Noon stood still as the teleport beam coalesced around her, she looked around the room and nodded. Scans had been correct, there was no-one here, she let her hearing increase and listened she could hear the soft sounds of someone sleeping and in the distance what sounded like someone sorting dishes. Did that man never sleep? Checking with Thing that she had pulled off her usual tricks with the Security systems and her arrival had gone unnoticed she relaxed and let out a quiet sigh of relief.

She walked over to the doorway that led to the sleeping area and peeped in, there sleeping like a baby was Hsu Danmei, Noon grinned.

She quietly moved back into the bathing areas and looked round for the cupboard she knew was here, as she’d asked for it to be fitted when he’d had these rooms refitted. There it was a skinsuit cleaning cabinet, disguised to look like a small tall cupboard, she tapped in a code and opened it, then shucked off the skinsuit and hung it up. Closing the door automatically started the cleaning cycle, fortunately the system was silent. Noon then headed to the showers and spent a good half hour removing the best part of two months of grunge with much relief. Getting stuck in dead space was a risk any space traveller took, but not something you looked forward to, especially if you travelled around in a tiny ship like Noon’s.

Once she was clean Noon then spent an hour or so moving from one area to the next enjoying the steam, dry heat and ice fountains. Finally she dived into the pool and began to swim lengths, muscles sighing with relief at finally being able to stretch completely. During her swim Hsu’s servant man had wandered in, noticed who was there and gone to fetch a large tray of sandwiches and a large thermal pot of tea, which he left in the ante area, one of the only other people on Boukun who knew about her visits and sworn to secrecy.
Noon, wrapped in a big fluffy dressing gown, stifled a happy squeak as she saw the tray and tea and settled down on the couch to eat. Finally she lay down on the sofa and fell asleep, she would have used the bed but not when Hsu was there, she presumed he must have found her in his bed sometimes, but that he went and made use of one of the other beds in the palace as she’d never found Hsu sleeping on the sofa. But it wasn’t uncommon for him to find her here sleeping, she jokingly called this the Hsu Space Service Stop.

Amanda Noon sat back in her chair and stared out of the window of her office. She had to admit she was going to miss the drama of this view, the fact that she was now looking out above the clouds was only the start of it. Being able to see at least five other buildings also peeking out above the clouds just added to the drama. There was something almost godlike about sitting above the clouds, which just added more weight to her belief that the ancient Greek gods were probably alien lifeforms that came to mess with the primitive humans all those years back.

She shook her head and a small laugh escaped her lips “Back to work!” she said to herself and tipped her chair back to upright pulling the keyboard closer. It was the old way of doing things but she found it much simpler than the new voice activated systems. She began to scroll through the files on this computers hard drives, shifting some, deleting others and raising an eyebrow on the odd one. “Lucky he doesn’t work for us anymore.” She muttered to herself.

The phone rang and she picked it up “Yep?” she said as she continued to sort files.

“Yep? What sort of a greeting is that? What happened to Darkheart Industries, how may I help you?” a male voice asked.

“What happened to, it’ll only take a couple of days to clear the files?” Noon asked “More like a few weeks, this is ridiculous.”

The voice on the other end sucked a breath sharply through his teeth “You don’t have that long.”

“I know, don’t worry I was meaning if a normal person was doing this. At this rate I should be done in a week tops. “Noon said with a sigh “Failing that, I’ll just wipe what’s left and get out.”

“I’m not even sure you have that long, things are getting worse by the minute. The analysts latest predictions are that the situation will reach critical in seven days. But we said we’d knock two days off whatever they said, so that gives you five.” He said.

Noon sighed “Five days, there’s so much to do, ok well you best get off the line my dear brother so I can keep working.”
“People are leaving in droves, hopefully that will mean it’ll be easier to get out, you should be able to just drive out. ” He said.

“Hopefully, ok go do what you have to I’ll carry on here. Call me tonight, about midnight I might have a clearer idea of where I’m at.” She deleted another stack of files and shifted more to the portable drive. “And another computer finished, setting it to erase it’s hard drive... off with you Rich I gotta work.”

“Over and out Noonie, and switch the news on at least so you know if things escalate. See you soon.” And he hung up.

Noon let out a soft long sigh and then moved to the next desk to begin the process again. “Next time no-one gets their own hard drive.” She muttered glaring at the ridiculously long list of directories. “And we introduce some rules about filing.” It was going to be a long night.

Free Passage off Earth to the Colonies

No questions asked, we just have a job for you.

For more information, contact the Bartender.

To prevent death post here.... so I'm posting.

two three... can anyone hear this?

Course not, it's text.. can anyone see this? Jaye????