sure, of course," said Simikus readily enough, though he made no attempt to produce the credits. "Does anyone know you're here?"

"Of course not, I snuck in. Nobody will be looking for me for another ten minutes, when my shift begins. Now where's my money?"

Part 15 of SCUM by J. A. Johnson

Eversyn regarded Caravello for a moment, then Simikus. The manager turned his desktop computer screen toward the Connie. "See," he said, "the door scanner even confirms it. Wilfor Kudisi."

Eversyn scrutinized the picture on the screen then studied Simikus. If there was anyone on the Rock with a need for tight, efficient security it would be the Starview Lounge, since everyone—who could afford it—frequented the place. The captain had no reason to question the scan. Still…

"You know what they all say about Neeks. They all look alike," Eversyn said. Everyone but Simikus laughed at the insult. "So I'm sure you won't object if I run a background check on your friend."

"Of course not." Caravello's smug grin stayed firmly in place. "I understand."

Petrified, Simikus watched as Eversyn laid the data pad atop the desk holoscreen.

"Don't worry, Wilfor, it's just routine," said Caravello, his tone calm and reassuring.

Simikus nodded meekly, but he was trapped nonetheless. His forged Ograd Paxa ID would be all but useless now, since the only officially registered identification he had was as Simikus Giff. He had planned to remedy that detail after he had been paid his fortune. If he tried to run, the Connie would definitely arrest him and run the check anyway.

As he walked what seemed like the thousand meters to the desk, Simikus became aware of the angular case of ka'frindi biting into his chest. It's just ka'frindi, he reminded himself, perfectly legal. Eversyn would simply assume it belongs to the Starview. They serve it on their menu, after all.

"Place your palm on the pad," Eversyn instructed.

In utter defeat, Simikus wiped the sweat from his hand and complied. With all three of his eyes closed and his breath held, he waited for Eversyn to slap a pair of sono-cuffs on him.

But he didn't. Simikus half opened one eye.

"Is it broken?" he asked.

"My apologies, Master Caravello, Master Dyll," Eversyn said, ignoring Simikus.

Rudof shrugged and smiled. "No apologies are necessary to me, Captain. You're just doing your job; which, I might add, is more than can be said for your predecessors."

"Indeed, Captain; I completely concur with Master Dyll," murmured Caravello.

Eversyn pocketed his data pad and rose.

"I hate that I missed our dinner, Rudof. And, unfortunately, I must be on my way again. The more I think about that explosion at the sewage plant, the more it troubles me."

"How so?" Dyll asked. He rose, obviously preparing to walk the Connie captain to the door. A blush spread over the captain's face at this sign of courtesy from the Rock's richest resident. "Do you think the missing Nicovan are responsible?"

"Possibly. But it's just as possible that they're dead and that the real culprit is still at large."