The first time I met Fred Luo, we were both about fourteen or so.
Gene followed closely behind Fred as they plowed through the narrow walkways and overpasses that made up the "ground" level of Red Rush Station. The boy was certainly an enigma, especially considering they had only met about twenty minutes ago, and as annoying as he was, Gene couldn't help but start to like him. He shared in the smaller boy's aggravation at the lack of company their own age, and while he had been content to just sit and poke at his video game, the little excursion was going to be a pleasant change of pace. It helped that he was getting free candy out of the whole deal. Really, how often did a rich stranger just show up at your door and offer to buy you things you couldn't afford in a year, just out of boredom?
As they walked, Gene's eyes alternated between his left and his right, staring in awe at all the huge buildings and other expensive things that surrounded the two of them. Though he and his father had passed through Red Rush once or twice before, it had never been for an overnight stay; they were usually too short on money for something like that. Real green plants sprouted up from pots at the front of almost every building. Massive hotels and conference centers stretched up almost to the domed barrier protecting the station from the vacuum of space. An old lady passed them by walking a dog, and even the ugly terrier's collar was encrusted in more jewels than Gene had ever seen before.
It was almost embarrassing to be seen with Fred, who sashayed nonchalantly down the walk with his eyes straight ahead. "God, I hate this place."
Gene scowled. "You got no reason to. The only reason someone would hate this place is if they couldn't afford anything." He paused for emphasis as they rounded a corner. "I hate this place."
"It's so oppressive!" Fred insisted, throwing up his right hand casually. "We're out here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by giant swirling balls of gas and trapped inside a little puny bubble filled with artificial air. Explain to me what's so interesting about it."
"Is that really what you think about space?" Gene demanded. He couldn't believe it. "Space is full of possibilities. Hell, I can't even imagine fifteen hundred years ago when everyone was stuck on one planet. There must not have been any jobs or even space to move."
"That's why they call it survival of the fittest," Fred said. "Back in those days, everyone was also healthier. With all of these new space-diseases, mental disorders caused by the giant blackness, et cetera, the life expectancy is decreasing and more people are choosing to stay on the ground, regardless of the crowding."
Gene shook his head adamantly. "Space is freedom. It's the final frontier."
"Well, you'll have your opinion and I'll have mine," Fred said with a sigh, turning to walk backward, face to face with Gene. "I'd rather be planet-side any day. The air tastes better. Now come on, we're almost there."
Sure enough, the sweets shop loomed up in front of them, glass windows allowing pleasing glimpses of iced fruits, fanciful chocolate creations, and C'tarl sugarfish. Making a mental note to avoid that last one, Gene followed Fred in, blue-black eyes wide and whirling as he tried to look at everything at once.
"Why, Master Luo, I was wondering how long it would take to receive another visit from you." The shopkeeper addressed Fred with a smile and he replied with a fake one, but Gene was not paying attention to their conversation. Slowly, for fear of breaking something, the redhead strode around the room, weaving in between glass display cases and picking out all the things he would eat if he someday won a huge sweepstakes and had wong out the ears, or something. There were chocolates of every shape, size, and variety, including some crafted into the shapes of specific animals or space vessels. There was a giant orb of blown sugar with a ribbon of toffee suspended around it to simulate some ringed planet, Saturn was his guess.
Along the entirety of one wall there were bottles labeled "Zeniff," which was apparently an expensive designer soft drink. The flavors ranged from apple-berry to yellow butterwhiskey, and each came in an artfully carved crystal bottle. A six-pack of any one flavor was eight hundred wong; for customized combinations, it cost extra by the number of different flavors. Though the prices were outrageous, Gene's gaze kept gravitating to the citrus-cola flavor. It was a striking shade of green and sounded very appealing.
At the center of the room, a delicately, beautifully crafted red rose sat in a domed case all to itself; the label said it was constructed out of pure caramelized plant matter and could actually still perform photosynthesis, though not enough to allow the flower to grow. It cost an insane amount of money, and Gene gave a long, low whistle. Who came up with this stuff?
He fell back into Fred's conversation just soon enough to hear the clerk ask, "So who's your little friend?"
"His name is Gene. We just met each other, actually, but he was quick to take me up on the offer of some of your chocolate-covered cherries." His gaze left the woman to look Gene sidelong in the eye. Gene scowled back.
"Oh, anything for you, sir," she said, and at once she was darting into the back room to procure an ornately patterned cardboard box with a red ribbon tied around its center.
"Gee, way to make me sound like an ingrate," Gene muttered.
"Well, in my defense, you haven't once said 'thank you.'"
Gene affected the shopkeeper's voice, quite well in fact. "Oh, thank you, Master Fred, for treating me to some overly priced chocolate just to entertain yourself."
"Oh, don't be like that. I was only joking."
"Relax, relax, Fred. So was I."
"You know the price!" the woman reminded him as she bustled back in, and Gene was once again inclined to stare in wonder as the register rang up five hundred wong and Fred casually swiped his card through the indicated slot. "Well, I hope you come back soon."
"Don't count on it; you know my father's schedule."
"Oh, true, true."
Fred walked briskly past Gene, bumping into him a little and startling him out of his reverie. He jumped a bit and blinked once or twice before following Fred out of the shop, across the way to a small park with benches convenient for eating chocolate.
"That woman is so nosy," Fred said as soon as they had sat down, snapping the ribbon off the box and opening it to reveal ten of the promised sweets. "At least she likes me enough to give me a discount."
Gene gawped. "You mean those things usually cost more money?"
"Well, they've got to get the cherries imported, you know? A box of ten is usually six-fifty." He lifted one from the packaging and popped it into his mouth, a pleased smirk drifting lazily across his face as the flavor was released. "My dad thinks it's too decadent to spend that much on chocolate, but I have a weakness for cherries." He flashed Gene a wink.
"This must be some damn good candy," was all Gene could come up with. He reached nervously into the box and pulled one out, slipping it between his lips slowly, making sure he didn't lose any of the taste.
"Oh for heaven's sakes, it isn't poisonous!" Fred laughed.
"I just want to be careful."
Fred gave him a look that Gene wasn't sure he liked. "What are you doing here, exactly?"
Gene looked down at the ground, unsure of how to answer the question without making himself seem like a ridiculous poor person. "Well, it's the same sorta thing as you, right? We're here with our dads, about work."
"I…guess so…" Fred allowed.
Gene continued. "My dad's a transporter. His ship's really well insured and also really durable; it can take just about any kinda beatin', you know? So for the folks with really fancy stuff that can't afford to get damaged, he's the ideal guy. This place is a trap for business with him." He laughed a little. "Hell, for all I know, we might end up leaving here with twenty crates full of thousand-wong chocolates. You never know."
Fred worried his lower lip between his teeth. "That kind of work seems terribly unstable."
"It's enough to get by."
An electronic clock chime rang out in the distance and Fred suddenly shot up, nearly knocking the box of cherries from the bench between them. Gene reached out with quick reflexes just in time to keep them from spilling all over the ground. "Oh, shit. What time is it, you wonder?"
Gene hesitated, waiting for the clock to finish ringing. "Twelve-thirty, sounds like."
"Crap crap crap! I'm supposed to be ready with my dad for this god-awful meeting at one fifteen!" He glanced around, finding his bearings, and then took off running off to the bench's left. "See you some other time, Gene! Sorry to ditch you!"
"What about the cherries?" Gene called after him.
"Keep them! My treat!"
And before Gene could protest, Fred had darted around the corner of a building and vanished.
---
He was a weird kid, but he got me to thinking about stuff, that's for sure.
It took Gene about an hour to find his way back to their hotel room without Fred for a guide around the unfamiliar station. The box with the candy was secured tightly under his arm, almost in a protective manner. He had only eaten one more, determined to save the rest, possibly to share with his dad, or with Fred if he saw him again the next day. He realized they'd given each other no way to keep in touch; neither had offered up a phone number or even the place where they really lived. Of course, Fred wouldn't be that hard to find, what with his family name slapped up on so many corporations everywhere…
Gene realized suddenly that despite Fred's innate haughtiness and superiority, he did still want to keep in touch with him after this. It wasn't just the gift of the chocolate, though that certainly went a long way, but it was the other traits Fred exhibited – his seemingly uncharacteristic cynicism of all things high-class, the nature of his sense of humor, and the casual way he just breezed through things that made Gene himself a twinge uncomfortable. As he laid on his back in the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, Gene discovered that he had in Fred in half an hour what he had never had in anyone else the majority of his life: a legitimate friend.
With his father's job, they were hardly ever even in the same system from one week to the next. The two of them had to go where the money was, and sometimes the money wasn't anywhere. As skilled and capable as his father was, his job offered a lot of competition, and often they were out in extreme corners of the galaxy, taking jobs that no one else could do – or that no one else would do. Since his mother had left them for whomever that scumbag was, Gene and his father were making it on their own. They didn't need anyone else. And yet here was an extraordinarily unique opportunity: a friend whose name was everywhere, whose family owned bits and pieces of tons of systems. Conceivably, Gene would always be somewhere where he could contact Fred. He could feasibly reach him through any of the places the Luos owned – and then he'd have a partner, so to speak, a business ally who could offer him loans, to be repaid by…whatever he could do. A valuable asset in the form of an actual friend.
He spent part of the afternoon puzzling over the oddity that was Fred Luo before turning back to his video game and eating the rest of the chocolates himself.
---
Even so, by the end of that weekend, I was worried – worried – that I'd never see him again.
Gene was sprawled out on his stomach, aimlessly shooting away at digital robot monsters, when his father came back into the room that evening.
"Hey, kiddo," he said, crossing from the door to ruffle Gene's hair. The redhead scowled; he hated that.
"Hi," he said by way of response.
"Have you been sitting here playing that game all day?"
"No, I went out for a walk a little. There's another kid my age around here somewhere so we kinda goofed off around lunch time, and then I came back."
"Oh well that's great, son," his dad answered with a smile. "It's nice to see you making friends. I worry about you sometimes, you know?"
"Well, we move around a lot," Gene grumbled. "How do I even know when I'll see any of my 'friends' again?"
"You know I can't help that, kiddo," said his father. "We have to do what we have to do, Gene. Especially when it means I get extremely high-paying jobs!"
Gene shot up. "No way!"
His father was flashing him a large grin. "You bet! There's a company here that makes insanely fragile and crazy expensive parts for cybernetic prosthetics, and they've just had a meeting to confirm that they're sending a giant shipment off to Heiphong III to conclude a business deal. I just happened to be in the area when they were looking for trucker-pilots, offered them my spiel, and they were all over it."
"Dad, that's great!" Gene had turned off his game by now, not even bothering to save it, and was sitting up on the edge of the bed with wide, excited eyes.
"It's quite lucrative, but it's also pretty risky, Gene," he admitted. "Apparently, there's a band of outlaws haunting the space between Heiphong III and Heiphong IV, which we'd have to pass through to get from here to there. According to the man who signed me on, they're part of a rebel movement that wants such parts to be more affordable so that they can get out to a wider range of people."
"Doesn't work like that though, does it?" Gene said. "Those things cost lots of money to make."
"They do, and I feel sorry for the people who can't afford them, but there's nothing do be done. So, part of our contract involves protecting the goods as well as transporting them. We've got to make it through alive."
Gene thought it over, a little worried, but resigned himself to the danger and flashed a cheeky grin. "Well, sounds like an adventure, don't you think, Dad?"
His father smiled, but there was something a little sad about it. "Sure thing, kiddo. An adventure, just for you and me. Together, we can make it through anything. And someday we'll have enough money to settle someplace, and we can get a real house, and you can make some real friends."
"Yeah, Dad," Gene said. "…Real friends."
---
As soon as my dad got the advance payment for the trip, I wired two hundred and fifty wong to Fred's account. Four of the cherries I had eaten were really his.
AN: Omg, y'all, it wasn't a millennium; it was, in fact, a little less than a month and a half. This chapter was supposed to be more from Gene's perspective like the first was from Fred's, but Gene's voice is harder to write from! Hopefully I accomplished what I was trying to do. Gahhhh…
Thanks a bunch to all three of my reviewers! It's nice to see that this series – and this pairing – still has support.