3. Riding on a high life

Dan was staring out the window of his elevated pit box overlooking the arena. His pit box was special, the actual concert could be dampened to make business deals and meetings feasibly while an event was underway. He was still alone at the moment, playing with the room controls, turning the dampening on and off. It was some pop concert with full house, people having good time, he could hear the upbeat music, a higher than usual woman voice singing some love song.

He saw the rhythmic background dancers, they were humans in the flash while the singer’s figure in the middle vibrated with frequency, a hologram presenting her hand-drawn figure onto the stage. The show’s backdrop were the whooshing stars creating randomized lines behind the dancers as the luxury liner where he lived his life was passing the vast space between the spiral arms of the Milky-way.

Sliding door opened for short moments as 3 men poured in, a slightly louder music radiating in with them. Dan’s pulse increased, he expected only one, maybe two men max, something is off. He recognized the leading one, he was the same guy he made the deal weeks ago when they agreed to meet here, without wingmen to bring. Though Dan was not naive to believe they will be only one on one, three was unusual even for his experience.

• “Do you have the data?” — no hail or smalltalk from any of these men.
• “Yes, as we agreed, compressed and encrypted.” — Dan could not really distinguish the three men from each other so kept talking to the middle one.

Same dark, short haircut, even their faces looked similar, tall and squared chins, thin mouth, the leader had a double golden circle earring, while the others had only a golden spot, seemingly communicating rank in this group, the more eloquent your ear piece might mean higher role. Dan kept his look and body oriented to the leader, in the dark room which was rarely shined in with the concert lights made it a vain attempt to record their biometrics anyway. The current song finale brightened the arena, a short glimpse to the men’s neck in the light revealed a fish tattoo on the leader, and sword tattoos on his wingmen for a moment.

• “As soon as the download finished, you get fifty percent on your account.” — sounded an intimidating baritone
• “That is not what we agreed on!” — whipped Dan back
• “Terms changed. Boss wants to verify the data before full payment.” — as he was talking, he pulled a data port out of his neck and gestured toward Dan, now a cable leading from his hand.

Dan was getting more alert, but he can play this game. Pulled out his data port too and attached it to the another guy’s.

• “Here you go” — the connection was over in a second and Dan pulled his port back.
• “These are only a few files” — sounding with some surprise from the fish tattoo.
• “These are enough for your boss to verify the signatures, after that I can download you the entire package when you paid the agreed amount” — Dan sounded confident despite his nerves jumping on a rope, he knew they outnumber and outgun him.

The men with the sword tattoos got up from their chairs, one of them was pulling a gun from his waistline.

• “Hey guys, no need for this, keep to our agreement and no-one needs to be hurt” — though Dan’s cracking voice did not help to convey confidence anymore
• Bamm… the gun was fired, bullet barely missed Dan’s head

Dan throw himself to the ground and kicked up a few chairs toward his attackers, touched his watch to warn his wingmen hoping he can join before these guys put some holes into him. Though he did not stop, growing up on the streets and getting into his fair share of trouble already, he knew if he stays down, he has no chance. You can’t outrun a gun so only option to fight, Dan throw himself into the second guy who was unable to pull his gun yet.

Door opened, the fish tattoo guy left and a moment later Fred, Dan’s man arrived to the door, quickly realizing the first guy is still holding a gun getting up to shoot again, Fred jumped to him grabbing his hand, another shot into the ground. Noone outside heard anything as the damping field was for two ways and the concert’s loud music covered the remaining noise.

One moment Dan and Fred were fighting for their lives, the another the world turned upside down and they flew into the back of the room, knocking them unconscious.

Dan got his senses back in a few seconds, still not able to understand what happened, looked around, everything was floating in the air, the men’s body lifeless and full of shrapnels and glass, blood popping out but not leaving anywhere. His luck was the guy he fought with was toward the blown glass window.

Dan realized if there is no gravity, than they stopped, but he never experienced such an abrupt stop from FTL speed, he looked over the place where the glass window was before, as the lights went off, leaving him in full darkness.

Except the dots of stars from the other side of the arena, before emergency lighting came back up.