“Shut up,” I said.
I reached Passion’s ship and realized I had no way to let the people inside know that I was waiting. I was about to contact Zoe when a hatch opened and two security staffers, a man and a woman, stepped out. Each was my height and appeared strong, but not overly muscled. They looked around quickly, then the woman subvocalized something, and Passion appeared, followed quickly by two more equally tall security men.
“This way,” I said as I started toward Lobo.
The five of them moved smoothly as a group, with Passion in the center and barely visible, a sapling lost in a forest of mature trees.
When we reached Lobo, the security woman said, “Stand to the side. Don’t enter.”
I did as she said.
The front pair then moved to the sides so Passion could enter Lobo without them.
She paused just inside Lobo and looked my way. “Thank you...”
“Jon,” I said. That’s when I got my first look at her. She was as small as Lobo said, and she was clearly the woman in the photos, but her “unedited fidelity” claims definitely did not extend to her appearance. Her hair hung limp down her back, and she seemed to have a whole lot less of it than the woman in the holos and on the sides of all these ships. Blotches marred the skin that had appeared so perfect in everything I’d seen. Her eyes and lips were indeed large, but not quite as big as in the images. She was still lovely and quite compelling, but she was not the almost otherworldly woman in all the marketing materials. It had been so long since I’d worked anywhere near entertainers that I’d forgotten how much illusion they sold.
“Thank you, Jon,” she said as she walked up front.
“Close your ship’s hatch,” the security woman said.
Lobo closed it and said over the machine frequency, “She could have asked me directly.”
I ignored him.
As soon as the hatch was shut, all four of the security people visibly relaxed. They still faced outward and scanned the area, but none of them was on the same level of alert.
“First time seeing her?” the woman said to me.
“Yeah.”
“Just remember the confidentiality clauses in your contract,” she said. “No images, no comments, no indication that you’ve ever even stood near her.”
“I remember,” I said, “though it’s not like I have anything to offer anyone.”
“Sure you do,” the woman said. “You’ve seen her in non-show condition. As you can probably tell, the woman on stage is a bit more... polished than the one who’s inside meeting with her oldest friend and tour manager.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
The woman faced me for a moment. “What Passion does, and the way she does it, is very important to her. Yes, she sings, but for her what she really does is deliver an experience, an experience that involves music and theater and, above all else, one that lets every single person who attends hear exactly what she sang as she sang it.”
“So why doesn’t she apply that same standard to her appearance?”
It was the woman’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know, I don’t care, and I don’t ask. She’s too smart not to have considered the issue, but my job is not to question her about her choices. My job is to make sure she’s safe every time she’s outside that ship.”
“Four of you seems like a lot of coverage for times like now, with no one around, and not enough for when she’s on stage.”
“What we’re doing now is stopping anyone from seeing her or capturing her image. We have to deal with people at long distances, newstainment drones, sats, you name it. We let them have the top of her head, because she wants to encourage them to tell the world where she is, but that’s all we give them. As for when she’s on stage,” she chuckled, “tell me about it. We’ll use some local help to block initial attempts at unauthorized access, but we’ve all told her that if she continues to perform without security shielding, we can’t guarantee her safety. She says the connection with the audience is worth the risk.”
“At least it’s not like she’s an assassination target,” I said.
“True,” the woman said, “though as a kidnap victim she’d be worth a great deal. Still, those aren’t our worries. Our main concerns center on the many ways fans might hurt her. You would be amazed at what people think their favorite performers owe them. From hair to clothing to skin, fans have tried to collect it all.”
“Humans are strange,” Lobo said to me privately, “and so often in ways logic could not predict.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said to the woman.
Another shrug. “Keeps me employed.” She straightened and said to the others, “She’s on her way out.” To me, she said, “Stay here. She likes the escort over but not back.”
Lobo’s hatch opened.
Passion stepped into the circle of guards, and together they walked back to her ship.
When they were inside, Zoe appeared at the hatch and said, “Go get us some lunch—they’ll have mine set aside—and then come back here.”
She looked around for a few seconds and took a deep breath.
“We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 33
Jon Moore
I brought back lunch—fish sandwiches and juice for both of us—and was a few steps inside Lobo before she emerged from the front area and said, “Let’s go sit outside. I’m tired of being in here.” She looked at the ceiling. “No offense, Lobo.”
“None taken,” he said.
Privately to me, he said, “She treats me better than you do. I could get used to this.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said on the machine frequency. “Where would you like to go?” I said to Zoe.
“Follow me,” she said.
She led us into the amphitheater and to the very back row of seats, then off to the far stage right corner. She sat, and I joined her.
“I always like to know what the show looks like from the worst seats in the house,” she said. “We’ll have big displays, of course, and we’ll also broadcast video within the venue so people can use their own devices, but what Passion most wants is for them to watch her live. We try not to play places where that’s not at least conceivable for even the worst seats.” She ate a bite of her sandwich, chewed slowly, and stared at the stage. Some of our crew had already finished lunch and were working there.
I did the same. I could see all the people clearly, but their expressions weren’t easily visible.
“This place is a little bigger than she prefers,” Zoe said, “but it’ll work. Even from here, you’d know it was her.” She chewed some more and then faced me. “No comments or questions?”
“As you said earlier, it’s not my place.”
“I know what you’re wondering,” she said, “so we might as well address it now. Besides, meals—unless I’m taking them with her—are fine times to chat.”
“Okay,” I said. “You talk about people being able to see her. She makes a huge production of ensuring that everyone in the place hears the music as it really is. But for herself, she’s clearly—”
“—not appearing natural,” Zoe said, “despite her unfortunate and much reported ‘unedited fidelity’ comment about her height. Yes, that’s the question.”
“Okay,” I said, “so what’s the answer?”
Zoe took another bite of her sandwich, chewed slowly, and stared at me. “Passion is not a simple person. She understands the games you have to play to become as famous as she is, and she plays them well. She realizes, for example, that beauty matters, that looking the way she does—on stage, in appearances—is part of her allure. She never appears in public at less than her very best—and her best is a mixture of natural gifts and a whole lot of make-up and hair work.”
“Some time with a body-mod shop could save a lot of that work,” I said, “and make it easier for her to always look her best. Everybody does it.”
“She can’t risk the records getting out,” Zoe said, “not with her public posit
ions. So, she does it the old-fashioned way, and everyone who touches her or sees her without make-up is under contract.”
“People break contracts,” I said. “They leak information, say things they shouldn’t. Happens all the time.”
“True enough,” Zoe said, “but with Passion, if you do that you’re signing up to do legal battle with someone who will spend whatever it takes to crush you—and who has contracts and a great deal of money on her side. Most people will analyze each case on its economic merits, but not Passion; she will happily lose vast sums of money if it means punishing someone who broke a contract.”
“I never saw any trace of that in the research I did about her.”
“See how well it’s working?” Zoe said. She smiled. “Anyway, Passion is willing to do whatever takes, make compromises, be vindictive—you name it—except when it comes to the music. The music is sacred to her.” She paused. “And to me. That’s why I’m here. We started out together, we found the old songs together, we still develop new versions of old songs together—though I do most of the research now—and we never compromise on the music. It is the one thing in both our lives that is pure. Passion may embellish, even lie, in the cause of marketing, she may be so careful about her appearance that she won’t even rehearse without being in her full regalia, but every single statement she makes about the music is true.”
I wondered if there was a single thing in my life that I had kept that pure, or even considered trying to keep pure. I couldn’t think of anything. “Why?” I said. “I don’t mean that cynically or disrespectfully; I’m genuinely curious.”
Zoe shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, not exactly.” Her voice lowered. “We grew up together, more or less, and everything else about our lives was terrible. Music, though, was different. When we were very young, we found some data streams of songs recorded on Earth, and we were hooked. Those pieces built the worlds we lived in when the real world was too much to bear.”
“So you two are sisters?”
She laughed. “Do we look like sisters? No, we’re not related, not biologically anyway. We grew up as children of the state in the same twisted crèches.”
“Nothing in either of your bios mentions that.”
“I told you: anything in the service of making her the star she is. Anything except messing with the music.”
Below and in front of us, the stage began to fill with people. When all the other musicians were in place, Passion made her entrance. Now, she looked like her images, the perfect star.
Zoe stood. “Rehearsal’s about to start, which is our cue to leave. Remember when I said I needed to talk to you?”
“Of course.” I also got up.
“Well, it wasn’t to teach you Passion’s secrets or bore you with our past.”
“Hardly boring,” I said. I could have told her that I understood better than she could realize what it was like to be young and owned by a government, but of course I didn’t. “And, I’m sorry you went through that. That you both went through it.”
She waved her hand. “Enough of the past. What I want to talk to you about is your future.”
“It’s still my first day on the job,” I said. “Isn’t it a little early for that talk?”
She laughed. “Not your long-term future; your future five minutes from now.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I need to go on a field trip,” she said, “and you’re coming to make sure I get back safely.”
CHAPTER 34
Jon Moore
I waited until we were inside Lobo to say anything else. As soon as we were alone, I said, “What kind of field trip, and don’t you have security staff for this sort of thing?”
“To answer the second question first,” Zoe said, “they’re all fully subscribed, even over-subscribed, with the rehearsal.”
“So wait.”
She shook her head. “Not possible. After rehearsal ends, there’s a rest break of a few hours, then the show, backstage reception, hotel, and in the morning, we head out again. Where we’re going is only open during the day.”
“What kind of place is it?”
“An antique shop.”
“That’s not exactly the kind of store known for being dangerous,” I said.
“No, no it’s not,” she said, “but the neighborhood doesn’t appear to be the best, and we’ve been led into traps before.”
“By what?”
“Music, of course. We’re always on the lookout for songs we’ve never heard, recordings that haven’t been catalogued or that are so obscure that even the people who know they exist have rarely heard them. There’s a whole culture of enthusiasts who pass around information. We participate in these groups; it’s a great way to find new songs, and as marketing fodder—”
“—it helps bring more credibility to Passion,” I said. “I see that.”
“The problem is,” she said, “a few times the leads have been fake, data people used to lure us into places where they could hold us up or kidnap us. Our security protected us those times, but we couldn’t justify the risk any longer. Now, we make it clear to the community that Passion will never go to these places, and that if anyone does go, it’ll be someone low on her staff.”
“Except it’s always you.”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m the only one who knows what we have and what we don’t, who can listen and decide what’s worth buying and how much it’s worth. Plus, Passion knows I feel the same way about the music; I’m the only one she’ll trust to do it.”
“Kidnappers could make money abducting anyone on your staff, because Passion would have to pay even if only to avoid the PR nightmare of being portrayed as the big star who wouldn’t spend money to save her people.”
“Sure, it’s possible,” Zoe said, “but no one’s tried to kidnap me since we announced Passion would no longer go herself.”
“So why take me?”
“I said there’ve been no kidnapping attempts. A couple of times, people have tried to rob me. Security stopped them.”
“I’ve worked security before,” I said, “and I have to tell you that you should wait. One person is not enough to do it right. To watch for threats and deal with any that arise, and to get you out safely, takes multiple people.”
“The stash this place is supposed to have is worth the risk,” she said. “We have a show every day on Haven, and then when we finish on this planet, we head straight to Freedom. There isn’t another chance.”
“So let me go there first, check it out, and come back and get you if it’s safe.”
“I told you: There’s not much time. We go now.”
I stared at her for a few seconds. “This is that important to you?”
“Yes. Plus, it’s an order. Remember: I’m the boss.”
I nodded. “I can always quit.”
“True,” she said, and she smiled, “but you need the work. You said so.”
“I did, and I do. I’d rather lose a job, though, than risk your life. Any life.”
“The worst we’ve had are robbery attempts,” she said. “It’s not like anyone has tried to kill me.”
I considered explaining to her how few injuries and fatalities that occur during robberies are planned, that it’s the accidents you have to fear, but there was no point in it. “So if I say no, you’re going to fire me?”
She sighed and shook her head. “No. That would be wrong. If you say no, I’ll make Bing go with me. He’s so afraid of me that he’ll do it, and he thinks that gun he carries gives him a chance in any situation.”
“If he’s good with it,” I said, “it might help.”
She laughed. “I don’t think he has a clue how to use it. He picked it up after the first robbery attempt, when I joked about making him be my security for the next trip.” She took a deep breath. “So, are you going to take me, or do I go see Bing?”
“We do need this job,” Lobo said over the machine frequency. “Insist on bringing me
, and I can cover everything outside the store.”
“I’ll do it,” I said, “but with two conditions.”
“Which are?”
“First, you tell me the name of the place and leave me alone up here for a little bit so I can study the area.”
“Sure, as long as you don’t take too long. And?”
“From the moment we leave here until we’re back here, I’m the boss, not you. To protect you, I have to know that if I tell you to do something, you will—and right then, without hesitation.”
“Deal,” she said, “but the moment we return, I run the show again.”
“Done,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me...”
“I’m going to check on the show,” she said. “Contact me as soon as you’re ready.”
She gave me the name of the store and left.
As soon as she was outside Lobo, he closed the hatch, brought up a holo of the store, and we went to work.
* * *
The neighborhood had looked bad in the live feeds, but it was worse in person. Lots full of rubble or razed clean to the dirt sat as empty as a politician’s promise in the midst of low-slung permacrete buildings faded to a washed-out gray the color of a decomposing corpse. Where York was riding the boon of being the capital and the home of some of the worlds’ wealthiest families, Mass was sliding down the other end of the unbalanced economic scale that is so common across humanity’s planets. Old security cams, many so ancient they almost certainly didn’t work, hung on every building like wards against evil—and were certainly about as effective. What businesses were open sold their goods cheaply, even those that sold sex. People hung out in front of the shops and in small apartments over them, no one in a hurry, everyone with more time on their hands than they wanted, everyone scanning for an opportunity.
At my insistence, we’d taken the few minutes necessary to have the paintbots remove Passion’s tour notices from Lobo. He’d stand out enough as it was; advertising that we were coming from really big money was a bad plan. We went in high, and we came down fast right over a vacant lot half a block from Old and New, the shop Zoe wanted to visit. Lobo hovered just above the rubble that covered the lot, and we climbed out as quickly as we could.
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