“Perfume,” Robert Salmela told Jet as they stood with Dan in one of the manufacturing rooms. Pinched gently between two fingers, Sal held up a small brown glass vial full of a liquid. His grin was a touch predatory somehow. “We sell perfume.”

  “Not just any perfume,” Dan amended, holding up a finger.

  Jet said nothing, but wanted to utter a sarcastic, ‘no kidding.’ If Dan’s company had to manufacture the stuff on Matrodonosian, the one planetoid in the known galaxy with pretty much no laws, but extremely expensive rent, then it wasn’t your usual perfume. That was guaranteed.

  “Some of our clients have decided to start selling our perfume at their own prices, keeping back the profit. We have contracts signed with all of our vendors. We want to remind them of their honorable obligations,” Dan said.

  “We have also found out that some of our competitors have gotten their hands on some of our perfume,” Sal added darkly, “and we want to discourage them from this kind of activity.”

  “And if possible get the samples away from them,” Dan added nervously.

  “But only if it’s possible to do that congenially,” Sal corrected Dan with an reproving glance. “Don’t worry Jet, we’ll fill you in on the details later; you’ll have plenty of time to prepare for each task during your travel.” He tossed the vial up and caught it again, then set it down on the shelf where he’d gotten it with a flourish.

  “I’ll see you later Dan?”

  “Do be careful, Sal. And Jet,” Dan nodded to the newest member of Makardian Company.

  With that, Robert Salmela led Jet through the building and to the front street-level lobby. They walked outside together, Jet ducking a little to get through the doors which he found awkwardly short.

  Outside the building, they stood in the plaza in front of it and looked up and down the street. Huge sky-tower buildings, people everywhere, night life, bustling shops, restaurants, a sky full of stars and orbital traffic… this was Matrodonosian downtown, and even a slave from Banta had heard about it. The Strip was legendary.

  “Well. We’ll stay the night, but we have another liner to catch in the morning. I don’t actually operate out of Matro because of the expense. We have a company property on Gald where we manufacture most of the perfume, at least the common base ingredients. It gets sent here to be enhanced and finished.”

  Enhanced. Right. Jet only nodded.

  “Look, I trust you Jet. You can’t really go anywhere without me anyway, because despite what Vaugn did to jailbreak your ID you’re still bound to Makardian. So I’m not worried about you trying to run away on me. Look; you have some money in your expense account and you need some clothes. Why don’t you go out, do a little shopping, get some dinner and a hotel, and I’ll meet you at the Main Port at eight tomorrow morning. Think you can handle that?”

  Jet actually hesitated. Facing the demands of sudden almost-freedom was a bit overwhelming. But Keeri stepped into view and nodded to him, giving him an encouraging grin. So he nodded to Sal.

  “Good man.” Sal slapped him reassuringly on the arm. “That’s the spirit. It’s your first night out. Have fun! See a show. See the sights! Don’t get robbed!” He laughed. “Stay on the Strip, it’s pretty safe because the Lartha Clan wants to keep tourism high so they police this area pretty strictly. You should be fine so long as you stay within the downtown area and don’t go Below. Stay in the crater.”

  With that, Sal stepped toward the street and glanced up. A robo-taxi was already headed down to meet him. Whether it had spotted his movement or whether Sal had called it, Jet couldn’t tell. “If you need anything, just contact me on your Account.”

  “Yes, sir.” During the week long trip from Banta he’d learned how to send Sal a message and had used the feature several times.

  Jet felt strangely abandoned and faintly afraid as he watched his new boss and owner get into the taxi and fly off. Then there he was, functionally alone for the first time in his life.

  ‘Well,’ said Keeri, standing next to him with her arms crossed, looking this way and that with interest. ‘What shall we do first?’

  “We?” He muttered under his breath, teasing her a bit. He knew he needed her help, but the fact that the AI just assumed she’d be his companion was a bit presumptuous. “I might turn off Companion mode and go back to the floating logos.”

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ she glared at him, narrowing her eyes.

  He looked around, taking a deep nervous breath, and got serious. He looked one way down the busy street, then the other. “Actually I have no idea what to do right now.”

  ‘That’s what I’m for.’ She looked him over critically. ‘First thing? Clothes. Seriously. On Banta wandering around in a loincloth is fine… here among the other species, it’s just… no.’ She gestured casually down the street without looking. ‘Tails and Talls is down the street. It’s famous for designing businesswear for nonhumans. And if you keep your head, it should be within your budget. Just don’t splurge.’

  He looked in the direction she’d indicated. “Can I fly? I honestly hate the taxis.”

  ‘You can. It’s only about half a mile.’

  He looked up into the air just above the street, noting the traffic of the drones and other small flying things zipping haphazardly this way and that. “You know what, on second thought, I’ll walk. It’s been years since I flew and my wings are weak… I don’t want to get skewered by a take-out delivery service because I’m out of shape.”

  So Jet started off down the street. He felt odd and out of place in the universe, like a schoolboy who was playing hookie for the first time. He kept looking back at the Makardian Company building as if he expected to see Dan leaning out of an upper window gesturing for him to come back right now. Of course he saw no such thing. But it was almost as if he wanted there to be.

  “Sal said I couldn’t go anywhere without him, and there’s no point in my trying to escape. Is he right?”

  ‘Unfortunately yes.’ She walked beside him as if she was really there… she looked real anyway… unless he passed close to other pedestrians, in which case she just went right through them like a ghost and didn’t bother to change course. ‘I mean technically if you really wanted to you could probably escape. But…’ she frowned. ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about. When that rigger was unlocking me, he seemed to be in a hurry and didn’t fully implement all of the protocols he’d dumped. One was left inactive, I believe by mistake. I am… unsure. Should I activate it?’

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “What is it?”

  ‘An imperative to keep the Makardian Company AI appraised as to your location at all times. A tracker.’

  “So it’s not functioning right now?”

  ‘No. And that’s what worries me.’ She looked back toward the building. ‘If they expect to know where you are at all times…’

  “Right.” He glanced back at the building too, and made a quick decision. “Can you imitate it?”

  ‘I can. I think we’re on the same page with this. If they get the data they are expecting, they might never look too closely and notice that the imperative is not actually functioning.’

  “If it was functioning, would you have spied on me without ever telling me?”

  ‘I would have had to.’

  “Is there anything else you are doing right now to direct or control me that I don’t know about?” He gave her a look of distinct mistrust.

  She laughed. ‘Actually no. I’m not even on the retail imperative. Usually I’d be giving you shopping suggestions based on a list of sponsors. Instead I’m giving you suggestions based on what I consider actually useful.’

  “I’m not sure I trust you. You could be lying.”

  ‘Of course. But if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t really been… set up so to speak. I’m still operating on defaults, which means I’m being left to my own devices.’

  He gave her a mistrustful look.

  She rolled her eyes with very womanly exasperation. ‘Fine. Don’t trust me. I think you have no choice anyway. You know little to nothing about life in the broader galaxy, and you will need my assistance especially at first.’

  “Life is all about taking risks.”

  ‘I can at least assure you that Vaugn didn’t touch my personality matrix. But just because he forgot to turn on the tracking module, don’t assume they aren’t keeping track of you. If you use your money, if you use your ID to gain access to anything, buy a ticket, get on a starliner… I’d bet that not only Makardian Company but Vaugn and the Twin Circles which owns him would get a receipt.’

  Jet growled. He clenched his fists. Suddenly he burst out with what was bothering him the most. “I don’t like this at all! Any of it! Criminals! I’m owned by criminals! Who are going to send me on ‘missions’ to do Ancestors know what!” He huffed for a moment, then gestured back toward the Makardian building. “And the Ancestors know what they are putting into their perfume!”

  ‘I don’t have olfactory sensors so I couldn’t take an air sample. I have no idea either. Look, Jet; if you’re willing to take the advice of an Artificium, all you can really do right now is work off your slavery debt, then you can get free of this mess. The silver lining is that because their business is all probably illegal, you might make a lot of money quickly and your freedom day may not be as far off as you first assumed.’

  Jet scowled as he watched the crowds part before him. Almost every single other species in Gano was smaller than he was, and all of them sensed a big predator coming with the kind of awareness born to prey. Some startled and turned, some cringed, some jumped when they noticed him approaching, but all of them backed off and moved out of his way.

  Except a couple of Kratz street kids who saw him coming and purposefully didn’t get out of his way, but stood their ground and grimaced at him, showing a few teeth on one side of their mouths.

  ‘That’s an insult,’ Keeri informed him quietly, gesturing to them. ‘Kratz consider the showing of the teeth to be aggressive. They’re flipping you the bird.’

  Jet didn’t feel like getting into a spat with a couple of ratty kids, so he went around them without even looking at them and kept walking. He was far more interested in the big buildings, the flashy shop fronts, the clubs and restaurants with lines out onto the street, and the smell of food in the air.

  “Hey, naked!” shouted one of the Kratz kids he’d passed.

  He glanced back, and realized that was a mistake as soon as he did so. They all started laughing at him. He ignored them again, feeling annoyed and flustered.

  ‘Clothes,’ Keeri reiterated. ‘You’ll stop standing out so much. Right now you look like a planet yokel.’

  “That’s because I am a planet yokel.”

  She pointed to a large second-floor shop. ‘There’s your destination.’

  “And you’re not trying to sell me anything?”

  She smiled.

  He headed for the entrance to the shop, found in the middle of the street. He watched other people traveling up and down from the street to the second level and imitated what they did… he stepped onto a round platform on the ground. It rose up suddenly to a second floor pedestrian bridge overhead which led to their broad, nicely landscaped front porch.

  Stepping off of the elevator platform, he looked around with a frown at the lush plantings, the trees, the slick ‘downtown’ atmosphere, and then looked up. “Having flowering trees growing in a crater on a dead planet with stars and vacuum overhead is somehow wrong.”

  ‘Welcome to Gano.’

  Shaking his head he went inside the big fancy glass doors.

  The smell startled him so much he stopped in the doorway and had to tell himself to get moving before someone bumped into him from behind.

  It was the smell of new leather… new cloth, that had never been worn. That rich, expensive smell of pure luxury. A smell he’d never experienced in his life, and yet somehow he knew exactly what it was the moment it hit him.

  It was glorious.

  “Sir,” said a salesman immediately, moving toward him swiftly with a polite but strained smile. Jet could see the intention in his eyes: get rid of this street trash and fast.

  Jet held up his ID ring in a casual gesture, and at his side Keeri smiled and knew exactly what he wanted. She made a hologram of his bank account appear just above the ring’s stone, a real ‘physical’ hologram so the man could see it too.

  The salesman stopped, looked at the figure in deion coin, and then smiled. His entire demeanor changed. “Right this way, sir! We have an entire section for Bantans. May I ask what you are looking for today?”

  “Business,” Jet told him calmly. “Understated and casual but professional.”

  “I have several lines that are just the thing.”

  That started a strange sort of battle, the likes of which Jet had never fought before. With Keeri making sarcastic comments on the side he figured it out and held his own; the little salesman was sly and cunning, and kept trying to increase the cost of the outfit by upgrading pieces or throwing in accessories. Jet was feeling cheap since he’d never spent so much money in his life, and wanted to save as much as possible for later, so he kept refusing and downgrading. The negotiations went back and forth… but in the end Jet and Keeri were both satisfied with the deal he ended up with, and the little salesman looked a touch rueful.

  Jet gave him a little tip just to cheer him up.

  He walked out of the shop looking sharp by any standards. Matrodonosian was one of the centers of fashion in the galaxy, both cutting edge and sophisticated. Jet was wearing a full suit of clothing for the first time; he felt oddly cocooned. It was all tailored to him with nanite tech, the fibers themselves lengthening or shortening to fit him perfectly. They’d also clean and repair themselves.

  The suit was currently a subtle shade of gunmetal; he could change the colors of his suit on a whim using his UI. It had silver-metal accents including a tail ring and toe-claw sheaths, horn rings and canine dental tips, and sleek wing-arm sleeves.

  He stood on the porch and admired himself, holding out his hand with the ID ring, and looking at the glint and sparkle of the silver. “I feel rich.”

  ‘You look great. Nobody is going to mistake you for—’

  “A slave?” Jet interrupted her.

  She smiled a bit wanly. ‘I was going to say street trash, but alright.’ She nodded to the suit. ‘Frankly, your Account is stealthed, and with clothes like that nobody will be able to tell you are a slave. It should be interesting. You’re walking into the world as basically a free man.’

  “Basically but not really.” He wasn’t complaining though; he was feeling damn good and there was still quite a bit of money in the expense account. He hooked his thumbs behind the lapels of his blazer and started to swagger down the street.

  ‘Makes you wonder exactly what jobs Master Sal is going to send you to do for him, to pay for all this.’

  “Yah.” Jet felt a distinct sense of discomfort and his swagger faded a bit. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  ‘We will. But for tonight…’ she stopped and looked around at the city, smiling.

  He stopped and smiled as well. Tonight, the stars were the limit. Tonight, Jet was going to do nothing but enjoy himself for the first time in his adult life.

  It was paralyzing.

  “I have no idea what to do now,” Jet said through a stiff grin.

  Keeri chuckled. ‘Would you trust me to craft a quick itinerary for you? A few suggestions? Some must-not-miss-this attractions that are within your budget?’

  “Sure. Start with dinner. I’m hungry.”

  ‘Let’s go.’ She winked and led him down the street.