Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  ‘You don’t need to, if you go to the source of the bio data,’ Gus said.

  Evie shook her head. She understood the basics of the universal identity system. The bio-identification data was the highest form of unique identifier for humans, maintained via the undisclosed black-box core of the Dawn Network security system. ‘It’s quantum-encrypted, decentralised, monitored… you couldn’t possibly—’

  ‘There are ways,’ Gus growled. ‘I could run a broad-range node scan and perform an invisible scatter swap on her bio data, completely under the blanket. However, it’s a resource-intensive process – can you pay?’

  Tredd nodded. ‘Let’s do it. How long will you need?’

  ‘The broad-range scan will take a few hours to complete.’ Gus sat down in front of a barricade of screens. ‘I’ll set it up now, and while it’s running, we can scan the girl.’

  Evie watched Gus operate his systems. She was fascinated about his set-up, but also the highly skilled manner in which he was manipulating data and conducting complex coding and decoding operations, while making sure there were no traces left behind for anyone to pick up, under the blanket, as he had said.

  Gus took support from the table as he stood up. ‘All right, let’s look at the girl while this runs. Aino, was it?’

  Aino nodded and stepped forward.

  ‘Lend a hand?’ Gus pointed to large piece of equipment on the side of the room between the overdrive data manipulator and a tall metallic cabinet.

  Tredd and Eddie helped Gus move a two-metre tower on wheels to the centre of the room, and turn it down so it became a cushioned table. It had a control panel on the side and a half circle of sensors on one end. Dozens of wires hung between them. Gus connected some of the loose ones to the underside of the terminal. His face had turned red from crouching. ‘Just lay down here, little Miss…’

  As Aino climbed on to the table, Evie could not help to think about Bells and her spider apparatus. While they shared similarities in their dark metallic design, this one was more makeshift, with unfinished surfaces, screws, lights and wires popping out everywhere. Aino looked up to the half circle over her head.

  ‘Don’t worry, dear, it’s just a scan, it won’t even touch you,’ Gus said as he started the machine. The scanner lit up and, with a hum and a crunch, started moving over Aino.

  Aino lay still, her hands by her side, and looked up. Brave girl, Evie thought.

  The scan was done in a minute, when the half circle stopped at the bottom end of the table. Gus pressed a few buttons and got a beep. ‘That’s it, you can come down now.’

  Aino jumped down from the table, and Gus sat down at his screen.

  ‘The results are in. Let me interpret this for you…’ Gus said, and ran through multiple screens of data.

  Everyone gathered around his chair and peered at the numbers, matrices and graphs appearing and disappearing on Gus’s command. They were all gibberish to Evie, and, by the looks of Tredd and Eddie, to them too.

  After a while, Gus stopped and said, ‘Well, I’ll be…’

  ‘What is it?’ Tredd asked, peering over Gus’s shoulder.

  Gus grunted. ‘It appears she’s 100% natural. Her blood markers, gut biome, and mineral balance come out better than for most people… She’s from a natural habitat, righto?’

  ‘She’s from Eura.’

  ‘Oh… as you are,’ Gus said, and turned to look at Tredd over his shoulder, ‘but unlike her, I’m sure your body’s full of rubbish—’

  ‘No, you’re not scanning me,’ Tredd said. ‘If she’s completely natural, how does she do it?’

  Evie thought about it. As far as she knew, unassisted telekinesis was impossible. However, with only her thoughts, Aino had made fighters scatter and stars crash.

  Gus stared at the screen and said, ‘Perhaps she doesn’t do it.’

  Tredd shook his head. ‘Show him.’

  Everyone else took a step back as Aino stepped forward. She stared at Gus with relaxed eyes, like she was bored. Evie understood why she wanted to be a normal girl. Now she was a circus freak everyone wanted to see perform. Then Gus’s chair started to move.

  ‘Watch out,’ he cried out, as he wheeled towards Eddie, who was examining the kit on the other side of the room. He turned around and jumped out of the way. Gus held on tight as his chair turned sharply to avoid a collision. He wheeled past his equipment and turned back. He looked terrified when the chair accelerated and headed straight towards the screen he had just been sitting at. Mid-room, the chair stopped accelerating, and slowed down to a gentle stop in the same spot he it started.

  Gus coughed and relaxed his grip on the armrests. ‘Did you really do that?’

  Aino nodded.

  ‘I’m gobsmacked,’ Gus said, panting. ‘How do you do it?’

  Aino shrugged.

  ‘That’s what I want to know too,’ Tredd said.

  Gus was catching his breath, his right hand on his chest. ‘Whatever it is, it’s not technology in her. It has to be something else.’

  ‘Moving objects with one’s mind doesn’t sound natural,’ Evie said, and seeing Aino frown, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just want to understand what it is – like you do, right?’

  ‘I guess…’ Aino said.

  ‘Let me do some research on her background,’ Gus said, and coughed. ‘It’ll be a while until the broad-range scan is complete.’

  ‘I can help you,’ Evie said, hoping an innocent offer for help could in exchange have her learn something from this old hacker.

  ‘Sure, I could use a hand.’

  ‘All right. I’ll leave you to it,’ Tredd said. He turned to Aino and extended his hand. ‘Let them play with their bits and bytes. Come with me, and I’ll show you what gets me excited.’

  Aino gave an unsure glance at Evie, like she was requesting her permission. It was natural, because Evie had built a trusting relationship with Aino, and Tredd could be quite annoying at times, but dangerous he was not.

  ‘Go ahead, I’m sure it’ll be fun.’

  Aino smiled and took Tredd’s hand. They started off towards the garage, and soon they were gone. Eddie sat down in front of a screen on the other side of the room. Evie rolled up a chair beside Gus.

  She marvelled at Gus’s systems. He had set up a powerful grid of cheap processing power hooked up to a massive array of atomic cluster stores, all connected to the main information artery of Spit City. That was impressive, but overshadowed by the software he ran. All of his data transmission was made invisible to outside observers by some sort of scattering protocol; there was a practically infinite number of looping security layers, a rare K-stack configuration running controlled super-intelligence algorithms, and that was just the tip of a star flare. It would have taken too long to explain the intricacies of how it all worked, and perhaps Gus kept it on a level to keep his secrets safe.

  ‘All right,’ Gus said, and pulled back from the screen. ‘It’s done; we can now look into this.’

  ‘Can you look up anyone’s data in the Dawn Net on this?’ Evie asked.

  ‘Too easy, it’s all here now,’ he said, and leaned against the table with his elbow. ‘Want to see what they got on you?’

  ‘Yes…’ she started, but hesitated. ‘No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘No dramas,’ Gus said, and continued working. He made a few moves on the screen with his fingers, and although they were already old, they moved faster than Evie could think. Suddenly her picture appeared on the screen, along with a lot of data.

  Evie gasped.

  Gus peered in, fixing his eyes on a line of text Evie didn’t want him to see. ‘Suspected of murder, huh?’

  Evie felt her face become hot. She glanced over her shoulder. Eddie was still sitting in front of a screen few metres behind her. Feeling ruffled, Evie hoped he hadn’t heard Gus.

  ‘I told you not to look at my data,’ she said, in a suppressed but agitated voice, and reached out to cover
the screen with both hands. She could almost feel herself gripping the blindfold she had squeezed tight around Ash’s neck, like in a sad waking dream. She felt her eyes fill up with tears.

  Gus swiped the view aside and turned to Evie. It was impossible to tell what he thought. ‘What did you do, girl?’

  Evie felt like bursting out in tears, but suppressed it to a silent weeping. She could not stop the tears though. She wiped her eyes against her sleeve, glancing behind to see if Eddie had noticed. Then she whimpered, ‘I loved him, but he became too rough, too violent. In the end it was self-defence, but nobody will believe me.’

  Gus sat still and silent, as if considering her story.

  Sobbing, she wiped the corner of her eye. ‘Please don’t tell the others.’

  ‘I’ve no reason to do that,’ Gus whispered. ‘Not to a fellow RogueRunner.’

  ‘Wha—’ It took a second for Evie to grasp what he had just said. RogueRunners was the name of the faction in which she, and hundred others, worked together in Momentum 6.

  ‘I’m “Santa5k”. You’re “Xaonjoie”, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh… You’re Santa5k?’ She had been on multiple runs with Santa5k and even done paired quests together, but both had hidden their real lives behind their character avatars. I always thought he was a young lad…

  ‘Yup,’ Gus said, spreading his arms. ‘I look a bit different in the flesh, but it’s me.’

  Evie couldn’t help but smile. ‘Well, my avatar’s a bit more voluptuous than I am,’ she said, holding her waist and looking down.

  ‘You’re not a bit less charming,’ he said with a smile.

  Evie smiled too, but just for a moment. She glared at her data on the screen. She turned back to Gus and whispered, ‘Please don’t tell anyone about this.’

  His eyes under his heavy grey eyebrows wore a kind expression. ‘You’re not a murderer.’

  Evie sighed in relief. Feeling hopeful, she asked, ‘Are you able to hack the ID data?’

  Gus grunted. ‘A little, but I can’t remove something like this.’

  She bit her nail.

  ‘But I can make it difficult for anyone to spot it.’

  ‘Thank you so much!’ She bent down to hug the old man, and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘NICE TATTOO,’ Eddie said.

  Evie was watching Gus work from afar, completely lost in thought. She was intrigued by his methods, most of which were completely foreign to her, to the extent that if she was a level-ten hacker, he was perhaps level 100. Their skills gap made anything Gus did with his systems utterly incomprehensible to Evie. For a while she had managed to follow his actions, but he was too fast, too intense. She shook her head, thinking, I couldn’t keep up with an old man…

  Eddie waved his hand in front of her. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ Evie pushed herself up.

  ‘It’s nothing, I was just admiring your tattoo there. What is it?’

  She loved her tattoo, and although it reminded her of Ash – she had got it when they started hanging out – it was not about him, but a distinct part of her. It was something of a popular discussion topic. ‘That sounded like a pick-up line.’

  Eddie took a step back and raised his palms in front of him. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  Evie smirked. ‘It’s fine, really. It’s a highly visualised string of DNA, and when I tell the boys it runs down between my breasts, around to the small of my back and down here,’ she said pointing between her legs, ‘they start producing terrible pick-up lines to get me undressed… So now I just tell everyone that it doesn’t go much further down the collar.’

  Eddie raised an eyebrow, and Evie experienced an awkward silence. She started to feel her face blushing.

  ‘You have an interesting past, I see,’ Eddie said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I saw what Gus did with your record.’

  Evie swallowed. She took a step forward and whispered, ‘How did you—’

  ‘Everyone has a secret… and I’m not going to pry into yours,’ he said with a tight-lipped smile.

  Evie lifted her gaze. Eddie’s face was neutral, a mask through which she couldn’t decipher his thoughts. It made her feel uneasy, and as his eyes met hers, she looked away.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Eddie said, touching her arm. He was trying to make Evie feel less uncomfortable, but it didn’t work.

  ‘I’m about done here,’ Gus said, and turned around in his chair.

  Saved. Evie shook Eddie off, and ran to Gus. ‘Is it all good?’

  ‘It is all good,’ Gus said with a wink, which was meant for Evie, but no doubt also observed by Eddie, who had materialised by her. ‘Perhaps we should wait for Tredd and the girl?’

  ‘Of course,’ Evie said, and took a chair beside him. ‘I just wanted to ask… how do you know all of this stuff?’

  ‘Experience, young lady, experience,’ he replied with a sigh as he turned around in his chair. ‘I’m an old man, fiddled with these things my whole life…’

  From somewhere she didn’t know, she remembered an old phrase: ‘Old hackers never die – only young ones do, right?’

  Gus chuckled. ‘I hope you’re right. And you, young hacker, be careful out there.’

  Evie swept her hair back and nodded. If I only could do what he did… With his techniques, what couldn’t I do? It would be a dream come true. She wanted to learn his secrets, but couldn’t just bluntly ask… Then again, why not?

  As Gus was turning around, she said, ‘I want to be an old hacker too. Can you teach me?’

  Gus fixed his eyes on Evie’s. They were greyish blue, with a few visible red veins, and surrounded by thick lines as he squinted. ‘You want to be an old hacker?’

  ‘I mean… I saw you working and…’ She felt awkward, at a loss for words, and like she was blushing.

  Gus shook his head. ‘I can’t make you an old hacker. You need to travel your own journey, and perhaps one day, you will be there. You see, these things here,’ he said, pointing at the machinery around them, ‘they are part of me. They cannot be you. You must find it for yourself.’

  Evie sighed and slouched back in the chair. It was clear that he was not going to teach her. Perhaps he was right, she had to walk her own path, but at the moment it was a blur. If the path even was there, it was behind a veil of uncertainty. Evie felt at a loss, and frowned.

  ‘I really don’t like a sad face on a pretty girl,’ Gus said. ‘Tell you what, I’ll partition out a few things for you to check out.’

  Evie had no idea about what those ‘things’ would be, but it was a step forward. She was eager to get into it, whatever it was. ‘That would be awesome,’ she said with a smile as she straightened her back.

  ‘Now that pretty face just became prettier,’ Gus said. He coughed once, and then couple of times more, a chesty spluttering, making his face redden and accentuating the veins in his eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Gus said, and swallowed audibly.

  Evie couldn’t remember when she had last seen someone cough like that – not even Inanna had coughed – as it was so simple to fix a pair of lungs. ‘I’d have that checked and upgraded—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah…’ Gus said, waving her off. ‘It’s nothing, really.’

  Just then, Aino ran forth from the garage, seemingly flustered. Tredd followed, pacing behind her. Aino ran straight to Gus, all bouncy, and her big pink eyes wide. ‘My dad has the same ship!’

  This was the first time Evie had seen her excited. ‘A ship?’

  Aino nodded towards Tredd.

  Tredd cleared his throat. ‘Apparently her father has a Petals just like yours.’

  Eddie raised an eyebrow, Gus nodded approvingly, and Evie stared at Tredd with a blank gaze. She had no idea what they were talking about. ‘Petals?’

  ‘A rare ship, a collector’s item,’ Gus said. ‘Tredd’s got a bit of history with that particular model.’


  Aino jumped right in front of Gus and looked up. ‘He didn’t want to tell me.’

  ‘Yes, little one, perhaps that story is best left untold.’ Gus placed a hand on Aino’s shoulder and glanced at Tredd. ‘But what I can tell you is that he is referring to a collector’s item – a very rare craft. I assume you went to see my baby over there.’

  ‘It was as beautiful as ever,’ Tredd said with a dreamy expression, making Evie wonder what it was with men and things you could fly. He continued, ‘Aino here tells me her father has a similar one.’

  ‘It’s the same. The same!’ Aino stomped the floor to emphasize her words.

  ‘Is your father a collector as well?’

  Aino shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s the craft he flies, though I don’t recall him ever being moony-eyed over it like you.’

  ‘Boys and their toys,’ Evie said. Aino, while young, it seemed, had grasped the essence of what separated most men and boys from the better folks.

  Gus scratched his head behind the ear. ‘As far as I know, only seven S-models like mine exist, and at least two of them have been taken out of the register. Let us take a look, kids.’ He motioned towards his kit.

  As Gus turned back to his systems, Evie sprang right beside him to see what he did. She wanted to see everything. Everyone else also gathered around to look.

  ‘You know,’ Gus said, looking back at Evie, ‘anyone can look this up on the Net.’

  Evie knew it, but in addition to finding Aino’s father, she was keen to see the interfaces Gus used. While Gus said anyone could look up the information, what he had on the screen was very different to what you would normally see. It seemed as if he had his own gateway to the Dawn Network.

  ‘Here you go,’ Gus said as he pulled up the information. Controlled things happened even when he made no physical actions. He must have a communications implant, Evie thought. Five cards appeared on the screen. ‘The first one is me.’

  Everyone leaned forward around Gus’s chair. Evie could read the registration for Gus’s craft, and the four lines below it.