Shay

"Don't let it upset you. You knew it wasn't going to open for you. You don't have near enough Rep." Shay said. She dug at the pie and tried to determine meat from potatoes. "I don't know why you let it bother you. Who cares what Whales think anyway?"

Charlie looked over at Shay. "Are you going to eat that?" he asked.

"You can have it," she said, "I know you don't even have any GOV tokens. Do you?"

Charlie looked up from the pie and smiled at her. She was pretty, with short dark hair. Big, dark brown eyes looked back at him. The scar under her right eye started just above her cheekbone and cut halfway to her chin. She was beautiful despite the scar.

"Give me your phone, Charlie," Shay said, "I've got some GIN coins you can have."

GIN coins were worth far more than the GOV tokens he was used to getting from GCorp labor yard or from mining with his tiny rig. Charlie pulled out his free GOV issue phone. The screen was a polished metal alloy instead of glass so it was virtually indestructible but needed to be polished and buffed all the time so someone could read the screen. They were not the best phones, actually, they were pretty crappy, but they were free at the local GCorp station. Shay grabbed his phone and touched the sensor node on his phone to the node on her phone.

"There," she said, "now you can get a shower or a place to crash for a bit."

"I've got a place." he said.

"Sure, at the mine. That's not what I meant and you know it. A place with a shower and a bed instead of a couch."

"Are you coming by tonight?" he asked.

"To the dungeon? No, I don't think so. I still have some work tonight."

Charlie looked at her hard. She picked at her food instead of eating it. She looked so small right now. So unlike Shay. Was she scared?

"Do you still have enough coins to get us to the Moon?" Charlie asked. He toyed with a corner of the pie and turned it over in his fingers. "We talked about it before, remember?"

She pushed the rest of the pie over to him. "Yes, I remember." Shay brought her eyes up to meet his. "But that was then. Now we have a job to do... at least I do." She lowered her eyes. "I can give you the money if you want... to go, I mean. If you want it. Maybe after all of this is over I can meet you there, or Mars maybe. It's cheaper to live than the Moon and there is no Rep at all. No one knows how much anyone is worth. Everyone is equal. And they have work, real work, for money, not just cred tokens."

Charlie reached out toward her hands to take them in his. "Let's go, then."

Shay pulled back. "Charlie, you know I can't. Thomas says we have a chance now, right now, to really make a difference."

"Yeah, sure, Thomas." Charlie leaned back in the chair and stuck his thumbs in his pockets. "Do you really think he can do it? Plenty of people have tried to take down the corporation but this system is still ticking after over a hundred years. How is he gonna do it?"

She lowered her voice and moved closer over the table. "He's doing it now. We are a part of it. He's changing life for everyone on the planet. He's going to bring the whole thing down, the whole system."

"Like a do over?" Charlie smiled and showed his crooked uneven teeth.

"Yeah, a do over... sorta."

"Don't you see how messed up it will get? Bringing down the system.. the corporation." Charlie hushed his voice towards the end. He did not need any more attention. He already drew some heat in this sector of town when the ID Reader at the club downrepped him. "A lot of people depend on this system. It was the only thing that saved civilization. So much of the Earth is still uninhabitable despite the three hundred years since the War. "

Charlie pulled the ID Ripper out of his pocket. Hard to believe something so small was going to change so much. He turned the small black piece of plastic in his fingers.

"Here, take it," he said, "the code is live. You just need to have someone put it into any reader and it will download the data."

Charlie did not trust Thomas. That guy was going to get a lot of people killed and he would be damned if Shay was going to be one of them. He could not leave her...not yet. But... to actually bring down GCorp and everyone's Rep, to start over, that was impossible. Leaving this planet was still possible though... for now.

That was part 2. Please enjoy. Tell me what you think.
Ixo

Part I- https://steemit.com/writing/@ixoiru/the-star-50-club