I don't own Trigun. Have we all gotten this?
*hugs the people she talks to online* I tell you guys, I *like* the IM programs.
********************************************************************************
A young man sauntered into December that afternoon. He entered whistling, hands thrust into pockets of pants slung low over slender hipbones. He slouched down the street with a casual air, looking at nothing in particular. His path brought him up streets and down as he meandered through the city.
He may have looked at nothing in particular, but everything his gaze fell upon was cataloged, every person was evaluated, every store, every house, every building was seen and remembered. His dreamy eyes looked out from under a fall of soft brown hair and they saw everything there was to see.
When he was sure that he had attracted no notice he ducked into a store. Clothes of all sorts lined the walls. Business suits and leisure suits, formal dresses and party dresses, clothes for adults and clothes for children. He wandered aimlessly through the racks of clothes, looking at everything available but lingering near nothing.
"May I help you?" asked a sales clerk as he fingered a silk blouse. The sales force had drawn lots to see who got to help him…help him back onto the street, that is. He was much too poorly dressed to belong in their establishment. There was always the off chance that he might be in here to buy a special gift for his girlfriend, and in that case she would help him. But actually getting some commission from the unlikely sale? Laughable.
He dropped the sleeve and looked at her. She kept smiling as his gaze traveled over her body, kept smiling as his eyes lingered where perhaps they should not, and kept smiling as he turned to her with a lecherous grin. Her mouth kept smiling, but her gaze had turned frosty.
"Well aren't you the sweetest?" said the…gentleman. She kept smiling but gritted her teeth before responding.
"Is there something in particular you are looking for?" She should have worn her yellow dress. No one looked at her like that when she wore her yellow dress.
"I'm just looking," he commented, winking at her to make sure she didn't miss the point. He turned away after that and started to wander to another part of the store.
"If you are not planning on purchasing something, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave," she said to his back. She motioned to a couple male clerks who had been watching. They started towards her, then stopped.
Puzzled, she turned around. The young man had turned back and held in his hand an obscenely large roll of bills.
"Do be a dear and help me look," he said, slipping her another wink.
Slightly more cheered and much more willing to overlook his boorish behavior she moved closer and grabbed his arm.
"What exactly are you looking for again?" she asked, pressing herself close.
He looked a bit started but didn't push her away.
"Well. Um. My sister, she has a passel of kids. I found myself with a bit of cash and thought I would treat them all to a nice set of clothes. You know, the sort of boring gift a respectable uncle would give." His voice gave the word respectable an extra bit of emphasis, and the clerk sympathized with the sister. She would hate to have a boor like this as a brother, too.
But the commission! Looking at the money crumpled in his hand, she mentally calculated what she would do with her portion. She could finally repaint the kitchen, and add curtains, and maybe even a window box. "How many children does your sister have," she asked sweetly, steering him over to the children's area.
"Six. One a year from six to twelve. The prettiest set of kids you ever did see, that they are. Five boys and a baby girl spoiled beyond belief."
"What's her name?"
"Kate. Little Katie Marie, the sweetest little gal you ever did see. She has the biggest brown eyes and the worlds prettiest smile." His eyes found a cute little shirt, pink and yellow stripes with bows tacked down the sleeves. "And I think you just led me to the perfect little outfit for her." He picked up the shirt and matching yellow pants, then allowed himself to be led into the boys section. He spent almost an hour picking out their clothes and teasing the sales clerk.
"I'd also like to get a little something for myself, since I see to have some cash left over," he said with a smile. Looking over the selection before him, he finally settled on a silk shirt dyed a soft blue that almost matched the color of the morning sky. The clerk protested that the color would not look right on him, but he overrode her. "I'm not a fashion plate. I like the color; it'll be fine."
Finally he moved towards the cashier's station. Mentally, she cheered the thought that he would be leaving, but she felt compelled to make one last effort to increase her commission. She could almost afford that window box…
"Aren't you going to buy something for your sister?" she asked.
He stopped mid-step and looked surprised. "Her?" He paused before continuing. "I guess I could, but it's really just a waste of cash buying for her."
"That's not a nice thing to say," she told him, punching his shoulder lightly. "Why shouldn't she get something, too?"
He looked at her and shrugged. He looked around the room and his eyes settled on a breezy linen dress of deep forest green. "That, I guess," he said, pointing and shrugging.
She looked at him oddly. "Are you sure? You spent more time shopping for yourself then you did your sister." He didn't respond and she didn't press the issue. She was afraid that she had offended him, but when she met up with him at the counter he smiled and winked at her again.
After checking him out he passed a $$100 bill over her hand then dropped it in her palm. "You have been a great help," he said solemnly, then picked up his neatly wrapped parcels and left the shop. The clerk watched him go, glad to be rid of him, and already mentally spending the windfall.
*******************************************************************************
"One step finished," thought Kiley to herself as she wandered in search of her next stop.
Kiley wandered into a bookstore. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of so many paper books. There were almost as many bound books in this one store as she remembered seeing in the rare book library back home. She knew that this planet was a bit more primitive then the one she had come from, but there was a part of her that had expected to see readers and data discs. The shelves and shelves of books represented a wealth of knowledge.
She picked up a volume and winced. It seemed that paper was almost as expensive here as it was back on earth. Her money wasn't going to cover much more before running out. The volume was slipped back on the shelf and she spent a few more moments browsing before leaving the store. She had one more trip to make before calling it a night.
It was a rather sad commentary on the state of society that she had less trouble finding the next store then she had in locating the bookstore.
A little bell tinkled as she walked in, and the youngish man behind the counter looked up from what he was reading. Light glinted off the wire rim of his glasses as he picked up a bookmark and closed the book.
"May I help you?" he asked politely.
"I'm looking for a bit of a backup gun," she asked, still in her persona of a rough young man. "Nothing too big, nothing too hard to handle, I'm looking for accuracy and ease of use."
"Were you thinking along the lines of a .22? We have a few very nice one shot weapons--"
"No," she interrupted. "It may be a backup, but I believe in a little more backup then that. I was thinking more along the lines of something like a lady's pistol."
"You sound like you're planning to get in some trouble," said the man as he pulled a few guns from under the counter. "No, no, don't tell me. I don't want to know why you think you need a lot of firepower. I'm probably better off not knowing."
Kiley smiled. "You're a wise man," she said as she picked up a medium-small pistol and stared down the sights. "This one looks nice, but how does it shoot?"
"You have a good eye. That's a Marlon. Not many of those left. They shoot rather well, but you don't need to take my word for it. Here, follow me." He grabbed a few shells from a box on the shelf behind him and went to lock the front of the store. Kiley held the gun loosely, bemused but ready to fight if she had to. "You can leave your packages up here; no one will touch them," he said, motioning for her to follow him through a door at the back of the shop.
It led to stairs that went down below the level of the street. "We have our own little gun range dug out of the bedrock down here," explained the clerk as Kiley followed him. "Our customers can test out weapons to their hearts content and we don't even bother the neighbors. Ah, here we are," he remarked as he unlocked another door. They entered a room that stretched yards before them; a shooting range.
"If you will just hand me that," he asked, taking the gun from her hand and trading her ear protectors. "Here you go," he said when he had finished loading the weapon. Kiley nodded as she took it. The clerk set up a target and sent it out to fifty yards.
"Farther," she said as she looked down the sight.
It moved out to seventy-five yards, paused for a moment, and was sent to a hundred yards without her having to say anything.
She focused on the target, fixing its position in her mind, then focused on the front sight, relaxing into the pull of the trigger. The pull was nice and easy, a soft squeezing of pressure before the trigger broke, the cylinder cycled, and a nice little hole appeared in the middle of the target.
"That's some nice shooting," commented the clerk. She didn't respond, except to send the next five shots close enough to the first for there to be one ragged hole in the paper.
"It's a nice gun. How much?" she asked, turning to the clerk. His eyes were a little wide as he brought the target back.
"One hole? That's amazing shooting! I have never seen someone do that," he gushed.
Kiley suppressed a sigh. "Then you don't get many good shooters down here, do you?" she asked rhetorically. "How much for the gun?" she asked again.
He continued to stare at her, speechless. She snapped her fingers in front of his face. "The gun, how much? Hello?"
He shook himself. "Ah, yes, the Marlon." He named a figure that didn't startle her, but did slightly dismay her. It pretty much took care of her bounty, and she still had stuff she needed to buy.
Oh well. There were plenty of ways to make money. "I'll take it," she told him, following him back up the stairs.
"Are you a bounty hunter?" inquired the clerk.
"I've been known to capture one or two," she said. "It's not my job, though."
"What do you do?" he asked, gushing. She merely stared at him silently. Some of the jubilation left his face, and she relented.
"I don't do much of anything except find trouble."
He risked a small smile. "I'm glad that you are buying the Marlon. I've been a little afraid that some fool was going to buy it for 'home protection' and end up shooting himself with it. You look like you'll do the weapon honor."
She looked at him with an odd expression on her face. "Weapons don't have honor. They are made to harm, to kill. Where's the honor in that?"
"Well," he sputtered, "you don't have to use them to kill."
"A gun has no other purpose, and if you pick it up just expecting it to be a threat you will be sadly mistaken. The weapon has no honor, but I do. Don't worry," she offered as she passed over her cash. "This weapon will be used as its creator intended. I am only amused when I find another adherent to the cult of the gun-as-a-threat." With that, she picked up the gun and holster, slipped it into one of her packages, and left the store, shaking her head at the naiveté of some people.
Many stores were now beginning to close for the night, so Kiley headed to a hotel and rented a room. She dropped off her purchases off and headed to the restaurant attached to the lobby. She ordered a very standard steak dinner and found herself picking at it while looking around at all the happy couples and families. She didn't see anyone else eating all alone, and she hated the feeling of exclusion. Eating by herself felt wrong, boring, staid, and dull. She found that she actually missed Knives' company, strange as that was. Maybe she was just tired of being alone. That must be it. All these pictures of family bliss arrayed around the room must be getting to her.
After finishing her lonely meal she returned to her room and pulled out the dress. She wasn't sure what had compelled her to buy the pointless expanse of cloth, but she had a use for it now. Laying it on the beige comforter to let some of the wrinkles fall out, she retreated to the bathroom for a deluxe pampering session. She drew herself a bath and soaked in water as hot as she could stand until every pore had opened up. She scrubbed away the dirt and dead skin that had accumulated over her desert trip, rinsed, and scrubbed again until she was sure that every last trace of grime was gone.
She stepped out of the tub and dried off. Looking in the mirror, she focused on her nose instead of her eyes and stared at her face. She didn't need to do much to achieve the look she desired, but she did change the color of her eyes to a green that matched the dress. She ran her fingers through her hair, drying it, curling it, and changing its color to a deeper brown as she went. Soft little ringlets glistened with red highlights under the bathroom lights, and she nodded, satisfied. She looked nothing like herself.
She added a flush of pink to her cheeks and left to get dressed. The dress sat where she had left it, somehow managing to feel accusing as it lay on the bed. It was almost as if it didn't approve of what she was going to do tonight, but that was silly. It was an inanimate object whose only feelings were projections of her own, and she had no problems with tonight's course of action. Regardless of that, it seemed to sag dispiritedly in her hands as she picked it up.
A few moments and a bit of wriggling later she stood before the mirror on the wall, assessing her reflection. Nothing was going to disguise the muscles in her bare shoulders and arms, but her hands were relatively soft, not hardened or roughened by labor. She rubbed her upper arms and reflected on all the times that she had been glad of the strength they contained. Even remembering her pride in what she could do with them, she found she was slightly ashamed of the precisely defined muscles. She just didn't look like the ideal of feminine beauty.
There was little softness about her. Every edge was chiseled, sharp and firm. Try as she might, she never seemed able to eat enough to keep the nice soft parts that made being a woman fun. Her hands smoothed down the front of the dress and she grimaced at the nearly flat plane. She felt like a boy, which wasn't such a bad thing most of the time, but certainly wasn't what she wanted to feel like when she wore a dress. It was too easy for her to pretend to be a guy; when the sales clerk had attached herself to her arm this afternoon, she hadn't even noticed anything was unusual.
Almost she took the dress off again, but her plan would work best if she wore it. Her hands shaped and smoothed the cloth as she turned this way and that. She would do, it would do. She pulled on a pair of sandals and picked up a wad of cash, tucking it neatly in her palm. This was it; the last of her money. Tonight's plan needed to work, or she was going to be in trouble.
When she left the hotel it was nearly eight. The suns had set, but only minutes ago. The streets were dim but even the unlit ones were not quite dark as she traveled along them. She walked purposefully to the east, taking one street and another until she stood in front of a well-lit building. Signs and lights proclaimed the home of the "largest casino on the planet." Putting on her game face, she strode in the doors and headed straight to the bar.
She shoved a bill at the bartender and demanded something cheap and strong. He complied and she threw it back, gasping as the raw liquor hit her throat.
"Another," she choked out as she set the glass on the counter. He complied, giving her an odd look, and she repeated the gesture.
"Another," she demanded after choking and coughing for a full minute.
"Look, miss, I don't think you should be drinking so many so fast," he said. "What's got you down?" The rest of the bar was nearly empty as most of the patrons of the casino spent their time gambling. There were a couple regulars nursing their drinks near the other end, and a couple of men lost in some deep discussion at one of the booths. He had time to ask, and she seemed eager enough to spill her tale.
"He left me," she said, wondering if it was too soon to cry. She decided that a tear would be all right, and one trickled slowly down her cheek. "The bastard left me. We were going to be married in a month. A month!" she wailed, and another tear wended its way down her cheek.
"There, there," comforted the bartender. "That's no way to treat a woman. He doesn't deserve a pretty girl like you." He handed her a napkin as the tears, once started, continued to fall. "There's no point making yourself sad. Here," he said, fishing in a pocket. He pulled out a $$20 token. "Take this, find a game, and try to forget about him for a bit."
"That's why I came here," she said with a sniff, wrapping her fingers around the token. She tried a smile, and knew that it came out strained.
"Here," he said, mixing her another drink. "This one will be a little nicer on you," he offered, and watched as she tried it. It was actually rather nice, or would have been if she liked mixed drinks. She sipped it slowly and made appreciative noises as the man tried to cheer her up.
Finally, she allowed herself to be coaxed to the floor. She paused at the entrance, surveying the chaos before her with an uncomprehending glance before descending. Behind her shocked façade, she smiled. Things were going perfectly so far.
The casino was fairly large. There were rows and rows of slot machines and one-arm bandits, each with lights flashing and ringing bells designed to entice. Beyond this gauntlet lay the card and dice tables. These were her true targets, but she allowed herself to be distracted by the mechanical slot machines that were arrayed in a cluster near the middle of the group. She slipped a coin into the waiting slot and pulled the arm. The machine whirred and clicked as the cylinders spun on their axis. A little nudge here, and a quick stop there, and a few more coins then she had put in came spilling out the slot.
She gathered them up and moved on. Doing too well here would surely attract attention, but it had helped her gain a few more tokens. Now she had about $$50 as a beginning stake. The dice tables called to her, but she abstained from the easy money. Dice that landed well always attracted attention, and she had had enough of attention lately. She just wanted to win some money, and maybe have a little fun. But money first.
She made her way through the tables, looking for one that was playing her favorite game and had an open chair. There were many people moving about the floor, a tide of humanity eddying and flowing around the tables. Glad shouts and groans of dismay coupled with loud conversations, louder dealers, and shouts for liquor and beer created a deafening cacophony of sound. Through the spectators and players at the tables circulated security and a sales force willing to supply a plurality of vices.
It was a busy place, but it seemed a bit small to her to be the largest casino on the planet. She knew that she was spoiled by her time living in a more technologically developed society, but this place just felt a bit too quaint to be as pretentious as it claimed. She kept trying to erase the faint smile of smug superiority that tried to cross her features but it kept returning. The casino wasn't small, but to be the biggest on the planet? She didn't dispute the claim, but how…darling.
She did manage to compose herself by the time she found an open table. Slipping into a empty seat, she asked, "Do you mind?" No one at the table did. The dealer smiled and dealt her in, the man at his left nodded to her politely, and the man at her left made an encouraging noise of assent.
It was good that they had all answered her vague question, and better that they had answered positively. The cards she was dealt had been touched by all three of the men, and that link, coupled with their tacit assent created a whole wealth of possibilities. She already knew what she wanted to do, and wasted no time establishing a link between her mind and their eyes.
Superimposed over what she saw were visions of the world through their eyes. Primarily discovered as a scouting technique, and used to allow a scoutmaster better control over people in the field, it hadn't taken long for the little trick to be used in poker games. Seeing through the eyes of others was slightly disorienting and took a great deal of getting used to, but she had the practice. She juggled her visions with what she was dealt, using her knowledge of what cards were already played and who had the stronger hands to decide when to bid and when to fold. She coupled this with great quantities of alcohol, drinking much more then a girl her size could and stay sober, throwing back shots of liquor and laughing a lot.
Slowly but steadily her stake began to grow, past $$50, past $$100, and then beyond $$500. As she approached $$1000 the man to her left got up from the table and called it a night. His replacement was a better poker player, betting less when he would lose and more when he would win. She won money slower, but still her stake grew. As it reached $$1500 she felt a presence by her elbow.
"We have noticed that the Madame is winning a great deal here," breathed a voice in her ear. "Perhaps you would wish to try your luck at a different table?"
She turned bleary eyes on the speaker. "But I like it here," she said, enunciating each word with the overly precise care of one who has imbibed too much.
"You will like it at this table better," he promised. She allowed herself to be led away and to a room off the floor. The man who had accompanied her bowed and left after passing her off to another man at a door near the back.
The new man led her to a place at another table, one where the antes were larger and so were the stakes. Again she tapped into their eyes as she sat down, and she allowed herself the luxury of a small smile before play began. This was where she had wanted to be, where the winnings would be large enough to support three indigent people for a decent span of time.
The players were better back here, more canny and cunning then the men on the floor. Her presence was a novelty, but theirs was common. Some of the players were professional gamblers, and some were the rich upper classes that were their prey. She knew that she was only here because she had been lucky, because her presence was something to break up the monotony of playing against the small group of people who could afford the stakes.
That was fine by her; she wasn't planning on becoming a regular. Gambling this way was an easy way to make money, but she preferred other pursuits. Playing this way was practically stealing, and she had too much at risk to play the right way.
Again, she started to win more then she lost, but this time her stake grew much more quickly. $$2000, $$3000, then $$5000, and no one so much as blinked at the pile of tokens that slowly accrued before her. After getting to $$7500, she yawned and stretched, dropping her cards from fingers grown slack. She giggled.
"I guess I'm too tired to play anymore," she explained as she picked one up from the floor. The cards from her hand went in a little pile before her and she collected her tokens. The players nodded polite goodbyes, and no one moved to stop her as she moved mostly steadily towards the door.
She cashed in her tokens and left the casino, careful to make sure that she wasn't being followed. It wasn't so much that she expected to be waylaid and mugged as it was she was pretty much prepared for it. This was a fairly lawless planet, after all. Regardless, she was disappointed. No one tried to follow or stop her as she made her way back to the hotel.
Upon reaching her room she quickly shucked off the dress and dropped the money on the bed, then found the toilet and threw up. Tricks and alcohol just don't mix, and what she did was walking the fine line between what was and wasn't allowed. Her head ached with the effort of keeping conflicting images straight while pretending that everything was normal. She was tired to the bone, so tired that she ached for bed, but still feeling so sick that she wasn't about to stir from her place on the floor.
She passed half the night floating in and out of consciousness, managing to be sick a couple more times before finally feeling well enough to seek her bed.
Easy money, she thought wryly before slipping into sleep.
She awoke early in the morning, regardless of the night she had experienced. Relaxing and actually getting enough sleep to get rid of the tired feeling would have been nice, but she just didn't have the time. She needed to be checked out of the hotel by eleven, but that gave her hours she could use to shop without having to cart her packages about. Stretching, she tried to work out some of the kinks of a night half spent on the floor. Pulling on jeans and a shirt, she resumed the posture and mien of a man with a moment's thought.
The dress lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. She was tempted to leave it there, leave it and the feelings of inadequacy it created in her behind, but beyond a momentary fantasy she acknowledged the gesture as pointless. Sighing and kneeling to pick it up, she saw something she had missed last night. Someone had pinned a colored piece of cloth to the hem of the dress. Most likely it was some sort of size tag, but she felt a little foolish to have been wandering about in public with that attached. She detached it and tossed the cloth but kept the pin. Never could have too many sharp pointy objects.
She packed away everything that she could, and looked dispiritedly at what was left over. Clothes still lay all over the floor, packaged and loose, and there was no way she was going to be able to fit them all in her pack. She shrugged and added a new bag to her list of things to buy. As long as she was trying to tote about less than a hundred pounds she would be fine, but she hated the attention large luggage brought. Plus, it was always so unwieldy and in the way.
Well, she wasn't taking it all too very far, and her travels wouldn't be taking her through any towns, so she should be alright. It might offend her sense of propriety, but that was an offense easily overlooked.
She left her room and returned to the bookstore. The selection arrayed before her still boggled her mind, but she was better prepared to accept the concept of paper books this time, and lost no time staring in awe before looking for the books she wanted. Given the prices, she selected only five volumes. All of them were fiction works, all considered classics. After deciding on which to buy, she checked her watch and decided that she had a little time left to browse before she needed to get food.
The smell of the store was intoxicating, paper and leather and hints of the glue used in the binding. The hush of paper on paper as pages turned, the soft sounds of volumes being taken from shelves were musical notes in a composition she could barely discern. Motes of dust danced in streams of golden morning sunlight, softly drifting in and out of the beams of illumination. Her eyes followed one mote until it landed, and then her eyes focused on the title of the book it had landed.
Plant Mechanics. She walked over to it and slipped it from the shelf. Leafing through the pages she noted that it seemed to be a textbook of some sort, detailing what was known and surmised about the plants.
Hmm. How interesting.
She added it to her stack of books to purchase and looked for similar volumes on the shelf but couldn't find any. She denied the urge to sit in one of the big comfortable chairs arrayed around the store. She had a little extra time, but not much, and she knew she would quickly run out of it if she started to read. Instead, she took her purchases to the counter. She watched as they were packed with brown paper and string, wrinkling her nose at the quaintness of the gesture while admitting that the harshness of the environment did make such protection necessary.
Her next stop was for a larger bag and a pair of sandals for Ace to grow into. Most likely, the girl would run around barefoot, but having a shoe option about would be a good thing. She found the farmer's market and purchased as much food as she thought she could carry, trying her best to find nutritious and balanced food group items that could keep indefinitely without need of refrigeration. It wasn't an easy task and dairy had her completely stumped. She tried to cover the lack by buying vegetables with as many of the essential vitamins and minerals a rapidly growing girl would need. Even so, she was about to despair over her inability to find enough calcium when she stumbled across someone selling vitamin supplements.
Incredibly grateful, she bought out nearly the entire stock, then returned to the hotel room to pack and check out. When she was done she had a few extra minutes, and she debated sitting down and starting her book until she had to leave. Her fingers lingered on the package, aching to unwrap the books and begin turning pages, but she denied the feeling. Every second she was away from Knives and Ace was a second in which she was begging for trouble. Who knew what that man would be trying in her absence?
Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. She didn't know, but she had a pretty good idea, which was why she had taken steps to eliminate a couple of his more likely options. If he was being a good boy he would never know what she had done to him, but if he was being an obstinate, annoying, know-it-all, male, bigoted idiot, well, he had a few surprises coming his way.
She packed the books and got ready to check out. Hefting the bag, she made sure that it rode well, and left the room. She checked out and made her way out of the city, sauntering out much the way she had sauntered in, unconcerned, hands in her pockets, and no seditious thoughts of escaped plants in her head at all.