by M. D. Cooper
Tanis let a mischievous smile form on her lips. “Don’t worry, Kaebel. I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Really?”
“I swear.”
Tanis already had her room and access codes, so—after making sure Kaebel reached the front desk without further mishap—she walked to the lifts and took a car up to her room on floor sixty-seven.
When she stepped into the single room suite—which already had several containers of her ubiquitous luggage stacked against one wall—she let out a sad sigh.
“OK, I’ve become spoiled. I’m half-wishing that Claire could have come. Multi-room suites are niiiice.”
“Seriously?” Tanis groaned. “Is that what I’m being called?”
“People have no imagination. Obviously I should be ‘Bella the Beautiful’.”
“Maybe a bit,” Tanis admitted. “Neural patterns from repeated behavior aren’t so easily undone.”
“You’re all heart, Darla,” Tanis replied as she fell backward onto the bed and closed her eyes. “So, what is other me up to?”
“And the Jones? Is it still en route?” Tanis knew she could have checked on her own, but at the moment, she just wanted to relax and not worry about whatever mysterious nonsense she was tied up in.
Tanis nodded without opening her eyes. “With you there. I’d expect him to at least ping for an update—especially now that I’ve arrived at Simon’s last known location.”
With a long groan, Tanis sat up again. “Well, firstly, you need to do your legal-not-legal tapping into the hotel’s networks. Then I want to have a look at the room Simon stayed in.”
“ETA?”
“No rest for the weary,” Tanis said with a long groan as she pushed herself off the bed and rose to her feet.
DINNER AND A DRINK
STELLAR DATE: 02.21.4084 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The Golden Gazelle, Hunting Lodge
REGION: Ceres, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Half an hour later, Tanis had taken a tour through the hotel, leaving passels of breach nano in convenient locations for Darla to use.
Her route had taken her around to the lobby, and she eyed the restaurant that was set over on one side, ultimately deciding that a bit of human company was better than room service at the moment.
Tanis approached the host standing at the entrance to the restaurant and held up a single finger. “Just me.”
“Would you care to sit at the bar?” the man asked, and Tanis saw that most of the restaurant’s tables were filled. She got his point that the establishment preferred to save their tables for groups during dinnertime.
“Of course,” she replied, walking past the man as he gestured in the direction of the bar.
Tanis pulled herself up onto a barstool and palmed the panel in front of herself to pull up the menu.
Tanis looked down at her stomach and patted it.
“Is this seat taken?” a voice asked from next to Tanis, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Kaebel’s smiling face.
“Kaebel! No, please.”
“Thanks, I kinda get lonely on these business trips sometimes; it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Or catch me if I fall.”
Tanis resisted the urge to groan aloud.
“Oooor not,” Kaebel said, giving Tanis a sidelong look.
“Sorry, I just got pinged on the Link. I’m one hundred percent here, now.”
“Oh, sorry.” He waved the bartender over. “I only got my Link a few years back. I don’t use it as much as other people do.”
The bartender approached, and Tanis glanced up at him.
“Give me a Coronal Mass Ejection on the rocks,” she said.
“I’ll go with a whiskey,” Kaebel added. “Something good, but not top shelf.”
“You got it,” the bartender replied. “On your rooms?”
“Yeah,” Tanis said, while Kaebel shook his head. “No, my company doesn’t like drinks on the expense report, I—”
“Don’t sweat it.” Tanis placed a hand on his wrist and glanced at the bartender. “I’ve got him covered.”
“You sure?” Kaebel asked.
“And here I thought I was the one who needed a friend,” Kaebel said placing his hand close to Tanis’s.
While Bella was skilled in the martial arts, one of her quirks was that she was a serious flirt. The dossier didn’t go into a lot of detail, but from what Tanis could infer, the flirting often translated into sexual flings—luckily just with men.
Tanis wasn’t patently against having sex with women, but it would involve a lot of faking. Kaebel was cute in a boyish, young man sort of way. His mousy brown hair was a touch too long for the style it was cut in, and his almost amber eyes were wide and sincere. If she had to get romantic with him, it would involve very little faking.
“I spend a lot of time hoppin
g from place to place,” Tanis said with a warm smile, “—as I suspect you do, plying your company’s wares. I spend a lot more time inside starship cabins than I’d like.”
“I’ve only made a few trips so far.” Kaebel picked up his whiskey while the bartender began preparing Tanis’s Coronal Mass Ejection. “I did a convention on Mars last month, and I was on Cruithne a few weeks before that—stars…what a shithole that was.”
“I’ve swung through Cruithne once or twice,” Tanis said with a knowing smile. “You just have to know where to go. The lowspin docks are where the good times are. Not to mention their Night Park. Did you know there have been parrots and ravens living in that park for over a thousand years?”
Kaebel grimaced. “Yeah, I passed through that place. The ravens all called me ‘pretty boy’ and told me to go home.”
Tanis gave a bubbling laugh and placed her hand on his arm again. “Well, they’re not all wrong.”
The man’s eyes lit up, and she saw his body temperature rise a degree.
“Well…I’m only twenty-nine,” Kaebel replied after he regained his composure. “Long way from my first rejuv.”
“I’ve had a couple already,” Tanis replied. “Wasn’t so bad.”
“Oh? You don’t look like it. Sometimes people get a bit of a plastic look.”
Tanis chuckled and shook her head. “You can get a whole new skin grown if you want. Anyone with a plastic look has it because they like it. I’ve not needed a full skin-job yet, though. You only have to get that if you wait too long.”
“Oh, I guess I kinda knew that.”
The conversation faltered there, and Tanis wondered where to take it next. Then her drink showed up, and she took a sip, eyes widening as the alcohol hit the back of her throat.
“Oh, stars! That’s…that’s….”
“That’s why I stick to whiskey,” Kaebel grinned. “I never did ask, Bella, why are you on Ceres?”
Tanis nodded to the mountains visible outside the window. “I’m here to commune with the spirts.”
“Say what?” Kaebel’s eyes widened.
“The spirits.” She nodded with all the sincerity she could muster. “They say that the spirits of the dead Andersonians linger in the mountains, and if you go deep enough, you’ll encounter the minds of ancient AIs, echoing their thoughts in dark canyons.”
His eyes narrowed. “OK, now I know you’re pulling my leg.”
“I know there aren’t a lot of people who believe in spirituality anymore,” Tanis said in the most serene voice she could muster. “But we’re still out there. Just because we have science doesn’t mean we don’t have souls. And when the body dies, those souls linger. I know, I can sense them.”
Tanis could tell by the look on Kaebel’s face that she’d taken it too far.
“Or, if I can’t find any of them, I’ll just sit on a mountaintop and meditate for a bit. Maybe I can divine the winner of the next System Cup and place a bet.”
Kaebel almost spit out his whiskey as he burst out laughing, drawing a few stares.
“You had me going there, Bella. I didn’t think you could be quite that…wispy between the ears.”
Tanis shrugged and winked at the man. “Well, I do plan to climb a mountain and sit on top of it for a bit. I don’t expect to encounter any ancient spirits, but a lot did happen here; I’ll think on it for a bit, remember what the lives lost on Ceres mean to all of us.”
“That’s deep,” Kaebel nodded. “Though I think I’ll stick to flat ground as much as possible. Just the thought of trying to climb one of these mountains sets my head spinning.”
“They’re not that tall,” Tanis said. “I’ve climbed both Olympus Mons on Mars, and Rheasilvia on Vesta. Both of those are about twenty-two kilometers, base to peak. Though Olympus is just massive—takes forever to walk up the thing. Rheasilvia is smaller, just over a hundred klicks’ walk to the top. Ahuna Mons out there is just four klicks. Kid stuff.”
“I’ve heard there are a lot of caves and ruins in the central range out there,” Kaebel said. “Stuff from when the first ring came down.”
“Well, if you check the ancient maps, Ceres didn’t used to have a mountain range here. Just Ahuna Mons all by its lonesome. From what I read, even the hills right out behind the hotel are just made of dirt mounded on ring ruins and slag and crashed ships from the war.”
Kaebel whistled. “Now that I’d like to explore. I’m curious, though. Are those massive mountains on Mars and Vesta harder to climb than a Terran mountain? I mean…it probably takes a lot more energy to climb something like Everest in one gee than Olympus Mons in point four.”
Though she’d never climbed Everest, she had scaled the other peaks she claimed, speaking with many climbers who compared them to Earth’s mountains.
Tanis snorted. “Tell me that when you’ve climbed a peak the size of France. Don’t get me wrong, Everest is a beast. Weather there is a nightmare, but Olympus gets some crazy, crazy winds, and its mostly covered in glaciers now, too.”
“Growing up in Mexico, I’m not a big fan of winter,” Kaebel replied.
“Well it’s kinda always winter on Olympus Mons. But the real challenge is the Scarps on the southeast side. Twice as tall as Everest, and running on for hundreds of klicks. Makes the Himalayas look like a kid’s sandbox.” She took another sip of her CME, then wagged her finger at Kaebel. “And don’t let anyone tell you that less than half a gee makes it easy. That’s like saying climbing four kilometers straight up is easy on Earth.”
Kaebel held his hands up, a grin on his lips. “Hey, I never said that. I’m just curious. You’re a crazy-impressive woman, Bella.”
Tanis gave him a wink and a nod, not adding in that her first climb of the Scarps had been when she was eighteen.
“You know,” Tanis said after another throat burning sip of her drink. “I’m on Mars a lot. You should look me up if you visit again. I’ll take you up.”
“You sure?” Kaebel asked. “You saw me on the stairs.”
“Well, you’ve been on Mars before. Did you have as much trouble there?”
He tilted his head. “No, I suppose not. I guess gravity being double what it is here on Ceres helps.”
“Yeah, it gets into the range where even Earth muscles feel normal. Still puts you at a pretty serious advantage when it comes to arm wrestling matches, too.”
Kaebel snorted. “Don’t think you’re going to make a bet with me about an arm wrestle. Like I said, I saw what you did to that guy up on Insi. You’d kick my ass.”
“You have mods?” Kaebel asked, glancing down at Tanis’s body, his gaze lingering a bit longer than necessary.
“Not muscular,” she lied. “I mean, I have a human body. I train in simulated one gee, so there’s no reason for me to not be as strong as a top athlete on Earth. Really what it comes down to is that a lot of Terrans are snobs.”
A look of worry crossed Kaebel’s face, and Tanis touched his arm again. “Oh, not you Kabe! Can I call you ‘Kabe’?”
Darla laughed softly.
“Yeah, you can call me that. Some of my friends do.”
Tanis laughed and lifted her hand away. “Well, you have to call me Bella. ‘Bell’ just makes me sound like I need to be rung.”
Over the next few hours, Tanis and Kaebel ordered meals, his a burger with bacon that had Tanis almost salivating, while she selected a kale salad that almost made her cry to have to eat.
Her flirting improved, and when they finally parted ways, she was certain that he believed he had a chance with her—just not that night.
A part of Tanis wondered what it would be like. She’d never had casual, no strings attached sex with a virtual stranger, but by the same token, her memories of a brief time with Peter were still fresh, and she didn’t want to cloud them with another partner.
As they walked back up to the room, Darla informed Tanis that Kaebel had been entirely clean, almost a perfectly stock human—just his Link and a few memory enhancing mods.
Tanis opened the door to her room and edged around the containers in the short hall, eyeing the bed and thinking of a good night’s sleep.
Darla snorted.