by Paul Chafe
“Sorry.” He smiled disarmingly. “I took a wrong turn. Can I get to the slidewalk from here?”
Wordlessly she pointed, and he followed her finger out to the slidewalk level. On the pedestrian level below three ARM cruisers had landed haphazardly near the arcade entrance beside the unmarked vehicle that had originally spotted him. A gaggle of cops were standing at the arcade entrance, but none was looking in his direction. He stepped onto the slideway and let it carry him away, breathing deeply, looking down so the cameras couldn't see his face. They could still pick up on gait and body structure, but if he didn't walk it would take them awhile to synthesize the track. Safe for the moment, but only for the moment.
His beltcomp buzzed with an incoming call and he answered. Marcus Tobin's face looked out at him. “Quacy, what the hell are you doing?”
“What do you mean, sir?” Tskombe stalled for time.
“What do you think I mean? I have a recorded call here showing you trying to arrange transport off-world. The ARM are looking for you.”
As long as his beltcomp was on net they could track him with it. Tskombe scanned his surroundings. There were some hoverbots up high, but no cruisers. That wouldn't last long, he had to keep the conversation short. “I can't deny that, sir.”
“I gave you direct orders…” Tobin was angry, as much because his faith had been betrayed as because Tskombe had disobeyed him.
“I appreciate that, sir.” What to say to a friend and mentor who he'd just turned into an enemy. “And I'd like to thank you, sir, for all your support over the years…” He hesitated. “…and friendship.”
Tobin's eyes widened as he realized just how serious Tskombe was. “Quacy, don't do this.” The anger had left his voice, leaving only concern. “Just let them pick you up, I'll square the paperwork.”
It was as close as he'd get to a formal invitation to come back into the fold, no questions asked. A cruiser floated down ahead, scanner head out and twitching back and forth to pick faces from the crowd. They were closing in on him.
“Sir… Marcus… I'm resigning my commission.” Tskombe hesitated again. There was nothing else to say. The UNF wouldn't recognize the resignation, of course; they didn't allow you to leave on a whim. He saw in Tobin's eyes a kind of regret. He understood, though he could not condone. Tskombe punched off the connection, looking around without trying to appear desperate. There was another cruiser behind him; no doubt both were being vectored in by the ARM dispatcher, watching a little red dot on a screen that was Tskombe's beltcomp, localized to a meter or less by network triangulation. He had to cut the signal, but he couldn't just ditch the comp. Its authorization crypts encoded all the money he had in the world. It might have been easier to accept Tobin's offer. Too late for that now; he'd burned his bridges.
A glint by the slidewalk caught his eye: a piece of trash, an aluminized quickmeal wrapper. He scooped it up. It was just big enough to slip the beltcomp into. He wrapped it tight, leaving no gaps. The metal layer should be enough to block the signal. Now he just needed a hole to hide in.
“Hey friend, you want something? Anything you can imagine and a whole lot more you can't.” A half familiar voice. Overhead a pair of holographic women gyrated lewedly over mirrored windows. The flesh huckster smiled greasily, beckoning. Tskombe stepped off the slidewalk, finding just what he needed, perhaps.
“How much?”
Greasy laughed. “It depends what you want. Some things come high, but it's all good, friend, it's satisfaction guaranteed. You talk to Moira, she'll set you up.”
Shelter for awhile — there wouldn't be any cameras in a brothel. Tskombe went inside. The building was rundown but not overly dirty. Old promotions for sex holos lined the walls, the colors faded and the motion flickery. Heavy, worn half drapes hung from the mirrored windows, allowing in more sunlight than such a place was comfortable with. Behind the desk was an array of newer holo stills, young men and women. Moira was a heavy woman somewhere between forty and four hundred, blond hair hanging to her shoulders. She had been a beauty once, he could see, and was trying too hard to hang on to a glory that was never coming back.
“What's your name?” Unlike the huckster, her smile seemed genuine.
“Quacy.”
“Well, Quacy, what can I get you?”
“Just the standard.” Whatever that is.
“Don't be shy, we're here to make your dreams come true.”
He shook his head. “That's all I'm dreaming of.”
“You UNF?”
“Sure.” Tskombe nodded. There was no point in hiding it.
“Thought so. All the nice girls love a soldier. You do like girls, don't you? Or do you want a boy?”
“A girl is fine.” Tskombe half turned. The crowd outside couldn't see through the mirrored windows, but he could see out. Was there a camera watching the door?
“I knew it.” Moira seemed pleased with her perceptive powers. “I can always see what people like. And you'll see just how nice our girls can love you in a moment. Do you have a favorite hair color?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“It's been awhile, hasn't it?” She raised an eyebrow archly. “Well, I won't hold you up with more questions.” She reached behind the counter and took an old-fashioned key off a hook. “Trina will take good care of you.” She held up the key. “It's five hundred, for half an hour.”
“How much for an hour?”
“Eager man.” She gave him an arch smile. “It's eight hundred. A discount, and very worth it.”
“Fine.” He got out his beltcomp, waited for her to set up the transaction for him to thumb.
“Just one little formality first.” Moira held out a black pad. “Just put your thumb there.” Tskombe hesitated, but they wouldn't be in the business of shopping their customers to the ARM, and he complied, felt a sudden sharp pain in his thumb and yanked it back to see a drop of blood welling out.
Moira smiled apologetically. “Have to make sure you're clean, clean, clean. All our girls are clean, tested every day, and all our clients too. Doesn't that make you feel better? We're a quality establishment.” She tapped her fingers on her databoard. “Of course I'm sure you are…” The black pad beeped and flashed and she smiled. “Yes, I knew you were. I can always tell, just by looking. Your blood sugar's low, though.” She tut-tutted in mock disapproval. “Busy boys need their food. I can have something sent up after if you like. It's an extra fifty.”
“Sure, but don't wait; I'll take it as soon as you can get it upstairs.”
“Oh yes, keep your energy up. You'll want to be in top form for Trina. She's very good. I'll leave it outside the door.”
“Sure.” Tskombe waited while she keyed the transaction.
“Okay, thumb it honey.” She held out another thumb pad, this one to scan his print to authorize the debit.
A brothel should have ways of ensuring its customers' privacy, but better be sure. “What does the transaction come up as?”
“Oh, it shows as a credit adjustment. Like you'd been undercharged for something somewhere else and were making up the difference.”
“What store?”
“Now honey, I don't ask your secrets, you shouldn't ask mine.”
“One in this building?”
“No honey, it's in uptown. It'll come through as a bank adjustment. Don't you go complaining to them that it's a mistake or everyone will find out where you go for playtime.” It could have been a threat, but she delivered it as friendly advice. We have a shared interest in keeping this secret, so why don't we do that? He thumbed the pad and her desk beeped its approval. The bank computers would register the transaction, and the ARM would have his ident tagged. In three minutes the cruisers would be screaming off to uptown and they'd be wondering how he got there so fast. That might or might not lead to an investigation that would wreck whatever cozy deal Moira had with whoever it was she'd bribed to cover her transactions, but that wouldn't happen in the next hour, and what he needed most wa
s time, to think and to plan. Time he should have taken beforehand. Too late now.
“Room five.” Moira handed over an old fashioned key. “Your hour starts in five minutes. You get another five minutes grace period at the end. Anything over that and it's another five hundred. You have to thumb out down here and it's in the system, so don't think you can sweet-talk me later. Overtime is overtime.” She tapped at her desk. “Trina knows you're coming.”
He went up the stairs, found room five. The key fit the lock. The room was small and dimly lit, just big enough for a bed, a sink and a table with a mirror behind it. Trina was there, a petite girl, dark haired, with pale skin, as unusual as he was in Earth's homogenized gene pool. She looked young, barely past adolescence, long legged in black lace stockings and a black bustier that showed off her hourglass figure. She was looking into the mirror, facing away from him, but her eyes met his in the glass, crystal blue, beautiful and fragile in equal measures. Tskombe was momentarily lost for words.
Trina wasn't. She turned around, confident in the power of her sexuality, and came toward him. “Moira told me you were nice.” Her breasts were soft against his chest as she looked up at him. “What would you like to do?”
He looked down at her too young face and evaded her, went to sit on the tiny bed. “Nothing, I just need a rest.”
She turned to face him. “Don't be shy, I've seen everything, heard everything, done everything. I'm yours for an hour, completely yours.” She put her hands behind her neck, showing off her small, firm breasts. “We can do anything you want.”
He looked at the ceiling so he didn't have to look at her. “What else did Moira say?”
Trina pointed at a padcomp on the table. “Just that you were nice. We have a code, so I know what to expect.”
He looked down, met her gaze. “Really, I just need to rest for an hour.”
“Oh, I can help you relax.” She sauntered forward and straddled his knees. “Let me be nice to you.”
She reached for the seal on his jumpsuit but he caught her wrist, hard. “Don't.” He said it with more force than he meant to, and suddenly her eyes were big and frightened and it occurred to Tskombe that some of her clientele would not be nice at all. He let her go and looked away, speaking more softly. “Just don't.”
“Fine, whatever.” She stood up and sat on the table with her arms folded tight, fear turned to anger turned to defensiveness. The silence dragged out while Tskombe ran over his escape and his options. There weren't many. With an ARM tag on his ident he was a marked man. He couldn't ride a slidewalk without the cameras picking him up, couldn't buy a sandwich without alerting the transaction computers. He could hide in the gray zones, as he was hiding now, but the only person with less status than an unreg was a fugitive. An unreg could at least show his face in the daylight. They bartered with registered citizens and the citizens took a profit. Fugitives had to barter with the unregs, and what little trickled down to their level didn't buy much of a life. It certainly didn't buy a ticket off-world.
He took a deep breath. He could still get it all back, take the slap on the wrist for the call to Jarl, take the bigger slap that evading the ARM would bring. He could say he was visiting this brothel, didn't want anyone to find out, make it out to be one big mistake. It would wreck his accelerated promotion, but he'd have his life back, his career would be intact.
Except — except he would never get to Wunderland, not even by accident. They'd make sure of that. And Ayla is still on Kzinhome and I have to get her back. That was the beginning and the end, and he realized that his old life was already over. He needed a new one, plastic surgery, new retinas, an ironclad forged ident. He needed a hookup, and maybe this girl could help him with that, at least.
He looked up. Trina was looking at the wall with an expression of studied disgust.
“Look, I'm sorry if…”
“Whatever.” She was still annoyed, insulted perhaps, that he didn't find her irresistible, though he couldn't imagine she actually wanted sex with yet another stranger.
“I really just need a place to be out of sight for awhile. The ARM is looking for me.”
She looked at him, looked away, not believing. “Really. Sure. Whatever.”
“I need to get a new ident. I need a meat surgeon.”
She looked at him again, her voice softer. “You're serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“What did you do?”
“It's complicated.”
“It always is.” She stood up, leaned against the wall. “Look, what you did, it's not my business. I might know someone who can do it. It's expensive.”
“I have money.”
“Maybe not this much. If it were cheap every unreg in Manhattan would have an ident.”
“What's the process?”
“How much you got?”
“Enough.”
“Enough is not enough.”
“You're getting eight hundred for me to sit in your room for an hour. I've got enough. Get me a hookup and I'll get you a nice bonus.”
“Moira's getting eight hundred…” There was a momentary wash of anger in her face, and then it was gone. She thought for a moment, then nodded. “The process, simple enough. You get your face worked, a new set of eyes, new prints. The best way is, they yank a citizen off the streets, he looks more or less like you. So then he vanishes, you take his place.”
“He dies, you mean? Why not just swap eyes and thumbs and let him go?”
“What do you think this is, charity work?” Her voice had a sudden edge. “Maybe death is better than living as an unreg after you've been a citizen, you ever consider that? Anyway, the last thing you need is him yapping to ARM and showing off the bone scars where they grafted your fingers onto his hands. They might not believe him, but they'll haul in whoever he says he was, which is to say you for questioning anyway. And guess what? When they find the same set of bone scars on you, you're busted.”
“I'm going off-planet, they won't bust me.”
“ARM is off-planet.”
“They aren't this far off-planet.” Which begs the question of where I go if I come back with Ayla. “Can it be done without murdering someone?”
“Snag a deader from the hospital, bribe someone to change the records. Costs more and it's riskier. Why bother?”
“Because I don't want to be involved in murder.”
She shrugged. “It's your funeral. I'll hook you up. How big a bonus do I get?”
“Eight hundred, barter equivalent. I'll buy whatever you want, Moira won't see any of it.”
“Not enough. You got the money to do this thing, you got the money to pay me right.”
“Eight hundred is an hour of your time, and it's generous. I don't imagine you're the only one who can hook me up. If you can do it Moira can do it. If she can do it, half the gray zone can.”
Her face tensed and she looked away, not answering. After a long pause she spoke, her voice dead and flat. “Fine, eight hundred. I'll find out tonight, maybe. Come back tomorrow. Better reserve your time when you leave.” She turned around to face him again. “I'm always booked up.”
There was a trace of defiance in her voice and he looked at her. She wanted him to want her, and if he didn't take her he must not want her enough. There was pain there, hidden beneath her ice-slick attitude. She was far too young to be doing what she was doing for a living, far too innocent to speak of expedient kidnap and murder in casual terms. Against his better judgment he asked. “Why do you do this?”
“What?” She rounded on him, suddenly angry. “You mean a nice girl like me? Why do I sell my body to strangers? Is that it?”
He held up his hands. “I didn't—”
“Sure you did. Finagled fool that you are.” Her eyes flashed. “What the tanj do you know about me to decide if I'm nice or not?”
“I'm here for the rest of the hour. Neither of us wants sex.” She almost flinched at that. “It's conversation. We can sit in silence if you wan
t.”
“It would be better.” She turned back and faced the wall, her shoulders tense. The silence dragged out, and twice Tskombe started to speak and thought better of it.
It was Trina who broke the silence. “I'm unregistered.” She shrugged angrily, not turning around. “My parents wanted a baby, my mother, she was desperate for her own little baby to love, but she had bad genes, she couldn't get a birthright. Her family had money though, and Dad was UN connected, he could fix things. So he fixed them, he got her a birthright, and they had me. Brilliant.”
“What went wrong?”
“My father had enemies, powerful enemies. They found out, of course they found out, and there was a scandal and they yanked her birthright back. Except guess what? She was already pregnant. So she just didn't tell anyone. Why should she? She wanted her baby and they could afford it, I'd never need my own ident, my own money because they'd always be able to pay my way. As for education and medical, well, if you have money you can get those things outside the system. I didn't need an ident. She wanted a baby.” Tskombe could hear the tears backing up in her throat.
“So what happened?”
“What do you think happened? You think my father's enemies gave up when they had him down? How long have you been off-planet? They ruined him, destroyed him totally. They bought people, set up deals and then yanked them when he was committed. We lost everything, and then there was a gravcar accident, and we lost him too. That was the end of my mother. She just died inside. I was eight, and I remember it so clearly, even more than my own sadness. I knew daddy would come home, I believed that. He couldn't just be gone, you know, so I wasn't really sad because I had that hope. Mom knew better. She just sat by the window, for days and days, didn't eat. We used to have a maid, Jendi, when we had money, and she came over again, for free, to look after me. It was more than sadness that Mother had, there was something wrong with her, some kind of schiz thing, depression. That was her gene problem, why she couldn't get a birthright. She just went down to the beach one day and swam out to sea. They found her a month later way down the coast. She put rocks in her pockets to make sure.”