opportunity

Back in the days of aimless drifting, I took any job that sent coin my way. I found myself in a junkheap bar working for a man named March, and sat watching the deals go down. My view was suddenly obstructed by a man I hadn’t seen coming. I was dulled and didn’t care about what I was doing, I’m surprised that I didn’t get killed during those dark months. Suddenly a handful of discs clattered on the table in front of me. I jumped, hand on my holster. Looking up, I saw silhouetted by the barlights a lean, grim face, clearly not the Fed I had expected. A tall man loomed over me, his eyes the sharpest thing I’d seen other than the void itself. I glanced down at the charts before speaking, saw the tracks of some of the insane jumps I had taken on the way here. No real reason to make them so wild, I just didn’t care. I glared up at the man with contempt instead of fear.
A hint of a biting smile played on his lips and he spoke, his voice soft, “Let’s get out of here.”
“No.”
“You’ve no idea the trouble you’ve put me through to find you here. I’ve been watching long enough.” This should have scared me more than anything, especially as this man did nothing but put me on edge. There was a ferocity in his eyes that unsettled me.
“I’m on a job” I replied, but he shot back, “I’ll give you a better one.”
“Who are you?’
This was Jameison, the most legendary Runner of any of us. Asking me to work for him, though he could never bring himself to ask for anything properly.
“You’re the one who made these jumps?” He returned my attention to the discs. I nodded.
“Do you have any idea how hard this is to track?”
I nodded again, my brain humming, tumbling over possibilities. It was as if a spark had fallen from his mind into mine, and was settling itself in.
“My last navigator has fallen out. Fly for me.”
“I’m on a job right now.”
“Who is it you’re working for? The fat man in the grey suit? And the contact is the other one, with the three men at his back?” He looked at me and I scarcely nodded, but it was all he needed. He turned to face the bar, and slowly put his hands on his hips. Gunfire rammed through the room, innocent patrons screamed and ran for cover, only one of the contact’s men got a gun out before falling into his own blood. The pot-bellied Captain March had no idea what had happened in the moments preceding his death, he had no notion of betrayal, clarity, forgiveness. In those days, when I was between jobs, I often waited in Runner bars, eyeing those who came and went, sensing when gunfights were imminent. Then I’d stand my ground, and when the shooting ended I’d have my hands on the corpses before anyone’s ears stopped ringing. A sickening job, but it kept me alive for far too long.
The bartender stood up, still holding the glass he had been filling when the guns had started. He looked at Jamieson and caught the bag of coin that was thrown to him. Jamieson’s contacts were more widespread than his legend, at that point. He had indeed been waiting for me. The rest of the crew had holstered their guns and were proceeding rapidly out the door. Jamieson looked down at me, saw the gun in my hand and the rest of my body unmoved, unshaken. In those days, I was bold.
He smiled fully for the first time, and the sparks burst into full flame. I’d go with him.


“Free?” he asked, and for the next two years, I was.