Chapter 4: THE FIXER
Dock 47-B sat in the industrial underbelly of Ceres, where cargo ships docked for repairs and the station's legitimate business blurred into something grayer. I found Bay 3 tucked between a welding shop and a water reclamation unit, the air thick with the smell of recycled lubricant and ozone.
Hasina waited inside, exactly where I'd left her twelve hours ago. The same calculating eyes, the same patient stillness of someone who'd learned that rushing got people killed.
"You came back." She gestured to the chair across from her. "Most people who take my test jobs don't."
"Most people probably aren't facing a loan shark's deadline."
"Semi." She said the name like it tasted sour. "I heard. Three days, yes? That's tomorrow now."
"Which is why I'm here."
She studied me for a long moment. The data chip she'd given me earlier contained details of the security job—a cargo transfer at 0200, paranoid parties, discrete muscle required. But the way she looked at me now suggested that job was already old news.
"The security work is still available," she said. "Two hundred credits, as discussed. But I have something else. Something that pays better, needs done tonight."
"How much better?"
"Three hundred fifty. Recovery job. Someone stole product from a client of mine. The thief is a man named Gregor—small-time, usually works the maintenance tunnels near Sector 9. Get the product back. How you handle Gregor is your business."
I did the math. Three fifty plus the dock wages I'd earned, plus Kwame's pitiful savings. I'd have Semi's money with room to spare.
"What's the product?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters if someone's going to come looking for it after."
Hasina's lips twitched—almost a smile. "Medical supplies. Antibiotics, mostly. Valuable enough to steal, not valuable enough to start a war over. My client wants them back. Gregor won't give them up willingly."
"Violence optional but probable."
"You understand the work." She slid a second data chip across the table. "Gregor's last known location, his habits, his associates. Such as they are. Payment on completion."
I pocketed the chip. "Anything else I should know?"
"Gregor carries a knife. Thinks he's good with it. He's not, but desperation makes people dangerous." She leaned back in her chair. "And Kwame? Whatever you were before this life, keep it quiet. Ceres doesn't like mysteries. People start asking questions about a dock worker who moves like something else, and questions lead to attention, and attention leads to bodies. Usually not the ones asking."
"Understood."
"I don't think you do. Not yet." Her eyes held mine. "But you will."
Sector 9's maintenance tunnels ran beneath the main residential levels—a warren of pipes, conduits, and access corridors that serviced the station's life support systems. The official workers avoided them during off-shifts. The unofficial population—the homeless, the criminals, the desperate—called them home.
I found Gregor's hidey-hole after an hour of searching. A converted junction room, big enough for a mattress and a portable heating unit. The stolen medical supplies sat in a crate near the door, still sealed. Gregor himself crouched over a hand terminal, probably trying to find a buyer.
He looked up when I entered. Young—maybe twenty—with the hollow cheeks of someone who'd been hungry for most of his life. The knife came out fast, held in a grip that suggested practice but not training.
"Wrong turn, kopeng." His voice cracked on the last word. "Walk away."
"Can't do that. Those supplies belong to someone else."
"They belong to whoever's got them." He shifted his weight, blade tracking my movements. "You work for Hasina? Tell her finder's keepers. These'll buy me a ticket off this rock."
"They'll buy you a knife in the gut if you don't hand them over."
Something flickered in his eyes. Fear, maybe. Or the desperate calculation of a man with nothing left to lose.
He lunged.
My body moved before my mind caught up.
Step left, blade passing through empty air. Grab wrist, twist, feel the joint strain toward breaking. His other hand came up—I caught it, used his momentum against him, drove him into the wall hard enough to rattle his teeth. The knife clattered to the floor. I kicked it into the shadows.
Three seconds. Maybe less.
Gregor struggled, but I had him in a control hold—arm locked behind his back, weight pinning him to the metal wall. He whimpered.
"The supplies," I said. "Now."
"Take them. Just—take them."
I released him. He collapsed to the floor, cradling his wrist. Not broken, but he'd feel it for a week.
I grabbed the crate of medical supplies and walked out. Gregor didn't try to follow.
The whole encounter had taken less than five minutes.
The corridor outside was empty. I leaned against a pipe junction, crate at my feet, and watched my hands shake.
Military precision. That's what the fight had been—clean, efficient, trained. A dock worker wouldn't know those moves. Kwame's body shouldn't be capable of that speed, that coordination.
But I did know them. Some part of me that transcended the transmigration, some muscle memory that had followed my consciousness into this borrowed flesh.
Or maybe something else entirely.
The shaking didn't stop for several minutes. When it finally passed, I picked up the crate and started walking.
Hasina was waiting at Bay 3 when I returned. She looked at the crate, then at my face, then at my hands—scraped knuckles, no other visible damage.
"That was fast," she said.
"Gregor wasn't as good as he thought."
"Most people aren't." She opened the crate, verified the contents, and nodded. "Three hundred fifty, as agreed."
She transferred the credits to Kwame's account. I watched the number climb—350, plus the 20 I'd earned at the docks, plus the 12 from Kwame's savings. 382 total.
Not enough.
"The security job," I said. "It's still happening?"
"Two hours from now. You still want it?"
"I need it."
Hasina studied me. "You're hurt."
"Scraped knuckles."
"You're hiding something worse." She didn't make it a question. "Gregor got a hit in somewhere, or you're carrying something from before. Either way, you're not at a hundred percent."
"I don't need to be at a hundred percent. I need 118 more credits by tomorrow morning."
A long pause. Then: "The security job pays two hundred on completion. Standard work—stand around, look dangerous, make sure nobody gets ideas. You can handle that wounded."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me." She stood, gathering her things. "I don't do favors, Kwame. You're useful, so I'm using you. The moment you stop being useful, we're done. Understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Good." She handed me another data chip. "Dock 23-A, 0200 hours. Don't be late."
She left. I sat alone in the converted storage bay, listening to the distant hum of the station's heartbeat, and tried to convince myself that the shaking in my hands was just adrenaline.
It wasn't.
Something was changing. The strength at the docks. The combat instincts in the tunnel. My body was becoming something it hadn't been before—or maybe it had always been this, and I was only now learning to use it.
Either way, I had two hours until the security job. Two hours to eat something, rest my aching muscles, and pretend I was just a dock worker earning extra credits.
Two hours until I had enough to pay Semi and start building something real.
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