Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated.
"You don't have a slipstream problem, you have a bug problem," Harper announced as he disconnected himself from Tyr's ship. Announced to empty air, as it turned out, and he pushed himself to his feet, turning to survey the room. "Uh, Tyr? Hello?"
Tyr wasn't exactly the kind of guy who'd let someone wander around his ship alone, ex-crewmate or not, and Harper wasn't surprised to hear footsteps a few moments later.
"You've been in there for almost two hours," Tyr said. "Come eat something and explain what is happening."
Two hours meant that he'd missed his timeline for negotiating further payment—not for the first time, damn it, as much as he loved interesting problems, he really sucked at the business side of them—but food was food, and Tyr knew better than to joke about that kind of thing. "You've got a bug problem," he repeated as he followed Tyr through the hatch into the next compartment. "And not the kind that hire out as slipstream pilots, either."
"Excuse me?" Tyr asked, looking down at him.
"Someone managed to get a virus into your computer system, and from everything I can see it's a nasty one. They've been tracking you when you transit through slipstream. The tremors have been when the tracking program has been throwing out a marker every time you drop into normal space. It's not actually a tremor, but I'm sure that's what it feels like to whoever is piloting. Namely, you know, you."
Tyr growled, bone blades twitching, and Harper tensed automatically. He'd had his fill of angry Nietzscheans for the day, thanks. Especially since unlike that idiot earlier, Tyr was very capable of being dangerous when he felt like it. A moment—and a vicious scowl back in the general direction of the engine room—later and Tyr calmed again, though, and he gestured for Harper to precede him into the galley. He dished out two portions of whatever was on the stove as Harper climbed up onto a stool, putting one in front of Harper before taking a seat himself across the counter.
Whatever the collection of ingredients in front of him actually was, it smelled good, and Harper's stomach abruptly reminded him that he hadn't had much besides breakfast today. Assuming he'd eaten breakfast. He didn't skip meals intentionally, but remembering wasn't always a sure thing when his focus was elsewhere.
"Explain this bug," Tyr ordered as they both began to eat. "They're watching my slipstream routes?"
"That much for sure. The bug's got tendrils that go a lot of places, though, and if everything looks passive now, I can't guarantee that it always acts that way. Or that it always will act that way. I did some digging, but there was no way I could just root it out without alerting whoever put it in and possibly triggering some trapdoor programs." He gestured at the bowl with his spoon. "This is good."
Tyr looked vaguely pleased at the compliment but it was obvious where his focus was. "So you can't do it?"
"Hey, trust in the Harper. The Harper is good. But it'll take me some time to figure out the best way to even start," he admitted.
"What kind of time are we talking about?"
"Figure at least a day to really look around, find where all the links go, and try to plan things out. After that…," he shrugged. "Once I get started, it's going to go fast." It was going to have to if he didn't want to trigger alerts everywhere. He took another couple bites. Whatever this was, it was really good. And he wasn't just saying that because when he did remember to eat he lived off ration crackers, Sparky, and the occasional greasy something-approaching-burger from the shop at the corner junction.
"I want to know who put it in," Tyr said. "Now."
Harper snorted. "Sure, and next week I'll get you elected Vedran Empress."
This time the growl was directed at him, and he shrugged. "Look, I can get you a timeline. I'm guessing you can match that to a station easily enough."
"You think it happened on station and wasn't done by a client?"
"Not likely. I mean, I don't know what kind of clients you're picking up, but with this kind of bug…one of your clients could have dropped it in in transit or on their way off ship, but aside from the fact that that would be stupidly obvious, it's way too intricate to be followed by that level of sloppy." Given the level of sophistication the bug showed, the idea was almost professionally offensive. "I'd bet on it being an outside hack while you were tied into a station's power supply. Not the easiest thing to do, but there's a lot more back-and-forth there than most people realized."
"Mail?"
"Unless you're responding to offers to help the exiled prince of Naranda collect his fortune in exchange for a large reward, I'd look somewhere a little less obvious. And the less obvious options are the ones that will be next to impossible to put a name on."
Tyr tilted his head. "What if someone hired an engineer to put it in while they were doing the work I actually hired them for?"
"Were the engineers you hired insane?"
"Harper…."
"I'm serious, Tyr," Harper said with another shrug. "I mean, it's not totally out of the question, just like it could have been a client. I've seen some of the other work they've done here and insanity is not totally beyond the realm of possibility. It's a hell of a thing to spend your reputation on, though. Believe me or don't but I'm as good as it gets, it took me most of an hour to even find the bug, and there's still no way in hell I'd consider something like that. Word gets out and you're done." Professionally certainly, probably personally too because that was the kind of thing that got a guy shot. Especially if they were doing it to someone like Tyr.
"You said next to impossible," Tyr said after a minute. "What's the option that might work?"
Harper rocked a hand. "For the record, I think it's a bad plan, but if you want me to, I could trigger one of the watchdog programs and try to trace the signal. Note the try in that sentence, though, the coding is solid and if I'm right they've had some time to cover their tracks. I'm more likely to get you to a dead drop rather than a person and then they'd know that you know." He didn't like admitting the last, but it was true, and Tyr wouldn't thank him for lying.
"Better not to warn them," Tyr turned and reached behind him for the pot, setting it on the table. He dished himself another serving and gestured for Harper to help himself as well. "Can you do the opposite and keep whoever it is from knowing that their program has been disturbed?"
"That's easier," Harper said after a minute, copying Tyr's actions. "I'll know for sure what kind of reporting functions it's got after I look around a little more, but I should be able to spoof something similar that you can control. No guarantees how long it will last, though. With something like that, I wouldn't be surprised if they had some pretty good diagnostic programs built in—actually I'd be a lot more surprised if they didn't—and finding and squashing those at the same time as the main program will be trickier."
"It won't need to last long. I just need to get back to the station it was planted on."
He wasn't even attempting to hide the threat in his voice, and Harper grinned. "And there's the Tyr we all know and love."
Tyr scoffed, and reached across the table, and it didn't even occur to Harper to duck until the cuff had ghosted across his hair lightly. He had missed Tyr. And not just because it would have been nice to have him around when the idiots of the week had been smashing up his bar. The second bowl of food was more than enough to fill him up, although Tyr went back for a third.
"So when do you want me to do this?" Harper asked as Tyr finished as well. "Assuming that you do." Not that there was a Chichin's chance on an ice planet that Tyr would let whatever this program was stand, but it was just barely possible that he wouldn't want Harper involved.
"You can start tonight," Tyr said.
"I can start tomorrow, assuming we agree on payment," Harper corrected. "It's not a big deal for me to shut my place down for a couple days, but I need to get a few things finished up and sent back tonight and a notice posted." Getting away from his place for a couple days after what had happened with the Uber earlier would probably be a good idea, all things considered, but his life, or what there was of it these days, was here. He couldn't just forget that. He saw Tyr open his mouth to object and cut him off. "I have to make a living after you move on."
Tyr didn't look happy, no surprise, but he did nod. "Tomorrow. Eight. Suggest a reasonable fee." A pause. "I put double your initial fee into your account this evening given that you were in there for about two hours."
'About' was at least three since Harper had been working with the hardware for a while before going in, but the amount was pretty fair considering that Harper had been the one to forget negotiations after the initial deadline had passed. Plus Tyr had fed him. "Call it 10,000 thrones. And can I have breakfast here?"
A hint of amusement crossed Tyr's face. "Six thousand for rooting the program out, another thousand if you keep whoever did it from knowing what happened. And you can eat whatever meals you'd like here while you're working."
"Eight and I'll do my damndest. Plus food." Because there was no way that he was letting an offer like that pass.
"Done."
Tyr checked the chronometer and his lips curled in a snarl. Harper was late. A few minutes one way or the other he wouldn't have thought anything about, Harper had never been the most punctual of his shipmates—just reference Dylan's constant complaining about the crew's level of professionalism—but at this point breakfast had gone cold.
He checked his sidearm and then headed back across the station to the mess of a shop that Harper claimed as his own. The little professor had most likely just gotten sidetracked cleaning up after that nonsense yesterday, but leaving aside the cold food, some pointless distraction didn't mean that Tyr was going to tolerate this tracking program on his ship for one moment longer than necessary. As it stood he'd already had trouble falling asleep last night and probably hadn't gotten more than two hours in total.
Harper hadn't given him the timeline yet, but based on the change in his ship's behavior there were only three possible stations where the bug could have been planted, and he could get back to any of them within a few jumps. Easy enough to do in one day. Once he arrived back at that station…well, whatever Harper thought he was going to be questioning every single person that he'd allowed to work on his ship, and there were certain other avenues that he could pursue as well. He didn't know precisely why he was being tracked yet, but he planned to ensure that it never happened again.
The entrance to Harper's shop was shut and the sign clearly said closed when Tyr approached, but he could hear the murmur of voices through the door, and he was raising his hand to knock—forcefully—when he smelled the blood. Blood and fear and that was enough for him to draw his gun and give the door a solid kick.
A considerably less solid kick would have done the job as it flew open with a bang, and he stepped inside with his gun leveled.
Harper was on the floor on his knees, his shirt torn and his hands bound behind him. It was obvious that he'd been beaten, and Tyr's weapon immediately moved to pan the other occupants of the room. Three of them, all Nietzschean, the smallest of whom was probably fifty pound heavier than Harper. And sporting an ugly black eye, which was at least something. One of the others was most likely the fool from yesterday although Tyr hadn't paid him a great deal of attention at the time; the other two were clearly blood relatives. Brothers, Tyr suspected, with obviously similarly inferior genes.
Just like far too many of his people.
"This doesn't concern you," one of them growled.
"I've hired him for a job," Tyr said, nodding towards Harper. "You are preventing him from doing that job. Please, feel free to elaborate on how that doesn't concern me." Harper was still frightened, that much was obvious enough, but his shoulders had started to twitch, and Tyr suspected that he was in the process of freeing his hands. It was a start.
"We've just been teaching the worthless kludge a lesson about what happens when you show disrespect to a member of our Pride," the youngest of the three males said.
Tyr let his face show the disgust that was in no way feigned. "It takes three of you—Puma, correct?—to tie up and beat one undersized human? I fail to see why anyone would respect you."
The fool off to his left growled and then proved his inferiority by launching himself at Tyr, and Tyr didn't bother to waste a shot, blocking the attack and slamming him to the ground hard enough that he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. One of the others, the one who'd likely taken issue with Harper yesterday, went for his gun, but Harper was rolling and the man was sprawled on his stomach before it cleared his holster. The youngest mimicked the first, attempting a physical attack on Tyr, and was dealt with in a similar manner as his brother. As Tyr spun back to handle the third before he could get the better of Harper, the man screamed in pain and began to writhe on the ground.
The reason was obvious a moment later as the man flipped onto his back still screaming and Tyr saw Harper's nanowelder driven through his shin. Tyr leaned over and punched him hard enough to render him unconscious along with his brothers.
"Are you all right?" Tyr asked as Harper rolled to his feet, making no move to approach. Harper had freed his hands as Tyr had thought he might, but he also had a knife in one hand—clearly these sorry excuses for Nietzscheans hadn't even been capable of searching or tying him properly, and never mind that Harper had already out-shot of one of them yesterday—but he didn't look particularly steady, and it wasn't at all clear that he recognized Tyr. Tyr kept his hands where they were visible and let his bone blades ease down slowly. He could handle Harper easily enough, but it had been a few years since they'd fought together, and having to hit him wouldn't precisely help the situation. "Harper?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Sorry." Harper shook his head and then winced. "Assholes." He reached down and pried his nanowelder out of the man's shin, paying no attention to the smell of charred flesh or the flow of blood that followed, and both that and the knife disappeared into various pockets of his pants. "Thanks. I was afraid that that was going to get ugly." He looked down at himself and then craned his neck to look at the cuts on the back of his shoulder. "Uglier."
Tyr shook his head. "I want that program out of my ship, and you are my best chance of making that happen. How badly are you injured?" Aside from blood on his wrists and hands and the obvious marks of a beating on his face and chest, the rips and blood lines across the back of Harper's clothing indicated that he'd been whipped with some kind of narrow object, and there was no way to know what else they might have tried. At least his eyes seemed to be tracking steadily now with no sign of a concussion.
"I'll live," Harper said with a shrug. And another wince. "It's not as bad as it looks. They only grabbed me on my way out the door this morning, and none of them seemed real clear about what they wanted to do to me besides smack me around. And it's not like it's my first time on the wrong side of a pack of Ubers."
Tyr wasn't a fan of that particular term, but under the circumstances he held his tongue. He believed completely in having overwhelming odds on his side when it came to a fight, but Harper was smaller, weaker…. And tying him up and beating him for no purpose except their ridiculous conceit because they hadn't wanted to pay him for a job he'd done? Probably done well, knowing him? Cowards and bullies, the lot of them.
"Besides, they couldn't even figure out that if you're going to whip someone, it's not a real bright idea to bind their hands behind them before you do it," Harper said. "My arms took the worst of it."
Tyr closed his eyes. It was fools like these that proved that his people had deserved to lose.
"Are you okay?"
He waved it off. Explaining would take too long, and given their respective histories it wasn't something that Harper ever would—could—agree with anyway. "Get your things and come with me," he ordered instead.
"I've got to get cleaned up," Harper said with a shake of his head. "I've got get this place cleaned up. Figure out what they didn't destroy. I—"
"Get your things, little man," Tyr repeated. "Someone is bound to come looking for them eventually and I doubt that it will go well for you if you're here when they do." He looked around. "Somehow I doubt that you're going to find very much intact, anyway."
"I guess you've got a point there," Harper said after a minute, and his sigh was audible. "At least I got the stuff I was done with dropped off last night."
He ducked behind the counter and through a door mostly hidden by shadow. He didn't shut it behind him, and after checking that the three idiots were still unconscious Tyr peered in. As far as quarters went these were almost small enough to make him feel claustrophobic: a narrow bunk on one wall that would barely even fit Harper with some clothes scattered underneath it, a screen and workbench covered with unidentifiable metal bits on the opposite barely an arms-length away, and a small table with a couple ration cartons and few cans of that vile drink that Harper preferred next to a door at the far end of the room. That door was shut, but the smell of blood and antiseptic was clear enough, and quiet muttering was muted by the sound of running water.
Harper reemerged a few minutes later looking marginally better. Long sleeves hid most of the injuries that Tyr knew were there, and if there wasn't much that he could do about the split knuckles or the bruises on his face, even those were less obvious with the blood washed away. He seemed to be moving tolerably well as he dug out a bag and tossed several of the metal objects from his workbench in, and after a moment he looked up at Tyr with a frown. "They made me miss breakfast, didn't they?"
"It will survive reheating." He nodded to the bunk. "Clothing and personal items as well. It will be safer if you stay on my ship for a day or two."
Harper glared. "I can take care of myself. You seriously think I don't have a back way into this place?"
"I'm sure that you do," although Tyr had no idea where it could be hidden given the layout of this place, "but what's the point in coming back here if you can't open the door for customers? Besides, if your front door had a lock, I broke it." Not that it had taken much. As flimsy as the thing had proved, it was lucky that he hadn't kicked the door right off its hinges. "They're likely to do worse when they wake up."
Harper scowled, but unlike the men unconscious out front he was no fool, and after a moment he sighed and knelt to dig some clothes out from under the bed.
