Chapter 5: Two Trouble-Magnets Attract

Chapter 5:
Two Trouble-Magnets Attract

 

THE NEXT DAY marked the beginning of Elma’s prohibition.

“Ugh. Nnngh…” She started crying the moment she woke up. Slumped forward in the cafeteria, Elma gazed mournfully at an unopened bottle of expensive, untouched whiskey.

“Is it really worth crying over?” I asked.

“I-I just bought it, and now…” Tears tracked down her cheeks.

I very nearly took pity on her and lifted the prohibition right away. Could I even really stop her from drinking it? She’d bought that whiskey with her own money. Who was I to say she couldn’t have it?

I sighed. “Just drink a bit less, okay?”

“C-can I really?” Elma said.

“Next time you get blind drunk, though, it’s going right in your butt.”

“Urk! I-I’ll be careful.” Elma’s eyes glimmered with hope. She glowed all over with that mysterious, misused magic of hers.

“Master Hiro…” Mimi cut in.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I couldn’t bear the reproach in her gaze. “Anyway, Mimi, what are you up to?”

“I was thinking of relaxing on the ship. After all, I need to work on my operator studies.”

“Fair enough. Hmm… What should I do?”

I had yet to find a gaming console in this universe, and I’d never been much of a reader. Maybe in a colony with so much shopping, I could scrounge up something fun, though.

“I might wander around the city for a while. This place seems safe enough.”

“Um, are you going alone?” Mimi asked.

“Probably, yeah. There’s nothing wrong with some alone time once in a while.” I’d had precious little solitude since arriving in this universe and inviting Mimi and Elma to join my crew. Flying solo for a bit might let all of us relax for a day.

“Really?” Mimi glanced at Elma.

“I don’t see the problem with him wandering around alone,” Elma said. “Just don’t poke your head into any trouble, bub.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Elma narrowed her eyes at me. What could I say? I certainly wasn’t looking for trouble, but if trouble happened to be looking for me, well, all I could do was my best.

 

***

 

“Let’s see… Where to go?” I mused.

Where in this big, wide universe might I find a gaming console? I’d take pretty much anything at this point, perhaps even a book.

“But print books are kinda…eh.”

Books ate up space quickly. If I started hoarding print books, the Krishna could get cramped. “No books, then. Okay.” Digital was probably a better option for reading, anyway.

I wandered along, tapping at my terminal, trying to suss out anything that might be a gaming retailer. Abruptly, the bright lights of the colony went dark. I looked up and found myself alone in an empty alley.

That’s what I get for having my nose in my phone.

“Wait!” a woman yelled.

“Why would I wait just because you told me to?!” a rough-sounding man replied.

Gee, it sure feels like this has happened before. Also, that voice sounds familiar. Am I just imagining it?

I peeked around the corner of the alley and found a woman in a disheveled white coat. Her brown braid slapped against her back as she fled, and her breasts bounced frantically as she went. Dammit. I couldn’t just leave her. I heaved a sigh, unholstered my laser gun, and dashed around the corner. The woman stumbled to a stop when I appeared. “Eep!”

“Wha—?!” Her pursuer dropped down the moment he spotted my gun, reaching into his pockets. He was too quick and too smooth to be some fumbling amateur.

I caught the woman before she fell, firing a warning shot at her attacker as I did. The projectile grazed his cheek.

“Put your hands behind your head and get on your knees, slowly,” I said. “Do anything weird, and I won’t hold back. The next one’s going right into your forehead.”

The man froze before slowly lowering to one knee and raising his hands to clasp them behind his head.

“Y-you’re…”

The woman in my arms squirmed, and we locked eyes. Recognition dawned on her instantly. Dr. Shouko blinked at me with a mixture of astonishment and fear, then relaxed a little.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but just turn around and get out of here,” I told her pursuer. “Don’t try anything weird either. Remember your manners and be a good boy now.”

The man glared daggers in my direction, refusing to back down. He squinted, then pointed right at me. His hand bent away in the wrong direction as a gun barrel sprouted from his wrist. Laser gun in his left arm, huh? What is he, a cyborg?

He flew into motion, fast and fluid, but I was faster. I leveled my laser at him before he got very far.

“Gah?!”

An explosion bloomed from his mechanical wrist as I shot his arm-gun. He struck the wall behind him, slumping to the ground in a heap. Dr. Shouko gasped, clinging to me in fear, pushing that voluptuous chest against me. Oho! Those are some Mimi-tier knockers. How excellent.

“D-did you just kill him?”

“Who knows? If he’s lucky, he might still be alive.” Alive or not, he wouldn’t leave this encounter unscathed. “Was he the only person following you?”

“I-I dunno,” she managed to say. “I just ran for my life…”

“I see.” What now? Staying here would be a bad move, but we can’t just leave that guy. Self-defense or not, if we leave him, and he dies, that would definitely be a crime. “Dr. Shouko, we need to do something about that guy. Should we call the police?”

“G-good idea. I think we should, yes. Unfortunately, I kinda dropped my terminal.”

“I’ll call them.”

I kept my laser trained on the attacker as I called the police through my terminal. Dr. Shouko, please. You’re not a child. You don’t have to… Okay, fine, you can cling to me. I don’t mind!

 

***

 

“Hats off to you, Mr. Trouble Magnet,” a certain elf groaned.

“What can I say? I attract trouble as naturally as I breathe.”

I’d messaged Elma and Mimi after contacting the authorities. They’d arrived while I was still explaining the situation to the cops. The girls both shot looks at Dr. Shouko when they saw the way she was clinging to me.

“Look, it’s not what you think,” I said.

“I’m getting tired of that excuse.” Elma glared nearly as hard as that attacker had.

Mimi only offered a strained laugh. “Ah ha ha…”

Dr. Shouko glanced between the three of us. “No, it honestly isn’t his fault. I just got him wrapped up in it… Actually, y’know what? Maybe it is his fault.”

“Bwuh?” Hey, what the heck?!

“See, I was taking his genetic data to my lab to analyze it,” Dr. Shouko said. “That’s when I got attacked. In a way, you could say he indirectly caused this.”

“Wait. Did they steal my genetic data?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Dr. Shouko said. “But I put it in a special security case so they won’t be able to access it easily. It also has a tracking device on it. We can find it pretty quickly; don’t worry.”

“That’s good, at least. Were you seriously carrying it alone, though?”

“Yep. Since I was headed to the lab, I decided to take it with me. Then these strange men attacked me. They took the case and tried to abduct me, but I narrowly escaped. That last one there was so stubborn. And just when I thought I was done for, Hiro swept in and saved me.” Dr. Shouko tightened her hold on me. I would have enjoyed it if it weren’t for the dour looks Mimi and Elma shot in my direction.

“Dr. Shouko, that’s how he gets you,” Elma said, pinching my cheek. “We both fell for it once.”

“Elma, no…” Mimi chided her.

I did not care for that particular insinuation. I really hadn’t orchestrated any of these strange rescues. It was just a weird coincidence that I’d had to save three different women from three different dire situations. Wait, did Lieutenant Serena count too? I had kind of cleaned up in that battle back in the Tarmein System.

“Oh, really?” Dr. Shouko said, cocking her head. What a tease!

The cops were starting to notice the display as well. I did not appreciate the way they narrowed their eyes at me, gazes boring into me. I could almost hear them calling me a popular normie in their heads and telling me to spontaneously combust.

“Can I just say that I didn’t intend for any of this to happen?” I offered. “I mean, I couldn’t cause all this if I tried.”

“That’s probably true,” Dr. Shouko admitted.

Perhaps it was enough to save my reputation. I mean, if anyone here was attracting trouble, it was the good doctor herself. First that pirate attack, and now this?

“How should we search for my data?” I asked.

“It’ll probably fall to the colony’s police and Inagawa Tech’s specialists to handle that,” she said. “Inagawa might even send a recovery request to the mercenary guild.”

“I won’t be the one accepting that request, just so you know,”

“They probably won’t send it to you since it’s a conflict of interest. If the security case is opened and your data gets leaked, Inagawa has to pay out reparations to you. It wouldn’t really help us to offer you the job while simultaneously giving you an opportunity to profit from botching it.”

“That makes sense,” I said.

If that case wasn’t recovered, I was entitled to 30,000,000 Ener, after all. I couldn’t blame Inagawa Technologies for doubting whether I’d really put my heart into the job.

“I guess I’ll leave it to you guys, then,” I said. “Uh, should I walk you home? Will you be okay?”

“Oh, boy. Are you gonna walk me home just to do something dirty to me?” Dr. Shouko teased.

“I’m honestly worried, okay?”

“Ha ha, I’m just kidding! I’ll be fine, though. I had the police contact Inagawa’s security department, so they’ll come to pick me up soon. Oh, speak of the devil.” Several people in body armor approached the police, displaying the credentials on their handheld terminals.

“Why didn’t you have them come with you in the first place?”

“It takes a lot of annoying procedures to get them to do stuff,” she said, “and a lot of time. Nobody anywhere is supposed to know about the data, so I didn’t think anyone would come after me.”

“Dr. Shouko…”

Her shoulders slumped, and she heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I know. I feel bad.”

I almost pitied her. No doubt her employer would have some stern words for her about this. Besides, if I hadn’t been around, what would’ve happened to her? There was no time to consider it, though; the Inagawa Tech guys strode toward us, interrupting our conversation.

“Doctor, the higher-ups are furious, you know,” one of them said. He wore a helmet that obscured his whole face. His voice emerged from somewhere within it, mechanical and tinny.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Ugh. Oh, and Hiro—thanks again.”

“No prob. Be careful out there, though I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, leaving with her armored entourage. The police hauled away the attacker as well, leaving just me, Mimi, and Elma.

“Welp, let’s get going,” I said, but the moment I attempted to do just that, the girls seized me by the arms.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“We don’t know what trouble you might get up to by yourself, Master Hiro. We’re coming with you now.”

“You can’t even walk alone in a colony this secure,” Elma said, shaking her head. “That’s some kind of talent.”

“I’m innocent, I swear!”

My cries did not sway their cold hearts. In the end, my solo day was not quite as solitary as I might have hoped. To make matters worse, I never did find any sort of gaming console. Apparently, they’d faded into obscurity long ago, eclipsed in power by desktop terminals and other technology. If I wanted to game, I’d need to attach a controller to a desktop.

So much for my grand plans.