Chapter 17: Eden: Going in
When an offer made sounded too good to be true, I can almost expect a ruse or trouble to brew.
The space rock was unremarkable, and its origins mildly interesting. 1200n of aurum was no joking sum and probably a bait.
I could buy everything on the shopping list in my memory with that sum, and still have a third of the aurum left.
What I couldn't ignore was a sudden feeling of being watched after the Perunian made the offer.
It made me wary.
My eyes shifted around as the optical implant within them swiftly pinpointed the hidden surveillance cameras within the mall, but revealed nothing else.
Haoleans kept a tight security check on who comes in and out of their border points. All these cameras will probably run biometrics of each face captured in their database.
Not that I have to worry about that.
For now, I am Temari, the Deridian. Not Tuku Genja, a Kamuy from the past.
I rejected the offered bait with a curt wave, while surveying my opening into the tight moving bodies of the crowd, squeezing their way towards the opened entrance.
My schedule for Eden was too tight, and I didn't need or want more trouble than necessary.
Too little time to do too many things.
I slipped into the crowd, weaving and sliding between the others to stop the Perunian from following. Pickpockets posed a lower risk than the Perunian.
However, the feeling of being watched didn't disappear. Maybe it's my overly suspicious mind, but my instincts never failed mine.
The bright light of the early afternoon shone on my face once I made it out of the entrance.
Freedom, at last.
Hovercrafts already started moving along the highway.
I headed towards the queue of taxi hover crafts waiting to ferry passengers into the main shopping strip.
Still, the uncanny sensation of being watched unsettled me.
I turned to look around at the entrance. Other than the usual few surveillance cameras, nothing else stood out.
I hurried towards the taxi stand, still feeling the unease.
Whatever it was watching me escaped the notice of my optical implants, but not my instincts.
Lessons learnt in my long drawn out life included never to over rely on the cybernetic implants through misplaced arrogance.
Cybernetic implants possessed inherent vulnerabilities. Never mind the advantages of enhancements.
The Iktomins popped into my mind when I spotted an advertisement on a taxi for a special entertainment subscription offer by the Iktomin conglomerate.
They fiddled with cybernetic technology as much as my species, but lagged far behind us.
My last close contact with the Iktomins took place over five hundred galactic cycles ago before the destruction of the Kamuy planetary system.
They tried to kidnap a few Kamuy in our system, but never expected us to flip the tables on them by intercepting and capturing one of their key 'kidnapping' ships.
That was how we learnt of how they acquired their 'actors' for their sadistic galactic gladiatorial games.
A truly sickening sight.
Back then, their cybernetic technology was cruder. Many of the discarded 'bodies' we found on the ship. They were a bloody mess of wiring and metal parts fused with flesh.
Others alive in prisoner cells begged to die from the agony.
Yet, we found no cybernetic implants in any of the Iktomin crew after we killed and dissected them.
The only advanced technology beyond even ours on the ship was their camera surveillance monitoring system, which we took and adapted.
No one really knows how much progress the Iktomins made in cybernetic technology over the recent time.
Like the Kamuy, the Iktomins were elusive, other than selling their 'entertainment' subscriptions and, to the lucky few, their cybernetic technology.
Only fairly recently, a few rumours of Iktomin limb and organ replacements circulated in the mercenary circles, for those clients with desperate medical needs, seeking travel into the Iktomin planetary capital of Ikto.
Mercenaries called ferrying jobs the 'easy one way ticket'.
Then again, no one knew what happened to their clients in the end. Easy because it paid well.
Those who ferried clients in shared the same story - all the clients made full payment for the round trip but told the ferrying mercenaries face-to-face, to leave a few days later without taking the returning trip. They never saw or heard from those clients again.
I stifled a laugh when a taxi hovercraft hovered up to me with another Iktomin placed advertisement for a game show subscription painted over its body and lowered itself to the ground.
An android manned the taxi hovercraft in front with a protective barrier behind separating the backseat from the front for safety reasons.
A speaker installed at the side of the hovercraft replayed the usual greeting in the most mechanical voice: "State destination."
"Sector 111, The Durgema," I spoke into the speaker.
Durgians, also known as space gypsies, owned the Durgema, a large hotel-mall filled with mercenaries in Eden. The Great Swirl Council's authorities did not regulate the Durgema for good reason.
After all, corrupt officials needed a place to perform their dirty trades.
One of the more mysterious itinerant species in this quadrant, the Durgians, kept out of galactic politics, treating it like poison.
No one knew anything about where the Durgians originated from. However, everyone knew about their strange raving devotion to the cosmos in forms of tranced answers.
I suspected the possibility of high psychedelic stimulant usage among the Durgians which burnt their brain cells out. But that's just me going on a hunch, especially after observing the drug dealing Durgian mercenaries.
Others choose to attribute the Durgian's penchant for a nomadic 'spacefaring' lifestyle and quaint rantings to some strange religious beliefs
One could call them spacefarers, yet most Durgians are not. They settled on inhabited planets and then move on to the next after they outlived their welcome with the locals.
They showed no alliance to any except themselves. Hence, they made excellent mercenaries when they were not high in their heads.
"State payment form," the android droned once the door slid open to allow me to clamper into the three seater backseat of hovercraft.
"Aurum," I replied as I plonked my butt on the leather seat, noticing the small drawer on the bottom of the driver's seat.
"Fare calculation: 4n aurum."
The drawer popped out as I fumbled for the amount and dropped it in.
For an uncomfortable minute, the android turn its head, which resembled a partially melted Haolean face and lifted the corner of its faded resin composite lips to coerce a robotic smile.
"I hope you'll enjoy the ride," it said in a less monotonous voice.
The mechanism of its lips caused its lower jaw to drop to one side from a loose hinge, revealing some of the lighted circuitry hidden behind.
The android faced the front again, blissfully unaware of its partially detached jaw.
At least, the Haoleans used the android for aesthetics.
The hovercraft's true command center was in the front panel. Most taxi hovercrafts used artificial intelligence to pilot.
The door slammed shut and the thrusters of the hovercraft fired up for the lift into the mid air. Soon, the hovercraft took off down the laneway into the fast moving highway.
"Would you like a conversation as part of the service?" the android asked.
"NO."
Conversations with Haolean-made androids got nowhere unless one was some poor lonely soul desperate for any form of interaction, pre-programmed and recorded in the android taxi hovercrafts.
My hand fiddled with one of my earring-like droid, careful to turn my side away from the surveillance camera perched in front. The droid loosened and dropped onto the seat.
It crawled up onto the door towards the barrier and began prodding for an opening to infiltrate the front of the hovercraft.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone