Outsystem (Aeon 14) (19 page)

“You have a very fixed mindset, do you know that?” Joseph smiled at Tanis. “Not saying I don’t like it, just an observation.”

She turned her attention to him, allowing herself to see what she normally kept from her mind. He was a man; a warm, intelligent, attractive man. One who didn’t mind how domineering she was—something that had caused problems more than once. His head was angled forward, his strong brow half hiding his eyes. Tanis thought back and realized it was a look he almost exclusively reserved for her. It was
also not a look a commander directs at a major under any circumstances.

The intensity of his gaze caused her to glance down at her service uniform,
suddenly noticing that the cut of the blouse and pants seemed to be somewhat more fitted than usual.

Angela’s snort was very convincing.

Tanis took a moment to remember Joseph’s last statement.

“Yeah, I do sort of have a one-track mind. Comes with the territory I suppose.”

Joseph nodded. “I know how you feel. But it’s been quiet lately; I can’t help thinking of what it’s going to be like when we get there.”

Tanis was silent a moment, staring off into the waving grass. “I haven’t really allowed myself to think of that much.”

Joseph gave a low chuckle. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Tanis looked up into his
eyes and saw something there; a longing, an intensity that she didn’t know how to deal with. Why would he want her so badly? He hadn’t said so, but she knew it was there…it was her job to know things like that.

She looked away. “Joe…I—I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do with what you want from me.”

She felt his hand rest on her arm; felt the heat radiating through her shirt. “I just want you. Can’t you tell? It’s not something from you I want, it’s just you.”

A battle was raging between Tanis’s heart and mind. In the end her mind won. She broke regulations only when she had to—never when she wanted to, no matter how much she wanted to.
“We can’t, you know that. You serve under me, there’s a reason why these things can’t happen.”

“But I serve under you now and have feelings for you.
They have happened, don’t you see that?”

Tanis s
ighed and shifted on the bench to face him. “What do I have to offer you? There’s nothing here, I’m just my job.”

Joe laughed, it wasn’t a short bark, or a mocking chuckle,
just a good long laugh—one that left him wheezing by the time he finished. “Major Richards, that’s just the sort of thing you would say.”

Tanis
could feel her cheeks getting red; she couldn’t fathom what was so funny. It couldn’t be that he was mocking her. That was completely out of character for Joe. “I don’t get it. What could you see in me? Men don’t want women like me…we just make things hard for them—or they want a mother.”

Joe raised his hand and turned her face toward his; forcing her to lock eyes with him. She felt a moment of uncertainty. Was he going to kiss her?

“I don’t want a mother. I’ve given this a lot of thought. It’s your strength that draws me to you. No matter what, you don’t let things get you down. Nothing is insurmountable. I don’t want to control you, I don’t want to own you, I want to share that with you, and I want to give you the support that I know you really need inside. You’re just like the rest of us—you feel pain, you worry, but you don’t let anyone see. But I see, and it makes me love you.”

A part of Tanis saw that Joe was just as shocked that he
’d said ‘love’ as she was to hear it. She had heard it before and it always ended badly—always ended with pain. She pulled away.

“I don’t think this is right, Joe. We have to work together. Maybe later, maybe after we get there.” Her voice was quiet; she couldn’t keep the doubt in her own words hidden.

Joe didn’t say a word; his face had lost all expression. He nodded and rose from the bench, but after taking a step he turned. “Tanis. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to wait. I’m not going to let you stay alone forever.”

She didn’t respond and he remained still; Tanis wondered if he would attempt to convince her again. But then, with a slight droop to his shoulders, he left.

Tanis sat, staring into the darkness, her reverie eventually broken by a deer’s scream.

STELLAR DATE
: 3227241 / 10.15.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)

LOCATION:
District 4A1, Ring 4, Callisto Orbital Habitat (Cho)

REGION:
Jovian Combine, Sol Space Federation

Trist cautiously slipped down the service corridor, her silsuit a matte grey that matched the bulkheads around her. She was looking for a good place to hide so that she could look over her find in private. A vertical stack of environmental tubes filled part of the passage ahead, and she crouched down in the gloom they created.

The find was a bundle of plas sheets. Rare to see such a manifest printed
out, but some people did like the tactile sensation. She flipped through the multilayer holoplas with care, making certain to focus on each layer of each page in its entirety. It took several minutes to scan the sheets into memory and transcribe them. Once it was in her memory she assimilated it as data and the information was in the forefront of her mind, filtered into a relational structure.

Slipping a
small EM charge from a hidden pocket she fried the sheets and dropped them down a crack between the conduit and the deck. Someone would find them eventually, but it would be too late to do anything—even if the information on them could be recovered.

Sue, Trist’s AI,
was running through the lists of equipment and storage locations in the data and pulled out several choice items, flashing them over Trist’s vision.

Sue replied.


Trist said.

Trist rose and left the narrow service passage, taking a few convoluted turns before ending up on a larger concourse. As she walked, the corridors transitioned from deserted to being packed with people and maglev carriers. The utilitarian halls had also given way to the wider boulevards, their walls covered in tarnished filigree—though it was nearly impossible to spot behind all of the holo advertisements that wrapped them.

She looked down at the form-fitting grey outfit and decided it just wouldn’t do.
A thought changed its color to a mixture of black and pink, raised the heel on the boots and added a short skirt. The neckline plunged and the fabric ruffled, creating a second layer that formed a jacket.

<
Much better, a girl has to look her best.>

“Mod freak.”

She almost didn’t catch the muttered words from a man who walked by. He was already past, but she made a rude gesture anyway. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t get the pretty mods and that her left eye was a mass of lenses and actuators. Not to mention what her right hand looked like—it got the job done.

Putting his comment from her mind she adopted a carefree expression and
walked down the corridor toward the main sweep of Ring 4. Her eyes slid past the ancient décor in this part of the ring to light upon the inhabitants. It was important to always know who was around you and what they were up to. In Trist’s experience life didn’t offer a lot of forgiveness to the unwary.

After a few bends the
boulevard opened up to a balcony overlooking the main sweep. Lanes of flying transports choked the air before her and below she could catch glimpses of parks and lakes.

Once, when the Callisto Orbital Habitat—known to its inhabitants as the Cho—
was new, this was the upper level of an exclusive world, the most beautiful and advanced orbital habitat ever created. The Cho still was the most advanced and beautiful orbital habitat mankind had ever constructed, but with the number of rings now totaling over one hundred, R4 was little more than a relic—much of it demoted to life support and waste-management.

Despite that, the main sweep could
still take your breath away. It was nearly a kilometer wide and ran the entire circumference of the ring. If you followed it around the ring you’d find yourself in some very nice neighborhoods from time to time, but most would prompt you to keep a hand on your weapon of choice.

Trist
tried to contact Jesse on the Link, but received no response. That could mean anything from complete and utter drunkenness to simply not caring enough to answer, or a host of possibilities in between.

She visited
Pikes Pub, followed by a few of her friend’s other favorite haunts eventually catching wind that Jesse was on her way to the SouRing commons to return a faulty IF unit. The commons were nine-thousand kilometers up-spin and Trist caught a high-velocity maglev that made the trip in less than an hour.

Sue kept an eye out while Trist caught a bit of sleep. The effort to steal those plas sheets had kept her from sleep for more than a day and even the several minutes she managed to snatch on the train felt great.

The train’s closest stop to the SouRing commons was the sort of place that made people with death wishes deploy protective nano; Sue let out a veritable cloud.

Trist commented.

ll take your word for it,>
Sue replied.

Trist waited for the crush in the station to lessen before she ventured out and
then down a broad thoroughfare to the commons.

The SouRing commons were placed at a location where the main sweep was wider than normal and
contained veritable city of shops, services, and bazaars. The merchants on the commons sold everything to everyone—every single walk of life and caste was represented. Tucked amongst the semi-legal stalls and shops was the best black market in the bottom twenty rings, something that brought in a lot of highnums and offringers.

I
t wasn’t hard to spot the foreigners either. They were the ones with the furtive glances and anxious twitches. Normally Trist would find a few likely ones and follow them to a good place to do a little recreational appropriation of their goods, but not now. She needed to find Jesse and get moving.

Threading through a group of brain cases—
Trist could never understand anyone’s desire to leave their body—she worked her way toward the shop she was pretty certain Jesse had gone to with her ‘faulty’ IF unit. On the way she decided that her flamboyant outfit might make her look a bit too much like a tourist and altered her silsuit to approximate black leather pants, boots, a tight grey shirt and a long jacket—a more serious and less approachable outfit.

Sue commented.

Trist’s question didn’t receive a response.

As she threaded the crowd, a telltale blue mohawk caught her eye. It wasn’t a totally uncommon hairstyle at the moment, but this one stood out as the spikes were metal, and each was topped with a small decorative skull. Yunnan did have
a tendency to show up when Trist least expected it; usually quite interested in her paying him the credit she owed.

She was betting that he was past the ‘want money now’ stage and into the ‘retribution and pain’ stage. Cutting behind a series of vendors peddling sensory experiences from cloud divers on Saturn, she made certain to place a lot of space between herself and her debtor. No reason to have an unfortunate encounter
with him botch the opportunity to do a job with Jesse.

After that and a few other near misses with people she really didn’t want to meet today—or ever if she could help it—Trist finally found her friend.

Jesse was where Trist thought she would be, though she hadn’t expected the scene she encountered. Her friend was standing on a shop’s counter screaming at the proprietor. Trist stopped and reconsidered her friend’s past behavior. The real question was why she
hadn’t
expected a scene like this. Theatrics were like food and power to Jesse. Trist approached quietly, interested in what this particular altercation was about.