April looked at the cubic critically. It was on the half G deck, which lowered the price quite a bit. She had asked about full G cubic initially and was told there were now only eight residences maintained on Home at the full G level. Mitsubishi politely declined to make usage information public, so she had no way to check the agent's information and she refused to ask her how she got that number. She knew a lot of the level had been converted to businesses, a lot of entry hatches were just numbered, so she hadn't realized just how many had gone commercial.

Growing up, she hadn't appreciated how privileged she was to be able to sleep at home with her family, not to mention she had her own tiny closet sized bath, but she certainly valued it now. Her grandpa had helped build M3, not as a distant investor but as a working beam dog and sank every buck he had into the initial auction of private spaces. It was a great investment, but more importantly, it allowed him to bring his family up. Leaving Earth had always been the primary goal of his working life.

When she insisted she was still interested in full G and asked a price, she was informed that in the rare event such a property came open, she could figure a hundred square meters of floor area would run seven to ten million USNA dollars. Even figuring her recent inheritance from her brother that was still a staggering number to her. That's why the half G level suddenly looked much better. It ran to a third of those prices.

Children were required by regulation to spend at least their eight hour sleep period in a full G. Most families did that by sending their child to a tiny business that had hot slot beds and a single shared bath. They could miss a few days for something like an illness, but were expected back as soon as they were not contagious.

The full G was needed to stimulate the growth of a normal bone structure. Indeed, residents were encouraged to add a couple hours a day of vertical full G time to the sleep hours. Most did this by taking their meals at the cafeteria in full G. This was required until a person was twelve years old, or fifteen hundred centimeters tall, whichever came first.

April was still growing approaching sixteen, but she would be slowly growing for a very long time, because she had Life Extension Therapy. What that did to the mix was anybody's guess, since her's was the first generation to grow up in mixed G with LET. She figured she'd have enough full G exposure to keep her body able to function at that level. If it resulted in her being a hair shorter at full growth than she would have on Earth, that was OK. Being compact was no disadvantage to a spacer. Indeed
,
being much over two meters made it almost impossible to use standard acceleration couches and P-suit parts.

The cubic was on the inside of the torus, with a sloping overhead along one side. The one uncovered viewport looked inward at the new ring being built off the hub. That was where April ended her walkthrough, enjoying the view, while she considered if she wanted this to be her home. It was a more interesting perspective than looking outward at stars streaking by. Even if there was a ship or something to be seen on the outside of the ring, it went by so quickly it was in no way a relaxing view. Her friend Heather lived in a similar cubic and she had seen all sorts of tricks to maximize utilization of the area with the low overhead.

The construction of the next ring up was interesting. There were all sorts of suited workers and bundles of material being moved about and the open framework of the next ring was fascinating without a skin covering it yet. April could see, through the new ring, behind the end hub, the ragged crescent of the Rock trailing them in orbit. Mitsubishi hadn't moved them back to a parallel orbital path since Jeff had sparred with China. That placement complicated navigation a bit on approach, but she couldn't fault keeping the protection it gave them from a direct ballistic attack.

On the plus side as a home, the entry door for this cubic was only twelve meters from an elevator, which was very convenient and that elevator dropped to full G less than a quarter of the ring away from the cafeteria. Some people might not like having the elevator spoke right near their view port, pretty much filling a quarter of the view to one side, but April thought the long taper of it ascending to the hub on one side of her view was a dramatic perspective, just as her Hawaiian home had a much more interesting view, perched on the end of a wooded ridge, than a home would in the middle of a flat plain.

The agent wasn't talking the place up. In fact she wasn't chatty at all. She'd ignored April's bodyguard Gunny when she hadn't introduced him and ignored him like a piece of furniture. But then she was standing off to one side, doing a pretty good furniture imitation herself, letting April form her own conclusions about the cubic. April would never have guessed the agent didn't sell the place harder because she intimidated the woman.

"How long has this been empty?" April asked the agent, turning away from the view. The floor covering, some of the small items left behind and markings by the lighting controls, suggested that a Japanese speaker had lived here. Oddly there was a faint odor of tea lingering but nothing unpleasant.

The lady looked surprised. "Just today, the fellow cleared out yesterday. The Sakura Pharmaceuticals company he worked for is in a bit of money trouble on Earth. That's been in the news. They still have a production lab on the north end, but they only need three shift workers to oversee the equipment and can't afford to maintain an on-site administrator. He'll do it remotely from Japan now. Residential cubic doesn't sit vacant, dear. You are the first to look at it, then I have a showing at eleven hundred and sixteen hundred. I'd be shocked if one of you three doesn't take it."

"What if more than one of us bids on it?" April asked.

"If you bid less than the three point seven million asked, I am obligated to present the offer, but I'd advise the company to leave it on the market for a second day. I think I priced it very accurately. There is a shortage of materials, so the new ring is building slowly, yet almost all the cubic there in this price range is either pre-sold, or has rental agreements. Mitsubishi is holding back half the new cubic to lease instead of sell. I suggested to the pharmaceutical company that they would be better off to rent the space and retain ownership as an investment if they don't have to provide living space, but they are eager to have the cash."

April considered the possibility that one of the other interested parties would bid over the asking price. A glance at her com said it was 09:17. "I accept your offer at full price. I have the cash to do an immediate wire transfer if you can have the papers ready this afternoon. That should be a plus if they are looking for cash. The other buyers might need financing, or time to liquidate something. I want you to communicate this now and the offer is valid no later than 10:30."

"That's smart, but what if they want to hear the other two offers?" she asked.

"That's their privilege. However, if the other parties don't make a full price offer, I'm going to lower my own to the range the others feel is a fair market value," she warned. "I appreciate this is what

new
cubic is going for, but I wonder if they will offer as much for used? Surely some of the amenities, like lighting and environmental systems, are more advanced in the new section and just like a ground car they only have so many hours of service life in them, before they will need replacement."

"I'll text it to them right now." If she was offended by April's reservations on the price she didn't show it at all. After a few seconds of fingers dancing on the keys she folded the pad away. "It's up to them now. I'll contact you when they get back to me."

"Thank you." April checked the time when they stepped out in the corridor, curious how long it would take her to reach the cafeteria. The answer was slightly less than four minutes plus elevator wait. That was close to the time from her folks' apartment, so she was happy. She could take the stairs that spiraled around the elevator shaft if she wished, but it was narrow and the angle increased as you went up, until the top level was a hand rail and ladder without flat treads. Most folks, if they used the top section, just slid down the rails like a fireman's pole. Or pulled up it hand over hand on top since it was so close to zero G.

Gunny and she would have a late breakfast, delayed by viewing the cubic.

Heather and Jeff were meeting her for breakfast tomorrow. She could have invited them to look at the cubic with her, but then she would have had to reveal all the price information in front of them, or go off with the agent to bid. She loved them both, but they were
not
all joined at the hip. They still had customers and secrets they didn't share with each her. She suspected there were things they didn't share with each other.

Jeff for example, hadn't shared the existence of the biggest of his private weapons systems with them until
after
it was in place and active with five huge warheads. Since then, he had expanded that part of the system to an even dozen warheads, replacing the one expended on the Chinese and capped building them at that for now. They were upgraded in new maneuverable buses with decent decoys and jamming. More than that, they not only fell at orbital velocity, but now
accelerated
in the drop phase at another six G, making interception even more difficult.

Her phone gave a priority ding, just as they sat down. "You own the cubic," the lady told her. "Can you meet me at our offices at 13:00 and do the closing?" she asked.

"Sure, I'd be very happy to do that." To Gunny she just gave a thumbs up. He simply nodded.

Chapter 2

Otis Dugan didn't smile easily. His serious demeanor complimented his physique. He didn't have the bulked out mass of a body builder, but there was very little fat to be found on him and he moved with the balanced grace of a dancer. His alert posture and his habitual scanning of his environment spoke of someone dangerous, even to men who couldn't articulate precisely
why
they felt that aura of danger after meeting him.

He was a Chief Warrant Officer, recently retired, with a long stint before that as a E7 Specialist Armorer. He knew every sort of small arms the North American military used in intimate detail and quite a few of the foreign and civilian arms special forces seemed to collect along the way and forget to destroy or turn in. He was every bit as expert in their use as he was in their care. That he considered his body just another weapon to master, was an obvious extension of his world view.

Safety Associates of Atlanta had happily employed Otis the two years since his discharge. They also employed a lot of common rent-a-cops nationwide, in retail stores and manufacturing facilities, but the reason they bought his more exotic expertise, was their very expensive personal protection services for celebrities and executives.

Like most truly dangerous men, his biggest asset was not strength, or lightning fast reactions, but intelligence and mental dexterity. Otis was brought in, not to stand watches like a younger man, but to be involved in planning and corporate liaison. He had advanced in the company already to making the pitch for such high end services to the customer.

He was signing these contracts for the company later today, to provide such a package to one of the many small specialty studios, for their off-lot film shoots. Most of the work was still routine, guarding actor's private trailers and providing drivers away from a secure production lot, but on rare occasions a film shoot put a star or an executive in very dangerous territory, the very worst being a public ceremony, where others controlled the security environment. That would call for his personal attention, running a team hands on. He also had to plan for such contingencies to be fulfilled on very short notice.

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