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The precinct's lobby was busy, there had been another wave of identity theft and now the victim's who hadn't been smart enough to install even the basic identity securities where here, complaining. The desk sergeant still managed to raise her hand and greet Victor as he came in. He forced a smile as he waved back to her. She was the only person who seemed happy for him to be there so he put in the extra effort.

His ID let him into the bullpen and the noise of complaints was replace by the sounds of officers going about their business, discussing cases among each other, sharing gossip or laughing at some stupid thing a crook had done to try to avoid capture.

Of course none of that happened when Victor walked close. They fell silent, not wanting to give him any information on an active case.

Someone mock-whispered to his companion. "Why hasn't he been fired again?"

Victor didn't even feel the urge to turn around and scream anymore. If they wouldn't drop it after almost a decade, it wasn't like screaming would do any good. That and the new captain wanted to get rid of him, so he'd use any excuses. It was why his desk was at the other end of the bullpen, forcing Victor to endure the stares and the silent sneers.

Nine years since a lone criminal had managed to circumvent the precinct's information security and get into the system, then he'd made his escape by blowing up the power station. Nothing had gone missing this time, and the fact that the one person missing, once the backup power kicked in was the one he had been talking to hadn't meant anything to the people who had come down on the precinct for letting such a thing happen. But his coworkers knew, and they'd held him responsible for being screamed at, for everyone having their security access lowered.

And it couldn't have come at a worse time. His career had finally been starting up again. He was getting cases, minor stuff that should go to first-year detectives, but at least he got to do detective work again. Since that incident, no one gave him cases. No one even let him look at information on active cases. He'd been relegated to filing closed cases.

He was doing secretarial work.

He sat down and the chair complained. It was old, he told himself to avoid thinking about how much weight his bathroom had said he'd gained over the last week. It had listed an exercise regiment and new diet for him. He'd erased both. What was the point when all he'd be doing was sit in this chair and move files from one information vault to another.

He'd hoped that when the captain retired, five years ago, things might improve. His coworker's attitude wouldn't change, and they'd make sure the new captain knew about Victor's infractions, but he or she wouldn't have a personal grudge against him. Unfortunately, the promotion had come from within the precinct, so not only did Captain Casey feel Victor's presence was a personal attack on his virtue, now he had the power to do something about it.

He couldn't just kick Victor out, but he could encourage the disdain everyone felt for him. He could also deny any request Victor had put in to be transferred. Those were the only time the captain smiled at him as he explained in a sickeningly sweet voice how vital Victor was to the good work the precinct did.

The first time he'd gone through this, almost thirty years before that incident he'd told himself he would tough it out. He'd reasoned that in showing his superiors he could endure the ridicule that came with having been used by someone to get into the system, he was tough enough to merit a second chance. The fact that the criminal had corrupted so much of the system almost every case had to be restarted from scratch, had made his punishment feel warranted. He'd used his one subjective year of suspension to try to find him, but that hadn't gone anywhere, or so he'd thought. After a year all he'd had was a list of possibilities, and not one indication even one of them might be valid.

He'd put that behind him, gotten back to work and endured the career stall he'd been in. He hadn't even let himself go as he had now. He'd stuck to his exercise regiment, because he knew that it was only a matter of time until it blew over and he was able to get back to work.

The problem with people being as long-lived as they were was that 'a matter of time' turned out to be almost thirty years. Still he'd endured it.

Now though, he didn't think there would be any 'matter of time.' He had to consider the possibility his career was good and dead.

A shadow fell over him. "We have a break-in at the Granhern Holding Facility. I need you to go investigate it."

Victor looked up. "Huh?" was all that came out as he looked at Captain Casey before him, his nose in his datapad holding a chip toward him. Then what this meant hit him. He was getting a case. He reached for the chip, but it was pulled away.

"Wait a minute, you're not Zhelan." He looked around. "Zhelan, when did you move desk?" he yelled.

"Sorry Captain," a woman yelled back. "Forgot to tell you."

Victor sunk back in his chair. He'd been at this same desk for nine years now. He felt like screaming, but he held it in.

The Captain squinted at him. "Who are you? I'm pretty sure I'd remember hiring someone as fat as you."

"I get it," Victor said before he could stop himself. "I have no business being here. All I do is bring shame to the department. I'm not good enough to even lick your shoes. You've had your fun, Captain, how about you let me get back to work?"

"Right," he said, stretching the word. "I remember you now. The guy who slept his way into a filing position."

He wanted to snap something back to him. He'd been used, manipulated, and that had been before Casey had even been part of the department. He'd been in love with Simon, how was he to know it had been an act on the Alien's part.

"The least you could have done was keep it within your species, you know."

He ground his teeth to keep from saying anything. Casey would use that as an excuse to suspend him without pay again, and he'd promised himself he wasn't going to make it that easy on the Captain again.

He forced a smile. "Is there anything else, Captain?"

The man sighed. "I suppose not. You really should leave you know. No one wants you here."

"I tried that, you won't let me transfer."

"And give you a chance to ruin another precinct? I don't think so. And you make such a wonderful secretary. How about you get me a coffee?"

"Get it yourself. I'm not a secretary."

"That almost sounds like insubordination."

"That sounds like me trying to do my job."

Victor focused on his screen and waited for the Captain to make a decision. Maybe he'd be suspended again after all.

The shadow left without another word.

He moved a few files then put his face in his hands. Maybe he should just quit and get this over with. But he couldn't get a job in the corporate sector, they'd check with the department and Casey would make sure to tell them how unsuited Victor was for any kind of security job.

Maybe he could join a private security firm? But that was barely one step removed from being a mercenary, which was one step removed from being a criminal, if even that.

No, he was going to tough this out too. Casey was ambitious, so he was going to be promoted out of the position at some point, and maybe Victor would get lucky and the new captain would be from the outside.

Who knew, maybe now that the attacks on the precinct system had finally stopped, the Captain might even start feeling more generous toward him, in a decade or two probably.

Everyone had known it was Victor's fault, not that it would have meant anything if the attacks had targeted something other than his internal files. They would still have blamed him.

Of course if any of them knew why the attacks had stopped, Victor's career would be officially over. Casey wouldn't hesitate to get him thrown out of the force if he ever found out the reason the attacks had stopped was the file they were after had vanished.

Victor only knew because he'd gotten paranoid about it after that man had assaulted the precinct for it. He checked for it weekly, and six months ago, he'd found it wasn't there. He hadn't bothered trying to figure out where it had gone. He didn't care at this point. He'd bribed one of the techs into hiding its disappearance and had gone back to work.

The minutes stretched into hours as he moved files after files. After a while he fell into something of a trance, not that it made time pass faster, but he transferred the files without even noticing them anymore.

A blinking icon pulled him out of it. He realized it had been blinking for a while now, but he had no idea what it was. He looked around, in case someone was checking in his direction, waiting to laugh at him for whatever this caused, but no one was.

Now that he thought about it, there was a sense of familiarity to it. He activated it and the image of two people walking along a corridor appeared on his screen.

His breath caught. "Simon?" Almost forty years later the alien still caused his heart to skip a beat. He almost touched the screen when he remembered that wasn't Simon. There was no Simon. That was Tristan.

Now he remembered what the icon was. It was a program he'd paid to have installed on the surveillance system on the station for exactly this situation, in case Tristan ever came back.

He studied the image. The Samalian was with someone, by the way they walked he could tell it was more than two strangers going in the same direction. There was a comfort between them, an ease of being.

He requested footage from the station and, fortunately, because he was still a detective, officially, they sent it. He couldn't get anything from the landing bay, due to the privacy laws, but the corridors had multiple cameras. He took the angles and ran the human through facial recognition. Nothing came back. That wasn't right, he looked familiar.

He had a sinking feeling and went through his personal files. He hadn't been able to find out who he'd been, but he'd kept an image from the lobby. He had the system compare them. The result came back with an eighty percent match. Victor didn't care, it was him. It was the guy who'd assaulted the precinct, who'd copied his list of possible hideout for Tristan.

He'd heard stories over the years about Tristan being out there, in spite of One prison after another claiming they had him. How he felt about him being in prison from one day to the next changed. But recently he'd heard stories of him working with a partner.

He'd dismissed them. He knew enough about Tristan to know he worked alone. He used people and threw them away. But now, rewatching them walk together, the ease he saw there. It spoke of more than a casual meeting. Tristan was a great enough actor that he couldn't trust what he saw from him, but the human. The human was comfortable with Tristan.

Victor felt jealous. He'd had that. He'd wanted that. Then he was angry. What did that guy have that Victor didn't? Why had he been abandoned, left aside.

He ran a search on the prison boards for Tristan. There, the Sayatoga claimed they had him. He almost sent them the alert to verify the cell. He'd created the file, included all the biometric identifier and was about to send it when he hesitated.

They were here. On the planet, in his jurisdiction. If he caught him, if he brought him to justice, if he brought in both of them...he'd be vindicated.

He requested the tag for the shuttle they rented. He'd find out where they were going, he'd capture them, he'd get his career back.

He'd finally get answers.