Odd Jobs 2: Solomon's Code by Jason A Beauchemin

Author:Jason A Beauchemin [Beauchemin, Jason A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The Promenade was as busy as ever. The main level of the spaceport never slept. The chaotic swarm of creatures flowed every which way. There were humans and grindles and yandocs and kabebes and sagisi and hammangs and humans and humans and so many more humans than all the other races combined. The Promenade was an unnatural river, made up of commuters instead of water, with thousands of different currents going thousands of different directions at once. The business of the spaceport was business itself. That business was everywhere, in every office and workshop and corner and alleyway. Creatures had to travel to get to business and the Promenade was the primary avenue utilized to get there.

I moved easily through the surging mob. Standard-years upon standard-years of practice had made navigating the crowd on the Promenade second nature to me. My head was on a swivel, mainly searching for threats but also looking for pathways through the ever-evolving living landscape. I cut a winding, zigzagging path and mostly avoided stopping short or bumping into something that did not appreciate being bumped into.

The sheriff had given my belongings back to me... my gun, my sat-com, my hypo-injector and drugs, my hat and coat... and then sent me on my way. My route took me past the constantly-crowded Big Staircase, along the edge of the loud and stinking industrial center, and through the complex confusion of the shipping container maze. I was on guard the whole time, trying to look every direction at once, searching for signs of faceless weaponized cyborgs or packs of venomous sagisi drones.

I left the shipping container maze and cut through the spaceship service area. I merged with the glut of grease-stained creatures selling mechanical services and the nomads, smugglers, and pirates buying what was being sold. My route took me past workshops, cargo holding areas, fuel storage and dispensing stations, spare parts dealers, and power generation equipment. I stepped over cables and tubing that ran across the floor at random and dodged weight-handling vehicles that drove to and fro, oblivious to the pedestrians that scattered to let them pass. All the while, my head turned side to side, constantly scanning for threats.

I was distracted. It was reckless to walk the Promenade without one-hundred-percent of your brain focused on the here-and-now, but I could not help it. I kept reminding myself to look outward and my mind kept turning inward of its own accord.

My ensemble was part of the problem. Anton had not just taken my hat and coat from me when he pulled me out of the hive... the motherfucker had washed them. Now they felt stiff and smelled weird. The unfamiliarity of my second skin was fucking with my brain, but that was just a minor distraction. The job was my major distraction. I had to complete it. The only other option was to die trying. However, I had no goddamn idea how to get the fucking thing done. Brute force had always been my go-to method of conflict resolution.

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