Free Connor Rix Chronicles 1: Rules of Force by Steve Statham Page B

bought some of the nanoshit, too. I had so many
customers for the other stuff I had to say yes. And then I figured I should
give it a try before selling it to any customers, so I could give a real
testimonial, y'know?" What could almost have been called a sigh had he
been stronger passed his lips. "I shoulda waited. Did you know it was only
eight days later that the news broke about these things? Eight lousy
days."
    Rix watched as
Jake seemed to sink even further into his bed. He wouldn't be able to continue
much longer.
    "Alright,
Jake, maybe next time I come over, you can tell me some more about the South
Americans. But just lay there and rest a bit and let me tell you what I read
about what the Mets are doing in the off-season…"
    Rix spent the
rest of his visit just trying to cheer up Jake with small-talk about sports,
and news about some mutual acquaintances. Jake smiled weakly a couple times,
but did not say much. After a few more minutes Rix said his goodbyes to Jake
and Cathy and walked out to his truck in the driveway.
    He had just
opened the door and slid into the driver's seat when a noise from his E-Thing
startled him. He'd deliberately put his E-Thing into sleep mode while he was
visiting Jake, but now it was emitting a sound he'd never before heard from the
device, and the screen pulsed a strange color that was also new to him. The
contact code icon was one he didn't recognize.
    He thumbed the
icon to answer the call.
    "Yes?"
    "Mr. Rix.
This is Alexander Rohm with Open Sky. I need to speak with you in person
absolutely as soon as possible. Can you fly out in a couple hours?"
    Rix was stunned
into silence for a moment. Rohm? The big man himself,   the president of Open Sky, needs to see
me right away? Christ. Running through
Rix's mind concurrently was the worry that the task he'd done for Open Sky had
not worked out as well, or cleanly, as he'd thought. Helluva week.
Ok. Go with it.
    "Yes Mr.
Rohm, I can come for a meeting. But I'm not sure I can get a ticket and a seat
that quickly…"
    "What? No.
I'll have a jet waiting for you. Go to the general aviation terminal. Look for
the plane painted with our logo." Rohm paused a moment before finishing.
"And Mr. Rix? Please cancel whatever other appointments you have for the
next several weeks."
     

 
     
    8
     
     
    Rix had that
feeling of being a bit off his game as he walked down the length of the Great
Hall again, so soon after the last time. The Great Hall was as magnificent as
ever, of course, and he felt the same anticipation he had felt the first time.
    But everything
about this trip felt different. The flight from New San Antonio to Las Cruces
— in a kind of jet Rix had never seen before — had been quiet,
subdued by a tense atmosphere. Nobody made any effort to engage Rix in
conversation, which had been fine by him, as the pain radiating from his bones
was flaring up and then fading intermittently, putting him in a surly mood. But
he noticed there appeared to be more people than necessary on board, which told
Rix that the extras were probably security personnel.
    Before boarding
the plane in San Antonio Rix had done a search on his E-Thing for any breaking
news about Open Sky, but had found nothing but the usual press releases and
production reports from the asteroid mining operations. Even the secure Open
Sky internal net — the part he had access to, anyway — revealed no
indication that anything was out of the ordinary.
    The plane had
landed at a runway on the Open Sky spaceport facility, and Rix was whisked to a
different wing of the Great Hall from when he had been there the first time. As
for Angie 6, his original Handler, she was nowhere to be seen. That was
unusual, in that most corporations, when bringing in outside people for
security assistance, preferred that the outsiders only deal with one person. No
reason for outsiders to know everyone on the security side of the operations,
or so the thinking went.
    Adding it up, he
knew that