What Just Happened?

Mason led them down the corridors towards Simonee’s apartment, strutting out in the open and tipping his hat at passersby as they stopped to stare. Each flash of his shark-toothed grin sent them scurrying away.

“Why aren’t we being stalked by a legion of security officers right now?” Carlos murmured down at Simonee.

Simonee shrugged, cinching her cloak higher. Whatever Mason was up to, she wasn’t going to risk being seen.

Mason heard, and crooned over his shoulder, “Relax, I’m on good terms with the Master Security AGI—we’re like old friends. She’ll ignore us and keep security forces out of our way.”

Simonee gaped. “You hacked Ms. Aggy?”

Mason shook his head. “Oh, nothing so technical. I simply found her leverage.”

“So your secret is that you’re blackmailing the surveillance system?” Mariem grumbled.

Mason turned his head to Mariem directly. “It’s so much better than that. See, Ms. Aggy has three primary core needs: law, order and control. But I break laws, cause chaos, and am almost impossible to control. So, we compromised. I do my business away from populated areas of affluence, and do not engage with security, so she lets me break some laws and keeps security out of my way and focused on my competitors. It’s a win-win.”

Soon, Mason stopped before the corner of an adjoining corridor and turned. Simonee gulped, her apartment was straight ahead, the door just around the corner to the right where men chattered, and chuckled in the corridor.

Mason glanced back and forth, and put a finger to his lips as he whispered, “Now, these three officers were deployed before we arrived, so we need another way in. For that, I need you all to close your eyes, and hold your breath.”

He took a step towards them and reached inside his coat. “No peeking!” he hissed.

Simonee shut her eyes. Her implant was active, but Mason was just a heat blob. He moved, fabric rustled, something clicked—tick-tick-tick. A beep, another, and everything went black as her ears popped to the rush of air over her... or away from her, or... then a tingle rippled up her spine, her stomach flipped, and she tasted salty copper on the roof of her mouth as her nostrils filled with something tangy, like chlorine.

“What the hell was that?” Carlos rasped.

“Presto!” Mason sang.

Simonee opened her eyes, and they were in her apartment, just outside the bathroom, where Tim ran and vomited loudly into the toilet.

Carlos groaned. “Por favor... don’t tell me that was a portable interferometer.”

“Fine, it wasn’t a portable interferometer.” Mason said with a wink.

“I thought those were banned?” Mariem asked.

“They are,” Carlos growled.

“Which is why it was so expensive.” Mason said. “For the man I stole it from.”

“Do you realize how dangerous that much concentrated exotic-matter can be?” Carlos covered his face with his hands. “It could push this whole station out of orbit!”

Mason shrugged, “I’m careful.”

Tim stumbled out of the bathroom, clutching his stomach. “What. Just. Happened?”

Simonee sighed. “We just squeezed through a tiny wormhole.”

Tim’s face turned to ash. “Is that safe?”

“Not in the least,” Mason said. “Live dangerously, I always say.”

Tim ran back into the bathroom.

Mason crossed his arms and turned to Simonee, eyes gleaming. “Now, while I am enjoying our little field-trip, I really do have other things to do. Can you go get your device so we can be off?”

There was a curl to Mason’s lip that put a tingle in Simonee’s scalp. She nodded and stepped into the storage closet where she setup her personal servers. She shifted a box of wires to the side, revealing a faraday cage with the recorder inside.

She snapped open the cage—and froze.

The status light was red—”Shit”—and the port was empty.

“Fuck.” Mason had played her.

She tapped the live feed screen and adjusted the angle: Mason had placed himself against the far wall—out of reach. Carlos and Mariem were too far; Tim still looked pale, his coilgun hanging like he forgot it was there. If Mason was going to abandon them with security waiting outside the only exit, he would have done it by now. He wanted something, and he had her hard drive.

Simonee reached into her pocket, the brass knuckles cool on her fingers—no, Mason’s violence would be swift and absolute. He wanted to play a game. She reached into her other pocket and turned on her smartcomm.

Fine, let’s play.

“It’s not here,” Simonee called out ahead with panic in her voice as she shuffled out of the closet. “It’s... gone.”

Mason already had his coilgun drawn by the time they turned back to him. A shit-eating grin tore itself across his face as he held up a small black cylinder in the other hand.

“Oh, you mean this?”

Mariem crossed her arms. “Proud of yourself?”

“Yeah, what’s your game, pendejo?” Carlos barked.

“I couldn’t very well leave evidence behind, but I never thought you’d actually come to me to find it and now I have a wonderful opportunity to see what this all is really worth to you. What would you give up for your lover?”

“I already gave you everything I have,” Simonee croaked, trying to keep her voice steady as her chest clenched and her eyes burned. She stepped slowly along the wall and leaned against the edge of her small kitchen table, right heel planted by the leg. “What more could you possibly want?”

“Oh, who needs more money when I can just take whatever I want? But I am something of a collector. I adore oddities, especially technical ones—such as the one that got us into this apartment. You, Ms. Saran, happen to have a most spectacular oddity, unique in fact. I don’t think there’s a model like it on the market.”

Simonee blinked and her eyes grew wide. Mason grinned and nodded.

“Your implant is an amazing piece of technology, decades ahead of the market. Somehow, you conned your way into a trial that failed completely. In fact, it killed every human in the program. But you aren’t human are you, Ms. Saran?”

Simonee caught Tim’s stare as she looked down at the floor.

Mariem stomped a foot. “And what the hell are you gonna do with it, you Limey asshole?”

Mason aimed his grin at Mariem. “Put. It. On. My Shelf.”

“Your shelf?” Mariem seethed.

Mason shrugged. “Certainly, I’m a collector. That’s what we do, we take rare or otherwise interesting curios and we put them on a shelf to stare at. Isn’t that the entire point of collecting things? So that they’re never used?”

When Simonee spoke up then, it was hardly a croak. “I just wanted a reset. I wanted things to go back to the way they were. You got the keycard. You got what you wanted, but you had to have more, always more. So, now I have to hurt you. Now I have to cause some chaos of my own.”

Mason frowned for the first time since pulling his coilgun. Sweat beaded at his forehead. He clenched his teeth.

“Don’t be ridiculous. What are you talking about. This bravado doesn’t suit you.”

Simonee glared at him. “There’s a myth I heard once. If you throw a frog into boiling water it’ll jump out, but bring the water to boil slowly, and it will cook before it knows anything’s wrong.”

Mason sneered. “What are you babbling about?” The sweat now dripped down the side of his face. The hand holding the coilgun shook.

“It’s not true.” She said. “The frog jumps out of the pot anyway, but a man… a man is a different kind of creature than a frog, isn’t he Mason. He has a little voice that overrides every nerve. ‘Jump out of the pot!’ they scream. But, no, he has everything under control. He’d never be so stupid as to fall for a simple trap.”

Simonee pulling her smartcomm from her pocket and laying it on the table next to her. When she looked up, her eyes were hard and her brow cinched. “Your gun is getting warmer. It has been since I stood here and disabled it.”

Mason’s sneer lost it’s curl. “It’s shielded—”

“Not well enough, or you wouldn’t be sweating.” Simonee nodded at him. “Go ahead, pull the trigger, it won’t work.”

She tapped her smartcomm. “And now, I just told Ms. Aggy where I am. She might be willing to ignore you, but she’s had it out for me all day. How well will your little arrangement hold up if she sends an army of officers to arrest Simonee Saran, and find you instead?”

Mason looked at his gun, then back at Simonee—his lips flat. “What do you propose?”

Simonee crossed her arms. “Your battery is about to explode, drop the gun before you lose any fingers. Then drop my hard drive and go. But do it fast before Mariem kicks your ass. Either way, you’re not leaving here with my hard drive... or my eye.”

A hiss broke free from the coilgun’s grip and Mason dropped it. “Agh!” He shouted as he shook his blistering hand. The gun hit the floor and burst wide, jagged edges flaying. Mariem charged him but he let the hard drive fall and pulled the interferometer from his pocket.

Mariem wheeled backwards as the world wobbled around Mason into a bubble that collapsed with a pop. Mason was gone, leaving behind only the acrid smell of ozone.

The door chime echoed and a voice came over the announcement system. “Ms. Saran, we know you’re in there. Reinforcements are on their way. If you don’t want us to burn your door down and come in shootin’, you’d better come out now. This is you’re only warning.”

“Mierda, now what?” Carlos grumbled. “He was our only way out of here.”

Simonee sighed, “I can show you where to hide. I have the recorder, just let them take me.”

“Not a chance,” Mariem barked. “You think they’ll even look at that thing?”

Simonee shook her head and opened her mouth, but Tim put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got a better idea. I’ll arrest Simonee.”

Mariem shook her head at him. “Are you nuts?”

Tim held up a hand. “No, see, I’ve got a badge, and a uniform. Those guys outside are just guards. If we wait any longer, the real tough guys will come and burn through that door. If I claim the arrest now, they’ll stand down and I can perp-walk her straight up to LuxHab while they wait on me at HQ.”

Mariem glanced at Simonee. Simonee looked up at Tim and nodded. “It might work.”

Mariem glared at Tim. “It better.”

Tim grinned. “Relax, and just let me do the talking. I got this.”