Weird things at work

So, today, I was called in on someone trying to get something out of Mombasa. About 3 tonnes of "Decorative stones" which in actuality were 3.4 million credits worth of Elephant ivory. We believe that this is connected (Duh) to the 15 elephants killed in the wild last week. This is not only a massive find, but also showing that our attempts to stop poaching hasn't worked.
So, busy day so far. I was wondering if there are any strange stories of work you'd like to share?

I suspect someone at work is stealing pens and office supplies?

You know, it's funny you mention poaching, because a lot of the places we arranged tours with back in my InterSaf days had problems with that. People trying to get in to hunt and kill the animals, pick up a rare trophy or collect pieces for medicines, or whatever. We used to have a bit of a, er, frosty relationship with some of the environmental groups because, while our operations were sight-seeing only and totally legit, we did play up the "exotic wildlife" angle with trophies. You know, impress the clients by having skulls or mounted specimens from old collections; "see this amazing animal alive and in its natural habitat!", that sort of thing? Some of them didn't like it, said it gave out the wrong image. Like we were legitimating the hunting trade. Glorifying the triumph of the sapient over the natural order in some primitive - what was the word? - "macho" way. Or something.

Anyway, there was this one case that I was loosely involved with that ended up involving three different governments. There's this place on Dekuuna, a big reserve, and its populated by some creature related to elcor, only they're not civilized. They're like what sadalak are to salarians, or chimpanzees to humans, I guess. They're big, really big, and the humans find them impressive because humans seem to like things big. They associate size with quality. So, anyway, this turian guy wanted to kill one, prove how tough he was, only the animals are protected by law, which is why they're in a big reserve, and the elcor get really upset if you kill them, because they sort of look and smell a bit like elcor. Or so I'm told. What this turian did was, he went on one of our official tours and decided - I don't know why he thought this was a good idea - he decided he was going to try and smuggle out some calves on his return, and raise them on whatever colony he came from, then kill one when it was full grown. Yeah. So of course he's caught trying to bring two metre-high hujuulos back to Alliance space, the Alliance calls in the Courts of Dekuuna and the Hierarchy, there's a bit of mid-level diplomatic bickering that I'm not involved with. Maybe you remember it on the news or something.

Anyway, the interesting thing is, we had to keep the calves in the office for about three hours until the right people were on hand to take them away. Guess who got to make some coffee for the guy who watched over them?

They're ugly creatures, really.

Mm, no specifics for free, but I can say that there isn't a single politician on the Citadel who doesn't have a "bizarre" sex life and/or atypical sexual tendencies, barring the majority of the Artifical Environmental Concerns Association.

Try visiting The Lower Life if you want to play your hand at brokering; just know that you may be shot in the process.

And I can say that I've been thrice-voted Miss Galaxia, but it doesn't make it true. Information brokering must be a wonderful job, because your clients are by requirement ignorant of what you're giving them. Nice use of scare quotes, by the way.

It is, in fact, quite a delightful vocation, but I won't go so far as to claim all clients are ignorant. In general, most of my clientele has a vague idea of what they are searching for prior to their order; they know the X, but not the Y or the Z. By and large, I spend my time figuring out those Y's and Z's - or, as one might summarize them, the "why" and the "how"s. A young and haughty broker might attempt to pull the "wool" over his clients' eyes, only to realize thereafter that he has merely - colloquially speaking - fucked himself.

What I have stated here is no more than common knowledge, if you look at the correct publications.

Your compliment of quotations is appreciated, despite its sarcasm.

My current line of work is almost exactly the opposite of the white drell's. People (or more accurately, corporations) come to me when they want to prevent someone from finding out the "Y's and Z's" of their operations. Now, due to ethical concerns I cannot reveal any of this particular information, but trust me when I say that there is some very strange research happening on Noveria.

man, fuck

i ‘member bein’ called in dis one time at peak NOT NOW VENTS IM ONNA PISSER – er, ennyway, ter fix da turbines fer da HVAC there? Sommat ‘bout containment issues. So I goes inter da peak while ever’one’s coverin’ dere asses, throwin’ bedsheets an’ plastic on dese big I SAID NOT NOW, VENTS, I’M GONNA BE IN HERE A WHILE – but man, fuck, sittin’ in da middle’a da room was this bigass containment machine, see? An’ since I’ve been on, like, a shitload’a deep-space merc jobs, I totally recognized it as a BIG, GIANT—

wait—

DAMMIT VENTS SHUT DA DOOR

I SAID SHUT IT

AWRIGHT FINE

DIS IS YOUR FAULT

[STT: Various loud bodily functions]

An old business associate on Omega keeps pestering me to help slip some...stuff past Citadel customs and I keep telling him that this ...stuff will set off every scanner from Zakera to Tayseri because it's ...stuff that C-sec has apparently started cracking down on (Don't see why, no one ever complained about it back on Omega). He keeps saying that it's really high quality...stuff and that even a few kilos would sell like wildfire. I believe him but I keep telling him I won't do it. So he suggests...acquiring a random Krogan and hollowing out their hump to store it in there, get it past the sensors. I sarcastically tell him that might work and he hangs up. I get a call from someone else a few days later, apparently he tried to cut into a Krogan that had passed out drunk in Afterlife. It woke up and threw him over the edge outside. I guess that's pretty weird, right?

Actually, looking at the other sorts of posts on this board I guess murder isn't as interesting as I thought.

OH! I've got another one! I had a Volus come in asking me to find him some hollow platform shoes that a fish could live in. He says he saw it in a old Earth picture.

I am ... unsure what that ill Tuchunka-clan coughed up at ... Huerta last week but the ... maintenance drone was unwilling to ... approach it until I ... altered it's self preservation ... protocols.