There was a jerk of turbulence, and I was yanked back into the present. It was so easy to get lost in the past. It's why I said I was born when I was twelve. The rest was better left where it was, as dead as Rose, as missing as Zane. Gone. That was a place that belonged to Terran, not Topaz. I much preferred Topaz. She was what was born when a little girl named Terran took control of her life and disappeared. Everyone on the street uses a different name. When I was in the foster home, Ms. Helen said my eyes were the color of a topaz, so when I introduced myself for the first time on the street, I called myself Topaz. It stuck.
Leg-man had fallen asleep, but the turbulence woke him up. He smiled at me. I ignored him. I guess the nap had made him bolder, but he decided to start up a conversation with me again.
"So, do you live in Seattle, or are you just visiting there?" he asked me. I knew the routine. If I said I lived there, he would tell me he was going there for a business trip, and had never been there, and did I know any good places to visit, and oh, I was so nice to tell him about the city, maybe he could meet me for a drink in one of the bars I'd told him about. If I said I was visiting, he would offer to be my guide and show me a few of the nicer places that were left around the city. In other words, let me get you drunk so I can screw you while I'm away from the wife. Why do men think that just because they take off the ring, women can't tell they're married? The tan line on the finger is a dead giveaway.
"I'm going to a funeral," I replied coldly. "My brother's." His smirk fell immediately. I just ruined his little script.
"Oh, ah, I'm sorry to hear about that," he stammered.
"If you don't mind," I said dismissively, "I'm not feeling very talkative." He nodded and blubbered again about being sorry, and opened a book.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. I read my book, and worked hard not thinking about the past and what had gone on before. I needed to get to Seattle and find Ben and Max and keep Lydecker away from them both. This odd sense of responsibility was driving me crazy. I had always been the type to collect strays. I couldn't really keep animals at the club, so I collected stray people. I rescued half of my dancers from various bad situations, and I took care of my own. Maybe I still thought of the X-5's as my own. They were my own. They were the only ones who could understand the world Terran had belonged to. I had to take care of them. I knew it was Zack's job, but I wanted to make sure that Max would be safe and Ben was gone from Seattle. I didn't want either of them to get caught. If they did, and I could have prevented it, I would never forgive myself.
When we started out descent into Seattle my heart was pounding. I had two clues to finding Max: crash and pony. I had listened to Zack as he talked in his sleep and I had a feeling that crash was a place, but I wasn't sure about the pony. Maybe Max worked at a place called Crash? Maybe she owned a pony? Who the hell knew for certain? Well, I was going to, and very, very soon.
Seattle was much more a military state than New Orleans. I think southerners are just too laid back to want to have sector checks everywhere, and have to show permission to enter the city when you get off of the plane. I had papers showing I was with a Seattle-based company, Cale Enterprises, and I was there for business purposes. I was given an all-city sector pass, and gave the policeman my most charming smile. He returned it. I had no plans on screwing him, but it never hurt to be nice to the law. You never knew when you were going to need it.
I went to my hotel, and checked in. There was a liquor cabinet there, and I was tempted, but I had to keep my head in the game today. My hotel was one that catered to traveling business people, and my room was wired with Internet access. I needed to do some searching that I had not had time to do before I left. Crash and pony. There had to be some kind of connection with Max. I was going to start looking for business listings, and then widen my search from there. I really wanted a drink.
I started thinking about my options, and how I was going to get information. I knew a couple of the owners of some clubs up here from when they were down in New Orleans, and maybe I could get some information from them or their girls. There was Lazlos who owned the Cherry Bomb. He was a decent guy. Somewhat decent. I thought of something, but it seemed so ridiculously simple, that there was no way it was going to work. Nothing in life was that simple, but I did it anyways.
I thought Crash might be a place. I grabbed the phone book out of the drawer in the nightstand of the hotel room, and looked under "C". There was a listing. It had an address. It was almost five in the evening, Seattle time - I was a little ahead, so I decided to run by the place and see what it was. Maybe Max worked there. She probably wasn't using Max, and I didn't know what she looked like. Would I even recognize her? Without a barcode, would she believe I was who I claimed to be? I was going to have to take that chance. I didn't even want to think about the possibility that Lydecker had been here last week and had caught her already. No, that was not going to happen. Not again.
I used the computer to get a map from my hotel to the bar. It wasn't in a high-class area, mostly a bunch of squatter's tenements, and low class places. It was an area that I was willing to bet people with money didn't go unless they were looking for a cheap date for the night. I wondered if Max was a working girl. I certainly couldn't discount the possibility, but there was something about the Max I remembered that said she wouldn't do that. We all had our own ways of surviving in this world.
Crash was a bar. It wasn't that bad of a dive really, nothing as nice as my club, but a place where people could unwind after work. Most of the people there looked to be in their late teens to mid-twenties, kids that had the look of being on their own for a while. I had a good eye for the type of club a place was, and this seemed to be a place where the kids working the menial jobs could come and unwind after work. There was only a bartender working there, and he was certainly not Max. Had I stuck out, or did Max like to come here after work? I figured I could hang out here for the evening and see what happened.
I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. It seemed like a common enough choice, and wouldn't arouse any suspicion. I forced myself to tone down the accent. I didn't want to be remembered. I was sure this was a place where there were plenty of regulars, and a stranger might be noted. If this was a dead end, I didn't want to be thought of as special in the slightest. I was wearing jeans and a baby t-shirt with a jacket. It wasn't too different from what some of the other girls were wearing.
I sipped on my beer for about half an hour, watching the ebb and flow of people. The pool tables were popular, and it seemed everyone had their regular tables. Place needed some kind of live entertainment though. There was an ad on the wall for a bike stunt contest that weekend. Yippee. I missed my club. I was starting to doubt the wisdom of coming here at all. Maybe I should just leave in the morning. Maybe I should leave tonight.
"Hey there, new here?" a guy asked me. I looked over to my right. Dear God, please don't let me kill anyone tonight. Especially this dimwit. I wouldn't have minded talking to some eye-candy, but there wasn't much to recommend him. He wasn't dirty, but he was…icky. That's a real slam coming from me.
"I told you not to even try!" a feminine voice cried out from the left. The guy jumped. I glanced over at her. She was a rather pretty black girl that reminded me a little of Onyx. She gave me a very appreciate eyeing. She addressed the guy again. "Unless you want your skinny ass self to receive an official Original Cindy bitch-slap, you leave the all-girls team to the girls."
"Not all girls are your kind," he protested. She smirked, and gave him a you-are-nothing look. It was too funny. This was what I needed to get out of this funk.
"No woman looking this fine is your type at all," she retorted. I almost snorted my beer from laughter. Maybe it would be far less conspicuous if I were sitting with people rather than alone at the bar. I had a feeling these two knew each other. This seemed to be a conversation that was proceeding as it had a thousand times before.
"Now why don't," I drawled out. They both perked up hearing my syrupy southern drawl. It gets the right kind of attention from the right part of the anatomy. "You both buy me a drink and we'll go sit down and you two can try to convince me which one I should take back to my hotel tonight." They both looked shocked for a moment then very well pleased. Neither of them was expecting that answer.
I slid off of my barstool. "I'm Topaz," I said with a smile.
"Original Cindy," the girl introduced herself. "The boy here is Sketchy, but you won't be needing to remember that."
"Because I'll remind you again at breakfast," he countered. Sketchy appeared to have two sparking brain cells to come up with that line. That was one more than I originally thought he had.
"C'mon sugar," Original Cindy said, grabbing my arm. "It's the boy's turn to buy the beer. Original Cindy will introduce you to her peeps. They know who a fine thing needs to be taking home." She dragged me off and Sketchy looked so morose. There wasn't any contest. Not that I would be taking either back with me, but Original Cindy would win hands, or any other body part, down.
She took me to a table where a hot black guy and an absolutely beautiful woman were sitting. The woman looked familiar to me. Was she a dancer for me at some point? No, I'd remember her then. Someone I met when I was in foster? She was smiling. It was the smile that I knew.
"The brother is Herbal Thought," Original Cindy was saying. "And this is my boo Max."
Max? Herbal Thought and Max were wearing badges around their necks. So was Cindy. Sector passes for business purposes. Jam Pony Express. Crash. Pony. Max. Max? My Max?
For a moment I wasn't in Seattle, looking hot in my tight jeans in a run-down dive called Crash. I was eight years old in camouflage at the top of a tree. I look to my right, and there is my partner in crime. The guard is right below us now. We're playing escape and evade. I look to my right again and we smile. Then I lean over the tree branch, aim carefully, and spit. It lands dead on top of his cap. She almost falls out of the tree trying to keep from laughing. We're three for three today.
That's the smile I remember. No matter how bad it was, there was something good in life. Even if it was just spitting on guards, there was something to smile over.
"Max?" I said softly, feeling a little weak-kneed at seeing her again. Her smile wilted as our eyes met. Would she know? Would she even care? She stood slowly, our eyes locked. There was a spark of recognition deep within her dark eyes. They widened in shock, and then were filled with absolute joy.
"Terran?" she almost whispered. I nodded. And then there was that smile all over again.