“You said this place is safe!” Lana protested.
Barix snickered. “No, he said they search new arrivals for guns and have strict security. The fact you think that makes it safe just proves how naive you are.”
Insultingly put as that had been, the man wasn't wrong. Aiden nodded. “There's still danger, it's just less overt. So take the gunner.”
Smirking, the Ishivi patted the young woman's arm in mock sympathy. “Just tell him to look the other way while you're buying racy undergarments or feminine hygiene products or whatever.” Lana blushed furiously and shot the slight man an aggrieved look.
That reminded Aiden. “Speaking of buying . . .” He reached into the pouch at his waist and pulled out a hundred chit strip, tossing it to Lana. She fumbled to catch it, looking surprised. “Spending money.”
“Taken out of what pay?” Barix protested. “We haven't taken a priz-” he cut off, hastily looking around before lowering his voice slightly. “That is, had a payday since she came aboard. Unless you count that, uh, salvage work, which I certainly don't.”
Aiden shrugged irritably. “Then it'll be an advance on her pay. What're you complaining about? It's not like you're getting paid any less because of it.”
“Actually, with her on the crew my share of the profits is now . . .” the slight man caught his expression and trailed off, scowling. “Fine, whatever. Shower another man's woman with gifts, that'll get you somewhere.”
“Charming as always, Barix,” the gunner said flatly, offering Lana his arm. She reluctantly left with him, looking suspiciously close to pouting. Maybe she was trying to get away to buy him a gift or something.
Aiden shook his head and hastily wolfed down the last of his food, tossing it in the nearest bin. Ali did the same with her half full plate, and he couldn't blame her; she didn't complain about the hassle of eliminating the food she “ate”, but from past experience it was obviously an area HAE needed to do more work on. Aiden had to admit it was nice to share a good meal with her, but it was wasteful and not worth the bother just to slightly heighten the illusion that she was human.
“Oh, I get it. Now that the others are gone I'm a third wheel,” Barix said, and Aiden could practically see him rolling his eyes behind his high tech eyewear. “Fine, I'll go see what sort of fun I can buy in this place.”
As the slight man slid through the crowd, which came fairly close to parting in front of him when people realized he was Ishivi, Aiden turned to his companion. “Ready to get to work?”
She nodded, although she looked a bit hesitant. Doubting her abilities? “Maybe you should search for your friend and take care of business with her, before I start poking around at whatever security this place has.”
Aiden chuckled, slipping an arm around her waist. “Your knowledge is a year out of date, not completely obsolete.”
Ali smiled back, looking fairly convincing in spite of her obvious doubt. “The field of cyber security moves fast.”
Well, that was reassuring.
They found a secluded public terminal, offering surprisingly inexpensive rates as well, and Ali quickly checked to make sure the station wasn't spying on its users. After confirming it was clean aside from the usual Deek snoopware, which was always out of date and easy to circumvent, Aiden got to work checking the various drop boxes and private station nodes he'd arranged with his old flame.
Idly, he wondered how Tisa would react to Ali, especially if she knew his new lover was an adult companion. What they'd shared had basically been a fling, and a brief one at that, but they'd parted on good enough terms to hint at a repeat performance if he ever ran into her again. There might have even been enough chemistry there to be jealous of Ali.
Although knowing Tisa, she might just want him to share his toy.
Or not; after ten minutes Aiden had exhausted all their arranged drop boxes, confirming they were either defunct or no longer existed. The station nodes had also disappeared, and Ali, monitoring his work, cautioned him that he might want to tread cautiously or he'd start triggering alarms in some of his searches.
Running out of options, he searched Tisa's name on the station's manifest, again coming up blank. Starting to lose hope, he poked into the allnet and did a general search for his friend's name and identifying features.
Complete event horizon. Her allnet profile was gone, and the few tens of thousands of people in the universe who shared her name would take a while to parse through, unless he had Ali do it. He nodded to her, and she got to work.
A couple minutes later, she shook her head at him. “Dig deeper?”
“Why bother, there's no sign of her anywhere,” Aiden growled in disgust, stepping away from the terminal.
His companion nodded. “It's possible she had to change her identity, and is still on the station.”
“Fat lot of good that'll do us, if she's burned every means I had of contacting her.” He leaned out of the terminal, looking around at the passing people as if expecting to see his old lover popping around the corner at any second. When she didn't make an appearance he shook his head with a sigh and closed the privacy barrier again. “Think her connection to me is what burned her?”
Ali shrugged. “Possibly. Movement Intelligence agents have probably been digging through your past with a fine-tooth comb, trying to find anything they can to get at you.”
Considering that his companion was usually a wellspring of information about the logical conclusions to her data analysis,
