Ellie Quin Book 2: The World According to Ellie Quin (13 page)

‘Minus some other costs, like food and drink,’ she added.

‘Two thousand then.’

‘Two thousand,’ Jez repeated, with eyes as wide as saucers.

‘And you should have most of that,’ said Ellie to Aaron. ‘Jez and I, could do with…’
Don’t be greedy girl.
‘…three hundred and fifty each?’

Aaron laughed. ‘Three hundred and fifty!?’

‘Alright, then maybe that’s too much. What do you think about three hundred?’ Ellie asked wincing slightly.

Aaron continued to laugh, and then slapped a big hand down on her arm. ‘I was going to suggest four hundred each, Ellie girl. If I’m making a thousand profit with each trip, then I’m one happy-pappy.’

Jez spurted out a mouthful of her Spartan. ‘
Four
hundred! Crud, that’s twice what I was earning at Dantes!’

The three of them stared at each other in silence. Aaron spoke quietly. ‘That’s IF…we can sell tickets at three hundred creds a go.’

Ellie and Jez nodded eagerly.

‘Look let me think about this for a moment. It’s all a lot to take in.’

‘Of course,’ replied Ellie. ‘It was just an idea to think about. I’m sure one of us will find a very good reason why it can’t be done. For sure.’

Aaron excused himself and went to the toilet.

Jez watched him go before turning back to Ellie and slapping her back proudly. ‘My my,’ she said, ‘you’re a clever little one aren’t you?’

‘It all depends on what he thinks though, Jez. It’s
his
shuttle,
his
money,
his
risk. If it all falls flat, we’re no worse off than we are now. But for Aaron, it’s game over. It’s taken him years of hard work to end up with that shuttle of his. What do you think of him by the way?’

‘He seems okay so far. Not creepy like most older guys. How old is he anyway?’

Ellie realised she hadn’t a clue. At a guess she would put him in his mid-thirties. But it was so hard to even guess. ‘To be honest I haven’t ever asked him.’

‘I think I’d want to work on his presentation skills a bit. You know, if he’s going to be our skipper. The soiled brown boiler suit just doesn’t work for me, especially the stains…uh-uh,’ she said with a grimace.

Ellie laughed, ‘I’m sure we’ll come to that at some point.’

‘And what’s his shuttle like anyway?’

‘Well, it’s not exactly like the ones you’ve seen on the toob.’

‘You mean it’s a rust bucket?’

Ellie waggled her hand, ‘might need a little love and attention on the outside as well as the inside.’

‘Hmmm, sounds like a lot of work there before we can get earning some creds.’

‘But, we’d all be our own bosses, Jez….we’d be
business partners
.’

Jez perked up and smiled, she very much liked the sound of that. ‘Business partners, eh?’ she repeated.

‘It’s got to be better than slaving away for someone else,’ Ellie continued. ‘Every hour we put into it, is for us three, not someone else.’

Jez nodded in agreement. ‘Crud, I hope he says yes to your idea, which by the way makes you officially überbrain-chik of our little team.’

Ellie laughed. ‘Like you said, I’m the brains, you’re the beauty. And anyway, if Aaron decides to do this, it’ll be the three of us on the team.’

*

Aaron stood in the uni-gender pod and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

Am I going to do this?

He got the impression Ellie and her friend, Jez, had decided it all rather felt like a done deal. But the fact was, there was one hell of a lot at stake here. He’d been running the Oxxon deliveries for nearly fifteen years, saving every spare cred he had earned in order to finally have enough to own the shuttle outright. And since buying it, he had continued living frugally, most of the time aboard his beautiful
Lisa
, to save on an unnecessary rent. He had assumed, foolishly as it turned out, that the Oxxon contract would last long past his lifetime, that it would be a reliable contract for the rest of his working life - another thirty to forty years. But then those soulless, suited, corporation dittoheads had placed their business with someone else, and that was that.

There was virtually nothing surface-based heading into and out of New Haven. Everything the city required in terms of supplies came in from off-world via the port. Harvest City, on the other hand, had a much smaller port, and although most of what it needed came in off-world, there was also a trickle of supplies running across world from New Haven. But he knew most of that business was sucked up by the same damned haulage firm that had taken his Oxxon contract.

If he kept looking, he’d find
something,
right? There had to be other contracts out there. It was early days yet. All he had done so far was check in with the port agent and he had enough savings tucked away to burn for at least three months on a black pad before he needed to hit the panic button.

This idea of Ellie’s, however, it sounded good. But there’d be a lot of work that would need to be done on the shuttle, and the thought of giving up his private space to fit in
both
girls; the laundry chaos, the giggling and larking around, the fact that it was small enough as it was with just him living in the cockpit. Between them they’d drive him mad.

But, the money could be great.

That was true if Ellie’s friend, Jez, was right, if there
were
plenty of people out there who would pay good money to goof around in real snow. She seemed to have street-smarts enough to know what’s hot and what’s not in New Haven. But it was a big gamble, a
huge
gamble; he could blow all of his savings turning his shuttle into a prissy little pleasure cruiser only to find that no-one was interested enough to shell-out for a ticket.

On the other hand, it could earn them all enough to find a way off-world.

He knew Ellie wanted that, she’d said Jez wanted it too. And Aaron longed to transport his surface shuttle to a world much younger, and less tamed than this one and ply his trade there. It might be the one and only chance all three of them had.

Well, it might, but then again, it might just ruin me.

He decided he had wasted enough time mulling this damned thing over. It was a nice idea, a clever idea even, but he knew the haulage game. That’s what he knew. Not the damned tourist business.

‘This is completely crazy,’ he muttered as he shook himself off.

The pleasure cruise game was for some other sucker. On this occasion, he had to let caution rule. His mind was settled. He washed his hands and left the soothing marine-blue calm of the uni-gender pod, working out how he was going to let the girls down as gently as possible. Destroy their dream. Pop their bubble.

‘Sorry girls…this is just too impractical…’ he practiced under his breath.

And no batting of eyelids or impassioned pleading was going to change his mind on this. It was too crazy. Too risky.

No way. Absolutely. No way.

To be continued…..

In

ELLIE QUIN: BENEATH THE NEON SKY

(Book 3 of the Ellie Quin Series)

ELLIE QUIN: BENEATH THE NEON SKY

(Book 3 of the Ellie Quin Series - available NOW)

Ellie and Jez’s plans to escape the suffocating grasp of New Haven finally look like they may be successful. They’re making money now, lots of it…but then, as always seems to be the way for Ellie, nothing ever goes entirely to plan.

Get book 3 now! Available exclusively on
Amazon Kindle!

About the Author

Alex Scarrow spent the first ten years out of college in various rock bands trying to get a record deal. Failing miserably at that he went into the computer games business as a digital artist.

After a decade in the games business, he ended up as a senior designer working on high-concept projects for next generation consoles.

Finally he got bored of all of that and turned his hand to writing. His first manuscript, A THOUSAND SUNS was published in the UK by Orion in 2005. He now has a number of thrillers out and has recently released the first book in his Young Adult series TIMERIDERS, nominated by Puffin as BEST ADVENTURE FANTASY in their recent BEST SEVENTY CHILDRENS BOOKS OF ALL TIME press release.

Alex Scarrow is fast building a reputation as one of the UK’s most original writers.

“Alex is plugged into the zeitgeist - his themes of religious chaos, environmental catastrophe and the dangers of unchecked power are perfectly in tune with the times.” - Orion Books.