Page 11 of Spark Transform

She flattened her palms on the arms of her seat. “Where to?” she asked, tilting her head toward the console map display.

He realized he’d made his decision the moment he stepped into the flitter. He’d merely been delaying the inevitable, pretending the universe didn’t have a plan for him.

“Your townhouse.”

Chapter 6

Planet: Mabingion • GDAT 3242.190

Arco held up two fingers and smiled at the round-faced, broad-chested server behind the counter of the modified air glider. “ Guten tag, Berte. Two of the usual, please, with two waters. Nova size.” Arco’s German was barely conversational, but Berte didn’t seem to mind. They’d retired from a ten-star restaurant’s chef position, gotten bored, and started a thriving food-glider circuit in the media district. Journalists ate at all hours.

Arco paid, then pocketed her purchases. Catching Brenner’s eye, she tilted her head toward the big bank of lifts. He’d stayed a couple of paces away, but effectively blocked people from crowding behind her, much to their annoyance. He twitched one eyelid in reply and followed her.

The secure lobby teemed with Novo G staffers streaming toward the lifts or standing in line at the various food-and-drink carts temporarily parked along the side wall. She greeted the people she knew as she walked, making sure they saw her identity badge so they’d recognize her. Maybe after she left Mabingion, she could go back to keeping the same look for longer than a few ten-days.

“Morning, AC. Nice hair.” That was from a slender, earnest intern with a low and rumbling voice, who eyed Brenner suspiciously until noticing the visitor clip attached to Brenner’s collar.

“Thanks.” She smiled. “Congratulations on the byline credit for the pharma lobbyist with the secret blackmarket counterfeit business.”

“Thanks.” The intern beamed. “I made a permacube with a screenshot.”

“I did the same with my first byline.” She laughed. “Too bad the tagged visual was the ass-end of a newly certified breed of bovine.”

She nodded to Iomer and his assistant, who joined the queue for the lift capsule. Iomer unpeeled the wrapping of a stuffed savory pastry.

“Charrascos. Heard about the attack.” Iomer glanced at Brenner. “Hot.”

Arco didn’t know if he meant the pastry or Brenner.

Iomer’s assistant, who was also a shielder and Iomer’s personal security, gave Brenner a sly look of interest. Brenner ignored him, too.

The lift doors irised open, and the five of them stepped into the rounded capsule. It was spacious enough for her to step clear of Brenner so as to give him room to move. She trusted her Novo G colleagues — and the multi-factor authentication checks at the entrances — but he didn’t.

The others got off, leaving her and Brenner alone in the capsule as it angled toward her requested coordinates. “At this time of day, the office commons is twice as busy as the building lobby.” She patted her bag. “You want to eat here, or in my rent-a-space? I can hold the capsule.”

His eyebrow twitched briefly before he smoothed it away. “Your space.”

She wished she had a better handle on what his expressions meant. “Your security equipment should show up by ten hundred. I’ll take you by Novo G’s security station for registration so they don’t take you for a menacing stranger.” She winked. “You can be a menacing friend instead.”

Usually, he ignored her teasing, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Maybe in a few days, she could coax a genuine smile out of him. If he stayed.

The doors irised open to reveal the brightly lit, two-story, hexagonal office space. The chaotic chorus from dozens of animated conversations enveloped her in familiar, comforting bedlam. Movement and motion created a sea of activity in the office commons area, currently filled with at least fifty people in shifting clusters.

Edging closer to Brenner, she pointed toward the throng. “This isn’t a riot, it’s the hand-off from overnight to the day staff for breaking news and hot trends. They could do it by remote holo like sane businesses do, but they prefer this way. It will clear out in about fifteen minutes.” She pointed to the two levels of offices along the south wall, fronted with walks, stairs, and riser lifts. “Those are the interview and production rooms. The darkened glass and blue indicator mean the occupants don’t want to be disturbed.”

She directed his attention toward the northeast wall with its bank of huge displays that scrolled realtime information trends and broadcasts in Standard English, Mandarin, and other common languages. “The biggest numbers are Galactic Standard Date and Time. The rest are all the planetary time zones. The city of Ridderth’s is in blue just under the GDAT. The doors under the displays are offices for the permanent staff. The bosses are territorial about the higher floors. Affiliated contractors like me snag the first-come, first-claimed spaces beyond the kitchen. They’re called stringer cubes, and that’s where we’re going now. Don’t drink the coffee or the kaffe unless you have a cybernetic stomach. I’ve only ever had worse in police precincts or asteroid mining stations.”

As she led the way around one of the groups, a contractor colleague, Ryu, caught her attention. “Hey, my source at bankruptcy court said Vector Zero Communications is about to lose their assets. You had friends there, right?”

Before Arco could say thanks, one of the newer interns spoke up. “Serves them right. People died because they relied on their story about the safety of that dam.”

Ryu shook his head. “Sure, they screwed up, but don’t be so sure they didn’t get screwed themselves. Vector Zero had an asteroid swarm’s worth of enemies. Especially when they daylighted the convoluted trail of public investment funds to the Regional CPS Administrator’s private family accounts. Every media company is vulnerable to revenge setups.”

The intern’s expression turned lofty. “They should have been more careful.”

Arco ducked away. Self-righteousness tended to piss her off, and she had enough battles to fight already.

She only got a few steps farther before Z’Dann, one of the permanent staff journalists, sidled up and latched onto Arco’s arm. Z’Dann loved fashion and changed her looks even more often than Arco did, with considerable variation. “The new skin color looks great. Tell me who you went to.” She turned a come-hither look at Brenner, who ignored her. “Oooh, shiny new intern?”