Shepherd Moon: Omegaverse: Volume 1 (8 page)

He paused, spread his hands, “And then I saw a weird shimmer in the stars in front of me. I’d read that was one of the things that happened when you were really close to a ship with cloaking on. So I grabbed the stick and opened fire.”

He looked around.

“I don’t get it. We were there to kill the pirate. We killed the pirate. Why’d he get so freaked out?”

Blesk laughed, “Your mistake was thinking
we
were there to kill the pirate, when in reality
he
was there to kill the pirate. You were just there because he couldn’t do it by himself.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he continued, “the guy’s gone full
Captain Ahab
. Hell, he doesn’t even have to make it as hard on himself as he does. All he has to do is sign up the ship to answer a distress call, then he could jump into instances with us.”

“Instances?” asked Duncan.

“Missions,” answered Tex.

Blesk nodded, continued, “Yeah. He could come with us, have some fun, and we’d get a notification when we finished a mission if a distress call was received while we were playing. Then we could all jump into the destroyer and go hunt down the pirate.”

“But he doesn’t want to do it that way,” said a voice behind Duncan. He turned, saw it was someone named ‘Third’.

“He wants us all to sit in the ship, each of us
manning our stations,
” continued Third, “like good little sailors, obedient to our worshipful captain.”

“As if staring at my navigation screen, all day, is in any way fun,” added Tex. “But since he named me the ‘Nav Officer’, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“Why?” asked Duncan.

“Don’t know, brother,” responded Blesk. “Maybe it addresses his fantasy of being a ship captain. Maybe he likes the suspense of the hunt, trying to out think the opponent.”

“Maybe he’s just a dick, who needs a swift kick between the legs,” said Tex.

“He’s not
that
bad,” countered Blesk. “He’s a good guy,” he paused, “well, he
can
be a good guy.”

“Give me a break, Blesk,” said Tex, “the guy made his AI assistant the freaking Executive Officer of the ship. He’s batshit crazy.” His voice changed to a mocking singsong, “
Number One, Flank speed!”

“In any case,” interrupted Third, “we’ve got him blocked, so he can’t pester us constantly about
joining in the hunt
or some nonsense.”

“We let him go on about his business,” said Blesk

“Like the short-bus mental case he is,” interjected Tex.

“While we go about ours,” continued Blesk. “When we saw his rant about all of us not having anything to do with you, we just thought we’d probably need to come apologize for Fleet Bigweek.”

“Bigweek?” asked Duncan.

“It’s a long, long story, brother,” laughed Blesk. “But if we can ever be of service, please don’t hesitate to ask. Just, you know, in person and not via the message channels.”

“I guess those go through Captain West.” said Duncan.

“You got it.”

“Can I ask you guys something?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you guys keep him around? The ship belongs to all of you, right? You could just kick him out of the group.”

Blesk shrugged, “Like I said, he can be a good guy. We’ve known him for a lot of years. That counts for something with us.”

“Plus,” said Tex, “if we kicked him out he’d probably go off the deep end and blow up an orphanage or something.”

After making his goodbyes, Duncan checked the status of his auction. Nothing new. He pulled the helmet off, put it on the table in front of his couch, then peeled off the haptic gloves and put them inside of the helmet. Then he lay back on the couch, twisted, brought his legs up and stretched out. Staring at the ceiling, but not really seeing the ancient wood beams or exposed ductwork, he began thinking about the day.

His friends had been right. The immersion was amazing. Especially space flight. Looking around at the stars had taken his breath away. He imagined that once he controlled the ship, instead of just being along for the ride as he’d been in that last mission, he’d really feel like he was piloting a ship through space.

Duncan willed the auction to be a success. He began to think through the options for the ship he wanted to buy. He configured it and reconfigured it in his mind, trying to think through the options best suited for the plan. At some point, he fell asleep.

He woke, confused. At first he didn’t know where he was or why he woke. He looked. He was on the couch. That solved half the problem. He heard a knock on the door; presumed that solved the second half.

“Yeah,” he groaned. Louder, “Come in.”

His couch was against the wall next to the door, and he lay with his feet away from the door. He strained his neck, lifted his chin and looked toward the door as it opened. Anna came through.

“Sunday brunchday!” she said, then “Did you sleep on the couch?”

“Yeah.” He sat, rubbing his eyes. “Did we have a date?”

“Nope!” she said cheerfully, “But I crashed at a friends place downtown last night. Also, I want a mimosa. Also also, you owe me brunch!” She sat, next to him, slipped out of her garish pink plastic flip flops, and folded her legs beneath her.

“There are at least two things wrong with that,” he said.

Her eyes rose in mock innocence, “What?”

“First, you want many more than ‘
a mimosa.’
’

She laughed.

“Second, how do you figure that I owe you brunch? I’m not sure the accounting of our history balances in that direction.”

She shrugged, kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m sure there is some karmic imbalance that puts you in my debt.”

“I see, I see,” he said. “Let me go put on a clean shirt and I’ll try to bring equilibrium to the universe.” He got up, headed toward the bedroom, “How’s the weather?”

“Perfect! Warm, sunny, breezy,” she said. “Perfect.”

He opened his closet, pulled off yesterday’s shirt, and grabbed a TShirt. Pulling it on, he dropped out of his jeans, then pulled on a pair of shorts that lay, crumpled, on the floor. He stepped into a pair of flip-flops and walked out of the bedroom. Anna had moved to the bathroom, and was slathering toothpaste onto her finger. She shoved it into her mouth.

“I’ve got an extra toothbrush,” he said, picking up his own and taking the toothpaste from her. He squeezed out a dollop and began brushing.

“That’s ok,” she mumbled, then spit into the sink. “This will do.”

He spit, rinsed and replaced his brush. She kissed him quickly.

“See? Bad breath all gone!” she laughed. She danced out of the bathroom.

“Mimosas! Now!” she sang out.

“All right, all right.” He grabbed his wallet, keys and phone, and opened the front door for her. She sashayed out, smiling coyly, then laughed at herself. He followed, closed and locked his door, then trailed her through the door on the opposite side of the hallway, which lead to the fire exit that crawled down the outside, back of his building.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, then walked the sidewalk between the building and the railroad tracks. At the end of the building, they turned right onto 4th street and walked under the railroad bridge toward the restaurant filled pedestrian mall, two blocks away. Anna moved into Duncan’s right side, away from the street, and put her arm through his and her head on his shoulder. They walked in companionable, comfortable silence.

As they approached the mall, he asked, “Where do you want to eat?”

“You know my requirement. As long as that’s met, I don’t care.”

“Mimosas, yes.” he turned left onto the mall, walked a block and took an outdoor table in front of a cafe. The table was in the sun. Anna took the seat facing the light. She pulled her feet out of her sandals and onto her seat, her toes wrapped over the front. She wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her chin on her knees. She smiled at him.

“What’s new?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” he answered. The waitress, a lively Aussie named Kylie, arrived, greeted them by name. It was still too early for food, by half an hour, but they ordered drinks. They’d break their fast with a mimosa and a pint of porter while they waited for the kitchen to open.

Anna
continued, “
Something
must be new! What did you do last night.”

“Played a video game. A virtual world game,” he shrugged.

“Tell me.”

So he did.

“How do you know he was real?” Anna asked, then finished the dregs of her second mimosa.

Duncan finished chewing, then swallowed, the last bite of his eggs benedict. “What do you mean?
Who
was real?”

“The asshole guy.” She picked up the ramekin that had held her goat cheese and thyme grits, ran her finger through it and then sucked off the residue. “The guy who yelled at you.”

“I don’t follow,” he said. The waitress brought their third round of drinks, bussed their plates. Duncan turned to her, “Thanks Kylie,” then turned back to Anna, “What do you mean real?”

“I mean,” said Anna, “how do you know he wasn’t part of the computer program, like your butler guy Clive.”

He laughed, sipped the foam off his beer, “Well, for one, all of his friends apologized. I doubt the AI has that many levels of subtlety.”

“Ok,” Anna curled back into the chair, stretched in the sunlight, “then how do you know your butler guy
isn’t
real?”

“Are the voices in
your
head real, Anna dear?”

She laughed. “Maybe. May. Be. You never know.” she tilted her head sideways, “Who knows how the universe decides to communicate to us. Or through us.”

“Are you seriously getting metaphysical about a video game?”

“Where does the universe end? Isn’t your cyberspace part of it?”

“It’s just bits of information. Pulses of electricity.”

“Maybe that’s all the universe is,” she sipped. “Maybe I’m an AI. Maybe you are. Maybe nobody is, even your Clive.”

“Maybe
you
have had enough mimosas,” laughed Duncan.

“Never!” she raised her glass high, then drained it.

Chapter 9

Pune, Maharashtra. India

Phani Mutha typed on the dingy keyboard in his small, dimly lit room. He stared at the monitor sitting on the table in front of him, at the boulder it displayed. He willed it to give him some sign of a vein or deposit of something, anything, he could sell. He hit the key again, spending some of his precious fuel to thrust his ship closer to the rock. He completed his scan. Nothing. Again. He changed his ship display from a mineral scan to a wider, broader navigational scan. His ship was inside the ringed belt around a blue gas giant, the fourth planet in this system. He chose the next closest, likely, moonlet, set a course toward it, and increased thrust. He maneuvered through the belt, past the small rocks unlikely to provide anything worth finding.

Phani Mutha was a miner and he was a farmer; someone who made their living obtaining and selling virtual objects. He was also having a long string of very bad luck.

This was after beginning his farming career with a lot of good fortune indeed. He’d bought the old computer after reading about others who made a good living selling game items to players in the west. He thought it sounded better than scraping by on what work he could find in Pune, but the risk was tangible; it touched his life. He couldn’t afford to have the computer, pay for the game subscription or spend the time necessary in game unless it more than paid for itself. And there were no guarantees that it would. But it had.

At first, he’d had wonderful luck. He chose mining missions offered via the game through mission control. He found vein after vein of rare and wondrous minerals. He’d even found the blueprints for a torpedo on a small moon. He’d made a small fortune in game credits and been able to transfer them into the bank account he had, for the first time in his life, been able to open. He’d begun to dream of being able to save up enough to buy his own ship; selling his ore on the open market would increase his profits over the fixed price the system paid for missions.

But rent wasn’t free. Electricity wasn’t free. Food wasn’t free. The money he’d been able to save was constantly siphoned. He hadn’t had enough luck in the game to replace it. Now it was running out. In three days he had to be able to renew his game subscription with money or game credits he didn’t now have.

As Phani’s ship made its way to the next mining spot, he pushed back from the table, stood, and walked past his bedroll to the hot plate sitting on the floor. He squatted and began making a meal. Rain beat on the open slats of his one window, an evening breeze pushing through into the stale air of his room. The monsoon would last another month. He wondered where he would be then; if he would last as long as the rains. Would he be washed out of the city like so much flotsam into the Mutha river. Was that his destiny, to become as one with the river whose name he shared? He shrugged, began to eat, if there was a karmic balance to be repaid, so be it. Maybe he could find a job in the Hinjawadi IT park. He never had before, but maybe this time would be different.