Love Machine Read online

  “You don’t have any friends,” said number three.

  “Sure I do,” said Tinker.

  “Not with you.”

  “No, not with me. You are correct with that. I am here having a drink by myself, so none of my friends are with me.”

  “But mine are,” said number one.

  He grabbed Tinker by the jacket and dragged him toward the door. Rolf dropped a credit chip on the pool table as the three others followed them through.

  Out in the corridor, number one bounced Tinker off the wall.

  “Where’ an alley when you need it, right?” Tinker tried to stay upright.

  It wasn’t hard. Number one was joined by Rolf and they both held him up by the jacket. His feet hardly touched the ground.

  “I don’t like your face,” number three sneered.

  “Sorry about that,” said Tinker. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “What do we do with him?” the second one asked.

  Tinker couldn’t help notice his voice went up a couple of octaves. He couldn’t tell if it was because he was excited or scared or both.

  “He was curious about the club,” number one answered. “I say we join him.”

  Tinker was on the verge of objecting, but couldn’t get the words out as they dragged him along the corridor and shoved him into a cargo hold airlock.

  He expected a vast cavernous space full of boxes and shipping containers, and this hold was just like that.

  Except the containers were stacked so they formed a box with a narrow opening at the corner.

  There were no lights on in the roof of the hold, but the space on the other side of the containers glowed and the opening leaked a narrow yellow band across the dark floor.

  As the four men yanked him toward the opening, two women staggered out. One had half of her face covered in blood, a smashed and swollen nose leaked a trail of blood on the metal floor. The other held her by the arm and carried a credit chip in the hand holding her up.

  “Win again?” Rolf asked.

  “Undefeated,” said the bruised and battered woman. She spit a bloody tooth onto the decking and limped away.

  “What the hell is this?” Tinker asked as the shoved him through the opening.

  A mixed crowd of men and woman stood in a shallow square that matched the shape of the containers around them. Lights were affixed to the metal edges, pointed at the space in the middle where two people tried to beat each other to a pulp.

  “Girl fight,” Tinker whispered as the foursome shoved him forward.

  A woman in the ring landed a spinning round kick to the chin of the other, sending a splattering of blood across the silent crowd. The only sound was flesh on flesh, the smacking, grunting, wheezing gasp of two people intent on bodily harm.

  The girl recovered from the round kick, though she was shaky. She landed a few body blows, swept the knee and when her opponent landed on her back with a thud, she pounced on top and beat her with repeated hammer blows until the girl on bottom stopped moving.

  The victor tottered up as a man detached from the crowd, put a credit chip in her hand and aimed her toward the narrow exit while another woman helped the loser to her feet and half carried her out.

  “Is this legal?” Tinker breathed.

  “No one talks about it,” said number two.

  “How much do they win?” he licked his lips.

  “No one talks about it,” answered number three.

  “But girl fights,” Tinker motioned with one hand, as if that explained the mystery of the universe and all the wonder possessed therein.

  “Not just girls,” said Rolf.

  “Everyone fights,” said number one.

  Tinker tried to shove his way back from the edge of the group.

  “I’m a lover not a fighter,” he said.

  “Relax,” said number one. “You’re not fighting.”

  Tinker took a deep breath.

  “That’s great. Can I place a bet?”

  “You’re bait.”

  Rolf shoved him into the middle of

  the square.

  Tinker blinked away the glare of the bright halogen lights that made it hard to see.

  A shadow attached from the far side of the crowd and stalked toward him.

  The lights turned the shadow into a mountain of humanity a head taller than the lanky pilot.

  He had long arms off sloped shoulders that ended in fists the size of canned hams.

  “Bait?” Tinker screamed.

  No one in the crowd made a sound.

  They just watched in silence.

  “Fellas!” Tinker shouted as the man lunged for him.

  He skipped back out of the way, stumbled and turned it into a run as the man scooted after him.

  A leg stuck out from the crowd and tripped him.

  Tinker sprawled on the deck. It knocked the wind out of him. He tried to groan, but nothing in his diaphragm worked. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

  The big guy caught him, rolled him over and drew back a fist. Tinker watched it blot out one of the halogens and was grateful for the shadow.

  Then he realized that same shadow was going to smash his head into the metal underneath and watched it grow larger.

  He ducked, and twisted.

  The fist crashed into the decking and

  Tinker heard bones crunch. The man howled and plopped over onto his haunches, his mangled hand held out in front of him.

  Tinker still couldn’t catch his breath, blue stars started to pop in front of his eyes.

  He saw the hand and figured the guy was offering to help him sit up, catch his breath and go on with a fair fight.

  He reached up, squeezed the proffered hand and pulled himself up.

  The giant man screamed a high pitched wail and fell backwards.

  It yanked Tinker to his feet, where he stumbled, tripped over the man’s feet and accidentally kicked him in the face as he tried to find his footing.

  He caught his balance in the middle of the square of light and glanced back.

  The giant was out cold, his misshapen hand cradled to his chest, nose smashed where the toe of Tinker’s boot trampled it into his face.

  “Oh man, sorry about that,” he said to the unconscious man.

  The same guy who paid the girl detached from the crowd, put a credit chip in his hand as he clapped him on the back.

  “Don’t talk about it,” he whispered as he shoved Tinker toward the narrow opening.

  No one tried to stop him as he left.

  “Talk about it,” he mumbled to himself as he stepped through the cargo doors and back into the corridor. “No one would believe me if I tried.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Morgan was still in his chair, still staring at the door, as if he hadn’t moved the whole time Tinker had been gone.

  The pilot wondered if he was waiting, or what he was waiting for.

  “Here,” he held out the credit chip.

  “That was fast.”

  “I don’t know how much is on it,” Tinker blurted out. “I hope it’s enough.”

  Morgan took the chip and slid it into a reader on his desk. His eyes bugged out and he made a small noise in his throat that sounded a lot like a squeal.

  “This should be just enough,” he coughed when he turned back around. “I’ll have to trim some expenses.”

  Tinker sighed in relief.

  “All right,” he clapped his hands.

  “Time to work some magic. Where is my ship? It’s the NC 17, a frigate-”

  Morgan held up his hands.

  “It’s not quite as simple as that,” said the PI.

  “We’re sleuthing, right?” Tinker asked. “We’re finding clues, piecing together a trail.”

  “WE’RE doing nothing,” Morgan corrected. “I’ll put out some feelers. Ask some questions.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s how most lost things are found.”

  “Yeah?
But I thought, we’d be pounding the pavement, knocking on doors and knocking heads together to find the criminal element responsible for who stole my ship.”

  “That would be easier, yes.”

  “Then let’s do it. Let’s go kick some ass.”

  “Whose ass do you suggest we kick?”

  “Bad guys.”

  “Which bad guys?” asked Morgan.

  “The ship stealing bastards kind of bad guys.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “I don’t know. Reach out to your underworld contacts and get their names, and then let’s go ask them.”

  Morgan nodded.

  “Or we could just do a route trace through our friend Harold’s computer.”

  “Harold?”

  “Your friend from Pomfrey. She said you really pissed him off.”

  “That guy?”

  “I worked on his computer a couple of years ago and installed a trapdoor. I can access his systems and run a query.”

  Tinker’s shoulders sagged.

  That didn’t sound very exciting.

  “Alright, well, I guess, let’s do that then.”

  His desk pinged.

  “Done,” said Morgan.

  “That fast?”

  “I’m that good.”

  Morgan lifted a tablet off his desk and swiped data onto it. He froze the frame and turned it to Tinker.

  “That your ship?”

  There it was. The NC 17 tethered to a battered space station.

  “That’s her,” he said.

  “Are you crying?” Morgan scoffed.

  “It’s an emotional moment,” said Tinker. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It’s been three days.”

  “A long three days,” Tinker sniffed.

  “And nights. Almost four.”

  Morgan tilted the tablet and keyed in notes.

  “I know where this is,” he said. “A chop shop station on the edge of the Orion belt. Its run by a guy named Banner. He’s an old hand at pirating space ships.”

  “Then let’s go stop him.”

  “We need to book passage on a ship to get there,” Morgan said. “You up for an adventure?”

  “I was born for adventure.”

  Morgan shut down his office and slipped the tablet into a nylon messenger bag with frayed threads on the corners. He keyed the lock sequence and led Tinker down the corridors toward a commercial transport docking station.

  “We can book cheap passage on a space transport to get us closer,” he said.

  Tinker bit his lip.

  “I’ll have to get more credit,” he said.

  “I’ll cover this,” said Morgan.

  “Thanks,” Tinker gushed.

  “You can pay me back.”

  They reached the docking station.

  Morgan studied the departure schedule while Tinker watched the crowd.

  Commercial ports were the nexus of multiple transportation lines, large dedicated spaces on big space station where crowds formed and dispersed as thousands of people came and went.

  It was a great place for people watching, but too noisy for hearing much he thought.

  He watched a muscular Chinese man move toward them, slipping through the crowd with ease.

  He watched as the man walked up to Morgan, put a small blaster to the back of his head where his skull met his neck and pulled the trigger.

  Watched as Morgan collapsed to the deck. Tinker caught the tablet as he slumped past and followed the Chinese man away from the fallen body and the murmuring crowd

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Oh man what the hell did you do that for?” Tinker mumbled as he walked next to the assassin. “I mean you shot him. Don’t shoot me for noticing, but you shot him.”

  “Do you owe Mr. Kim ten thousand credits?”

  Tinker shook his head.

  “Are you late on your payment and avoiding Mr. Kim?”

  Again, Tinker shook his head.

  “Then I will not be shooting you today.”

  He pointed to the tablet in Tinker’s hand.

  “May I?”

  Tinker held it out. He was uncertain what to do. Part of him wanted to run, and he was pretty sure he would remember if he owned Mr. Kim anything.

  The man was a notorious gangster warlord that controlled a lot of the routes and stations on the way to Mars. There more than people realized.

  Mars orbited the sun, but at a different speed than earth. At any given time, it was at a new point in space on an elliptical circle that varied by time of year.

  Most people thought travel in space was a straight line, but it wasn’t.

  There were space stations fanned out from earth like points on a circle, ready to serve the colony and mines on Mars and act as way stations for travelers from the home planet to the red planet.

  There were multiple circles, which meant a lot of space stations and varying routes along the way.

  Mr. Kim had his fingers in a lot of them.

  “I am Ping,” said the assassin as his deft fingers tapped on the keyboard.

  “Tinker,” the pilot answered. “Look Ping, I just paid that man to find my lost ship. He was taking me there now. Couldn’t you have waited to kill him until after that?”

  “I was not ordered to wait.”

  “If I could just get my money back then,” Tinker reached for the tablet.

  Ping pulled it back and held it up.

  “He owed Mr. Kim ten thousand credits. He made a ten thousand credit deposit today.”

  “That was my money,” Tinker groaned.

  “Then he robbed you too. Now Mr. Kim is repaid.”

  He tapped a transfer key and handed the tablet back to Tinker. The chip was empty.

  “That was my money,” he whispered.

  “That son of a bitch.”

  Ping stopped and glared at him.

  “I’m talking about Morgan,” Tinker defended.

  “Of course,” Ping allowed. “Now if you will excuse me, I must return to Mr. Kim’s station before the authorities began to search me out.”

  He turned away from Tinker.

  “Hey, Mr. Ping?”

  “Just Ping.”

  “Hey Ping,” Tinker tried on his best pleading expression. “Think I could catch a ride with you on your ship?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ping’s ship was long, lean and sleek.

  It was three times larger than the NC 17 and had a six man crew, plus Ping and Tinker.

  The assassin had left him in the rear hold of the ship with one other man for company.

  “Benedict,” he didn’t bother to hold out a hand to shake.

  Tinker tried not to take it personal even though they were the only two people in the hold and it was going to be a long trip.

  Ping said three weeks, which mean they were going to burn fuel to reach speed and then coast to whatever part of the cosmos Mr. Kim’s space station occupied at the moment.

  It was a classic smugglers trick, Tinker knew and would make it harder for them to be tracked.

  Ping must have been a little bit worried about killing the PI even if he thought he got away with it.

  “Tinker,” the pilot responded.

  He noticed a couple of smaller boxes and cobbled them beside each other to make a seat, modelled after the one Benedict had built for himself.

  “Comfy,” he said.

  Benedict was a thick bodied man, chest like a keg of beer with short thick arms covered with curly black hair. His head was bald and shiny, a patchwork of white scars and divots in the skin. It looked like he could take a punch and a lot of people tried to show him how.

  “Long trip,” Tinker commented. “You mind if I talk to fill the time?”

  “I like the quiet.”

  “Me too,” said Tinker. “Except when we’re starting out. I promise, if you just let me get this out of my system, let me work out the nerves, then I’ll zip it the entire trip and we can just enjoy each ot
her’s company. But taking off, you know, I get nervous. Plus, I just watched a man get killed right in front of me.”