Jacob made it a few days into his trip before one of his subroutines triggered, alerting him to a problem. He sighed. “So much for my solitude.”
He checked the clock to see how long it would be until the phase coils shut down. It looked like he had roughly an hour. Knowing that, he popped back into his virtual apartment only to find Franky on the floor, clutching at his head.
“Um…”
“I found him like that,” Katty said from the open door of her room. “Is he going to die?”
‘Is he going to die? Not, is he going to be alright?’ Fair enough, given their less-than-friendly history so far.
“No. My guess is he tried to connect to something he shouldn’t have. I did mention that in the document, didn’t I?” Jacob asked.
Katty nodded and turned the manual around to face him. It was open to the first page, and in big bold letters it said: “DO NOT ATTEMPT MERGING WITH ACTIVE HARDWARE!”
Jacob had suspected that they wouldn’t be able to since they were not authorized aboard the ship or station, and it seemed that he was right.
“Hoh sosed to pracise?” Franky mewled in barely coherent words.
Katty looked like she had bitten into a lemon, but she nodded in agreement at Franky’s words. “I hate to agree with him, but we need some way to practice.”
Jacob hadn’t really considered that. The bipedal drone parts were completed, but he wouldn’t be putting them together until he returned. He scratched his head and thought it over as the clock, only visible to him, ticked down in the corner of his vision. “Give me a few hours, and I’ll see if I can put together some exercises. I’ve never had to do something like this before, so it may or may not be possible. If it isn’t, you’ll just have to wait a few more weeks.”
That got an annoyed grunt out of Franky, but the man’s effort at showing his displeasure resulted in a groan of pain. Jacob took that as a win and smiled slightly before returning to the transport.
As it turned out, Jacob didn’t even have to make his own practice exercises. The station had all sorts of exercises to acclimate someone to merging with machines. He wondered about that, since he never really had an issue with connecting to the drones. The only time he had a problem was when he spent too long inside a drone, or when the drone reached the edge of its controllable range. Both issues he had overcome so far.
At his next exit, he replaced the burned-out phase coils and spent an extra hour going over the training exercises. Some weren’t compatible with human physiology, while others required having a physical body. Those he discarded from his new training plan. The ones that stuck around were mental exercises, including meditation and focus. The rest were practical application assessments. Those just used temporary addresses that didn’t connect to any device, which gave him an idea.
They were designed to see if the user could even mentally reach out and perform the connection. If they couldn’t, there was no point going any further, since it meant that the individual could not interface with machines.
Thanks to Melody, he knew that not all the individuals who made up Concord could interface with machines, but this was the first time he had seen the statement in writing. He also learned what happened to those who couldn’t. They weren’t killed; they were simply designated as low-order citizens, even if they were part of the three main races.
He shook his head in disgust. “Concord really were a bunch of elitist assholes.”
That new knowledge didn’t make him any more sympathetic to the eiraxins’ plight. If anything, it made him want to avoid them even more.
Knowing that a digital address could be created, Jacob added a single new exercise of his own, which involved miniaturized—essentially toy—versions of the maintenance drones for his three companions to play with inside his virtual space. Then he quickly popped back into his apartment, sent the three copies of the new exercises, and produced six identical toy maintenance drones along with virtual addresses for them.
If they managed to figure out how to work all that before he returned, they would be ready for the real thing.
With that out of the way, Jacob jumped back into the transport and continued toward Vorlos Station in silence.
***
Jik leaned forward, his segmented eyes taking in the scanner. Despite getting closer to the screen, the image was still slightly blurry, which made him curse under his breath. He really needed an eye exam, but those were expensive for his species. Sometimes he wished he had singular pupils like most bipedal races.
Still, his vision was good enough to see the ship’s registration. He smiled when he realized it was the one Sha’la had asked the other port liaisons to notify her about when it returned.
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Jik didn’t really like the tiyau woman, but she did say that she would compensate whoever notified her, so maybe he could finally look into getting that corrective surgery for his eyes.
He sent the landing instructions to the ship, then he sent a comm request to Sha’la.
She picked up, looking bleary-eyed and annoyed. Knowing he had interrupted her sleep was almost enough to make Jik’s day.
“What?” she rasped out through tired lips.
“The ship you asked us to keep an eye out for is coming in.”
That seemed to wake her up. “I’ll be down there in twenty minutes.”
“What about my payment?” he chittered in annoyance. He realized he should have asked about it before telling her about its arrival, but it was too late now.
She seemed to ponder the question for the moment, and Jik wondered if she was going to renege on her offer. It wasn’t like he could force her to pay, but if she did refuse, he would make sure to spread the news to the rest of the port liaison team. Nobody would want to work with her after that.
Eventually, she nodded and typed something across her wrist tablet before cutting off the connection abruptly. Jik’s own tablet beeped a moment later, and he smiled when he saw the sum. He didn’t know why she wanted to know about the ship’s arrival so badly, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was the fact that he now had enough money to have his eyes examined. That meant a trip back to his home world, which would eat up his time off, but it was worth it to see a shalis specialist instead of using the autodoc on the station. That thing could be finicky with certain species.
***
Sha’la dressed quickly and hurried to the landing platform. Hallik had shown up a few weeks ago and had a nice, long chat with her before taking his power core and leaving.
She felt her face heat in embarrassment when she thought back about how wrong she had been. She wanted to apologize to Jacob in person for the misunderstanding and to hopefully purchase a few more cores.
Getting the funds together had required her to take out a loan, but she knew it would be worth it. Assuming Jacob agreed to work with her.
Sha’la arrived on the landing platform just in time to see Jik checking Jacob in. She noticed that Jik didn’t bother to actually inspect the cargo. She frowned in annoyance at that, but kept her temper. She would report the infraction to her boss, maybe then the lazy shit would finally get fired. Then again, probably not. It wasn’t like their job was highly sought after.
Jik walked back to the booth without so much as a word or nod of acknowledgement toward her.
Sha’la ignored the man’s dismissive attitude and hurried over to Jacob, who was looking directly at her. She couldn’t tell thanks to the mirrored helmet visor, but she got the distinct impression that he was annoyed at seeing her.
If what Hallik had told her was true, and she had no reason to doubt the bounty hunter, Jacob was interfacing with a machine, which made the fact that he could portray his annoyance through it even more impressive.
“I want to apologize!” she blurted out the moment she was close enough. “I made a truly, monumentally, stupid mistake. I hope you can forgive me for erring on the side of caution, however.”
Jacob was silent for a moment before his helmet moved up and down slightly. “Alright, I guess I can forgive you,” he said.
She let out the breath she had been holding and smiled at the suited individual. Then she glanced around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. “Is it true what Hallik told me?”
“Depends on what he told you,” Jacob responded cautiously.
“That you’re interfacing with a machine?” she said quietly.
It wasn’t illegal to interface with machines, but if anyone overheard the question, they might assume Jacob belonged to one of the three races that were forbidden from doing so.
His faceplate cleared, giving her a view of a bundle of sensors inside the helmet.
She let out a quiet squeak of surprise before catching herself. “Sorry,” she said, her face going red again. “It just caught me off guard.”
Jacob made a motion that was probably meant to be a shrug, but looked awkward with the suit. “It’s fine,” he said, before setting the face shield to reflective again. “I assume you came here because you wish to work with me?”
“Was it that obvious?” she asked, her face taking on even more color.
“Kind of,” he admitted with a light chuckle. “Is this going to cause issues with your job?”
She shook her head. “No? Why would it?”
“Um… Wouldn’t it be a conflict of interest?” Jacob asked.
“Oh,” she snorted. “That’s only a problem if I don’t actually inspect the cargo.”
Jacob turned toward the hut, where Jik had vanished, then back to Sha’la. He didn’t say anything, but she understood the unasked question.
“I’ll be reporting his infraction, but rest assured, port liaisons are scrutinized much more closely if they have active ties with merchants.”
“I imagine you know more about the ins and outs of cargo deliveries than I do, so I’ll let you handle the details there.” Jacob pulled out the same ancient tablet from his first visit and handed it to her. “I have a few new items on the list.”
She took the tablet and scanned it over, her eyebrows rising. “You want to put a shield generator on that?” she gestured to the transport. “Does the reactor even have enough output for one?”
“Um?”
She waved the man off. “What am I saying. You could just buy a new reactor. You won’t be able to get that here, however.”
“What? Why not?”
“This is a mining station, not a shipyard. We have replacement shield generators, phase coils, and other wear items in stock, but not a reactor. I can recommend a shipyard if you need one, though.”
“I’ll pass for now. Just the items on the list.”
“Same supply of cores?” she asked.
“I actually brought less this time around.”
Sha’la deflated slightly at the news, but she still inspected the boxes and nodded. Jacob brought less, but that didn’t matter. After filling the transport back up for a return trip, he would still have additional funds left over to go into his wallet. Honestly, he could have purchased most of the items with what was left from his last trip.
She told him as much before placing all the buy orders and negotiating what she wanted out of their working deal. He agreed to sell her five of the cores at ten percent above station rate, which was more generous than she expected after her misunderstanding.
“Are you leaving right away?” she asked after finishing up their business.
He shook his head. “No. I need to reach out to Hallik. My home doesn’t have the necessary communication equipment to do so.”
“Ah. That explains the comm gear. I thought it was just a backup. I can show you to a comm station, but do me a favor, don’t mention our deal to Hallik.”
Jacob chuckled. “Don’t want him muscling in on your profits?”
She sighed and nodded.
“Alright. So long as you don’t try to screw me or send others after me again, we have a deal.”
“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” she asked.
“Nope,” Jacob replied lightly.
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