Aura Overload 1.54 - Clearing Town (Patreon)

Good morning! Still getting great feedback and suggestions from you all, and I appreciate it. A few stuck out as things I should address right away, so I've got a few tweaks for you to peruse before we get into today's chapter.

##Some small changes to 1.42 - The vid call between Hector and Britt##

//Someone is connecting to the anonymous address I gave Mr. Janus.//

“Britt, I hope.” Hector picked up the pace, angling toward a gap between bleachers. When he reached a relatively quiet spot along the back wall, he accepted the connection. Britt’s face resolved in a window on his AUI. She looked fine—better than the last time he’d seen her. Of course, that only made Hector suspicious.

“Hector! I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you before going with…my friend. He promised he’d contact you right away, but I guess—”

“It’s fine.” He narrowed his eyes. “You okay?”

“Um, yeah, honestly. I’m good. I’m someplace safe, but, um, my friend told me not to say exactly where. I guess you can see he asked me not to use his name either. It’s not that he doesn’t trust you, it’s—”

“Paranoia.” Hector shrugged. “I don’t blame him. Doesn’t matter, I know who he is.” Britt nodded and opened her mouth to say something more, but Hector continued, “Speaking of that, I need you to tell me what we talked about when we were together. You said something about how I reminded you of your brother. What was that?”

Britt’s brows drew together in an immediate scowl. “Nice try. I told you how different you were.”

Hector nodded. “Good.”

Her scowl relaxed as she realized what Hector was doing. “So, things are going okay? You met with… I mean, you’re working with someone there? Someone friendly to, um, our cause?” She growled, throwing up her hands. “I hate all this secretive bullshit! The call’s encrypted, I don’t understand—”

“There are ways around encryptions and there are ways you or I could be compromised. Better to respect your friend’s wishes that we speak carefully. Things are fine. Just stay safe, and I’ll…take care of the rest.”

“I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I’m safe and you’re—”

“This is how I prefer it.”

Britt’s eyebrows lifted, genuine concern in her eyes. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. We’ll talk when it’s done—”

“It.” Britt scoffed. “This is something I felt I had to do. Now you’re doing it. It’s not right.”

“Right’s got nothing to do with it. Besides, I’m here on account of you. In a way, you are doing it.” He didn’t need to explain to her that he wanted to deal with Tacitianus as much as she did. Let her take the credit.

“Just…” She licked her lips, shaking her head slightly. “Just be careful.”

Hector forced a smile, knowing his AI was generating the image of his face for the call. Evie would know he was smiling, and she’d mimic the gesture in the image. In his old life, she’d carefully filter his background and the surrounding noise, ensuring nobody knew exactly where he was when he made calls like that. He wondered if—

//I am.//

Hector snorted, and Britt’s scowl returned, though far less severe. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing. Tell your friend I need to see you when it’s done. In the flesh. We still have things to talk about.”

Britt nodded, and Hector could tell she knew what he meant: they had to figure out what it was that Paul had stolen from Tacitianus. “Be safe.”

Hector nodded and then cut the connection. He wondered how much Logan or Janus knew about that—about why the magistrate wanted Paul and Britt dead. As he turned back to the crowded convention floor, he paused to watch a pair of heavy-weight men slugging away at each other in the nearest ring. What do you think, Evie? Didn’t seem like a fake call to me.

//It’s impossible to tell, but I think the question you asked for authentication was effective.//

##Tweaks to chapter 1.52##

Britt looked past Hector into the motel room, but shook her head. “Can we get something to eat? I’m starved.”

Hector looked past her, out into the silent parking lot and the city streets beyond. Only a single delivery van stirred, breaking up the still image. “What was it like coming over here? Any noise? PKs going nuts?”

“You mean about…”

Hector nodded.

“Nothing. Logan said it would be quiet—that our friend was keeping things quiet for as long as possible to create confusion.”

“Good.” Just give me time to get out of this damn town, Janus. He glanced at his clock again, even though he knew it wasn’t even six-thirty yet, and he nodded. “Yeah, let’s get breakfast.”

“I have my car.”

Hector grabbed his bag, then followed her down to the parking lot where her little car sat waiting. As they climbed in, Britt said, “Logan dropped me off at my car this morning. Prick hardly said a word as we drove up to Tent Town. I was asking him about you—what happened, if you were okay, all that stuff. It wasn’t until I got out of his cruiser that he said to come here—that you were waiting.”

“Power trip.” Hector shrugged.

“Well, I guess I owe him.” She shrugged. “Even if his ego is as big as that pit out there.” She nodded toward the distant mine tailings.

When she turned back to him, he asked, “Where were you? His place?”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t hardly there. Dropped me off and then went straight back out—said he had to keep up appearances while ‘things were going down.’ I assumed he meant whatever you were doing.” As she put the car into motion, she added, “Can you tell me about it? I mean, like, did you get hurt or anything? Did he suffer? How about his mercs?”

##And:##

Her car drove to a little diner not far from his motel, and they went inside. Hector led the way to a booth and sat down so he could see the door—and the windows facing the lot. It wasn’t that he thought Britt was leading him into a trap, but he wasn’t sure she’d know it if she was being used as bait. After they selected their order on the little terminal, Britt looked at him and said, “I know I owe you. After we eat, I can take you to where I think Paul stashed…whatever it is that caused all this trouble.”

“He made a mess.” Hector instantly regretted the words and added, “I hope it wasn’t just greed.”

“It wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t, and it was…” She trailed off, like she wasn’t sure what more to say, but then she added, “I don’t know what he had. That much was true, but he told me it was life-changing. That it would mean more than just wealth—it was power and freedom and everything everyone in our family ever dreamed about while we let the Empire and the consortiums grind us into dust.”

Hector only narrowed his eyes, trying not to be cynical—trying, but failing. “Sounds pretty much like a fancy description of greed.”

Britt scowled so deeply she nearly bared her teeth as she leaned across the table. “You know how it is! You’ve seen how the powerful stay powerful and the rest of us get used up! Why? Why? Because some ancestor of theirs grabbed ahold of something while it was in reach. That’s why! Paul said this was it—this was our chance to break out of the…” Again she trailed off, and her scowl faded as she leaned back and shrugged. “Out of the cycle of meaningless lives. Out of the dust…”

Hector arched an eyebrow, still not willing to let up. “So he stole something that could do all that, huh?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He talked like he did. You didn’t get any answers from—” Maybe Hector’s paranoia was finally catching on because she shook her head and finished with, “—you know who?”

“Nope.” He decided not to mention that Tacitianus killed Paul over an unknown—a mystery box as far as the magistrate knew.

##And:##

“No. What happened to him was before you were around. I mean, that’s obvious, right? You wouldn’t be sitting here in his body if he hadn’t been killed. What you did—the people you went up against—that’ll let him rest. He can move on now. I can move on.”

“I hope so.”

Their food arrived, and Hector got to work on his scramble—lots of eggs, cheese, and some kind of protein that tasted appropriately like breakfast sausage. His body needed the nutrients, and he made quick work of his meal. Britt had ordered pancakes, and she slid one of them onto his plate, smiling in a way that made Hector feel even more sorry for her—for her loss.

The whole time they ate, Hector kept half his attention on the window, watching the parking lot and the sidewalk beyond. Nothing he saw raised any suspicion. Nothing was happening in the streets out there that would indicate one of the more important political figures had been murdered. How long could Janus keep things quiet? Was he just keeping his security synths away from the magistrate’s villa?

Whatever the case, the town remained sleepy outside the window, and when they finished eating and walked out to Britt’s car, he was almost relaxed. She got the vehicle moving and said, “It’s outside of town, past the pit.”

##And this section.##

“Logan?” Britt said from beside him.

Hector glanced at her. Of course she was right; it had to be Logan. He’d been the one involved in this whole affair, and he wouldn’t send one of his coworkers on this job. Suddenly, a bunch of pieces started falling into place in Hector’s mind, and he scoffed, irritated that he hadn’t seen it coming.

As the PK stomped closer, the blaster barrel firmly on Hector, Britt continued in her incredulous tone. “Did you follow me?”

“Traced you,” Hector said.

Logan’s voice came through the grille of his helmet with a mechanical, slightly amplified edge: “Sorry, Britt. Never wanted it all to work out this way.”

“What are you talking about?” She held up the case. “You wanted this? Money?”

The visor of Logan’s helmet, glowing softly red in the dim light, shifted left to right. “It’s more than that, and you know it. What’s in that box could elevate me—my family. We could become one of the houses.”

“Career aspirations.” Hector spat to the side. “There’s a magistrate position that just opened up.”

“Smarter than you look, fighter, but that magistrate job will be just a stepping stone when I have that.” Logan took a step toward them, jerking his blaster barrel toward Britt and the object she held.

“How’d you know what that is?” Hector nodded to the case as the PK took another step. He was trying to stall, trying to think of the right move. The PK’s armor was going to be a problem…

Logan’s voice grated from the grille on his helmet, loud and inhuman. “Maybe your interrogation techniques aren’t as good as you think. He knew very damn well what’s in that box.”

“So?” Britt glanced desperately from Logan to Hector, then back again. “I don’t care. We can share, we can—”

Hector sighed. “We’re loose ends. We know—”

Logan continued to advance, halfway to them by then. “You know I helped set up a magistrate’s assassination—not exactly in the Peacekeeper Code. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Where I’m going, there’s no room for someone like you—someone like who I was. Like the fighter says: loose ends.”

Britt stepped forward, past Hector, as though she could make the PK be reasonable if she were just a little closer. “Logan, you did all this to save me! I wouldn’t turn you in, no matter where you end up!”

“Sorry, Britt, but you don’t know how these things work.” As Logan spoke, Hector caught the amber glow of the blaster’s priming coil flickering balefully from the depths of the barrel. If he hadn’t seen it, he would have heard the soft whine—it needed a tune. Still, he knew it was time to move; he reached for Britt’s jacket collar, meaning to yank her with him as he leaped to his right, but she stepped forward, still pleading with the PK.

“What are you doing? Just put the—” Logan’s blaster erupted with a crackling zwang, and the concrete storage bunker lit up with the brilliant yellow-blue glow of the plasma.

Hector heard the clang of the metal case Britt had been holding; he heard her gasp. He knew something terrible had happened even without those clues; he could smell the burned flesh. When he hit the ground, his feet skidding on the concrete, his head was already turning to Britt. He saw her lying there, torso smoldering half a meter from her legs. The PK’s blaster had ripped her in two.

He jerked his gaze away from Britt’s wide-open, dead eyes, focusing on the PK. Cold fury coursed through him, and he felt the Berserker waking up. “You son of a bitch!”

“Just die already,” Logan replied, his voice monotone, grating from the speaker on his helmet. Then his blaster flared again. Hector dove to the side, but the PK chased him with the plasma arc. He felt its heat burn through his pants, scorching his left thigh, then the blast faded and the coils whined as the weapon primed itself again. Hector charged Logan, knowing his life could be measured in fragments of a second.

Okay! There will be more tweaks I'm sure to all the chapters in this arc as I go through them for RR and again when I do the dev edits for book publishing (assuming I get that far with this story!). Anyway, I think this is enough for us to move on, so let's keep the story rolling! :)

Thanks for helping me to make the story better, and please enjoy the new chapter!

-Plum

###

54 – Clearing Town

“Evie?” Hector asked, reaching toward the metallic ball.

//I’m detecting a very strong near-field data stream from it, but it’s not a protocol I recognize. Can you rotate it so I can see the full string of digits?//

Hector plucked the little sphere from the gel. It wasn’t especially heavy—some sort of alloy—but it had a deep, liquid luster that shifted from platinum to carbon gray to a muted gold as he turned it in his fingers. The surface almost seemed to flow beneath the light, as though the metal were gradually rearranging itself.

He rolled it slowly so Evie could capture every inscribed character, then leaned his head against the dirt-streaked window and waited.

He was exhausted, and his body ached. The Berserk ability had healed the worst of his breaks—amazingly—but it had run out before Logan finished thrashing. Hector knew he still had cracked ribs, and his left hip and knee were killing him. Nothing throbbed more than his hand, though—the fingers he’d used to rip and tear his way into Logan’s armor.

He glanced at his clock: 0815.

“Stop at a store. I need clothes and some nanites.”

//Route updated.//

He closed his eyes, letting the steady drumming of tires on gravel lull him. His thoughts drifted back to the concrete tube—to Britt’s cold body and Logan’s sizzling flesh.

The images snapped his eyes open and sent his pulse racing.

He blinked, scanning the sky through the windshield. The clear blue made him think of drones, and he wondered if Logan had used one to track them.

//Not likely. A PK drone feed would route through the judicial administration servers, and Logan wouldn’t have wanted a record of his movements.//

Right.

Hector exhaled slowly through his nose. A moment later, Evie spoke again.

//This is very interesting. The character sequence engraved on the sphere matches the format used for certain pre-Imperial ship identification codes—unique strings that identify the builder, hull class, tonnage bracket, and operational designation.//

Hector frowned down at the sphere.

“So…what is it?”

//I believe this may be a drive-core cipher—an authentication device used to initialize a ship’s AI and unlock its propulsion systems.//

Hector blinked.

“Wait…like a key to a spaceship?”

//A key, yes—but not merely an ignition device. This cipher functions as an encrypted identity token. Without it, the ship’s AI would remain dormant, and any fold drive installed on the vessel could not be brought online.//

Hector sat up a little straighter. “Fold drive?” Visions of Imperial capital ships and consortium deep-system haulers danced through his mind.

//More importantly, devices like this were used to establish command authority. Possession of the cipher identifies the bearer as the vessel’s commanding officer. Even if it were online, without this cipher, the ship’s AI would refuse operational directives beyond basic maintenance.//

Hector’s mouth went dry. “You’re saying I’m holding the key to a fold-enabled spacecraft in my hand?”

//Not just any spacecraft. Based on this identifier, the vessel would predate the Empire by nearly a millennium—an Expansion-Era privateer-class cruiser. There’s more: the near-field transmission isn’t just authentication traffic. With the proper interface, the signal can be decoded.//

Hector frowned. “Decoded into what?”

//Navigation metadata. This device would broadcast a compressed identification packet so shipboard systems can verify authority before accepting it. That packet typically includes the vessel’s last authenticated coordinates.//

Hector stared down at the sphere. Broadcasting its location?

//Not exactly where it is now. But if the vessel hasn’t moved, then yes, it would reveal the ship’s last known location.//

“So, with the right reader…”

//Yes. With the proper interface, we should be able to extract the coordinates.//

Hector turned the sphere slowly in his fingers again, his pulse quickening, but he clamped down on his excitement—there were too many unknowns. Still, if that cruiser hadn’t been moved…

Evie read his thoughts again, but it couldn’t have been difficult. He was practically shouting them. //Then we may know exactly where to find it.//

With those words to mull over, Hector pushed the sphere back into the gel casing and closed the cover with a snap, careful not to bend any of his swollen fingers. The little car lurched as it pulled off the gravel road, back onto pavement, and then sped toward town. He gripped the metal box on his lap, and things clarified in his mind, most especially why Paul had been willing to risk everything for the device—and why Logan had killed for it.

A fold-enabled ship from the Expansion-Era was a ticket to real freedom. People with ships like that could operate outside the Empire’s jurisdiction—to a degree. It was a ticket to anywhere in the Sol System—and beyond, if someone knew where to go. It was very hard to follow a ship through a fold, and virtually impossible to track one afterward. That was where the idea of being free of the Empire’s rules came from.

Logan’s ticket to power. True, so long as he had managed to get aboard and get the ship somewhere safe­—so long as he never fell into any traps, physical or political. Those were enormous “ifs,” though. He’d been unrealistically optimistic about his chances. So had Paul been, but…

But if I had a ship like that, it would alter the stakes. It would make justice for the Contis more of a real possibility.

//According to the Martian net, fold-tech is still tightly regulated. Less than three percent of interplanetary ships are equipped with it.//

Hector grunted in acknowledgment. He remembered the old rumors—that the tech was lost, that the drives were just recycled from one generation of ship to the next. The Empire had denied it back then, and Hector was sure they still maintained the same line: that the tech was dangerous and needed to be tightly regulated and released sparingly to partners and allies of the Empire.

Lots of unknowns, though. Everyone was banking on knowing where this ship was, on it still being there. Unless Paul had deciphered the message already…

//It’s possible.//

As Redwick Station came into view down the long, sloping road, Hector scanned for anything to be alarmed about. Traffic was still light. No drones swooped in—no PKs. It looked like Janus was still holding up his end, keeping things quiet. Had he been in on the double-cross? It didn’t seem likely to Hector. That had been all Logan. He’d gotten wind of the magistrate’s prize—likely from playing both sides, offering to help track Paul or his sister down—and he’d decided to make his play.

Running every angle through his mind, Hector couldn’t think of a way to find out if Paul had already decoded the cipher’s message. If Tacitianus had the location somewhere, it was lost to him; no way to go back for it. No, he’d have to find a way to decode it himself and go from there. How difficult?

//The cipher’s beacon information shouldn’t be encrypted—just the key sequence. Give me some time to hunt the Martian net for protocols.//

Evie directed Britt’s car to a large outlet store on the outskirts of town. It seemed to sell everything—from clothes to cleaning products to food to pharmaceuticals. Hector bought a clean outfit—worker’s boots, black denim pants, a T-shirt, and a gray hooded sweatshirt. Clothes in hand, he made his way to the pharmacy section and bought a tube of first-aid nanites, advertised as being “Easy on your organs!” Before leaving, he also picked up a plain, black backpack, the kind someone might use on a hike.

Back in the car, he sucked the tube down—sickly sweet lemon—hoping it would be strong enough to mend his cracked bones, and then he gingerly went about changing into his clean outfit. There were a dozen vehicles in the parking log, but nobody seemed to be around when he stood outside the little car and stripped down. He stuffed everything into the duffel with the other bloody clothes and…evidence. Then he got back in the car and let it hurry along its route to the train station.

“If we pass a recycler, stop. I mean a proper one.” Some “recyclers” were nothing more than bins that were hauled off to larger processing plants. What he wanted was a machine that chemically and mechanically broke waste down into its base materials, liquefying some and compressing others, separating them into pressurized canisters.

He was already feeling better, his fingers bendable if still swollen and sore, when Evie directed Britt’s car into a parking lot and stopped before a hulking, graffiti-covered, fluid-stained machine, maw open, awaiting refuse. Hector got out and hauled his duffel bag back, throwing it into the recycler’s open hopper. He didn’t leave until he saw the teeth come down, drawing it back into the shredder, and he heard the faint rumble and watched a thin trail of steam drift out of the pipe atop the device.

Satisfied, he got back in the car. It sped off, humming along even as a low-battery warning flashed on the cracked HUD—fifty kilometers of range. Hector checked the time; he still had twenty minutes before the train departed. According to his mini-map, they were just four minutes from the station. Still no sign of the next double-cross.

//Do you think there will be one?//

I’m starting to wonder…

The train station, when it came into view, was quiet. He counted nine people standing around under the metallic awnings. Nobody stood near the ticket kiosk, nor were there any signs of security—private or Imperial. “None of Logan’s PK buddies…”

//Shall I park?//

“I’ll get out. Send the car to the rock yard where Britt took us.” Another twinge of guilt passed through him as he pictured Britt’s getaway, the place where she went to shoot and “forget things.” He saw her face looking back at him in the crowded cabin of her little car…

Hector stuffed the metal box into the backpack he’d purchased, then clambered out, slinging the bag over his shoulder. As the little vehicle trundled away, he watched, some fanciful part of his mind imagining Britt was sitting in the cab, looking back at him as he grew small with the distance. When the car turned the corner and fell out of sight, he walked over to the ticket kiosk.

He navigated the menus and was about to finalize the purchase when the hackles rose on the back of his neck. Hector felt the person behind him before he heard the footsteps. As soles scuffed concrete, he gripped his backpack strap with his left hand and lowered his right, priming his aura pathways, ready to summon his blade.

Then, a woman cleared her throat, and a familiar voice said, “Yo, Hector.”

He relaxed, touched the purchase option on the kiosk, then turned to regard Sass. She smiled, her white teeth beaming inside the skull tattoo. She shrugged as his eyes narrowed. Her thumbs were hooked under the straps of a much more thoroughly packed backpack than his. She was dressed a lot like he was—jeans, boots, a well-worn, faded denim jacket. Her cybernetic fingers clicked as she drummed them against her backpack straps. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“I doubt it.”

“You offered to help me someday, thinking I’d probably never make it out of here, right? Well, I’m not gonna waste another day of my life in this place. I’m sick of one dead-end after another. I—”

“Okay.” Hector snatched his ticket from the kiosk’s little printer slot and walked over to the small crowd awaiting the train.

Sass hurried behind him. “Okay?”

He nodded as he joined the back of the queue. He was still grappling with his thoughts, so he didn’t want to say something he’d regret. The truth of the matter was that he’d felt so relieved when he realized it was Sass behind him he’d probably would have been agreeable about almost anything. There was more to it, though; despite her difference in appearance, Hector couldn’t help seeing Britt standing there in Sass’s boots. He couldn’t help thinking about how Britt had wanted a way out—about how Paul had.

//Sass is good for you, anyway.// Evie’s uncharacteristic intrusion made a corner of Hector’s mouth quirk upward.

He looked at Sass and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“So you’ll, like, train me and—”

Hector held up a hand. “Don’t get carried away.”

“Right, right. One step at a time, Sass.” She tried to smile, but it looked like a grimace. “I know it’s crazy, and I get it if you don’t want me pestering you. I-I don’t quite have enough saved up for what we talked about—you know, finding a system, but—”

Again, Hector held up a hand. “Relax. It’s a long train-ride.”

She stuffed a hand in her pocket and tugged out a slip of paper—her ticket. “Oh! Um, what seat did you get? I should try to adjust my ticket.”

Hector briefly thought about denying her. He could use a little quiet time to process his thoughts—to talk to Evie about his next steps for developing his aura system and to think about how he was going to handle Lemon’s situation.

//Come on, Hector. Be nice to her. She’s giving up everything to follow you to Helio.//

Didn’t ask her to.

Despite the thought, he said, “Here,” and handed Sass his ticket. “It’s in a parlor car. Upgrade if you need to. I’ll pay for it.”