“I am the boss,” Loritt repeated. “Short term, you know this makes things worse, yes? Training and integrating a recruit into a tight-knit group is always problematic. Getting them up to speed saps resources and man-hours and stresses morale.”
“We’re investing in the future, boss. And if all else fails, I can smack heads together to straighten them out.”
“Not Fenax.”
“Well, no, obviously not Fenax, except metaphorically.”
“And Sheer’s head is technically located inside her carapace…”
“I think you’re deliberately pushing the limits of a common turn of phrase, boss.”
Loritt smiled. “All right, Jrill, you win. Got any potentials in mind?”
Jrill tapped her beak. “Come to think of it, I just might.”
* * *
It had been, in First’s estimation, the most productive six months of her life. A line, an actual line was queued up for the little card table she’d set up in the promenade. But where back on Proxima she would’ve been selling lemonade for two bucks a plastic cup, these people were paying for a very different cup-based experience.
Somehow, against all odds, no one in the history of the Assembly had come up with a shell game con. It had been the very first con generations of street hustlers on Earth had been taught, practiced, and mastered. It required one to spot marks, learn sleight of hand, and employ misdirection. It was a springboard to every other kind of petty crime one could employ.
But here, no one was wise to it. The aliens were befuddled by it, mystified even. First didn’t need to identify marks because they were all marks. She heard them in line, arguing over how she did it. A phase-shifting ball? Cups with built-in high-space portals? A matter reorganizer tabletop?
She patiently let her “customers” inspect every element of her performance until they were satisfied all the objects were mundane, which they were, before taking their bets and, invariably, keeping them.
The only real trouble she’d encountered had been from a Percepilion, whose species had evolved in a binary system with a normal sun and a neutron star companion and could see straight into the x-ray part of the spectrum. But a day’s worth of earnings as a carrot and a promise to hire muscle to escort them out the nearest airlock as a stick had secured their silence.
But while the hustle was effective, it was chump change. There was a limit to how much people were willing to risk, and how many games she could play in a day. Multiply X and Y together and you had the self-imposed ceiling on First’s earning potential. It was enough to get by, but it wasn’t enough to really live. And she hadn’t run away from her doleful rat parents and preachy parole officer to just get by. She could do that on Proxima B without lifting a finger or a cup.
Which had led to her night job.
“Okay, folks, that’s enough for one day.” First stood up and stacked the cups, then started folding the table over a chorus of objections from those already in line.
“We’ve been waiting a larim!” the next in line demanded.
“Then just set down your currencies and walk away like the last hundred people,” First said. “It’ll be virtually the same experience. Sorry, everyone, but humans have to sleep a third of the day.”
“A third?” a Turemok several slots back in the queue asked incredulously.
“Yeah. A full eight hours, I mean larims. Miracle you people didn’t finish us off in one go.”
“Careful what you wish for, naked monkey.”
“Bring it, shitbird. Tomorrow. After I get my beauty rest. You might try some yourself.”
“My people don’t take ‘beauty rest.’”
“Yeah, it shows,” First quipped.
The Turemok braced to make a move, but the rest of the line and onlookers were laughing too hard, costing them initiative. First took the momentary reprieve to duck between a pair of something or others and get lost in the evening rush.
After six months living among the transient throngs of beings that came and went on board Junktion, First still couldn’t identify more than a third of them on sight.
Her parents had taken a vacation to Earth once when she was ten. They’d scrimped and saved almost since the moment she’d been born. They’d told her it might be the only time she’d ever be off world, and they wanted her to see their original home.
They’d docked at the space elevator terminal over Dubai, then took the lift down. First had never seen such diversity of colors, features, cultures, and languages in her life.
How naïve she’d been, even there with her eyes opened for the first time in an Arabian bazaar.
That trip had taken two years, each way. They were all in cryosleep for the boring parts of the trip, save for a week in the middle when they’d been woken to keep their brains from going stale. Those years didn’t count toward her legal age. On her old PCB ID, her official age was notated as 21-4cs = 17.
That was before the whiz kids of the ARTist program had cracked hyperspace tech from a stolen buoy. Now, nobody slept. At least not any more than normal.
Still, First hated to sleep. She knew how much she missed in the meantime.
She flashed her transit card at the scanner mounted in the tube entrance and caught a pod hubward three levels and spinward two sections to her neighborhood. She stopped at the local bodega and threw a few credit chits at the Lividite behind the counter in exchange for her usual bag of minerals and deadly heavy metals.
“What does a human do with that much quartz and mercury?” he asked as he did twice a week.
“School project,” she answered as she did twice a week. First petted the velvety red qualax sleeping by the door as she left. She still couldn’t pronounce its name.
A block, skip, and a jump later and she was home. First ran her key card through the reader and waited for the door to authenticate. Back in the slums of New Kiev in PCB, she’d have to hold her eye up to the door for a retina scan. The problem with universal biometrics in the Assembly was not everyone had eyes, or fingerprints, or a voice, or in some extreme cases, any combination of the three.
The door slid open and spat her card out on the inside wall of her apartment.
“I’m home,” First announced out of old habit. She set her folding table down in its usual spot by the entry and walked out into her living room. The spinward wall was taken up by what looked like an oversized, four-pedestal, industrial art installation made of marble and concrete, while the entire opposite wall seemed to be filled with a shallow holographic painting of two of the same.
But so deep into space, appearances could be deceiving.
First set down the bag of chemicals on the floor near the art installation, then picked up a small box with a single large button and a blinking red light. She pushed the button.
“Hello, First,” the low, earthy voice said, filling the room. “I got your message. Thank you for scraping the moss off my leg. It was beginning to itch. I’ll handle your share of the rent this week.”
The message ended as the light stopped. First pushed it again, and the light blinked green.
“Hello, Quarried Themselves, that’s generous of you. I brought your usual snack. Stay hydrated, or whatever you call it. I hope you feel better soon. And don’t delete this season of Rocks in Hard Places. I want to watch it sped up. Season 1 ended on a real cliffhanger.”
She pressed the button again, and the flashing green light turned red. Message saved, ready for playback, only at one five-hundredth the speed. First set the box down next to Quarried’s leg, where they’d retrieve and review it by morning. Probably.
Dark outer cloak, baggy, plenty of pockets. A set of street clothes underneath in case she needed a quick change of appearance. Fashionable wide-brimmed hat that also obscured her face from overhead surveillance. A large purse for her deck and hand tools, all of which were illegal to even possess, much less use. Enough paper currency to bribe her way into or out of most situations.
Now, First was ready. Sh
e took another pod up to the haughtier levels near the inner surface of Junktion’s spinning drum. Here, artificial ground, landscaping, lakes, and the most expensive rent districts were found. The best shops, theaters, and restaurants sat ready to relieve the idle wealthy or the visiting working class of their money without discrimination. It was also where an enterprising young lady could find parking hangars and landing pads full of private aircars waiting to be plucked like foie gras ducks.
She wanted a basement garage, out of public view where she could work hidden from too many prying eyes. Close to the outskirts, but not one she’d shopped at before. That narrowed the search; she’d had a pretty good run over the last three weeks.
First pulled out her handheld and perused listings for eateries near her location, looking like any of a thousand other beings trying to pick out a place to eat. But while they were looking at ratings and reading reviews, First was looking at how expensive they were. Too cheap and the customers’ aircars wouldn’t be worth her time to boost. Too expensive and the security systems protecting the garage would be too formidable.
She needed something low on the high end. And she found it in the Whistling Tormogoth, serving traditional Nelihexu small-plate fare. First memorized the address and tucked the handset back into her purse. It was a short walk to the eatery that First had to force herself to take at a leisurely pace so not to attract attention. In the months since First’s arrival, other humans had begun to turn up on Junktion, removing much of her novelty and restoring a measure of the anonymity she relied on.
The Whistle had a bit of a line at the door. Perfect. The garage would be full, and patrons would be delayed returning to their aircars.
“Excuse me,” First asked of a Lividite at the end of the line, “but is this the wait line for the Tormogoth?”
“Why, yes. They’re filming an episode of Grease Traps and Gut Bombs inside.”
“How exciting. How long’s the wait?”
“I’ve been here a larim already.”
“I see,” First said. “Maybe next time. I don’t think my stomach can wait that long.”
Just then, what First could only describe as a furry, man-sized pterodactyl in a spandex unitard stumbled out of the Whistle’s front door and unsteadily walked by them like a badger trying to balance on top of four pencils.
“He looks stuffed,” the Lividite said. “You might want to step back before—”
The ungainly beast crouched low against the ground and then, with surprising speed, launched itself several meters into the air before spreading its impressively large wings. As it did so, it also dropped two liters of a viscous, mottled, foul-smelling fluid that splashed everywhere like a popped water balloon. With a single powerful downward beat of its wings, the beast lifted off into the night air.
“Ah, not fast enough,” the Lividite said mournfully as he looked at the splash damage to First’s cloak.
“Did,” she stammered, “did that thing just poop on me?”
“He’s a Condrite. They usually, ah, evacuate themselves at takeoff to reduce mass, especially after a big meal. Best to give them a wide berth if you see one readying for flight.”
“He could do it inside! There’s bathrooms and everything!”
“You want him to poop in your bath?”
“No! I, ugh, never mind. Excuse me. I have to throw away a cloak.”
“When you’ve cleaned up, you might try Horloth’s House one section over. Good food and likely to be less busy.”
“Thanks for the tip,” First said. “At least your timing is improving.”
First stormed off and chucked the soiled cloak in the nearest recycler. She could have had it cleaned, but she decided it was worth the difference to buy one free of the foul memory. Unfortunately, it would also link her to the crime scene if she went through with a hit on the Whistle’s garage, so she needed a new hunting ground.
Horloth’s it was.
CHAPTER 3
Horloth’s turned out to be a prime spot. The garage was located across the block from the restaurant, giving First ample time to duck out of sight if she spotted anyone returning from dinner. It was, as the intermittently helpful Lividite predicted, less busy, but the garage was still reasonably full.
The garage was a little worn, but clean and well maintained. The outer walls were free of the graffiti that plagued the neighborhoods she usually hung around in. An advertising board lit up with tour information for a “human” band called the Wolverines that was apparently doing shows in this arm of the galaxy.
The garage door was locked, but the access key she’d nicked from the customs officer miraculously still worked. Someone in station security had really dropped the ball on that one. The only drawback to this new location First noticed as she stalked through the rows of aircars was Horloth’s clientele trended a little less affluent.
It was good and bad. Cheaper aircars meant cheap security systems. But they also meant a cheap payday once she delivered the unit to Soolie the Fin’s goons in the docks for shipment off station. She didn’t particularly like the Fin or his associates, but she’d stumbled into him when she tried to light-finger his wallet, and he hadn’t offered her another choice. Besides, reselling hot aircars on Junktion was effectively impossible, so his distribution network made working with him and accepting his predatory payment rates a necessary evil.
Still, she’d make enough even on a … Racola … to …
A hole in the shape of an aircar stared back at First from across the garage. Its black paint polished to such a shine and depth it drank what light fell on it like finely aged brandy. Its profile was unmistakable.
A Proteus Infinite.
She’d only ever seen one on a showroom floor as she pressed her nose against the glass of the dealership’s window. No reason to feel bad about boosting this beauty; the owner could afford it.
First caught the line of drool running down the corner of her mouth before it reached her chin, but only just. She moved on the car like a lady, quickly but respectfully, knowing full well its suite of security sensors already watched. Instead of coming at the Proteus directly, she slipped behind a beige, entry-level Guff two spaces down and pretended to fumble for her pass key. First dug into her purse and pulled out her hacking deck. She had software patches and exploits for dozens of makes and models already preloaded, but only one for a Proteus and none for an Infinite.
She logged in to her /backnet/ portal under one of four burner accounts and hit the app market, search term “Proteus Infinite Exploits.” Sixteen hits came back in less than ten seconds, each with a bid price in blue next to them. They weren’t cheap, but this was not where one wanted to skimp on currency unless they wanted to get locked out halfway through a hack and have station security called. Then you were either running for your life or spending the cash you should have spent in the first place on bribes.
First ran the profits and losses in her head, weighing what she had to spend to boost the car versus what her payday would be upon delivery. In the end, she clicked on the fourth-most expensive bid. Not amazing, but a lot better than sloppy, and she had the skills to make up the difference.
First looked around once more to ensure she was still alone, then held out the last of the crypto-crystals she’d pocketed from Bleef that first day months earlier and transferred the credits. Bleef had been more than generous in repaying the burger he’d cost her, but his bleeding ended as the gentle blue glow inside the crystal went dim and it returned to being an unformatted quartz crystal valuable only as a bite-sized snack for her Grenic roommate.
She gave the patch she’d just bought a cursory exam to make sure she hadn’t just gotten stiffed, left positive feedback for the programmer when it was obvious she hadn’t been, then opened the file.
The first step to stealing a high-end aircar was tricking it into believing it was already somewhere else. Someone other than its owner asking to enter it while inside a strange parking hangar was a dead giveaway it was be
ing stolen. But someone trying to enter it at its dealership, where its maintenance was performed? That was something the onboard virtual intelligence could be persuaded to believe.
First pinged the Infinite’s transponder to get a registration number, then spent a few more credits in the /backnet/ to run the car’s title transfer history to get its original dealer from a crooked Space Traffic Control flunky. Morden’s Proteus. Very swank neighborhood. She set her deck to jam the local station location signal and pump out her faked override.
Now, the clock was ticking. With active jamming and a pirate broadcast throwing out a fake location signal, it was only a matter of time before some passerby or local noticed the discrepancy and investigated the source of the glitch. She walked up to the Infinite and laid a hand on it for the first time.
“Hello, beautiful. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She entered the next set of prompts, assuring the Infinite that it was in a safe place. It was just time to flush and replace its reactor coolant. She even had a Morden’s technician’s employee ID to enter for the car’s maintenance logs, which was a nice touch.
“I’d like to buy you a drink, if you don’t mind,” First cooed at the car as she pushed deeper into its operating system’s safeguards. On command, the seals hissed as the door peeled open like a wood shaving, revealing an interior of such decadence that First was tempted to pull out of her sublease with Quarried and move in.
“My, you are an eager one. My place or yours, darling?”
She sat down in the pilot’s seat. It was a little oversized, but fortunately, it had been configured for a humanoid body form. The bottom of the seat had a rather large hole in the center that was probably meant to accommodate someone’s tail, but gave it the appearance of a comfortable toilet.
The seat quickly adjusted to her proportions while First dealt with the flight control lockout, where she encountered her first real problem. The owner had flight mode firewalled behind a fractal encryption protocol, and she had less than a minute to break it. Not enough time to go to the /backnet/ for a solution.
Starship Repo Page 2