Mackey Chandler

A snippet from April 7 – “They Said it would be Easy” raw as always – unedited

“Mr. Coyle, this is Hannes Lueger from Earth. He has entered a complaint before me and chooses as a foreigner to accept my decision. He accuses you of pirating his client’s software and selling it. Specifically that you have altered the name and some of the interface, but left the code almost in its entirety. Would you care to respond to his accusations?” Heather invited.
“Yeah, I’ve been doing that almost a half year,” Bruce readily admitted. “That’s why I came over from Armstrong. They’re under the USNA and have all these stupid treaties. I knew it wasn’t illegal here so I took a job to get residence, but I run my business on the side. It really doesn’t take that much time once you set it up.”
“I’m surprised you bother to retain your cafeteria job when you could live off your software, uh… ‘business’,” Heather said tactfully. “Mr. Lueger indicated it is was substantial sum of money.”
“Well yeah, I guess I could have. But the people in the cafeteria are really nice, and when I got the first transfer from my Earth bank to the System Bank I really intended to just celebrate a bit and then quit when I came back off leave,” Bruce admitted.
“But you didn’t… ” Heather surmised, still unsure where he was going.
“I would have, but I had four days off and went to Camelot. They treat you like a king if you walk in and say sell me ten Solar of chips for a starter. They comp you a room and all you want to eat and drink is on the house. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. I had a whole mob partying with me after a couple days. But I was busted dead broke when I got back. Since I bunk in company cubic and can eat at work it was much easier to just report back to my job. In fact I don’t know what I’d have done without it.”
Hannes gave Heather a terrified, but very questioning look. “Camelot is the previous Chinese moon base. Their principle business at the moment is a very high end casino,” Heather informed him. He just planted his face in both hands with a little moan.
“So you blew how much?” Heather asked, amazed.
“Well, the first transfer was seven million something. I have to pay for stuff too you know,” Bruce told them. “They charge for server space and taking credit. The miserable EuroMarks are perishable now. They actually tick down in value, so you have to spend them or pay again to change them to something else. But somewhere along the line I got a credit card from the casino. I was drinking a bit and don’t exactly remember it all very well. But they were really nice. I remember I was actually up a few million at one point, but by the time I came home I had a couple Solar in the hole on the card.”
“They let a kitchen helper put a couple Solar on a credit card?” Heather asked.
“Hey, I’m a prep cook already. I didn’t stay a scullery hand a week. But when they asked what I do at the casino I just said I’m in software. Since I bought ten Solar of chips cash and some more later, they didn’t seem interested in the details. When I was back home and sober I had a call from them about making payments on the card, but I told them I’d be back in two weeks and win that back and a chunk more. They said that was fine and they’d reserve me a room. Are they a class act or what?” Bruce asked.
Heather was too stunned to say what…

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