by F P Adriani
“Christ—you won’t stop, will you?” I said. I slid out my gun and laid it on the table.
Now his eyes widened and he took a quick step back as he practically shouted, “Whoa—that’s a gun!”
“No kidding. You don’t like guns?” I picked up the object of my conversation and used the towel to polish the shiny barrel.
Jamie licked his lips and his mouth twisted into a dubious little slant, but then he said, “Oh—uh, no. I mean yeah. I mean I dig chicks with guns.”
“We’re women, not chicks,” Nell growled, sounding even more pissed off than before.
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “It’s just that here I was thinking I got lucky with two women in a hotel room….” He flashed a worried glance at Nell’s furious face.
“How old are you?” she barked now. “Whadjou just discover you have a dick?”
I laughed. Loudly.
But Jamie changed the direction of his conversation. “When I heard two women needed help, guess I expected two helpless women.” So, this direction wasn’t any better than the last. And his sexist statement did not help Nell’s mood—nor mine for that matter.
Nell sat up straighter fast, and I said to Jamie then, “You just keep digging yourself in that hole in the ground, don’t you?”
“I meant,” said Jamie, “I got the wrong impression from my employer.”
I flashed him a sharp look. “Who’s your employer?”
“Oh. Tony Jennings, at the port. And then you of course, I hope.” He grinned at me, big again.
But I had been watching his eyes, had seen the hesitancy there.
Now my hand dropped the towel and picked up the gun; I slid it sideways, my eyes doing a careful study of the fat gray barrel. “You see this Granger? This gun’s been my best friend for five years now. I’ll never forget the time this guy thought he was going to rape me. But my Granger saved the day. And the guy’s body never looked the same again.”
“Hey…” said Jamie, backing up again, his hands shaking a bit as he held them up, his reddish palms facing me. “No offense meant. I’m young, like she implied. And I’m just a guide—just a guide.”
“Who’s your employer?” I asked again, harder this time, my Granger pointed in his general direction underlining my question.
A loud breath shot from his mouth. “Hu—Hu! Come on, give a guy a break.”
“Oh just great,” said Nell, shooting up from the bed now.
“I told her I didn’t want her help,” I spat at Jamie.
“Well, she doesn’t tend to listen to orders,” he said. “Hera isn’t the kind of place you can just go roaming around. She made the offer and I owe her.”
“For what?”
His eyes stared at my face; then they slid away. “She once did a good thing for my family—that’s all I’m saying.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard about Hu’s having helped others. I was beginning to wonder if there actually was something to all that….
I lowered my gun to the table as I looked at Jamie. “All right. You can keep your secrets. But I don’t want you reporting back to her about me, understand?”
His head bobbed in a fast nod. “We don’t have that kind of relationship. I’m supposed to show you what’s what and keep you out of trouble.”
“I think that’ll be impossible,” I said, standing up. “In a way, I’m glad you’re here tonight. I’ve got something to do later, and I can’t leave Nell alone here. This’ll be like a test to see if you’re up to this.”
Nell said fast now, “Pia, I’m fine, and I’m coming with you.”
I lifted a quick palm at her and nodded. “Okay, but then so is he because you’re not up to doing much by yourself.” She began to protest, but then I added, “Nell—come on, you know it. But first, right now, we need some stuff downstairs.”
*
“The prices have shot up so much since I was here last time—it’s terrible!” Nell declared as she eyed a rack full of toiletries in the hotel’s store.
“Derek should have made us a Do Hera On The Cheap list,” I replied, doling out Diamond bills to the cashier for my two bags of items. “At the rate I’ve been spending, by next week, I’ll have blown a month’s worth of living expenses.”
“No ejecta, Giba,” came Jamie’s voice from behind me. At first I wondered who the hell he was speaking to; then I turned around and found him grinning at me.
“What?” I asked, almost laughing.
“In Moonspan, that’s ‘No shit, Boss’—it’s a very common expression. Even friends say that to each other in Cielo.”
“What the hell’s ejecta?”
“It’s the shit part. Actually it’s worse than shit. It’s like petrified shit pellets.”
“Now that’s a lovely visual. And how fitting that shit is my first word of Moonspan.”
“Well, we’ve got to start somewhere—right, ejecta for brains?” a laughing Nell asked Jamie. But he only frowned back at her.
*
When we left the store, I told Jamie to come back to the hotel later, after midnight. Then Nell and I went up to our room.
While she used the bathroom, I laid out some of my purchases onto the table—a digital alarm clock was among them because I needed some of the clock’s wiring and other components….
Nell reappeared; she’d changed her clothes and was wearing only a dark-red sweatsuit now. She sat back on her bed as she said to me, “Are you sure we should be dealing with that Jamie pain in the butt? We don’t need him.”
My fingers were carefully using tools from my case to undo the clock’s workings. “I think you should give him a break, Nell—he’s really young. Maybe he’s just stupid around women.”
Nell sighed. “I’m not in good moods lately. It’s not all cupids and flowers with Derek, you know. Since the pregnancy, I’ve been feeling really smothered into this annoying traditional role of how a pregnant woman should act. And not just by him—by both our families too. And the baby isn’t even here yet.” She fell silent for a moment, but then her eyes were right on me when she spoke again. “What about things with you and Tan lately? You never told me exactly what happened between you right before we left.”
At first I didn’t respond; I went back to fiddling with the clock. Then, my face flushing, I told her a bit more about the recent Tan-And-Pia Problems. Then I finished with, “Actually, the biggest one I have lately is…I still haven’t met Tan’s mom. I’ve been avoiding it. I’m just not I-should-meet-his-parents material.”
“Don’t put yourself down,” Nell said fast, “don’t talk about yourself like that. Why can’t a woman kick asses and also be kind and family-oriented? She can. We’re supposed to believe that about men, so why shouldn’t we believe it about ourselves?”
She stopped talking for a long moment.
…Then she said, “Did you mean that before—about almost getting raped? And what you did?”
Now it was my turn to be silent for a while.
I finally replied with only a single, “Yes.”
“I’ve never had to shoot anyone,” Nell said then.
My voice was grim. “Well then you’re lucky.”
She lay back more, her hands resting over her belly now. “But I don’t know—maybe I could do it. I’m so fucking tired of dealing with men in particular lately—if they whine and moan, I just don’t want to hear it. Let them carry the young. Let them do it.”
My surprised mouth shook at her a bit. “I don’t understand why you’re saying this stuff tonight—I thought you were happy about being pregnant.”
She flashed her teeth at me now, in a slow big grin. “Oh I am—I am. It just isn’t easy, the balancing act. Though it isn’t easy for them either. Derek really does worry a lot now. I think that’s going to age him.” She sighed, and her sigh quickly turned into a yawn as her hands stroked her belly.
“Nell, I think we talked enough—you better get some sleep for now. The night ain’t over yet.”
/>
*
“When you said the night ain’t over, you really meant it,” Nell said five hours later as she shivered inside her blue jacket.
The three of us—Nell and Jamie and I—were standing in that same wet smelly alley. From somewhere above us, water dripped down like a slow stinky rain.
Nell and I were both fully dressed again, but the night had grown really cold. Since coming to Hera I’d learned that the bubbles were insulated. But both to make the place seem less confined and allow tree growth below, the tops were built extremely high, which meant the heat tended to remain near the very tops—great in the stifling Heran summers, but terrible in the frigid Heran winters….
I was sighing as I turned to Jamie. Moments ago he’d put something in his mouth—he was smoking it or it was smoldering or something. And it stunk even worse than the alley.
“Would you put that fucking thing away?” I growled.
But he only tilted the stick in my direction, the little red glowing tip brightening as he breathed in again. He said finally, “You should try it—it’ll warm you right up.”
“No thanks. And you ain’t going near inside, especially because you stink now. I want in and out of there nice and easy so no one knows I was there.”
“Like I want to be in there? I don’t do crimes. I’m a good boy.” He took another drag on his stick. And I just glared at him. “I mean it,” he said then, pulling out the stick, his big brown eyes looking very serious. And I wondered if he were telling the truth. …Now that I thought about it, something about him seemed very studious.
“This isn’t a crime,” I finally bullshitted. “I’m going in to check out something, but I’m only leaving with what I went in with. No robbery. I just need some info.”
“Taking information is still theft,” said Jamie.
“I’m taking nothing. I’m memorizing it,” I growled. Then I turned to Nell. “Let’s go before the parson here turns us heathens in.”
Nell laughed, but the sound was brittle, uneasy, which momentarily made me uneasy. Maybe none of us was up to this tonight….
Nevertheless, it just had to be done.
I turned away from them and pulled on my black face mask, my feet pounding the ground toward the back of the medical complex.
*
When I’d walked through the building that afternoon, I’d seen no security guards, not even security cameras. Apparently, this was a better area of the city so businesses were more careless.
Earlier I’d left my half-empty case in the hotel safe downstairs, so my pockets were now stuffed full with shit from my case. As I walked up to the building’s side back-end, my neck light swung against my collar bone. I flipped the light switch and the brightness flared against the plaster wall. My eyes and right gloved hand glided over the surface; I held a sensor, and when the light flashed on, indicating a certain alloy wire coating, I followed that path till I got an image of where the danger zones were. Apparently, only a dinky alarm system protected this place, and this system didn’t even cover the basement window. Stupid.
Though the window opening was narrow height-wise, a person of my stature could easily fit through it—if two horizontal wooden bars weren’t fixed over the glass.
I gave them a good pull but found them a little too tough to break that way. So I leaned back, hooking a foot behind the bottom-most bar. Just as I was about to yank, I heard movement behind me—my pulse instantly raced.
But the noise was only Nell and Jamie.
“Can you get in?” Nell whispered from behind me.
“Yeah, but I’m gonna have to break the wood and window. No way around that.”
Before they could say anything further, I yanked my foot and the bar broke away from the frame. The remaining opening was big enough for me to fit through. I reached into my jacket for my little cushioned club and shoved that into the glass. It gave way, but not too noisily.
“We’re going to be in trouble,” I heard Jamie say.
“Shhh,” warned Nell fast.
“Well we are,” Jamie said in a lower voice.
“No, we’re not,” I said. “I’ll fix this up later. Remember, both of you: if you see anyone coming, push the green button on the communicator and keep walking away. The button will alert me, the walking will save you.” I reached into the window’s broken section and opened the inside lock.
*
I used the inner hand-crank to open the window’s frame, then I removed my jacket and hung it by the neck on the crank-handle; I didn’t want to crush the tools inside my jacket.
For once my tiny tits were huge—a huge plus. Had they been any bigger, I wouldn’t have been able to push myself hard-and-fast enough through the opening without a lot of pain. Unfortunately, I still felt my butt and hipbones get too squashed for comfort when I hit the inner frame and the upper wooden bar. I’d probably be sporting a bruise or two tomorrow, but, oh well, what else was new with dangerous jobs.
*
I avoided the elevators; I used the stairs and eventually made it into Strand’s office without incident. I had to jigger the electronic office door lock a bit, but it was nothing I hadn’t done many times before.
Inside now, I spent some unproductive time trying to figure out where the hell the patient records were. Bizarrely, the place didn’t seem to have a computer. So unless the practice was completely fake, there must have been some information recorded somewhere….
Ah-hah…I finally found the records in a room farther back. Apparently, that front desk really was like a front—it was just used to “hello” the patients. The real office sat farther behind there. Still no computer inside that room, but it did contain lots of file cabinets.
Standing before one now, my fingers opened one drawer and then another. At first glance the filing system didn’t seem to have an order; then I realized that the top drawers of each cabinet held the files of the most recent visitors for each last-name letter of the alphabet. Whoever had been there the latest, that file would be up front in a cabinet’s top drawer.
I moved down the line of cabinets, got to what I thought would be R, then pulled open the top drawer.
Pay dirt.
Almost immediately I found Millie’s file. And I was just about to open it when my communicator light blinked.
“Crap,” I said under my breath, my heart racing a dizzy whooosh in my ears.
I pushed the communicator’s reply button and whispered into the mouthpiece, “What is it—am I blown?”
“Pia!” said Nell in an urgent tight voice I’d never heard her use. “Someone’s walking that way so we shoved off down the street! We’re still pretty close though—I can see him….”
“Is he coming into the building?” My fingers snapped open the file. No time to second guess. I still needed the info so had no choice but to keep looking. I remembered Jamie’s words about theft, but fuck that. I whipped out a pen, tore a piece of paper from a nearby deskpad. But the desktop was soft wood—I didn’t want to take the chance of leaving an impression there. I leaned the paper up against one of the metal file cabinets and began writing down Millie’s info….
“I can’t tell,” came Nell’s voice. “Wait…shit. He’s just standing there in front of it, waiting. He’s lit something.”
“It’s just a fag like mine,” I heard Jamie say.
But then Nell replied, “Oh go away, Jamie…I wish that idiot would too. He looks like he’s waiting for someone.”
“In the middle of the night in a business district?” I said, my hand frantically scribbling, sweat coursing down my head under my mask and into my eyes. With my other arm, I swiped at my eyes as I finished copying the info.
“Oh no—here comes someone else—two people! …But wait, wait! They met up with the guy—they look like they’re leaving, Pia!”
I shoved the file back into the cabinet. “Let me know when they do because I’m coming out.”
…Or maybe I wasn’t coming out. Just as I had finished relock
ing the office door and was about to bolt away, Nell signaled me again. “Oh I don’t believe this, Pia. Here comes someone else walking there!”
“What is this—the busiest fucking street on Hera at three in the morning?” I said, my voice rising too loud. Remembering my situation, my head instantly spun around the hall, but, really, there was no one else inside the building as far as I knew.
Now I ran toward the nearest stairway, shot into it, and hopped down the steps two at a time as I listened to Nell’s frantic voice. “They’re stopped on the side where the back window is! Sitting on one of the benches there…! If you come out that way—”
“—I’m fucked. Well—I’ll need to do something else—think of something.”
“Look, I’ve got an idea—give me your hat,” I heard Jamie say alongside Nell’s hard breathing. I did not like that hard breathing even more than I didn’t like mine. What the fuck had I gotten my friend into?
My legs pumped harder and harder and faster and faster. I reached the hall outside the basement room where the window was. Then I stopped, waiting.
“Well?” I whispered into the communicator, holding my hand near my mouth to deaden the sound even more. I also lowered the incoming volume. When no one responded, I said, “Hello? Anyone home?”
That was when I heard Nell’s voice—louder than it should have been. Coming from the basement room. “Pia! Over here—you in there?”
“Yes!” I said, shooting into the dark room. Nell’s scared face moon-like hovered in the top corner of the window opening.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked her.
“Jamie walked here, said he’d use a bullshit story about being lost and ask them for directions—they all just walked down the street. But hurry! Don’t know if they’ll come back.”
I made it out without incident; then we gingerly walked up toward the front of the building more, peered around the corner, and saw no one.