Indecent Proposal

Simonee built her own security system: proximity alarms, laser trip-wires, infrared watchdogs, infrasonic sensors. Enough siren and glare to blind the station.

Yet a man in a brown bowler sat at the small wall table in her kitchenette—calm as a master at a tea shop—pouring oolong from a porcelain kettle covered in blue lilies and trimmed with silver. She blinked once. Twice. Ice needled her belly.

The door-bolt still set. The panel blue. Her system just... missed him.

He glanced up, and his slate eyes met hers where she stared over the gray sheet pulled up to her nostrils.
He grinned, amused—too many teeth.
He gestured to the chair across from him, and poured another cup.

A tingle rose from that cold cinch low in her gut.

Couldn't run. Only one exit.
So she stood—rigid, dragging the sheet tight around her like a shield.

"Come now," he said, cheerful. "I don't bite."

She edged back; the wall chilled her bare shoulders. Simonee knew better. She'd never met Mason in person, but there were legends of the man in the bowler with a posh accent wrapping cruelty in velvet ribbon—each story a warning.

And all that separated Simonee Saran from Enceladus Station’s most dangerous man was a thin sheet and three meters of laminate flooring.

"How—how did you get in?"

"I go where I please, Ms. Saran. As to how—well, that’s my secret."

He dropped a cube of sugar into the teacup and stirred it slowly, eyes never leaving hers.

She kept to the wall. "What do you want from me?"

"I'm here to hire you. Please, have a seat. Do you prefer sugar or honey?"

Sugar? Honey? Both were luxuries a billion kilometers from the sun. He brought them to a job interview.

She looked down at the sheet covering her. "Can I at least get dressed?"

"Oh, certainly. I do consider myself a gentleman."

He covered his eyes with one hand and sipped with the other—pinky raised.

Simonee scrambled for the pile of clothes on the floor. The sheet slipped. She spun to the wall, fastened her pants and yanked on a black shirt—inside-out—her nose wrinkling over stale sweat.

She shuffled around the bed and up to the table, toes curling over the cold floor, and slid out the dented aluminum chair across from him. She sat and eyed the delicate teacup on the table.

Steam rose in curling threads, woody, smoky. Expensive. She sniffed, never taking her eyes off the threat in front of her.

Mason splayed his fingers and then dropped his hand. "Good. That was quick. Shall we commence?"

She took the cup; turned it one way, then the other. Just a cup. Best not be rude. The tea tasted metallic on her sticky midnight tongue, warming her throat, her chest. The adrenaline keeping her upright faded. Caffeine caught it mid-drop. Mason clasped his hands on the table and his coat shifted. A silver gleam peeked out beneath it. Coilgun. Not surprising, but now the adrenaline was back. She shifted her foot to the hidden switch on the floor under the table. Not yet. The gun wasn't active.

"So," she asked, voice shaky. "What do you need? Falsified credentials? Counterfeit crypto? Something built? Broken?"

"Oh, nothing so pedestrian. No, I’m in the market for a burglar."

Simonee gulped on a swallow of tea. Set the cup down.

Circuits, loops, protocols: these were her domain. She could break them or build them. But she was no cat burglar.

"You just ghosted through my door carrying tea and sugar. Why do you need me?"

She took another sip. Her throat clicked. Warmth churned against the ice in her gut.

"Don’t sell yourself short, Ms. Saran. Your setup is marvelous. But I have my own tricks—especially with locked doors. However, as you know, I'm quite conspicuous in a crowd. So, I need someone with preferred access to a particular suite on LuxHab."

Simonee nearly spit out her tea, but swallowed it hard instead.

"Also someone who's handy with security systems."

She shook her head slowly. Her voice came out quiet. "I can’t. I couldn’t do that to her."

Mason’s smile thinned. "Oh? You haven’t even heard my offer."

Her fingers tightened around the cup. "Still. I—can’t. I won't."

"Not even at the cost of her life?"

Simonee froze. Her teacup jittering at the edge of her lip.

Mason set his cup down, folded his hands. His tone cooled.

"Ms. Saran, you know me. You know my reputation. I may be crafty, but I am hardly delicate. Within the Ice Princess's suite is an item of immense value, stored in a nearly impenetrable safe. Now, I can certainly get there myself, but I am no safecracker, and as soon as I'm seen anywhere on LuxHab, my window of opportunity shrinks. This might make me... hasty. So, I have two options. One, I blow open the safe: noisy, possibly lethal for poor Dalia." His lips curled. "Probably lethal." He held up two fingers. "Two, I hire someone with access, a regular visitor, a known quantity. Someone who can do it quietly. Someone... delicate."

He leaned forward.

"I will do whatever it takes to get what is inside that safe, but I’d rather not provoke the wrath of Karalius Ledas. It's bad for business. So, I'm exploring option two. Unless of course you force my hand."

The cup hovered forgotten at her chest.
So said the legends: Mason's threats weren’t idle. They were policy.

She had to warn Dalia, but would she take it seriously?

How could Simonee describe this polite sociopath so Dalia would see the danger?

She glanced at her workspace taking over the kitchenette—wires and circuit boards scattered about from last week's project. She could do it. She could break anything. She just needed time.

"I need two weeks to plan—"

"You have seven days."

Simonee gaped. "Seven? I know nothing about this safe. I need to find a vulnerability, build tools, time everything perfectly."

Mason rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes—time to warn Dalia, time to ping security, time to run." His eyes narrowed. "I'm not an amateur, Ms. Saran. And neither are you. I've been tracking you in the security log for weeks. I'm sure you have your own hooks, so you know what I've seen."

He stood. Buttoned his jacket over the bulge of the coilgun. Simonee moved her foot away from the switch. He probably wouldn't—didn't need to—pull the gun, but if he did, she’d need it charged.

"You're smart. Discreet. But your comm logs are more telling. Dalia doesn't bother with secure channels. She keeps odd but consistent hours, and in about six days, she'll summon you for a little... sleepover. Just enough time to solve the puzzle. Figure it out by then or I take over and express my frustration accordingly."

Simonee glared. She'd tried to get Dalia to use her VPN, but Dalia didn't like complicated. She didn't see the point.

If Simonee told Dalia, Mason would know.

Now she had to rob her best friend.

Mason raised an eyebrow. "So. Do we have a deal?"

“Seven days. And Dalia doesn’t get hurt,” she said.

Charm stitched his grin with barbed wire. "Seven days. I'm a man of my word."

Simonee closed her eyes. Looked down and nodded. Her head felt heavy.

"Excellent."

He pulled a thin slate tablet from a satchel hanging over his chair and tapped the screen. A schematic of a high-end safe appeared. In the corner, a blue keycard rotated slowly.

He placed a physical copy of the card on the table.

"Replace the original with this decoy. It's a dud, but by the time anyone tries it, I'll have what I want. On the seventh day, by oh-nine-hundred, swipe the original across this tablet. That will verify the card’s legitimacy." He waggled a finger. "No tricksies. You know you can't hide from me."

Simonee picked up the card, studied it. It blurred in front of her. She squinted and looked up at Mason. Opened her mouth. What was she going to say?

He began packing up his tea service with fastidious care. Each cup facing just right. Each implement laid just so.

"Once verified, I’ll transmit the drop point. Deliver both the card and the tablet. Payment hits your fringe account. Which we have on file."

He smiled wider.

"I won’t haggle. But I promise to be… generous."

Simonee took a last sip of her tea. It was bitter now. Her chest ached.

Mason took her cup. Wiped it with a smooth cloth.

"How was the tea?"

She looked at him. The curl of his lip looked wry, and as she nodded, her head got heavier with each lift and her shoulders sagged. The lights dimmed. The room swam. Mason grinned.

The table jumped up and kissed her forehead.

Everything went black.