Chapter 2

Ferro kept peering over his shoulder hoping that the runner in the evac suit would appear again, but he didn't. After watching the crazy man run around the outside of the station, Ferro felt like a stodgy old fart trapped in a plodding claptrap. Besides the runner, the only other thrill had been an unusual amount of scarring in the downward anti-spinward corner of the plate. Whatever had caused the damage had been particularly abrasive.

Ferro tromped back to the hatch collecting his flag markers along the way. With each boot step, he wondered just how one went about running across the plate surface. His boot always landed with a solid "thunk" as the attracting forces drew each other tightly. As long as Ferro had his boots on, he wasn't flying anywhere, which was usually a good thing.

Now that he had seen it though, he wanted to fly.

Inside the hatch, Ferro reversed the earlier procedures and stepped back into the empty corridor. He spotted a computer port a few meters down from the hatch and decided to plug in from his present position. While he was mildly curious about Bernhardt's meeting, he didn't want to get drawn into any more speculation. The nonsense drove him bonkers most days.

A shelf popped down out of the wall and Ferro plugged in his computer and his suit charger. Uploaded his findings, he waited for confirmation of his report. The computer conduit appeared sluggish as the twirling icon for WAITING kept moving slow and then fast. Ferro took the time to work out the kinks in his neck and his limbs, checking the icon every other minute or so. As he rolled his shoulders one last time, the thought occurred to him that he may be the first person to use this computer station in over a century. A query to data maintenance sent back a reply of one hundred twenty-two years and fifty-five days.

"Holy Mother of All," Ferro said aloud, surprised that no one had even tested the station for such an unimaginable period of time. The datum only confirmed for him that there were more deficits in this station than most of its inhabitants realized. The engineering side of him was more than a bit worried. Then there were the coming budget cuts, too. How much neglect could this aging station handle?

His thoughts were thankfully disrupted by the beep of confirmation from his computer. The confirmation returned with an automated response, reminding him to prioritize his repair schedule and make assignments. A second beep sounded from his office mailbox, telling him he had a message waiting that was labeled "priority" and requiring confirmation of receipt.

His supervisor wanted to schedule a meeting with him immediately. Looking at the time stamp, Ferro read that the message had been sent before he had returned from his evac. Since it wasn't a concern with his report, Ferro had a sinking suspicion that the budget cuts were about to land in his cubicle.

On a hunch, he flipped to his personal box and saw two messages waiting from Dahyena. Both had been sent from her personal computer and not through the office server. The first message was a horror story about a laid-off Bernhardt blubbering and wailing upon his return to the cubicles. He had been so distraught that he had fainted in the hallway and EMT's had had to come and cart away his limp body. The tone of her email wasn't gloating, it was fearful.

The time was already 16:30 on the twenty-four hour cycle of the station. Ferro swallowed the mucus that seemed to suddenly plug the back of his throat and switched back to his office box. He wanted a quick and direct answer. The call to his supervisor beeped five times and then the "out of office" message came over the line. Ferro left a brief message and then shut down his computer.

Whatever else Dahyena wanted could wait. Ferro packed up his gear and pushed his suit ahead of him as he made his way down the lonely corridor. In his imagination, his suit looked like a burial shroud and Ferro felt like he was heading towards his funeral. The probability of being laid off hung over his head like a death threat.

A clearing of someone's throat brought his head up. He looked slightly down into the eyes of a beautiful young woman with a winsome smile. She made him almost want to smile back, almost. Ferro wondered if she was beyond adolescence. Her clothes were peculiar, very functional with lots of pockets in an exciting, engineering-geek sort of way, but the fabric looked faded and loose like pajamas.

"Want to play a game," she said in an unfamiliar accent, but with the same smile.

"Game?" Ferro was confused by her odd manner.

"Well, it's a kind of a game, a fun one. It's called anonymous sex in the back rooms of the station."

Ferro laughed a little as he self-consciously scratched his sideburn with his free hand.

"Your game does sound like fun. I've never heard of such a thing being played on Callisto but that's not surprising. Er, there isn't a hidden cam or something else that will be utterly humiliating in there?"

"No," she said, "The offer is the offer. See this door? You get us inside and we have fun. You don't get us inside and we are both disappointed."

"Oh, is that all?" Ferro said with a bit of suspicion. He scanned the door and took note of the plaque next to it that was melded into the wall: Storage Bin 197-EE4.

If something was hinky about the setup, Ferro figured that he would see it in the readout of the room's contents when he brought up the key code access. He pushed his suit to the wall and retrieved his handheld computer. Querying the station maintenance database, he brought up the room number. The equipment inside hadn't been used since it had been stored 120 years ago. Most of it was adhesive and bonding-material fabricators for vacuum-facing materials. His crews used smaller versions of the same machines, but their machines were of much more recent manufacture and had a limited number of functions compared to these sleeping behemoths.

He was professionally curious even though his fingers were trembling with another type of excitement. The code key was at the end of the entry. Instead of plugging his comp into the door, he popped the cover off of the upper right corner of the frame and typed in the code manually.

The door gave, but just like the air hatch earlier, Ferro had to give the hinge mechanisms a push and a shove to open.

"In we go," he announced.

He hit the light plate and the overheads came on dimly. A slight buzz told him that dust had settled in the fixtures. The woman squeezed past him and took a quick look at the hulking machines which had sat silently for over a century waiting for commands.

"What do you really want?" Ferro said. "Beautiful young women don't offer themselves on a whim to geeky window washers."

"Don't sell yourself short there, Tyro," she said as she kicked off her shoes and released the seam of her blouse. (Tyro was one of the latest ENT stars on the evening broadcasts; the man was chiseled.) "A deal is a deal."

In an eye blink or three she was naked before him. She was thin with small high breasts. Scanning downward, her hips were narrow, almost boy-like, and a light colored bit of down hid the top of her cleft. Her legs were strong and defined as if she were a long distance runner.

"Wow!" Ferro said, staring. "You are incredible."

"And you really are a geek," she said. "I've had men stare before but never with a computer still running in their hand. Drop the box and drop your pants. I think we are really going to have some fun."

She gave her hips a little shake for emphasis.

Ferro did just as she said. She helped him out of his shirt and began by licking his nipples.

"Oh, sweet Mother of All," Ferro moaned in amazement.

She worked herself down his stomach with kisses and small licks of her tongue. "For a window washer, you're in pretty good shape. Your butt feels tight, too. Are you working out?"

Ferro was beyond the ability to communicate. "Uhh" was about all he could manage.

"You're not going to pop too soon, are you?" she said with a devilish grin.

"Uhh-uh."

"Um-hm, I can tell. You are just too excited to be here naked with me in a deserted little storage bin where no one can find us and no one can hear us. I'm getting wetter and wetter and you're getting harder and harder," she said in almost whisper.