Learning the Hard Way 3

by H. P. Caledon

  Danny let his head fall back onto the floor.

  “But you’re partly right,” Keelan continued. “If you can’t run faster than them, then you still need the conditioning to be able to fight after you’ve run.”

  “So now we fight?” Misery asked.

  “Yeah. Mike, Danny, you guys are partners. More even body—”

  “Then it should be you and me, and Misery and Danny,” Mike pointed out.

  “Yes, but they’re the ones who’re supposed to learn.”

  “Then it should be me and Misery and you with Danny,” Mike continued.

  “Just... ”

  Mike held up his hands, grinning as if he found Keelan’s logic funny.

  If only he knew.

  Danny propped himself up on his elbows and looked at Mike before sending Keelan a toothy smile. Mike hauled Danny to his feet, while Keelan led Misery a bit further down the mat and took a fighting stance. She did the same, and he inspected it. Happy with the result, he held up his palms and pointed to them.

  “Kick or hit?” she asked.

  “What every you think is necessary. The most important aspect of a fight is to judge how much energy is needed to incapacitate your target. If a punch is enough, then kicking the bastard is wasted energy. Always expect more opposition than you deem needed and never expect a fair fight.”

  “Dad, I grew up on the street—this is kid’s stuff!”

  “Assess me,” Keelan said, smiling.

  “A beef your size? Hmm... this is the part about running fast,” she said, laughing.

  “And since I can outrun you?”

  “Argh!” Danny yelled a split second before the sound of a body hitting the mat reverberated in the room.

  Keelan glanced that way and saw Danny lying in a not so comfortable looking body lock under Mike. Mike jumped free and danced out of reach. Keelan smiled at him but was interrupted when a painful stab exploded from his right thigh. He grunted and fell to one knee and focused on Misery, who was running full speed around the arena.

  “What the hell was that?” he shouted and got up.

  “My assessment of you!” She slowed to jog the rest of the way before stopping in front of him.

  “Assessment?”

  “Yeah. You’re a huge hormone beef sized kind of guy, I’m not. You’re right-legged and more experienced than I, so my assessment of the situation and you was to use the fact that your focus was not one me, thank you Mike and Danny, and then hurt you enough so you couldn’t follow me. Because I needed time to find a place to hide where your overfed frame can’t get to me.”

  “And a kick to the thigh was what came to mind?” he asked, feeling a pride that far exceeded the dull throbbing pain in his right leg.

  She shrugged. “Didn’t have an antenna.”

  Keelan laughed loudly and patted her shoulder. He then turned his attention to Mike and Danny to see how their training was coming along.

  “Keelan never showed me that body lock,” Danny said. “Don’t you think me and my long legs would be fantastic at body locks?”

  “Might be,” Mike said. “But you’d need more than long legs, because you’d have to be able to hold someone physically stronger than yourself.” Mike closed in on Danny again.

  Misery reclaimed Keelan’s attention when she retook a fighting stance, but he turned so he could follow, paying attention to his daughter’s dirty tricks, too. But he needed to see it, because he knew only too well why Danny wanted to practice body locks. Half an hour later, Mike seemed to have caught on too, because he sent Keelan irritated looks.

  Later, Danny collapsed in a corner along with Misery and pawed uncoordinatedly at the cap of a water bottle

  Mike jumped onto Keelan’s back and locked his arm around his throat. “What did you forget to tell me about him?” Mike sneered into his ear.

  “You’re single, he’s a nymphomaniac. I know why he says yes to physical training. Physical contact. Close physical contact.” Keelan laughed.

  “Not funny,” Mike groused and let go of Keelan, grabbed a towel, and left the training room.

  Danny watched as Mike stomped from the arena. “Why is he angry?”

  Keelan gnawed his lower lip for a beat before following Mike. He found him in the bathroom upstairs, and Keelan knocked for almost half a minute before Mike opened to glare at him.

  “What?” Keelan asked.

  “I don’t feel good about it. After... I don’t want to be touched like that again, and with your past, you should understand.”

  “Not really.” Keelan pushed past him to close the door, locking them both in the bathroom. “Danny is a very sensitive young man.”

  “I’m not interested!” Mike hissed.

  “Then tell him. He won’t stop, though. Most of it’s just fun and games to him. Should I give him a hint?”

  “How?”

  “Quick recap of Delta?”

  “No!”

  “Then you do it.”

  Mike grunted something intelligible and crossed his arms. Keelan left the bathroom just as a beeping sounded from the cockpit. Mike pushed past him and made for the cockpit, so Keelan followed.

  Lewis showed up on the screen as he made it to Mike.

  “You two... I’ve said it before, but I’m apparently going to have to repeat myself, but rarely have I met anyone as good at making trouble as the two of you!”

  “Love you too, Lewis,” Mike said, but Lewis did not look like he was in a humorous mood, because he just pointed at Mike and kept the intensity in his gaze.

  “I can’t even call in a simple question right now before alarm bells go off, but luckily I have a very good friend on another Spec Edit and guess what—he’s been ordered to put together a group to track you down.”

  “That’s not good,” Mike mumbled, looking worried.

  “Actually, in this case it is, because I’ll be on the sideline... as unofficially as it’s possible. Now, how’s the girl?”

  “She’s great,” Keelan answered.

  “Did you know Cecil Hallett is out again?” Mike asked.

  Lewis nodded, looking grim.

  “He’s collecting again. With a new team. He tried to collect his daughter.” Mike pointed to Keelan.

  “You two have bigger problems. According to my sources overseeing this tracker team, they’re working with bounty hunters and mercenaries from near and far away. Even Ratkins is in a group. Keelan’s bounty is now at one hundred fifty thousand. Yours is seventy thousand, and you’re a max.”

  “Seventy?” Mike exclaimed.

  “Yeah, or did you think springing maximum-security convicts while pretending to be some other badge and then killing them will go unnoticed?”

  “No, but... Ratkins told us that he’d been called. He’s keeping us informed.”

  “Don’t call him again—give the messages to me, and I’ll patch them along. The same goes the other way. Did you get anything from the guy you collected?”

  “Yeah, and SWIS got a virus.”

  Mike smiled while Lewis gaped.

  “A Chiromancer? You got a Chiromancer?”

  “If he could hack the Senate, we figured he could help us, too,” Keelan said.

  Lewis’ face paled to an unhealthy tinge. “I did not hear this,” he sneered and rubbed his face callously. “Calling later.”

  The screen went blank.

  “What’s a Chiromancer?” Keelan asked. Mike just shrugged and left the cockpit with a determined look on his face. Keelan sighed, wondering how he could go from hating authorities to being so happy Lewis was on their side. It occurred to him he trusted the man to help them, and he didn’t really know what to think about it.

  * * * *

  Mike stopped in the middle of the common room to look at all of Danny’s computer gear.

  Keelan joined him. “You don’t know what a Chiromancer is?” Keelan continued his questioning.

  Danny and Misery came up the stairs, and Mike turned to look at them.
r />   “Danny, I need to talk to you a second.” Mike led the way to his room. “Sit.”

  Danny perched on the bed, so Mike chose to sit on the chair.

  “You mad at me?” Danny asked.

  It wasn’t until then Mike really looked at the young man. He seemed heavy-hearted.

  “A bit. I’m not gonna explain it all to you, but I’d like it if you wouldn’t touch me like that again.”

  “Okay,” Danny mumbled. “But you’re hot, just so you know.”

  Mike closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just heard that you’re a Chiromancer. What exactly is that?”

  “The colors.”

  “Colors? You’re gonna have to use more words than that. Preferably whole sentences.”

  “The colors are a part of us—we don’t know how. They show us things. The colors find us, keep us together... it’s a gibberish sentence. Find the others we must unite... the program must be completed. None of us knows what it is, but it’s such a fundamental part of us that it’s almost instinctual. Find the others and work with the programs.”

  “What the hell does that have to do with Chiromancy?” Mike asked and plucked a dictionary from his closet. “Prophet, prognostic, seer, truth teller... sorcerer?”

  “Techno Chiromancer, we see the technology, codes, programs, stuff like that.” Danny shimmied back onto the bed to sit against the wall. “We see the colors, others don’t.”

  “And Spec Edit is very interested in you because you can do all that?”

  Danny sighed. “You heard of the Techno Raiders, right?”

  “Yeah. Is that you?”

  “No!” Danny exclaimed. “But they pay well and have some good hackers. They also develop some really nifty hardware, but there’s none of us among them.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “They don’t have the same markings,” Danny said and pointed to himself as if Mike had overlooked something about his physical appearance. Mike waited, and Danny finally sighed. “I can’t show you, I can’t reveal them.”

  “Well, too fucking bad, because you’re gonna have to!” Mike shouted.

  “Physically impossible, not that I won’t, I can’t!” Danny bellowed and sat forward, so he and Mike were nose to nose.

  The door opened, and Keelan filled the entire opening.

  “Just arguing,” Mike said.

  “I’ve heard him shout once. Walter died right after. Is more explanation needed?”

  “I’m not hurting your little lover, okay!” Mike had barely finished the sentence before Keelan was inside the room and had lifted Mike clean off the chair by the collar of his shirt.

  Danny yelped and ran from the room. With a firm grip on Mike’s collar by one hand, Keelan reached to grab one of Mike’s legs, turned him in the air, and dumped him on the bed, which complained under the sudden weight.

  “Now explain this to me.” Keelan turned and closed the door.

  Mike backpedaled to the end of the bed, hitting the wall while gauging Keelan’s mood, seeing if he could figure out the reason for the sudden change. But Mike explained about the Techno Chiromancers and Techno Raiders and what the Spec Edit fleet so far knew of their connection and how that was contradictory to what Danny had just told him.

  “So you interrogated him? Here? On our ship, while we need his help?” Keelan asked.

  “Do you know who the Techno Raiders are? What they do?”

  “No, enlighten me.”

  “Everything. The mafia is scared of them, the Senate is scared of them, human smugglers are scared of them because they steal their loot, the slave market is scared of them, and they are not to be trusted.”

  “And is Danny one of them?”

  “The colors he speaks of. I recognize them now. As tattoos on the Techno Raiders. We caught one once. He died in custody. Suicide. And then the colors disappeared. No one ever figured out what they were.”

  “Okay, so, first of all, you lied to me when you said you didn’t know what a Chiromancer was—”

  “No, because I didn’t. Danny’s explanation is the first I’ve heard. Other than that, it’s always been the Techno Raiders, but I’ve heard Chiromancers mentioned once, and I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Fine. We’re gonna talk to Danny again, together, but comments like that last one you’re gonna keep to your damn self!” Keelan sneered, and for a second, Mike was sure Keelan had changed his mind and would hit him anyway. But he didn’t. He just got up to fetch Danny, who opted to sit on the chair.

  Danny seemed nervous at first as he answered Keelan’s questions. He kept glancing his way and tried to pull the chair closer to Keelan. But the rail that kept the chair from flying around the room during star jump or hazardous maneuvers didn’t allow it. Danny opened up more, but he didn’t have anything useful to add. He really didn’t know any more, which he declared to Keelan with such submissive body language that Mike felt bad.

  Keelan cupped Danny’s face and stroked his cheeks. Danny looked up affectionately, and Mike knew why Keelan had defended him.

  “Would you do me a favor?” Keelan asked. Danny nodded. “Don’t hit on Mike anymore.”

  “He made certain of that himself,” Danny said, quietly. The tone cut into Mike, and he felt like an asshole of interplanetary dimensions.

  Chapter Eight

  Keelan stepped into Danny’s room. He sat in the semi-darkness, his face partly illuminated by the glow from the pad in his hand. Keelan took a seat next to him on the bed, leaving the door open so the light from the hallway would let him see.

  “You’ve been very quiet the past couple of days,” Keelan said.

  “What’s with Mike? The first few weeks there were no problems, and now he’s like a tera-sized snot hole.”

  “He’s a bit unstable sometimes. Not often... anymore. I’ve thought about it, and I actually think he’s scared. He’d never admit it, never show it. But he didn’t tell you how we met, right?”

  “Delta. You said you became friends in Delta Zeich.”

  “Yeah, actually I won and owned him.”

  “But you didn’t use him,” Danny said, shrugging.

  “No, but I was tossed in isolation for a month. What do convicts do to the mercenary who collected their bounty and tossed them into the same hellhole?”

  “Ah... that’s bad.”

  “Mike mostly collected max prisoners. Where do you think he goes if he’s caught for having sprung me?”

  Danny just nodded.

  “Mike was once a strong man. He’s now crippled by fear and incidents he can’t forget. He learned very late in life what life has to offer, that no matter how good one’s basic training is, there’s still so much in life that’s out of our control.”

  “I’ll leave you guys alone,” Danny said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What he said. What he called me. I understand why you got mad. I know you don’t want me out here.”

  Keelan scoffed, shaking his head. “I think you misunderstood my reason for reacting like that. Mike doesn’t always think before he speaks when he’s angry. That’s how he accidently snitched on me.” Keelan looked at Danny, who suddenly leaned in to put his arms around him. Keelan put an arm around the young man who slid further down, putting his head on Keelan’s chest, tightening his grip. It occurred to Keelan that Danny was crying quietly.

  A shadow slid over them, and Keelan looked up, finding Mike in the door. Silent and expressionless. Then he left. Danny didn’t ease his grip on Keelan, who didn’t think Danny had even seen Mike. So Keelan stayed where he was, contemplating how they were going to smooth the wrinkle.

  * * * *

  Mike sat alone in the kitchen and was looking through the information from SWIS when Keelan came in and sat opposite him.

  For a long time, neither of them spoke, and Mike felt pretty sure that Keelan wasn’t too happy with him at the moment. The silence finally got to him, and he sighed, looking up only to m
eet Keelan’s deadpan.

  “I’m sorry,” Mike said and looked at the pad again.

  “We need him on our side.”

  “Yes, I got the memo, and I was a bit unreasonable.”

  “A bit? According to Danny, you’re a tera-sized snot hole. Now I just gotta figure out what tera means, because snot hole is a given,” Keelan said, laughing humorlessly.

  “One trillion, ninety-nine billion, five hundred eleven million, six hundred twenty-seven thousand, seven hundred seventy-six bytes to be exact,” Danny said as he entered the kitchen with the body language of a twelve-year-old after a disciplining. Keelan stared at Mike expectantly.

  “I’m sorry, Danny,” Mike said.

  “Keelan explained it. You don’t want to go back to jail. I get the logics behind that one. No wonder there’s a virus in your good mood. Can I make soup?”

  Keelan nodded and pulled a pad closer to read, too.

  “No!” Mike exclaimed, making Danny drop the soup package and turn quickly. “Not you, Danny. Keelan, how did we get from the hospital to the ship?”

  “Andy’s identity and a taxi.”

  “And from the bridge to the ship?”

  “They let the taxi all the way through.”

  “And what identity did you use when calling in the startup window?” Mike continued.

  “The one we flew in on,” Keelan said, and from Mike’s expression, he finally got the problem and reason for Mike’s exclamation.

  Mike held up the pad for Keelan to see the information on it. “Other than the files Danny got, he also managed to download some information sent internally and to Andy Thompson’s team. They managed to track us all the way to Kanakoon, Keelan, because you used the same id. They tracked Andy to the spaceport because you used his ID all the way to our own ship. Now we have to change ships, because this one can be visually identified.”

  “You were dying in my arms! I prioritized you!”

  “And I certainly appreciate that. We need to get hold of Ratkins.”

  “As in bounty hunter Ratkins?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah, why?” Mike asked, looking up.

  “He collected me,” Danny said and sat next to Keelan.