Soon the bells will start
And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart
Snow was gently falling over Ganymeade as the Bebop cruised in for a landing. Faye was slouched in the lounge wearing slacks and a large, gaudy sweater consisting of embroidered Santas and springs of holly with realistic 3-D berries made of poof balls.
"Nice look for you," commented Spike as he put a fresh clip into his pistol. Faye flipped him off with both hands. She looked absolutely miserable.
"Playtime's over, kiddies," announced Jet as he came from the cockpit. "Faye and I will head to the last place Tan was spotted when he worked Ganymeade, and Spike can go dig up the Margaret broad."
Faye's sensible black pump missed his head by millimeters. Jet ducked reflexively and then stood up and bellowed. "What the hell was that for?!"
"Look at you!" Faye screamed. "What are you wearing?!" Jet looked at himself.
"My clothes, Faye."
"Oh sure!" she shouted, her pitch rising with every word. "I'm sure all impotent banker husbands go around in jack boots, pink tshirts and an ISSP jumpsuit with god knows what splattered all over the front!"
"Can we leave the impotence thing out of this?! Jesus!" said Jet. Spike was edging towards the cabin door.
"It works for most things you do normally, Jet," he said. "But it doesn't exactly scream Frustrated Man With a Desk Job."
"I was PLANNING TO CHANGE!" Jet shouted at such a volume Faye covered her ears and ducked behind the TV. "I swear to God above, you people will drive me right over the fucking falls one of these days." He turned on his heel and strode into his room.
"Well he's certainly touchy," observed Faye. Spike wondered if she knew how dense she sounded and decided she couldn't possibly.
"I'm off to meet Tan's loving sister," he said, opening the hatch. Cold wind rushed in, coupled with the sound of tinny canned holiday music. Perry Como at his finest. The Bebop was parked near a shopping district. Spike winced as he stepped into the cold and audial assault, and had the feeling he was going to be wishing for death before this job was over.
Margaret Tan lived in a small apartment a mile's walk from the ship. It was a concrete box surrounded by other boxes, with fluorescent lights in the halls. Spike found himself immediately depressed. He could hear babies crying and dogs barking from behind closed doors, which reminded him of how much he hated kids and dogs, which wound up depressing him even more. Margaret's apartment was at the end of the hall, near a narrow casement window that looked out over the downtown skyscrapers. A lot of them were adorned with lights, one had colored its windows to look like a giant Christmas tree. It was a shiny, happy mirage of good cheer.
Spike wanted to shoot himself from the wonderfulness of it all.
Faye had to admit Jet didn't look half bad once he got himself into character and into his three-piece suit. He had on slick shades to cover his cybernetic face implant, and with his scarf, suit jacket and overcoat looked like the very epitome of a rich asshole compensating for a personal shortcoming with his material things.
It still didn't come close to making up for the fact that Faye was wearing a Santa sweater with poof balls. And that she was pretending to be married to Jet. And that they were in a mall.
Not just any mall, either. This was the Ganymeade Retail Complex—five stories, four million square feet and over a thousand shops of capitalist goodness. Bright, twinkling lights entwined with evergreen garlands were everywhere. Christmas music piped over the main speakers mingled with the tunes coming from shops and the chatter of hundreds of thousands of last-minute holiday shoppers who were heeding the warnings posted everywhere that there were only FIVE SHOPPING DAYS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS. All in all, it was the most spectacular sensory overload Faye had ever experienced.
"How the hell do these people stand it?" she shouted at Jet over the incredible din. Jet just shook his head.
"Beats me." Faye looked at the people swirling around them. Families, couples, singles. They all had a glazed look like cattle who had been prodded one too many times.
"This is disgusting," Faye decided out loud. "In fact, it's one of the worst things I've ever seen." Somewhere ahead of them, a kid began to scream. Several others took up the cry and soon they had a chain reaction of howling babies spreading from the epicenter.
"Tan picked up his last Ganymeade marks down at the end of this corridor," said Jet, shoving aside a fat man loaded down with bags from some place called The Yarn Barn.
"And what makes you think he'll be stupid enough to go back?" asked Faye. "Face it, Jet, this was a lousy idea. The kid likes rich couples, so at this time of year he'll be on Mars, or someplace where the richie-riches will take pity on him. He wouldn't come to this hellhole."
"You mean you wouldn't," said Jet. "Tan isn't as oblivious to human behavior as you are, Faye."
"Excuse me—" Faye started.
"Oh, when it comes to a cheat or a grift or a card game you have no equal," Jet assured her. "It's dealing with normal people that you're a little substandard at." He swept his arm and nearly took the heads off several shorter shoppers. "These people, Faye, are full of the holiday spirit. Here like nowhere else. On Earth you have to worry that a meteor will crash through your roof and crush Great Aunt Edna while she's eating her Christmas turkey, and on a place like Mars…" he stopped, because he knew Faye would get it.
"People just don't give enough of a shit," she finished.
"But here," said Jet, "here on happy Ganymeade the climate is just right for someone like Tan. Cold, frosty and full of suckers. Because this unencumbered Holiday Spirit turns you into a dumb fucking ass." Faye had to concede that the impotent banker cum bounty hunter had a point.
"Alright," she said. "So let's nail his dwarven butt and buy ourselves some Christmas cheer."
Spike almost didn't knock on Margaret Tan's door. He found himself thinking it wasn't worth it. A smart con like Tan wouldn't be this easily caught. And that his sister was willing to give him up for cash just reeked of something non-kosher. But he did knock, hoping she wouldn't be home, or she had moved and all he'd have to deal with was a pissed-off fat guy named Earl.
"Yes?" she said as she opened the door. "You Spike Spiegel, the bounty hunter?"
Spike tried to reply but found himself at a loss for words. The only one he could choke out usually sounded choked coming from him. Margaret Tan didn't seem to care, she just cocked her head slightly to the left in a gesture that was achingly familiar as Spike exhaled his single-word sentence.
"Julia…"