by M J Gauntlet
“Look, I think I can bring the price down for a fellow Laster,” Jik said sheepishly. “Obviously, you really need this and eunits are not easy to come by for any of us. Are you sure you need this one? I really do have others that are almost just as good and won’t put such a dent in the eunit balance.”
“Thank you for your understanding, but as you said, units are hard to come by,” Zax replied, making up his mind, “and that means for you too. So, I will take it, providing you show me how to work it.”
The man beamed a smile at Zax, then walked over to him and placed the unit over his head and tucked it out of sight, beneath his tunic. It rested comfortably; on top of his mother’s necklace he was already wearing. Jik, then slipped a small band over the base of Zax’s wristcom and pressed a tab on it. It immediately constricted around Zax’s wrist and then changed its pigment to match Zax’s dark sepia skin tone. Two wire thin filaments extruded out of the band and inserted themselves into the base of his wristcom.
“It’s easy as 1,2,3 young fella. This band here is the control unit and is synced with your wristcom. All you have to do is….”
A half an hour later, Zax felt familiar enough with the screen controls that he could manipulate his facial image into a dozen variations. He paid Jik the fee and started to leave.
“Er…one other thing…” the shop owner added, as Zax was about exit the shop, “Do you know that you are bugged?”
“What?!” Zax exclaimed, in mid step.
“Yep, no doubt about it. My scanners picked them up right away. Lucky for you they are simple directional only bugs, or I would have never let you in to the back of the store. Of course, my shop is totally screened from signals either exiting or entering the store. I kinda figured that you had no idea you were bugged, otherwise you’d never have taken the chance about inquiring about a facial scanner. That would have been stupid.”
Zax stared back at Jik, bewildered. “Could you please tell me, how I am bugged?” This just gets better and better. He thought, ruefully.
“Actually, there are three bugs active on you now. One is on your garment, right here,” he said, pointing the sleeve of his jumpsuit, “the other is somewhere on that floater you are carrying around and a third one, is attached to the base of the rucksack. Someone really wants to make sure of where you are, my boy! Would you like me to remove them or just deactivate them?”
Zax thought a moment, then had an idea. “Say…could you remove and deactivate them, then show me how to reactivate them later?”
The salesman smiled a broad smile, “I like the way you think, lad. Have you ever considered taking a job in the security/surveillance field? You sound like a natural.”
Jik picked up a small instrument off another shelf, switched it on, then he walked around Zax until it beeped softly. He then motioned for Zax to remove his rucksack and proceeded to scan both it and the floater. There were two more beeps, then silence. Nodding at the readings, Jik frowned.
“These are not your typical bugs. Two seem to be of off-world manufacture but the third, the one on your rucksack, looks to be of Imperial design. I have had the occasion to deal with Imperial bugs before and it shouldn’t be too difficult to deactivate and remove. But the other two…give me a sec…” Jik picked up a gadget and waved it over his jacket and floater. “Yes! These other two appear to be from out on the rim, either Uk- Quarkian or maybe Marcosian. If it is either of those, it might be a little tricky to remove them. They have been known to violently self-destruct. Just give me a moment. I suggest that you remove your jacket before I proceed.” Zax swallowed, slowly removed his outer jacket, and laid it on the back of the workbench chair.
Taking an electronic meter out of his shop jacket, Jik carefully touched a spot on his coat with a thin wire probe. Studying the meter’s readout, Jik let out a breath then pressed the flat-ended probe into to Zax’s jumpsuit. When he removed it, a small dark circle less than a centimeter in diameter, was clinging to the end of the tool. Jik then checked the floater, by reaching into another pocket to retrieve a different tool, after a few moments, extracted a somewhat larger dark square from between the floater’s runners.
“There you are. Neither of these off-world bugs were booby trapped. Now, let me get to the one on the pack.” Several seconds later, he held a device similar to the previous ones in his right hand. There! You are all clean now. Hold on a just a second…” Jik retrieved the first scanner he used and presented it to Zax. “Here you go, on the house. Just press that center button and the device will scan for any active bugs in a two-meter range. Turn the knob here…” Jik instructed, pointing at a thumbnail sized nub, “and it increases the range out to five meters, but it is less accurate on that setting. Now, to reactivate the bugs just take this tool here,” he continued, handing Zax a tool that looked like an old-fashioned screwdriver, “and place it above the bug and press the handle just so…” he demonstrated with his thumb, “and ‘viola’ it is reactivated.”
Pushing both tools into Zax’s hands, Jik accompanied him to the front of the shop. On his way out of the door, Zax spied a set of micro tools hanging on the wall. Looking at them with a mechanic’s eye, he recognized their precision construction and, on a whim,, purchased them.
“Glad to have met you, young fella, give my regards to Omar and I’ll be seeing ya, or not seeing ya if everything works out,” Jik said, with a wink.
Zax exited the store and looked for an info kiosk, as he sighed at his shrinking eunit balance on his untraceable disc. He realized, he had a lot more things he had to purchase and hoped that the next items were not quite as expensive, or he would be flat broke by dawn.
Zax’s next stop was at the auto tailor down the street. This institution was far fancier than the one back in Centennial. It had a broader range of garments, at what seemed to be, reasonable prices. He ordered two sets of collapsible walking suits (they neatly folded to a package one quarter their normal size). He decided to wear one of his new suits for his dinner date with Lauria and changed in the store’s privacy area. He also purchased and changed into a new set of undergarments (his were clean but beginning to show wear) and a self-adjusting, all weather, moisture repelling jacket. His last purchase in the store, was to replace his normal rucksack with a more compact, but expandable model. After he paid for his purchases, Zax transferred the contents from one pack to the other. It cost him two-hundred units, but it came with a low powered contragrav unit built into its harness, which meant he could cut off the contragrav of his floater and save its charge. Zax’s old rucksack had seemed to be getting heavier by the hour.
Finally, he paid a visit to an ordinary com store. There he bought a shielded, wristcom sleeve to wear over his wristcom. Such devices were common (and thankfully quite legal) and were used to block both the reception and sending of signals, from his semi-implanted communicator. The sleeve fit comfortably over his forearm and came in a variety of colors and decorations. For some, they were quite the fashion statement, but Zax chose a standard dark Phizzian platinum model. Zax also purchased the latest encryption program and had it downloaded onto his wristcom. Now, whenever he sent or received a message, only he and the recipient would be able to read it.
Feeling a little better about his anonymity, he decided to take the time to look around Plex. Zax had hoped to see more off-world aliens, but a mated pair of Krillians and a solitary Uk-Quarkian were the only ones he had seen so far. Off in the distance he could make out a familiar sight, a spaceport. Checking the time on his wristcom, Zax figured he still had a least an hour or more to waste before his date with Lauria, so he unslung his floater and headed over to the spaceport facilities. Zax didn’t know why, but he was always fascinated by spaceships and their exotic sounding destinations.
Gliding up to the public access gates, on a perverse impulse, Zax decided to check out the overhaul and repair pits. Despite swearing to never work in the drydock pits again, it seemed that he couldn’t get away from his former job.
We
ll, he thought, I might as well make the best of it and see how they do things in the big city.
Floating over to the drydock, he saw an enormous streamlined passenger highliner, resting on the huge support arms. Zax had once seen pictures of an ancient pre-planetary vehicle called a ‘space shuttle’. This space liner was approximately double the size of that space transport. He remembered thinking how advanced that ancient ship seemed, until he learned that almost the entire ship consisted of huge liquid fuel containers that were jettisoned before the craft had even left the atmosphere! The actual cargo and crew part of the ship were a relatively tiny craft, perched on the top of the enormous fuel tanks. What a waste.
Zax walked up to the barrier separating the repair pits from the public throughway. On a whim, he inserted his work ID into the gate scanner. To his great surprise, the unit flashed green and the barrier parted. Then he remembered that as a space dock worker scrubber, it was not uncommon to be reassigned to various spaceports at a moment’s notice. Their IDs were authorized through the central computer for entrance into just about every spaceport on the continent. It appeared that ol’ Lard Ass had not gotten around to voiding his ID. Typical of the lazy bastard.
Zax found himself standing before the gargantuan ion exhaust tubes of the passenger highliner, staring up at them in awe. The tubes that he worked on back at the Centennial spaceport were miniscule compared to these monsters. Stepping forward to find himself beneath the tubes, and looking up at their inner ridged surfaces, Zax wondered how long it would take him to scrub just one of these cones. Taking a close look at the tube’s interior, he saw that it was remarkably smooth and clean. He grunted to himself, as he recognized the efficient work of a robot scrubber. Noticing that the inside of the tube was bathed in bright floodlight, he waited for what he knew was to follow. Sure enough, within a few moments, he could hear the soft humm of a gravdisc as a shadow appeared descending from high up within the cavernous cylinder. A man in soiled overalls slowly came into view. His shoulders and hands were covered in a fine power, which he was brushing off as he descended. It seems that even for these humongous tubes, the cleaning of the injection coils of the ion drive tubes still had to be done by hand. The ion nozzle assembly was just too intricate to trust to robotic feelers.
The ‘tube jockey’ was removing his protective gear and gloves, when he finally looked up and saw Zax.
Pointing to the flashing red floating holographic message, the worker spoke sternly, “Hey! You can’t be in here citizen. Can’t you read the sign? Authorized Personnel ONLY!”
“It’s alright,” said Zax, attempting to placate the man. “Until recently, I was a tube jockey. What type of bots do you use? The mark twelves or the fourteens?” The guy grinned down at him and shook his head woefully.
“I have no use for the twelve’s, they were too twitchy for my liking. We use the mark fifteen, of course. What d’ya think? This ain’t no backwoods spaceport man. This is Plex. Where did you scrub at?”
“Centennial, where I ran a crew of six bots to cover four pits.” Zax replied humbly.
“Shit, six bots couldn’t even clean one of these babies in a shift. I run fourteen of the mark fifteens per pit, and even then, I have to work overtime just to keep up.”
“Whoa…really?” Zax exclaimed, suitably awed, looking at the size of the tubes. “How do you manage to carry all the gear up to the tubes? It must be a task even with the contragrav sleds.”
“That’s why I love the fifteens. They have a sizable compartment built in. You can store tools, spare parts, just about anything in ‘em and not have to go back for what you need!” the man answered proudly.
“Wow! Say…do you think I could go over and watch the fifteens in action?”
The man slowly shook his head in apology. “If it were any other day, I’d say sure, but this ship just suffered a massive ion engine cascade failure and I’m afraid I won’t have the time to show you around.”
“An ion cascade failure, what’s that?” Zax asked, intrigued.
“The dumb shit of an engineer waited too long between cleaning and let a couple of the ion engine injectors get so clogged, they failed. There is a safety margin built into the engines, so if one fails, the others in the chain will automatically take up the load, but this asshole let two out of eight get so dirty, that when one failed so did the other one. The resulting strain put on the remaining six, caused the next one in series to go. That then placed all the load on the other five, so of course they failed. Luckily for everybody on board, highliners and midliners use one set of ion engines for propulsion and a separate array for transition. If this would have happened to the transition engines during insertion… the gravity shields would have failed, and all you would have had was thin layer of human protoplasm spread throughout the ship,” the technician explained grimly, as he walked towards Zax. “Look, I’d like to stop and chew the rag, but like I said, I have six injectors to clear and two to replace. You might get a chance to see some of the fifteens operate over at the next pit.”
Zax nodded his understanding, thanked the man, and moved on to the next bay. This one also was berth to a passenger ship. This one was a short-range, midliner, pleasure cruise ship. All cruise ships had colorful designs painted in their exteriors to identify their corporate owners. This one had the image of a vortex of brightly colored stars, which identified it as one of the liners from Star Cruisers. At the ships access elevator stood what was likely the ship’s chief engineer, talking to a rather clean looking work yard supervisor. The two were having a hushed tête-à-tête, when one of them looked up to see Zax watching them and was visibly startled. They both hurriedly finished their conversation as the engineer entered the lift tube and the supervisor made a beeline straight towards Zax.
“Hey there! What are you doing down here? This area is forbidden to everyone but the engine technicians. It is too dangerous for sightseeing,” the slightly paunchy man roared condescendingly.” Why does it seem that all supervisors are fat? Zax wondered. “You must leave this area immediately.”
Zax shrugged his shoulders, turned, and exited the pits the way he had come. He had seen enough to have guessed what the ship’s engineer and the pit supervisor were up to, but he had other thoughts stirring around in his head now. This impromptu visit to familiar stomping grounds, helped make up his mind. Whatever it was that he had accidently become involved in, was of no immediate importance. There was no way he was going back to Last Town, and with this unexpected eunit windfall, he need not bounce around from one low paying job to the next.
It suddenly struck Zax; he had just inherited a decent trust fund, and had access to more eunits than he ever, in his wildest dreams, thought possible. Now there were options available to him, that he had not even imagined back in Centennial City. Who knows, if he was lucky, in the next years LAG lottery, he might just have enough to develop the land, or start his own independent business, like Omar had done. If he worked it right, he could open a small tool and repair shop in the outskirts of Plex. There was always a need for a good robotic repair mechanic in the metropolitan areas. Also, there was Lauria.
Zax’s eyes suddenly widened and he quickly checked his wrist chrono. Then with a sigh of relief, he realized that it was only 5:30 s.s., still plenty of time to get back to the center of town and meet Lauria at her apartment by 6:30 s.s. Placing the floater back on the street, he headed back towards the Imperial bank and what he hoped would be a brighter future.
As Zax approached the street where the bank was located, he found himself passing Omar’s bistro. Zax was not surprised to find that all the tables, both outside and inside, were occupied, with a line of would be patrons trailing out the door. Remembering how good the food was, it was no wonder the little bistro was so popular. Zax had just finished peering through the window when Omar spied him.
“ZAXXION!” Omar bellowed, over the din of voices. “Welcome back my friend,” he exclaimed joyfully, “what for you standing out there, when all t
he good food is inside? Come in, come in, I have a table for you real quick.” With that, he clapped his hands and the same young bus boy who served him earlier, magically appeared with a small table held up above his head. Zax could hear gasps of surprise and some muttering from the people in line, upset at this interloping line jumper, but they were even more astonished, to see Omar’s reaction to the young man. Zax could tell, they were wondering just who he could possibly be.
Omar insisted in a booming voice, (Zax wondered if he had any other volume) “Sit…sit…There is no need for a menu. I have something special cooking up in the back. Just give me a moment and I will bring it out,”
“No, no Omar, I can’t. Not tonight. Lauria is cooking a special dinner for me and she will kill me if I had even one bite of food beforehand. I only stopped by to see if you would sell me one of your bottles of delectable wine I had earlier.”
“Oh HO!” Omar huffed, as his face broke out into an enormous grin, “so, this is how Lauria steals one of my best customers, is it? She cooks him food that is better than mine, so he won’t want to come back to my humble establishment.” Turning back to the kitchen, he bellowed, “Toni, one order of the special house wine, real quick eh?” Omar looked at Zax with a secretive smile. “I think that maybe this wine will go better with your meal, eh,” he said, with a wink.
Omar eyed Zax queerly for a moment, then motioned for him to come towards the back of the restaurant, to a quiet private booth. “Come sit with me for a minute, if you have the time.” Looking at his chrono, Zax realized that he still had about twenty minutes spare time, so he slid into the overstuffed seat.
“You know,” Omar began, “Lauria is a very special young woman. She has a kind heart, you know? She means a lot to me and quite a few others like ourselves,” he spoke the last, pointedly looking at Zax’s tattoo. “I just wanted to tell you that.”