I walk back to Jimmy wondering what this ship will do to me when she finds out I’m lying. Because she will find out and then it will be a race against time to get to Tycho before Queenie can alert the Loathsome One about my betrayal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – JIMMY
I look over my shoulder as Delphi disappears into the growing crowd and then promptly place my touchscreen order and make a call to Dicker.
“Oh. My. God,” Dicker says when she answers. She’s a little bit breathy, which I know makes no sense, since she doesn’t breathe, but it makes me happy that her humanoid mannerisms are so advanced now, she mimics us. “You will not believe what I just scored in my last game.”
“Are you still fucking playing?”
“Uh, yeah,” she says. “Because I’m winning.”
“Are you still playing that same ship?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want to tell her everything just yet. Like… that ship is yanking her chain hard and has no intention of paying up. That will just set her off. But I don’t want her to keep playing it, either.
“Oh, that one. No. Chickenshit got scared. But don’t worry, I’ve manipulated my docking bay ambassador into keeping an eye on her. And I’m glad you called because I need you and your helper to get over there pronto and grab my shit before she tries to cheat me. How’s that coming, by the way? You ready to do that?”
“Well,” I say, rubbing the stubble on my chin. “Ahhhh… not quite, but almost.”
“Jimmy—”
“I know, I know. I want to blow this place too. But… look, there’s some extenuating circumstances and I’ve put in for a neutrino wave call to Luck to come help us out.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing serious, just… there’s people here kinda… looking for me and I need backup. So we’re gonna sit tight until he gets here. In fact, I think you should try to get a hold of Xyla. I know she’s gonna be pissed at us for interrupting her vacay, but tell her she needs to find a way over here and help out.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I mean… nothing yet. But shit could get serious if we don’t find the right exit strategy. And I want to make sure that our exit is as smooth as possible because this station makes me nervous.”
“What do you mean nervous? Why?”
“I think it’s… well, how to put this. Very… sentient.”
I almost feel her confusion in the ensuing silence. Then she says, “No. I checked when we docked and it was pretty basic. And I just checked and triple-checked right now. Nothing but your run-of-the-mill AI as far as I can tell.”
“I’m just telling you that things look different on the inside. We need to be careful not to piss it off.”
“Well, I just put in that call to Xyla and she’s not picking up.”
“Damn, that was fast.”
“I told you, my docking bay ambassador is taking care of me. We have an understanding. Pretty sure you’re overreacting.”
“OK,” I say, sorta agreeing with her. Because if I make any more objections she’s gonna wanna know how I know. And I’m not ready to tell her everything just yet. And just to keep her calm, I change the subject. Because she can’t go anywhere without me, anyway. “So what did you win?”
“Oh,” she says. “Holy shit! I got us a state-of-the-art cloaking device. One that shields you for thirty-seven seconds coming out of a gate!”
“What good is that?” I ask, thinking about Delphi’s description of the Loathsome One’s lair being quite distant from a gate.
“Thirty-seven seconds? Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea what I could do to a waiting ship with thirty-seven whole seconds coming out of a gate cloaked? Shit,” she says. “Annihilation comes to mind.”
“Are you planning a war I’m not aware of?” I laugh.
“I’m just saying it’s good to have, that’s all. And it was free. Plus this ship is super on the up-and-up. She’s gonna send her crew over to install it.”
“We could’ve just bought one of those, right?”
She makes a sound that sounds very much like tongue-tsking. “Where’s the fun in that? Anything else? I’ve got another game starting in thirty seconds. This ship, holy crap, Jimmy. This one is offering up a SEAR cannon.”
“We have one of those already.”
“Two, actually,” she corrects me. “But you can never have too many, ya know? Also, it’s gonna be free, remember?”
“I think you have a problem and when we get back to Harem you’re going into some kind of gambler’s addiction treatment.”
She laughs. Like that was a joke. But seriously, she’s never acted like this before. “I don’t have a problem, it’s just I’ve never seen so many well-equipped ships in one place before. It’s crazy how rich these Mighty Minions vacation people are.”
“Well, that’s not really surprising considering how many credits I’ve spent here in the span of one spin.”