Bared teeth do not make a welcoming smile. The girl shrank back. Vanished behind someone else; some other vacant nobody too engaged in the vid projection in front of his face to notice. “Slummer,” I muttered as I pushed open the heavy Mecca doors. Not much wrong with ’em on their own slab of the rack, but they’re sinners from the sweet side of comfortable playing dress-up for kicks.
They never seem to understand how much shit they don’t have when they play with the big kids. Or how much gets real bad, real fast. Fun to poke at, worthless in a serious crunch. Down here, they could brush against whatever shade of danger they liked and get off on the rush.
Assuming it didn’t kill them first.
The foyer’s interior lacked the same crashing lights as outside, forcing everyone who came through to adjust. It gave the entry bouncer more time to assess the clientele. Tonight’s guard dog was Jad – an enormous expanse of shoulder and muscle wrapped in a tight yellow tee, beautiful black skin, face carved out of smooth asphalt. He was an avalanche in meat form and that was only half the sex appeal.
Jad’s smile was summer hot and very, very bright, his shirt stretching over his chest as he raised both hands like he’d scored a point. “Riko!” He had a voice like a bass beat, echoed by the rhythm rolling out from the door behind him. “You armed?”
I stopped, flexed my tech arm, bared to the shoulder in my white tank. Practically painted on, the way I liked to roll.
Jad’s black eyes flicked to the bend of my metal elbow, and the seams that gave it a close enough approximation of muscle at the bicep. He laughed. “You know I like your shine, baby girl, but not what I’m after.”
Widening my eyes, I pointed behind me with my flesh hand. Popped my hip to the side so he could see the shape of my ass in electric blue. “This?”
Laughter rolling, he beckoned me closer to the faint entry light placed overhead. Scarred skin stretched over his knuckles, and old keloids reamed his forearms. No exposed tech, but all-natural signs of violence aside, I’d seen him bench more than his heavily muscled body should have been able to. Torn a mouthy heavy’s head clean off her neck with his bare hands, and that was after he’d tossed her friends out for breaking the rules.
Jad was delicious manmeat on the outside, and a juggernaut on the inside. No obvious tech didn’t mean none. Just that I didn’t have a genesniffer on me and wasn’t inclined to pry.
When I got close enough for him to inspect, he twirled his finger.
I spun slowly, just for him.
This wasn’t anything personal. Jad was a regular just like me. We’d had this routine for a long time. And like always, he projected disappointment to see I wasn’t armed. More specifically, with the assault rifle he’d been dying to get his hands on for years.
“No Valiant?” he asked, going for crestfallen. “You break my heart.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “I don’t just carry it to stroke it for you, Jad.”
“When you gonna bring it in so I can stroke it?”
“Depends. When are you gonna let me stroke you?”
He snorted, waving me past. Again, wasn’t personal. He liked the ladies just fine. And I liked the play. If I ever got his fuck I’m coming face, I’d probably like him less.
“Indigo’s in,” he told me, “but keep your knives in your boots.” I bumped his huge knuckles with my right one as I passed. Scars to scars. The comfortable vibe I got from the exchange did a whole lot to lift my spirits. As did the place I’ve called home for a long time.
The Mecca had a distinctly Eastern Indian vibe to it, though more of a wet dream than anything accurate. Everything’s fetishized to the max. Nobody knows, nobody cares, what the hell a culture used to be. We’re ass to mouth as a people, anyway – things like cultural borders get melted along the way. Or wiped out entirely. Plenty of those in our ages-old habit of jacking our collective spunk all over the globe.
The wild bass beat of the music saturated every pore of the place, worked its way through metal and meat. Frenetic energy crackled in the club. Even the long fall of embroidered fabric hanging from the pillars shuddered at the flow. The best of it, the hardest of it, filled the dance floor.
Thrashdancing isn’t for the faint of heart, body, or balls. And given the feel of the place, they’d be carting a few of each out after last call.
I planned to be the last badass standing tonight.
Near the door, a linker I knew pinned a screaming chromegirl against a wall. The lights danced off his half-naked back, and the way she clawed at it said she didn’t need my help. Her ankles locked at his waist. I detoured by them, grabbed her feet and opened her legs wide enough to tuck around mine.
I fit my crotch to Shar’s ass, pushing hard enough to lock him balls-deep.
Her eyes flared, met mine over his shoulder. Her teeth clenched in her sweat-slick face, while the fist wrapped in her long, frizzy hair went taut. Shar looked back over his shoulder, too, grinned when he recognized me. I looped both arms over his shoulders. “Gimme,” was my hello.
He tossed me a wink over near matte optics. “Dibs.”
“Not her. Hey, chromie,” I added to the wriggling delicacy. The sounds she made mixed arousal and frustration. Cute.
Shar took a laughing breath. “What do you want?”
“What do you have?”
“Front left,” he said, without missing a beat. “Lady’s choice. I’ve got more if you want it.”
“Shar’s Special Roulette is fine.” The hand I thrust into his front pocket didn’t soften like flesh. He jumped as my metal fingers dug into his muscled hip and thigh, which only made him dig deeper in the girl’s dripping snatch, earning us both a heavy groan. Practically begging, at this point. One heel about carved a canyon in my hip.
I grabbed one of the four small containers tucked into the inner seams and switched it out for the last credstick I’d walked off with. Then leaned over and bit the part of his neck where it curved into shoulder. Hard. Another jump. A frustrated noise from each.
“You’re welcome,” I told them both, laughing at Shar’s pained glare. I unhooked myself, wiggled my fingers in goodbye.
Halfway between the entrance and the bar, my smile faded.
It’s one thing to exchange pleasantries and bodily fluids. Another to hire the same runner for a job. Shar probably liked me just fine. Didn’t mean I’d be invited to one of his runs.
Also didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill me if everything imploded.
I was painfully aware of this as I made my way to the bar, shell in hand. A one-pop box, and by the heft of it, an injectable. Sweet. No wait times. I slid it into the waistband of my pants; a solid little reminder of what I had to look forward to soon. So much better than now.
The bar was busy, like it always was, with saints and more clustered around the gorgeous piece of nanofactoried wood. The surface of it was too smooth for a place that hosted my kind, stained a purple so dark it often looked black under the lights. They replaced it regularly – a telling sign of creds earned and tossed away. Shit’s not cheap.
No sign of Shiva in the crush, but it was early yet.
One of the bartenders saw me coming. He snapped his fingers at a knot of barflies, jerked a thumb back to the club’s main floor to make space for me. They left obediently enough. Barlickers often did this early in the night. Give ’em an hour, I figured. They’d get bounced or fucked.
The bartender shot a welcoming smile at me. Babyfine face, nice cheekbones. Open-collared Kongtown silk with rolled up sleeves. Eyes that looked black in the lights – nearly every dark color did here – and tinted skin. Tan or otherwise, hard to tell. Tans aren’t hard to acquire, but neither are the mixed-up genetics most of us come from.
Frankly, he looked like a snot playing hooky away from mommy’s eye. Easy to play with, easy to lose.
“What’ll you have?” the kid asked.
“A White Feminist,” I said loudly over the music.
“You try the anglo res?”
“Ha ha,” I drawled. I had, not that I’d mentioned that to anybody but Lucky, and I ran away the moment I was old enough to try. “Fuck you,” I added.
He grinned at me. “I never get tired of saying that.”
“What would you say if I asked for a Black Snatch?”
His grin widened. “Order one next time and find out.”
“Uh huh.” I planted my elbows on the surface and leaned forward. “Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck is on your head?”
The bartender laughed, giving his shoulder-length black hair a toss as he reached for a glass. Wolf ears sticking out of his hair flicked in tandem. “They call me Lance.”
“Can you get them to stop?”
“You wouldn’t believe how hard it is.”
“I’ll just bet,” I replied dryly.
Lance wiggled those ears at me without moving his head. Nerve sensors. Hooked up to adhesive on the scalp, they react to the same electrical impulses interior implants use. His grin sharpened in a way I didn’t expect from a baby boy named Lance. “The boss has a theme tonight.”
She usually did. Now that I bothered to look around, I spotted signs of it all over the place. Bouncers didn’t blend. They weren’t supposed to. But the serving staff all had something in common – either wolf ears or flowers. An analogy to the carrot or the stick. I wondered how many of them played bait and switch, too.
Shiva was a mastermind in drag. Or not drag.
As saints go, Shiva holds the medal for mysterious bitch. Crossdresser, drag queen, transwoman or cisgirl laying it on thick, nobody had the guts to ask. Or if they had, nobody knew about it. Didn’t matter to me, save that she ran the place and didn’t let any Tom, Dick or Blow walk on her. I’d gotten my ass kicked once or twice by her people, and she’d had a few others carted out for jumping me and mine without permission.
Her fees are reasonable – if she likes you. If she doesn’t, the fees get extortionate. She’d still take the creds if somebody’s that hellbent for it, though. Just business.
I liked her. I also wasn’t shitbrained enough to think I was an exception to her rules; another reason how I’d know if my cred hit terminal velocity. Soon as she lowered her fees on my ass, I’d be as good as dead.
Lance set the Feminist down in front of me, gave me a warm nod with that edge of teeth. “Let me know if you need anything else, sexy thing.”
“Puppy,” I replied, meeting his eyes and giving him more than the edge of mine, “you are sniffing the wrong snatch.”
Lance laughed, raising both hands in surrender as I took my drink. Leaving him in my wake, I made my way around the club, avoiding the dance floor until I was ready to rock it. Wearing my booze would be way less fun than drinking it, and I didn’t want to start my night sticky and sober.
As I figured, Indigo had claimed the usual room – a back area with blue glass inset in an ornate mosaic over the arch. There were other rooms, some less spacious and others more so, but he had a favorite and stuck to his thing when he could. Our team had spent years staking this turf.
He’d kept the vinyl curtain open. His elbows rested on the surface of the table, which meant he was poring over his comp unit or a low-key projection. As usual.
An elbow clipped my nanosteel shoulder as I headed his way. “Ow, fuck, what the fuck!” A woman in red synth leather whirled on me, one hand cradling her arm. “Watch where you’re walking, fucktoy.”
I met her eyes, stared hard. She stared back. Her shoulders straightened like she desperately hoped I’d square up.
Not worth it. Didn’t sense much intent on her; just another jackoff in a sea of ’em. Saying nothing, I turned back around and walked away.
Two of her girlfriends grabbed her as she surged after me. “Come on, it’s not worth trying!”
“We just got here,” added the other, her voice lower in tone and deeper.
Guess it worked. She didn’t jump me, and I kept a wary eye on the crowd as I cut through it. Something must have gotten them all steamed up. I said as much when I ducked under the draped curtain, raising my glass in greeting. “Feels like a hunt tonight.”
Indigo straightened, flattened a hand over the projection he’d been studying. It cleared the data, put his internal chip into sleep mode. Cool gadget, a backup data projector built into the palm of his hand. Couldn’t even tell at a glance.
His dark blue eyes, a clearer color in the less chaotic private lights, looked tired even from my distance. “Shiva’s gone for hunter and prey,” he replied, shrugging. “Subconsciously has tails wagging.”
“It’ll make for good thrashing.” I skipped the three stairs leading to the rise the booth occupied, set my drink down on the table. Made like I didn’t see him snatch his work away from me. Made like I expected him to play his cards close.
It stung. I admit it. Aside from Lucky, I’d never been closer to anyone. Digo was a damn good linker. The best I’d ever run with. But no matter how long we’d run together, the rumors about me didn’t cut me any slack with my ex-team.
I refused to admit I missed them too. Even Valentine, with his pay-to-play sculpted physique and his desert god façade, and we’d never really meshed in the first place.
The circumstances were just jacked enough – and our partnership just deep enough – that Digo had enough faith to give me a fair shake when evidence showed up incriminating my ass. Angry faith, but I’d take what I could get.
In a roundabout way, Indigo Koupra had saved me. Still did, in a lot of ways.
I sat, kicked my four-inch boots up on the booth beside him. “How’s it going, blue man?” Light greeting. No bigs.
“Aside from the usual shitshow?” His smile didn’t touch his eyes. Not the way I was used to. “Not much. You?”
I hated the way we tiptoed around each other.
Lifting my glass again, contents murky white with a gelatinous glob of black ghosting around in it, I threw back half. The stuff hit like sugar acid, with a kick that rivaled a gut punch from a heavy. The globule bounced around; a built-in chaser of awesome, and the real power behind the concoction.
Indigo’s expression turned wry. “I feel you.”
Probably did. Not that long ago, he’d been the type to roll with the punches, slide around obstacles. A logic and data man, tempered by Nanji’s sharp instincts.
After everything imploded, he’d gone a little harder around the edges. A whole lot meaner. These days, Indigo Koupra’s features had thinned out, his body made of lean, ropy muscle. Swarthy skin and dark hair put him closer to his East Indian ancestry than many, but like the rest of us, didn’t mean much.
He did shack up in Deli, though – the preferred haven for his type of people. No idea where. He had his safehouse on lockdown, like most of us. I used to squat wherever looked good. Moved often, baggage light.
We both had a little more baggage these days.
Today, Digo had left his long hair down. Straight as I wasn’t; a deep, true black, with streaks of dark blue from root to tip. His thick black eyelashes looked extra dark today. Smudged, too. Eyeliner.
The vain bastard.
His sharp elbows returned to the table, a clear yellow glass of something by one. I think it was a Mecca special, I’d never seen it anywhere else. The hair I enjoyed admiring swept down to coil on the surface. “You here to play?” he asked.
“It’s like you know me.”
“Once,” he said, and then sealed his mouth into a taut line. His gaze flicked away, darted back – guilt, then challenge. As if he hadn’t meant it, then decided he’d own it.
I swallowed the hurt. And the anger it lit in its wake.
I missed so much about my previous life. My easy friendship with Digo and my team. The mentor who’d raised me fresh off the SINburn. Lucky had taught me the rules of the street, a hard man with hard rules, and I owed him in ways I’d never be able to shake.
They’d both taught me about cred. How it really worked and where it mattered. Without Lu
cky’s zen and Digo’s skill, I’d be so much chum in a back alley.
I missed Lucky, too. In ways I’d never thought possible.
That made this big fuck-off amnesia thing twice as bad and six times as fucked.
And it meant I couldn’t jack Digo’s shit about how he treated me now. Half a stranger, half a memory he couldn’t shake.
I tipped my drink towards him instead. Wanted to down it fast and snag more. Once I shot up with the injector, all gloves would come off. I was going to ride and ride high, because goddammit, I was tired.
Indigo must have seen it on me. Or maybe I just imagined the subtle slump to his shoulders, like a clenched breath let go. “You look prepped to jank up.”
“If I have my way.”
“Heh.” He tipped his head back towards the curtain. “Try not to black out in this mess. There’s blood on Shiva’s agenda.” The music thudded like a reminder, lights strobing in every color. Winding up all those toy meatpuppets in prep for the go.
I glanced over my shoulder, studying the entry. The side rooms weren’t kept as dark, but also contained less strobe. A compromise for those of us who used them to dip out of the chaos. It made the club beyond look violent, flashing and raging.
Exactly what I wanted.
I turned back, grinning. “Thanks for caring.”
“I just don’t want to pay Shiva’s cleaning fees.”
I snorted, but I couldn’t laugh. A deep part of me ached.
No matter how easy it came, this banter wasn’t the same as it used to be. Surface-thin, warm only in the sense that we were both lying our asses off; making like everything was okay. I don’t know why he tried, don’t know why I let him. I was so uncomfortable.
I shifted in the seat like it’d help.
“Suck it,” I replied, in the same friendly tone. “Before I tell you what I found out, you learn anything new?”
His sharp nose wrinkled over a grimace. “A few things, but the one you need to know is about the Knacklock shop.”
“Is it still open?”
“Not just open,” he replied, “but active. Four major deliveries have come in and out of the area since the Vid Zone.”
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