Excerpt: Rayders

Prologue

“If you bust up my bar again you’re banned.” Toots said conversationally as she set down an unopened can of juice on the shimmering counter between us.

I glanced around the premises. It didn’t seem right that I could get banned from a bar that had cost me more than the owner. It was a whole lot better than it had been the first time I had come in here four years ago. If I hadn’t busted it up a couple of times - and paid for the refits – it would probably still be the same old dingy hole that I had seen back then. No way would Toots have paid for new tables until the old ones had collapsed on their own. I thought I had done her a big favour really.

“I have a good customer base now,” Toots scowled at me and polished a non-existent smear from the bar top. “I don’t want them wandering off to some other place because I’m shut for refitting again.”

A good customer base? Conroy was a good customer? He was sounding off loudly, as usual. It was rather depressing that I even knew his name because I was only in here a couple of times a year. It just went to prove how big an asshole he was. He just rubbed me the wrong way. He was currently impressing a noob with his imaginary importance and deeds of valour. I had a low tolerance for liars.

“Just see to your business and get out of here,” Toots sighed, “Conroy ain’t hurting no-one, so just leave him be.”

Conroy was hurting me. He severely hurt my hearing and did painful things to my sense of justice. Or at least, leaving him be twisted my sense of justice in directions it wasn’t supposed to go.

“Miller is at his usual table,” Toots offered, as if I didn’t already know exactly where Miller was. “He has two dirt-siders with him,” she added.

I doubted she was trying to be helpful, she was just trying to redirect my attention away from Conroy. I sighed. Damn Miller for always insisting on meeting here. It was getting to be too much of a habit. Maybe he hoped that I would do something about Conroy. Or maybe he was just as big an asshole in his own way. No. Miller wasn’t an asshole. Miller was a grade A bastard; which was something I could almost respect, some of the time.

“Get on with you,” Toots flapped the bar towel at me, “The drink is on the house. Now go finish your business.” At least she didn’t add the “and leave” out loud but I heard it well enough.

I popped the top of the can and saluted her. Toots was a good person, all in all, and I was just trouble. I couldn’t really blame her for wanting me on my way, even if half the time I didn’t cause the trouble it just seemed to find me. I drifted away from the fake palm tree I had been sitting under for the past hour. It was tempting to let Conroy notice me and see if I could still shut him up with a good glare. But if I did that then he would be watching me closely until I left. That would piss me off and Miller would bitch about me drawing attention to him and his guests. I could always glare at Conroy after my little chat with Miller. That thought cheered me up and I pushed Conroy’s voice from my mind, for now.

I approached Miller’s table with even more caution than I normally did. I had watched him and his guests arrive a while ago. Something had alerted me to those guests. Something in the way they walked rang faint bells in the back of my head. I still wasn’t sure if they were warning bells or not. Only one way to find out. The bells in my head were almost deafening as I slid into the seat next to Miller and nodded to the two men on the other side of the table. But I still wasn’t sure if they were warning sirens or not.

Miller was speaking, introducing us or something. I listened with half an ear to catch the names they were using. My attention was fixed on the two men opposite. I could see why Toots had termed them dirt-siders, their hands were the same shade as their faces not the stark contrast of most of the inhabitants of the bar. The man directly opposite me, Honju according to Miller, had short dark hair and dark eyes that looked black in the bar’s subdued lighting. He stared at me impassively for a moment before inclining his head slightly in acknowledgement. Probably I was the only one to have noticed the slight widening of his eyes as I sat down. Or maybe not. His companion was grinning at me and waved a negligent hand in greeting. Miller had called him Dixon. His pleasant expression did not reach his light eyes as he stared at me. A thin but complex braid hung beside his left ear, the end hidden beneath the edge of the table. His hair was lighter than his companion’s and slightly longer, if I ignored the braid.

“… want to hire a ship…” Miller was saying.

I tuned him out again. He wouldn’t have bought them to me if they didn’t want to hire a ship. I had never figured out why so many people had to state the obvious so often. I drummed my fingers slowly on the table. Honju’s eyelids lowered and raised again.

“… three weeks initially…”

I raised one eyebrow and received the barest twitch of a shoulder in reply. I didn’t really have to run any calculations in my head. I cut into Miller’s pitch with my standard rate and terms. Half up front and balance on completion. I could feel Miller glaring at me. I ignored him. I’d pay him his ten percent introduction fee so he had no reason to get in a snit about it. He probably thought he could jack the rate up for these dirt-sider kids fresh out of school. He could be a stupid bastard at times. They might be young and wearing college clothes but few college kids had eyes that watchful or that coiled readiness about them. Or maybe it was just me that saw through the thin disguise to the potential danger beneath. Maybe I was only seeing what I expected to see. But if I let my mind wander down that route I would drive myself insane second guessing my own conclusions. Although my sanity was probably debateable in the first place.

They accepted my price without even a glance at each other. The slip was minor but it annoyed me. They shouldn’t make such a basic mistake. Even if three out of the four of us knew that they would have agreed to any sum I named, there was no need to let Miller know that.

“That is about what we were expecting,” Dixon added with a wry grin in my direction, “We have done a bit of research on the costs involved. Where and when do we leave?”

It would take me an hour or so to re-stock the ship and clear out a cabin for them. I told them my slip number and that we could leave whenever they wanted - after the money cleared. I wanted to leave the bar now, almost as much as Toots wanted me to go. I still didn’t know what the bells in my head meant though. I was supposed to spend several weeks in a confined space with Honju and Dixon. Maybe. Or maybe the visit would be simpler and shorter. I had already thought that one through as I sat beneath Toots’ plastic palm tree.

“Wow.” Dixon widened his eyes in mock amazement, “I didn’t expect to meet a real live war hero out here on Mars!”

Conroy had reached that stage in his script. He had the noob badgering him for details of his war medal. Which of course he would not tell. I glanced over at his table. Conroy was doing the bashful hero bit to the hilt and the noob was lapping it up. The regulars were rolling their eyes and sighing into their beer. They had heard it all before and didn’t believe a word. That’s the problem with being known as a liar, nobody believes you when you tell the truth. Conroy really did have a medal from the war. I had checked carefully and found the report and even a local news item about it in the Feds magazine. I gave Dixon a look for the fake tone but he just smirked back.

“He has a medal?” Honju spoke aloud for the first time. He wasn’t a man to waste breath unnecessarily but obviously he hadn’t taken to Conroy. Honju had taste. I shrugged and nodded.

“Really?” Dixon leaned across the table, his eyes glittering with amusement and disbelief.

I took a swig of my fruit juice and debated with myself for just a moment. I had always wanted to do something with the knowledge but the time had never been right. From Toots’ attitude tonight I wasn’t going to be coming back here again. So why not share the information? I reached out and swung the menu screen towards me. I had bought good quality screens, I noticed. I inserted my chip and the keypad dropped down. I typed a few quick commands, conscious of Honju watching my hands closely. I’d have to change all my codes as soon as I got out of here. The requested file flashed open on the small screen replacing the ads that had been running. I swung the screen back towards Honju and Dixon for them to read. Miller craned across to check out the article too.

Dixon snorted and then doubled up laughing. Honju’s lips twitched and he almost smiled. Miller reached out and tilted the screen in his direction to read it better.

“This is true?” Miller demanded staring at me suspiciously.

“True.” I agreed pointing to the military security code at the bottom of the article. Any tampering with the content and that code would have disappeared, unless you had authorisation or were a top-class hacker. I could have altered it but the article was perfect as it stood.

“I think you should post that on the boards,” Dixon said with a malicious grin, “I think the good people here should know how others served during the war so they can appreciate them better!”

“Conroy would wipe it the minute it appeared,” Miller said morosely, which made me think slightly better of him. Anyone who thought Conroy deserved everything coming to him couldn’t be all bad.

“Not if it was looped like an ad…” Dixon suggested far from innocently. “You could do that couldn’t you?” He grinned happily at Honju who rolled his eyes but nodded. “You’ve got the addresses haven’t you, Zane?” Dixon continued without a noticeable hesitation over my name.

I paused for one last moment before hitting a few more keys and turning the screen and the keypad over to Honju. He scanned my program and nodded approval as he recognised the coding. He added a couple of tweaks and turned it back to me for comment. It was sweet. That man could make code sing if he wanted to. Not that that was particularly difficult really but he had a sparse and elegant style that was beautiful to read. And he had improved my program beyond recognition. He had slaved it into the main net not just the local net I had set it for and he had added an totally random cycle the surpassed mine. It would take months for a tech to be able to track and break that coding. Conroy’s picture would be planet wide for weeks to come and then it would be dormant in the system ready for reactivation any time I felt like. Truly sweet. I grinned my appreciation at Honju and gestured for him to enter it. We did the polite dance for a few seconds before Dixon leant across and hit the key himself.

“Hey look! Conroy made the boards!” One of the regulars was pointing at the main board where Conroy’s picture was top centre above the sports game running in the vid screen slot. The stunned silence that followed that announcement lasted only long enough for people to read the article. Toots’ bar was roaring when I slipped out of the door a few minutes later. I didn’t think Toots would complain too loudly this time though. She was sobbing on the counter as she laughed with the rest of them. Conroy was spluttering in the middle of the bar. It was a shame he didn’t know I had been there. But I had sort of promised Toots no trouble.

“Silver medal in a catering corps battle of the pans,” Dixon quoted happily as he and Honju followed me out onto the street. “For the lightest flaky pastry creams imaginable…”

“We’ll meet you in two hours at the slip,” Honju nodded to me and dragged his companion away from the bar.

“Shayuss,” I muttered automatically. Some things were just programmed very deeply.

“Shayuss.” Repeated back in two different voices, before Dixon returned to quoting select portions of the article, his voice gradually dying away in the distance as I headed back to my ship. Maybe the next few weeks wouldn’t be too bad after all. But I still needed to make careful preparations. People can change in five years. If you even knew them to start with. I had been very wrong on that one before.