“I can’t say that I’m... happy with your performance.” A man in a well-tailored light-gray jacket sat across from Joel, Aisling, and I, leaning over his desk with his hands tented in front of his face, barely hiding a disappointed glare directly at me, center stage on our side.
A man who went by Mr. Calloway, the head of the syndicate that we had been hired by, struck an intimidating figure on his own. He was even more intimidating flanked by two other distinguished besuited figures, both women with visible sidearms holstered at their waists, arms crossed and eyes focused on all of us at once. Calloway was a middle-aged man with gray hair, still peppered with some traces of the black it was in youth, a thin well-manicured moustache above his lips. He gave off an air of sophistication, but his hawkish features made him look, at the same time, dangerous. And I had no doubt he was, given the position he was in.
He glanced down away from me for a moment at the handheld tablet between us on the desk. “While you have delivered us the material that we requested, I had hoped that the news of your infiltration wouldn’t have reached my ears before this was in my hands. I had hoped to keep this matter discreet.”
My head still ached, and my clothes were still filthy with dust and blood. I hadn’t been given much of a chance to rest before Aisling insisted we take the trip to our employer’s frankly ridiculous estate, built almost like a military compound out here in the wasteland. I didn’t even get a chance to relax on the ride over while Aisling angrily briefed me on the meeting procedures. I’d still not had the chance to dive into the core module and rest in torpor. I was not in a good state for this meeting.
I nodded along, trying to avoid his gaze and keep myself awake and present without the aid of my shell. I was not exactly a social butterfly in the best condition, and it turned out a concussion didn’t make me any more charismatic. Though I had experience sucking up to my betters as needed at my old job back in the simulation, I wasn’t that person anymore, and it was taking every ounce of my addled concentration not to start making excuses and justify myself to this man.
Unimpressed by the awkward silence growing between us, Calloway stopped waiting for me to speak up and motioned toward Aisling. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
I cleared my throat. I wasn’t going to make her answer for my mistakes. “I’m s-sorry, sir. This was my operation, and I’m the one res...responsible for what happened.”
The man looked back to me, his expression still unimpressed. His anger was subtle, if it was there at all, but his judgement was clear. “Well? You tell me what happened, then.”
I swallowed and inhaled deeply before I answered. “M-My plan was to infiltrate the gang and re...con their base, find where they kept the ledger, and I’d either look for an opportunity to sneak off with it, or fail...ing that, organize a coordinated strike while they were o-occupied.”
“Why are you so nervous?” He asked suddenly.
I froze at the question and stared at him for a moment, my jaw hanging open slightly as I tried to search for some deeper meaning behind it. He was just commenting on my voice, right? “I’m n-not nervous, sir. I just have a st...stutter.”
“No, I can tell you have a stutter. My niece has a stutter. I’m used to it. You’re nervous. Stop that.” Calloway groaned quietly, lowered his hands, and sat up straight. “I’m not a thug. This isn’t an execution. We’re two respectable business partners discussing something that hasn’t gone to plan. Barring something extreme, you three are walking safely out of this building today. I guarantee it. Now stop being so nervous. Tell me what happened. Explain yourself.”
Oh. Right. This wasn’t the same kind of criminal element as the people I’d just escaped. This was the smart kind. The kind who understood the importance of reputation and long-term standing in a community. They weren’t out for blood. Not from us, at least. Murder was messy and more trouble than it was worth to them unless things had gotten way out of hand. They were just assessing our value.
I nodded to Calloway, taking in another deep breath and trying to relax my posture. “I showed up to a meeting with their boss as p-planned, but they locked me in a room right away, instead. A man with this huge face tattoo told me they needed some t-tech work done and told me I’d be the one to do it. I had a dead...man signal on my handheld set to message my captain if I d-didn’t check in with it. So she knew I was in danger, and she came to my res...cue.” That was an outright fabrication, but I needed to come up with some reason that I was able to contact Aisling without telling him I was a psychic bio-computer.
“I see,” the man turned to Aisling. “And with your employee presumably in danger, you had to step in to retrieve her.”
Aisling nodded, taking her turn to speak up, and rolling with my story. “Yes, sir. She’s very diligent with that safety measure, so we knew it wasn’t just a technical issue. We recalled all hands and mobilized immediately to stage a distraction so she could make it out alive.” Aisling added. No doubt I had disrupted other jobs that were in motion in my peril, but it wasn’t the time to bitch me out about it. “We set up an impromptu stage with some audio equipment we had left over from some civilian work we did last month and some extra firearms we’d... commandeered, to fake a large-scale assault at the opposite end of their base while we had a solo operative infiltrate the facility to retrieve our specialist.” She nodded to Joel.
“That sounds like quite the effort. Your loyalty to your employees, even in a moment of misplaced judgement, is commendable. I hope to live up to that kind of commitment to my people.” He cleared his throat and leaned forward again. “As much as I understand your position, that doesn’t change the matter that this has not worked out in my favor, and your operative is the cause of that. This little ‘gang’ has become a thorn in my side already, and now they’re going to be on guard. This has disrupted some of my other plans that were already in motion. Do you understand?”
Aisling nodded. “Yes, sir. I’d like to apologize on behalf of my company for this unexpected development, and am willing to renegotiate our contract accordingly to set things right.”
Calloway hummed quietly, satisfied with Aisling’s attempt at an olive branch, then returned his attention to me. “We may be able to come to an agreeable compromise, yes. What’s your name?”
I was about to blurt out my name when Aisling cleared her throat. “We’d rather not exchange personal information for the time being. We’re not at that stage of our relationship yet, Mr. Calloway.”
Calloway gave a shrug. “Shrewd. But understandable.”
I decided to take the opportunity to change the subject back to the job. “I apologize for mishan...dling this, as well. But I did bring the t-target in, at least. That’s still of some value to y-you, right?” I asked, hoping we wouldn’t have to completely forego the reward. I thought I saw Aisling giving me a judgemental look of her own from my side, warning me not to push too hard on the matter, but I wasn’t going to pull my attentionfrom the man.
The man watched me closely for a moment, then nodded. “It is. It can give us a lot of information on what this little thorn is up to. Information is what I was after in this mission. So tell me, what kind of information can you give me to help make up for the trouble you’ve caused?”
Yeah, sure. I could share what I learned while I was in there, if it meant saving our paycheck. “I can tell you that they have somehow managed to physically b-break into an underground network station outside Kasato’s refinery. It has a vul...nera...bility that allowed them to access the complex’s entire computer operations structure remotely. At least, it would, if they had a c-competent hacker.”
The man’s eyebrows raised slowly as I told my story. That was something important to him, I guessed. “Hmm, I see. So they’re after Kasato Corporation. For who?”
That, I didn’t know. I just shrugged at him. I supposed it didn’t make sense for a small-time gang to try to overtake a factory’s operation for their own short-term gain, so it must have been in service to a bigger fish. “They d-didn’t exactly give me their whole game plan... they just told me to get access.”
“Did you?” He asked.
I shook my head. “Hah, I never even s-started. The code I wrote for them didn’t actually do any...thing, and no one was smart enough to call me out on it. I was just sta-stalling until my crew got there.”
“You were that sure she was coming to your rescue?” The man looked impressed as she motioned to Aisling.
I wasn’t about to tell him that I was actually in direct contact with them right under their noses using my neural implant, so I guess I just had to play up the loyalty angle. “Of course! The c-captain would never leave me out to dry like that.”
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The man considered my words for a few moments, then lowered his hands to the table again, sliding the ledger toward himself. “That is a... concerning and valuable tidbit of information, regardless. Whoever you are, you are certainly a competent hacker. The files you sent ahead of time do indeed coincide with the records on the device itself. Forgive me for not trusting your ability, but your crew is an untested variable, despite your... reputation. We needed the real device to be certain.”
So that was why they sent me in for the physical terminal. They didn’t trust us. I was about to complain, but caught myself. I needed to show some respect and understanding here. We were on the back foot already, and my brashness had already gotten us in enough trouble today. “I under...stand,” I grumbled.
“That there is such a vulnerability is also quite a valuable piece of information. Tell me more.”
I recalled what I found while I was diving into the refinery’s network through the access point they’d hijacked and made some quick assumptions about the limits of what I should know. “If they actually find some...one to crack it, they’d probably have access to most of security, ad-administrative systems, and networked machinery in the refinery. They’d bas...ically own it until someone came by to clean them up in person. I don’t kn-know how val...valuable that site might be, but it’s h-heavily compromised.”
The man nodded. “Do you have any more information on that gang themselves?”
I didn’t really have much of anything else to give him beyond what he already knew now, unfortunately. “Uhh... they’re gonna need to hire a con...tractor to undo some unscheduled demolition?” I shrugged my shoulders and smiled at him.
Aisling turned her head to glare at me, but to all our surprise, Calloway gave a genuine laugh at that. After a moment spent collecting himself, he smiled across at us and said, “Well, let no one say there isn’t room for a sense of humor in our trade. See? There you go, not so nervous anymore, are you?” He cleared his throat and made an attempt to return to his serious tone, even though he still had a bit of lightheartedness in his voice. “But if that’s all you have to offer, that hardly makes things even. Let’s discuss your payment, hmm?”
I didn’t have much to say for the next hour. Aisling took over the conversation then and there, and we began a new round of negotiation that I think I’d helped at least make a little less tense than it would have been without my intervention. I made like I was nodding off after a few minutes because I almost felt like I was going to, and immersed myself in the computer systems of the man’s estate while Aisling handled all the bartering.
Doc was right, I needed rest. I needed either sleep or torpor. But I was in that annoying gap of tiredness where I wanted to sleep, but I wasn’t tired enough to pass out. An unfortunate necessity, since closing my eyes made my mind too active to rest without it coming suddenly.
I couldn’t resist digging around where I shouldn’t, taking care to leave no trace of my meddling. After a little searching, I found out that Calloway actually had some financial holdings and under the table dealings with Kasato Corp. If that gang did something to that refinery, he could have taken a hefty blow to his wallet.
I messaged Aisling, and as she subtly checked her handheld, she did her best to keep her expression neutral before she returned to her conversation and steered it back toward the extra information I’d provided. I had no idea how to leverage this kind of thing without outright calling him on his bluff, but I knew Aisling would.
In the end, we settled on a small penalty on our end of the contract for the complications caused by our rescue operation, but we still got most of our reward thanks to Aisling getting him to admit that my information was of somewhat greater importance than he was letting on without giving ourselves away with specifics.
However, Calloway did make it clear that he likely wouldn’t be calling on us again, and that he would prefer that our business be concluded there. So much for establishing him as a new employer.
True to his word, the three of us walked out back into the cold rocky wasteland with no harm done and a receipt of payment on Aisling’s terminal.
“Well, that didn’t go as badly as I thought it might.” Aisling said as she climbed into the driver’s seat of the small old cargo truck we’d taken to the compound. It was faster to go over the rough terrain the truck couldn’t handle, but we’d hiked through the desert on foot enough for today, and we weren’t in the kind of rush that the rescue operation had put us in. I jumped into the bed of the truck and leaned over the side, closing my eyes again and whining as I settled in for a long ride where I’d surely continue to get reamed out by the captain. “You’re lucky we got paid at all,” she continued.
“You’re lucky I f-found his financials,” I grumbled back at her.
“It was obvious he was hiding something, anyway. The way he dismissed your info wasn’t subtle. I’d have got it out of him.” Aisling countered.
Joel sat in the passenger seat up with Aisling and huffed at the both of us. “You sure you two aren’t a thing? You argue like a couple.”
“She argues like a child,” Aisling hissed as she turned the key and the truck’s engine. “Same as she acts on the job.”
Maybe I did. I suppose it would make sense. I had less actual life experience than Mouse did, after all. All I knew was that I was exhausted in so many ways and I just wanted to reconnect with my shell. “Fine. So may...be I don’t really know what I’m doing yet, okay? Is that what you wanna h-hear?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute as we started slowly moving across the terrain, then Aisling sighed. “Yeah, actually. I want you to realize your mistakes and take something from them, Meryll. You’re powerful, and I know you’re smarter than this. You just don’t fucking... learn.”
“I’m trying...” I said quietly, opening my eyes and staring down at the passing ground for a moment.
“Are you? Because it feels like you haven’t taken some real fucking important things I’ve told you to heart.” Aisling sounded annoyed, but concerned. Disappointed in me. “You keep pushing boundaries that you should know to leave well enough alone by now; taking risks and putting yourself in danger. It’s like you like almost dying.”
“Ah, I see it now. Not lovers. Like a parent with their kid.” Joel corrected himself in a bored tone of voice that told me he’d already started tuning us out.
The truck came to a hard screeching halt that made me slide forward and brace myself against Joel’s seat so I didn’t tumble over him. That certainly woke me up. I looked up to see what had happened.
Aisling’s hands trembled on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly enough to make her digits shake. She held her head down and glared menacingly at the floor for a few silent, tense moments while Joel and I stared at her in confusion. That was apparently the very wrong thing to say.
She finally let go of her death grip and released a heavy breath. “You drive.” She commanded Joel in a low dark tone, swinging her legs over the side and dropping to the dirt. She walked slowly around to the passenger side, and Joel knew better than to question it, sliding over and starting to move the vehicle again once Aisling had rejoined us in his place. She leaned forward on the dashboard and rested her head between her arms.
A tense silence, punctuated only by the quiet motor of the truck dominated the next hour. Joel didn’t dare say anything after that display, and I didn’t blame him. Aisling was scary when she was mad. I watched her for a few minutes, but she wasn’t moving, so I closed my eyes again and went back to organizing the files I’d swiped from our employer.
We probably wouldn’t get much more use out of the information now that we were out of business with Calloway, but I had grown into the habit of cataloguing collected data, just in case. One of the best perks about being a computer was the expansive long-term information storage. As long as nothing was corrupted, anyway. I wouldn’t have trouble recalling any of this if it came up again.
“Sorry,” groaned Aisling’s voice at last. She pulled her head up, still leaning forward, and let out a loud sigh as she watched the approaching crater. “I shouldn’t have hit you earlier, Meryll. That was... unlike me.”
Huh. I didn’t actually expect an apology for that. It was already in the past, as far as I cared. But I guess with some quiet time to think, she was feeling remorseful. I didn’t really want it, though. “I kinda de...served it,” I admitted.
“Yeah.” She nodded, and she we went quiet for a while again. But she couldn’t leave it alone and eventually tilted her head back. “It just finally got to me. You know. I put up with a lot of your behavior because you haven’t really... been alive that long. It might not even be fair to call you an adult. I get that you probably don’t always feel the gravity of our situation the same way I do. But it keeps happening. And the fact that you don’t seem to appreciate danger for what it is, even after all this time... really makes me wonder if I care for you more than you care about yourself.”
I opened my eyes and watched the passing dirt again for a moment, letting a hand dangle down over the edge of the truck bed and feeling at the passing air. Was that right? Did I not care about myself? Did I actually want something bad to happen to me? Had I been slowly succumbing to some kind of subconscious desire for suicide by proxy? It didn’t sound like me, but... maybe I couldn’t trust myself.
“I w...wish I could talk to Dr. Yates,” I mumbled.
“Hmm? Your Venusian therapist?” Aisling asked.
I nodded. The communication lockdown we’d established when we arrived on Io was important. I understood that. But not being able to contact the few friends I had outside of the crew had definitely been isolating. “I know I d-didn’t talk to him that much, really, but it felt like he knew what I n...needed to hear, you know? Like he saw me and c-could help me make sense of what was going on in my head, even though he couldn’t relate.”
“Shrinks are good at that,” Joel stated plainly. Seems he got the hint that this wasn’t the time for banter after Aisling’s reaction to the last thing he said. I think we both must have wondered just what had set her off.
“Maybe soon,” Aisling shrugged. “For now, just stay out of trouble. If you have to be involved in the action, listen to us before your gut, because I really don’t wanna lose you. You’re good at what you do, you’re part of this crew, and I... really do care about you, okay? So next time you get any exciting ideas, run it by someone. Check yourself.”
I nodded in solidarity. That would probably be for the best. “... Am I clear to dive when we get home?” I had to ask. I needed the void. I needed torpor.
“Long as Doc says it’s okay, yeah. Guess you need some time to think?” Aisling asked.
I nodded again. She wasn’t wrong. I really just wanted to rest, though.
But as we crossed the invisible border of Theseus’s psychic network, and I started to feel my shell’s warm embrace once more, I almost immediately felt a high priority ping from Doc’s terminal.
I sat up quickly, adrenaline spiking as I relayed the message to the captain. ‘There you are. Get in here, quick. It’s Collins. She’s waking up.’