Twenty years, this time.
Twenty fucking years.
Shit.
She hadn’t put her headset on yet. It was in her lap, ready to serve as interface between her brainware and the outside world, but she couldn’t bring herself to activate it. During the mission it would have done nothing more than give her access to the ship’s private database, its innernet. But she was in the domain of the outernet now, and the minute she connected to it her brain would be flooded with public data. Semi-sentient ads for services, networks, gadgets, resorts . . . each one designed to analyze a person’s likes and dislikes and craft images designed to entice her into performing the desired action. Her adblockers were twenty years out of date, so the minute she connected to the outernet she was going to get blitzed by two decades’ worth of crap. Not something to look forward to.
She did put her wellseeker through its paces, and it checked out her bodily functions one by one, offering to adjust any chemical balance that didn’t seem quite right. Given that she’d just been inspected top to toe by the Guild’s medics, such an inspection wasn’t really necessary, but the familiar medicinal murmur was comforting.
FATIGUE LEVEL 4, it informed her at the end, letters scrolling red across her field of vision. STIMULANT DESIRED?
She visualized a cartoon hand making a thumbs-down gesture. NO.
Ironic, wasn’t it, that sleeping for seventeen years could leave a person so tired? But she knew that what her body craved now was not sleep, but normalcy. It wanted to run her through the natural stages of sleep at its own pace, her muscles completely relaxed, her lungs drawing in air and then releasing it without the help of a respirator. There was no way to explain to someone who hadn’t experienced extended stasis how pleasurable—and emotionally necessary—that first natural sleep was.
Soon, she promised herself. Soon.
Soon, too, she would have to report to her Guild masters for debriefing. That prospect was considerably less appealing. The thought of sitting in front of a panel of Gueran authorities and answering their questions echoed the disciplinary courts of her youth, reminding her that though she enjoyed considerable autonomy during her missions, her lords and masters on Guera still called the shots. But there was no point in cursing a contract with the Devil after you’d signed it.
Hopefully the Guild would pay for her ship’s repairs. If not . . . well then, she wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
* * *
The foyer of the timeshare complex was crowded as always, full of businessmen in faux silk suits, commuting politicians, migrant station workers, and of course, outriders. It wasn’t the most luxurious apartment complex on the ring, but it was in a decent neighborhood and the internal security was tight, so it stayed busy.
She didn’t recognize anyone. She barely even recognized the lobby, given how drastically it had been redecorated since last she was here. That’s what happened when you slept for twenty years. It made for an odd sense of disconnection, as if nothing about her was real. Occupational hazard. You either got over it or you quit outriding.
The man behind the desk (she thought it was a man, but with some Variants it was hard to tell) nodded a polite greeting. He had three long fingers on each hand, and when he rested them on the desk it gave him a bird-like aspect. If Ru had been connected to the outernet she probably would have called up information on his sourceworld, just out of curiosity, but since her headset was still not activated she just smiled back and said, “Ru Gaya.”
He stared into space for a microsecond as his headset accessed the necessary records. There were blue stalks rising from his head, but she couldn’t tell if they were natural or part of his headset. “Welcome back, Outrider Gaya.” His brow furrowed slightly. “You are . . . later than expected.”
“Seventeen years, yeah, I know.” She shrugged. The motion irritated her stasis bruises and made her wince. “Sorry about that. Is my suite available?”
Another microsecond of unfocused staring. “Currently yes, but it’s assigned to Outrider Pasador and his partner beginning on the tenth. . . .”
“I’ll be gone by then. Or I’ll work something out with him.”
“Good enough, then.” He ran a gangly bird finger across a screen in front of him. “Please relax in the lobby while I have bots prepare the suite.” He cocked his head slightly, which set his blue stalks quivering. “Next time, if you call when you dock, I can have your apartment ready by the time you get here.”
“I know,” she said shortly. “Stuff came up.”
She went to find a chair that suited her Terran-style physique. The only one available was next to a bunch of young girls who were giggling and whispering and pointing at an empty spot in the middle of the room as if there were something there. They were probably hooked up to a shared universe game. No doubt in their heads the lobby looked like a tropical beach, or a magical palace with dancing cutlery, or something else suitably silly. Role-playing virts had been prohibited in public spaces last time Ru was here, but if gamers were subtle enough they could usually go undetected. These girls weren’t being subtle, though, and the opulent headset that one of them was wearing, adorned with crystalline butterflies on wires that tinkled each time a movement of her head set them bouncing, was hardly inconspicuous. Maybe the laws had changed in the last twenty years. Overdecorated headsets seemed to be the fashion of the moment, and as Ru looked about the room she saw many that were—to her eyes at least—excessive. One woman had a stylized golden vulture perched on her head, its wings sweeping down around her ears; another wore a scale model of a waystation, its inner ring fitted around her head and two others magnetically suspended above it; yet another wore a crown of graduated spikes that splayed out from her head like sunbeams. Ru vaguely remembered having seen something like that in a picture of an ancient Earth statue. Yet all those headsets—large and small, modest and decadent, tasteful and bizarre—did the same thing in the end, serving as interface between the brainware inside a person’s head and the ocean of data outside it.
Hers still wasn’t turned on.
The girls had become quite loud, and one of them suddenly got up and ran toward the door, barreling into a woman in a glossy pink jumpsuit. Immersed in her game, the girl hadn’t even seen her. A seven-foot tall Frisian in a security uniform approached, spoke to her harshly, then addressed the other girls. Ru couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his intent was clear. They argued with him for a few minutes, but in the end he sternly ushered them out. They should be glad he’s not reporting them, she thought, as the sound of tinkling butterflies faded in the distance.
“Outrider Gaya.” It was the receptionist. “Your suite is ready.”
She nodded her appreciation and headed toward the tube at the back of the lobby. From there it was a short trip to the front door of her timeshare, which opened of its own accord at her approach. A new feature.