Twinks in Space: Destination Unknown - Part One - 11. Chapter 11 - Pilditrop

A quiet knock came from the outside of the massage room’s door. The man on the table looked up with a scowl. His name was Pilditrop Mershuth Finquini junior.

“What?” he barked at the closed door.

“Sir,” came the muffled voice of his assistant, “there’s an emergency, sir.”

“There’d better be,” Pilditrop growled. He pushed himself up from the table and wrapped a towel around his waist. “What is it?” he snapped as he yanked the door open, flooding the dimly lit room with harsh light.

“Something’s happened, sir. You have to come see.”

“Fine!” Pilditrop slammed the door and gave his masseur a disappointed look; the man who had been rubbing him down was gorgeous. Pilditrop began to dress, and a moment later, he headed out of the little room and into the glaring light.

His assistant was almost on the verge of tears. “Sir, it looks bad, sir, really bad.” He handed his boss his portable terminal as they began to walk toward his office.

“What the blazes are you blathering about? Out with it!”

“The money, sir, it’s gone.”

Pilditrop Mershuth Finquini senior had founded the Bank of the Islands 15 years earlier when the gangs of pirates took over Boullia Bay. They had needed a place to keep their money, and he provided it for them. After a prosperous decade of safeguarding their possessions, Pilditrop Mershuth Finquini senior handed the bank over to his son. For five years, Pilditrop Mershuth Finquini junior had protected the money in the bank; the idea that it was gone was preposterous.

“Of course it’s not gone,” he retorted as he opened his handheld digital inventory. “Look,” he added, turning the device so the other man could see, “all the holdings are secure.”

“Refresh your feed, sir.”

The bank owner did so, and he stopped walking. It was as if Pilditrop’s brain refused to comprehend the number that now flashed across the little screen. He was holding his breath.

“Sir, I think…”

“Shut up!” Pilditrop spat. He then whispered to himself, “Where’d it all go?”

His assistant ventured to speak again. “We don’t know, sir, but it just happened. We don’t know how, or where it’s gone, but everything was fine less than five minutes ago.”

“Is there some way to reverse this? Can we get the money back?”

Pilditrop’s assistant sucked air through his teeth. “There’s no record in our system of the money having gone anywhere. There are no deposits listed for any accounts, no withdrawals; everything just disappeared!”

*

“There’s no money in the account,” one of the pirate captains murmured to himself. He was looking down at the portable communication device in his hand.

“What are you talking about?” another of his fellow captains asked. He checked the information on his own wrist-mounted comm and gasped at what he saw. “Where is it? What happened to all our money?!”

The two pirates looked at each other.

“We need to let the admiral know.”

They hesitated.

“He’s not going to be pleased. Maybe we should try and figure this out first.”

Neither spoke for a moment.

“The admiral will eject us out of an airlock if he finds out we kept this from him, and he’s bound to hear about the money soon. Let’s get back to the Dagger.”

They both checked their devices again before they moved.

“Where did all the money go?”