Hard Lines 1.2

An uneasy calm and concerns about cover

Feeling sheepish and still stained with flecks of David's blood, I emerge from the toilet back into Cabin C, revealed as an ambient world of low-lit strips and slate-blue upholstery. Ghostly reflections of passengers in their seats fill the blacked-out windows as I carefully mind my steps and try not to bump into anyone.

These other passengers—fellow new Ironforge inductees just like me—fill three seated rows on each side of the gangway.

And they're a scary-looking lot in the main—men and women from across Earth and Sol's Confederate, and some from the more notorious asteroids just outside it. From what I can tell by reading the annotated menus that fade in and out near their faces, most of these people seem to be travelling here on some sort of remand scheme. Which tells me where the city controllers are getting their human resources.

Triangular powder-blue icons are rare and indicate who is here on official business. Yellow circles, meanwhile, show the small number of passengers recruited on the open market. In contrast, a blood-red square shows those passengers still carrying unspent days of a jail term.

But all these new recruits have seen the adverts and signed the forms, and now they're nearly free of the Confederate. All they need to do to start their new life on Utaya is get to Ironforge and have their blood-red status rescinded.

At least, that is what they've been led to believe.

During our long flight from Utaya's orbit, I've had time to study their faces. I've also taken the trouble to read the notes of their recorded crimes.

Paid assassins sit next to hacktivists. Men and women who were once drug traffickers or involved in illegal nano-dosing rub shoulders with tweakers who - now they're fully awake after stasis - are visibly glitching for their next fix. Meanwhile, former mercenaries slouch next to genetically hacked prostitutes of every sex and gender. And who all seem to have been physically augmented in some way to satisfy the proclivities of their chosen niche or market.

What unites all these passengers is that they have some skill or trade that the city needs. They could be injectors, data analysts, feed splicers, or rig technicians. After all, in a city like Ironforge, trained service personnel with maintenance skills are always wanted. Not to mention entertainment staff, chefs, musicians, and, of course, there's always trade for hairdressers.

There are no journalists, though. Not that I can see.

A fact that almost speaks for itself.

The overhead lights flicker, creating a weak strobe that alternates between low light and shadow. At the same time, the blacked-out filaments beyond the glass make us feel we're in an underground tunnel, even though I understand from the local weather report that it's daylight and raining heavily outside.

I keep telling myself to look natural. But that's hard, too. My face looks and feels ridiculous - I can't stop pawing it - and I can't recall anything other than that I'm a freelance journalist working extremely deep cover.

And that may be part of the plan. Some kind of memory delay?

That's cute, but the fact is that these goons use neural scanners; I need to focus on Tilo Mladic and get a feel for who I'm supposed to be.

Information abhors a vacuum, after all, and will soon seek to use theories instead of facts.

But despite my best efforts, it feels like the rest of my memories are being kept behind an impenetrable wall or partition—deliberately, perhaps—all while I am left with flashbacks of David being murdered next to me in orbit.

As for my fellow passengers, they all saw David's brain spray out through a hole in his left temple. If they seemed bothered then, they're unaffected now, most of them watching immersive films on their headface overlays in a state of slack-jawed paralysis. And so, there's no sense of condolence or support. Walking back to my seat is like casting my eyes over the fresh intake in a morgue. Only their twitching fingers indicate they're still alive, quietly entertaining themselves behind their vapid, greyed-out lenses.

Those not on their headfaces are frowning. At me, more specifically. Maybe it's because of the dried blood on my overalls. Or perhaps they simply don't like my fact. It's difficult to tell. Either way, I'm attracting attention.

It's unwanted. And precisely what I don't need.

Quickly, I take my seat. Try to relax and regulate my breathing. But after a few minutes, I notice some of the same surrounding passengers are staring at my hands.

On closer re-inspection, I can see why.

They're porcelain white in colour. And so elegant and delicate - like they belong in a commercial for frothy hand soap.

It's odd. Along with my choirboy's face, I look jarring and out of place as we head towards the most infamous labour camps in the known universe.

If I'm meant to pass through the city as an undercover journalist undetected, surely equipping Tilo Mladic with the gnarled hands of a grifter would have made more sense?

Of course, memories of any mission-prep elude me, so it's hard to be sure of anything. But when I think about this mission, a horrible feeling in my gut tells me something has gone terribly wrong in the execution.