Don't try to fit in, she'd advised further. Her lips twitched against a laugh as she surveyed his first attempt to mimic street clothes. You don't have the body language or the street smarts to carry it off, and wearing the wrong thing--she flicked the spiked band around his wrist, eyes dancing in time with her quirking mouth--could just get you killed. Well, if you're lucky. Plenty of your folk do business in the zones without bothering with all the foofaraw. Look like you're about business and keep your head down and you'll be all right.
He'd feel better with her here; Gemma was born in the black-out zone, a fact that he alone of all their circle knew. But for Gemma to come back would destroy all her careful work to escape this life and destroy any hope of a future. It would be a pretty poor payment for all the help she's given, without a question asked.
It was right after his second time in the zone, the same day his father had repudiated him. He'd been trying to stitch up his own eyebrow and making a right mess of it when Gemma had walked in on him. She halted in the doorway awkwardly, and he saw only a momentary flash of surprise cross her face before it smoothed into cool blankness. He'd blushed, a climbing wave of carnation pink from his naked waist to his hairline, and fumbled for something to say. Before he could do more than stammer, she held up one golden-brown hand. "Let me do that," she said. "Before you put your eye out."
He didn't really know Gemma before, other than the commonplaces of their shared education, their shared vocation. She'd been a couple hundredths of a point ahead of him throughout Medacad, no matter how hard he crammed, how well he did in dissection, or surgery, in lecture. She'd been the favorite of Dr. Chow, and tapped for the surgical team ahead of him. She can eat and drink most of the other residents under the table, and knows all the words to 'A Surgeon's Staff Has a Knob on the End', including some verses he's too ashamed to sing in public, even when soused. She never curses, and she never seems to get mad, or frazzled, or tired. In short, he hated her. They all had. And he's never known enough about her to feel any different.
Even now, he can't say he knows her any better. Her advice about the black-out zones and its denizens has been presented in the same manner as her help in stitching his eyebrow--without comment or explanation. Really, he's grateful for their mutal silence. As much as he'd like to be able to confide in anyone, to feel a little less terrified, a little less alone, he can't afford to get anyone else entangled, and he absolutely can't afford distraction. Not with River's life on the line.
Not too late, he thinks. His hands tighten on his pint glass. Please, just don't let me be too late.
He can't think the word dead, won't.
A whore in thigh high spike heels steps over the back of the chair opposite him and sits.
"Uh...I'm not looking for a date," he avers quickly. He feels less an ass saying it now than the first seventeen times. Heh. Maybe practice really does make perfect. The Companion's Guild is pretty ruthless about regulating the sex trade in the City Above, but in it's dark mirror, freelancers abound. Well...not exactly free.
"And I ain't offering one," the whore replies calmly. "You're awful choosy about your company, sweetcheeks. 'Specially for someone who's 'sposed to be desperate."
Simon blinks, and really focuses on her for the first time. Between the ridiculous, elaborate and filthy wig of braided copper horsehair, the thick plaster of cosmetics and a shiny layer of protective ointment, her actual features are hard to make out. Which, he guesses belatedly, is the whole idea. He's left only with the impression of cold and piercing green eyes and a chin pointed enough to cut.
"I am desperate," he answers. His voice comes out more calmly than he expects, though he is still white knuckled around his glass. "Are you... You're not the Hooded Man." He cringes just saying it; it's like the games River would invent, during her conspiracy theory fad. Except it wasn't a game, it was deadly serious, and if he muffs it, the penalty will be much worse than River sulking for the rest of the afternoon. That silence would last only hours, this will last the rest of his broken, empty life.
"No," the whore agrees, "but you din't think he'd come and meet with such as you in person, did ya?"
"No," Simon agrees distantly. Another set of rules he doesn't know; perhaps it's a game after all. "I suppose not."
She grabs the glass of rotgut from him, drains half of it in a swallow and licks her upper lip langorously. Simon's stomach churns, just watching. Or maybe it's the lack of food. At least his scalp lac's stopped bleeding. "You can call me Freyki."
"Freyki," he repeats, mostly so he'll remember it. There's something about the name, just out of reach; a sense of familiarity with simultaneous alarm bells. But having chased his dream of medicine so wholeheartedly, so much of everything else collapses into shadows and ash. River will know; River always does. When he tells her the stories of his excursions and she laughs at him, he'll have to ask. "So...how do we do this?"
"I'm going to get up from this table," she says, suiting action to words, "and I'm going to come round to sit on your lap." The impossibly cruel spike of her boot traces a line across his thigh. He shivers and tries not to think of words like femoral artery and bled out. She settles, straddling. She is surprisingly light and her short kimono rides up to show panties of black lace. By a reflex he didn't know he possesses, his hands rise to cradle her hips, steadying her. "Not too friendly, now," she admonishes. "That costs extra."
"I'm not... I wasn't..."
"Hush, sweetcheeks," she leans closer, the thick strands of her wig falling over them both to obscure their faces, effective camouflage. "Play nice and we'll both be happy. Now. What's the job?"
"I..." He marshalls his scattered wits. "My sister. River--"
"No," Freyki says sharply, her tone a marked contrast to the lithe movement of her body against his. "No names. Better for us both that way."
"Fine. She's in a locked government facility. I need to get her out and I need to get us both off-planet."
"Fed facility, eh? Huh. You don't look the type, sweetcheeks."
"Stop calling me sweetcheeks. Can you do the job or not?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, won't be cheap."
"I'm not worried about the cost."
Freyki gives him a look that makes him want to check his ident card. "No, I guess you wouldn't be."
"Can you do it?" he persists. He feels tired and sick, despite the movement of her thighs over his, her cleavage. She is stale, and sordid as everything here, and none of this has anything to do with River. He just wants it over with. He just wants his sister.
"What facility?"
"The Academy."
He's warned by the flare of her pupils--shock, dismay, horror. Suddenly he is the unclean one. Suddenly he is dangerous. Freyki lurches back, onto the table, and spills his drink. He's not sorry. "Get out of here," she whispers, pale even beneath the spackle of her maquillage.
"No... What..? You said you could help me..."
"Bi zui You yu bun duh go tsao de bastard!" Freyki is still whispering, wriggling backwards across the table like his touch is contagious. Suddenly she shouts: "Get out of here!"
Immediately the bar falls silent. Everyone loves good street theater, and everyone hates to miss a show. A trio of men in laborers togs gambling at the next table stand up. And up. And up.
"Yo, Pandora, this fei fei de pi yan giving you a hard time?"
Simon pushes back his chair and stands, putting some distance not only between him and Pandora/Freyki, but the laborers as well. He's always been a quick study. "I don't want any trouble," he says quickly, holding up his hands harmlessly. "It's fine. I'm going."
He's almost to the door when a meaty hand falls on his shoulder and he reflects again, But not quite quick enough.