Chapter Three
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRASILIA
TRIC City
From The Encyclopedia Brasilia
(external objects: The Chute, Coprates Quadrangle, Electric Borealis, Melas Chasma, Nanotube Orbital Mining, Olympus Mons Ski Resort, Red Planet Industries, Stardust Escapes, Valles Marineris)
TRIC City (Total Re-Envisioned Independent Colony City) is a former American colony and the only Free Colony on Mars. It also is the only UC member on Mars and home to the Red Planet Industries conglom.
A refugee haven for those fleeing the Mandarinate, TRIC City prides itself on its culture of radical self-reliance and “frontier” spirit. While any census is considered wildly inaccurate, most estimate the current population to exceed …
Geography TRIC City is located in the Melas Chasma, the widest segment of Mars’s famous Valles Marineris canyon system, eased of Ius Chasma at 9.8S, 283.6E in the Coprates Quadrangle.
Located in a perched basin 5 km below the northern Valles Marineris rim, with the recent addition of the NOM Chute, TRIC City proper has expanded to cover nearly 228 km² …
Notable Features - The Electro Borealis While all the domes covering TRIC City’s neighborhoods are constructed of UV shielded, radioprotective aerogel, the dome sealing TRIC City proper from the Martian environment is unique.
Designed by Red Planet Industries, the dome’s twin-layers allow the city to pump magnetically weighted gasses between them. These rare compounds, over which the city’s artists exert precise control, fluoresce when electrified.
The resulting phenomena, dubbed the “Electro Borealis” by Stardust Escapes (operator of the popular Olympus Mons Ski Resort), is considered a Wonder of Humanity and its renowned pyrotechnic displays attract tourists from across the solar system …
* * *
The march of progress is measured in the murder of distance, the death of its meaning and its impact. Case in point: NOM maintained emergency controls at the Chute—an hour from TRIC City, across the airless floor of the Melas Chasma—while headquarters occupied a desirable downtown location within the curve of a lavish park. The park hugged the outer edge, where the dome met Martian soil.
Street side, the enticing shade of earth trees only a step away, I watched two armies of office workers squabble up the steps to Chute Control. One flowed up, the other down. Each resembled a single sinuous organism. For a moment, the irrational fear I’d take a step and be swallowed paralyzed me.
Someone bumped my shoulder with a mumbled excuse, and the feeling passed. I slipped into the upward flow, bounced and jostled with the rest of them. Above us jets of green and yellow gasses squirted between the layers of the city’s protective dome like dye into water. Despite the miserable day, I navigated the crowd with my nose pointed to the sky. It wasn’t every day I walked this close to a Wonder of Humanity.
These were the gasses of the Electro Borealis. They provided UV protection. Zap them and transform night into saturated day at a whim. The Borealis could blurt miles of actinic arc from one side of the dome to the other, scorch the vaulted Martian night with rainbow lightning.
On Earth the kids and I pretended to attend parades. I TAPped them vids of Establishment Day, pyrotechnic marvels electrifying the skies. It became a favorite game. We’d take turns designing the Borealis light show and describing it. The others would ooh and ahh in amazement and everyone would thank me for bringing them to Mars.
The late morning sun and gasses of the dome swirled ominously, shifting shadows across my stanchion’s windowed flanges. I didn’t want to look at the dome anymore. Craning my neck made me queasy. I shoved harder up the human stream.
Inside the cavernous lobby of the stanchion, I backed against a wall to catch a breather and let my eyes adjust. The sea of sales reps, market analysts, boardroom planners, managers, and corporate lifers swam past. Like me, all here to feed. Credit sucking remoras clinging to the corporate corpus.
As my eyes adjusted, I noticed the lobby security systems noticing me. Maybe I’m paranoid. I was one among thousands squeezing into the foyer. Or maybe the recessed gun emplacements really did twitch in my direction before my TAP identified me.
Visions of hidden auto cannons unloading on the crowd drifted behind my eyes. Once upon a time, I designed automated security systems on contract. I knew firsthand how glitchy they could be. I shivered and shook off the fantasy.
Humidified air, low lighting. The stanchion lobby echoed like an overcrowded bar. A throng of every earthly gender and ethnicity squeezed and shuffled in muted frustration, all politely pushing across the lobby’s patterned floor toward or away from the Lift.
The Lift was another of TRIC City’s technological wonders. A null-gravity elevator that resembled a skyscraper-sized fish tank of mercury, minus the glass. It dominated the far end of the lobby, rose hundreds of feet, and vanished into the vaulted ceiling far above.
It was hard to miss.
Multiple ramps, each painted a different primary color, circled the shining structure. At ground level a checkpoint guarded each ramp entrance. The ramps themselves thronged with irritated workers all inching upward, eager to enter a Lift Ampule. I’m told top-level execs have a private entrance.
Must be nice.
Chute Control starts near the bottom of Stanchion 3 and spreads up through the 50th floor. Ampules carry the rest of us peons to different sections of the 30th floor for more security checks.
I needed ramp Red. Reaching it looked like a full hour of “excuse-me” and “watch-it-buddy”—and more money down the drain.
Screw that.
I TAPped a program of my own design that in turn TAPped the NOM employee directory. Pop! Advanced facial recognition shaded everyone in the lobby from green to red. The more important the person, the brighter red my TAPplication toned them. Avoid touching them at all costs.
Green people were low enough on the totem pole to shove out of my way. My TAPplication also floated names and titles without having to hack anyone’s TAP for otherwise private information.
Armed with knowledge, I bulled into the crowd.
“Jerry, move it man! Mathilda, shove over. You want the Comptroller on your case? I can make that happen.”
I left tromped toes and bruised ribs in my wake. Tough. Some people pushed back. I barely noticed their elbows, curses, or shoves. It felt good to barrel through obstacles. I imagined Crystal in the crowd. It felt like a concert mosh pit from my university days.
I reached ramp Red in under five minutes.
The nanos of the Lift manufactured thousands of one-person Ampules, personal elevator cars like so many silver ping pong balls bobbing in a gravitic Niagara Falls. Approach its shining face, and an Ampule extruded like a bubble from the Lift’s mercury-silver curtain. People stepped inside, and the waterfall swallowed them.
I shuffled half a turn up ramp Red before a previously seamless curve of wall bulged open. I leapt in and plopped onto a small bench of the same material. Sweat dotted my forehead. I wiped it off on the back of my sleeve.
Everything reminded me of my Dana and Reggie. The world wouldn’t let up, like a woodpecker in my eye. The Lift was another marvel I once planned to share with them. Reggie would love it. Exotic materials. Advanced gravitics. He wanted to build robots when he grew up. For Dana the lift would become a magic tower with a dragon at the top, and her the warrior princess to befriend or slay it.
Riding in it hurt.
When an Ampule leaves the lobby, kids, it creates an airless, frictionless channel. Thousands of channels form and reform every second. Ampules fly through the Lift like lightning bugs inside of a glass jar.
We used to capture lightning bugs at our summer campground. When Dana was five, she asked if I could light her room entirely in fireflies. I planned to surprise her by dotting her canopy bed in little green lights, but it was a parenting project I never finished, might never finish.
I couldn’t stop my thoughts.
Inside the Ampule I sat on a bench of extruded silver nanos, one slightly-too-bright halogen glaring above me, and I punched my temples with the heels of my palms. It helped. Despite the bad pop music vibrating through the mercury walls.
What about later? It wasn’t like I’d be here long today. Back to my LiveGood to drink the last of the scotch alone? I could count the golden ripples whenever the Chute hit, and then pass out. Woo hoo. There had to be something better to do, some distraction worth the credits. I scanned the public TAP network while we ascended.
I assume we ascended.
My ampule could spin, slide up and down, zig or zag. I wouldn’t know. We moved through the null-g of the Lift with no limits on direction, all paths updated on the fly for optimum efficiency.
Inside was like sitting in standstill traffic with bad radio and an oncoming headlight in your eyes. Lost. Alone. Helpless. With a migraine on the way. An elevator ride designed by Hell.
The wall of my Ampule dissolved. Thin fluorescent light sluiced in, followed by the grumbles of employees and the dictatorial drone of conglom paper monkeys handing out forms. The tang of synth and industrial carpet in the air.
I stepped inside a room that resembled customs in an airport. Lines of people and no one paying attention. My coworkers faced forward with tilted heads and vacant eyes, already at work, absorbed in hyper reality data streams projected by their TAPs. Everyone shuffled toward the next checkpoint without looking.
I joined the nearest line. None of them were short.
I was daydreaming about the Establishment Day parade when I reached security.
“Sir?”
I looked down and found myself facing a StarSec agent. StarSec is an independent security contractor. I didn’t know Red Planet used them.
“Sir?” She was pretty in a tight way. Shirt buttoned to the top, hair drawn back. The makeup she miraged granted an additional severity. It was a style popular on Earth about five years ago. It might be real, but I doubted it. Not on her salary.
“Sir?” she said.
“Right. Yes? What can I do for you?”
Her lips compressed. “Roll up your sleeve, please. Sir.”
She wanted to test my stress levels and needed my blood. Did I look that bad? I rolled up a shirt sleeve. “Here you go.”
She grabbed my arm and slapped it onto the med scanner, a little harder than necessary. Not enough that I could file a complaint. We waited for the results. It didn’t take long. She smiled. Just a little at the corner of her mouth. Why?
“Senior Supervisor Tobbit?” I nodded. “Sir, you’re over stress tolerances. You need B before I pass you through.”
Unasked, the relevant passages from the NOM employee manual scrolled across my view. I ignored them because I never need B. Was she deliberately harassing me? Words from the manual obscured her face. I wanted to swat them away. My hand twitched. I gave her my best I’ll-have-your-badge tone. “I never need B. There must be a mistake.”
It didn’t work.
“No sir. No mistake.” Her smile brittled. People routinely hassle StarSec about taking their B. A hyper object of my blood work replaced the words from the manual. Translucent blue and red lines on a chart floated before me, and the red lines were high.
She was right. My stress markers all exceeded the mandated limits. I needed B. Shame flushed my face. I needed B for the first time in my life. B.
“Please head to the nurses station. They’ll take care of you there, Sir. Next!”
A blinking yellow arrow appeared and pointed the way.
As I walked a wire of tension sliced slowly up my neck to join the ache at my temples. I hunched my shoulders. My eyes watered. It was hard to breathe.
The arrow stopped blinking when I reached a stool beside a desk. Other miserable employees hunkered on their own stools nearby. I sat. This was humiliating. I closed my eyes.
I must have shutdown, because I missed the head nurse’s opening words. He was reading standing beside the desk, three other nurses behind him, and reading aloud the same regulations StarSec TAPped at me at the checkpoint.
“—permits the refusal of B; however, such refusal empowers NOM, LLP to refuse the day’s service, docking pay according to your employee contract. Do you understand and affirm?”
Did I understand and affirm? My head hurt. It was hard to hear or see. Was this really happening?
“Ladies and gentlemen, at this time do you accept or reject the provision of B in such dosage and such composition as this duly designated medical representative of NOM, LLP deems appropriate? Please TAP your agreement.”
I did. I had no choice.
“Excellent. These nurses will assist you.”
A thin young man in scrubs approached me. “Mr. Tobbit?”
They also called it Level Out, Zen, or Little Blue. B was a drug that calmed the nerves. Originally the megacorps manufactured it for people with high stakes jobs, like spaceport traffic controllers. In short order it spread to everyone.
Show up too wired, tired, or upset to work? The corp takes its pound of flesh anyway, by issuing B and charging you for it. Take the B and work or go home and lose a day’s pay.
At appropriate doses, B creates calm without impeding judgment or reaction time. No euphoria, no heightened sensations. Only calm. It hits in minutes, and it runs out a little after your shift. It’s the perfect workers drug.
They swear it’s not addictive.
The nurse said, “Sir, do you accept or reject the provision of B at this time?” He seemed bored.
“Didn’t you already ask me that?”
“We have to ask again.”
“Um ok. Yes, I accept.”
“Injection or pill?”
I loathed the very thought of B. I’m a calm and self-controlled person, and I don’t need anything external like B to keep my cool. Not to mention—despite all the conglom sponsored studies and conglom financed medical professionals swearing the contrary—what if it is addictive?
It never mattered before, because I never needed B. Ever.
“Injection or pill, sir?”
I hate needles. Abruptly a wild, arrogant, crazy thought crashed through my head—could I pretend to take the B and ditch it? Maybe my MedReg could filter it out?
“Sir? Are you okay? Should I connect someone?”
“No, no. I’m fine. First time. I’m just—never mind.” I stuck out my hand. “Pills, please.”
The nurse deposited two itsy blue cylinders into my palm, each boldly stamped with a bright purple “B” followed by a faint number.
Could this day get any worse? I raised the B to my mouth. Cold sweat dampened the back of my neck and time slowed. The pills slipped onto my tongue like abortificants. They tasted sweet. Lilacs at a funeral, with an underbite of bitter.
I lost my nerve and started to swallow.
My TAP gonged, startled me, and I coughed them into my mouth. Another blinking yellow arrow appeared and pointed to the door. The nurse wanted me gone. I exited the B station, found another wall of the Lift, and slipped inside an Ampule.
Alone again, I tongued the undissolved pills. I had horrible cotton mouth from my hangover and could barely swallow my own spit. The B was supposed to melt, instead it mushed across my front teeth like a stain. Still dissolving, but slowly.
I leaned my forehead into one palm. The migraine that had threatened since I woke finally arrived. Sweat soaked through my shirt. Damp splotches bloomed under my arms. More tinny elevator music.
When the Ampule opened I stumbled onto my floor, exhausted by a day that had barely begun. There. I spotted the universal sign and bee-lined for the bathroom.
I was going in. Rike was coming out. Our shoulders banged, but I pushed past.
“Hey—”
My TAPplication was still running, pulling data from the employee directory. In my peripheral vision it skinned someone yellow-green. Not important enough to find out who. With a thought, I killed the process and barreled into the bathroom.
The door shut behind me. I slapped my hands down on the black, stone counter and spit mushy pills into the steel sink. I swallowed some of the drug but most hit the shiny bowl and stuck like flattened oatmeal lumps. On one pill, the cursive purple “B” slanted into an infinity symbol.
The rough vanity was carved from meteor stone, and its chill cooled my palms and shivered goose bumps up my arms. I caught my breath and stared into the mirror. Without touching my reflection I couldn’t tell if I stared into real glass or a mirage.
Either way, I didn’t look good. Collar undone, clumps of hair pasted to my forehead with sweat. My pupils were dilated, eyes a little wide and showing too much white.
I didn’t look like me.
Get a grip, Derek. You have to earn.
So I took another breath and let it out. Then another, more slowly and more deeply. I enjoy yoga. I knew how to calm myself. I meditate and stretch most days. Almost every day. Well not today, of course.
All right. I can do this. Stand up straight. Look yourself in the eye. Breathe in through the nose from the belly, breathe out. Calm. You are calm.
Gash.
I slumped over the sink, chin to chest. Instead of the mirror, I found myself staring at the squished B in the sink, now tacky like gum. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Today. Only today. With my pinky I rolled the lumps out of the basin, onto the counter.
I shook my head. No. I could do this.
I leaned to the faucet and splashed cold water on my face and neck. I wanted a drink. A real drink. Enough enough. I was calming. Everything would be fine.
“Hey you good there, man?”
Rike’s hand slapped my back and startled me enough I nearly swung at him. Instead, I turned my spin into a casual pose against the sink, unclenched my fist, and held up a finger. I swallowed the water in my mouth and inched my hand to cover the B on the sink.
“Yes. Thanks, Rike. I’m ok.”
Before he could respond, a little cartoon envelope with feet and arms detached itself from behind the faucet and pogoed up and down. Crystal's two-dimensional head folded up from the back, like a scowling photo atop a paper doll body. The message notification extended its cartoon arms and waved once it had my attention.
“You gonna get that? I can wait.”
Great. My wife was mirage-stalking me, and my coworker was here to see it. “Not important.” I swung my hand through the little Crystal-headed envelope, which rejected the connect and shattered the mirage. Later. When I was alone.
Decency or self-preservation should have propelled Rike out the door the moment a superior said everything was fine. Instead, he crowded me.
“So what happened yesterday? We missed you at lunch.”
I kept myself between him and the sink. Your boss is spitting B. What an excellent foundation for professional respect. Please don’t see. Please don’t see.
Abruptly something in me relaxed like a switch. I could only do my best, so I would do that. Yoga really helped. Or I swallowed more B than I thought. “I had a few personal details to handle, so I took the rest of the day off.”
“Must be nice. Listen. Not to be too forward or second guess your work process or anything, but …” He reached around me and tapped the sink beside the hand covering the discarded pills. He whispered. “You’re supposed to take those.”
Panic. With a shock of adrenalin clarity, I realized I had violated all kinds of expensive regulations spitting out the B. I’d wind up months in debt. Would Rike report me? How would I—
“Don’t worry. You picked the right bathroom. TAP camera is out in here.”
Rike peeled back my fingers, shoveled the mushiest pill into the sink, and ran the water. Then he extracted the mostly undissolved pill, broke it, and pocketed half.
He handed the other half to me. “Take this in an hour. B’s got a four-hour half-life, so it’ll leave about the right amount in your system at the end of the day.”
Relief. Someone knew what to do with this crazy situation.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“No worries. I’ll take care of the rest of this for you. Sound good? You don’t owe me.”
“Uh, yes. Good work.” Good work? Did I really say that?
Rike cocked his head at me. “You going to be all right, boss man?” His smile invited me to join the joke.
“Oh yes, certainly. It will be good to get to work. I appreciate your help.”
He laughed, a sharp high bark. “Well then. See you on deck,” and he headed for the exit. He paused, hand on the door handle. “We take our lunch on the 43rd around one, one-thirty. Join us for real this time?”
“Thanks, I will.”
“Great!” The door closed behind him.
A few minutes more and another splash saw me as calm as I could expect. More employees entered while I pulled myself together, but none spoke to me. For the second time today I felt I might have made a friend—a living one this time.
* * *
“You cried? Why? It was just a zombot.”
It was later that day, and my direct reports insisted we take lunch together. Now, they peppered me with questions. It was hard to get a fork in my mouth.
I pushed my plate away, slightly ill over the soy-stained noodles. I loathed the word zombot. Bioroids never develop the biological foundation of sentience, let alone sentience itself. The genetics were tweaked before seed ever hit ovum, and the resulting human clay lacked the potential for self-awareness. Ipso facto a bioroid was never human. Lobot was worse.
Bioroids are neither lobotomized people nor undead zombies. Does growing a liver in a vat makes it a person? No.
A liver doesn’t go to work, pay taxes, or raise a family. You can’t break its heart or kill its dreams. Same with bioroids.
Granted the bio-form industry grows more than the liver. It grows all the organs at one shot, without sentience. It’s still not a human being, just parts. That seemed a no brainer to me. Hah hah.
Occupational humor.
Jessica punctuated her “zombot” question with a spork full of wet noodles. Jessica Maknamura. The person who first identified the problem among the Chute bioroids. One of my three direct reports.
The reason I was on Mars.
My anger was irrational. Jessica didn’t sign my contract with Red Planet. She didn’t trick me into leaving Earth or steal my children, but logic didn’t help. Ill will bubbled inside me like hot tar. I stared at my plate. It wasn’t fair to her. I’d have to watch myself.
“Seriously, why’d you cry?” Jessica asked. A flare miraged off the corner of her glasses.
“Please don’t say zombot, Jessica. It’s crude, and no, I didn’t cry over the bioroid.” I stressed the word bioroid to drive home my point. “My tears were stress relief, totally natural. People do that, they cry after the pressure ends. That’s all. I’m glad no one shot me.”
Jessica leaned across the table. “You saved the day.”
“No, not really. I saved Red Planet some property damage.” The day was screwed before I woke.
Rike tapped on the table. “Something I don’t get. What was it thinking? It had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. What was the plan?”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t thinking. It was flailing. Rogues happen. We’re not sure why. Maybe a sloppy implementation of the Omega protocols or the bioform company screwed the initial gene sequencing. Who knows? But rogues are always mentally crippled. We put them down.”
“Like rabid dogs.”
“Exactly.”
While we spoke, I skimmed everyone’s personnel records. Jessica’s jacket called her a “coding genius.” She was one of my two full-time direct reports, and RPI hired her into bioroid analysis three years ago. She had seniority. She also had black marks for repeated insubordination.
Gregory Deladez was on loan from MilRes. He was a dotted line to me. His profile dubbed him a “math phenom.” At the moment he mumbled into his tofu burrito and dribbled sauce like a river delta down a pale blue shirt.
Rike was my third.
I glanced at him. Chair tilted against a wall, he watched the rest of us with an amused, distant air. Rike worried me. On the one hand, he had helped me this morning. On the other, he might expect special consideration.
Positive reviews flooded the first screen of Rike’s profile, but a request for any information beyond the basics came back blank. Must be some mistake. I was still poking around when the human resources system crashed. Typical. Everything was out to get me today.
Jessica tapped her spork against her teeth. Annoying habit. “So Derek, you’re from Earth?” Everyone was curious about Earth. I was the fabled traveler from distant lands with news of home.
“Yes. New York originally. Reconstructed New York, of course, not the remnants.”
Rike said, “So how long’s your contract?”
“Three years, standard renewal.”
Greg snorted at that, “Standard. Nothing’s standard …” His sentence trailed off beneath a fresh onslaught of beans and rice.
Jessica looked like she wanted to add something, but Rike cut her off. “Yeah yeah, Greg. We all know you got screwed on your last renewal.” Jessica miraged a little white sign onto Rike’s shoulder, “I’m a jerk!” That was funny.
She glanced my way. I pretended not to notice, but it was difficult not to smile. She caught that.
Rike chewed and talked at the same time. “What I wanna know is how you spotted the rogue!”
Jessica’s little sign vanished. Everyone’s eyes popped to Rike then swiveled my way. I played with my food. “I’ve seen it before is all. Twice. First time I was a junior Line Manager. My boss caught it, not me. He said he always noticed trembling in the fingers before they went rogue.”
Jessica quirked an eyebrow. “Is that what you noticed?”
“No.” I stacked my rice into little equal-sized piles. “That only happens on certain models, but a while back I wondered if maybe there’s a tell with all the models? Some hint before a bioroid goes rogue.”
I pushed all my food to one side of the plate then nudged them back, one grain and one bean at a time. “Studying bioroid tells is a hobby with me. It’s difficult to document because there’s so little data.
But I think I can prove Matsuda Double-Q90s roll their shoulders before going rogue. The L3-30s out of American Bioformix, they sweat more. Things like that.”
Nowhere left to push, I squished my food. My spork flattened a lined floor of brown-stained rice across my blue plate. “Those models I’m confident about. They’re all older designs. Truth is it’s more like intuition. You feel it before it happens.”
They all nodded.
Rike said, “Experience. I understand experience. But how’d you know it was a zom—a bioroid here in HQ and not,” he circled his spork in the air, “out at the Chute?”
“When I checked the subnetwork, so many commands were pulling bioroids off the Chute, it felt … I don’t know. It felt like a distraction. It stood to reason if something wanted us focused there, the real issue was here. Basically I guessed.” I sat up and stopped playing with my food. Yeah I guessed, but I guessed right.
Rike frowned. “So what about shutting the thing down? Some kind of security hole, right? Pop open the back of the ’bot, find the number, and boom—insta-kill switch.” He wiggled his left thumb and pointer like shooting a gun. “Pew! Pew pew!”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said. “I’ve coded kill switches into security systems. This is a maintenance thing.
“On some models the SRSOC is on a board under the head latch. Once you know the SRSOC name, you need supervisor permission to see the subnetwork and entirely different permissions to send commands. Hardware layer kill commands are something I happen to know, but I was lucky it worked on this model. It doesn’t always.
“Some SRSOC names aren’t even hard-wired. You rewrite them once before deploying the bioroid. After that you can’t look it up, you can’t access it, and if you forget the name you’re screwed. If Alfred was a model like that I’d be dead.”
Jessica nodded. “True, we see that all the time. Tension between access and restriction.” She chucked a bean at Greg. It hit his shirt and rolled back to the table. “Don’t we Greg?”
Grunt.
Rike spun his spork on the table like a compass needle, “Yeah but someone who can pop the flap on a zombot’s head is already inside your security, right? They can yank any component they want and walk off …”
“Nope. Yank components without permission, and you trigger an alarm.”
Rike nodded like I’d proven a point to him. “See team, it’s all experience. Derek here knows because he’s the man who’s been there, done that.”
I shook my head. “Luck. Experience said check the subnetwork, I don’t know why I went to the Lift. I was lucky.”
Greg swallowed his last bite. “Intuition is the unconscious leaping from an early premise to a conclusion, without consciously reasoning through the steps between.” He tilted his plate and scraped residual sauce into his mouth. A strand of cheese stuck to his thick lips and dangled until he vacuumed it away with a slurp.
Jessica stared at him. I’d put money she had a crush, but the kind you’re unhappy with yourself for having. She shook her head like snapping out of a dream—or a nightmare—and turned to me. “We’ve seen a rogue, now, will we feel it too?”
Greg poked his greasy spork at her. “I said intuition. Not feelings. Feelings are different.” Food continued to dribble from his mouth while he spoke. It hit his shirt and tumbled out of sight. I’d be upset to crush on this guy too.
Social awkwardness might explain why a brilliant mind like Greg’s worked for me and not the reverse. At least in part. There must be something else, but I couldn’t find it. It seemed a shameful waste of talent. Maybe over in MilRes he was a slacker?
How did Red Planet’s military research division grade its people? Why’d they loan him to the Chute in the first place? Instead of answers I found mysteries and was denied access. Best to stop asking.
Jessica snorted and dismissed Greg’s comments with a wave. “Whatever.”
“Hey—”
“The point is we had a valuable experience yesterday, right? Can they test if we have the knack for spotting rogues now? That’s worth a raise maybe? Or a rank jump?”
Greg snorted and rolled his eyes, “Why don’t you request a course in it?”
Hurt and anger flashed across Jessica’s face so fast I wasn’t sure I’d seen it.
“Screw you Greg, that course would jump me a pay grade.”
“Like that would fix your life.”
She glared at Greg. Were those tears in her eyes or another flare off her miraged glasses? “So sue me for wanting to improve myself, you dump. You clearly don’t.”
While Greg stuttered and shaded red, Jessica returned to me. “Can we? Sense rogues now?”
Rike said, “What about it boss? I could use a raise for no particularly good reason too.” Jessica started to retort, but when Rike smiled and raised an eyebrow, she shut her mouth instead.
This was getting out of hand. This “team” of mine was clearly anything but. They wanted raises? How was I supposed to deliver that miracle? I was new. No allies above. No one owed me favors.
On the other hand, people didn’t back a leader who couldn’t further their careers. I didn’t have a lot to work with here, so I temporized.
“I’m not sure, Jessica. I can look into it—” My TAP pinged an incoming message. Saved by the bell. Except it was Crystal, and I didn’t want to take it.
“Hang on a minute you three. It’s a connect from Earth.” Then I rolled my eyes back and pretended to answer. Meanwhile, conversation at the table turned to the latest rumors: someone had hacked the lobby autocannons and CorpSec was up in arms, all the security cameras were puppets, RPI laced the food with B, etc. etc.
After a minute—I can only roll my eyes into my head so long—I rejoined the conversation. “Sorry about that, team. Big move coming out here, I’m still sorting details.” Like hoping there’s enough booze left to drink my problems into a coma.
On impulse I said, “Er … what do you do for fun, after work?” Perhaps they’d see the advantage of taking the new boss out on the town? Save me a few credits.
Instead their faces froze, like I’d dropped a turd in the punch bowl.
Before the silence stretched into awkward Rike said, “NOM frowns on employees blowing off steam outside TRIC City. They claim it leads to too many days unfit for work and too much B.”
A grunt from Greg. “Not like the stuff is expensive to manufacture. It’s an artificial demand curve and a profit center for the corp.”
Rike slapped Greg on his back, “Greg here, he likes to study the theoretical. And talk about it. Too much.” Greg winced.
High stress job and no watering holes? They were pulling my leg. “Oh come on. People need to blow off steam no matter what the big suits say, right?”
Maybe it was simple homesickness, but an uncharacteristic wave of self-disclosure welled in my chest. “I mean, my wife is divorcing me, my pay was docked, and now you’re telling me there’s nowhere to get a beer after work?” I was offering way too much information, but it was hard to care. Besides, Rike caught me vomiting B into a sink this morning, so did it really matter?
Jessica and Greg glanced at each other then at Rike, wide-eyed.
Rike said, “Not saying that, Derek. Just saying everything in TRIC City …” He put his pointer finger to his forehead. “Keeps it all pretty tame.”
Rike drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ll tell you what. Nothing says friends can’t fraternize after hours. How about I swing by your place tonight?” He jerked a thumb in Greg and Jessica’s direction. “Maybe one of these party monsters in tow?”
Only Rike met my eyes. The other two stared at their empty plates, or the wall, or each other—anywhere but me. Rike’s hand snaked to Greg’s shoulder and massaged it. “Come on now people. We’ll shoot the shit, throw back a glass or two. Get to know our new boss. How’s that sound?”
Greg said nothing. Jessica hid behind her hair and said, “I’ll pass.”
I hadn’t meant to invite anyone over. I wanted out to see the city, not stuff my tiny LiveGood with strangers. I put on my best smile.
“Sure! Best offer all day.”
There was little more to say. We filled lunch with meaningless chat until our TAPs chimed us back to work.
The rest of the shift proved uneventful. I ignored three more connects from Crystal and plowed through hours of reports on bioroid behavior. Finally, exhausted by the day, I splurged on another magcab. Coincidentally, it was the very same magcab that fetched me from outside the stanchion. We drove slowly this time.