My name is Sherla Dolmes, I locate rare books for collectors of far away Centor, the most affluent space colony.
My trade is illegal but I don't do black market deals in dark alleys anymore. Freely, my mentor hires me personally when some rarity is required and I go and look for it in the abandoned spaces, the off limits radiation grounds where ancient cities flourished long ago and the forbidden libraries remain and decay.
I'm grateful to Freely in more ways that I can explain. He saved my life more than once ever since we initially met under the poisonous rain. I had slipped and cut my knee on the pavement and he held my hand and helped me get up and treated my wounded knee with his bare hands. I've worked for him ever since. I owe him my life.
You see, I have a rare gift, I can read and understand many tongues while most humans, on and off earth, speak nothing but the common tongue. People like me, with an innate ability for languages have been persecuted since they discovered “the evil gene”, five hundred years ago right when the first planets were colonized.
I was abandoned at birth in the doorstep of an hospital erected in a stone building which I've seen in books depicted as an abbey, in a city called London long ago, before the banishment of idioms took place and people like me became anathema.
The hospital staff was nice, they catered to the indigent and the lonely which are most of the population left on the planet nowadays. Who else would want to live in a toxic waste dump orbiting around the sun? Those with enough means to buy a ticket fare have left towards Hope, Joy, and Paradise, the first earth colonies.
In earth only the miserable, the unwanted and the lost were left to rot. There's also those banned back to earth for dangerous behavior: growing forbidden food, cavorting with aliens or being found in the possession of books – the worst crime of all - that's why they are so highly prized as everyone likes a taste of some forbidden fruit once in a while.
I grew up in the streets; many times I hid from slave traders and organ hunters, which I fear most of all. The radiation grounds have helped me escape their raids and there I found the libraries, museums, all the ruins from a strange dead world that reached to me trough time. I discovered my purpose in life!
I am the best book hunter you could find... actually to be precise I have a rival which I have never seen but has stolen my prize twice before. He goes by the name of Beldur which means fear in a language that has long since disappeared.
It suits him well that name: I have heard the chilling screams at night of those unfortunate enough to cross his path in unlit libraries. I've seen the maimed collectors plight who dared to bargain his prices. I would not recommend you hire his services.
To hire ME press one! I am Sherla Dolmes, my services are absolutely safe!
For rarities please press two!
Thank you.
This is my entry for the contest by 