by J. S. Morin
# # #
Esper strolled the streets of Calliope carrying bags from various food markets. It wasn’t the sort of place that warranted strolling, but it had sky and plenty of room for her to stretch her legs. The sky was a dingy grey and the streets dusted with soot and scattered with litter, but she was willing to overlook those facts for the time being. As she walked, she juggled a peppermint soda and a bag of powdered sugar puffs, trying her best not to drop the ship’s groceries while she ate.
“This cold is welcome, but the air tastes like ash,” Mriy said from just behind her, where she was toting the more industrial foodstuffs that would reload the food processor. Though she carried twice the weight, Mriy seemed to have no trouble keeping one hand free for a ham hock to snack on.
“Is it cold on Meyang?” Esper asked.
“Near Rikk Pa, the best hunting season is winter,” Mriy replied. “But the air is clear and the scent of prey carries for kilometers. The snow makes for easy tracking and keeps a flushed quarry slow. Nothing like this place but the cold.”
“You can go back to the ship if you want,” Esper said between bites. “I can get by on my own.”
“Tanny said—”
“Tanny worries too much,” Esper cut her off. “Look around. It’s a grimy little nowhere town, but it’s not exactly New Singapore.” There were street vendors and mothers out with children in tow. They had chain restaurants like Choc-o-Barn, Speedy Burger, and Patty Mac’s. There were more ground vehicles rumbling along the asphalt roads than hover-crafts above them, but there was enough traffic for the city to feel lived-in. Carousel might have been farther out than most people would consider civilized, but it had the trappings of civilized space.
“Strength is law here,” Mriy said. “You won’t even carry a blaster.”
“I wouldn’t fire it,” Esper replied. “So why pretend? I’d be more likely to find trouble if I invited it.”
“The greatest warrior fights the least,” Mriy replied, taking a huge bite out of her ham. “His enemies fear defeat.”
“I think I’m better off without enemies, thanks,” Esper replied. “I don’t mean this as an insult, but you seem … well, a bit built to force people to have an opinion of you.”
“What about that one?” Mriy said, shifting the topic and pointing at a nearby storefront with the remnants of her ham. “They ought to have a holo-projector.”
Gladstone Entertaintech certainly looked like a place where someone could buy just about anything. Out in the midst of nowhere, diversion was at a premium. Miners, prospectors, and freighter crews had nothing better to do in their down hours than sedate their brains with drinking and holovids. Some of them, it seemed, might be willing to dump heaps of terras on top-of-the-line gear. “Out of our price range. They probably have holo-projectors that cost more than the Mobius.”
“Not if you asked Roddy. He seems to think—”
“Speaking of Roddy,” Esper said. “Why not guard him? Those scrap-peddlers he’s dealing with are loads more dangerous than the consumer shopping district. Plus … you know … he’s little.”
“He’ll fire,” Mriy replied. “And he acts like he’ll fire. For him, carrying a blaster keeps him out of most trouble. Few humans would chance a laaku’s aim or reflexes.”
“Here we go,” Esper said. “This place ought to have something I can afford.” Randall’s Resale was, by all outward appearances, a pawnshop. The window display held an assortment of unrelated goods: a saxophone, a leather jacket, two tennis rackets, an out-of-date EV suit, a rack of jewelry, and several hats. Electronics didn’t look like much in a window, but Esper had no doubt in her mind that someone must have sold them an old holo-projector.
Mriy bared her teeth. “Junker.”
“We’re not rich,” Esper replied. “If we want something decent, we’re going to have buy secondhand. It’s not like something new would stay new long on the Mobius anyway.” Esper’s family had been poor before her brothers left home for fame and fortune. Samson and Napoleon had set up their parents—and by extension, Esper—in a comfortable lifestyle with money they sent back. But Esper still remembered her father bringing home and old broken holo-projector and tinkering with it until the image came in as clear as any off-the-shelf model.
She pushed through the door, setting off an old-fashioned three-note digital chime. Whoever ran Randall’s wanted to know whenever anyone entered or left. Esper caught sight of a security camera pointed at the doorway, its little red “on” indicator staring accusingly from beside the lens. The shop was everything Esper had imagined from the outside. Poor lighting. Better for shabby merchandise. Narrow aisles. Made the store seem packed with things to buy. No price labels. Haggling was mandatory.
The chime rang a second time as Mriy followed her in.
“Hey!” a voice shouted. Esper craned to see around the shelves. The man behind the counter was dark-skinned, bald-shaven, with eyes hidden behind red-glowing scanner lenses. “We don’t allow their kind.”
“Huh?” Esper asked. In the moment it took her to process who the proprietor meant, he clarified for her.
“That fleabag of yours. It’ll have to wait outside. Can’t have it shedding all over my inventory or pissing on the floor.”
Mriy hissed and folded her ears back.
“She understands English just fine,” Esper said. She made a shooing gesture to Mriy, hoping that she could get the azrin to exit before things escalated. “I’ll be fine. Just hold these and wait outside.” She pressed her bags into Mriy’s hands, thinking that being a tad overburdened might make her less inclined toward aggression.
The door chimed again as Mriy departed, glaring over her shoulder at Esper. “Anything you lookin’ for in partic’lar?” the shopkeeper asked.
“Holo-projector,” she replied.
“Aisle three.”
Looking up, there were indeed plastic-board signs dangling from the ceiling by strings, each bearing a number. Aisle three was next over, and she found another patron already browsing the wares. He was probably a local miner, still wearing his hard-hat and soot-caked jacket. He looked up as Esper approached. Friendly eyes and a leering grin; not a combination she relished in tight quarters. He had bleached sideburns and stained teeth, all nearly the same shade of yellow. From where he was standing, he was on the market for a datapad.
Esper offered a tight, awkward smile, and made eye contact. The probably-miner glanced away and slunk around the corner into another section. She didn’t need Mriy hovering over her. She’d been living with such unwanted attention since she was a teenager. Sober and in a public space, perverts were cowards. Putting the encounter out of her mind, Esper scanned Randall’s selection of holo-projectors.
They had a Martian Vision 1-meter projector, which was similar to what the Mobius had been using before Mort’s “incident.” It had seen better days, but the model was only two years old, so there was probably a limit to how much wear and tear it could have seen. There was also a Reali-Sim 2655 that went up to 3 meters. They could always set it lower for everyday use, but for special occasions a display area that size could fill half the common room. It would be like living in the holovid.
But something nagged at Esper’s mind as she inspected the projectors. On the shelf behind her was a wide array of datapads. She had been using a borrowed one so old that it probably ran on whale oil. The data rate was akin to sending smoke signals, and it could only connect to the omni through the Mobius. It was also a little scuffed, and much as she hated to admit it, that fact bothered her to no end. The pawnshop’s datapads weren’t all pristine, but some were pretty close. She picked up several and handled them, trying to find one that had a comfortable mix of weight (not too heavy, but heavy enough to feel sturdy), texture (smooth, but not slick enough to risk dropping), and color (glossy white was nice, glossy fuchsia or chartreuse would be better).
But money was an issue. Unmarked prices aside, she had a good idea what things would cost, and she’
d be lucky if she could get a decent holo-projector on her budget. Getting a new (to her) datapad would preclude any other purchases. And that was when an insidious thought crept into her head.
Datapads were small. She could fit one into the pocket inside her jacket. Cameras were watching, but that was nothing compared to the forcefield at the Gologlex Menagerie; her limited magic had proved more than sufficient to foul that up for a little while. It would probably get the lights too, and the shopkeepers data lenses. The inevitable hunger brought on by her magic use could easily be preempted by eating a couple of the raspberry-peach Snakki Bars she had in her pockets from shopping. She was no Mort. The devices would all be fine in a little while. Simple.
Esper was appalled. She was thirteen the last time she had shoplifted anything; it had been a datapad then, too. Her mother said she didn’t need a new one, and that Esper wasn’t going to blow all their money on trendy electronics. No one had caught her, and the guilt gnawed at her until she confessed to her priest, who made her return it. A hot wave of shame washed over her, and she set the datapads back on the shelf and left them alone.
Eyes met hers through the shelves. The next aisle over, the miner was watching her again. He coughed—a dry, rattling cough that bent him over at the waist—and looked away. That was the last straw. Esper hurried toward the exit; she could shop anywhere for a holo-projector, but things in Randall’s Resale were getting a bit too personal for her liking.
The miner cut her off. “Can’t keep your eyes off me, babe?” he asked, resting a hand on one of the shelves as he blocked her path. He reached a hand for her cheek and she slapped it away.
“Get out of my way,” she snapped. The miner flinched back, and his jacket swung open just enough for her to see the top of a datapad peeking out of his pocket. He had just been looking at those datapads; obviously he’d found one he liked. Esper gasped. “You’re a thief!”
She reached out and pulled open his jacket before considering the consequences. Esper might have felt the temptation, but she dismissed it. Calling attention to the miner proved to herself that she was the righteous one. Keeping silent would have made her complicit.
Of course, the righteous often face consequences.
“Hey!” the shopkeeper shouted. Though he made no move to come out from behind the counter, there was always the hope that he might intervene. And Esper felt the sudden need for a little intervention as the miner put a hand on her collar and shoved her against one of the shelves. She clung to his jacket—stupidly, she realized, but it was reflexive. Overbalanced, he tumbled down with her amid a shower of pre-owned electronics.
“Let go of me, you stupid bitch,” the miner snarled. A fist to the jaw set a flash of light behind Esper’s eyes. But Tanny’s training had developed new reflexes in her, and as soon as her head cleared, Esper brought her arms up to shield her face, and the next blow caught her on the forearm. The miner was atop her and struggling to regain his feet in the unstable pile of plastic and steel electronics casings.
She couldn’t let him get away with it—not just the theft, but the assault as well. Too much of her life of late was painted in gray; this was clear, crisp black and white. The right thing was to hold him, stop the thief from getting away, and wait for help. Taking hold of the miner’s wrist as he grabbed for a shelf for balance, she called on the universe for aid. Heal him. Speed his metabolism. Cause that stabbing hunger than always comes along with it. Esper didn’t bother with the mnemonic rhyme; there was no time for that, and the results didn’t need to be pretty.
They weren’t.
She had grown used to people doubling over or curling up when their body devoured all its reserves and demanded more sustenance. But the miner collapsed, wracked with agony, hacking and gasping for breath. Esper wrestled to get him off of her, but his convulsions made him too difficult to wrangle. The next moment he went limp and collapsed atop her in a heap. The miner lay still. His warm, dead weight pressed down, threatening to smother her.
All Esper could hear was her own ragged breathing and the tentative footsteps of the approaching shopkeeper. She was afraid to move. Her mind raced with possibilities, but looming over them all was the stark realization that the man draped over her was dead.
“What’d ya do?”
“I… I’m not sure.”
“Ya done killed Gerry. And… shee-it, my merchandise is all busted.” Footsteps pounded across the room. The slam of a hand, and red lights strobed overhead. A siren sounded.
Esper scrambled out from under the dead miner in the dark as the strobe provided scant help. All she could make out clearly were the door and front windows, where dim sunlight struggled to enter through dirty glass. She burst through the door to find Mriy preparing to go in after her.
“There you are,” Mriy said. “What’s going on in—”
“No time,” Esper said. She grabbed a couple of their bags at random from the sidewalk. “Let’s get out of here.”
Picking a direction at random, she stopped short. A pair of black-clad security officers jogged toward the pawn shop, stun batons in hand. Mriy tugged her by the arm. “Wrong way.”
Reversing direction brought them face to face with a second patrol pair. The four security officers spread out to hem them in. Through the speaker in his black, faceless helmet, one of them ordered, “Get down on the ground.”
Mriy dropped their shopping bags, and whipped out a blaster.
“No!” Esper jumped in front of the barrel as the security officers drew weapons of their own. She had no way of knowing whether local law enforcement kept theirs on stun or lethal, but knew that Mriy had no qualms about live fire on city streets.
“Drop the weapon!”
“I said on the ground!”
“Last chance. Drop. The. Weapon.”
Though they were surrounded, Esper ignored the officers and stared until she caught Mriy’s gaze with her own. The azrin looked away at first, but couldn’t focus on the security patrol while Esper’s eyes bore into her, welling with tears.
Esper patted the air. “Put it down. It’s me they want. I just… there was a… it’s all my fault!”
Mriy hesitated, but couched and set her blaster on the ground before raising her arms in surrender.
Esper turned to face her arresting officers. “She’s got nothing to do with this. It’s me you want. I’ll come quietly.”
“Subdue.”
Two of the officers holstered their blasters while the other two kept theirs out and aimed at Esper and Mriy. Esper held out her wrists and one of them snapped a pair of binders around them. The cuffs pulled her wrists tight together and squeezed until her fingers went tingly.
There was a electrical crackle as another of the officers jabbed Mriy with a stun baton. Mriy growled at the first jab, sucked in a hissing breath after the second, and fell limp after the fifth.
“I told you she had nothing to—”
But one jab of the stun baton was all it took to shock Esper into silence. Spots swam before her eyes, and firm hands grabbed her by the arms as she wobbled.
“Yeah, we heard you.”
A second jab and Esper blacked out.
# # #
The Rucker Resort was a bold name for a hotel, since most of the galaxy knew of the Ruckers as a criminal syndicate. It was also questionably accurate, since Calliope was a shithole. Unless they had some amazing guest facilities on the inside, Tanny was going to call bullshit on the place. Twelve stories wasn’t much in a heavily populated area, but out in the fringe of ARGO space it was bloated. It had a flat, gray concrete exterior highlighted with faux neon lighting. On the roof, a small but indiscreet gun emplacement kept it from having that home-away-from-home feel, unless you were from somewhere equally ugly and paranoid.
As a base of operations, though, Tanny had to give them credit. Plenty of room for guests of the syndicate, round-the-clock food service, and no one would wonder about the odd assortment of clientele. It was clever enough that Janic
e couldn’t have been the one to think of it, though there was a good chance she was the one who decided to plaster the Rucker name all over it.
A valet at the front entrance took custody of their hover-cruiser. There was a familiar look in his face, more a type than a specific set of features. Bulging at the seams of a crisp red and gold uniform, he would have looked more at home in a dark alley with a knife. Just inside the hotel, there was someone waiting for her whose features she truly did remember.
He was dressed in an Earth-style business suit with dark glasses pushed up onto his thinning hair, revealing gray eyes. “Good to see you, Miss Tania,” the familiar-looking man said, raising Tanny’s hackles. Her father’s lackeys had always called her that, and despite not recalling the man’s name, she had little doubt he’d guarded her at one time or another when she was young.
“Looks like you’ve come up in the world,” Tanny commented. To her mind, it was stating the obvious, but it brought a pensive look to the man’s face.
“If you ain’t never climbed to the top of a mountain, find one short enough what you can,” he replied. Straightening and making a visible attempt to appear professional, he hooked a thumb Bryce’s way. “This the guy?”
“Yup,” Carl replied. “Bill, meet Bryce Brisson, would-be data-scoundrel-for-hire. Bryce, this is Bill Harker.” Carl shook hands with Bill. “Nice place you guys’ve got here.”
Bill shrugged. “Ain’t Mars. Hell, ain’t even Earth. But we brought a little class to this rock. This guy of yours talk?”
“I… I do,” Bryce replied. “I just didn’t quite know—”
“Wonderful,” Bill said. “You can talk to Miss Janice. I ain’t a talker.” He turned to Carl. “So anyway, how’s that family of yours?”
They crossed the hotel lobby and took a gravity-stabilized elevator ride to the top floor. All the while, Carl and Bill caught up on old times as if they had met more than twice in their lives. Tanny just couldn’t understand how he did it. Carl was an imbecile of the highest order on subjects ranging from politics to gambling to basic ship maintenance. But he’d yak for hours with a total stranger until the two of them became the best of friends; he’d remember the poor sap until doomsday. He kept better track of her family and their various goons, lackeys, and middlemen than she ever could. To top it off they all liked him… even Janice.