Terra-33 Ep. 03

Her eyes were shockingly green, much brighter than her previous gray, and her hair was an auburn shade now. She had analyzed the majority of the registered female citizens of New Bernburg the day before, settling on these as the best colors. Her skin was much paler too, matching better with Remi and Trix's natural shading. Most of the colony was white so far, the majority coming from the northwestern United States, England and Germany. Ada's dark skin had been a bit of a rarity so far among the colony peoples. Remi thought it interesting that people still stuck to their own race usually, even with the world becoming more open to the melting pot scenario of the US in the early 21^st century. With the globalization of business, transit and communications on Earth, the world had adopted English and grudgingly agreed to be governed primarily by a body of elected officials from all first-world nations. Similar in structure to the old United Nations, the Unified Earth Confederation mostly just bickered over laws and directives, and were ignored by most of the colonists and Earth governments alike. They might eventually try to create a stronger presence, but for now, the local government was the only government.

Ida's body was still lush and curvy though, and firm in all the right places, as Trix had vocally attested to after groping her the day before. She was naked once again, insisting on sleeping that way and apparently not realizing the effect it had on both of the humans. Trix and Remi watched her lasciviously as she walked to the bathroom, unaffected by their gazes. They began packing again as soon as the door shut behind her and Remi rushed to his bedroom, slipping on the same clothes he had worn the day before. He put the Stunna-50k into his right rear pocket though, not trusting that he would be able to elude the authorities again. He wasn't ready to get forcefully taken in for questioning and would resist if the investigators came for him. No one in the city was allowed to carry lethal weapons, including the very small internal police force. The stun gun put him on equal footing with them. Probably greater honestly, they won't have my combat experience, he thought, shoving his feet into heavy work boots.

"Grab some clothes, Remi!" Trix shouted from the living room. "You have a bag?"

"Yeah, I'll throw some clothes together."

Ida stuck her head in and looked at him questioningly.

"We're fugitives, officially," he responded to the unspoken question.

Instead of replying, she nodded and began throwing her clothes on with efficient speed.

"Let's gooo," Trix said, standing in his bedroom doorway tapping her foot.

They followed her out, Remi locking the apartment door behind them. Trix was hammering on her phone as they walked down the stairs. When they gained the street, a cab was just pulling up. Trix winked and handed her bag to Remi, who threw both into the open trunk and joined the girls in the backseat. Trix had already given the driver the address, and the cab zoomed off as soon as Remi sat down. He buckled in as the taxi careened around a right turn, throwing him into the window.

"Did you pay him extra to drive like a psychopath?"

"You don't need to pay extra for that," the driver said over his shoulder, grinning back at Remi for what seemed like an inordinately long amount of time since he was commanding their fast-moving vehicle.

"Good to know..."

Trix gripped his knee and when Remi looked over, she was also gripping Ida's. Her head bounced back and forth between them, eyes alight with glee.

"This is so exciting!"

"Are you coming with us?" Remi asked.

"Of course," she deadpanned.

"What about your job?"

"Ha! Fuck that, I would rather do something interesting anyway."

"We welcome your assistance, Mistress Trix," Ida chipped in.

"Yeah you do!"

"So, what did you do at Harris Poly anyway?" Remi asked. Now that he had been reminded of the subject, he was curious.

"Meh, just filing reports for the Unified Earth Confederation. Oh, and reading directives, boring stuff," her tone suggested that the UEC was a massive joke to her. Remi wondered if that was why she had been able to keep her online presence so scrubbed.

"They won't come looking for you?"

"The UEC? Psh! They won't even know I'm not doing my job for months."

"What about Harris Polytronics?" Ida asked.

"Who cares?"

"Should we maybe talk about this later though?" Remi asked, eyeballing the driver, who seemed to be paying as much attention to them as to the traffic in the road.

"Maybe, how much does it cost to keep your mouth shut?" Trix asked, her eyes locked onto the rearview mirror.

"Um, 50 credits?"

"Hmm, that's a hard bargain..." Trix said, gripping her chin with her fingers.

"Well that's my price!" he exclaimed.

"I'll have to consult with my colleagues," she responded, winking at Remi.

"What are we going to do, about that?" Remi whispered, pointing to Trix's phone. "We need to get out of the city for a while, or they'll definitely arrest me and grab Ida."

"Yeah, hold on," Trix paused, looking back at the driver. "We've decided 50 credits is a lot... but we're willing to part with it if you don't tell anyone where or who you drove just now."

The driver beamed with a smug expression, "Will do, missy!"

"Ok, so. You mentioned Trajectory^Up the other night," Trix began, to raised eyebrows from Remi. "I'm willing to sign up for the hardcore contract, if Ida is too."

"High-risk," he corrected absently, mulling over the possibilities. "There will be a lot of money in it... But we could die, for real death. Are you ready to risk that?"

"No risk, no reward!"

"Trix, it's different, trust me. When you're there, under fire and you know it's the real thing, it's so different than the Game..." he trailed off, seeing something in her eyes under the bravado.

Ida, who had been suspiciously quiet, spoke up now, "I have no combat experience."

"And there's that," Remi added.

"We can train her, hell, it would be fun! You're a Founder Remi, you know they'll take you and anyone else you vouch for."

"No one has called me that in a while," Remi said quietly, staring at the back of the seat in front of him. He hadn't realized that Trix knew that much about his past, but it made sense for her to have checked up on him.

"Was that bad? Sorry," she said quickly.

"No, no. Trix, it's fine," he patted her thigh to reassure her, hating the concerned look she gave him. "It just brings up memories is all. I'm proud that I was a Founder, but 1900 other Founders died before we finally got support. That was high-risk, but no one could have known it. The slumps were so well camouflaged that none of the surface scans picked up anything. When we found them with our constructs..."

"What happened then?" Ida asked, "I've read the reports but none were from Founders."

"We died, so many constructs, then people. We fought for over a week, falling back on our reserve ammo, scrambling around in ruined buildings. It was hellish. I killed so many of them, but they just kept coming, burping mortars at us and ripping people apart with those arm blades."

"Then Immortal Seed showed up with reinforcements," Ida finished for him.

"Yeah, they saved us, their gamers dropped down in constructs and we overwhelmed the slumpers and pushed them back. They had some heavier, stationary guns, so we were able to secure the drop zone. Eventually, it became New Bernburg."

"Not to change the subject completely, but..." Trix started.