A curfew was declared for the entire town of Atlaan as everyone was terrified, always looking at the sky, awaiting another invasion from the Empire.
The rumors spread as it was discovered that the suspected murderer of Ahana Hori was an Ionadian, thus people believed his doppleganger running around, who had burned down ten percent of the town was one as well.
They were Empyrean spies, out to kill us!
The fears were carried over from the mass hysteria culminating on Earth at the time, the two planets frequently connected and had travellers from both due to the vast amount of water both of them had.
Urban legends from long ago told that Ionadians were all cannibals. They feasted on the blood of those they enslaved, and roving groups of blood drinkers and miscreants on Earth made everyone certain that the Empire would soon be returning.
The government of Paradis was starting to believe the rumors as well.
While government officials bought as many tickets as possible to leave Paradis, they told everyone that everything is fine, nothing is wrong, get back to work.
Many, many times the Empire had attempted to colonize Paradis, and they had taken it for a few months. The last invasion lasted twenty years, and then failed catastrophically, time and time again, never relenting, as it was a key port for their territory in the seventh realm, closest to the point of travel to the eighth.
The Free City of Atlaan refused to shut down, it was The Week of Night. So much money was to be made! It only occurred every one thousand years! Why should they back down in the face of tyranny!?
The Galactic Union however, insisted that they shut everything down, all travel in and out for security concerns. If Paradis were to be taken over, that would endanger Earth as well.
Earth was easily colonized several hundred years ago once Paradis was shortly occupied, used as a station for their soldiers to easily flow into the seventh realm, making it more difficult for them to leave.
Yet Atlaan did not care.
Atlaan put a curfew out.
Only for the daytime.
Malicious compliance at its best.
The Union threatened to pull their membership, but they never did, they never would because the money Paradis gave from tourism was plenty, so they were free to endanger billions of lives for three more days of continuous parties, festivals, carnivals and parades.
But mostly money.
In the early hours, once the sun had risen, people were afraid to leave their homes, the local government pointed and said, yes, the curfew is working, no need to shut down the entire local transportation hub!
So they didn't.
At clockwork, at high noon, several space cruise liners landed at the transportation pillar on the northern end of Atlaan, people, fish-people, furry bipedal ones as well, doing their layovers or landing in Atlaan for their yearly vacations.
Out of one of these tourists was a woman with a small nose, fair skin and long black hair, braided and bundled up high, heavy on her head. She was covered head to toe in sunscreen, wearing a loose dress for the weather and carrying two heavy suitcases.
She declined for help from a very nice man with webbed hands, able to carry it on her own, without breaking a sweat, and was in a wonderful mood, humming in the elevator. She scratched the top rounded part of her ears, and shivered, as they were both sensitive, but the feeling was dull, both of them clipped years ago.
With plenty of money to spare she was able to hire a freelance teleporter at the entrance of the terminal, paying their exorbitant price, saving plenty of time. He left her on the northwestern part of Atlaan, and she continued on, through a much emptier street than anticipated, and she stopped humming.
This vacation was going to be short but she did not expect it to be boring.
Her short walk came to a close when she met her partner, another man with clipped ears, but his hair was black and buzzcut. He was in his work uniform, much more formal than her, the standard Atlaan white uniform and seal over his heart.
They met and spoke, saw a parade together, hugged, it was a sweet reunion.
It had been many years since he had seen his daughter.
His daughter left with one briefcase, the red one, her father left with the blue.
He had work in the evening, and brought the briefcase along with him, because he would be late if he stopped home to leave it there. That would be the story if anyone asked. The story was accepted when he went to work.
For The Week of Night, the man was a government liaison, working with the private contractors at the Defense Program and the local Atlaan government for the communications board. The recent terrorist and arson attacks around town made him much busier than usual, but he insisted he wanted to see his daughter.
It had been so long.
The man, the liaison of the communications board and second in charge to its residing president, went to work around 2 PM, briefcase in hand. Not many people were at work that day, they had called out, afraid, claiming a giant creature in the sky had been eating people and their pets.
The man chuckled, the giant creature of no concern to him. On his home planet there were much more ghastly beasts that would come into the night and eat their children. It did not mean he would stop going into work.
Before he went into the conference room to start another meeting that could have been an email, the man went into the IT department. They were on the third floor, coffee mugs in hand, sleep deprived, and when they saw him, they smiled, their gills flexed a little, and they were happy to see him.
He would always pop on by, make jokes, and they were more than happy to see him.
Today the man needed their help and they were more than happy to oblige. They took his laptop from the briefcase, having several connectivity issues, and he assumed that people who worked in the IT department at a communications building would be perfect.
They were perfect!
When he returned from his meeting they fixed the computer within an hour because it was a fun challenge for them, they wanted to help their friend, and they fell for the trap, uploading various malware, viruses, and that one terrible bug that makes your computer freeze up for no reason spontaneously, and then unfreeze three seconds later.
The man was so happy that he had so many willing friends at work, enjoying their company, happy that they were so easy to manipulate. He bid them adieu, took the laptop, placed it back into his suitcase, had a short and quick conversation while smoking outside with his daughter on the phone, and returned to work.
His daughter was happy to hear from him, years of hard work come to fruition.
She had booked a room at the Sunshine Hotel but no longer wanted to stay there, learning that someone was murdered in it, but it was too late, she couldn't get a refund.
Her cheerful demeanor disappeared, wondering if she was in the same room the man was killed inside.
Sitting at the small desk with a chair, ugly and brown every hotel gave, she took a laptop out of her briefcase, set it on the table, and turned it on. It connected, the IT department having done their job.
It connected, getting past the shoddy security system all government infrastructure had. The password was remembertochangethepassword , and once it was connected, the woman pushed the laptop to the furthermost back part of the desk, up against the wall.
She brandished an all purpose knife, and slowly, methodically, curved a rune into the wood of the desk. Immediately, it glowed a dark purple, and she chuckled, because there would be no lack of pain or misery to power her spell, all of Atlaan a magical battery.
Once complete, she placed the laptop onto the rune, placed her palms face up, lying her hands on the table, and bit into her tongue. She spit blood onto the laptop screen, and the same rune, the same symbol spread from the stain, seeping into the screen.
"Nadiwordso."
The laptop closed shut, on all its own, and she smiled, her task complete, much easier than she expected. It was so easy, she did not leave her hotel that evening, completely sure that someone had followed her, that they knew what she had done.
She took a tissue from the side table next to the bed, dabbed the blood on her tongue and told herself, it doesn't matter if they find out. What's done is done.
In three days the communication systems of Atlaan would fail.