Every city came with its own seedy underbelly, but few were on par with New Beijing’s. Everything sandwiched between the main-level avenues and the expansive subway subterranean tram and sewer network were once covered by the city’s original lower domes before they were radically extended. Rusty, amalgamated structures bridged the major walkways as more and more people were shoved down toward the planet’s surface. They called the place Old Dome, and it boasted some of the best and grubbiest gambling dens, clubs, and streetwalkers a person could buy.
Over-crowded, Venta-run, there was no better place for a retired old Pervenio collector like me to stay off the grid.
Too many years removing targets for Pervenio had left me with more enemies than I probably knew I had. And I couldn’t be sure whether or not Luxarn would have me taken out just to be safe. As if I knew anything that really mattered. He put on a pleasant face when we parted ways, but men didn’t get to be as rich as he was if they weren’t good actors.
It didn’t take me long on the Red Planet to find the hole I’d likely spend the rest of my life in. A little bar buried so far in Old Dome you could almost smell the rank of the sewers if you stepped outside. It shared a wall with one of the city’s larger Redline Stations, the crisscrossing New Beijing subways. That meant constant rumbling within and a steady flow of homeless offworlders desperate for a place to sleep. Yeah, the Twilight Sun was my kind of dump.
They needed a new bouncer at their door, and since I’d apparently invested decades of collector service into a new leg I didn’t ask for, I still needed credits despite retiring. The job made me wonder why I hadn’t dragged my old bones into similar work sooner. There wasn’t any glory in it and sure as hell no thrill, but I finally wasn’t seeking any of that. In exchange for sitting at the door and making sure things stayed quiet in a place that usually had more tables than patrons, my new boss let me live in one of the apartments upstairs and drink as much as I liked. Enough to stop picturing poor Zhaff floating in that tube from time to time. It offset the garbage pay too.
The Twilight Sun tried to instill some old-world oriental charm with its bracketed faux-wood bar and the old ink paintings dotting the walls. They depicted ferocious beasts long extinct and serene landscapes the Meteorite ensured were now impossible, yet all of it was discolored or scratched. Even the sliding paper walls at the private booths were too torn to provide real seclusion, not that anyone was paying to use them. The owner hadn’t put a credit into the place in years. Probably why he had to hire a gunman with no resume for the door. At least, not one I could elaborate on.
I raised the rim of a bottle to my mouth and leaned my head all the way back to coax out the last few drops of whiskey. I sighed. A lackluster month and a half had passed since I had taken the job, and all I’d accomplished was building my already impressive tolerance. From my seat by the front door, I had a great view of Wai, the only dancer the bar could afford to keep on the payroll. She was on the cracked stage behind the bar, wearing a skimpy leotard and a conical hat with blue beads falling from the brim to conceal her face.
She was a pretty young thing, with soft skin and almond-shaped eyes as deep brown as wet soil. A sewer girl just like Aria’s mom. Too green for me, though, and too skinny. Her ribs protruded like the keys of a piano. All I could think about while watching her was ordering her a ration bar or three.
The night was so far gone only one patron was left watching her. The slovenly, gray-bearded man synced credits to the hand-terminal set upright by her nimble feet. He could hardly keep his swaying head up, and by then, she wasn’t doing much more than wiggling her hips to eerie, atmospheric string music. When the song came to an end, the man reached out and stroked her calf.
My bottle dropped with a loud clank, and I stumbled toward her, using every table en route to steady myself. Intoxication limited my brain’s ability to communicate with my artificial leg so that I could walk straight. That was what Doc Aurora had warned me about at least. I’m reasonably confident a full bottle of Martian whiskey would’ve had any man stumbling no matter what kind of legs he boasted.
“It’s time to close,” I said to the man.
He turned his head slowly, eyes lagging behind. “No, it ain’t.” He was slurring worse than I was. “I’m just getting started.”
My hand fell toward my pulse pistol, the only friend I had left. He watched it, then started to chuckle.
“What’re you gonna do? Shoot me over watchin’ some sewer trash?” he asked.
“No. I’m going to shoot you so I can get some damn sleep.” I grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him toward the door. Another good part about Old Dome. I was an Earther, and scrawny offworlders like him were easy to push around.
“Alright, alright,” he said as he bumped a chair. He turned to say something else, hiccupped instead, and then continued on his winding path toward the door straight ahead.
“What the hell was that?” Wai said, visibly irritated. “He was still paying.”
“Was he? Didn’t realize.” I slumped into his vacated seat and eyed his ale. It didn’t look like he’d even taken a sip, so I took one for myself. Warm and metallic, like everything else on tap in the Twilight Sun.
“Lǎo wán gù!” she cursed in an ancient, oriental dialect still championed by the poor folk of New Beijing. “You weren’t getting enough sleep over there?”
“Why are you even still here, Wai?”
“You know why. I guarantee your old Earther pigu hasn’t ever had to sleep a night in the sewers.”
I smirked. I remembered plenty of such nights, more than a few with Aria’s mom or with Aria herself when I dragged her around on jobs.
“You could be dancing at one of the big corporate dens, you know,” I said. “You’re good enough. Got the looks. You’d make a hell of a lot more.”
“And be asked to do a hell of a lot more.” She twirled on the stage once before falling back into the couch across from me. She had a robe waiting in it, which she pulled over her body so that only her thin, pasty legs were showing.
“Can I have one more before we close? Synth, strong.” She waved to the owner, who didn’t have the money to hire a human bartender, let alone one of Pervenio’s new service bots. Yan Ning was as old and ragged as I was. If I had to guess, I’d take him for an ex-security officer on some run-down asteroid mine. Without a nod or acknowledgment, he filled a glass with the most fluorescent yellow liquid you could imagine and carried it over to her.
“You’re locking up, Haglin,” he grumbled to me.
My brow furrowed; then I remembered. Sometimes I drank too much and forgot my fake name. I didn’t care if anybody knew who I was, but something was appealing about disappearing where even Luxarn Pervenio couldn’t find me. It made it easier to relax. Setting up a fake credit account and passable ID with a gun-carrying license wasn’t too tough. I still had a few connections on Mars who owed a favor.
“Sure thing, boss.” I saluted. I wondered if he had any idea how much of Sol I’d seen to know how ridiculous it was every time I called him that.
The room started to tremble as a subway train raced underground, kicking up dust and making the lights rattle. Yan Ning waited until it passed before placing Wai’s colorful drink in front of her and heading out without a word. She took a long sip. Her lips scrunched as the awful-tasting synthahol went down, but after the initial shock, she sank back into the couch and made herself comfortable.
“I’ve known Yan Ning since I was a girl,” Wai said. “I like it here. Everyone keeps their hands to themselves mostly or drinks so much that I can do it for them. And it’s quiet.”
I tipped my glass toward her. “We can agree on that.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “You really think a corps-den would hire me, though?”
“Sure.”
“How much would you pay, lǎo tóuzi?”
“That’s tough. Maybe the rest of this warm beer?”
“Earther pig!”
I smirked
. Wai had a mouth on her. If I didn’t know better, I might think I’d fathered another illegitimate daughter on Mars. I found myself staring as she raised her drink again. The way the dim lighting struck the sphere of ice inside it suddenly caused a glimmer of a yellow like Zhaff’s eye lens to touch her eyes.
The glass slipped from my hand, and a healthy portion spilled before I caught it. I coughed a few times, squeezed my eyelids tight, and when I reopened them, the yellow was gone.
“Okay, lǎo tóuzi, I think you’ve had enough to drink.” She went to grab the glass, but I pulled back.
“I’m fine!” I objected then realized I’d snapped. “Sorry. Never come between an Earther and his drink.”
She wasn’t bothered by my tone. Instead, her gaze had wandered to my leg. The attempt at catching the glass had caused my pants leg to raise enough to spot my artificial ankle above a shoe I didn’t need to wear.
“You weren’t always a bouncer, were you?” she asked, wide-eyed.
I quickly fixed my clothing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please. I may be from the sewers, but I’m not stupid. Nobody down here can afford gāo kējì like that, and the ones that can are running from something.”
“Running,” I snickered. “If only. What does it matter to you?”
“It doesn’t, but you cost me credits tonight. I think I at least deserve to hear a good story to make up the time since you only pay in old beer.”
I stood and chugged the rest of the ale. “I’ll tell you what, when you find your way out of this shithole, I’ll tell you.”
She stuck out her hand and put on a wry grin. “Promise?”
I slapped my glass down and shook her hand. “Promise. Now I’m wide awake. You mind locking up?” She stared at me as if waiting for a better offer until, finally, I gave in. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key card that got me into the tiny apartment upstairs. I tossed it to her. “You can stay in my place for the night if you do. I don’t plan on turning in early.”
“Oh, I definitely don’t mind. As long as you don’t mind paying the Venta water bill on the longest shower I’ve ever taken.”
“Fine, but no complaining next time I kick a drooling customer out if I don’t like the way he looks.” I started ambling toward the exit, able to maintain my balance better than normal. The yellow I’d seen in her eyes had me feeling a bit more sober.
“Oh, Haglin!” she shouted after me. “Make sure you get here on time tomorrow, or Yan will have a heart attack. It might be busy.”
“What is it? M-Day again already?”
She exhaled. “Kale Trass and them Ringers are arriving, remember? Should draw crowds from all over Mars.”
“Right.” I glanced at the grainy viewscreen above the bar playing a live newsfeed. All anyone had been reporting for weeks was about how Kale Trass was meeting with the USF Assembly on Mars to discuss terms. I didn’t know or care to watch much more. My involvement in Sol affairs was over with, especially when it came to Ringers. Giving my daughter the chance to get out from under their thumb at the cost of Zhaff’s life was the last meaningful thing I’d ever do.
“Just be here!” she hollered.
I rolled my shoulders and continued out the door. The sun had long since set over Mars, not that much of its radiance reached Old Dome anyhow. Vibrant ads and signs all over dressed everything in their artificial light. Products and destinations, all favoring the rusty coloring of Mars’ surface so that it was like I was stuck in perpetual dusk. It hid all the city’s imperfections.
Not having a good night in Old Dome was a challenge. The Twilight Sun had closed, but the clubs never did. People propositioned me from every corner, selling their bodies, passes, drugs, or worse. Venta security watched it all from raised posts and with drones, but the only thing they really cared about was violence or illegal weaponry.
I headed onto Old Dome’s main strip, aptly dubbed the Tongueway. There were many stories behind the name, but the most appropriate was that the place was a melting pot, crammed with so many dialects and people from different backgrounds that it was said there wasn’t a secret that couldn’t be found on the tongue of someone there.
The seemingly endless avenue stretched from one end of the New Beijing dome to the other. It was the only passage down in Old Dome wide enough for a vehicle to fit through, but so crammed with people, it took them hours to go a few blocks. Even hovercars couldn’t go high without the risk of slamming into unplanned overhangs or lines strung between the structures, feeding who knows what system and lined with wet clothes, signs, or flags. Gangs, companies—people of all backgrounds staked a claim on the Tongueway.
At night, nobody cared about the stench. Drunkards pissed in the maze of alleys branching off, puked in the drains. Dried blood from spats or other nefarious dealings. The Lowers in Darien, Titan had similar doings, but the real difference was that nobody really wanted to be there. Citizens of Sol traveled from all over to get a taste of the Tongueway’s temptations. So long as you kept out of the sewers, it was the best kind of filth.
“You lookin’ for a good time, honey?” a woman asked me from the shadows behind a neon sign. I didn’t get a chance to read the venue’s name. I mustered the knowing grin of a man who belongs in the place and followed her up into a Venta-run exotic dance club. And, man, the dancers were exotic.
I’ll hand it to Venta Co.; they could find a way to monetize anything. Every dancer who prowled the floor searching for deep pockets had something visibly wrong with them. Missing limb, extra limb, lack of pigmentation, deformed features—a who’s who of physical abnormalities as if they plucked young boys and girls from a radiation farm.
You could find anything in Old Dome, but the key to getting rich was presenting something people didn’t realize they wanted, like this place. Dim the lights, get a patron drunk, and invite them into the back, where he or she could hunt for the deformity under what little clothing the performers wore.
Presently, a male dancer with a body firmer than I’d ever seen was on stage, only he was missing both legs at the hip. He twirled around a pole, as gracefully as Wai or any other dancer. Made me feel like a dolt for not being able to walk a straight line just because I had an artificial leg.
After the woman who invited me in led me to the bar, I pulled an old move from my prime. Women loved hearing stories about my adventures as a collector. The best part was, they were mostly true, with an embellishment here and there. My captive audience leaned in closer as I spun a tale about a crazy job, like all girls do who are only interested in being paid. Who was I to complain about attention?
Right before the good part, I got distracted by a spotlight illuminating her face, where I discovered her disfiguration. The woman was a looker in every sense of the word. A tight dress hugged her lissome figure, and a glowing orange circlet wrapped her neck to purposely draw attention toward its low cut and her augmented breasts. But her nose, whether by force or birth defect, didn’t exist.
“Haglin,” the woman said. “You were saying?”
I quickly turned my attention to the stage and pretended I hadn’t been staring.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, wrapping her fingers around my hand. They were cool from the condensation on the drink I’d bought her. “I don’t mind if you stare.”
I glanced up at the sinewy hole in the center of her face, and my mind temporarily transported me back to the Darien Quarantine Zone on Titan, where Zhaff and I traipsed through a hall filled with sick, desiccated Ringer bodies. Literally falling apart.
I blinked hard and forced a smile. “Why wouldn’t I stare?” I said. “You’re gorgeous.”
“And you’re sweet. How about I take you around back and show you what I do for sweet men?”
My leg stretched to stand before my mind could catch up. Eventually, it did, as I recalled that I could only feel the one leg… among other parts down there. I grabbed my glass of synthahol and downed what little was left.
I couldn’t afford the real stuff anymore.
“How about one more round?” I said. “I didn’t get to finish my story.”
“They’re your credits, handsome,” she said.
I slapped the counter to get the bartender’s attention and held up two fingers. Then I skootched my stool forward.
“So, there I was,” I began. “After fighting my way through at least forty rebels on Undina, Yev Tavar was about to plow into me with a rock hauler. I had two choices, dive out of the way and take my chances with the rest of his insurgents, or stand my ground and bet on my pistol.” Two drinks slid over to us. “Thanks.” I flashed my fake ID to sync credits and turned back to the woman.
“Where was I?” I said. “Right. So, here he comes, and I lift my pistol. This one, right here actually.” I tapped my holster, and my escort had to place her hand on my side to keep me from toppling. I pretended I didn’t realize. “I wait as long as I can—until I can see the whites of his eyes through the viewport—and then I pull the trigger.”
“Did you hit him?” she asked. I’ll give her this, she was damn good at pretending to care. I guess a lifetime of half-ignoring repulsive men can be a good teacher.
“Did I hit him? I plunked him right in the chest. Had the bastard dead to rights too, only, after all the problems he’d given Pervenio, he wasn’t going to go out without a fight. Do you… do you want to know what the mad offworlder tried next?”
“To pull your pants down?” a man sitting behind me interrupted. His buddy started cackling. One glance over my shoulder, and I made them for Venta collectors enjoying some time off. The man who spoke was clearly in charge and wore a duster in far better shape than my old one, but pulse pistols dangled from both their hips that weren’t vestiges of a bygone age.
Titan's Rise: (Children of Titan Book 3) Page 9
