Tracy stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in one of Jessica’s bathrobes. She would have liked to stay in the shower longer, washing the grime and the pain of the night out of her memory, but she knew she didn’t have time. Very likely, she was putting Jess at risk right now, simply be being here.
She had pointed this out to Jessica, but her longtime friend has brushed her concerns aside. “Fuck’em” Jessica said pulling two beers from the fridge.
“But you have no idea who’s after me.”
“Do you?” Tracy had paused stumped. No, no she didn’t and that made her even more uncomfortably insecure.
“Take a shower then we’ll talk.”
Tracy wrapped her hair in a towel, then stepped out of the guest bathroom and into the living room. Her beer was sitting in a metal coozy, still frosty and cold.
“You got shot?” Jessica had changed into work out clothes. Charcoal gray leggings beneath a textured black skin-tight hoodie. She had tied her blond curls up in a braid. Despite her curvy physic, nothing was dangling or hanging. She looked like she was ready to run.
Tracy nodded. “Right shoulder.”
Jessica nodded. “Your clothes are burned. Gauss rifle?”
“It had to be. I didn’t hear a shot, and it knocked me at least ten feet, maybe more. My nanites were so taxed, I nearly blacked out.”
“Any broken bones?”
Tracy moved her right arm in a loop and winced. “Yeah, most of my shoulder it feels like. Nanites are doing what they can, but bone takes a while to knit.”
Jessica took a long pull on her beer. “So what the hell did you get yourself into?”
Tracy leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’m not sure. Look, I appreciate you taking me in, but I probably shouldn’t be telling you anything.”
“Listen lady, you got shot. That alone tells me this is some serious shit. You’re just about the most paranoid person I know. So spill the beans. I need to know what I’m dealing with and what are next move is.”
“Our next move?”
“I’m in it now sister,” Jessica took another long pull on her lager. “The way I see it, any bastard crazy enough to shoot you, is going to come looking for you when they don’t find your corpse. They look for you, they find me. That’s going to be a problem.”
Tracy studied Jessica. She’d known Jess for a long, long time. Jessica was a nurse by training, but by attitude she was one tough son of bitch. They’d met in the VA hospital. Tracy was on her way in, Jess was making a change of career. They’d overlapped just enough to start an unlikely friendship.
“You’re an adventure guide, what do you know about gang warfare?”
Jessica didn’t smile. “I know a lot about dangerous animals.”
Jessica had always had a kind of reserved friendliness around her. Tracy had only gotten close to her a few times. Jess would look out for anyone who couldn’t look out for themselves. However, she never really let anyone get close. That was why Tracy had turned to her. First out of convenience, she was close. But also because she thought she could come and go without an attachment. Jessica was surprising her.
“Look, here’s what I know,” Tracy pulled out a dining room table chair and sat backward on it, crossing her arms on top of the backrest. “A friend got a call for a job. Missing executive on vacation. Fairly standard kind of thing. He asked me to check with the sister who hired him, you know, make the contract official.”
“You do a lot of administrative work nowadays?”
“I help friends sometimes. This didn’t seem like that big a deal. Just meet the sister, get a signature, then go home.”
“Sounds simple. At one point do the bullets come in?”
“When I discover the sister has been replaced by a Synth and I find the woman and her husband tied up in the basement. I tried to get clear of the property when a sniper decided to use me for target practice.”
“That sounds awfully elaborate.”
Tracy nodded, thinking about it. “Someone didn’t want anyone to know where this Exec went….” She paused a moment. “And they didn’t want anyone looking for him right now either.”
“How do you figure?”
“They didn’t kill the family. Just iced them for a while. Also, the insurance claim wouldn’t post for another week.”
“How long has the guy been missing?”
“A couple of days, four at the most.” Tracy took a long swig of her beer. The cold liquid felt good going down, sudsy and bitter. She saw Jessica had laid out some charcoal sticks for her on the table. They were wrapped in hypoallergenic foil - totally unnecessary, but just like Jess. Prepared. Always prepared. Probably a bit like her, just without the paranoia.
Tracy unwrapped a stick and started to gnaw on it like it was a beef stick. Her nanites were down to 40%. Not a good number. The carbon would help them regenerate. The stick didn’t taste like anything, the nanites blunted the flavor, but the beer sure tasted good.
“What’s next?” Jessica added.
“The company. I want to talk to the people who worked for our misper. You don’t own a Space Yacht, without something to pay for it.”
Jessica sat up. “He’s missing off planet?”
Tracy nodded. “This is a tow job. At least, that’s what it started out as. Go find the missing exec and his family and bring them home.” She couldn’t read Jessica’s face.
“I think we had better get moving,” She stood up.
“What’s the rush?”
“I know you think I’m this goody two shoes, and all, and maybe I am, but Tracy - I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals healing people with serious injuries, the kinds nanites can’t treat. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned. The kind of people who intentionally try to kill someone, usually want to finish the job.”
Tracy locked eyes with Jessica. “I’m going to need something to wear besides a bathrobe.”
Jessica nodded and left the room. She returned a few minutes later with a stack of clothes. “I got your size from your outfit. The replicator isn’t top shelf, it has limited spools of fabrics, but they are mostly organic and breathable.”
Tracy looked at the outfit and picked up the shirt. “Work out clothes?”
“Yoga,” Jessica said. “I teach yoga now. Don’t worry, I made sure the design and pattern will be flattering.”
Tracy laughed and slapped her thigh. “Nothing is going to flatter this fat old ass.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You’re lovely.”
Tracy thought about arguing with her, then stopped. It actually felt good to have someone to talk to for a change. Even if she totally disagreed with her friend, she didn’t need to fight with her now. She grabbed the clothes, finished her beer, then stepped into the bathroom. A few minutes later she stepped out, feeling self-conscious but comfortable. The outfit was not as tight as the one Jessica wore, but it was comfortable, a two-tone yoga outfit in dark maroon and navy blue. The textures and patterns did a wonderful job of accentuating her curves and smoothing out her uneven spots. But most importantly, she could move. The outfit was flexible and light. Jessica handed her a thigh - length coat, that was lighter than it looked. Tracy nodded in appreciation.
“This will cover up the curvy parts and keep them guessing,” Jessica smiled. Tracy pulled on the tan jacket, which was lighter than it looked. She grabbed her tablet from her bag and put it in one of the coat pockets, where it fit perfectly.
“Where are we going?” Jessica asked.
“Detroit. Farmington to be exact, that’s where our Misper had his company headquarters.”
Jessica nodded, then walked over to her TV, and touched a spot behind the screen. The whole panel swung forward, and she reached in and pulled out a hand glass gun.
Tracy stared at her in disbelief.
“Sorry, I don’t have one for you too,” Jessica replied, tucking the slim profile weapon into the back waist band of her yoga pants. Her own coat hid the pistol perfectly.
Tracy didn’t quite know what to day. “You’re sorry you don’t have two? Jess, you’re a nurse!”
“Was a nurse. Now I’m someone who stays alive.”
Detroit
Tracy hadn’t seen Jessica in at least a year, but she still couldn’t imagine Jess carrying any kind of weapon. The most dangerous thing she had ever seen her wield was a multitool.
“What happened to you?” Tracy asked as they left her apartment and headed for the street. Jessica had called the drone this time. Again they insisted on a ground car. A flight to the transit center would have been faster, but ground drones were undeniably safer.
The trip to the transit center happened without incident. As they approached the terminal, Tracy whispered, “Is that going to be a problem?” Jessica nodded no, but didn’t say anything.
They passed through the scanners, and then got in line for the next transfer booth. If you didn’t spend much time in Transfer Stations, you would never notice the subtle “thump” of the hidden machinery below. But every few seconds, Tracy felt the bump from the Neutrino Transfer Wave Detonation.
Transfer waves worked by instantaneously modifying the probability field of every particle in a given region of space. The trick was that the region had to be perpendicular to the direction the wave was traveling. The challenge was that gravity, or curved space-time, restricted how big and area could be safely perpendicular to the wave front. This deep in the gravity well of Earth, the volume of transferable material was limited to a space hardly larger than a four - passenger car.
Hence, the long lines as people stepped into the transfer rooms on a regular cadence. Tracy submitted the transfer request to the system and purchased tickets for her and Jessica. It was like this intricate dance. Step pause, open, step, close, pause. Repeat. People entered the transfer rooms on this side of the Transfer Center, and exited the other side. Never the two should meet.
The lines were short this late at night but never empty. Earths population might have been struggling to sustain a stable level, but people still traveled at all hours. It was the pulse of a vibrant economy.
A few minutes later, Jessica and Tracy stepped into the booth, and they felt the strange swish pull of being instantly transferred to another location on the planet. Same weight, same time zone this time, but different magnetic field and pull. Tracy could feel it. Jessica looked momentarily dizzy, then they left the room and headed out into the cool Detroit fall evening.
“The office won’t open for another six hours,” Tracy scanned her report on Geoff Stikine’s company.”
“What’s the business?”
“Block chain insurance contracts. Mostly shipping companies it looks like,” Tracy replied.
“The offworld type?”
“Any type,” She replied. “It’s a boutique business. Catering to anyone who wants to protect their cargo.”
“Funny, you would have thought he was going to protect his,” Jessica said snidely. “So what’s the play? Find a hotel and hold up until the morning?”
Tracy gave Jessica a sideways glance, “You can if you’d like, but for me, this is the perfect time to have a look around.”
Jessica nodded. “Let’s go.”
For no reason that Tracy could articulate, she opted for a sky drone taxi this time. Perhaps it was the idea that her would be killer was in Miami, or just she felt pressed for time, but this time she wanted to get to the business as fast as possible.
They wouldn’t take out an entire company, would they? Who the hell were they? She asked herself.
“Who are you talking to?” Jessica asked as the dronecraft settled onto the taxipad, and opened up to let them in.
“No one,” Tracy replied.
“Uh, huh.”
Tracy decided to change the subject. “When did you start packing?” She asked Jessica.
“About the time I started teaching yoga,” her friend replied enigmatically.
Tracy suddenly had the feeling that she hadn’t interrupted a boring night for her friend after all, but instead had stepped into the middle of something.
“Are you going to tell me what is going on?” Tracy asked.
“Sure,” Jessica shot back. “We’re about to burgle your client’s company.”
They didn’t talk for the rest of the ride.