I realized we were being followed after the fourth checkpoint.

For a location known as the heart of the criminal underworld, there was a lot of security. Itokawa is divided into districts, horizontally and vertically, and each had a security checkpoint. We were entering Lazlo District in the early evening when I caught the quick flash of a hand sign I recognized from a man in a medical uniform who appeared to be heading home for the day.

The halls of Itokawa were dimly lit, and everything had an industrial feel of darker metal, iron and alloys, dusty and dingy, typical of a settlement on a chondrite asteroid. They clearly didn't have enough cleaning bots to handle the volume of people and materials that moved through the city.

I just happened to be looking at the right time to spot the slight movement, his thumb making two brief sweeps upward against his index and middle finger, tilted toward us, while a man in a rust-colored jacket several paces away, walking along with the crowd and looking seemingly in the other direction, gave a tap to his left shoulder.

They were passing us from one person to another to make it harder for us to notice, and this also meant that now that I was paying attention, two things were likely. Either I would tip my hand and they would notice I saw them, or I would lose track of who was following us.

Either way, we had a 73.3% chance of getting jumped or otherwise intercepted at some point.

"The zabba wordon falty we're being woop followed space noodles," I said to @foxcutter between mixed in gibberish to make it look like I was saying something different, while I stared at a location far ahead and to the left that looked like a scrap shop.

I headed that way, bumping into @foxcutter while he mumbled back. "Watermelon since watermelon boogie we landed thermal punctulator."

That made sense, and of course @foxcutter had picked up on it sooner. I was a little irritated at first that he hadn't notified me, but then I remembered the weird gestures he had been making, slapping his palm against his wrist, then repeatedly against his chest like he was coughing and trying to extract some phlegm; he even slapped me across the face, the bastard. I didn't know @foxcutter well, so I thought maybe he just liked talking with his hands. Oops.

@diamonddocker had given us a location, Void's Edge, a bar (of course) in the Shaft District, deeper in the central part of Itokawa. But he didn't give us a name. Supposedly, whomever we were going to meet would approach us. That wasn't reassuring because in a place like this you never really know who is approaching you or with what intentions. But it was all we had to go on.

"Lovely wacka wacka lettuce bonkers scrap shop watermelon ooze trigger penis flip flops," I instructed.

@foxcutter stifled a laugh and nudged me, motioning toward the scrap shop.

"Lemon porche zinger that's what I fugamutter said stupid feces eater!" I exclaimed, making angry eyes at him.

He wasn't a great actor. He threw his arms out wide and nodded. "Ohhhh!" Then he laughed and headed toward the scrap shop at a quick pace.

I tried to use a sonar signature to track the person following us, analyzing the sounds around us, trying to use my peripheral vision and sound queues to get an auditory sense of where they were, but it was too crowded in this corridor, the various aiways around us providing too much noise. If they were any good at their jobs, which I suspected they were, they would be pacing their movements to be undetected anyway. I couldn't risk sending out a sonar ping. Something like that would be too obvious, and I assumed everyone around us would notice immediately. That would just be a good way of getting the attention of the guards or asking for a mob to haul us away. There's certain things you just don't do in a place like this.

But, with any luck, we'd lose them after the scrap shop, a place called The Cosmic Gutter. I liked it as soon as I saw the sign. While the maze of hallways on Itokawa were fairly narrow, this allowed for the shops to be much larger, contributing in part to the maze effect. In some locations, the hallway merged with the shop, restaurant, bar, etc. so there was no way to proceed without walking through. These little "shopping corridors" were part of the wonder of Itokawa. You could simply walk to where you wanted to go and get food, a haircut, tools, a new shirt, whatever goods you needed, on your way.

The blend of hallways and stores made it feel like a plaza - just more condensed, fitted for space, broken apart and put together in a random pattern.

The Cosmic Gutter was one of these larger stores with an entrance from the hall, but it connected with other hallways as well. These intersection stores were the most coveted because they got more foot traffic and because the myriad of exits made them excellent places to make a quick deal and dash.

@foxcutter and I strolled casually into the shop. Scrap shops aren't for everyone, I'll admit, but this place was exquisite in its organized chaos of parts stacked high on shelves, small bits that would be hard to find, large common parts - even ship modules in one section - and they would be sure to have rare parts and a back-of-shop, under the table trade of some kind for even rarer or banned goods.

As we walked in, I noticed the security system. Open shops like this would be easy targets for shoplifters if not for the advanced tracking signatures they could place on goods and the "electric fence" around the perimeter. Swipe something, even a tiny screw, and you'd be electrocuted upon exit.

A little shock's not bad, right? Not here. In an aiways society, the safest way to protect something is fear of death. If I grabbed a vector flange from the stack in front of me, turned around and left, I'd be electrocuted for all to see, charred and fried until my organic body was just a corpse on the floor. They'd snap a photo and add it to the digital displays showing all the idiots who tried to steal from them. That would also likely earn me a ban from Itokawa, period. So I'd have to be reanimated and then I'd still be quarantined.

The rascal in me saw it as a challenge. I immediately felt the urge to steal something, just like all those idiots on the screen. Those who got away with it were legends, even if they didn't survive long after escaping. I had seen several aged posters for @rocketplumber The Swiper, who had robbed five different stores some 57 years ago.

I added two side quests to my mission log: 1) Find The Swiper and 2) Steal Something from The Cosmic Gutter. My mouth salivated at the thought of it. I wondered if @foxcutter was having similar thoughts. As a skilled slicer, I had to assume he was thinking the same thing.

"Agro flux tempting right?" I said slyly. "The cobbler ate my monkey fart drool."

He just smiled, very foxlike. Yep. He was thinking the same thing.

We didn't have time to waste, but I did want to see if they had a quarkwire, the fastest data transfer method available, or at least a lepton router for the ship to improve the comms. They would be expensive. I almost surely didn't have the funds. But I wanted to know. Curiousity, you know. Besides, I needed to figure out what I wanted to steal from The Cosmic Gutter when I returned to rob them. Priorities.

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We wandered through the loose parts section. I didn't see a ton of interest, mostly common parts. When we we got to the tools I had to stop myself from taking everything around me. I needed all of these tools. I needed them in my workbench area on the ship. All of them. Especially the ones I didn't know how to use that looked dangerous.

"I need this," I said, grabbing onto a gravity hammer and pretending to smash @foxcutter with it. He laughed at first, but then I started walking away with it, and he grabbed my shoulder.

"You can't walk around here with that," he said.

"And why not?" I said, hefting the hammer over my shoulder and staring at him.

"We're trying to be discreet," he said bluntly.

I looked around me, gave him a disapproving incredulous look, my eyes bulging, my arms out in frustration. "Why don't you just tell everybody. Do you want me to shout it?" I stood taller, looking around again, and I shouted. "We're trying to be discreet!"

@foxcutter grabbed me, trying to shut me up.

"I want to buy a hammer!" I yelled. "I need a hammer."

Shoppers and passersby wandering the corridor, turned to stare, but most simply made annoying faces and kept walking, or chuckled and shook their heads. A guard looked our way, interested but mostly amused. I mean, come on, everyone here was trying to be discreet. I was just trying to hide in plain sight and to annoy @foxcutter.

@foxcutter kept grabbing at me. "Shhh! Shut up. Stop it!" He flapped his silly grabby arms at me.

While he was distracted by trying to take the gravity hammer from me, I snagged a fabricator pen in my left hand, still shouting. "This hammer is my friend! You wouldn't take my friend away. He's all I've got!" I clung to the gravity hammer, shifting my body away from @foxcutter. Meanwhile, I palmed the fabricator pen and slipped it up snugly into the sleeve of my leather jacket. I was going to pay for it, but I didn't want @foxcutter to see it.

"We belong together!" I yelled.

Finally, @foxcutter gave up. I realized we were both a little out of breath from fighting over the gravity hammer, which is quite heavy by the way, when you want it to be. It floats until you toggle it on and then it thuds with incredible force. I love pistols, but this was a wonderful tool and a great melee weapon at the same time.

"Satisfied?" @foxcutter finally said.

How dare he treat me like a child!

"Remember, I'm your captain. This is my mission." I lowered the hammer to my side, letting it dangle next to my feet. "I could just send you back to the ship, but what fun is that?"

He made a weird face that gave me a sense of his mild frustration.

"Come on," I said casually. "That was fun. You can't pretend that you aren't going to laugh about this later. I know I will."

"If I say no, are you going make a scene again?"

I patted @foxcutter on the shoulder. "You're learning. Besides, I want to talk with the shopkeeper. That means I have to buy something." Technically, it doesn't, but shopkeepers are more open to talking with people who spend qcoins than people who aren't going to buy anything and just waste their time asking question after question after question. The nerve of those people!

We walked toward the checkout counter, begrudgingly leaving more lovely tools behind, through the ship parts section and into the short queue of people. The woman in front of me was buying an electricity gauge, a few random metal parts that looked like junction boxes and wall mounts, and a pack of bubblewrap. Her long brown hair was pulled up in a swirl above the collar of a medium thick jacket that had white, yellow, and orange horizontal bands.

She rocked slowly to her right, peering back at me when we got in line, admiring my hammer. She had a pretty face, dusty like everything in this place, but pretty, with dark brown eyes. I was preparing to flirt and say something clever when I spotted the group ahead of her - what appeared to be a man and his son.

I gasped audibly, making her jump a step.

"Sorry," I said to her. "It's not you. You're not ugly as a rock."

She didn't know how to respond to that. Neither did I. So I changed the subject by nodding toward the man and his son. You just don't see children. Anywhere. That's a very human thing. Pockets of Introverts, mostly near Earth where there are a lot of humans, still have children. You might expect to see some there around the human settlements, but in space? On Itokawa? The only thing people did with children in space was smuggle them. I was freaking out inside, horrified for the child.

Her face softened when she saw what made me gasp. She leaned in close to whisper. "It's not a real child," she said. "That's a foil. Android. Becoming trendy here. He must be wealthy. You see them from time to time."

"Why?" I asked. I noticed the slightest change in temperature. She was close enough that I could sense some of her body heat in this cold odd city.

"Makes them feel authentic," she replied.

I nodded and shrugged, glancing at @foxcutter, who just stared quietly.

"I think it makes them look stupid," she added. She kept my eyes just long enough for it not to be awkward, then turned back as the man finished his exchange.

He and the android walked off, holding hands, while the android pointed at a ship part and said, "Cool!" with that childlike enthusiasm that I have when I see something cool. It was weird though. I shivered.

Did I want an android child? I asked myself. No. Hell no.

But I suppose if I was settling down rather than fighting a war, gallivanting around space as a Vanquisher, maybe I'd want a family. The man certainly seemed pleased. He beamed at the child and muttered something as they plodded off. I couldn't help but be fascinated by this. His life must be so very different. I wondered what he did, why he was on Itokawa.

The woman finished paying for her things, taking her bag and bubble wrap. She paused just briefly as she walked past us. "Void's Edge. Ten o'clock."

That was it. No name. Just a time and location.

An invitation for a drink? I wondered. But this was Itokawa. Sure, that could be it, but paranoia is a good thing. I couldn't help but wonder if she was our contact from @diamonddocker. But he said we would be approached at Void's Edge, not on your way to Void's Edge.

If it was our contact, great. If not, I'd have to navigate this woman seeing us at the bar later against trying to be alone so we could meet our contact.

My mind on that, I instinctively placed the fabricator pen on the counter and held out my gravity hammer to be scanned and marked as sold so as to not be electrocuted.

The woman behind the counter had a raspy voice, probably from the space dust around here, and I figured she didn't get reanimated much. Probably she also valued it as part of her authenticity. She was thin, wearing jeans and a plain white t-shirt with dirt smudges on it. She had short blond hair and blue eyes like mine. Her digitag said, "Amy."

I fought back a gasp again. That was a human name, but this person wasn't human. She was clearly aiways. I could sense the machinery and electronics easily. Not even @bitchfrog, who was human now, had taken on a human name as part of her re-organicization. I'd have to ask her about that.

What was it with these people on Itokawa? The audacity to take on a human name?!? I suppose when you want to escape from the universe, this is the place to be, and in a place like this, I suppose anything goes. Android children! Human names! What was next?

"You're not from here," Amy chuckled at me, scanning my goods. The bill popped up on a digital window atop the counter.

"You have any quarkwires?" I asked.

Amy rolled her eyes at me and grabbed a metal cup sitting next to her. "You're not from around here," she repeated, sipping at it and setting it down on the counter with a little tap tap.

I glanced behind me. The queue was longer now, so I needed to be quick about it. I'd have to come back later for some real shopping, snooping, and maybe more money. And to scope it out so I could steal something, of course.

"Thrusters are following you," she said calmly. "I can give you 20% off if you open up a loyalty account."

I pinged the Extronet. The Thrusters were a local gang. So that's who had been following us. Unless a lot of people were following us. That seemed more than plausible. Itokawans would probably jump on anyone new. One of the ways the population grew was by scamming or soliciting visitors to the point where they simply couldn't leave.

I tapped my wrist to pay. "Thanks for the warning."

"Loyalty?" Amy asked, quirking her head to the side.

"No, no loyalty," I said. I assumed it was both a Cosmic Gutter question and a coded way of finding out where my allegiances lay.

As I collected my things, she motioned behind her to a narrow exit through the back. "In that case, you should check out our special selection on your way out."

"Thank you, Ayummy," I said courteously, struggling to say her name.

"Of course," she said in a chipper rasp. "See you again soon!"

@foxcutter and I headed off down that dark and narrow passage, doing the mental model in our heads to track our path. This would take us out into a different hall where we would need to head to the right and then down a few more levels.

Itokawa was already a pleasant surprise compared to Psyche. I couldn't help but feel some loyalty to the place, even though I sort of blew it apart back in the day - or maybe because I had blown it apart.

But I should have known better.

We barely made it three steps out of the passageway from The Cosmic Gutter when we were jumped.