Seems Believeable

"I repeat myself for the third time, where have you been Rolando?" Rolando was still seated, and stunned at what had happened. Clearly from how Brubaker was talking he had been missing, but he couldn't even begin to guess where, or how. All he was left with was an unsettling feeling that whatever being he ran into in Hanlon was not a normal entity.  Well either that or he was crazy as his father, something he always feared would happen.

"If I told you I don't know would that be a good answer?"

"If I told you get to my office right now before I have you detained would you MOVE YOUR ASS RIGHT NOW!"

"Yes sir." Rolando got up out of his stupor and hauled ass to Brubaker's office where the older man was relieved/pissed off to see the younger man.

"I'm glad you decided to reemerge? How in the gods name did you avoid station scanners for over three hours?" Rolando couldn't even begin to explain. Even as he tried to remember Hanlon's face it was fading.

"I have no idea, I thought I was sitting down for a meal with someone my father knew, but then you're yelling in my ear its three hours later and I don't even know where I was." Brubaker softened, of all people Rolando could tell about his missing time being related to someone Trezlan knew, this was the man who could believe him, he had in fact seen some weird shit on the rim.

"Someone who knew Trezlan? Did you get a name?"

"Hanlon I think is what he said?" Brubaker went white in the face. He had heard the name, usually uttered on the lips of dying men. I mean Hanlon was also an arms manufacturer, but despite them having been around for hundreds of years there were no actual people that had the last name, it was like a mark of a bad sign. It was one of Brubaker's earliest cases in the hounds to track down a rumor about Hanlon that got him seemingly permanently assigned on the Rim.

"Did he tell you anything? What did he look like? Was there anything weird about him?"

"You're weirding me out Brubaker, to be honest I don't remember much about the man, its like a dream at this point, I just recall he said that what killed those people on that ship wasn't magical it was bio mechanical." Brubaker sat back down in his chair in a slump.

"He told you about that dumb ship and that was it? How frustrating, I've been on that being trail for years and you sit down with him and just tells you about that?"

"He also asked me where I have been, but that could have just been you coming through from him, got to be honest Brubaker I might have just drifted off to sleep or something, again it feels more dream than real."

"Sure fine whatever, go back to your bunk, you're dismissed." Rolando got a sense there was a deeper context here, but he didn't force the issue, Brubaker had sent him away and he wanted nothing more than to get asleep. Which turned out for the best for Rolando, because he was about to not be able to sleep for a long time, very soon.