Madly

Chapter 10

Max

I went with Erina to crack the datacards, she lived on the first floor of an apartment complex that overlooked a cluttered courtyard that she said was a scrap merchant workshop. Although we heard no violence once she pointed out where her flat was we rushed to its door and she quickly let us in.

"Seems quiet today, lets hope it stays like that." She said hopefully as she locked the door behind me.

She lead me into a kitchen area and motioned me to sit down.

"Nice place."

"I want to move out." she told me with a sad tone. "I hate it here."

I passed her the cards and she looked at them in her palm.

"Okay. It might take a few hours or maybe minutes." She activated a large computer system to the corner of a room adjacent to a fridge and plugged a the cards into it.

"Oh thank those above." She exclaimed. "Some cards have hardware viruses, that can occasionally cause the wrong computers to explode... I'm so rude, do you want a drink? I have a 6 pack of Elite lager if you want to try the best thing this fucking planet has to offer."

"Sure."

"Cool." She turned back to the computer monitor and sighed. "Yeah as I thought, this is going to take ages."

She took two tall cans out of the fridge and poured them into glasses before bringing them over and sitting opposite me.

"Have you ever been interested in computers? You're are a ship engineer or mechanic was it?"

"Mechanic, engineer, they've basically just merged into the same role for me. I've not really looked too much into learning about computers; well except for onboard ship computers etc." I thought for a second. "I mean I could hijack a small cruiser, but I wouldn't be able to change the registration or view the data of the master state drive or access the ship's credit vault. Lucky for us we were trusted with the vault code so it was not a problem to utilise the credits."

"Ahh that is interesting. I've never really worked on a ship so I'm not familiar with the systems or anything but I imagine that they could be quite similar. I'd have no idea how to alter registration data though. I did think you'd be required to know more about it."

"Well before taking this position 3 years or so ago I worked on a military base where I mostly worked on land vehicles, personal carriers that sort of thing. It's weird, I don't actually know how to drive too good."

"Oh really? You're a very good shot, if your anything like your marksmanship you must be a master at fixing stuff."

"Well." I smiled. "I don't like to pat myself on the back."

We made small talk and she asked me what music genre I liked, I answered and she put some on that we both liked and moved next to me on the sofa where the afternoon sun caught her and lit up her face.

"Oh my god you are beautiful." I told her.

She smiled and placed her arm around my shoulder.

"Thanks for letting me stay with you last night it means a lot around here."

"Thanks for being so welcoming to me." I said, to which she blushed.

She kissed my cheek and drunk the rest of her drink. She looked across the room to the computer screen and then placed her hand on my lap and asked if I wanted another drink, to which I accepted. After pouring more drinks she said the cards were still being decoded before sitting down. We spoke about what we thought would be on the cards and we both quickly ran out of ideas.