CHAPTER THREE – JIMMY
Free. Sorta. I kinda feel bad for thinking that. Also for keeping my little side mission a secret from Xyla. But if she knew this was bothering me enough to go in for a DNA signature scramble booster three months early, she’d never have left the damn ship.
“Mother of suns,” Dicker says.
“What?”
“A communication just came through from the Blue Sand Beach gate captain and there’s a friggin’ virus packed inside.”
I get up from my co-pilot’s seat and walk back towards Dicker’s home station. She was almost entirely rebuilt after that whole disaster at Bull Station. Which was fine. Her core personality was all intact. And she hadn’t been upgraded for a couple years, so she’s bigger and better than ever now.
When we upgraded her we put her core into a console on the main deck. She used to live two decks below. Not that it matters really. She has access to every component on her body. But she’s got a monitor with voice wave interface that animates when she talks now and I kinda like that.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
“Fucker.” She sighs. “It’s wiggled its way inside my water generators and now they’re offline. I’ve got it contained but… it just flushed all our fresh water out into space.”
“Shit. What should we do? Stop and fix it now? Or just head on through and fix it at the lab?”
“There is no reason to believe we’ll have any trouble if we proceed, Jimmy. But I’d hate to be wrong and get you stuck with no water. We should stop.” She pauses for a moment, then says, “Oh, crap.”
“Now what?”
“That little fucker just duplicated itself.”
“Where is it now?”
“Same place. And I just deleted it again, but now there’s three of them. Shit, Jimmy. We’ll have to take care of this. It’s nearly harmless, but very annoying. And these self-duplicating viruses are pesky. I’ll have to run a full diagnostic and probably hire some help for you on Mighty Minions Resort to install a new water generator since Xyla’s not here.”
“Ugggh.” I sigh. “On Mighty Minions?”
“It’s the closest place and they’re being very cool about this. Gave us priority so we don’t have to wait in line to dock. I guess Harem Station’s new reputation has its perks.”
“Hmmm. Fine. How long will we be stuck?”
“If we can find a good engineer I’d say just a few hours.”
“OK, let’s go in then. I hope this place has people who can deal with sentient ships.”
“Me too,” Dicker mutters.
Half an hour later we’re docked and Dicker is moving around inside her systems. She pops onto the monitor in my quarters and says, “OK. We will need another hand. It’s a two-person operation. Can you put up an ad on their jobs board? They have a rule here that ships aren’t allowed to post.”
“Anti-ship-ists,” I say.
“I know, right?”
I just smile. This is how most of the galaxy works, but once you live on Harem long enough your worldview about bots and ships changes dramatically. You just don’t realize it until you venture out of your safe zone and have to confront reality again.
I pull up the station’s interface and I’m presented with a blaring message that I can only access services and announcements from inside.
“Fucking hell,” I say. “They want me to actually get off the ship to post a job.”
“That’s fine. Besides, it’ll be fun. Stop and get lunch while you’re out. And pick up some bottled water just in case.”
“Fun? There are probably sixty million grubby kids out there. It’s going to be the opposite of fun. Why didn’t we break down near Blue Sand Beach? At least then we could’ve gotten drunk with Xyla.”
“If we had Xyla we wouldn’t be stuck, remember? This was all your idea, Jimmy.”
“I know, I know. OK. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The first thing I see when I enter Mighty Minions reception is a two-and-a-half-meter-tall red dragon spraying holo fire out at a massive group of, you guessed it, grubby kids.
See, this is what soulmates get you. Kid-friendly vacations. I would kill myself.
I don’t want to be out here any longer than I have to, so I get the attention of the nearest Mighty Minion Ambassador dressed up like an ancient red warrior and say, “How do I access the community boards? I need an engineer to help me with my ship.”
She smiles at me in her overly cheerful Mighty Minion way and says, “Can I see your Mighty Pass, please?”
“My… what?”
“Your ticket, sir. To board the station.”
“Look, my ship and I came in on an emergency call to get repairs. We’re not staying.”
“Yes, sir. I totally understand. But you can’t get in”—she points to the gates separating the reception area from the resort—”unless you have a Mighty Pass. And inside is where we keep our one-hundred-percent-secure community interface.”