Beaumonde was a dump, didn't much matter what level of the city you were on. I supposed that there were people with money and respectability somewhere, but I ain't never seen 'em. Fanty and Mingo had a job for us, so Zoë and I were slowly makin' our way to the bar on level three where they preferred to do their business. I'd have rather met them on neutral turf, just this once, but since it was their deal, didn't feel much like muckin' it up with my opinions.
"Sir?" Zoë said quietly, which wasn't much of a surprise. If Zoë didn't speak, you'd forget she was there. Light on her feet as Inara, she could put a Companion to shame. Needless to say if I weren't used to her silent but deadly approach, she'd have cost me considerable years of my life from the periodic heart attacks she brought on sneakin' about.
"Yes?" I asked as I heard a booted foot splash in one of the self-spawning puddles that dotted nearly ever inch of pavement from the leaky weather control system that was supposed to make Beaumonde a paradise. "We're bein' followed." She looked relieved that I'd noticed the three men who had been trailin' us a good way since we'd left Serenity at the docks. At least she didn't look surprised. "Conjure it's all kinds of friendly like for the boys to send a welcomin' committee our way."
"Do you think Fanty and Mingo sent them?" She asked as she started to take slightly longer steps, so that we were pickin' up speed, but not so much as we was runnin'. I didn't much like runnin' from a fight when I didn't know who I was fightin."
"There's an alley up here," I tilted my chin towards a noodle shop. "Cut through the noodle shop, and out the kitchen."
"I remember it well sir."
We began to run in earnest then, cuttin' through the line of folks waitin' to be served at the noodle shop, and dashed right on through the kitchen while the cooks waved their cleavers and shouted at us. "Hold it right there!" a shot was fired, and the cooks started screamin' at the men who were followin' us. It was then I finally took the time to see that they was wearin' Alliance colors. I reached over, and grabbed the edge of a huge pot of boilin' water and slippery noodles sendin' it into their path as Zoë and I darted out of the back door and into the alley.
"Where to now?" Zoë asked.
I reached up and pointed at the fire escape that was right above us. "We go up."
Zoë weren't just quiet, but that girl could jump like we were in a space. One second she was next to me, her shotgun ready to take out some fella's knee caps, and the next she was hanging down from the fire escape to take my hand. "Sir?" If I didn't love her so much, I might have been the one to ask her to marry me, not Wash. But I'm pretty sure that if we were married, she'd have had to kill me by now for being a pain in the ass.
With a grunt, I jumped while letting her yank on me hard enough to feel like my arm was about to pop out of the socket, and then I was hanging onto the rusty railing while the Purple Bellies went running out of the kitchen door. I drew my knees up, holding my breath and praying they didn't hear nothing to keep my toes from hitting the tallest one in the head. That would have pretty much ruined the grand escape plan and all that, not that we'd had a plan.
My arms were on fire by the time they finally got the gumption to head out of the damned alley to look for us. But we were lucky enough that they didn't look up. At least that's what I was conjuring as I finally got my feet under me again, and a bullet hit the wall near enough to my face to have a bit of the wall cut me. "Son of a bitch," I swore as Zoë and I started scrambling up the ladders to the roof of the building.
"Well sir," she said shaking her head as I pulled up over the edge of the building, while she shot cover fire down at the Alliance goons. "Looks like our stay in Beaumonde just got a whole lot more interestin'. Do we go to the Maidenhead, or back to Serenity?"
"We go to the Maidenhead," I panted as I started kicking the top of the ladder as hard as I could over and over again until it came lose from the building. I couldn't help but smile as the Alliance boys tried to learn how to fly on the way down. "Want to make sure our good friends Fanty and Mingo didn't turn us in."
As bars went the Maidenhead wasn't too bad, I had been in plenty worse. What I didn't much feel like doing was taking off my gun, and stashing it in the revolving bins. With the Alliance sniffing at our heels, I felt like I was naked, and just asking to get shot. "I don't like it either, sir," Zoë said as she pulled the cardkey from the bin that now held her shotgun.
"Do you read my mind?" I mused as we walked through the scanners at the bottom of the stairs that led into the bar proper. The waitresses and whores were prancing about in tight Qi Pao that looked like they was painted on. I did a double take on the fan dancers when I realized that it was painted on, they were naked 'cept for a few bits here and there.
"No more than I'm readin' it now, sir," Zoë chuckled as she nudged my attention from the painted women who were tying each other in a human pretzel.
"I ain't Jayne, Zoë," I said taking one last look at the girl's flexibility. "I have control of my baser urges. Now where do y'all suppose Fanty and Mingo are?"
"They ain't here," a big guy who I'd seen backing up the twins growled from behind a wide curtain and a potted plant that had to be fake to look so healthy in a cave like the Maidenhead. "Don't know where they are neither."
"Was that a double negative, Zoë?"
"I believe it was, sir."
"What do you mean, you don't know where they are. I'm supposed to have a meetin' with them about a gorram job." This was all I needed. The Alliance on my ass and for my contacts to be missing. "Did they get themselves arrested? Had the Alliance chasin' us on our way here." From the look on their goon's face, I knew I'd hit the mark. "So the twins got themselves in a bit of trouble. How much do you think they'd be willin' to pay for a rescue?"