"Our new shipment of SubNet tablets are here! There are also some new drinks and other things!" Catherine said joyfully as she accepted several large crates in subspace beneath the space station, Annexus.
Adam Nostradamus was sitting at a small stool beside the counter in the Celestial Branch store hitting on Celene while Catherine appeared to be gone and was shocked to hear the latter's voice resonate through the store.
"Is the other beautiful lady here?" Adam asked curiously while looking for the source of the voice.
"She is nearby," Celene vaguely said.
"Well how about it, Miss Celene?" Adam asked again quietly assuming Catherine wouldn't be able to hear. "Your store is about to close, why don't you join me for a drink. I have a great bar that is famous for excellent service."
Adam leaned toward Catherine flirtatiously over the counter, catching a whiff of her scent which he couldn't get enough of.
"Very well, please make sure to tell your contacts to come to me to purchase SubNet Tablets though. We recently also started accepting larger purchase orders," Celene responded in a respectful manner.
Adam grinned broadly as Celene accepted his proposal, the scar over one side of his face twisting menacingly as he did.
"You're always so business-like, Miss Celene."
"Of course, this is my job."
At that moment, Catherine reappeared in the store out of thin air, shocking Adam greatly as it was the first time he had personally seen the Celestials appear and vanish. She was holding a handful of SubNet Tablets as she stared discontently at Celene.
"Hey! Don't think you can fool me, Celene! You're just aiming for the commission on sales! Let me come too!"
"Watch the store, Catherine. Stay open late and anyone who comes in will be your sales."
Celene didn't even deny the claim that she was aiming for a large commission as she tidied up her hair and grabbed some of the new drinks before heading out of the store with Adam, leaving Catherine to look after the store, five of the Celestial security guards following behind her at a distance.
All the Celestial saleswomen received a commission in Celestial Gold Credits based off their sales, something which Ivan came up with to prompt competition between the two saleswomen at each branch store.
Adam is somewhat afraid of Catherine these days due to a certain incident.
A competitive store moved from the other side of the station and began selling knockoff SubNet Tablets which merely connected to a private server of the dark web. Adam was immediately notified of this and brought by a squad of heavily armed soldiers to shut them down to avoid conflicts with the Celestials.
By the time he arrived though, Catherine had already stormed into the shop in a thinly veiled rage as she used her bare hands to crush and rip apart everything in the store like it was paper, including the metal safety gate they closed to try and protect themselves.
Adam knew Celene was probably capable of the same feat, but she was more restrained and her unnaturally perfect beauty completely drew him in.
"Welcome is Club Silicon," Adam said with a broad smile as he took Celene's hand and led her into the nightclub filled with loud music and dim lights.
"This place is somewhat different," Celene commented with a poker face as she looked around, ignoring the hand Adam grabbed.
The security outside the club had let Adam and his guest in without waiting in the line, while a scantily dressed barmaid greeted him with a glowing yellow drink and opened the door to the VIP room.
The VIP room of Club Silicon had a plethora of naked exotic woman dancing in cages in the air. Occasionally an important guest would indicate towards one of these women to a bartender, upon which they would be led out of the cage and into a private room for a "one on one" session with the paying client.
As soon as the people in the VIP room saw Celene, they immediately stopped dancing and stared at her with eyes filled with lust.
"…just like monkeys," Celene quietly muttered to herself, but Adam standing beside her heard it as her voice was strangely unsuppressed by the loud electro music playing.
"Monkeys with both credits and connections, Miss Celene," Adam said to her with a wry grin.
A seven foot tall man covered in muscles came over at this moment, a sinister light in his eyes.
"Adam, I haven't seen you in quite some time! Who is this beauty you brought? I've never seen ears or a tail quite like hers. Is it post surgery? Without a doubt top quality goods!"
"Mr. Nostradamus, does he have money and connections as well?" Celene asked, somewhat annoyed by the bug in front of her.
Adam shrugged his shoulders as he heartlessly said, "He has some contacts, but his money is used up and is at risk of falling into debt. He's almost completely washed up, living his days in alcohol and debauchery."
"The fuck are you saying, Adam?! The Galactic Fleet is cracking down on all of us over the past few years. We have all had it tough, just you wait till I score my next big load."
Seeing as the man wasn't going to be beneficial to her, Celene just raised her hand and made a short calling motion.
The five Celestial security guards who oversaw Celene's safety appeared at that moment and stood around the overly muscular man, placing a hand on him and holding him in place.
The man started cussing and tried to knock the guards away, but their hands were like steel vices and wouldn't budge no matter how much he strained his surgically implanted biomuscles.
Before he could do anything else, the guards simply pulled him into subspace as his entire vision and existence itself became pure white. He couldn't even scream in pain before he was completely erased from the world
"Give us some room," Celene respectfully said to the guards who bowed their necks slightly and moved off the side of the room.
Adam saw the man disappear and truly wanted to know how exactly they did it.
"Let us move to a quieter room, Miss Celene," Adam leaned over and whispered into her ear before leading her up a set of cordoned off stairs and into a private room overlooking the VIP room.
This VVIP room had a personal barkeep but nobody to attend as Adam himself made the drinks here. He had already finished his earlier drink and this time prepared two glasses of a strange green cocktail with black specks in it.
"Miss Celene, have a try," Adam said as he placed one glass before his guest.
Celene shook her head and simply replied, "Sorry, I can't drink this. It will only give me stomach problems."
"Why is that?"
"You don't know much about the Celestials, do you, Mr. Nostradamus?"
"I certainly know much less than I would like to know. How about you tell me about yourself, Miss Celene?"
"I'm afraid our confidentiality rules do not allow me to answer most of your questions."
Celene, as a four-dimensional being, naturally couldn't consume three-dimensional matters, so instead she opened one of the new drinks developed and delivered from CTHQ, something her and Catherine ordered to arrive with the new SubNet Tablets.
The drink she had was a honey yellow with light and dark streaks inside of it, dancing about depending on what angle you were looking at it. Celene opened the lid of the bottle and took a small sip, closing her eyes in delight at the sweet flavor of the drink.
"How about this?" Adam saw she seemed more relaxed after having a drink and showed her a video of the news report on the events that took place on Lorres III. Specifically, when the Galactic Fleet attacked the Kraken but to no avail.
"Is it true you own wormhole technology?"
Celene took one glance at the report and responded, "We own nothing of the kind."
"Then how is this possible?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Is there anyone who can?"
"There is."
"Who?"
"The president."
"Of the Federation?"
Celene looked at Adam as if looking at in idiot, but the latter was just messing around and already understood she meant the president of Celestial Trade.
"Sigh, if you truly wish to know, there should be some high up politicians or military officials who are aware of some things. Whether you could get them to tell you anything is a different story."
"Miss Celene, you don't mind telling me that?"
"The whole Federation will know about us one day, anyway, it doesn't matter all that much."
"So why can't you tell me, Miss Celene?"
"Because then I would definitely lose all my commission," Celene said back with a wry smile playing on the corner of her lips.
Adam turned silent at this answer as he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. A small holographic window appeared before him at this time as one of his people was calling him urgently.
"What is it? Make it quick, I'm with an important guest at the moment," Adam stated in a dangerously low voice, completely different from his jovial attitude just moments ago.
"Head, Universal Intelligence has listed confidential information on the Celestials for sale-"
Adam abruptly cut off the call as he nervously looked at the Celestial sitting directly in front of him, looking down on the VIP room dance floor from the window.
"I'm also curious," Celene said with interest, moving over to sit beside him and rubbing her shoulder against him. "Surely you can afford this bit of information."
"Of course!" Adam puffed out his chest in pride and immediately contacted his people to deliver his SubNet Tablet to the private room.
In only ten minutes, a man came running into the run panting for breath and delivered the tablet before bowing his head and excusing himself.
Adam opened up the Universal Intelligence store and quickly found the information packet on Celestials.
"1,000 credits!?" Adam whistled in admiration. "How incredibly cheap. They're basically giving it away for free."
The information packet was bought and opened, revealing a lot of information on the Celestials, pictures of some relevant data such as the modified stasis pods, analytical graphs and mathematical formulas for the fourth dimension.
"Four-dimensional beings? Subspace? Superelevation of the fourth-dimensional coordinate… Celene, is this all true?"
Adam was stunned by all the information revealed in the report.
Celene was also surprised by how thorough it was. She nodded in response to Adam but was distracted by a section of information which caused her to feel alarm.
"The president isn't going to like this…"
The information Celene zoned in on, was that of the Vulpes home world, its galactic coordinates, and all the information on the Vulpes.