Do you want to explore new worlds, visit exotic locations, be the first to set eyes on wonders beyond imagining, and live a life of excitement civilians believe only exists in holovids?
Apply to be a stormer today and break new ground while being your own person! You make your own hours and settle your own contracts without the restricting structure of the military.
With your LCC license, you can take either short or long-term contracts to work in this or any other Reality.* Rescue downed ships, go treasure hunting in abandoned civilizations, or return with trade deals with newly contacted Realities!
A basic combat and athletics test will be conducted as part of your application to confirm that you meet the legally mandated minimum requirements.
*Contracts and equipment are not the liability of the issuing department or city thereof and are the licensee's sole responsibility.
Advert Blip
Santa Onofre Bureau of Licensed Contract Combatants
2187 ESC
Cahuilla Tribal Autonomous Region
Reality of Erde
February 7th, 2192 ESC
Althea woke up with a start in a soft bed, sheets wrapped around one of her legs. The walls were an industrial off-white stained yellow with tobacco smoke. The stale, horrid scent permeated everything with an overlay of other chemicals and her apple-sweat smell. She looked around the tiny room and saw just enough room for a small nightstand, a chair, and a door to what she presumed was a bathroom. There was another door that led outside and a tiny light.
Where? When? she thought in confusion and checked her internal time. The last three days rushed back to her. Right, I took a job. This is the Skyport hotel. She colored at the thoughts of the undead she had fought. Did I really saw off the legs of a giant ice ghoul monster with a Ripley gun and leave my sword in its spine?
She checked her memories, and yes, she had. It wasn’t a bad dream. She had seen the damn things in her infrared following the ute as they drove along those lonely, abandoned roads. The hunched-over humanoids running along, following the ute on all fours, had made her skin crawl. But then she had seen the dark purple of their cores and spines that indicated a bitter cold, and she knew they were undead.
Althea and her unit had fought them several times during the war. The first time was when they ran across a Sidhe mage that had known the necromantic school of magic. It was one of the schools of magic that was rarely discussed as it was considered taboo, and a Mechanese company was called in specifically to deal with it. Resembling the corpses taken over by Li ̂ Chasse, her people fiercely hated the mindless undead as well. The first time they had run across the undead was in a jungle temple where the Sidhe had a base inside a huge underground cavern system. The first ones had been vegetable-covered corpses of the native sentients, which she later learned were australopithecines. They all had an icy core in their body that had to be smashed. Though to be certain that they were destroyed, the bodies had to be burned. Otherwise, they would often reanimate when their core received enough mana. She had heard that a light mage could de-animate them without burning them but had never seen it personally. Fortunately, the laser and maser weaponry her people used destroyed the cores through heat. This was discovered through trial and error after several of the creatures they had defeated had come back to fight them again until they had shot the icy core specifically.
They had fought their way to the center of the base through waves of the damn things, finally getting to the unit of necromancers. They had stitched together a huge monstrosity that her unit had engaged and destroyed, having to crack and melt the multiple cores that animated it. The Necromancers themselves were supported by several earth mages that kept shifting and changing the cavern they were in. Her brothers rushed them first and, through sheer ferocity, reached them through their golems and waves of Earth Darts. The Necromancers had been her and her sister’s responsibility, and they had swarmed over the top of the multitude of the dead to attack Sidhe mages who wore the bones of the dead as their armor. It was a horrible, disgusting battle she would remember her entire life.
Many of her sisters would have died that day if they hadn’t been wearing their power suits. Even with the ArkaMakina shields, the undead and Sidhe necromancers had been extremely tough, and several of her sisters had received severe wounds. Some of her brothers had died, but they thankfully hadn’t risen again. That would have been a horror she didn’t want to contemplate. The GmbH mages that had helped with the cleanup had told her that Mechanese were extremely resistant to being made into undead for some reason, for which all Realities should be thankful. If she had fallen in Lilac and risen like the healer implied… She shivered, and her skin patterned out of disgust.
Shaking off the memory, Althea got up and went into the shower. The entire room stunk of her. The shower managed to get most of the stink off herself with the included chemical-scented soaps. But her clothes were another problem. The clothes had dried after being washed in the shower two mornings ago. However, there were rents and tears in the ballistic cloth that hadn’t stopped the claws of the undead she had fought. She shivered involuntarily and boosted the heat of the water. As she was drying off, she used a small sewing kit to fix the most egregious holes. She didn’t want to take a flight back to her rented studio half-naked. That would be embarrassing. Which would trigger spots, which of course, would make people afraid. She took in a deep calming breath and opened her internal Network Interface.
She checked her page on TigerStorm where she registered her job details. It wasn’t the best job board out there, but it had a flashy animated logo that she liked. The job was listed as completed with another ten-star rating and a note by Majou Kaizoku Transportation saying she had prevented the client’s certain death during his resignation. A second note you had to open to see said, “Commendations should also be noted for her service in cleansing the abandoned town of Lilac of an undead infestation while pursuing the above goal.”
Althea wrinkled her nose. Another reminder of that mess. Yes, she had been very proud she had killed the giant, but what would happen if she had died? How would Tiki manage? She shook her head. Best not to think about it. I’ll get stuck in a loop of self-recrimination. I’d better not do that again.
Instead, Althea checked her bank account and noted that the freeze was lifted last night. The contract dispute with the warehouse had finally been resolved in her favor. Sighing in relief, she retrieved her underwear while she checked to see if her bounty had been canceled yet. Wealth Creation Land Holdings Group had canceled her bounty, but Packer’s Posse had put up one for a thousand for the corpse of the Jaguar Bruja on another job board.
Perhaps she did deserve that, but she doubted anyone would be stupid enough to collect. Wait, the name the kids had given her was being used? Althea growled low and bared her fangs briefly. If anyone had harmed a hair on the children’s heads, there would be a lot fewer of them.
She got dressed, briefly disliking the feeling of how her clothing had dried. It was crunchy. Why was it like that? She had washed it thoroughly. Maybe the soap hadn’t been washed out completely? Her scratchy underwear on, and ballistic jumpsuit over it, Althea pulled on her boots and threw her armor and guns into a duffel she had purchased off the girls that ran the skyship.
It was weird, Althea had talked to them at length that morning before the ship had left and had gotten her hotel room, but she could not recall their precise faces or names. She knew she had been very friendly with the blonde and even petted her. Which embarrassed her immensely, but she had done it twice for some reason. But her name and face eluded her. Even going through the archives of the encounters in her memories only gave her vague recollections and impressions.
They probably have a concealment spell going, she thought. The mixed school illusion and charm spells known as concealments were somewhat in vogue with groups that did less than legal work she had heard from the gang members she was friendly with. They would mess with electronics and the minds of anyone who saw a person the spell was cast upon. Very few people were skilled in both the spell schools; thus, they were too rare to use regularly. The casters would charge you even if the spell failed. But, of course, Erde’s high spell failure rate didn’t deter them from seeking out the expensive spells either. They were just too useful.
Althea had come into the hotel two mornings ago, booked it for two days, and promptly passed out. Her internals said she was healed but was still low on her nanites. So she’d have to go home and pick up mineral supplements to supply them with new material to make more. Althea brought up her bank account again, this time on her dataslate’s spiderwebbed screen. She sent 2700Marks to Buchon and Lil Yaz as promised. They had come through with their side of the deal, after all. Messages popped up immediately asking if she was ok. She acknowledged that she was in good health and would return via a flight at the Santa Onofre airport sans car.
After getting them both calmed down and accepting a ride from the airport, Althea got her bag and booked a flight back to Santa Onofre. Thankfully commuter flights between the autonomous zone and Santa Onofre flew every hour or two. The customs inspection of her equipment at the Cahuilla skyport was abbreviated, thanks to the LCC license she had slotted into a window on her left breast pocket. Stormers usually could go through most checkpoints with their weaponry and spells intact, as they were needed by many of the member states to do off-the-books work. Still, she knew if she was in the GmbH or Imperial Japan, they would insist she put them in a locked weapons case unless she was on the job.
The flight back was on a small commuter craft, really just a lifting body with some vectored thrusters and liftstones built into pods. Basically, it was just an airborne bus. The flight was less than thirty minutes, and most of that was spent waiting for clearance to land at the main Santa Onofre Airport, which had been built on an artificial peninsula. While they were in flight, she had seen the remains of Lilac smoldering in the distance. It looked like several vehicles were out there, but she couldn’t tell. She squinted and focused. It might have been some of the Santa Onofre Military, but she had never actually seen them and the equipment looked non-standard.
When they landed at the airport in Santa Onofre, she hopped out of the commuter flight and got her duffel bag from the baggage compartment. She looked over the heads of mostly humans to the commuter flights’ customs counter. She was used to the fact that most humans were twenty to thirty centimeters shorter than her hundred and ninety-five. The height difference never really bothered her, in fact Althea really enjoyed it when Tiki cuddled against her chest when they hugged.
Tiki! Ah, she’s gonna be mad I haven’t called for a few days, Althea thought nervously. Of course, she could call now, but the analog phone was much better at conveying emotion. It would give her a couple of hours to work on an explanation of why she got carried away and fought a giant undead monstrosity and then hadn’t called her for two days while holed up in a hotel room recovering.
She noticed a couple of people in suits watching her. Both looked like IJ with their expensive tailored suits, sunglasses, and ramrod straight backs. She patterned and looked directly at them, reading their dataspheres. They both moved slightly, but she could see that data was moving furiously between them both, and she presumed their higher-ups. So she tagged them for tracking and slipped in some tacking tags to the data stream so they would attach to whomever they were communicating to. She nodded when four more tracking tags popped up in the airport terminal.
The customs inspection was brief. First, Althea’s weapons were checked against her license, which allowed her to wear them. When the customs officer gave her the ok, she pulled them out of her duffel, reloaded them, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and shoved her gun in her holster. Then, striding into the terminal, she watched the tags move around and follow her position.
The airport’s interior was similar to those in other countries on Erde, except a gun shop was directly inside. Turning into it, she sent a message to Buchon and Lil Yaz about her tails as she ordered more ammunition and looked through the melee weapons. Buchon gave Althea a map marker showing where her ride would be waiting. The shopkeep was a stocky gnome who eyed her curiously. The gnome and the dwarven species looked similar, but she knew he wasn’t a dwarf by scent. It was less stone and more fresh soil. She picked up a steel-handled mace and picked through the knives slowly, choosing one that was low in price but well-balanced.
Althea began to feel the IJ’s hired infowarrior trying to breach her defenses with sneaky little checks to her own datasphere. She lightly patterned, and the gnome backed up in alarm. She raised her hand, saying quietly, “I am not in combat mode. Something surprised me.” He nodded in relief, and she finished shopping while receiving updated coordinates for her pickup. Unfortunately, they had been forced to park. She paid the man and attached the newly purchased gear to her belt harness. Leaving the store, she noted where her tails were and confidently strode towards the wrong parking lot.
There was probing from the IJ infowarrior again, and she rolled her eyes. She thought , He’s being sneaky, trying to find an opening . She examined the coding that the infowarrior was using while passing through the concourse. Staying in the middle of the walkway to avoid any hapless salespeople, Althea moved rather quickly, avoiding the people sent after her. There was a quick, violent attack on what the infowarrior thought was a vulnerability, and she shut it down immediately. She breached their dataspheres with a combination of Mechanese, IJ, and Federacy data attacks and slipped in a reboot command. Another microsecond later and she was in the camera system. She placed several moving false data images of herself around the airport and sat down at a planter in a busy lounge area.
Curiously all her pursuers stopped what they were doing and stayed that way until she saw their dataspheres come back on. She gripped the handle of her new mace at her belt and waited for several minutes, and they started moving away from her. This is odd, she thought. I thought they would be certain to attack.
Picking up her duffel, Althea walked quickly to the airport exit. The IJ tails were following her at a distance but were staying away. Maybe they had heeded her warning and were now wary of her. She hoped they were backing off, at least. Unlike the skyports in the GmbH, Santa Onofre’s skyport terminal was serviced with mainly ground vehicles like buses and cars, which were crowding and jockeying for position. It reminded her a lot of the skyport she had been in on NewHome. What was that place? The Angels, Yes. That was it. At least the smell was better here.
She waited for the traffic to stop with the lights and ran across the street to the first parking structure. Althea leaped to the second story, grabbing the side of the concrete structure and hauling herself up there. Her corded muscles stood out under her skin as she supported her entire height with one hand and pushed herself up and over the banister of the second level.
Althea walked among the vehicles until she found a squat sedan with thick windows. Two older teenagers, a boy, and a girl, wearing red shirts, were leaning against the car, talking with one another. She looked them over and nodded, both were known to her. Creeper and Mousey had come to her a few times to get implants fixed during her sessions.
They waved to her. “Hey, Tayah!” Creeper said. The boy wore a fake snakeskin belt, a signature red shirt, and baggy jeans and had his hair in greasy dreadlocks. The teen got into the driver’s side.
Mousey, a smaller girl, wore a similar outfit with a white half jacket, pink bedazzled bellbottoms, and her mouse-brown hair in a ponytail. “Whassup,” she said casually. “Buchon said you got a tail,” she stated as she opened the back door for Althea.
Sliding into the somewhat messy car, Althea nodded to them. “Yes, but they seem to have backed off a little bit,” she answered, shoving aside some fast food wrappers as she sat down and placed her rifle on the seat next to her.
“Oh, what’re they after you for?” Creeper said as he started the car and backed out of the parking space before beginning to navigate their way out of the parking structure.
“I do not know, but they tried to attack my datasphere,” she said flatly as she monitored the tags. The IJ agents seemed to have converged and then split into two groups. One group seemed to be headed back toward the Asian sector, and another was going toward another parking structure.
“Whoah,” Mousey said. “Isn’t that like super dangerous? I mean, you’re a biofem. Aren’t you guys like the Network personified?”
Althea blinked in surprise and tilted her head, “I don’t think we’re the Network, but it might seem like that to non-Mechanese.” She took in a breath and looked out the window as they left the parking garage. “It could be dangerous to try to hack me, but I just let them off with a warning.”
Creeper turned on the radio, and some bandapop-fusion began to come through the speakers. He started bopping his head, and Mousey punched him in the shoulder. “Hey, what was that for?” he complained.
“Be a little more pro, cabron,” Mousey said. Turning back to Althea. “So what did you do to warn them, Tayah? Just give them the bird or something?”
The car pulled onto a toll road. Their fare had been deducted automatically from the car before the gate opened for them when they entered. “Oh, well, I simply rebooted all their cyberware,” Althea answered as she looked at the warehouse and dock district as they went over it on the elevated highway.
“Oh man, that’s chinga metalo!” Creeper exclaimed.
Mousey’s eyes were as big as saucers. “You did what?” she almost shouted. “Simply? How many of them were there?”
Althea blinked and looked curiously at both of them in the front seat. “Only six, including an infowarrior. It wasn’t that difficult.”
“Jeshua Cristos,” Mousey breathed, making the ChiRo ‘x’ cross on her chest. “Only six at the same time…” she shook her head. “Tayah, remind me to never make you mad.”
Althea waved her hand and said, “I was merely annoyed. I did not need to do more.”
Creeper laughed, “Humble bragging, I like it!”
Changing the subject, Althea asked, “So there is food? I haven’t eaten much in three days.” The stale stuff she had gotten from a vending machine at the airport hotel provided some material for her nanomachines, but it didn’t do much besides that.
“Oh yeah, Tio is cooking today. He’s been marinating and crap for a few days. So they got a spread! ” Creeper chattered excitedly. “You gonna be celebrated, Chica!”
Mousey hissed at him, putting her finger to her lips and making shushing sounds. “Shhh! Shhhsh!”
The boy looked over at his companion and then back at the road, “She gonna see it when we pull in any way,”
Althea allowed a ghost of a smile as she watched the interaction. “I am curious but will allow the surprise to happen,” the biofem said. She noted that the IJ agents were still tailing them but were quite far back. They would probably back off further once they saw the gathering they were headed to.
They drove in companionable silence for the next ten minutes until the music was interrupted by a report about a weekend of unprecedented violence caused by a gang war. Althea sunk a bit lower as they mentioned how an unknown gang had taken out Pala Mesa’s ruling Packer’s Posse gang, which had led to expanding other gangs’ territories. Some CorpSec forces were spotted, but no one knew which one and whose side they had been on.
The next report was about a gas explosion in the abandoned town of Lilac that killed many homeless people. She patterned at that and covered her face, but Mousey saw her in the mirror and started snickering. “It’s not my fault,” she whispered.
The party that awaited them was huge, covering an entire block near downtown Fallbrook. Tables had been set up for eating, there were tents with people cooking various foods, a band played very loud music, and there were a lot of people there. It wasn’t just the Búhos de Sangre and Los Ojos Muertos. The Azure Jackals, Thunder Crocodile Killers, and Seventy-Fivers were also there at the party in their signature gang colors. When she got there, Buchon and Lil Yaz pounced on her and dragged Althea to a table full of food as soon as her stomach growled. They sat down on either side of her and made her eat.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“So yeah, you cleared out those pinche pendejos in Pala,” Buchon said, his teeth shining brightly as he smiled. “They were evil putas madres. You know, they kidnapped people and made them fight?”
Althea shook her head. “I did not know that. I only knew they ate people that they thought were strong.” She blinked as realization dawned on her. “Oh, they must have needed a new food source since everyone avoided Pala Mesa. They were eating the winners of those fights.”
Lil Yaz nodded and interjected, “Yeah, they were getting hungry, and then you come into their territory with that beat-up little piece of mierda car I loaned you.” She laughed and slapped Althea on the back. “Oh, Dios Mio, The money I made selling the camera footage from that vehicle! Un putero dinero.”
Althea stopped chewing on an al pastor taco and asked, “How much do I owe for the car? I am very sorry I could not return it in good condition.”
They both stared at her for a moment and blinked. Then Buchon started laughing, soon followed by Lil Yaz.
“Crap Tayah! You made her a bunch of money selling a video of you messing up Packer’s Posse. You wanna give her more?” Buchon laughed and slapped Althea’s back again.
Shaking her head, Lil Yaz focused her signature skull-patterned eyes on Althea, “Chava, you already paid me ten times over what that car cost. People pay through the nose to watch combat footage, and you delivered in spades. I think the movie people in Osaka and Madrid will be studying it for their next batch.”
Patterning in embarrassment and ears drooping and turning red, Althea said quietly, “I am in trouble, aren’t I? Is that why the IJ was sniffing around me at the airport? Because I made fools of them?” She had checked for her tail, and it seemed they had left the area already. Possibly they didn’t want to do anything at something as busy and well-armed as this place.
Both of them shrugged. “Eh, who knows what they want? They might think you got some info on your client,” Buchon said.
“I have no idea where he went. I did not ask and did not want to know,” Althea answered. “I cannot even remember the faces or names of the crew that picked him up.”
They both nodded, impressed. “That’s an expensive concealment spell,” Lil Yaz said. “We got a ‘Teca priestess in my crew, and she can do minor shit, but if this messed with you, that’s super expensive.”
Buchon coughed, “Umm, so about your client. I heard you, umm, well, slept with her….”
Lil Yaz leaned over and stared into his eyes. “What. The. Actual. Fuck?” she said slowly. “You don’t ask that shit, man!”
“Hey, it’s a rumor! Everyone knows she’s saving herself for her girlfriend,” he said defensively.
Althea stared at her food as they groused at one another. Then, she patterned and said quietly, “I tried to throw off his pursuers by showering and giving the neighborhood ladies something to gossip about. Nothing happened between us.” I’d better call Tiki immediately to make her understand I did not have recreation with anyone else, she thought in a panic.
A plate of grilled sliced steak with a pungent green sauce was placed in front of Althea. Churrasco con chimichurri, one of Tiki’s favorite dishes. She looked up into the eyes of a familiar heavyset man. He had a handlebar mustache and had lost a little hair, but still, it was the same person she had met in Teerstadt. She stood up and stared at him.
“ Master Sergeant Conception Garza Sanchez?” Althea asked slowly.
He grinned ear to ear. “I knew it was you!” he roared in Texican Spanish. He rushed around the table and hugged her. “Thank you for saving Teerstadt!”
Althea blinked and colored leopard in confusion as he bear-hugged her again. “I umm? You’re welcome?” she answered in the same dialect.
“You know, Tio?” Liz Yaz asked, staring up at the two
“Tio, you know her?” Buchon asked his granduncle.
Althea nodded to Lil Yaz, “This man is the person who owned a restaurant in Teerstadt that my girlfriend and I were at when the Sidhe attacked the city.”
The man let go of her and looked up at Althea’s face with a huge smile. “Of course, I know her! She and her girlfriend saved us from the damned Sidhe.”
Buchon pointed at Althea, “Tayah?”
His granduncle nodded, “Yep.”
“That bullshit story you told us about how a single biofem took on a bunch of Sidhe during a stampede and saved your bar?” The man nodded emphatically. “That’s true?”
Both Tio and Althea nodded.
“Yes,” Althea said flatly.
“I told you it was true!” Tio shouted. Some of the people in the fiesta stared at them. “The news networks made up a bunch of bullshit about an accident. I told you they lie!” He hugged her again and eyes her license still in the plastic window on her clothes. “You’re a Stormer? That’s for ex-military. What happened? I thought the League would give you a medal? Where’s your girlfriend? I thought you two were going to get married.”
Althea went quiet, and her cat coloration came up prominently. She looked away in shame, ears drooping.
“Hey, Tio, that’s a bad time for her,” Buchon said quietly, his face serious. “We’ll talk about this later.”
The older man nodded as his face took on a serious look. “Ok, we’ll talk later at my house.”
They sat there quietly for a few moments, and Althea picked up some fresh corn tortillas and started demolishing the grilled steak.
Lil Yaz was the first to notice, “Hey! Leave some for us!” She started digging in.
“The late riser goes hungry,” Althea said, her skin returning to normal as she grabbed another few slices, making sure to get the green sauce on it.
“Ah, hell no,” Buchon said, a smile returning to his face. “That’s Tio’s cooking. You ain’t getting it all.”
Several hours later, when the party had broken up. Althea found herself at the house of Master Sergeant Conception Garza Sanchez, accompanied by Buchon and a few of his men who stayed outside in the car. It was in one of the better areas of Fallbrook, with small bungalows and green lawns. The house was a tiny beige adobe-style bungalow with red tiled roofing, and a full garden filled the front yard. Althea wondered why no one had raided all the vegetables and fruits there. A tiny skyport nearby was likely the water source for the lawns and gardens of the neighborhood surrounded by the normal dust and dry foliage. They were met at the door by Tio’s husband, who was a short waif of a man with slicked-back hair, and shrewd eyes who exuded an aura of respect. He took one look at Althea and then at his husband. Tio nodded at Althea, and the smaller man came up and hugged her.
“Thank you for saving my stupid husband,” he said with a bright smile. “Welcome to our house. I’m Jose.” He turned to Buchon, “Get coffee going, nephew.”
She was ushered to the tiny living room, where she was sat down on a couch and offered some coffee.
Without breaking the letter of the law, Althea answered questions about what had happened in Teerstadt. Essentially she gave yes or no answers to what Tio said, almost completely corroborating his story. Then she quietly told him how she was put in jail, not saying whether she believed she was guilty or not. As they listened, Tio and Jose got angrier. Buchon nodded as he had heard some of it but shook his head at other spots.
“Chava, they fucking hate your kind, don’t they?” he said at one point, and Tio smacked him upside the head. “What the hell is with people smacking me in the head?”
That got Althea to laugh, and they all looked at her, wearing a small smile on her face.
“Well, don’t that beat all,” Tio said. “Althea,” he said, changing the subject and his face growing serious. “What happened at Lilac?”
Her smile vanished, and she said quietly, “It was a nest of mindless undead ghouls. There were many and even a giant.”
They looked at one another, and Jose asked quietly, “Which kind of ghouls, alma?”
She scratched her nose, “Ice? They had frozen hearts and spines, and were very skinny cannibals.” She shivered involuntarily, and her coffee cup was refilled.
The three exchanged a look. “Did you kill all of them? Did you start the fire?” Tio asked.
Sipping the coffee and taking comfort in its warmth, Althea said, “I destroyed most of them, but you never know. A fire mage was sent after I got my client to safety, so I believe she burned the town and finished them off.”
“Did you check?” Tio pressed.
Althea shook her head, “Their biomancer said I was near death, and they had performed a purification ritual upon my client and me.” She put her coffee cup down.
Jose took Althea’s hands and looked her in the eye. “Do you mind if I check? You ate a lot today.” Althea shrugged and nodded. There was a bright white light that coalesced into spinning runes above both their hands. She felt a warmth enter her and moved around quickly before it receded.
“Well, she’s extremely clear,” Jose declared. “I think I feel better just having checked her. Whoever purified you did a very good job.” He laughed and slapped his hands on his knees before standing up to head to the kitchen. “Tio, give this woman a job.”
Althea tilted her head, “A job? You wish to contract me?”
Buchon laughed and leaned back on a chair. “Tayah, my Uncle, Tio, He’s like a hiring manager for their company. Sure he cooks a lot of good food, but he knows people. Good people.”
Althea blinked. Well, he was very good to Tiki and me when we were in Teerstadt, she thought. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to ask.
“I do not know what you are offering me,” Althea said quietly. “I do not wish to be separated from my girlfriend, and I will not join a criminal organization.” Then, she looked to the gang leader, “No offense, Buchon. I truly enjoy your company, but I must think of my future wife’s prosperity. Also, she would beat me within an inch of my life.” She said it so deadpan that Buchon almost took her seriously for a moment.
He laughed, “Tayah, if you joined my gang, I’d have all the others freaking out and wanting to fight us. So we’re not asking you to do anything like that. Instead, we’re looking at taking you off the board, so to speak.”
Tio spread his hands and switched into formal Spanish, “Miss d’Argus, I work with Stormers like you to find lost things, ships, and people, mainly for insurance companies. We keep others safe and ensure that the rat bastards that mess with our reputation are exposed and removed from the business. Our company is called InterReality Investigations.”
Nodding, Althea asked, “Is this a contract or a regular position?”
“Regular,” Tio answered and sat back in his overstuffed armchair. “It’s a salary with bonuses on top for job completion.”
That would solve money problems, but now for the tough questions, Althea thought. “Mr. Garza Sanchez,” she said quickly before she lost her nerve. “Where is the office? Will I be in combat often? Will I be able to come back to my Tiki after every mission?”
“I like you!” The older man started laughing and slapped his knees. “We have a few offices,” he continued. “One is here in Santa Onofre. We got two in Texico, one in the GmbH in Afrika, and a bunch of branches in Realities all over.”
Blinking at him owlishly, Althea asked, “Are you the big boss?”
“No, that would be me,” Jose said, sliding back into the room and kissing his husband on the cheek. Sitting on the arm of Tio’s chair, he continued, “It’s for a field agent position. You were wasted as a mechanic. Not as high paying as a Stormer job, but it’s steady, and we’re not trying to enslave you with a contract.” He stroked his hair and said, “You would be part of a team, and you can move to different branches as needed. Sometimes we’ll need you to go to them for a few weeks, but you can keep in contact with your loved ones.”
Tio interjected, “You can buy your own equipment, but we can provide some basics and training.”
“You will need it, alma,” Jose said smoothly as Althea opened her mouth. “You will be going after shipwrecks and a lot of lost people in uncontacted Realities that don’t know about us. Unlike Special Forces, we usually are there to clean up the mess and not shoot locals unless they really ask for it. Then we must track down any cargo or crew that have gone missing and retrieve them without causing a big problem.” He looked at her meaningfully and held up a lecturing finger, “No rampages in uncontacted Realities. Understood?”
Althea had the good graces to leopard spot across her nose and droop her ears. “Understood, Sir.”
He pulled up an augmented reality screen with a spreadsheet window that had Althea on it and another with Ticualtzin. “Your girl has gotten Gate technician certification, which is good. So we can offer her a job doing that and repairing equipment. I know she is leaving the League soon.”
“For us both?” Althea asked quietly.
Jose nodded and said, “About eighty thousand a year for you and sixty for Ticualtzin. How is she, by the way? Did you send some money her way after your little death-defying rampage? Hmmm?”
“I haven’t contacted her yet,” Althea admitted, her voice small. “I’ve been scared to.”
There was a flurry of movement, and Jose had her left ear by his forefinger and thumb. The pain was excruciating. “YOU CALL HER NOW!” his voice raised in volume and pitch. “Do you realize how much worrying she is doing with you not calling her? No messages, no texts?”
Althea didn’t resist as she was dragged to an old analog phone in a little nook in the wall next to the kitchen. The receiver was shoved in her hand, and he stared at her.
She made the call.
The phone rang several times before, “Who the fuck is this?” she heard Tiki’s voice say. “Where’s my girlfriend?”
“It’s me, Tiki,” Althea started.
There was a strangled cry on the other end, “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been worried sick!’ A pause, but not long enough for Althea to answer. “You got sold, didn’t you? You signed the wrong contract and fucking got sold!” Ticualtzin practically yelled at her.
“N..no!” Althea managed to get in. “I had a job.”
A snort, “For three, almost four days? Did you go off Reality?”
Althea shook her head before remembering that Tiki couldn’t see her, “No, it only lasted one night. I just spent some time recovering.”
“And just what kind of job was it that left you in ‘recovery’ for two days?” Ticualtzin asked acidly.
Althea swallowed, “Just escorting a person to a skyport. They quit their job, and the employer objected.” She paused, then quickly added, “I did not offer or receive techuu from them. I have not had any techuu since last we…”
“Oh really, now,” Ticualtzin said coldly. “Why would I think that? And why would recovering from a skyport taxi ride take two days of recovery? I love you, but I swear to Christos, if you even try to lie to me, Althea Ventricorum d’Argus, I will go AWOL and paddle you!” She used her full name. Of course, she only did that when she was furious.
“Cannibals!” Althea blurted out. “Ghouls too!” There was a pause, and she added, “We had to fool an IJ company too, so I made my client shower, so they thought I slept with them.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Ticualtzin said quietly.
After a pause, Althea replied in a small voice, “I got hurt and was scared of what would happen to you if I died. I was scared that you would want to get rid of me.”
“Oh, Thea,” Ticualtzin replied in a quieter voice. “Wait, why are you speaking in Texican? It’s nice to hear your voice in it, but a little odd.”
She hadn’t noticed, “Oh, we both got a job offer from InterReality Investigations. They’ve been speaking to me in it.”
When things had been smoothed over with Tiki an hour later, Althea was driven back to her favela by Buchon’s crew. Tiki had said she would start investigating the company but was going to investigate them as they hadn’t been able to get hold of them for almost three years, and now they popped up on the map. Tio and Jose said they would contact her tomorrow to avoid getting into trouble. Althea had been checking the cameras at her favela. She had determined that her tiny apartment had been broken into at least three times over the last three days. Currently, someone was waiting for her there, but they were pretty good at data scrubbing, so she didn’t know how many there were.
So she went up the flights of stairs normally and then knocked on her door. There was a heat signature of two people inside. The smell indicated that they were both human and heavily cyborged. After a moment, she saw the heat signature of the smaller person walk towards the door, and she backed away from it. She had queried their dataspheres and found they were quite open about who they were. Ryu Jung-Eun, the smaller of the two signatures, was an executive assistant for her client’s former company. Sada Yasunari, the larger one, was a secondary executive on the Human Resources board.
Her door opened smoothly, unlike the normal creaking she was used to, and an Asian woman with a rounded, pretty face looked at her. Black hair with blunt bangs and long side-locks framed her face, with a long ponytail in the back. She wore an intricate red and blue kimono with patterns of white cranes and delicate frilled pink carnations. She bowed and then motioned for Althea to come in. “Please, do come in, Miss D’Argus,” she said in Modified Japanese.
Althea returned the bow and entered. Her studio had been cleaned spotless, and there was a small box with several of her sculptures in it that had been shattered. A large man in a black, very expensive fitted suit stood there. He was at least as tall as she was and extremely well-muscled. He bowed slightly, and she returned the bow a little deeper than his to indicate rank but not too far below him.
“Sada-san,” she said as she removed her weapons and popped out the ammunition. “Why are you in my hovel? I see that some of my art has been destroyed.” Jung-Eun bristled at her actions until she saw Althea putting the gun and ammunition in a corner.
“Ah, you must forgive my employees’ actions,” he said, as expressionless as she was. “They thought that you might have left a clue as to the whereabouts of our wayward employee.” He motioned towards the box. “We are purchasing these broken ones for five-thousand Marks.”
“They are worth nothing,” Althea said and walked past him to sit on her bed. “Your employees tried to breach my datasphere this morning.” The woman again bristled that Althea had taken a disrespectful action in front of her boss.
He nodded to her, “They were merely trying to interrogate your datasphere. I am sorry if it caused you distress.” He had turned to look at her, sitting on her small chair, which creaked under his weight. “Your warning was sufficient to make them reconsider how they did that.”
“I do not know where your former employee has gone," Althea replied without prompting. “I was only contracted to get him to his flight in safety. You must contact the transport company that took him to his destination to find out where he went.”
He shrugged, “We are unable to contact them. We have been trying to catch up with them for months, but they elude us at every turn. We are quite interested in where they have come from.”
Althea nodded, “They have a highly effective concealment spell. Unfortunately, I cannot remember their faces or names at all. However, they did seem trustworthy for some reason even with that.”
“I would be grateful if you would bring along one of us if you are ever contacted by them again,” Mr. Sada said, handing her a card that generated its own data field. “We will pay for any information to have a meeting with them. Extra if you can arrange a meeting.”
She took the card in both her hands using the correct protocol. She didn’t want to annoy him and doubted she’d ever see the girls again unless they wanted her to. “I doubt that will happen, but I will ask them if I see them.”
He nodded and got up and Althea did as well. They bowed to one another. He turned to leave. The box of sculptures was taken by the kimono-wearing assistant, who lifted the forty kilos of rock and wood like it was nothing. Halfway to the door, Mr. Sada paused and said over his shoulder, “One more thing. That terrorist you captured was broken out of jail. You might want to watch your back, Miss d’Argus.”
She patterned, and his the assistant reached for her gun. "Sada-san, I will protect what's mine if he comes for it," Althea said quietly and looked away to the mural on her wall.
He nodded and left. The woman in the kimono followed him and covered his back while giving Althea a hateful glare.
After they had left, Althea sat on her bed heavily and saw that he had paid her the promised money. Finally, she got a job and some money, plus she and Tiki were going to get married this summer. Things were starting to look up for them both.