OUTRIDER STATUS CONFIRMED.
Now she could access the club’s private databank, and with it the records she needed to bring herself up to speed: not cold, clinical historical files gathered from the outernet, but notes recorded by outriders themselves. Here was the history her comrades felt she would need to know, regarding the events that had made them feel the most lost when they returned home. The most displaced. Here was a list of references that had become part of popular culture while she was gone, recorded by those who understood how ignorance of common phrases could hinder communication. And here was social criticism, as well—brief, dry commentary on a changing world, as seen through the eyes of those who were perpetual outsiders. She added her own to the bottom of one thread.
ARE OVERSIZED HEADSETS A REQUIREMENT NOW? I’VE SEEN SOME SO UNWIELDY I WONDER HOW THE WEARERS STAND UPRIGHT. IT’S JUST A TECH DEVICE, PEOPLE. IT’S OKAY IF YOURS ISN’T A UNIQUE FASHION STATEMENT.
The birds returned. HAI KAWAII! She swatted at them reflexively, cursing under her breath. Damn advertisements!
“You need to update your adblocker.”
Annoyed, she looked up to see who was talking to her, invading her private time.
Tye Jericho.
She stared at him for a moment, part of her wanting to berate him for the interruption, another part—the far larger part—aware that she owed him for his support in the debriefing. Finally she sighed, accepting the inevitable. “So tell me, what the hell is ‘Hai Kawaii’?”
“Advertising slogan for a fast food franchise. Very aggressive in their marketing. If they spent half as much money on food quality as they do on hacking adblockers, they’d probably be a Fortune 10,000 company by now.” He nodded toward a nearby chair that matched her own. “May I?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not feeling especially social.”
“That’s fine. I’m here on business, not to socialize.”
“You couldn’t have talked to me about it while we were still at Guild headquarters?”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Some conversations aren’t suitable for Guild headquarters.”
His face was an impassive mask, impossible to read—as always—but the fact that he had launched directly into business was a gesture of good will. Two nantana would be having a very different conversation. Finally she sighed. What the hell. It’s not like there’s somewhere else I need to be. She gestured for him to take a nearby chair. As soon as he sat down a servobot rolled up to the table, carrying a blood-red drink with a multi-colored sprig sticking out of the top. Jericho must have ordered it when he arrived.
“All right.” She took a deep drink from her own glass. The mild Frisian narcotic always helped her unwind after a mission. “So what’s so important that you had to follow me all the way out here to talk about it?”
“Call it a job offer.”
An eyebrow rose slightly. “I already have a job. Unless you know something about my employment status that I don’t.”
“I know that your ship is being repaired, and it’ll be some time before you can take on a new assignment. So right now, you’re unemployed.”
And I need to find a new partner before I can go out again. That’ll be a lot harder than getting my ship repaired. “So you thought I might be, what . . . bored?”
There was a hint of a smile. “Restless, perhaps. Or curious about how much it would pay. There could be a lot of money involved.”
“I need quality downtime more than I need a freelance assignment.” She waved her free hand. “But go on, I’m listening.”
For a moment he just looked at her. It was a nantana gaze—piercing, invasive. She stared back defiantly. At last he asked, “What do you know about the incident on Harmony?”
“You mean the explosion?” She shrugged. “Basic details. No one seems to know very much.” Except for the Ainniq Guild. They always know more than they let on. “Two people tried to blow up Harmony’s environmental control center. Since they blew themselves up in the process, no one knows why, or even who they were.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or have they figured that out now?”
“The motives are still unknown. Medtechs think they may have been moddies, but there’s no way to tell for sure.”
“Not enough of their brains left intact to study, I’d imagine.”
“Exactly.”
She took another drink. The Frisian narcotic was starting to work its magic in her veins: everything in the room was a little quieter, a little softer, a little less irritating. “Look, this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with me?”
“The Guild believes they have identified traces of their last communications. Most involved an MPV—multi-player virt—that they were running. Maybe significant, maybe not. But they were also in contact with an independent station in the node.”
“Independent, meaning not subject to Common Law? So you would need their permission to investigate further.”
He nodded.
“Still not seeing my role in this, sorry.”
“What if I said the signal came from Shenshido Station?”
“I’d answer that I don’t have a clue what that is.”
“A small research station. The company that built it went under about a decade ago. Some kind of corporate war back on Earth. Shenshido wound up ownerless, effectively abandoned.”
She chuckled. “And I’m guessing it lasted a whole day before scavengers picked it apart.”
“They tried. Neighboring stations joined forces and drove them off. Possibly the only time Terran corporations have agreed on anything. In theory they all have access to Shenshido’s research facilities, but no one seems to be using the place.”
“Not valuable enough to need, but too valuable to discard.”
“Precisely.”
“So . . . what? You think the two on Harmony were taking orders from someone there?”
“It’s possible. We don’t know anything about what’s going on inside that station. It’s also possible some other party bounced a signal off it. It’s been done before.”
“I’d expect the station would have a record of that.”
“It probably does. It also has a board of corporate masters who have made it very clear that Gueran authority is not recognized there, and no Guild agent will be allowed to set foot on the station to investigate. We can communicate our concerns, they said, and they will investigate and let us know what they find.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right.”