Rebel (The United Federation Marine Corps) by Jonathan P. Brazee Page A

this was a high-end neighborhood.  The fine townhomes had fallen a long way into disrepair.  Michi stopped at the foot of the statue and waited for Tamara.
    “You want Light?” a furtive voice whispered to her. 
    Michi ignored the bundled person, unsure if the pusher was a man or woman, young or old.  She kept glancing around, wondering how long she should wait.  She felt far more vulnerable this time than before.  She knew it was all in her mind, but that didn’t make her feelings any less impactful.
    Tamara finally sauntered up in a bright pink cozy with silver spangles.  She stood out like a bird of paradise.  The rentgirls and boys tended to the colorful, but Tamara put them all to shame.
    “Not too conspicuous there, are you?” Michi asked as they met up.
    “Don’t you ever read the spy novels?” Tamara asked.  “With all this glitter, who’s gonna remember my face?”
    “If we’re planning this based on novels and flicks, then we’re in trouble before we even begin,” Michi grumbled without acknowledging that what Tamara had said made sense, garnered from a fictional spy story or not.
    The two women started aimlessly walking, trying to look like they fit in.  The Gut was not totally devoted to activities that pressed the boundaries of legality—or broke right through them, for that matter.  The office buildings in the center of town rose to the west of the Gut, and some of the newly renovated condos so high in demand were just to the east, so the upscale workers simply walked through the Gut to and from their condos.  It wouldn’t be long before the real estate on which the Gut perched would be taken over to build more condos, coffee shops, and hookah bars.
    At this hour, most of the workers were already snug in their condos.  There were some stragglers, however, mostly people who had stayed for dinner or to put in the late hours in their attempt to rise through the drek to the upper echelons of power.  They walked with their heads down, ignoring the jetsam and flotsam that flowed throughout the Gut.  Michi wondered if they were afraid that if they looked, they’d see a fellow worker indulging in what the Gut had to offer.
    “Check this out,” Tamara whispered before flouncing up to one head-down walker.
    “Hey there, stud, you up for a drink?” she asked the man who merely put his head down further and sped up his pace.
    “Told you this stuff works,” she said to Michi as she came back, using one hand to sweep over her pink cozy.  “I know that guy.  He hit on me last year at one of our recertification courses.”
    Michi had to stifle a laugh.  Tamara was one surprise after another.  The girl had no filter.
    They wandered about the Gut for over an hour, dismissing several prospects for various reasons ranging from one jack’s wedding ring catching the light as he walked his rounds to another being joined by two more jacks just before the two hunters closed in.
    Michi had felt uncomfortable when they first started walking.  The Gut was not the kind of place she ever really thought she would be exploring.  But as they hunted for a victim, she forgot about the seediness of the hunting grounds as her excitement started to take over.  She had always been competitive, but this took it to a new level, one that quite frankly gave her a rush. 
    A few years ago, a cousin had come back on leave from where he served as a captain in the Marines.  At a family gathering, he had started on his “sea stories,” as he called them.  He had been in the fighting during the Trinocular War, and to the rapt attention of the younger cousins, said that the thrill of combat was addictive, that nothing else matched up to it.  At the time, Michi thought that was just bluster, but as she searched the warrens for her prey, she thought she just might understand what he’d been trying to say.  Michi had been reticent about Tamara’s mission, but now that she was on the hunt, she was eager to get