by M. D. Cooper
She found him out in the corridor, leaning against the wall.
“Did you get what we need?” he asked.
“Yeah. And I have our next steps planned, but first we need to do something about those eyes of yours.”
“Do we?” His voice had a tiny edge to it.
“Yes. My new buddy in there told me that we’re going to have a hell of a time operating here with you looking like that. And she proved it, too, the way she treated you.”
“I can handle that. Maybe I deserve it because I do have an advantage.”
She shook her head. “If you have a guilt complex about it, you’re welcome to operate that way in your personal life. But we have a job to do, and those eyes of yours are going to get in our way. For the purposes of assignment, we need to disguise them.”
“How?”
Reece began walking down the hall and looked over her shoulder with a grin. “You’re in luck. I know a guy.”
* * * * *
“This doesn’t look like any doctor’s office I’ve ever seen.” Trey frowned at the grungy stairwell as they walked up another flight of stairs. “It’s in the worst part of town and I’m pretty sure that guy going the other way was stoned.”
“Oh, he definitely was,” she agreed. “The guy I know isn’t exactly a doctor.”
Trey stopped in place, forcing her to stop and look back at him, four steps down, but standing about her height. “Not having some back-street cutter touch my eyes.”
“He’s not a back-street cutter. He’s someone who had a bit of a career change and now has a unique set of skills available for a reasonable price.” She continued climbing the stairs of the poorly-kept building. She hoped he’d follow.
He didn’t, forcing her to stop again and turn to look at him.
“Yeah, I’m going to need more than that.” He started to lean against the wall to prove the point that he wasn’t moving, but thought better of its grimy surface and straightened.
“Fine. CooCoo used to work as a nurse until he got caught moving some hospital supplies through unapproved channels.”
“He was stealing supplies and selling them on the black market,” Trey translated.
“That’s one way of looking at it. That’s the way his employers felt about it too, and he lost his medical license. But due to his medical background and other skills he’s since picked up, he’s the best source of fake IDs in the Machete system.”
He stared at her. “And this is the kind of person you consort with to work for Rexcare?”
“Rexcare pays me to get the job done because I have the contacts and expertise to do it. That’s it. How do things work where you come from?”
“Not like this,” he said. “The good guys were the good guys, and the bad guys were the bad guys. They didn’t work together.”
She laughed. “Of course, they did. You just never noticed the people like me who make it happen. Besides, in Machete there are no good guys and bad guys. Everyone is somewhere in the middle.”
“That’s depressing,” he muttered.
“That’s life,” she countered. “I assure you, CooCoo is the best.”
“Well, his name does not inspire confidence.”
With a sigh, she said, “CooCoo is a nickname. His given name is Didgeringcoo. It’s a wretched name. He prefers to use a variation of it.”
“Guess I don’t blame him there. Jeez. Did his parents hate him?” Trey began climbing steps again, though more slowly now, as if delaying the final determination of whether he’d go along with this or not.
“They must have. Who would do that to a defenseless baby?”
“Monsters,” Trey said decisively. “That’s probably why he turned out the way he did.”
On the fourth floor, she quickly found the familiar scuffed door and banged on it.
Trey looked at her like she was nuts. “What are you doing?”
“Places like this don’t have a working intercom. You have to hit the door to get their attention.” She squinted at him. “Wait, are you joking with me?”
He squinted back at her. “Why would I joke about that?”
They stood there, squinting at one another, until CooCoo answered the door. Reece couldn’t decide if Trey was yanking her chain or from a severely sheltered life.
“Well, looky who is it!” CooCoo was a short thin man with nervous tendencies, but he loved to get visitors. Especially the kind that came ready to pay him for something. “What a pleasant surprise!”
He gave Reece a hug and a kiss on the cheek before turning his attention to Trey. “Let me guess. You accidentally married this lugnut after getting riproaring drunk, and need me to do a quickie-fake-death thing so you can annul the marriage.”
“CooCoo,” she chided.
He sighed. “I can dream that you’ve finally done something fun and wild, can’t I? Fine. A full set of fake ID, I’m guessing?”
“Not this time. He has Machete Ident, courtesy of Rexcare. What we need is for you to disguise his eyes, and update his Ident so that they match.”
CooCoo squeezed his mouth into a thoughtful pout. “So you want me to duplicate authentic Ident, except for a tiny appearance tweak? That’s a new one.”
“How much?” Reece asked.
“Since I don’t have to create a full fake identity, it’s just cost of materials. Won’t even take long. Two thousand credits. Unless you want to kill the guy two doors down, then we could call it even. He’s always singing opera late at night. It’s annoying as shit.”
“Sorry, I don’t do straight-up hits anymore,” Reece said, watching Trey in her peripheral vision. As expected, his gaze cut to her.
“A shame,” CooCoo said. “All right, let’s get to work, then. I’ll need to get some measurements of the eye to ensure a good fit for the lenses. You won’t have to worry about them. As long as you remove them once a week and clean them, you won’t even know they’re there.”
There was little to do as they waited, though watching CooCoo work was mildly entertaining. He had the energy of a caffeinated squirrel, and the intensity of a snake. He moved from one task to the next, measuring Trey's eyes, double-checking documents to make sure the information would be correct, and every now and then rubbing his eyes and shouting “Bleh!”
A half-hour later, CooCoo had made all the required measurements and stripped the Ident tokens from Trey’s Link implants.
“How long do you need?” Reece asked.
“Depends,” CooCoo answered. “Do you want fast, or good?”
“Good.”
“Come get them in the morning, then. That’ll give me time to ensure the network updates with the new Ident propagate properly and get the lenses perfect.”
She’d hoped to get them that night, but she’d have to work with it. “Okay. Thanks, Coo.”
“Anytime, Starshine. You know that.” His flamboyance melted away for a glimpse of sincerity.
As Reece and Trey took the stairs back down to ground level, Trey asked, “You never did hits for hire, did you?”
“What if I did?” she asked. “Would that make you less confident about all this, or more?”
“I’m not sure,” he muttered. “So I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Do you kill people?” he persisted.
Again, she didn’t know if this would be a good thing or a bad thing in his eyes. “Only if they give me no other choice. I try to avoid it. Too much paperwork involved.”
Hah. Let him wonder about how to take that.
He frowned thoughtfully as they exited the building. “Where to now?”
“The other charge on Fitzmiller’s account was for a hotel. I want to shake them down for information. If we can pinpoint the dates of his stay, we can start working on when he left and where he’s headed.”
“You’re sure he’s not still here?” Trey asked as they slid into a taxi.
“Yes. No other activity, and he’ll want to get out of Machete
jurisdiction.” She stared at him meaningfully. She didn’t want him to mention Rexcare or any other sensitive information while in the taxi.
He nodded. “Right.”
His message arrived in her head, in spoken form, without his having spoken.
Reece shook her head, displeased. This was a mod he hadn’t mentioned.
She didn’t care for the mental telepathy effect.
“The Bubble Club,” she told the driver, and off they went.
She didn’t respond to his Link message, and Trey didn’t push it.
“What’s the Bubble Club?” he asked.
“It’s hard to describe,” she answered. “It’s probably better if you just see it.”
“Okay.”
They fell silent, since work was all they really had to talk about, and she didn’t want to do that in the taxi, where they might be listened to or recorded—well, not him, but her.
Their surroundings shifted from rundown and dingy to flashy and brightly-lit. The sun had set, and the downtown entertainment district was just getting into swing.
This was her favorite part of Iagentci, and far different from anywhere on Akon. With double the population and a greater variety of industry—specifically less agriculture—Iagentci bustled with activity. Reece’s body tingled with excitement.
She remembered the often-uttered Iagentcian phrase, “You never know what’ll happen when the sun goes down.” It was true.
For her, just having sunshine and moonlight within one day’s time was an exciting experience of extremes.
The taxi pulled up to the club, and they got out after passing payment over the Link.
As it pulled away, Trey shook his head. “That’s still the weirdest thing about Machete.”
“What is?” Reece asked.
“Humans driving taxis. You all realize that even the simplest computers can do that, right?”
Reece frowned. She’d never thought about it. Taxis were always driven by people, it’s just how it was.
“Maybe it’s a union thing,” she said with a shrug.
Trey snorted. “A taxi union? Now I know you’re messing with me.”
Reece gave him a mysterious look before she drew in a deep breath of the cool night air and looked up. “Do you have moonlight every night where you come from?”
“Some places. Not others.” He looked up too, toward the twin moons.
“That’s vague.” She tried to imagine how the moons would appear if they weren’t behind the haze of the planetary ring of dust and gas that encircled Iagentci.
“I thought we were avoiding personal conversations.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” She turned toward the Bubble Club.
“Have you ever been on a world that hasn’t been terraformed?”
She looked into his too-perfect eyes for a long moment before deciding to answer. “Akon has fairly minimal terraforming, but I’ve never been somewhere that was completely natural. You?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen a lot of places.”
As they entered the club, she wondered what it meant that he’d asked her a personal question right after they’d agreed they weren’t doing that.
The noise and motion inside the Bubble Club blotted out all other thoughts. It was part of its charm, how entirely attention-demanding it was.
“Whoa.” Trey’s eyes widened and he scanned the place top to bottom, left to right, like his life depended on it.
An honest-to-goodness orchestra sat in a recessed pit at the center of the club. The performers were capable of playing a huge variety of music. At the moment, they were performing a lively number with a lot of cymbal accents.
“This way.” She put a hand on his forearm and tugged him toward a small table that had a view of the orchestra, and more importantly, the structure above it which gave the club its name.
They sat, and Trey asked, “So are we here for a particular reason, or are we just here to see the show?”
“I have a friend named Ed who works here who can help me get the hotel information we need. But we have to wait ‘til after this performance.”
Above the orchestra hung a large blue globe. It had been blue as they entered and sat, but now phased through a dozen colors before becoming translucent, revealing a woman inside. She sat on a backless chair holding one hand to her chin in a contemplative pose.
On either size of the bubble, large holodisplays showed a close-up of her long purple hair, heavy stage makeup, and pensive expression.
She began to sing about having been stood up for a date, and all of the dating woes she’s had in her life.
“It’s a little weird that she’s in a bubble and we can hear her like she’s right in front of us,” Trey observed.
“Hush.”
The performer stood, showing off a curvy figure swathed in a gown that appeared to be painted on.
Literally. Other than a strip of fabric covering her nether region and encircling her waist to anchor a long, flowing train, the lady was clothed only in very realistic paint.
“Wow.”
Trey must have seen a lot of things in all those places he’d been, but he appeared genuinely impressed by the performer.
It was one of Reece’s favorite numbers, with a catchy beat and lyrics that made the audience laugh. She tapped her foot through four verses and a repeating chorus. By the time the last chorus came around, a hundred voices from the audience rose to sing along.
Because I’ve been to every planet in this whole bloody system
I’ve lost a lot of men, but you know, I’ve never missed ‘em
My friends have all been married while I’m still here all alone
The singer held up a finger and the music paused dramatically. Then she delivered the last line of the song on her own.
But I guess that’s what they get for giving in to their hormones.
Reece applauded along with the crowd, chuckling. All the songs at the Bubble Club had a silly premise or a funny punchline. Though the music was top notch, it was really more about the comedy and the spectacle of the performance.
The bubble began to descend, splitting open, and the performer exited to tour the room like visiting royalty, accepting praise and warmly greeting people like old friends. Some of them probably were.
When the singer approached Reece’s table, she shook Trey’s hand. “I saw you from all the way up there in my bubble, and I said to myself, right there is my next big mistake.”
Trey chuckled. “I could only wish to be so lucky. Great performance.”
She put a hand to her chest. “Be still my heart.” She turned her attention to Reece. “Where did you find this one? Is he one of yours? If not, I might have to steal him. Actually, I might steal him in either case.”
Reece laughed. “We just work together. This is Trey.”
She enjoyed the look on Trey’s face when she rose and gave the painted lady a big, warm hug. With her arm around the performer’s waist, she turned back to Trey. “And this is my friend Ed. She’ll be able to help us out.”
BUBBLES AND MONKEYS
DATE: 03.20.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Eladitlun City, Iagentci
REGION: Machete System, PED 4B, Orion Freedom Alliance
Once in Ed’s dressing room, the singer placed a bare cheek on a table so she could nudge up to where Trey sat. “Seriously, where did you find him? He’s just so squishy.”
To Trey’s credit, he bore Ed’s brand of enthusiasm well. He neither blushed nor grabbed her with both hands. Since Ed was as gorgeous as she was outrageous, refraining from either was an accomplishment.
“We’re temporarily stuck working together.” Reece shifted a large pair of feathery costume wings aside so she could sit.
“So this isn’t a date or a honeymoon.” Ed looked crestfallen as she crossed the space and settled herself in an overstuffed chair, arranging the drape of her frontless skirt. “I thought you
’d finally found yourself a life.”
“I have a life.” Reece said it without heat; they’d had this conversation many times before. “You work just as much as I do, and love it every bit as much, too.”
“But I take time to play,” Ed retorted, right on cue.
“If I promise to do something fun after this job, can we skip to the part where I tell you what I need?”
Trey said nothing as he switched his gaze between the two of them.
It was a wise decision.
Ed heaved a larger, more dramatic sigh. “You’re a hopeless case. I officially give up. You’ll live your whole life for your job, and when you die, your cats will eat you. But fine. What do you need?”
“I only have one cat,” Reece muttered.
Trey ceased his wise behavior and smirked. Reece sent him a poisonous glare.
He arched an eyebrow at her.
Ignoring him, she said to Ed, “I need info about a recent hotel stay. Anything they’ve got. Check in, check out, any security video, any notes in his file, what he ordered from room service. Everything.”
“What’s in it for me?” Ed removed her earrings and set them on the table next to her.
“My everlasting friendship.”
Ed didn’t need anything Reece could offer her, even if she did want some kind of payment. Which she didn’t. She just liked going through the process as if it were a real business deal.
“Well, it’s not much of an offer, is it?” Ed sniffed. “But you did give me the money to open the Bubble Club, so I guess I can help you out. This time.”
Reece saw Trey’s eyes widen a bit at that.
Ed tilted her head and turned on the full power of her smile, which matched the rest of her exquisite flawlessness.
“Hang on,” Trey said. “How is it she can get the info and we can’t? Couldn’t you just threaten them, or bribe them, or whatever?”
Reece turned her attention to him. “No. The hospitality industry on Iagentci is almost entirely owned by Rexcare’s biggest rival—Donnercorp. They’re one of the Big Four on Akon, but they’re top dog here. Their employees are not inclined to help Rexcare.”
