Chapter 28

City of Dublin, Ireland
Earth Alliance

"You owe me ten credits." Francis O'Leary beamed at his friend Dermot. "You should've known better!"
Dermot reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coloured coin, dropping it on the desk. "Don't you ever get sick of yourself?"
"Grapes a little on the sour side?" Francis teased. "Come on, the Earth stock exchange was easy!"
The two young men were sat in a small café in one of Dublins ancient streets nestled amid the relatively calm metropolis. The café had been born centuries ago as an old internet venue where people could surf the world wide web without needing a home computer, as technology evolved so too did this establishment now offering the latest communications systems and access to the galaxy net, successor to the world wide web. They were in a corner of the room and at this time of day there were only five other patrons all well spread out.
"Fine, maybe I'm a little slow for thinking that the stock exchange central computer would have provided a hard challenge to hack into." Dermot grumbled. "You're only showing off because that girl keeps looking at you."
"That is not true!" he answered quickly, annoyed his friend had spotted the truth. "I just think a fool and his money should always be parted."
He quickly closed down his connection, he had no desire to actually do anything with his access to the stock exchange, he wasn't some anarchist or malicious hacker wanting to bring down society, it was just the thrill and the challenge of proving that he actually could beat the defences. And more than a little of it was to impress the young raven haired woman two screens away. While he was obviously trying to play it cool he kept throwing glances her way and noticed that with increasing regularity she would look over to him. It had brought out the show off in him.
"Don't look." Dermot whispered. "But she's on her way over."
Francis froze solid, acutely aware that his body temperature just shot up ten degrees. His head was held rigidly pointing at the screen and keyboard and he did nothing until the young woman spoke.
"Hi there." She said with a smile.
"Oh hey," Francis looked up at her, praying he wasn't flushed pink. "How are you?"
"Pretty good." She answered, he couldn't quite place her accent but it wasn't local. "I just caught a look at your screen and wondered what you were doing?"
"What him?" Dermot cut in. "Nothing."
"Because it looked you were slicing into a major commercial computer system." The young lady said. Again Francis froze, managing a thin smile. "Which is pretty cool." The very attractive girl smiled, and Francis actually exhaled in relief.
"Oh well yeah it is." He chuckled. "I thought you were the police for a second!"
"Ah come on." She said mischieviously. "You ever seen a police officer this good looking?"
Francis had absolutely nothing in his seventeen year experience which could even start to answer that. "No." he managed weakly.
"So you looked like you got in pretty easy." She pulled up a chair beside him, a slight floral scent accompanied her which Francis guessed was perfume. She looked a little older than him, possible a university student from a different city. It would explain the accent. "How did you do it?"
"Ahh, that's the secret." Dermot said. "He won't even tell me how he…"
"It's all in this box." Francis blurted. "Just here." He pointed to an assuming black plastic box attached to the side of his terminal.
"Five years and you never told me that!" Dermot fumed, shooting a harsh glance at the pretty girl. "Doesn't take much to turn your head! Stupid hormones."
"What does it do?" the girl asked oblivious to Dermot's comment.
"Everything, first of all it prevents this line being traced." Francis said with enthusiasm. "Secondly it tells me exactly what sort of encription pattern the target system uses, and that in turn allows me to predict how the code will change and slip in."
"So the box doesn't do all the work?" she said. "You're still the one who finally breaks in?"
"That's right." He smiled. "It's a gift, my tutors don't know I do this but they know I have a natural talent for numbers. Figure it'll make me a lot of money one day."
"Especially if you hack into a bank and give yourself a million credits." The girl suggested.
"Oh no, no I can't do that." Francis shook his head. "Well I could, but I won't. That money belongs to someone and I'm no thief, I just like to know that I can."
The girl looked at him for a little while. "My name is Jennifer."
"Francis." He smiled to her. "You're not from around here?"
"Just passing through." She smiled. "So you like a challenge?"
"Very much."
"What's the most secure system you've beaten?" she asked.
"Hmmm." Francis thought for a while. "Probably the Earth Alliance Treasury department, where they keep all the tax records."
"That's pretty serious." Jennifer nodded. "I read the best protected system is the EIA central computer."
"No kidding!" Francis chortled. "Completely unbeatable. They have a totally isolated data core, you can't hack in because you would have to be actually in the same room as it to try."
"Wow, guess that is secure." She raised an eyebrow. "What about the military?"
"Much the same from what I've read. Planetary defence grid, fleet order system, battle net." He listed off the main use of computer controls. "Even the datalinks between warships are only on for a fraction of a second at a time, just long enough to receive burst orders."
"But what about non frontline systems?" she asked. "Like payroll, or personnel files?"
Francis paused. "Well, maybe."
"Frank, I wouldn't." Dermot said. "The military have better computers than the stock exchange, they might beat the box."
"They can't beat the box." Francis scoffed. "You want to see inside the Earth force main net?" he asked Jennifer.
"Yeah, I really do." She flashed a dazzling smile. "But only if you can do it."
"No problem." He began typing quickly. "lets see what we're up against."
"Look Frank, this is a mistake, you shouldn't mess with the military." Dermot persisted. "You heard about that guy in Canada?"
"What guy?" Jennifer wondered.
"He tried to crack the Earth force system, apparently he actually managed it and got into everything, fleet deployments, budget, he even had access to the satellite defence grid."
"Come on Dom, you now that's crap." Francis was typing with hectic speed and total concentration. "It's impossible."
"Yeah well this guy supposedly did it." Dermot continued. "Anyway he's real happy with himself, then BOOM!" he clapped his hands, not noticing that the sudden noise which startled most people didn't even cause Jennifer to blink. "His house gets wiped out. Officially a prototype cruise missile malfunctioned and accidently struck his house, but we all know that when the government found its system hacked they took measures to silence this guy."
"Wow." Jennifer said in awe. "And you got proof for this?"
"Proof?" Dermot frowned.
"Yeah you know, the stuff that makes the difference between factual stories and bull?"
"Well, I mean the government covered it up." Dermot said hastily.
"How do you cover up a fifty foot hole in the ground?" Jennifer giggled. "You'r emaking this up!"
"I am not!" Dermot said defensively. "Right now the orbital defence grid is locking on, I can see tomorrows headline, 'Poor students killed in accidental satellite misfire.' Mark my words."
"You're so full of crap some times!" Francis grinned. "Hey, there we go." The screen was suddenly filled with rotating rows of numbers. "That's the code."
"That looks really complicated." Jennifer squinted.
"Oh it is, but it all follows a pattern. All I have to do is spot the pattern and jump ahead." He stared intensely at the screen for a minute, though it could have been an eternity for the people watching. Then he rapidly typed in a sequence of numbers then pressed enter. An instant later the numbers disappeared and a basic interface was revealed. "Voila."
"This is it?" Jennifer said with a smile. "Earth force central index?"
"Yep, but only the second line functions." Francis explained. "The actual military systems are beyond hackable."
"That satellite is firing." Dermot grumbled.
"Whu don't you go get us all a coffee?" Francis suggested. "Go on, here." He handed back the ten credits. "That should just cover three Coffees."
The friend grunted then got up and went for the bar. Jennifer smiled and nodded at the screen. "That's real impressive."
"Thanks." Francis smiled impossibly wide. "What do you want to look at?"
"They can't trace us?"
"They won't even know we're here." He said confidently.
"Cool, let's look at personnel records." She said. "Like a general."
With a few taps of the keyboard he entered the records storage and came up with a vast alphabetical list of every member of Earth force. "Damn that's a big list."
"Lots of little soldiers out there." The girl stated. "Can I pick one?"
"Sure, go ahead." Francis leaned back. "What do you fancy?" he hinted subtley.
She leaned past him to get closer to the screen, moving much closer to him and near enough s they were almost touching. This was turning into a very entertaining day. "That one." She clicked a link.
"I see this soldier shares your first name." Francis remarked as the file opened. "Want to see a picture?"
"Yeah." Jennifer leaned back again. "I really think you should open the picture."
"Alright then." He found the control and opened it. "Well then Commander Jennifer Sakai, what do you look like?"
The image of a young raven haired woman blinked up on screen, it could have been a mirror reflection of the girl sat next to him. "Wow, you two really look alike, is she a relation or…" finally his brain got the message. "Oh hell no."
"Oh hell yes." The girl beside him said.
"This isn't happening."
"I think the word you are looking for is 'Busted.'"
Francis had no idea what to say, so just dropped his head on the desk. His parents were going to kill him.

Brakir
Homeworld of the Brakiri

Paul Calendar watched hyperspace morphing around the small convoy through the windows of the observation deck. Most Earth built warships didn't have windows and their hulls tended to be just pure slabs of armour, though some of the older designs still had the occaisional viewing port to give the crew something to look at besides bulk heads. Still the ship he was on right now wouldn't strictly be considered a ship of war by most people in the Earth Alliance military and so one or two windows didn't matter all that much.
"We're coming up on the gate." The voice belonging to Leo Vinetti announced. "Turned out okay didn't it?"
Paul shrugged in answer. The trip had been uneventful, not even raiders had taken a chance on them even though a shipment of weapons would be a hugely tempting target. Of course none of that surprised Paul, he knew the real danger and consequently the reason for his exorbitant fee would emerge when they dropped into League space proper and entered Brakiri orbit.
"We'll need a couple of hours to unload, then we can head back for Earth." Vinetti continued. "A cake run, all these ships provided good insurance."
Which again was only true so far. Twelve well armed Belt Alliance escort ships would make raiders and small militaries back off, but if they ran into the Dilgar it would still be a lot like shooting fish in a barrel. Paul still wasn't sure why he'd picked this assignment in the first place. Both Jors and Toby had initially been slightly in favour of coming with him, but the risks had proven too great and they had decided to stay home and work on the still damaged Space Race. Paul didn't blame them, but when they tried to convince him to also stay he refused siting the contract was too good to tun down. It was certainly a good contract, but perhaps not as good as he'd prefer to believe.
"Well I guess we're being paid for the job huh?" Paul said with a glance. "Maybe I was wrong."
"Easy money." Vinetti grinned, then held onto a nearby cord as the ship began the transition from hyperspace. The tunnel opened up in front of the Belt Alliance convoy with the distant orb of Brakir itself just visible in the distance. The first thing Paul noticed was a huge build up of traffic on the far side of the gate, the convoy had to take a sudden turn to avoid running into an ungainly looking transport ship.
Vinetti swore loudly as the ship turned sharply. "Haven't they heard of traffic control!"
Paul was forcibly trying not to laugh, not out of amusement but because that was the only reaction his shortwiring brain could manage. "Here we go again."
"Huh?" Vinetti frowned.
"Refugees Mr Vinetti." Paul said with enthusiasm. "Refugees. They won't really care about traffic control, just running away."
"Refugees? From where?"
"Yes Mr Vinetti, for the third time, Refugees." Paul spoke as if to a child. "My guess is they're fleeing something big, wanna put some money on what that could be?"
Vinetti's eyes grew wider as he put all the pieces in place. "An invasion?"
"Bingo." Paul smiled. "Now I suggest we get the hell out of here."
"Yeah…" Vinetti said absently, his words separate from his thoughts. He wasn't a telepath but Paul guessed Vinetti's head was filled with Dilgar battleships "I better get up to the bridge and see what's happening."
"Yeah, you go do that." Paul encouraged. "And then we should really run away, you don't want to meet the Dilgar."
"Right, yeah." Vinetti was still distracted. "I'll be back."
Paul returned his attention to the window as the businessman left. The scene was becoming depressingly familiar as the gunship he was on slid into orbit alongside the convoy it was escorting, just another two dozen vessels amid what seemed like thousands. He was able to spot a few warships in the distance but most vessels seemed civilian in nature and all were loading up with shuttles from the planet. Utriel, Ssumssha, Tirrith and now Brakir, all planets gripped in panic and full of people trying to run from the coming maelstrom. Most of them didn't have a chance of escape and looking at how sparse the defences were they didn't have much chance of survival either. He felt pity for them, but mostly he felt an empty darkness growing inside at the thought of the Dilgar heading this way. It was an intense and primal sensation.
"Paul?" a communication panel on a nearby wall buzzed to life. "You still there?"
"Still here Mr Vinetti."
"Its true, planetary aerospace control just told us their colonies fell this morning. The Dilgar are heading this way."
"Of course they are." He grumbled. "Couldn't wait just five hours could they?"
"I asked what they were doing and the guy was a little coy." Vinetti continued. "I think their ships took a real pasting. They aren't going to have much left to stop the Dilgar conquering this place."
Which left the Brakiri with two fates, either the Dilgar would enslave them like they did at Tirrith, or exterminate them like they did at Utriel. Not much of a choice. "There isn't a whole lot we can do." Paul said. "Maybe offer to take some refugees back on our transports?"
"Sounds fair, I mean it's the least we can do right?" Vinetti replied. "I'll arrange for the drop then we can get out of here."
The transmission ended, and Paul returned to observing the scene outside. It was chaos, and compared to the ordered nature of the Abbai planetary defences seemed to be a real bad portent. The Brakiri were going to have a rough time coming up.

Three hours later Paul was floating into the command room of the gunship, one of the Vindicator class it was roughly equal to a light cruiser in terms of firepower and protection, something which the more reactionary Earth Alliance senators had suffered a small fit over. The Earth Force joint chiefs were however less concerned, even the biggest Belt Alliance escorts were still no match for a dedicated Naval ship and they were happy to let the BA run its own escorts, saved the military having to put its own ships on escort duty. The small bridge was focused on Mr Vinetti and the vessels commander hovering by a communication terminal.
"You wanted me?"
"Hey Paul, we got a little trouble." Vinetti waved him over. "I thought with you being the League expert you could help."
Paul made his way forward and hooked his boots into a fabric stirrup on the floor, like all human ships the gunship was lacking in gravity. Only Earth Force one and a very small number of incredibly expensive space liners used rotational sections as part of their hulls to simulate gravity, as a rule most humans just learned to live with weightlessness and for veteran freight runners or warship crew zero G became like second nature. Captain Grozny made space for him and Paul was greeted by the annoyed and very stressed looking face of a Brakiri military officer on the view screen attached to the communication console.
"What's the problem?" he asked Vinetti.
"This guy won't give us clearence to leave."
Paul turned to the screen and put on a genial expression. "Brakiri control, this is Belt Alliance ship Guardian requesting permission to exit the jump gate."
"And as I told your colleague, it is denied." The officer returned angrily.
"It might not be wise to hold us here!" Vinetti chipped in.
"Please boss, let me handle it." Paul edged him back, the man was clearly anxious not to be here when the Dilgar arrived. "We're a neutral party, if you are holding us here without good reason it will sour relations with the Earth Alliance."
"Perhaps." The officer said dismissively.
"Well considering we just brought you enough guns to take over a planet I'd say human friendship is quite useful to you, especially now you're in a war and you'll be wanting more and more weapons."
"We appreciate the assault rifles, but they won't stop a planetary bombardment." The officer spat. "Now if Earth had sold us Warships like we asked…"
"Hold on there," Paul cut in. "We don't make policy, we aren't part of the government. We just want to head on home now we've risked our butts bringing you guns."
"Yes, how very noble of you to risk your lives for the huge amount of money my superiors are paying you."
Paul grimaced, so much for the moral high ground. "This isn't our war."
"No, but when the Dilgar arrive and begin indiscriminately killing everything that moves perhaps then it will become your war?"
"Now wait a minute!" Vinetti shouted. "You open that gate or…"
"Boss, Please!" Paul stated firmly. "I'm on it." He then returned his attention to the officer. "You know this is higly illegal."
"Somehow the letter of the law doesn't matter much with a Dilgar fleet heading our way." The Brakiri officer stated. "These are desperate times."
No kidding, Paul thought. "The Earth Alliance won't be happy."
"Good, let them send a fleet to escort you away." The officer said. "Anything which brings warships into orbit will help us. We need every ship with a weapon to protect this world, ours and yours. Frankly I wish there was another way, but we need to defend our world from annihilation! What can you say which will make me go against that?"
"Not a thing." Paul admitted. "This convoy that brought the weapons, ten of the ships are just civilian freighters, We're letting them take on refugees. Will you let them leave?"
"We will." The officer nodded. "The gate is being used to let civilians out, send your ships but we cannot let your escorts go. If you make for the gate we will fire on you."
"We understand." Paul looked to Vinetti who was on the brink of screaming. "Good luck with the defence, Guardian out,"
"What the hell was that!" Vinetti exploded. "You were supposed to get us out!"
"Moses himself couldn't lead us out of this crap-fest!" Paul snapped back. "Did you hear that guy? They are so short on ships they are forcibly keeping any armed vessel here! That means us!"
"But that's wrong!"
"They don't care boss." Paul explained. "Its Armageddon for these guys, and we just got ourselves a ring side seat. How's that danger money looking now?"
"We need to go!" Vinetti chose to ignore him. "Sneak through the gate!"
"The gate is guarded by gun satellites." Paul sighed. "We'd be dead before we got close. They're only letting the freighters and refugees go."
Vinetti's expression suddenly changed. "Well maybe I should transfer over to one of those ships, let the company know whats happening?"
"Oh no way!" Paul laughed. "You ain't going nowhere. You got us all into this and you are damn well going to pay for it with the rest of us."
"I'm not a fighter!"
Paul leaned closer. "Learn. The Dilgar are good teachers to learn from."
"Oh no, no no no." Vinetti moved back wards for the door and Paul decided to ignore him from this point on.
"So what we got Captain?"
Grozny spoke with curt professionalism, a former Earth Force officer he was one of the better Belt Alliance commanders. "We have two Vindicators and eight Harrier gunships, plus two standard carriers." He listed. "Gives us three Delta Squadrons and one Starfox squadron all told."
The Belt Alliance fighters were no match for Starfuries but compared to the Brakiri ships they were reasonably capable. The Delta-V class fighters were almost trade marks of the Belters, triangular shaped light fighters with particle guns and the provision for missiles. Their big advantage was their atmosphere capability, which also made them popular with Raiders. The Starfox was a little larger and based on a shrunk version of the old Flying Fox class Starfuries used by Earth Force all of three decades ago, again they were below EA standards but were durable and well armed with guns and missiles. Unfortunately in Pauls opinion the Dilgar would tear through them in minutes, not just because the Thorun fighters were hideously effective but also because for all their training and enthusiasm the Belter pilots were still mainly civilians with only a tiny handful of EA veterans in their ranks.
"Not much is it?" Paul said plainly.
"Against an invasion fleet?" Grozny raised a thick eyebrow. "Not much at all, we're escort ships not combat cruisers."
"Don't suppose it matters much now." Paul grimaced. "I'll try and work a way out of this, but until then I suggest you get ready for a fight."
"Will the Dilgar fire on Neutral ships?" Grozny asked with concern.
"It's what they do." Paul answered. "If its alive they kill it, simple as that."
"We really stumbled into this one." The grizzled officer said.
"We did, and now we gotta stumble out." Paul spoke confidently. "Just make sure we live long enough first."

Dublin, Earth.
Police Head quarters.

For Francis O'Leary a dream had morphed horribly into a nightmare. From trying to impress a not unattractive girl he had managed to get himself thrown in jail on charges of digital crime and accessing state secrets. He couldn't guess exactly what the punishment would be but everytime he closed his eyes he saw a courtyard full of butch and lonely convicts waiting for him. He really, really needed to escape.
The door to the holding cell clanged open and a uniformed officer urged him to stand. "You have some people wanting talk to you." He said. "They're wearing black suits so I'd be careful what I said. Wait for your lawyer son." He advised good naturedly then escorted him through the station. He came to a small interview room occupied by two men seated at a desk and a woman stood to one side, the woman who had brought him here.
"Thank you officer." She said. "We'll take it from here." As the police man left she nodded at a chair on the opposite side of the desk. "You should sit Francis, this is serious stuff."
He pulled up a chair gingerly as the two dark suited men watched him. The one on the left was a stocky built man probably in his forties with black hair, the other was a Korean about ten years younger and much leaner. "Mr O'Leary." The stocky man spoke. "My name is Victor Chapel, this is Mr Leong and you already know Miss Sakai."
Francis nodded. "So who are you people?"
"We work for the government." Chapel answered. "And we've taken an interest in you and your little activities."
"I swear I didn't mean any harm." He said sincerely "I was just testing!"
"We tracked you Francis." Jenny said. "You did a good job hiding your tracks, real good in fact, but your system wasn't unbeatable."
"It wasn't easy though." Leong spoke for the first time. "And we'd really like to know how you made your little device."
"It's my own design, made from just regular items. Nothing illegal." He said quickly.
"But you used it illegally." Chapel spoke in a calm but cold voice. "And that'll get you fifteen years in jail."
"Fifteen years!" he stammered. "No way!"
"We found a record in your black box of the systems you broke into." Leong produced a list. "Some of these are breaches of planetary security, that explains the severity of the sentence."
Francis' mouth was moving but no words were coming out. This was just way too much.
"You will go to jail if this goes to court." Jenny stated. "But this doesn't actually need to go to court."
Francis looked up and traced his gaze across the three people. "What?"
"We might be willing to overlook your transgressions if you decide to pay your debt to society another way." Chapel explained. "We might have one or two things we'd like you to do."
"Like a job?"
"Like one." Jenny nodded. "You could also call it a challenge." She smiled a little, remembering that beating challenges had been Francis' main reason for breaking into computer systems in the first place.
"Why don't you look at this?" Leong took blue box the size of a shoe box from beside his feet and slid it over to Francis. It was a small computer with a screen on the top. "Just press the screen to turn it on."
Francis activated it and saw the light blue screen come to life, he was surprised to see the writing on the screen was in an alien language. "I don't recognize these symbols."
"They're numbers." Leong handed him a sheet of paper. "That converts the alien symbols into our own numerals."
He took the sheet and looked at the screen, lining up what each symbol was. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, kind of guessing the answer.
"Just access it." Jenny answered. "It's encoded but I'm interested to see how you handle the challenge."
"Okay." He began picking numbers off the screen, using the touch controls to select the symbols. As he did so the symbols began cycling making the pattern even harder to grasp. "This is pretty smart, a cycling code. Unless you find the master sequence its almost un-crackable."
The three suited people watched closely as Francis wrestled with the box, after ten minutes he finally gave a quick shout of triumph. "Got it."
"You got it?" Leong sounded a little surprised.
"Sure, take a look." He passed it over. "What is it anyway?"
"Just a little something I brought back from my travels." Jenny leaned over to look at the screen. "A souvenir."
"Miss Sakai," Chapel stood. "Let's have a chat."
Together they left the room, allowing Leong to grill Francis as to how he cracked the code so quickly. Jenny closed the door behind her and noted that the corridor was empty. "So what do you say?"
"I think he has potential." Chapel nodded. "Leong seemed impressed."
"It took our expert an hour to get into that Dilgar computer, he did it in ten minutes."
"Like I said, potential." Chapel repeated.
"I think we should give him a chance." Jenny recommended. "We still have the intercepted Dilgar communications stored in the Persephone's data recorder. Their military grade encription is a hell of a lot tougher than that little blue box."
"Dilgar are smart." Chapel admitted. "They'll appreciate how important it is to have secure communications."
"And we know how vital it is to beat them." Jenny said. "This kid could really help us. Put him in Leong's team and see how he does."
Chapel nodded. "Okay, but he'll need a chaperone for a week or two until he gets settled. A familiar face."
"What me?" Jenny frowned. "Boss, I'm a field agent not a Nanny!"
"And the Director told you to take it easy for a while." Chapel chided. "So you can sit around at HQ, handle paper work and keep an eye on this fella. Then go back to risking your neck."
"I look forward to it." She said with faux anger. "Fine, so we're recruiting him?"
"Yeah, why not." Chapel shrugged. "Might as well."
Jenny lead the way back into the room, feeling quite cheery. "So Francis, about that job."

"You got a job?" Gerald O'Leary sounded surprised. "Really?"
"Yes dad, really." Francis answered. "Working for Universal Exports."
The warm living room of the O'Leary household on the edge of Dublin was currently filled with Francis O'Leary and both parents, along with Jenny and Victor Chapel sat on the sofa together.
"Now, can I offer you guests some tea?" Maureen O'Leary asked.
"Oh, that'll be lovely." Jenny smiled. "What kind do you have?"
"Kind?" Maureen asked. "It's just tea dear, we don't buy any of that fancy stuff."
"Two cups will be fine thank you." Chapel answered warmly. "With milk if you have it."
"Certainly." She smiled. "Won't be long."
"So what job have you given my boy?" Gerald looked over to the dark suited guests his son had brought home. He shifted in his worn chair and tried to take the measure of these people.
"Computer work." Jenny said. "We need someone to set up a new system for us."
"Ahh, that's my Francis!" Maureen called from the kitchen. "Always good with numbers."
"Thanks Mom!" he answered a little embarrassed. He was sitting very close to Jenny and was trying to appear grown up.
"We were recruiting in the area and visited his college." Chapel continued. "Every teacher recommended him."
"I see." Gerald nodded and took a sip of tea. "Maybe all that time on the net did you some good after all."
"Well done son." His mother returned with refreshments. "You were doing work on the computer, and your father thought you were just looking for naked…"
"Mom, please!" he said through gritted teeth, noticing Jenny stifling a laugh.
"So this job pays well does it?" his Father wondered.
"Gerry!" his wife hit him with a news paper. "It's not polite to ask that in front of his employers!"
"Calm down woman." He grumbled. "it's a fair question."
"It is." Chapel nodded. "You're son will be starting on ten thousand credits."
"Not bad." Gerald nodded.
"Which will rise to fifteen thousand per month after his probation."
Both parents physically froze, quickly doing the sums in their heads. "But, but… that's…"
"A hundred and eighty thousand per year." Jenny said. "Our company believes in rewarding talent."
"Holy…"Gerald began, only to be cut off by his wife and the news paper.
"language!" she snapped. "Oh my boy, you have done so well!"
"Thanks Mom." He smiled.
"Now don't spend it on booze and whores." She added.
"Wha… Mom!"
Jenny spluttered, not quite able to hide her amusement.
"Mrs O'Leary, don't worry." Chapel said calmly. "Most of it will be put in a trust fund until he's old enough to spend it wisely. We'll give him a little allowance and keep him safe."
"Our office is in Geneva." Jenny managed to compose herself. "Just half an hour away on the HALO jet."
"Well that's good." Maureen said. "At least you're not on Mars."
"I'll be okay Mom, and I'll visit." Francis said. "Just don't say things out loud in front of my boss in future, okay?"
"Of course my boy, sorry."
"You did well son." Gerald nodded. "I'm proud of you, done well for the family."
Francis nodded in return to his father, quietly very glad of the praise.
"Well we better be going." Chapel stood. "Why don't you pack and we'll come and get you tomorrow. Don't be late now." He smiled but the deeper meaning of his words were clear.
"I won't be, I promise." Francis nodded.
"Glad you took the job." Jenny smiled at him, triggering an uncontrolled glee in the young man. "See you tomorrow."
Maureen showed them out and then returned. "Well, they seemed a nice sort."
"They are." Francis nodded. "I'll be doing good work."
"And more importantly getting paid a fortune for it." Gerald chuckled. "This calls for a drink."
"Putting your slippers on calls for a drink!" his wife chided. "Gerald O'Leary you'll drown in Guiness one day!"
"Then I'll die happy." He grinned. "Come on son, let me tell you the secret of getting a girl."
"Dad?"
"I saw you looking at that lassy you brought home, not a bad looker. Looks like she keeps fit."
"You could say that." Francis allowed.
"I'll get some clean clothes for you." His mother said. "You're getting older every day."
"Thanks Mom, I'll still be in touch."
"Course you will!" his Father slapped his back. "Now, let me tell you how I snared your Mum."
"It involved begging!" she called after him with a cheeky smile, then went about clearing up the house. For Francis the whole world had been tipped upside down in no time, but secretly he found it really very promising.