by RJ Johnson
Omar quickly secured a portion of climbing wire to his belt and to the safety railing. He jumped over the railing and began rappelling quickly down the pit's walls. Omar was no idiot, and he would not be taken off-guard by Sinjakama as easily as Rincon's security had been.
Sinjakama quickly turned the gravity in the Pit off again and pushed himself down towards the bottom. Reaching the ground, Sinjakama considered kissing it, but he didn't have that kind of time. With a quick swipe of his finger, he re-engaged the Pit’s gravity and stood, moving quickly towards the life-pod he had installed into the Mass Driver's launcher moments before. Uncovering the hatch, he opened it and began to quickly activate the life pod's systems for the long trip home as he had been shown and practiced so many times in drills.
“You’re too late Dr. Sinjakama.” A voice called from the shadows. Even now, when Sinjakama thought it couldn't get any hotter in the pit, there was was a chill in the air.
Sinjakama screwed his eyes shut. Not him, anyone but him.
“Did you hear me Dr. Sinjakama?” The man emerged from the shadows holding a Rattler, a powerful small arms weapon favored by those in Downtown. Weapons not held by Koschei's security forces were considered illegal, but that did not stop a few enterprising individuals in Downtown from re-purposing the hand held laser coders they used to tag the ORI with into rather effective, if not crude, weapons.
Sinjakama swiped at his Armbar and frantically pushed the send message button several more times, but received no confirmation in return.
“That’s no use to you I’m afraid, as we've already shut down off-site communications when we suspected you might know of our...” the man’s face smiled a bit, “plans for Rosetta here.”
“You won't get away with this you know.” Even as Sinjakama said the words, he knew they rang as hollow as this asteroid had become. He slid the thumb drive into his pocket, and turned to face the man who would bring his death. If he was to die, he would do it on his feet, staring at the man who would be his doom.
The man smiled and glanced up at Omar Rodriguez who was still descending quickly into the Pit. He had just enough time.
“Perhaps not, but I think my chances are much greater than your own at this point.” Lazarus Rincon said as he lifted the heavy weapon in his hands firing it. Sinjakama felt the bolt of energy go through him, and then, he felt nothing at all.
Vicktoria followed Rincon out of the shadows. “Pity. I could have made so much more off that man.”
“Did he have any proof?” Rincon asked Vicktoria as she nudged the prostrate scientist on the ground.
“Not that he mentioned. He only told me he discovered a programming error, which I took to mean the subroutine.”
“That was enough to scare him off the station?” Rincon asked, as he stared at Sinjakama's unmoving corpse.
“The man knew what he saw. Wouldn't that be enough for you?” Vicktoria looked up at Omar who was approaching them quickly. “He'll be here at any minute.”
Lazarus smirked at Omar was was only a few hundred feet above them now. “I suppose we will have to move up our timetable.” Lazarus replied softly.
Vicktoria and Rincon turned to the Tunway that would lead them back to Rincon's bar in Downtown. “Will there be enough time?” She asked the worry evident in her voice.
Rincon turned, and looked over at Omar who was detaching himself from the rappelling cable.
“If there isn't, we die.”
Lazarus and Vicktoria both ducked into the shadows moving quickly towards the entrance to the tunway before getting into a Rampet and quickly accelerating up and away from The Pit and back to Downtown.
Omar disconnected the climbing wire, and ran to the prostate body of Sinjakama. He shined a light over at the Tunway entrance looking for any sign of Sinjakama's killers. Cursing the dark, he typed quickly on his Armbar, and a tall thin man appeared in holographic form projected out of Omar's Armbar.
“What's happened?" The man's speech was clipped with a slight Russian accent. His eyes narrowed. Koschei was a handsome man, high cheekbones, a thin jutting jaw, and a high sloped forehead. A chinstrap beard rounded out the rest of his face, on which, his anger was clearly evident.
“Sinjakama's dead. Someone got to him before I could.”
The figure stood silent on his arm for a moment, considering the implications.
“Any indication as to why he was abandoning his post?”
“Not that I can tell, I haven't had a chance to examine the body yet.”
“Search him, thoroughly. Take a scan of his ArmBar and bring his body back to the Med-bay for proper examination. Any data cores or infodrives you find, bring directly to me.”
“He shit himself.” Omar said in disgust, looking at the prostrate scientist.
“No one said examining a dead body was pleasant.” Koschei replied in an amused voice.
Omar leaned down and wirelessly connected his ArmBar to Sinjakama's. As it copied the information off the engineer's ArmBar, Omar began searching through Sinjakama's pockets. In the right front pocket, he discovered an infodrive the size of his thumb. He grabbed it and displayed it to the holographic Koschei projected out of Omar's ArmBar.
“He had this in his pocket.”
“Transfer the data to me.” Koschei ordered.
Omar opened the cap to the data core and inserted it into his ArmBar. Scrambled data began to show on the readout of Koschei's screen as he turned to examine the workstation at his desk.
“It's encoded with a rotating 256 sigma key encryption. Even with every Quantum processor we had running in parallel for...” Omar quickly did the math in his head, “five years, we wouldn't crack ten percent of the data on that disk.” Omar said disgusted. “Whatever Sinjakama was up to, the secret died with the man.”
Koschei stared at his workstation screen for a moment looking over the encoded data and considered his options.
Sinjakama was a careful man, and likely left a pass code to the information somewhere, Koschei thought to himself. He would not allow something that scared him enough to abandon Rosetta to be lost forever. The fact it was so heavily encoded meant it was incredibly important to Dr. Sinjakama, and therefore, that meant it was important to Koschei.
“His son won’t let us sweep his death under the rug.” Omar continued, looking at his boss with his cruel gray eyes. “That Sinjakama of yours was a good way to assuage the Elder's concerns, but his death won't go uninvestigated. The Consortium WILL have to ask questions.”
Koschei sighed.
“You’re right of course.” Koschei considered it for a moment longer. “I don’t suppose just air locking his body would do it…”
“And have him marked as a disappearance instead? That would only create more problems than it solves.” Omar shook his head, “Personally, I like the idea of pushing him off the top of the Pit better. We might be able to make a convincing case for suicide.”
Koschei shook his head. “Not with Sinjakama I’m afraid....”
He closed his eyes, thinking of every option until a slow smile began spreading across his face.
“Take Sinjakama's body to the Med-bay. Once they've gone over his body with a fine tooth comb, take it to the top of the Pit and drop him off the side. We'll make his death look like an accident which ought to satisfy any problems with the Consortium.”
“What about his son?” Rodriguez asked impatiently, “if he comes to Rosetta and stirs up trouble, and the investors hear about it," Rodriguez paused to emphasize the point, "That would mean the end of your administration here.”
“If…” Koschei paused, mentally correcting himself knowing the Consortium Government as he did, “when Atel Sinjakama comes asking questions, we will assist his investigation in every way possible.”
“Sir!” Omar began to protest. When he saw his bosses’ face on the viewscreen, Koschei's expression kept him from protesting any more. "That man has enough influence to get The Consortium to take over your operations, he
may be young but..."
“Do it Mr. Rodriguez.”
Omar stared at the man and not for the first time, felt a shiver of fear go through his spine. Omar was a man who wasn't afraid of much, but Koschei was the exception to that rule.
“Sir!” Omar said stiffly, “If we don’t handle this right everything we've…err…you’ve built will be destroyed. And then what? All this for nothing!”
Koschei looked at Omar through his viewscreen and smiled. “Mr. Rodriguez, a chess game is quite often won or lost in the first move. Someone has decided to make the first move on me and has begun the game for us. I’m afraid whatever happens next, is inevitable.”
With that, the 3D projection of Koschei winked out and Omar stood alone with only three dead bodies for company.
Chapter One
“You think you’ve got enough to take it down do ya?” The man’s steely eyed gazed was fixed upon him, searching for something, anything that might give away what the slouching man sitting across the table from him held as hole cards.
“I think I have more than you do.” Jim Meade replied, a sly smile spreading across his face. He pushed one hundred credits into the pot. “Strike that,” Meade added another hundred credits to his bet, “I know I have more than you do, and if you’d ever learn how to bet Reggie, you wouldn’t be so damned easy to read.”
The miner’s face scrunched up in anger. Shaking his head, he laughs and throws his cards into the pile. “Take my credits you sunnabitch.”
Laughing Meade raked the credits into his pile. Flashing his cards face up, he shows the miner across from him a busted straight draw.
The miner’s eyes open wide in surprise and he began to curse loudly in Russian.
With a wide smile, Meade winked at the miner. “Like I said, still better than what you were holding.”
A loud bell rang and the mood in the noisy casino suddenly changed. Every game in the place suddenly came to a complete stop as every miner in the place looked up expectantly at the rotating electronic display positioned high above all their heads. The markets were about to open and the daily price of ORI was about to be announced. Depending on the price, a man might figure it was worth going to work that day, or whether to stay and hopelessly try and win his daily ration money from one of his fellow miners. The only person who won in that deal was the House - not that it ever stopped anyone from trying.
Meade shook his head. The last two weeks worth of ORI prices had been in the toilet. It was getting to the point where a man couldn't make a living and ended up spending more on supplies for his mining than what he made in daily ORI mining, some men were spending most of their life awake just to stay ahead of the game. The Coalition just couldn't keep up with The Consortium's recent price fixing.
A loud female voice came over the loudspeaker. "Daysol price of ORI is expected to sell at two hundred and fifty-two credits per troy ounce. Repeat, Daysol price of ORI is expected to sell at two hundred and fifty-two credits per troy ounce. The Coalition wishes you a good Daysol."
The grumbling became audible. One disagreeable miner in the back yelled out, "Fuck those price-fixing Consortium motherfuckers." A roar of approval came up from the crowd as the miner's companions around him cheered and clapped him on the back.
Meade shook his head. The Coalition was going to have a bigger problem than just a flagging economy on their hands sooner rather than later with these moles on Mars. Meade sighed, it wasn't his problem, and he'd best make his escape now before he had to spend the next five hours nodding sympathetically to all the men at the table and murmur appropriate disgust at the parties who might be at fault for the shitty economy.
Meade had no use for politics. Consortium or Coalition, it was all the same to him. He had no loyalty. He was what Martian citizens considered a Runabout – someone who was born on Mars and hadn't taken citizenship in either of the two major powers still jockeying for control over people.
Meade removed his hat and began scooping the chips into it.
“Gentlemen, I hate to take your leave so early…”
“Bullshit!” Ivan, another miner Meade had taken a fair amount of credits from that night, called out to him.
“But, I’d rather leave you something to feed your families with tonight.” Meade finished. He moved towards the door as the men and women behind him began jeering. "Good Sol, ladies and gents."
The ArmBar on his wrist buzzed again. Meade looked at the message and shook his head. It was bad enough it had rung in the middle of his hand. He had almost twitched while the miner was scrutinizing him for any sign of weakness. Fortunately, Meade had been playing cards long enough to be past such rookie mistakes. Almost anyways, Meade admitted to himself. No need to get overconfident. Rule number 15, and one he had the most trouble remembering.
Moving over to the bar, he spilled the chips onto the bar in front of the gorgeous bartender wearing an outfit that would be better used to catch fish rather than cover a woman's modesty.
“Another good night for you, yes?” A Ukrainian by birth, Roxanne had been scooped up early by The Consortium as an “entertainer” for miners living off of the Homeworld. After five years of torturous labor in the Consortium mining colonies on the moon, she had scraped enough together to pay off her contract to The Consortium. After being released from their service, she moved to Mars to work as a bartender in the largest casino on Mars. It was a better gig than the last one she had, and Roxanne liked to joke that she spent considerably less time on her back on Mars. Thousands of working men and women passed through the nearby spaceport every day, and it seems like none of them ever passed up a chance for a cold beer, a warm woman, or a friendly game of poker.
Meade finished dumping out the chits on the bar. Smiling broadly at the beautiful redheaded vixen, he waved his arms over his treasure for the night. “You could say that.”
Roxanne began stacking the chips into stacks. “You have all their take home money you know. Half of ‘em…”
“Half of ‘em have no business at that table to begin with.” Meade replied sharply. “No man stays away 'til it really matters. Rule numero 23.”
“Teaching ‘em all a lesson eh?” Roxanne smirked at him. “Big tough Runabout looking to prove himself smarter than all the moles eh?”
“Roxy, it takes more than smarts to know when you’ve had enough at the tables and I am just a cog in the grand wheel of karma helping those poor lost souls smarten up.” Meade winked at her. “Just settle me up and put it on my account.”
“The folks in the Deep seen enough troubles the last few years without you cleaning them out.” Roxanne added as she poured him a shot. Meade grabbed the proffered glass and slurped it down gratefully, the warm liquid traveling down his throat. Roxanne distilled her own whiskey, and she was damn good at it.
“It's not my fault the price of ORI dropped quicker than your panties after a bottle of tequila.” Meade shot back.
“The price of ORI...” Roxanne's voice dropped sarcastically as she leaned forward on her elbows watching the miners start another round, “always someone else who's responsible eh?” She nodded towards them, “They're gonna have to live on SUMP and crackers for the next two weeks thanks to you.”
“The Consortium opening up Rosetta fucked a lot of people's lives up, I'll give you that.” Meade raised his glass and saluted the men still in the poker game. “But you're mad at the wrong person hun. Get mad at the Consortium for wanting their little slice of the heavens and undercutting the Coalition's price ORI by sixty percent. Get mad at The Coalition for not subsidizing the ORI Mars is able to produce. Get mad at the Warlords for not investing in anything other than their own pathetic greedy lives.” He finished the drink and set the glass back on the bar. “I like my fruit, my hamburgers, a fine whiskey and at two and a half per ounce, eventually those fellas ain't gonna have too much money for me to take. I need all the extra those fellas can spare if'n I'm going to retire an orbital city someday.”
Roxanne snorte
d and took his glass, throwing it haphazardly into the bin. “I'm so happy it's going to a good cause.”
Meade lowered his voice, “Well Roxy, if it'll restore your faith in the better angels of my nature, bring 'em a top shelf bottle on me. Maybe the buzz will help the boys come up with a decent explanation for their wives when they get home and there's no money for the wireless again.”
Roxanne’s smile slowly spread back across her face, “You’re an asshole Jim Meade, but a generous one, I’ll give you that.”
Meade tipped his hat to the fiery bartender, and put on his duster. The long, reddish brown coat waved behind him as he moved towards the door and exited into the main thoroughfare.