Re: The Show Must Go Off

[Herr D]

The Show Must Go Off–part four
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MCL-BeltMiner#C485640624
I had just gotten to an info kiosk and poked around a bit, just looking at code security, when I realized my first real problem. My quarters were right by Fight Registration And Arbitration, between Arena Row and The Shaky Camera–the biggest, roughest sports bar in the main halls. Worse, it was as far as possible, trafficwise, from Emergency Medical Services. Great. The cheapest room I couldn’t survive to walk to and from. I’d need a lookout by my front door. I started looking through the netposts, and happened on something under ‘Spotter Trading.’ I got a contact point, hacked his schedule, and realized that if I hurried I could beat him home.
“Jenko?” This guy wasn’t as short as he looked, on account of his spine was bent like one of those old-fashioned Christmas candy canes. He WAS as shriveled and brown as a Christmas pine tossed away in August, though. Maybe as prickly too.
“Who’s askin’?” He didn’t spin or dodge, just paused like, ‘oh, well. Mugger again today?’
I introduced myself and found out a spotter is actually a piece of mining equipment I didn’t know. They quit using Standard Portable Oscillating Trenchers in ’56. But this was ’51. He actually liked my idea of a lookout service. I negotiated to be a grunt for him, slow apprenticeship plus lookout. Sweetening the pot, I arranged to hang a hammock for myself over his couch and stay at his place for cutting him in for a fourth of whatever I could make on my place. His place was right by Equipment Bay Two and Enforcer Station Five. Muggings were rare there. Then I hacked the hallcams and streamed all the old footage in the servers.
I ran it, looking for empty halls and found out that doesn’t happen. A few quick apps to collect data . . .
It must have taken me an hour to figure out that the least violence happens in the crowds that form when arenas empty twenty-four to eleven minutes before main shift changes. Hammock hung, I ate an MRE, programmed Jenko’s door to let me in, borrowed and double-clipped a wrench and a mallet to my worn-out comasuit and set off to turn my place into a moneymaker.
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