Steel Beneath the Skin

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘How much did you tip her?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Ten credits. I know it’s over the odds, but…’

  ‘Way over,’ Monkey said. ‘They’re lucky if they get five per cent out here.’

  Aneka rolled her eyes. ‘I guess my training didn’t cover Rim culture. That probably explains why she dropped me her number.’

  ‘Probably,’ Ella agreed, giggling. ‘Okay, now that we’re settled for a bit, the question of what’s up with our Monkey must be broached.’

  Monkey sagged in his seat. ‘Does it have to? Can’t I just be coming down here with friends for a day out?’

  ‘Not really. I’m a psychologist. We’re nosy by nature.’

  ‘It’s Dad.’ He gave in rather easily; Aneka guessed that between Ella and Patton he was used to not being able to keep his thoughts to himself. ‘He called me to his office yesterday to tell me I was to stay away from Aneka.’

  Aneka gave a short chuckle. ‘So instead you go off on a jaunt to the local planet with me. I’m going to assume the meeting didn’t go well.’

  He grunted an acknowledgement. ‘I think he said the same thing to Mom and that didn’t go well either.’

  ‘I don’t want to come between your family.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not. Not really. I’m thirty-five and Dad still thinks I’m twelve. He’s used to being obeyed.’

  ‘I noticed he didn’t like being interrupted when they were interviewing me.’

  ‘I just can’t figure how you got him to release you,’ Monkey said, frowning. ‘He obviously doesn’t trust you. He’s convinced you’re some sort of xinti infiltrator sent to discover our weaknesses.’

  Aneka shrugged, and then closed her mouth as Pristy returned with a tray. The little blonde placed clear mugs of coffee down in front of each of them, giving Aneka a very bright smile. ‘Enjoy your drinks,’ she said, and then headed back to the café building, hips swaying.

  Aneka took a sip of not-really-coffee. ‘He wasn’t making the decision. There was a woman there who seemed to be in charge. Called herself “Winter.” She was the one who let me go. What?’ Both Ella and Monkey were looking at her like she had just announced she was actually a man.

  ‘You met Winter?’ Ella asked.

  ‘That’s what she called herself. Short, blonde hair, blue eyes, looked to be twenty-something, but she was older. Used to being obeyed. Why?’

  ‘Winter is the head of the Federal Intelligence Committee and the Federal Security Agency,’ Monkey told her. ‘No one knows who she really is for security reasons. She hardly ever leaves New Earth, as far as anyone knows, but it’s hard to tell because she’s very rarely seen at all. And she came here to interview you!’

  ‘Swell,’ Aneka commented. ‘I never used to like working with intelligence agencies.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt she wants you to work for her,’ Monkey replied. ‘It’s one thing to review you as a security threat and decide you aren’t. It’s another to decide to give you a job.’

  Aneka lifted her coffee cup in a toast. ‘Amen to that.’

  ~~~

  ‘Oo!’ Grabbing Aneka’s arm, Ella darted off toward one of the shops in the first cavern. This resulted in her coming to an abrupt stop; Aneka’s android body was about a hundred kilos of dead weight if she was not choosing to move. Ella looked back and then tried pulling with two hands. ‘Come on, clothes.’

  ‘What do I need clothes for?’ Aneka replied, amused. Aside from anything else it was funny watching Ella trying to shift her.

  ‘Yeah,’ Monkey agreed, ‘what does she need clothes for?’

  ‘Because you can’t tramp around New Earth in that leotard. People will look at you funny. You need to dress human if you’re going to look human.’

  Damn, she has a point. Monkey also seemed to come to the same conclusion; he sagged and started toward the shop with all the enthusiasm of a man whose girlfriend has just told him she needs to buy a dress. And not a sexy little black number, something suitable for visiting her maiden aunt. Aneka could not blame him; she had never got on well with clothes shopping.

  The shop looked better on the inside than the outside. The paintwork was fresh and clean, the racks were polished, and all the clothes looked like something you might see in a boutique in New York or London. There was one assistant, a smiling brunette in a slim, knee-length skirt and a ruffled blouse.

  ‘I hate clothes shopping,’ Aneka growled. ‘I’ve no idea what to buy…’

  ‘Then let me take care of it,’ Ella replied. She gave the assistant a smile and started for the racks. ‘We don’t need much. One outfit to get you from the ship to my place, and my place to somewhere you can buy more.’

  ‘Your place?’ Aneka found a chair at the back of the shop beside a curtained off changing room. She was about to sit down when she reconsidered and waved Monkey over to it. He looked suitably grateful.

  ‘You’re staying with me, aren’t you? At least until we can sort you out a place of your own.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it.’ She paused and then added, ‘I didn’t want to assume either.’

  Ella giggled. ‘You think I want rid of you just because we’re not stuck on a ship together?’

  ‘You might have had someone waiting for you.’

  The redhead turned and gave Aneka a look. ‘I might have stupidly thought you’d want to sleep with me and my ex, but I’d have mentioned it if there was someone at home.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Ella nodded and turned back to the racks, pulling something out and waving to the assistant. ‘What do they mine here anyway?’ Aneka asked to change the subject.

  ‘Copper, nickel, and iridium,’ Ella replied.

  ‘We have some of the best iridium-bearing ores in the Federation,’ the assistant stated rather proudly. She looked at the item Ella was holding and then back at Aneka, and then headed to a door behind the counter, vanishing into what Aneka guessed was a storeroom while Ella put the whatever-it-was back and turned to a rack of trousers.

  ‘What’s iridium used for?’

  ‘A lot of electronics applications,’ Monkey told her. ‘It’s used in experimental anti-proton production as well.’

  ‘Anti-proton? As in anti-matter?’

  He nodded. ‘If they want to produce large amounts they need something like iridium and a particle accelerator.’

  ‘By large mounts, he means micro-grams,’ Ella added. She pulled a pair of black jeans from the rack and wandered over to the small selection of shoes the shop had in. The assistant returned, waiting near the counter while Ella made a choice.

  ‘You really think I’m a black, lacy bustier sort of girl, Ella?’ Aneka asked, her eyes on the garment the assistant was holding.

  ‘Trust me,’ Ella replied. She turned holding a pair of black, patent pumps with outrageously high, steel stiletto heels. ‘Try one of these on. I’m guessing the size.’

  Shaking her head, Aneka put her hand on Monkey’s shoulder so she could pull off one of her boots. The shoe Ella put down fit perfectly, much to Aneka’s chagrin. Slipping back out of it and picking it up, she accepted the jeans and the other shoe, and the ridiculous top from the assistant, and hobbled into the little changing room.

  The basque left her midriff exposed and pushed her bust out. The tops of the cups were black lace, but the thing was actually opaque for a change. Since Ella and the assistant had done an amazing job picking the sizes for the top and shoes, Aneka was a little surprised to find that the jeans, made from a glossy, black Plastex, seemed to be a size too large. She pulled them up her legs, discovering that they were designed to fit around her hips, but as she pulled them together at the front it looked like there was far too much room.

  ‘I think I need a size smaller in the jeans,’ she called through the curtain.

  ‘Have you closed the catch yet?’ Ella called back.

  Frowning, Aneka hooked the odd catch into place and then pressed it together. There was a click as it locked and then the e
ntire garment shrank around her, pulling tight around her hips and thighs. ‘Oh!’

  ‘There you go. It’s SensiCloth. Contracts to fit the wearer.’

  Aneka slipped on her new shoes and pulled the curtain aside. ‘In my day people used to get in the bath with their jeans on.’ She walked out onto the shop floor, feeling like she was towering over Ella and the assistant. ‘How do I look? I’ve never really gone for feminine clothing, except for formal dos and dates, and there were never that many of those…’ She stopped. Ella was grinning brightly, and Monkey was looking mildly shocked and going red around the cheeks and throat.

  ‘Foojen has the figure for that kind of outfit,’ the assistant stated. It did not entirely sound like a sales pitch.

  Aneka took another look at Monkey and nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll take them. Have you got a bag I can put the stuff I came in into? I’ll wear these back to the station.’

  ‘Of course, foojen,’ the assistant replied. Aneka made a note to ask Ella what “foojen” meant. It sounded like a honorific, maybe “madam,” but she was not sure.

  With another two-hundred credits racked up and her leotard and boots in a designer shopping bag, Aneka walked out of the shop feeling more comfortable than she had when she went in, even if she was wearing stupid shoes. Of course, the last time she had worn heels, and they had not been this high, she had had a normal body. Her new body was perfectly happy with the new balance arrangement and was showing no stress from walking on the balls of her feet.

  ‘Where to now, oh my glorious guide?’

  Ella looked around and pointed at an alley at the side of the shop. ‘The shop where I bought my first vibrator is through there.’

  Aneka rolled her eyes. ‘You’re going to give Monkey a complex.’

  ‘It’s nostalgic,’ Ella countered, starting for the alley.

  They were halfway down it when they heard the voice behind them. ‘H-hold it right th-there! I want your c-clothes and any… anything else you got.’

  Aneka turned, aware that Monkey was doing the same beside her. The speaker was a boy, probably no older than fifteen, but with the way jenlay aged she was not sure. He was wearing clothes which had seen better days and holding a smooth, plastic device in his right hand. The way he was pointing it at them, it was presumably a weapon.

  ‘Sonic stunner,’ Monkey murmured. ‘He probably can’t get both of us if we rush him.’

  ‘St-stay right there,’ the kid stammered. He was not exactly an experienced criminal. ‘Strip and hand over the bag.’

  ‘I just bought these,’ Aneka replied, keeping her voice calm. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be playing at mugging?’

  ‘I ain’t playing, necro.’ He pressed the button on the stunner. There was a dull buzzing sound and Al popped up a message indicating that a sonic beam attack had been used on her.

  ‘That was… anti-climactic,’ Aneka commented. Taking two quick steps forward, she caught the boy’s wrist and wrenched it sideways. The stunner bounced off the alley wall and the kid let out a cry of pain. Then she followed through, her knee slamming up into his groin, and he let out a squeak before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed onto the dirt. Aneka heard Monkey wincing in sympathy behind her. ‘What do we do with him now?’

  ‘Call the local cops, I guess,’ Monkey said.

  Ella walked over and looked down at their would-be mugger, now curled into a foetal position on the dusty concrete. ‘Just leave him. If he’s lucky, no one will find him and steal his clothes before he wakes up. If we call the cops we’ll spend the rest of the day filling out forms and he’ll end up on a prison station learning to be a better criminal.’

  ‘That’s kind of cynical,’ Aneka commented as they walked away. ‘I’d have thought the future had better ways of dealing with criminals.’

  ‘In the Core there’s almost no criminality,’ Ella replied. ‘The kind of thing which creates it has largely been engineered out and most people have what they want. Out here the medical facilities aren’t as good and there are more people desperate enough to try stuff like this. Since there aren’t that many criminals in the Core, the Federation doesn’t know what to do with the ones it has. They get locked up, off-world.’

  ‘Huh. Some things don’t change. Okay, what’s a “necro”?’

  ‘Someone from the Core Worlds,’ Monkey supplied. ‘I’ve no idea why.’

  ‘It used to be “corpsers,”’ Ella explained. ‘Then someone read a book and heard about “necromancy” and stuff like that. It dates back to last century.’

  ‘Huh. I’m not one anyway.’

  ‘People like him tend to think anyone dressed nicely are necros. Ah, here we are.’ She reached for the door of a shop and Aneka looked up to read the sign. Adele’s Adult Fun Shop.

  Monkey let out a groan and Aneka laughed. ‘Hopefully she won’t want me trying anything on in here.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ he replied.

  ~~~

  ‘I don’t know why you wouldn’t wear the other outfit back to the station,’ Ella said as they walked back toward the spaceport.

  ‘Because I draw the line at turning up at the security station dressed in a few faux-leather straps,’ Aneka replied. She was now carrying three bags, mostly because her body did not care much about the extra load.

  Ella giggled and Monkey said, ‘I told you she’d have you trying things on.’

  ‘You did. She tried things on too.’

  ‘I don’t know why you wouldn’t, Monkey. You’d have looked gorgeous in…’

  ‘I didn’t think so,’ he interrupted, and then came to a stop at the sight of the two policemen standing beside the tunnel to the port. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

  Ella continued walking, a frown on her face. ‘Is there a problem, officer?’ she asked of the nearest of the two men in dark blue slacks, boots, and something like a flak jacket, all over the top of what looked like a blue ship-suit.

  ‘There’s been a cave-in in the tunnel,’ the man replied. ‘They’re clearing it, but the port is closed until morning. I can provide you with the location of a hotel if you require one, ma’am.’

  ‘No,’ Ella replied. ‘I can manage.’ She was frowning when she turned around and led her friends back across the cavern. ‘These tunnels don’t cave in. Not since they were first constructed anyway.’

  Monkey grunted his agreement. ‘Does seem unlikely. Reinforced Plascrete walls like that don’t fail on their own.’

  ‘You’re talking sabotage?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘Could be. Not our problem, though, unless it becomes a problem for everyone.’

  ‘No,’ Ella agreed. ‘We’ll get a hotel room and fly up in the morning. We’d better contact the Doc and let her know.’

  Aneka asked Al to put a call through and a video contact window appeared to show he was trying to reach her. ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘A room?’ Monkey asked.

  Ella shrugged and gave him a grin. ‘We’ve all seen each other naked, why waste money. It’s not like I’m asking you to sleep with Aneka.’

  Monkey groaned. ‘Why did you have to say that?’

  ~~~

  The hotel room was in a reputable sort of place in the north dome, though the actual building was half above ground and half below. They had shared the bill and sprung for an aboveground room with two double beds. Right now Aneka and Ella were lying on one while Monkey lay on the other, his eyes on the video panel which occupied a substantial section of the opposite wall. Technically it occupied the entire wall; Ella had demonstrated selecting wall patterns and pictures as required by the patron when they walked in. However, one section was currently devoted to the local news channels, with Monkey listening to it on a wireless headset so he did not disturb the women.

  Not that the women were doing anything much; just lying on the bed, Ella’s head on Aneka’s shoulder. Ella had stripped off her ship-suit once they were in the room, but then so had Monkey. The only one still dressed was Aneka.

&nbs
p; ‘You said you got those eyes after catching some disease,’ Aneka said, her voice low despite the fact that Monkey could not hear them. ‘You catch that here?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Aneka felt the redhead stiffen a little against her side.

  ‘You don’t have to…’

  ‘I was twelve. My father worked in the mines, mother was a dancer at one of the clubs in Cavern One. One day he took me on a visit to see the mining operations. I was doing a report for school and doing it on my mother’s job was not going to go down well. Anyway, there’s actually some life on this rock, a few extremophiles that actually like the atmosphere out there, and the heat. One of them mutated to handle an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and started colonising the mine areas underground. A type of lichen, actually. It would be fascinating if I hadn’t been exposed to some spores from the stuff while I was down there. My filter mask had a bust seam.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s difficult to treat, as you can imagine. Something that can live out there is immune to a lot of things, and a lot of the things it isn’t immune to would kill the patient. It started on my eyes because of the moisture, but by the time they had got it under control it had eaten away most of my nose and half of the left side of my face.’ Aneka winced, pulling Ella against her almost involuntarily. ‘It wasn’t so bad for me, really. I couldn’t see what I looked like.’

  Aneka laughed half-heartedly. ‘That where you got your bubbly disposition from?’

  ‘Well, after that it did seem to be kind of stupid to be negative about… things like getting stuck here for a night. My mother decided the only way I was ever going to see again was to get me to one of the Core Worlds. She managed to scrape the money together to leave here and go to New Earth, and then get me the operations I needed. They reconstructed my face and put in the new eyes. It cost a lot of money. Mom never told me how she got it all, but I think she had to do some pretty distasteful things to make the extra credits.’