Influence in action

I have contacts with the Republic Security Service. It's useful sometimes, they have offices spread around the various empires, even Amarr space. I put out a request for movements of people matching the description of the Roth family. I figured that if they were in highsec, the RSS could probably find them.

Then I did a run down through lowsec Placid. The area that has a lot of systems that now belong to the Caldari, but used to belong to the Federation.

In Intaki, I found them. They weren't really hiding when they arrived here, or at least, not from me. I found their fake names. I found recent pictures. I got an address. They were living on Intaki Prime.

They weren't at that address any more. Some Caldari bureaucrats were living in the house now. Planets are big. If they didn't want to be found, it could take some time to find them. Time I didn't have.

I sent some messages. I told Amieta and KJ where I was and what I was doing. Planets are dangerous places, especially if I got into trouble. Getting killed in a pod is an inconvenience. Getting killed on a planet is forever. Someone else should know what I was up to.

I mailed Mr Night. I asked him if he could give me letters of introduction or something, that I could use to get some cooperation out of Ishukone. The new administrators of Intaki Prime.

I'm not sure exactly what he said in the coded packets, but when I showed them to the Ishukone customs officer I got bounced up the tree quite quickly. Silver has a lot of pull with these people.

Luckily, my time with Sarakai has taught me how to have tea with a Caldari without making a complete fool of myself, because fairly soon I found myself doing tea with a political supervisor. Offering any assistance possible to an associate of Mr Night. I smiled and was polite, and told him what I wanted.

It felt like they were surprised the monkey could talk, but the monkey worked for someone important. That displeasing me would mean displeasing Silver. I didn't disabuse them. In some senses it was true. So not exactly friendly, but cooperative.

Since I have their current identities, tracking them was fairly easy. They were staying in an apartment leased by an Ishukone mid-level bureaucrat. Moved in with him when their house was commandeered I guess. Cia's mother was playing the "War Widow" line, and the bureaucrat was comforting her. I didn't blow their cover.

I told them Mr Night wanted bone marrow samples from each of them. That it was important to him. They nodded and smiled, and said that of course that could be arranged.

So now I wait. Sometime today the Roth's will be politely invited to a medical center, and the samples will be taken. Then I'll be out of here.

I hope it's in time.