bureaucrats in other Sectors, yet there was a grimness in their faces when they weren’t actively responding to banter or forcing smiles. Their eyes seemed tired, a little glazed, from months of disappointment and extensive layoffs. Klia could read the colors of their internal moods as well, caught in brief flashes, since she was otherwise occupied: angry purples and bilious green murmurings hidden within the deep holes of their minds, not auras, but pits into which she could glimpse only from certain mental perspectives.
Nothing extraordinary in all this; Klia knew what the mood of Dahl was, and tried to ignore it as often as possible. Full immersion would not just distract her, but could even infect. She had to remain isolated from the general herd to keep her edge.
She recognized the boy as soon as he walked into view across the street. He was perhaps a year older than she, shorter and squat, with a pinched face marked by several small scars on his cheek and chin, gang marks from Billibotton’s tougher streets. She had delivered goods and information to him several times in the last year, when better courier jobs were not to be had. Now, she realized she might be seeing even more of him, and she did not like it one bit. He was tough to convince…
Good jobs had become almost impossible to find in thepast few days. Klia was known to be marked; few trusted her. Her income had plummeted almost to nothing, and worse still, she had narrowly escaped being captured by a gang of thugs whose leader she had never seen before. There were new folks in town, with new allegiances, providing new dangers.
Klia still had confidence in her ability to worm her way out of any tight situation, but the effort was exhausting her. She longed for a quiet place with friends, but she had few friends—none willing to take her in the way things were.
It was enough to make her rethink her whole philosophy of life.
The pinch-faced boy caught sight of Klia when she wanted to be seen, then went through a deliberate masquerade of casually ignoring her. She did the same, but edged closer, looking around as if waiting for somebody else.
When they were within earshot, the boy said, “We’re not interested in what you’re carrying today. Why don’t you just slink out of Dahl and plague someone else?”
Brusqueness and even rudeness meant little, she was so used to them. “We have a contract,” Klia said casually. “I deliver, you pay. My day boss won’t take it well if you—”
“Word here is your day boss is in the sinks,” the boy said, staring at her boldly. “And so’s every other day or night boss who used you. Even Kindril Nashak! Word is he’s been threatened with Rikerian, held with no charges! A free warning, girlie. No more!”
The noose was closing. “What do I do with this?” Klia asked, lifting the thin box under her arm.
“I take nothing and pay nothing, that’s the word. Now slink!”
Klia glanced at him for less than a second. The boy shook his head as if touched by a buzzing insect, then looked right through her. He would not report having seen her.
If everybody wanted her to vanish, and there was no longer any work or reason to stay, it really was time to vanish. Thethought scared her; she had never been outside Dahl for more than a few hours. She had less than two weeks’ living in credits, a lot of those black-market exchanges good only for local merchants—who might shun her business now anyway.
Klia walked up the street to a less prosperous neighborhood, known euphemistically as Softer Fleshplay, and ducked through a fractured plastic front into an abandoned food stall. There, among scattered old wrappers and broken sticks of furniture, she cut the security seal on her package and opened it, to see if it contained anything valuable outside Dahl.
Papers and a bookfilm. She leafed through them and examined the seal on the bookfilm; personal stuff, in code, nothing she could decipher or sell anywhere. She
Nothing extraordinary in all this; Klia knew what the mood of Dahl was, and tried to ignore it as often as possible. Full immersion would not just distract her, but could even infect. She had to remain isolated from the general herd to keep her edge.
She recognized the boy as soon as he walked into view across the street. He was perhaps a year older than she, shorter and squat, with a pinched face marked by several small scars on his cheek and chin, gang marks from Billibotton’s tougher streets. She had delivered goods and information to him several times in the last year, when better courier jobs were not to be had. Now, she realized she might be seeing even more of him, and she did not like it one bit. He was tough to convince…
Good jobs had become almost impossible to find in thepast few days. Klia was known to be marked; few trusted her. Her income had plummeted almost to nothing, and worse still, she had narrowly escaped being captured by a gang of thugs whose leader she had never seen before. There were new folks in town, with new allegiances, providing new dangers.
Klia still had confidence in her ability to worm her way out of any tight situation, but the effort was exhausting her. She longed for a quiet place with friends, but she had few friends—none willing to take her in the way things were.
It was enough to make her rethink her whole philosophy of life.
The pinch-faced boy caught sight of Klia when she wanted to be seen, then went through a deliberate masquerade of casually ignoring her. She did the same, but edged closer, looking around as if waiting for somebody else.
When they were within earshot, the boy said, “We’re not interested in what you’re carrying today. Why don’t you just slink out of Dahl and plague someone else?”
Brusqueness and even rudeness meant little, she was so used to them. “We have a contract,” Klia said casually. “I deliver, you pay. My day boss won’t take it well if you—”
“Word here is your day boss is in the sinks,” the boy said, staring at her boldly. “And so’s every other day or night boss who used you. Even Kindril Nashak! Word is he’s been threatened with Rikerian, held with no charges! A free warning, girlie. No more!”
The noose was closing. “What do I do with this?” Klia asked, lifting the thin box under her arm.
“I take nothing and pay nothing, that’s the word. Now slink!”
Klia glanced at him for less than a second. The boy shook his head as if touched by a buzzing insect, then looked right through her. He would not report having seen her.
If everybody wanted her to vanish, and there was no longer any work or reason to stay, it really was time to vanish. Thethought scared her; she had never been outside Dahl for more than a few hours. She had less than two weeks’ living in credits, a lot of those black-market exchanges good only for local merchants—who might shun her business now anyway.
Klia walked up the street to a less prosperous neighborhood, known euphemistically as Softer Fleshplay, and ducked through a fractured plastic front into an abandoned food stall. There, among scattered old wrappers and broken sticks of furniture, she cut the security seal on her package and opened it, to see if it contained anything valuable outside Dahl.
Papers and a bookfilm. She leafed through them and examined the seal on the bookfilm; personal stuff, in code, nothing she could decipher or sell anywhere. She
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