Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

Negasi didn't like this at all. He trailed Nova by a few steps, keeping an eye on his boss while keeping an eye on everyone in the crowd. She'd obviously been here before, and like Jeridan, had gotten into trouble.

In this place, that was an easy thing to do.

While he had been tempted to wear full body armor, he had decided that might be a bit over the top. Attracting attention could be just as dangerous as going less well-protected, and so he had worn an under-suit of Kevlar Flexweave and carried a flechette pistol on his belt and a heavy slug rifle slung over his shoulder. The rifle, he had to admit, was a bit of overkill for a stroll through a space station, but he wanted to send a message. Not as much of a message as wearing full body armor would have, but hopefully enough of one.

Trying to second guess this band of thieves, smugglers, and hired killers was enough to give a man a headache.

He sent another message by trailing behind Nova as she passed along a shopping arcade selling every illegal thing one could possibly want—weaponry, bits of scavenged old tech, intoxicants and psychedelics for every known species, even a few bottles of Sagitta Prime whiskey.

An archaeologist offered an analysis of old tech. A bearded old man with a perpetual squint, he sat at the counter turning over a strange steel object, its surface scratched and dented. It consisted of a handle with a half sphere at the end. Some sort of lever was attached to the handle. When the archaeologist pressed it, a thin strip of metal slid along the inside of the half sphere.

The archaeologist shook his head, obviously baffled. Negasi sympathized with him. Some of those ancient artifacts were impossible to interpret.

Nova studied some of the displays—she seemed especially interested in a little shop specializing in C8 plastic explosives—and Negasi stopped when she stopped, and moved on when she moved on.

Anyone with a bit of street smarts, and that would be everyone on Latimer Station who wasn't a kidnap victim, could tell that Negasi was covering her. Fine by him. Less trouble that way. A woman who could obviously take care of herself followed by a man who could kick everyone's ass from Jeridan to a Mantid warrior (given the element of surprise and a huge amount of luck) would not be messed with.

Scanning the crowd, he could see he wasn't the only guy playing bodyguard. Assuming that three-meter-tall Grun'hon lumbering behind the diminutive old man in the conservative suit was a guy. He could never tell with those muscle mountains. The females were just as big as the males.

Nova stopped at a vendor for ship's munitions, just a simple counter with a screen displaying ammo and various types of missiles stored in some secure hold somewhere. Negasi waited as she went through the list, restocking all the ammo they had expended in the fights with the Mantids and on Capella Epsilon. They'd gone through a lot and the price tag made Negasi's eyes bug out. Nova didn't even hesitate to pay it, even soaking up the cost for priority delivery. His boss had deep pockets.

After that, they left the crowded mercantile area and entered a quiet series of corridors with rooms to rent by the month, day, hour, or minute. Some species didn't take long.

"Is your contact just passing through?" Negasi asked when they were out of earshot of anyone else. Strange that a data hacker wouldn't have a shop in the bazaar. He'd seen several who did.

"She likes to keep a low profile. She bills herself as a freelance programmer. People in the know come to her for decryption."

Nova stopped at a door like all the others and pushed the intercom. Negasi made a note of the number.

"Who is it?" a high-pitched female voice said through the speaker.

"Tau twelve eighteen."

The door clicked. Negasi raised an eyebrow. Why the code?

They entered a standard living unit, fairly large for a space station, but nothing special. The living room had a holovid, comfortable furniture, and a desk to one side with a high-end computer. Negasi spotted an AI plugged into the wall slot. What he didn't see was a screen. There was none.

A skinny young woman sat straight as a soldier in front of the computer, her eyes moving crazily like waking REM. Negasi noted the cyberunits plugged into the shaved side of her skull and shuddered.

Implants gave him the creeps. It gave lots of people the creeps. They were banned on many systems, supposedly because of the unfair advantage such people had in sports, fighting, business, and pretty much every other human endeavor.

He'd seen them in action. A group of them gone amok. He'd barely escaped the slaughter, and in his dreams he could still hear the screams …

The rational part of his mind told him that every species had its deviants, and that horrible day a few years ago wasn't the only slaughter he'd witnessed. The rest had been done by normal humans and aliens.

No, the real reason most people recoiled when they saw someone like this was the instinctive dread that came from facing something not quite human, not quite alien. Even as a xenoanthropologist, he had this reaction. Aliens were organic. This woman was … something else.

The figure turned. Silver eyes didn't focus on them, but Negasi had no doubt they saw everything.

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I bet she's monitoring my heart rate and sweat glands. I bet she knows I'm scared of her. Even worse, disgusted by her.

Is she insulted? Will that kill the deal?

Negasi tried to control his reaction, knowing he couldn't. He glanced at Nova, who seemed unphased.

"You have it?" the young woman asked. Her voice was completely normal. Somehow, that made it worse.

"Yes."

"How are they?"

"Fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes, yes." Nova darted a quick glance at Negasi.

The data hacker extended a slim hand. The skin was pale. She hadn't been on a planet in ages. Negasi bet that even when she did go planetside, she stayed indoors.

Nova unzipped her tunic partway and pulled the data chip out from an inside pocket.

The data hacker took it and inserted it into the console. There was no screen, so Negasi couldn't see what she saw, but the data hacker seemed entranced.

"Yes … it's Imperium."

"Can you crack it?" Nova asked.

Pause. Those silvery eyes kept moving back and forth. The data hacker's lips moved silently.

Still the data hacker sat straight upright, looking at what only she could see.

Negasi took the chance to glance around the room. He saw no personal items. No photos. No stuffed animals. No VR game goggles. No decorations. It looked like she had just moved in an hour ago and had only unpacked her computer.

But she must have been here for months if Nova had come and gone and knew the data hacker would be here when she came back.

Had this woman been sitting at her terminal the entire time, only taking breaks to eat and sleep?

Again Negasi shuddered.

"Six hours."

The data hacker's voice made Negasi jerk. They had been standing there waiting in silence for a couple of minutes, so it caught him unawares.

"All right," Nova said. She motioned to Negasi, who followed her back into the corridor. The door locked behind them, the system triggered by a flick of an eye from that half-human at the computer. Negasi took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together.

"So you're just leaving it with her?" he asked as they walked down the corridor.

"Yes."

"You sure you can trust her?"

"Of course."

"Um … "

Nova looked him in the eye. "I can trust her."

Negasi shrugged. He hated being left in the dark, but he knew better than to ask for more details. "Now what?"

"Back to the Antikythera to take in that shipment of munitions. You can help me reload. Then some R and R until it's time. You have anything you need to do on this station?"

"Hell, no. I didn't want to come within five light years of the place."

"It'll be worth it."

Negasi cocked his head. "Will it?"

"Yes."

You're going to have to convince me of that.

* * *

Two hours later, they had all the munitions processed and stowed. Negasi was checking the adjustments on the last of the smart missiles when he got a visit from the last person he expected.

Mason.

The kid just walked into the armory like he came in all the time and stood watching as Negasi finished up.

"I don't know where your sister is," Negasi said. "Try the holocabin."

"MIRI says you're almost done."

Negasi looked up from his work. "You've been talking to MIRI?"

"She's nice."

"The best AI I've ever met." Negasi gave him an uncertain smile. The kid stood there, looking around the room curiously. This was the first time Negasi had spoken to him one on one that he didn't seem like he wanted to bolt. The only time he regularly saw him was at meals, and then the boy kept his eyes down or had whispered conversations with his sister.

Come to think of it, Negasi didn't even see him talking to Nova much.

Now that he was finally talking to him, Negasi couldn't think of anything to say. The kid didn't seem to be leaving, though.

He indicated the open panel on the missile. "You like electronics? This is some pretty advanced gear."

Mason shook his head. "It's not alive or dead. Boring."

Negasi blinked. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"But MIRI isn't boring?"

"No way! She's alive dead."

Not a bad summary of an AI. Advanced programmers would do a deep personality analysis and brain scan of an elderly or terminally ill person who had an IQ at least one sigma above the mean, and incorporate that into a complex web of electronics to create a fusion of computer and human. The AI didn't have much in the way of memories of its previous life—no one had ever found a way to transfer a human soul, or even find proof of its existence—but much of the person's ideas and personality and individual quirks remained intact. And the electronics made them self-aware.

It was an improvement over the earliest generations of AI, self-aware machines with no human element, capable only of outperforming their masters without any built-in empathy or rapport with the humans who used them. Modern AI were a new type of human, "alive dead" as Mason called them, which is why Derren killing one should be a crime.

Derren. Supposedly Mason's and Aurora's father. Supposedly Nova's husband. Supposedly someone who actually existed.

Negasi realized he hadn't said something in a while, not that normal conversational patterns mattered much to this kid. Still, he wanted to keep the ball rolling.

"MIRI makes some cool holo programs. You should ask her."

Mason's eye brightened, and suddenly, for the first time, he looked like a kid instead of some strange apparition.

"Aurora and I play Comet Riders."

Negasi grinned. "That's a cool game!"

You sat on a comet, complete with reins and a saddle, and flew through an unrealistically dense Oort Cloud, dodging other comets and asteroids and the occasional miniature black hole while searching for diamonds.

"MIRI makes planet simulations too," Mason said.

"Oh, those are fun. You should try Rhea Zeta. They have purple clouds and waterfalls five kilometers high. And wait until you see the night plants blooming at sunset."

"Sounds cool. It's kind of boring not being able to go with anyone. Aurora doesn't like planet simulations. She'd rather play with this not alive not dead stuff." Mason gestured toward the open panel.

Negasi cocked his head. Was that a suggestion? An invitation? Kids could be unsubtle that way, not that he had spent much time around them.

"Well … I have some spare time right now. Want to check out Rhea Zeta?"

"No, thanks. If I go with you, I can't go with my dad."

Negasi felt his skin prickle. What was wrong with this kid?

Before he could think up a response, the sound of Jeridan singing echoed down the hallway. He sounded drunk, which meant he sang even more off-key than usual.

Mason ran out of the room.

Damn it!

Negasi flipped the panel closed and went out to find that idiot.

Instead, he found Aurora.

The girl jogged around a corner and nearly slammed into him.

"Oh, sorry! Have you seen Mason?"

"Yeah, he was just in the armory with me. He ran off when Jeridan started singing. Or at least what Jeridan thinks is singing."

"I need to find him." The girl sounded anxious. It was then that Negasi noticed she had a small, slim black case in her hand. Aurora noticed him looking and put it in her pocket, covering the part that stuck out with her hand.

"Not sure where he went," Negasi mumbled.

Aurora ran off. Negasi watched her go.

What was going on?

He remembered the strange motions her holoimage had gone through when he and Jeridan had been chessboxing one day, and wondered.