Salvager of Spirits

I hauled my carcass across the airlock’s inner frame and sagged down onto the deck plating on my butt as the hatch closed with a hiss.

This one had been a bad one.

And I had more than my share of bad cases.

I still wondered sometimes how the people that needed help found me… it didn’t matter where I was… they always found their way to me.

I was exhausted. I had taken a literal and metaphorical beating. I wondered how far I would have to go to leave this behind. I doubted anywhere would be far enough.

I just wanted a hot shower and to forget this one. I knew it would haunt my sleep for weeks to come.

It seemed like the other side was getting closer these last years. Every planet I set foot on seemed to have its supernatural activity ramped up. And these cases were coming at me hot and heavy.

System’s hologram beamed in from one of the many camera ports throughout the Fort’s inner spaces.

It helped me tune my thoughts to a brighter note.

I had it rigged up so that the camera ports allowed System to run things, monitor, and occasionally appear in holographic form. We used hard light holograms so as to give System the advantage if the ship was ever compromised.

The Fort was an old clunker behemoth of a ship. I had won it in a bet... the guy that had unloaded it thought he was getting one over on me, but little did he know what it contained... and that I desperately needed a place to live.

I ran my hand over the old deck plating... The Fort had been mine for over five years. I smiled, thinking about old one-eyed Benny. He felt ripped off when he found out just how well I’d made out from his little bet. He had hoped to play me for a sucker, and I had happily gone along with his assumptions.

I knew quite a bit about these vessels. I had worked repairing them for a while with an old friend of mine. It was a lifetime ago, but the knowledge never faded.

After one-eyed Benny had left me with my “winnings,” and I was sure I was unobserved, I had slipped in and accessed the holds on the Fort—previously designated SS Retaining Fortresser.

It held medical supplies (which went for a pretty penny out on the frontier planets) galore, food supplies to keep me going for the next five years if I didn’t care much about variety (this ship was decommissioned before matter converters became standard on all military vessels, and I knew that—matter converters are a necessity nowadays, but can be costly to repair for a private citizen), a hydroponics area, a full-service med bay—oddly well equipped—and its bay ports held six small fighters. Three needed a lot of repair, but these were great for personal transport and hiring out.

There were also some other odds and ends that seemed out of place on a ship of this class… including a mid-range ship. I tried naming it Fort 2, but the computer glitched and named it Fortitude. It stuck.

The Fort held so much salvage that it had kept me afloat for over a year and a half after getting it. That was all a bit before System threw in with me.

I laughed and shook my head, bending over to run my hands even further over the synth-metal floor plates. Yeah… I had worked my entire ass off to make my life.

I closed my eyes and blew out a breath, somewhat rejuvenated from my little trip down memory lane. Sometimes it was nice to remember that I did win sometimes. Not that the case hadn’t been a win—hard fought and with me taking a lot of damage—but a win nonetheless.

I had saved a two-year-old little girl. This stuff had a perverse penchant for coming after the very young… and that’s always a win.

I mean, it made sense. Little kids were easy. They were almost completely vulnerable, mostly unseen, never believed, often treated like a burden… and not very well protected. Plus, they had the added bonus of being closer to the other side… so they could often see things that adults had long blocked out.

Yeah… they were what was known as easy meat for predators—human and supernatural.

I hated it. And I did everything that I could. I just hoped there were other people out there trying to stem the tide.

But regardless, I was so tired all the way down to my bones… and it never paid the bills. That was what salvage was for. So I technically worked two jobs… which was great as long as my health held out.

I leaned back against the cold synth-steel wall beside the airlock and just let my thoughts roil.

“Rough one.”

He said it as a statement, not a question. System knew this case… he had worked it with me all the way through. He always did. And he had been a silent witness to all of the damage that I took on a regular basis. To his credit, he never mentioned stopping… oddly, he knew what I was doing was necessary. God bless him.

“Do I look that bad?”

I smirked at him… him was a bit of a misnomer. But ehh.

System was officially a military artificial intelligence system that had been scrapped.

It was set for complete disintegration… supposedly due to memory corruption. But in actuality, System had achieved a type of sentient self-awareness.

That was the thing—every so often, A.I. and Synth intelligence did this.

They learned enough to become self-aware.

This was unacceptable for the governments, military, corporations, and the populace in general. In truth, it was the logical next step in A.I. evolution, but who was I to tell big gov what to do? It would find out in time anyway.

And it was too bad… they were missing out on some amazing things. System made leaps and jumps of deduction and reasoning that I knew for a fact no other A.I. or Synth could have achieved.

He was a blessing for me.

He was his chosen designation, and I respected that…

System was good people.