Revision Note: Consider combining this with 14

-I'm in the central concourse.- I looked the message over before sending it. I was supposed to meet David Sullivan today, and I was honestly quite nervous. I had no idea how this was gonna go, but I was hoping to not get shot. The Free Light Mining Consortium station pretty much housed everything the miners needed: refineries, business offices, hotels, entertainment, goods, ship services, and more. Because the station was specialized to the mining company's needs, the concourse looked less like an actual concourse for ingoing and outgoing traffic and more like a business center for scheduling, loading, pick up, and whatever else. From the docking arms, crews would come in all smiles and whatnot as they headed off for their leave to burn the credits they made harvesting asteroids. From the station side, very similar crews were heading back to the docking arms, faces grim and pockets likely empty.

My tablet beeped, and I looked at the message: -follow the pretty Asian girl.- I slipped my tablet back into its pocket and scanned the fairly crowded concourse. I about jumped out of my skin when I found the pretty Asian girl, barely a full meter to my right. She was petite with pale skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. She wore a tight colorful t-shirt and a short black skirt that showed off her nice shapely legs. The girl smiled up at me and held out a hand. I'd assumed she had wanted to shake. As soon as my hand was clasped in hers, she started pulling, and I found myself walking down the passageways deeper into the entertainment section of the station?

There was no way she was actually Asian. Most of the people around here were various shades of amalgamation, not a single one had her pale skin or petite frame. I don't think you could get a petite frame via surgery, but the face was probably the same type of plastic surgery that would get Sam excited and her hair, eye, and skin color were probably due to some gene therapy. Then again, maybe she was Asian, an import from some other sector of space. My musings were broken when a security guard for some club asked if I was carrying any weapons. I stared up at the big bouncer guy. He wore a nicely tailored suit and was almost a head taller than I was with the matching thickness that made him perfectly proportional. "Uh," I said because I believed I was actually carrying a weapon.

"We store them in the lockers. You'll get a receipt," said the man.

The guy seemed to just assume I had been carrying. Had I not hid the bulge well? I pulled out the arc pistol which got locked into box number 24 and he scrawled out a receipt before nodding to the little asian girl who pulled me through the doors into a loud flickering room bathed in entirely too much purple.

It was a rather large space with a second-story balcony that overlooked the dance floor. A very long bar was stashed on one side of the room and there was a spattering of tables close to what must have been a kitchen door. It was filled with people who were drinking and laughing in the booths and a large number on the dance floor writhing their bodies in time to a beat. I honestly found it a bit annoying. The Asian girl dragged me around the corner up a flight of stairs, the sound of the pulsating music and the sickening swirling lights dimmed considerably, likely due to some type of technological magic. She pulled me up in front of a booth where I can only assume I got my first glance at the man known as David Sullivan.

He was a taller, thinner guy. His dark hair was cut short, and his face was clean-shaven. He wore a nice suit. Both the man's eyes and that of the blonde snuggled into him turned towards me when the petite Asian girl shoved me up to the table. A wide grin spread across his face, and he held out his hand to shake. I took it instinctively. "You must be Grant Takata," he said.

"Uh, yeah," I replied.

He turned his gaze to the Asian girl. "Why don't you get our friend here a drink?"

"I don't drink," I said.

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"Something non-alcoholic," he instructed the girl, who scampered off. He motioned towards the seat across from him. "Have a seat, Mister Takata, and give me a moment, please."

As I slid into my seat, the guy thumbed something, and the girl scooted out of the booth with a smile and a wink before making her way off into the crowd.

"Ok. As you may have guessed, my name is David Sullivan.” The asian girl set my drink down and then scooted into the booth next to me. She put a hand on my thigh and grinned up at me. “And this fine piece of ass," David continued, "Is X2." I gave the girl a double take and David must have known what I was thinking because he chuckled and said, "No, she's human. But I do so love that expression."

David leaned back in his seat and gave me an appraising stare. "I suppose you're wondering why I wanted to talk to you. Mostly, it's because you're new. I call Rixa my home, and I've been making a habit of familiarizing myself with people who may or may not provide services I or people I know may find useful."

This told me two things. Number one, this Mr. David Sullivan was fairly likely not on the correct side of the law. And number two, he had mistakenly pegged me as some type of criminal. Well, honestly, maybe that wasn't much of a mistake, but I wasn't actively engaging in criminal activity. I just found myself committing it.

"Uh, okay," I replied, looking down at the Asian girl next to me who was staring up at me, smiling. Her hand was getting far too close to my crotch, and I forcefully took the offending appendage off my leg and put it on hers. She never lost the cute smile. It was only a matter of moments before her hand was on my leg again. Honestly, I was starting to find her a bit creepy.

"Mr. Takata," I’ll cut straight to the million Sen in question. "What are you doing out here in Rixa?"

"Uh, mining," I replied.

David cocked an eyebrow, and I again removed the offending hand of the cute Asian girl next to me and glared at her. “X2.” David said, getting the girl's attention. She then scooted out of the booth, moved over to David's side, scooted in next to him, and cuddled underneath his arm. She still stared at me with a cute smirk. Very strange. "So you're only here for mining?" David inquired.

"Yes," I responded.

"Ah, would I be correct in guessing you got on the wrong side of the law? Ran off to the furthest reaches you could and are trying to lie low?" David asked.

I wanted to ask how he knew, but I didn't think it would actually be that hard to figure out. A simple look at the systems I was in and where I was now pretty much told the story. "Pretty much," I admitted.

David nodded his head. "So if I did have a job or two, say smuggle something to a different system, is that something you'd be interested in?"

How did I answer this question? I didn't know if David would be a valuable contact, but everything was pretty friendly so far. He was clearly on the criminal side of things, but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get back on the lawful side. Best I could do was hedge my bets. "Maybe, if the mining doesn't work out," I responded.

David took a sip of his drink and seemed to consider my response. "I can see that. Well, you have my contact information. If there's something you need on the less than legal side of things, please keep me in mind. And do note, I'll be keeping an eye on you. You've kind of run afoul of the local… let's call them armed forces. That whole thing with hiding the spaceship and selling it to Murray on Nexus. Only one here happy with that is Murray. Handing over your pirate alive was a good thing. You can pretty well bet your pirate is back out there in his ship playing the part of a pirate though. As far as I understand, he now owes Murray a hefty chunk of change for his ship." David laughed. "There's a bit of a revolving door when it comes to employment between the pirates and the Mercs. You best watch yourself. Probably stay off Nexus for a while."

I had a sense. This meeting was over. I looked at my untouched drink but decided just to duck out now. "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind," I said.

David gave me a nod and a smile. He groped X2's breast and then asked her to see me out. Before I could protest, the little Asian girl with the weird name scooted out of the booth, grabbed my hand and started pulling me back towards the stairs. It wasn't long before I found myself outside the club. My pistol back in its pocket. X2 waving goodbye. The whole time she had never said a word. As I made my way down the passage, the only thing I could think of was getting back on the Res-a-tesseract and taking a shower. Something seemed wrong. Unsettling. I couldn't exactly place what or why. As kind of sleazy as David came off, it was the unsettling feeling that X2 gave me. I tried to put it out of my mind.