“That’s the point,” said Delagarza. “It’s based on old earther psychology, I hear. Gangers think that thugs acting all tough and aggressive are compensating for something, you see? So they do the exact opposite.”
“To show that they are so tough and aggressive they don’t need to pretend,” Cooke said, following his train of thought.
“Got it in one, my regular,” Delagarza said, briefly imitating gangers’ speech patterns.
“A bit paradoxical, isn’t it?” Cooke said, after a brief pause.
Delagarza laughed a dry, coarse laugh. Perhaps there would be hope for Cooke’s survival in Dione, after all. They walked in silence for a while, down the elongated corridors and cold parks of Alwinter.
“Delagarza?” asked Cooke after the scenery had changed and they were closer to their office.
“Yes?”
“What’s a Soda Fountain?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
MODERN COMPUTERS WERE A HEADACHE. Powerful beyond their earther ancestors’ wildest dreams, yes, but also a knot of complexity that the Edge had long ago lost hope of untangling. Every corporation out there had their own software (or at the very least, a fork of the most popular ones), their custom OS, their tailor-made locks and encryption. Others had their own hardware, their own ports and exclusive devices, and they rarely worked with each other. The mayor competitors had stricken the word “compatibility” out of their thesaurus the moment they had stepped foot into space.
It’s hard to enforce a non-monopolistic clause when said corp owns the life-support machines that keeps your lungs fed with tasty oxygen and away from nasty vacuum.
A hundred years after the Edge’s colonization, it had reached a point were colonies banned the use of some lesser known ‘ware just in an attempt to keep the file-type bloat in control.
Of course, corporations had their own experts to handle such issues. But if the common man or woman needed to, say, unlock an exotic computer they found lying around and actually read or use the data inside, they went to people like Delagarza, Cooke, or their boss, Jamilia Charleton.
It was Charleton who owned the office where Delagarza and Cooke arrived after lengthy travel via public transportation. The place was technically more workshop than office, with half the available space occupied by a sea of tools and devices required for their profession. Delagarza himself had asked for about a third of the equipment since he had started to work with Charleton.
Her part of the job was more social than technical. She spent most of her workday away from the office, sometimes even paying the non-trivial fare to Outlander Station to strike a deal with the contractors for their own used equipment. She made the deals over the sailors’ Net boards and did careful calculations to know if the equipment was worth the investment.
All in all, neither she nor her employees were starving in the streets or scouring the trash for battery packs, but they weren’t rich, either.
Today, Charleton was waiting for Delagarza, sitting comfortably by her desk and reading the news on Dione’s Net. Her glance flashed up for a second when Delagarza came in, then returned to her reading.
“Sam,” she greeted him without looking up again, “you’ve been outside almost the entire day. Surely you haven’t been doing side-jobs on the clock again, have you?”
Delagarza flashed her an innocent smile and gestured to Cooke to go to the back of the office and make himself useful.
“C’mon, Jamilia,” he said, as he lowered his reg-suit’s hood and sauntered his way to her, “you know me better than that.”
“Damn right I know you,” she said, holding his gaze, her features set in stone. “That’s why I don’t buy into your bullshit.”
Charleton was a decade older than Delagarza, attractive in the reserved way of elegant, working women. Her black hair was streaked gray, a contrast to her dark skin and calculating eyes. They had been lovers, years ago, soon after Delagarza entered her employment. That spark had faded, leaving behind a placid camaraderie, like old veterans who served together in a war.
“Can’t get anything past you,” Delagarza smiled. He explained all about Lotti’s gift box to her. She had no issue against side-jobs, as long as he never went behind on his official projects.
After he was done, Charleton regarded him with a raised eyebrow. “Lotti found that Motoko lying around?”
“Obviously,” Delagarza said, “why, you think she stole it? A regular citizen like her? Unthinkable.”
“And you had to bring Cooke with you? He’ll get himself stabbed, or worse.”
“He needs to learn to fend for himself. This is not Jagal after all. No Big Brother to babysit us.”
“Big Brother?” Charleton scratched her chin. “You sure learned Dione’s idiosyncrasies fast, Sam. Not long ago, you were a newcomer yourself. Nowadays, even the locals can’t tell you apart from the rest of us. Some people spend a lifetime here and can’t achieve that.”
Delagarza shrugged, not sure if she was praising him, or damning him.
Charleton sighed, closed her news-feed on her wristband, and said, “Doesn’t make you feel at least a bit guilty? Keeping Lotti’s ‘ware.”
Behind his smile, the only thing that Delagarza felt was a deep tiredness he couldn’t get rid of. Truth be told, he hadn’t slept well, lately. But if he told Charleton that, she would claim it was his conscience trying to reach him.
“Better to feel guilty and warm than decent and frozen,” he said. Before she could answer, he produced the lollipop from his pocket and handed it to her. “Here, a gift.”
Charleton eyed the candy for a second, realized what it was, and barked a laugh. “For sure, you know what a girl likes, Sam,” she said. It pretty much settled morality chat for the day.
Delagarza nodded, waited until she put the candy away, and asked her, “What brings you to the office so early in the day? It’s not like you to take breaks.”
Her pleasant, distant smile disappeared, and she was back to business again.
“Right. Truth is…I wanted to talk to you. We have a contract, a lucrative one.”
“Good,” Delagarza said, wondering what was the issue, “so let’s do it.”
“They asked specifically for you, by name,” Charleton went on. Delagarza didn’t miss that she was reluctant to give him a straight answer. “Apparently, you’re the planet’s only expert in the ‘ware they’re looking to crack open. An old model, long discontinued.”
“Great,” said Delagarza, “if we’re their only option, we’ll milk them for all they’re worth. Who are they, and what’s the model?”
His boss thought for a second before answering:
“Enforcers. Probably Tal-Kader, but they wouldn’t say. They want you to crack a Shota-M for them, but first you’d have to pass a loyalty test.”
At the mention of “loyalty test,” Delagarza whistled loudly. He knew the reputation those tests had. Everyone did.
To fail one meant you were a traitor. And the penalty for treason was death.
“Oh,” Delagarza said.
4
CHAPTER FOUR
CLARKE
When Clarke regained consciousness, he was tied to a chair in a pitch-dark room, hands behind his back, ankles pulled together. He had a terrible headache, no idea where he was, and the grim certainty that he had ended up in one of Internal Affair’s infamous blacksites.
A beam of white light shone right at his face, making Clarke’s eyes water and his vision get blurry with stars. Clarke bit back a groan, blinked furiously, and waited.
“Joseph A. Clarke,” drawled a male voice at the other end of the desk that supported the interrogation lamp. “Forty-five years old, divorced, no children. Your ex-wife is a loyal SA citizen, who has cut all contact with you. Smart lady.”