Chapter Ten - Warmime

If the average Lunatic warrior was the Warclown--someone on the edge of sanity, equipped with one or more cores and enough training to keep themselves alive in a hairy situation--then the Warmime was the equivalent of the Lunatic's special OPs.

Where a Warclown had esprit and revelled in chaos, the Warmime danced a different tune.

Their flavour of chaos was less about revelling in big, bombastic actions, and more subtle. It was the faint stink that came with a ship's life support failing at a critical moment, the strange rattle an engine made before it failed catastrophically. Stealth, deception, lies and misinformation.

Nothing that anyone would associate with the Lunatics, which is what made them almost perfect for the job.

Almost.

As subtle and silent as a Warmime might be, they were still Lunatics at their core. It was easy to pick them out of the crowd. It was only obscurity that kept the idea of them out of the public's attention.

Ivil wasn't a member of the public. When Missy the Warmime led her into a small but comfortably appointed room just past the opening hangar of the ship and turned, she found herself meeting the shorter woman's eyes and wondering if the mime planned on trying to kill her.

"So," Missy said as she settled into a relaxed posture, all of her weight on one side, hip cocked. "You planning on paying?"

"I never planned not to," Ivil said. "Though we did skip past the bargaining phase. The young miss out there, Twenty-Six? She doesn't seem entirely... financially conscious."

Missy sighed, pinched her brows, then nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like her. She'd probably just be happy to have one more person on this rust bucket. Fortunately, she's not first mate. Look, we've got four passenger rooms on here, two are kinda shit. One of the good ones is booked. The last isn't cheap."

Ivil nodded along. "The university is footing the bill for me. Well, within reason. This isn't the only ship from Ceres heading out towards Jupiter."

Missy shrugged. "It's the one you picked, fancy. Besides, there was an exodus around the Crevice, if you didn't notice."

"With the arrival of that Martian warship?" Ivil asked. "I noticed."

"That's good. So you'll understand that, as one of your last remaining options to get to Jupiter, what we charge for a room is entirely reasonable."

Ivil held back a smile. It looked like Missy was trying to fleece her, but she was being entirely too honest about it. Maybe that's why the Warmime wasn't on Haumea? Was she too poor at acting for her own good? "Just give me a price," Ivil said.

"Five thousand dollars for a trip from here to Jupiter."

"That seems high," Ivil said. She had only the vaguest notion of what things were worth anymore, but that did seem like it was on the higher end.

Missy raised her hands in a 'what can you do' sort of gesture. "It's room and board, and covers the cost of carrying your weight and freight."

"My freight is one small bag, a briefcase, and my weight is hardly worth mentioning," Ivil countered. This was amusing. Usually when she wanted something, people gave it to her. Sometimes while screaming for mercy.

Missy sniffed. "You're not that thin, fancy."

"Evelyn," Ivil said. "And I'll give you two thousand five."

"Two... Fancy, for two-five you'll be eating nothing but slop," Missy said. "Now, we're not the best when it comes to food and board, but I'd expect you to want something more than vat-grown veggie-substitutes from here to Jupiter."

"Three thousand," Ivil said. "And I expect a fine-dining experience like none other."

Missy grinned. "Four."

"Only if you're serving me yourself," Ivil said.

"You'd like that," Missy shot back. "Fine. Three-five."

Ivil paused, then nodded. "Three thousand five hundred. And I do expect to get the nicest room on this rust bucket."

"Eh, you can't have that one, booked already. But the second best isn't all that bad." Missy crossed the room and pushed aside a sliding door, revealing that the room continued. It was oddly misshapen, part of it was thin and narrow, then it opened up into a larger space, with ladders leading up to a sitting area above.

At a guess, Ivil imagined that this space was what was left after room had been allocated to other necessities in the rear. There was a large entertainment suite to one side, and a pair of couches squeezed into another. A small locker room was off to the left, where someone could get suited up before ducking out of the airlock.

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Missy went to one wall and opened up a small cubby, then another, then another. "Gimme a minute," Missy said as she continued to root around. There were several small nooks and spaces here. It looked... lived-in.

"Is this the main living room?" Ivil asked.

"It's the rear one," Missy replied as she continued to search for something. "Main living space is way out front, behind the cockpit. Back here's the med bay, engineering, crew quarters. You'll be staying in the spine. Ah, found you." She shut a thin closet door with a bump of her hip, then sauntered back to Ivil with a small payment machine in hand. "First Bank of Mars, right?"

"That's right," Ivil said.

Missy turned the machine towards her, and there was a charge pending on it. She read the dusty screen. "That's three seven."

"Service charge," Missy said.

Ivil rolled her eyes, then tugged out the wallet she'd gotten from MINT. There was a card there that she tapped onto the machine. It took a moment, but eventually beeped.

"Nice. Welcome on board the Held Together. Let me show you to your bunk."

Missy tossed the reader onto one of the couches, then gestured Ivil after her.

They moved through a bulkhead door, then up a steep ramp in a narrow corridor with padded walls. There were handholds all over, for easier motion in zero-Gs. "This is the spine," Missy said as they reached the top. "It cuts across from the rear to the fore. Bit narrow, so if you see someone moving by, just squeeze to the side."

"I see," Ivil said. "How big is the crew on here?"

"It's just five of us," Missy said. "Me, Two-Six, the captain, the navigator, and the muscle."

Ivil wondered what she meant by the muscle, but before she could ask, Missy was stopping by a doorway. There were two of them facing each other in the middle of the corridor. The one Missy stopped at had what at one point had probably been a large B stencilled over it.

"This is yours," Missy said. She tapped a keypad and the door hissed open. "You've got your own head and all. Kitchen's at the front, so's the dining room. Not hard to find or anything."

"Thank you," Ivil said. She ducked into the room, then paused by the entrance. Not that there was much beyond an entrance.

The space was cramped, and Ivil could tell that this was very obviously one of the cargo containers held onto the side of the ship, converted into a living space. There was a bed, just barely large enough for two and folded up against the wall, a small kitchen next to a washroom that was basically just big enough for someone to stand in. There wasn't much else, actually. An ancient screen was placed against one wall, and there was a small desk squeezed into the last corner.

"Well, it's certainly comfortable," Ivil said.

"Heh, spoken like a ground-pounder," Missy said. "This is a luxury suite for anyone used to ship life. And it's all yours. Enjoy." She gave Ivil a little salute, then ducked out of the room. The door hissed shut behind her.

Ivil tilted her head to one side, listening to what was going on beyond the room. She could clearly hear Missy heading up to the front of the ship while muttering to herself.

"Weird one. Captain's gonna be happy, that's a hell of a payday."

Ivil rolled her eyes. She tossed her bag to one side, then placed her briefcase on the little desk and popped it open to retrieve one of the tablets within.

She probably had a few hours alone, which would be a fantastic time to study up on her new identity.

It didn't take her long to discover that someone at MINT was thinking ahead and had outlined the cost of a berth on a ship like the Held Together. "Hmm, I might have overpaid a little," she muttered.

Not by too much, but Missy had certainly gotten more than this room deserved. Ivil wasn't sure if the room was even safe. It had that faint smell that came when a space wasn't well shielded.

If she were someone who had to worry about radiation, then it might even be a problem in the long term.

Ivil checked through the information packet until she discovered a file with all of the information Martian Intelligence was able to gather on the crew of the Held Together.

Ivil stared at the file, then hesitated.

Did she want to know this, or did she want to form her own opinions?

The question worried her for a while.

***