Marion Lambert took a long sip of coffee, and used the moment to size up the… person across the table.  It was never easy to play poker against an android, and he had the distinct feeling that Cent-Comm hadn’t asked him here to play penny-ante.  “Thanks kindly for the coffee, ma’am, but I get the feeling you didn’t invite me here for coffee and conversation.”

“Not really, Mister Lambert.  New Troy needs someone with your... unique set of skills, and while you don’t come ‘highly recommended’, you do have a track record for discretion and...ethical behavior.”

Lambert half-smiled.  “You need a freight hauler?”

“Don’t be disingenuous, Mister Lambert.  We both know that if I concatenated the criminal records of your various aliases and printed out the list, I could pave a highway to New Sparta with them.  If I needed a simple truck driver, I could get one a lot cheaper.”

The half smile became a quiet chuckle.  “I could try the ‘affronted innocent’ act, but what the hell, we both know better.”  Another sip of coffee.  “So...you need something moved from A to B, and you want plausible deniability in case something goes wrong.”

“Not something.  Someone.”

Lambert set the coffee mug on the table and nodded.  “You want me to smuggle Lynn Taylor out of Nova Roma for you.”

It wasn’t really possible for a doll to do a spit-take, go pale, or look faint, but Cent-Comm managed all three at once.  “How in the name of Helios—”

“Calm down, ma’am.  You don’t have a security leak...at least not that serious a one.  It’s just an obvious guess, based on available data.”

“I’ve made a point of not putting anything about this out on the webs, or even having open meetings about it.  Who tipped you off?”

“Even if it was ‘somebody’, you know damned well that I wouldn’t tell you... but since you asked, it had to be somebody important.  If some common citizen had gotten scooped up, you’d ignore it.  If it was somebody moderately important, you’d just send Livius a credit chip, and he’d send you a citizen.  That leaves the really important people, and there aren’t many of those.”  Another sip of coffee.  “If it was somebody who knew something, Livius wouldn’t be sending you a message.  He’d strip their brains for whatever it was, and never tell you he’d done it—they’d just be gone.  That leaves a very important person, who’s important for non-obvious reasons, who goes outside New Troy often enough to get grabbed.  Lynn Taylor’s been dating a kid from Sparta for a while now, so she was an obvious guess.  You just confirmed it.”

Cent-Comm scowled faintly.

“Don’t be fooled by the hat and tie, ma’am.  I make my living brokering goods and info.  If I wasn’t really good at putting facts together fast, I’d starve.  Or get shot.”

“So.  Will you do it?”

“It’s a challenge.  If I say ‘yes’, you do realize that I’m going to have a lot of conditions on this, don’t you?”

“Such as?”

“With all due respect, ma’am, this isn’t my spat.  I live Out There.  Whatever happens if and when I do this, a week later, I’ll have to do business in Nova Roma.  I can’t let myself be implicated in some plot that winds up blowing a big crater in the city, or shooting up the place.... well, not too badly.”  Lambert chuckled.  “Anything that looks, smells, or acts like New Troy Mil-Sec will change the game from ‘if I get caught, I go to prison’ to ‘if I get caught, I’ll be executed, if I’m lucky’.  Anything that does too much damage, and I’ve lost a large and profitable market for the rest of my life.  If you want me to try this, it’s got to be a sterile, covert operation, or I can’t afford to play at any price.”

“I see your point.  So...”

Been updating various profiles -  so for your enjoyment here are some of the old incentives ..

also looking into trying to find out something to help with donations - maybe offering artwork or something for a donation 5 to 10 bucks gets you soandso , if anyone reads this let me know via PM...

just a little thing i found -

and

and just for fun

enjoy :D

ok this is awesome 37 subscribers - *gleee* there is no way to thank each of you as much as i want!

set construction and other issues are still being worked out - my poor computer really really hates me, also on a personal note its well known that a lot of people happen to use the same tools as i do - however i constantly hunt for "diffrent" items and often spend hours trying to make something my own - recoloring / retexturing and so on about 4 years ago ( maybe 2 ) i picked up a aircraft with the intent of useing it in the story - its a nice model well constructed , good textures - a week ago or so the same model shows up in 4 other webcomics ..

this is the craft in question -

sighs found out DAZ put the bloodything on sale so now everyone seems to have bought it and used it the same week..

i go to a lot of trouble to make this little comic the best i can for you guys . and i dont want to seem as if im "copying" other daz / poser comics- trust me im not, any vehicle , prop or set that appears in datachasers is not "borrowed" from another comic nor are ideas. my universe is mine - it would be nice to do this as a tottally drawn comic but thats not possable at this time - so ill use the media i have. i know a lot of daz /poser also use a fuax "drawn" render style or post production in photoshop to make it seem "drawn" but its not - and i prefer the clean render sttyle im useing. so onward and outward - again i cant thank all you guys enough -

been a busy busy week - trying to get Datachasers and Luna Star pages out - have to build sets for both comics and do all the setups and renders - and script bouncing

also BIG thanks to the Following people

Breaker Delesco ( second life for "Breaker" - Datachasers  )

CeeCee firecaster ( also in second life )  ( Dr. Cooper - Luna Star )

Marchande Dark  ( Marcus - Datachasers )

Dawn Hart  ( Dr silver - Datachasers )

Sam S- the editors Husband ( "Mister Black" )

Also Visoneer / Mushroomisland / and others ...