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Brooks had been to five bars so far, and he still didn’t have a lead.

After taking a shuttle from Gohhi Main Hub to the station called Vesper Glass, he’d then caught another to Transitory Heights, both stations of ill-repute with large black markets and a variety of shady dealings.  Always a good place to find an informant.

Yet none of it had panned out.

All he’d managed to learn so far was that the figure Silva had mentioned, Vermillion Dawn, was the biggest, the most influential, the most knowledgeable.  He’d overheard two men talking in hushed tones insisting that she knew about every transaction that happened in the entirety of Gohhi.

However exaggerated that was, it surely meant they knew about him.  But not a word – from Vermillion Dawn or any of the other brokers.

He’d never heard of it being this hard to get in contact with one, which meant that this information was incredibly dear – and Hoc Rem’s backers were truly someone formidable.

It might also mean that someone knew who he was and was keeping him running around uselessly while they prepared.

Which might even be a trap.  There was a bounty on his head in some places on the fringe, and Gohhi probably harbored a lot of bounty hunters.  Though trying to take in an SU officer would cause a massive problem for Gohhi, so they heavily discouraged such attempts.

Could also be an attempt on his life, but he honestly didn’t see himself as that valuable in the scheme of things.

It could be either or both of those scenarios.  There might even be more than one interested party with different or converging agendas, he mused, frustrated that he honestly didn’t have any clues and was over-analyzing.

He’d actually gotten a drink this time, though he’d scanned it for any dangerous compounds and was sipping carefully.

A drone came over and he tensed, not expecting it.  It lowered over the table and dropped a white slip.

Setting down his drink and eyeing the cramped, sparse bar, he then unfolded the note.

They were coordinates on the station.  They didn’t lead to a bar or other business, or even a residence.  Just a corner junction in a station that didn’t even have gravity.

Leaving his drink, he left the bar, pulling himself on handholds until he was out.  Microgravity allowed the area to be packed with businesses, with storefronts on all surfaces.

Passing a pet store selling endangered rare fish from a dozen different worlds, he turned down one passage through a large tunnel that led between different streets.

Dodging a floating mass of cargo wrapped in netting and grabbing onto a railing, he hauled himself through.

Five minutes of travel brought him near the coordinates, though he did not yet approach.

Standing in a darkened cross-tunnel, he scanned the area.

This part of the station seemed at least partially-abandoned, a fate many stations in Gohhi underwent.

There was a terrible ecosystem here; a station was built, and over time it might take enough wear and tear that its quality degraded.  Investors only interested in quick money would abandon it in droves and it would decay.

Then squatters and the desperately poor would move in.

If they formed a community with any kind of legitimate culture of its own, the place could become a sort of Bohemian retreat from the cutthroat business in other stations.

Then, if the place was still worth it, someone might buy it and invest and develop it into something expensive, luring new dwellers on the perceived culture, only to drive out those very same people in the process.  The final product of detournement under a capitalist way of life, in a sense.

So far, the station did not seem to have even gotten to that second phase, if it ever would.

He saw no one, but there were structures all around.  All shuttered and dark.

In the middle, centered by pylons from all six walls, was a sculpture of children, floating together – feet touching, arms stretched out, hand in hand.  Around them was a sphere of hexagons, perhaps representing the station itself.

It was an interesting piece, he thought, and he found himself wondering who had lived here before its abandonment.

Checking the coordinates again, he saw they were very precise, showing him . . . a trash can.

It was on the ceiling relative to him, and he pushed off the nearest wall to approach the sculpture.

Inspecting the can as he approached, he saw that its vacuum, used to suck up trash without letting old pieces out, had long since been turned off.  It appeared to have been stripped of parts as well, leaving the device a mere shell.  But there were marks in the dust on it, showing that someone had opened the lid recently.

He got no signals that might suggest an explosive was inside, and reaching the statue, he pulled himself towards it by crawling over the sphere of hexagons.

Reaching the can, he carefully opened the lid.

There was nothing inside, and then an alarm was screaming in his ear.

He jerked his head and body back just as a rifle cracked, a bullet passed through the space where he’d just been.

His sensors had detected the muzzle pointed at him, and without even knowing where it was coming from he’d moved – only through sheer dumb luck had he moved in the right direction.

His system had triangulated the position of the shooter, but he’d lost his grip on the sphere.

Hooking his foot, he tried to pull himself away, but there was no cover here, and he was moving in a predictable arc, the next shot would be easy-

A swarm of drones buzzed around him.  Another shot rang out, and a drone burst apart as it took the bullet for him, showering him with debris.

Throwing his arm up to protect his face, he pulled his sidearm and prepared to aim, but he stood no chance against a swarm of drones, even if there hadn’t been a shooter.

But as he uncovered his eyes he saw that the drones were not here for him.

Rather than swarming him, they were moving between him and the shooter.

More shots popped off, but from the drones rather than his attacker.

They were suppressing a window with broken slats, and one crashed in through it, with flashes of light following.

It seemed that he had friends.

Grabbing back onto the hexagon sphere, he looked at the handful of drones that had stayed with him.  They had cameras focused on him.  His benefactor was clearly curious.

“Thank you,” he said.  “Who are you?”

They scattered, flying in all directions, save for a single drone – one with a line of gold on it.  The buffed metal strip was flawless, and it hesitated a moment longer before slowly moving away.

Looking to the window, he saw that the drones were flying back out, scattering and going off with haste through other windows, doors, tunnels, even vents.

But the gold-striped drone was still moving slowly, its camera trained on him.

Well, then.

He pushed off the sphere towards it.

“Lead the way,” he said.

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