```QEC REPORT
HONEYSUCKLE
1: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
```
I'm sending this out after it's already done. I'm sitting in my
hotel room now, waiting for the police to arrive. They should be
here any moment. I'll make this quick.
I'm setting the record straight. I did some bad things. But, I
wasn't alone in doing them. I want you to know that. Whoever you
are.
Six months ago, my ship docked at the Cilix outpost on Europa. It
was some kind of cruise ship. The budget kind.
It was my first time in outer space. I was young, I wanted to see
the solar system. I was naive. I probably deserved what happened
for even stepping foot on a cruise ship in the first place.
I got to see outer space alright. The starry heavens above. It
wasn't much. There were vast stretches of nothin' and long periods
of hypersleep, interlaced with brief jaunts on exotic-but-desolate
locations scattered throughout the solar system. I felt like
nothin' when I was out there too. I felt like a nobody, like what I
did didn't really matter. Sort of the opposite of how you imagine
space feeling. There was no glory, no majesty, only air-conditioned
resorts, and they didn't even look all that different from the
resorts back home.
The people were different, sure. People in those places live like
there's no morals, no governments. Mostly because there aren't any.
I'd like to say that I did what I did because I was a simple
Earth-boy corrupted by these outlying societies, but that's not
true. I've always had a tendency to flirt with the wrong side of
the law. I want to be clear though, nothin' I ever did back on
Earth ever harmed anybody. I was small-time. That changed on
Europa. It changed with a woman.
I first saw her on the second day of our one-week stop at Europa.
She looked like the real thing. Beautiful, young, smelling of
honeysuckles.
I soon found out she wasn't the real thing at all. Far from it.
She was an android. Her name was Judy.
gemini://cosmic.voyage/Cilix/01_setting_the_record_straight.txt