by Simon E Bond
Only powerful wealthy citizens now inhabited the once blue planet; Old Earth was almost gone and along with it, the once seemingly normal civilization. The higher classes lived in domes in remote areas away from the harm of the elements and human dangers.
“Shit, this heat is building up early today,” said Charlie as he glanced at the temperature gauge fixed on the wall.
It was already pushing past 37 degrees Celsius and rising fast every couple of minutes. A booming sound could be heard in the distant hills on the lunar surface as the temperature warning system activated.
The atmosphere had sprung to life early and with the rising temperature it was far better to be inside. Charlie slid the patio doors shut behind him and went to get dressed before he read his work brief. He could enjoy time outside after his work was done and it cooled off, but now it was time for business.
Opening one of the four lockers he had in his apartment, he decided on which clothes to wear. He chose a dark blue coverall with the mining logo stitched onto the left shoulder and his name sown in red below it-Charlie, Digger 24. The coverall was comfortable as always which was good for him. The amount of alcohol and junk food he had consumed over the years did him no favours yet he still managed to get away with looking good because of the loose coveralls.
Charlie flicked a button on the side of his pager and sat down on the sofa. A holographic screen appeared in the middle of the room and, adjusting the pager with his hands, he enlarged the corners of the screen to get a better view. Charlie tapped the button again and an image of a man appeared on the screen. He was dressed in a business suit, the corporate boss of Kromtic division—not just on Krone, but on other systems also.
“I hope you are well, Charlie, and you received the message fine,” replied the voice on the screen.
Charlie rested back with his arms stretching while watching the screen and listening to the message. He had heard all the corporate banter before and just wanted to get on with the job. After a couple of minutes of verbal junk echoing around the room, he skipped over to the last couple of minutes of the message as he always did.
“The credit reward for this work is twenty thousand. We have sent scout machines across to the north-western part of the surface and are certain there is a good area of Kromtic there to be found,” concluded the corporate male with a smug smile as the message ended and the screen shut down.
Charlie was not too impressed. The credit reward was lower than his last digging job, but he had to remain focused; he needed his reward.
The two suns outside bore down onto the towers and sometimes it was too dangerous to even venture out of the complex at this time because of the extreme heat. Charlie sat down to eat his breakfast at the kitchen counter, flicking his fingers against a mini holographic screen. He was shifting through graphs of data to plan the density of the ground where he would be digging. An alert appeared in the right hand corner, it warned of extreme heat on the eastern side of the planet today and the cancer rate was at least eighty percent.
“Damn I hate percentages, they’re getting higher every time,” he muttered between mouthfuls.
“Well, they better work harder on those furnaces; this atmosphere must be thinning,” said Charlie as he emptied the remaining contents of his bowl into a nearby waste compactor.
The android had awoken from his slumber and the electrodes wired into the back of his metal skull started to light up to send pulses into the android’s body.
The half metal/half organic android, Richard, was chosen by Charlie when he first started digging as a full time occupation.
Richard’s eyelids started to flicker then opened fully as his crystal blue eyes came to life while the data feed from Charlie's apartment came through the network interface.
“Sir, thank you for considering me again this time round,” said Richard sitting upright in his chair at the controls.
“Hello again, Richard; did you have a happy downtime?” replied Charlie flicking the comms switch.
“As you know, sir, I hardly notice any difference apart from my wake up call. The battery re-charge appears to have gone fine this time,” Richard replied.
“Nine months work this time my friend. The corporation has advised me there’s a fresh dig on the north-western side,” said Charlie.
He was punching the last piece of the information through to his android via the data feed.
Richard acknowledged this and pressed some buttons on top of the control panel.
“That's it, the last of it coming through now,” said Charlie through the intercom. Before shutting off the audio switch, he finished with, “Careful you don't mess those plot coordinates up, there’s a bag of major credits riding on this one.”
“Sir… Sir…?” said Richard after he had lost the signal for the apartment.
“Charming; I take it we will see each other tomorrow.” Richard frowned as he slowly detached the data tubes from the back of his skull. Looking up towards the screen in front of him, the countdown had reached zero to indicate that the download was complete so he shut down Until Charlie would call on him again.
Charlie was finished with what he needed to do in his apartment. All the data had been transferred so he still had a bit of time to sit around and do nothing until it was time to leave. Scratching his head, he decided there was some hacking that had to be done—his favourite hobby.
The amount he had gained over the years would have surely bought him a way out of his crummy apartment, but he had debts to pay off. He owed money to various gangs back on Earth; they had been his ticket to survival. .
Over the years overdue payments to gangs back on Earth started to add up, if he had not escaped he would be with the others out there, powering the furnaces day and night or even worse.
Charlie was smuggled on board a ship with others carrying atmospheric equipment. It had stopped for refuelling on a tanker rig; he had paid someone off to get him on-board their ship and a passage to the Krone system and was lucky to get away with it.
“Right; let’s make some money,” said Charlie as he brought the holographic screen back to life.
“Anyone got some tidy accounts around here? There must be some rich pickings,” said Charlie, growing impatient—it was his greatest weakness.
After a couple of minutes he noticed a weak security connection on the screen. It was not coming from this planet, but the signal emitting somewhere from up in space. The connection became weaker as Charlie struggled to lock onto it.
“Come on, you should be an easy target,” said Charlie confidently.
After a couple of minutes he had finally located his prize and the information was feeding through onto the screen fast. Charlie was not in for much luck today, there was not that much data traffic floating about with a decent credit balance apart from this one. He leaned forward as he tapped the keys in front of him. After a few moments he finally got to where he wanted to be—the victim’s credit balance.
“Bingo, gotcha,” Charlie said excitedly.
“Yes, fifty thousand credits in that balance; that should do just fine.”
The account did not belong to your average space pilot, or even a rogue, but someone with a much higher income take. Tapping away at more keys with his fingertips he locked onto some more dialogue and Charlie decided to take a closer look.
Doctor S Johnson,
Chief Medical Personnel,
HMS Liverpool
“A doctor… and British,” said Charlie laughing. Charlie had been born in the UK and had lived there for a couple of years but then moved overseas before leaving Earth.
Moving the cursor up and down, Charlie started to break the pieces of information so he could pinpoint the exact position for the hack. Whoever this doctor was, the security at the other end was poor. It could well be a medical frigate up there but Charlie had no need for drugs, just credits.
Charlie began to tap in the code and found it easier than he thou
ght it would be.
“Easy does it. I should be fine, got a three minute window of no security before his firewall kicks in again,” said Charlie; his thumb hovering eagerly over a key and ready to strike.
He went for it. It took less than a minute to drain the credit account of an unknowing victim and transfer the funds to his own account. Charlie had to lose the connection fast and send a dummy decoy to a location that was not his. Quickly tapping his fingers onto the keyboard he punched in some coordinates. The signal had disappeared from his location. However, the local security police at the other end had been alerted by the breach as the star system was known for fraudulent activity and there was a clamp down on it at the moment. The security police quickly located the fake signal attached to a random person on an unnamed planet and they would soon pay a visit.
“Suckers, someone will be getting a nasty surprise in a couple of days,” thought Charlie, delighting in his work.
Filling up his travel bag, he got ready for the nine month outing. He had to leave and make his way to the docking bay. Richard would be waiting for him there and his downtime would be over. Walking over to the balcony windows, Charlie tapped on the glass and an atmospheric neon notice appeared in front of him. It stated the cancer risk had been lowered from high to medium, but Charlie did not want to take any chances. So he decided to get undressed, pack his coverall away into his travel bag and grab his protective atmospheric suit.
The suit was a marvel in modern design. It had integrated food sensors built in it; one tap of the arm and you could digest almost any meal you wanted. The protective suit cradled Charlie from the elements of extreme skin damage caused from outside with the burning heat. When the suns set on Krone, the extreme freezing temperatures would hit the planet’s surface and the suit did its job with the cold element as well.
All dressed and ready to go, Charlie packed the last bits he needed—including protective night vision goggles—into his travel bag. He approached the door to his apartment, and tapped some keys into a console on the wall to set the alarm. The paint die canisters were activated also; as a hacker, he could not take any chance of someone breaking into his apartment—the evidence would need to be destroyed if it ever came to that.
Closing the door behind him, he swiped his card into the lock and pulled it away quickly. The door sealed shut and air tight. The corridor outside was long and narrow, the sun shining through from outside lit up the area. Charlie decided to take the quickest route towards the docking bay and opened an emergency door at the end of the corridor then slammed it shut behind him.
The steel staircase attached to the side of the high rise unit seemed to carry on forever, he thought as he looked down. He must have been at least ten storeys up and, lucky for him, he had a head for heights.
Walking with the bag over his shoulder, he was blinded by the red sun shining onto the side of the building. The grey dunes outside in the distance did nothing to diminish the glare of the light; Charlie decided it was best to put on his goggles as his eyes may begin to suffer from the blinding rays. He decided it was best to walk down the east side of the building as it would get him to the docking bay a lot quicker. He had to get a head start on this job, as there would be other diggers out there on the hunt for Kromtic as well. He prided himself on being the best digger in the trade, and that was something he would often boast about. Some diggers had been known to go missing whilst searching amongst the dunes for their prize, sometimes a body and vacant ship may be found by robotic scouts, other times they would become victim to the storms and all trace was gone.
“Morning, how are you today?” said Charlie as he gave a nod and a salute as he passed an apartment window. A woman freshly showered was wrapped in a towel and stood staring straight at Charlie shaking her head. Charlie carried on walking; she must have thought he was mad risking himself in the sun but Charlie would be okay he was wearing the protective gear.
Finally he reached the bottom of the stairs.. As he looked up towards the sky, he could see various low clouds forming above the high-rises. A black dust storm was starting to build in the distance, the various holographic warning signs started to spring to life over the lunar space highway intersections. This outpost was a raw unforgiving environment. Charlie continued walking until he reached the first of the various checkpoints he would encounter..
“Can I see your credentials please?” asked a border guard and Charlie stopped dead in his tracks.
“Here you go,” replied Charlie handing the documents over.
Shifting through them, the guard was in no mood to be talkative. The wind was really starting to pick up as Charlie stood at the front of a queue waiting to enter the docking bay area. Huge metal gates towered above him; security was tight here as smuggling in and out of the outpost was also a big problem.
After a couple of minutes the guard handed the documentation back to Charlie, a buzzer sounded on the gate, and Charlie started to make his way through the turnstile.
“Nine months, what are you expecting to find out there?” asked the guard.
Having been given the all clear, Charlie stopped and turned around to just smile to the guard as he carried on his way through the entrance of the spaceport.
The area inside was huge; rows and rows of space ships and lunar vehicles were scattered around inside the hanger. Some in no fit condition to operate and most were being worked on by mechanics.
The spacecraft were a mix of corporate transporters, cargo ships, and the odd lone craft. Charlie was looking to see where Richard had parked their digger transportation unit but there was still no sign of him. For an android, he was seldom on time.. The hanger was busy, people moving back and forth, the sound of ships taking off in the distance, and the general rumble of trucks transporting goods to their craft.
“I am over here,” shouted a voice behind Charlie; he looked over his shoulder and could see the small frame of Richard walking down the ramp of their digger transporter. The transporter was large. It was comprised of four engines attached to each wing, large tracks underneath the actual rover itself, and could withstand most elements.
Richard walked down the ramp and stopped at the feet of his master.
“Miss me?” he asked.
joy time outside after his work was done and it cooled off, but now it was time for business.
Opening one of the four lockers he had in his apartment, he decided on which clothes to wear. He chose a dark blue coverall with the mining logo stitched onto the left shoulder and his name sown in red below it-Charlie, Digger 24. The coverall was comfortable as always which was good for him. The amount of alcohol and junk food he had consumed over the years did him no favours yet he still managed to get away with looking good because of the loose coveralls.
Charlie flicked a button on the side of his pager and sat down on the sofa. A holographic screen appeared in the middle of the room and, adjusting the pager with his hands, he enlarged the corners of the screen to get a better view. Charlie tapped the button again and an image of a man appeared on the screen. He was dressed in a business suit, the corporate boss of Kromtic division—not just on Krone, but on other systems also.
“I hope you are well, Charlie, and you received the message fine,” replied the voice on the screen.
Charlie rested back with his arms stretching while watching the screen and listening to the message. He had heard all the corporate banter before and just wanted to get on with the job. After a couple of minutes of verbal junk echoing around the room, he skipped over to the last couple of minutes of the message as he always did.
“The credit reward for this work is twenty thousand. We have sent scout machines across to the north-western part of the surface and are certain there is a good area of Kromtic there to be found,” concluded the corporate male with a smug smile as the message ended and the screen shut down.
Charlie was not too impressed. The credit reward was lower than his last digging job, but he had
to remain focused; he needed his reward.
The two suns outside bore down onto the towers and sometimes it was too dangerous to even venture out of the complex at this time because of the extreme heat. Charlie sat down to eat his breakfast at the kitchen counter, flicking his fingers against a mini holographic screen. He was shifting through graphs of data to plan the density of the ground where he would be digging. An alert appeared in the right hand corner, it warned of extreme heat on the eastern side of the planet today and the cancer rate was at least eighty percent.
“Damn I hate percentages, they’re getting higher every time,” he muttered between mouthfuls.
“Well, they better work harder on those furnaces; this atmosphere must be thinning,” said Charlie as he emptied the remaining contents of his bowl into a nearby waste compactor.
The android had awoken from his slumber and the electrodes wired into the back of his metal skull started to light up to send pulses into the android’s body.
The half metal/half organic android, Richard, was chosen by Charlie when he first started digging as a full time occupation.
Richard’s eyelids started to flicker then opened fully as his crystal blue eyes came to life while the data feed from Charlie's apartment came through the network interface.
“Sir, thank you for considering me again this time round,” said Richard sitting upright in his chair at the controls.
“Hello again, Richard; did you have a happy downtime?” replied Charlie flicking the comms switch.
“As you know, sir, I hardly notice any difference apart from my wake up call. The battery re-charge appears to have gone fine this time,” Richard replied.
“Nine months work this time my friend. The corporation has advised me there’s a fresh dig on the north-western side,” said Charlie.
He was punching the last piece of the information through to his android via the data feed.
Richard acknowledged this and pressed some buttons on top of the control panel.
“That's it, the last of it coming through now,” said Charlie through the intercom. Before shutting off the audio switch, he finished with, “Careful you don't mess those plot coordinates up, there’s a bag of major credits riding on this one.”
