Two-hundred years of terraforming makes Lagoon City the springboard for small business, investment and opportunity.
Yeah, I scoffed, more like a haven for scum like Sharki and warlords to capitalize upon.
Formed in 2531, the golden age of expansion, Tyrone became a settler and slave world. It showed potential but then crashed as warring factions took over…” The automated voice droned away over the noise of the passing traffic.
Marty turned up his nose. “Interesting, but I’m not here for a geography or cultural lesson.”
“Nor is anybody, Marty. Well, let’s go get you some regen. How many yols you got?”
“Sixty six.”
“Between you and me, that makes 100. We should be able to get a small tin. Here—” I pointed to a general purpose utility shop with neon in the windows and a bright sign, “Self serve, Food, Drinks, Utilities for all.” On display in the window sat spray cans and firrit food, detergent, canned food and beverages.
I motioned the others to stand by while I slipped into the shop past the painted hookers. I found the regen on a top shelf, also got me some cheap, coin-sized flares in case we needed them. Not enough to do much damage, these mini-explosives, but enough to surprise the hell out of some unwary party. Not much of a line-up in here, so I made it out in good time. I smeared some orange paste on Marty’s ribs, then doctored up my own wounds and gave the rest to Deidra.
He gave a relaxed sigh as the formula did its work. The goop had a remarkable ability to heal and knit inflamed tissue, cuts and bruised flesh back together. I too could feel it like a balm on my own cuts and scrapes and black-rimmed eyes. “We need to find some mechanic. Deidra?”
“Index says, there’s a reputable one down Wailard’s Way. Seedy part of town, but all there is, unless you want to risk random hopping about? We could run into trouble.”
“Any more trouble than we already have?”
She had to laugh at that. Good to see her laughing. For a young one, she was too grim.
Wailard’s Way ended up looking much seedier than I imagined though. Blackened brick, broken lampposts, gangbangers and miners roving about with tattoos and buzz cuts. Deidra would have done better to stay back on the ship. So she could fly off and wave bye-bye to us and never be seen again? Think again, Rusco, you dummy. Leave the thinking for Bozo the Clown. Didn’t like the look of those powder boys and pimps over there staring us down. Too obvious we were, as new fish to town, fresh marks to prey on. Hoped to hell Sharki hadn’t put word out on the street for us—a couple of space grifters wandering about looking for kicks. Likely he had. Bastard. Wondered how he was doing? Enjoying his shot-up foot, no doubt.
Lots of seedy bars and clubs on this strip. Hoods too. Ex-miners and their sons and daughters gone bad, small time gang people, thieves, cutthroats, pimps in the making, trying to make a name for themselves, but without the experience to back it up.
Live and learn. School of hard knocks. We all live by it.
I hastened us along—not so that we’d look like a bunch of frightened chickens, but that we weren’t pausing to examine any wares or looking like goons to get robbed and beaten. I caught a pair of eyes looking our way. I let my gaze move easily past without offering up any challenge.
We hunkered under a low awning, a fruit market, selling all sorts of natural and synthetic goodies. Huckleberries, mincemeat, local jackfruit. Marty popped a handful of grapes in his mouth while the squat, butch-looking vendor had her back turned. Market was selling pretty much everything here: fruit tarts, scarves, bandannas, fermented bog beer. Vendors chortled the worth of their wares in dialects and languages I couldn’t understand. They’d mangled the language into something barely legible in this quarter. Needed the pocket computer to translate it. We jostled our way through the milling crowd.
Deidra looked up, shuddering. “Check it, there’s one of those sordid places Sharki’s threatened to shuttle me off to.”
I squinted up, taking in the dilapidated neon tinsel cathouse. “Relax, Deidra. Won’t happen to you while I’m on duty.”
“I keep thinking it’s still my fate.” Her shoulders trembled. “Can’t seem to shake it off.”
I put my arm around her.
Marty snorted. “Well, ain’t you the super daddy.”
“Knock it off, Marty.”
My eyes wandered past his brush-cut to a strange-looking woman staring at us across the way. Didn’t like the look of that one. She’d been staring intently at us for a while now. Rose-red dyed hair done up in a curlicue of weirdness, slight build, jet black eyes like a cat’s. She stood up on her heels and whispered something to the toughie beside her—a silent brute with harelip, bare chest, tattooed to the gills with a heaping handful of oiled muscles. The man stood arms crossed by the signpost as if he were street monitor or something.
A whole story played out in my head—cat woman on the prowl, alert for persons matching our description, especially Deidra’s, a savvy watcher able to call on muscle boy to make a move. Call it paranoia or horse sense, I couldn’t ignore it.
“Time to make ourselves scarce,” I muttered to Marty.
A quick retreat would look suspicious so I grabbed Deidra and pulled her face close to mine. I latched my lips to hers, stuck my tongue down her throat. She grunted, struggled, huffed out an indignant protest, then she relaxed, as if thinking it some strange rough-and-tumble game or fantasy I’d had all along. She eased into a provocative pose, hands groping around my back with a sensual snarl in her throat.
The moments passed and
