((A/N: This is The story I entered into the L. Ron Hubbard "Science Fiction Writers of the Future" Contest. It did not win anything, but I intend to fix the ending for my own gratification, as it was fairly rushed the first time through. Read and review, as always. Hope you like it!))

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I tucked the trench coat closed carefully and checked my wrist display once more. Usually I wasn’t so nervous before a job. But that meeting had been enough to throw even my cool. It had been brief, sure, but brevity doesn’t make things any better. The man who met me at Port 325 in New Orleans had been a menacing figure. He stood easily three inches taller than me and had a thin, gaunt figure that resembled a snake were it not for his arms and legs. He was entirely out of place in my route—he was clean shaven, and dressed in clothes that were not so big that they’d conceal anything, but just large enough to loosely flow around him so you couldn’t see where the clothes ended and the man began. He had a cool cadence that made him sound so genuine he could have turned anyone into a babbling idiot if he wanted to. But enough of that, it was just a job. The man said he wanted something brought to his friend Mr. Judd in St. Martine. The strange thing was that it wasn’t contraband. No drugs, no guns, nothing incriminating at all. It was a nondescript case with two locked latches.

If you want to scare a courier into almost giving up your job, you let him know there’s no contraband involved. We couriers know the cops. We deal with them. We get around them. When you’re smuggling something legal, it means someone else is going to try to stop you, and that’s most often a rougher situation. So I did what any intelligent man in my trade would do. I asked him to pay upfront. Now most people would strike up a deal in order to pay some of it now to ensure that you get the courier’s services, and some of it later to ensure that the job gets done. But the guy agreed. He agreed to pay the whole damned price, up front, and offered me more when the job was finished. It was too good to be true, and as such was suspect. What on earth could have been so important that he’d pay double the going rate to make sure it got where it was going?

Of course I took the job, I had to. I was in a rough time, ok? The feds had gone a little lax, and there weren’t as many drug busts as usual, which meant there was more supply, less demand, and no profit in the drug smuggling business. I hadn’t seen a weapons job since I was in China, and I didn’t want to get involved in their underground again. So right about now I was knee deep in debt and living in the port, waiting for a job. This guy gave me one. First I paid off Ken, and picked up some stuff to take with me. Not much, just a small amount of ammunition and the sword I’d given him as collateral. I didn’t use it much, but it was a really nice sword, and it used to be my father’s. Besides, they’re scary. And if you’re a courier, it’s always good to be a scary courier.

Now I needed a way to St. Martine. Most of my contacts had closed off a while back, so I was forced to deal with a nomad hacker named Mar. I didn’t know his last name, never wanted to. Nor did he know mine; I never wanted him to. I had put in a call about an hour before getting to his place, so when I got to the building I saw him leave the window to buzz me in.

“What’re you up to this time, Simon?” Mar was a rough guy in his late twenties. The one thing I always noticed about him was that, aside from a small beer gut, he was really trim, for a coder anyway. He looked like he put in gym time, but I knew he didn’t. Some people are just built that way.

“I’m looking for a way out of here. I need to get to St. Martine, pretty quick.”

“I got that part, man, but I wanted to know why you’re in such a hurry? Your creditors finally get tired of waiting on you?”

“No.” I brushed the trench aside for a moment to show the hilt of my sword. I did crap like that all the time. It shows Mar two things: First, Ken’s not out for me anymore, so Mar doesn’t have any cards to play from that angle, and second, I have a sword in his apartment.

“Oh.”

“I have a job. And it requires that I get to St. Martine. And I want you to get me there.”

“What’s in it for me?” Now that he knew I was talking business, he was too. At the moment I didn’t have too much to offer him, but I knew what he was always looking for.

“A way out. I’ll look for jobs there for you, and set you up for another move. You’ve been here almost six months too long.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. He’d confided in me once that he’d been moving once a year for the past twenty, but because I’d been finding him enough profitable jobs for his type in the area, he’d stayed. I never knew more than that. He didn’t talk much about himself, which suited me just fine.

“You’re right. I’ve been here too long. But I’ll get your tickets and let you be my scout on one condition: I want to upload a program onto your wrist display.”

“What is it?”

“It’s just a tracing program. It’ll allow me to contact you at any time. Don’t worry, it’s not visible to anyone who doesn’t know my encryption method. It’s far too complicated for anyone to crack without a decryption program, and I’m not about to give out my algorithm.”

“I’m not so sure I want another human to know where I am.” It was a practical concern of mine. A courier’s best defense against the feds or anyone else was secrecy, and that had to be unwavering.

“It won’t tell me where you are. It’ll tell me who you are at a given time. It’s so that if I want access to your wrist display to leave a message, I can. And nobody else.”

I didn’t like the idea of his putting a program on my wrist; he was talented. Who knows what kind of damage he could do with one program. But he struck me as fairly honest person from the start, and besides, there wouldn’t be anything for him if he messed up my job. So it was safe enough. He linked up with me, and five minutes later I was on the street again, headed off to the port where my tickets were being electronically registered as I walked.

There was no incident all the way to the port. About ten minutes before I got there my wrist started vibrating. I checked it, and the display only said, ‘Your tickets are set. Take gate 330 to St. Martine, Trinity Station at 6:00. It’s a long flight, so get comfortable. - Mar’. I headed into the Port and before long had found my gate. It was still some time before I had to go, so I decided to get something to eat, and perhaps a change of clothes. I didn’t have anything aside from what I was wearing, and I figured I might as well be clean for this Mr. Judd. I found myself a shop that sold clothes, and bought a pair of black pants and a t-shirt. I didn’t want anything that stood out too much, just something clean. Then after changing in a bathroom stall, I hit the pub.

It was a sort of seedy pub, the kind that people go to get a beer and then leave rather quickly. The kind where you pay for drinks up front, because they don’t expect you to stay. Also the kind where people go when they want something they can’t get.

In this business, you start to gain a sort of extraordinary hearing ability when it comes to small rooms filled with smoking people speaking in low voices. I’m particularly good at it. That’s why when I heard someone from behind me on my left say, “That’s the case,” I slowed down what I was doing. I put down my beer slowly and picked up a spoon. The idea was to look like I was just checking to see that my teeth were clean, but it was too late. The guy was already too close. Any closer and I knew he’d knock me unconscious and steal my goods. So I spun in my chair, grabbed the case and ran for it. Someone… no, two guys were definitely following me. I checked the time, but I still had a good twenty minutes before I could get through the gates where they couldn’t follow me. So I had to stall. I raced away from my gate, away from the port itself, and into the street. The thugs kept following me, which was good. If they had simply guarded the area, I wouldn’t get through. That meant that they didn’t know how I was going to leave the city. Mar had done a good job. I rounded a corner into an alleyway away from traffic and placed a hand on my sword. It wasn’t going to be too much use, but hey, it was comforting. I moved the hand to my gun. That was more comforting.

I kept moving down the alleyway and across a smaller street. Then I chose a different alleyway, and found my way just out of sight. I had been slightly faster than the two, which either meant I was stronger, or they were carrying more. I suspected the latter case, in the way of guns and ammunition. But that was ok, their objective wouldn’t be to kill me, it would be to scare me into opening the case or telling them who gave it to me. I didn’t see myself as some hero who would resist torture, but at least torture wouldn’t mean I was dead. So I took the allotted few moments to load a fresh magazine into the gun and silence it. I left the safety on, because no matter how long I’ve been on the streets, how many turf wars I’ve seen, I don’t like it. No, my game was usually bluff. I was just going to scare the hell out of them.

When I heard their footsteps approaching, I crouched out of sight. They moved right in and then slowed, making me wonder how they were keeping on my trail. They did walk past though, giving me the opportunity I wanted. There were two thugs, one with a hat, one without. I took careful aim, removed the safety, and fired. Then I stood to meet the two hatless thugs.

“Who are you, and why the hell are you after me?” I demanded of them, my gun trained the one whose bald head was now exposed.

They turned to face me, slowly. I kept my distance; I didn’t want either of them closer than five meters. I didn’t want any chance for them to get physical, because they’d win and I knew it. Baldy responded. “Your case. Give it to us.”

“Mind if I ask why I should be taking orders from you?” I was good at this game. I waved the gun a bit to remind him what side of it he was standing on.

“Our boss wants that case. You’re a courier who’s been asked to deliver it. That means we don’t need you. We can kill you and take the case, or you can give it to us. And we’ll let you go.”

“Oh, doesn’t that sound nice. There’s a third option you know. I can kill you both and keep the case. So now it’s up to you. I can do that, or you can tell me who wants this case so badly they’d actually pay you two.”

He grinned. “My boss is Mr. Kelzo.”

Oh shit. There was only one guy I’d ever had reason to fear in this town, and that was Ken. And there was only one guy he feared; his father. Mr. Kelzo. All the sudden I felt a sick dread rising in my stomach, like I’d just been riding up the roller coaster and now we were at the top, and it was all downhill from here. The bald thug took a large arm and knocked my gun out of the way. It never went off. I stepped out of the way to the left, knocked his arm to the right, and got behind him, where I punched hard into the back of his neck. The guy was tough, but slow. He spun, but I ducked the whirling fist and caught him in the back of the head again, this time with his knees braced against one of my legs. He toppled over. The other guy was already there though, and stomped down on my extended leg. I hit the ground and an immense shock of pain went through me, but I bit it back.

I’ve never been involved in martial arts. I’ve never had a major interest in that area. In fact, my skill with my father’s sword is immensely limited, and comes mostly from watching old movies with the guy up until I was ten. But there are some things that when the time comes, are just natural. I twisted under his foot so that he stumbled, drew the sword, and gave him a nice gash in the thigh, followed up with a shove. He stumbled backwards and I rose. Baldy was about to rise again, but I simply slashed at his legs as well and he didn’t get up either. Then I ran again.

After a few blocks I realized I was breathing far too heavily, and stopped to slow my heart pounding. I hadn’t run like that in far to many years, and I was beginning to cramp up. Not to mention that once the adrenaline wore off, my knee hurt like hell. I checked the time, and then started to hobble back to my gate so I wouldn’t miss my flight.