TOURIST.
Smart move. During the day, nobody sane would ever bother him. So he was safe from molestation, unless he ran into someone who knew and didn’t like him. If the locals found out he was a fake, they’d become a mob and violently tear the dwarf apart with their bare hands, then set his bloody bones on fire as a warning to any other braindeads who dared to violate the unwritten law of Overtown.
Thumbs gave a half-smile as he crossed the street to stay behind the Johnson. Little guy must be desperate to try that, and he obviously had more nuyen, a lot more, to get Lucky to cough up a disguise that fast for an alien. Just for a tick, Thumbs debated sliding into the store to get the scan from the ork. But his quarry was moving with a purpose now that he was disguised and Thumbs knew he’d lose him if he dallied.
“Take a cab, nullhead,” he mentally ordered the other. Be a lot easier to track the halfer sitting down. But the dwarf scuttled along, humming pictures of everything and everybody. Which made more than a few of the local denizens scurry for cover. Last thing a SINless gleeb wanted was some alien recording the fact that he lived but did not have a System Identification Number. That could get a person killed down here.
On a littered corner, a girl troll from the Slammers raised an arm to hail him. Thumbs quickly gave her a curt hand slice and frowned, never pausing for a beat. The fem’s face went neutral and she leaned back against the crumbling brick facade of the old movie theatre, now a joyboy brothel, and began cleaning her nails with a Japanese-style long knife.
Smart. Talia was shaping up real good. And not just ’cause she was reaching her teens. Big troll like him had lots of beds to warm, but drek-few chummers who knew when to keep their fragging mouths shut, [f the hammer fell on this and things got dirty, Thumbs’d bring her in as cannon fodder and see if she really had the stuff. He wondered if she had a gun. If not, he could supply her. For a price, of course. Nothing was free.
Why would anybody shoot a telecom?
Moving through the thickening traffic of the wageslaves heading home, the answer hit him. To stop a possible trace. No phone link would mean no ID. Even an ace decker couldn’t reconstruct what was no longer there. Then he remembered how fast the sirens had sounded. Lone Star would never race into Overtown simply for a blown phone. The police had bigger problems than that just staying alive in this town. But no, they’d been on their way. Ergo, some red-hot decker had already done a trace. If only he could check to make sure.
Another block passed before the dwarf stopped at a noodle stand, becoming third in line for service. Spying a telecom, Thumbs quickly decided to make a call to a chummer who lived practically on top of that public telecom box. Keeping an eye on the dwarf, he punched in the LTG code, and the screen cleared into the image of a sleepy troll in greasy clothes, tousled hair, and a badly broken tusk. On the wall behind him were rain-smeared sex posters and gaping crab holes. No furniture was in view.
“Yeah, who the frag is this?” the troll demanded.
“Beaver, it’s me,” rumbled Thumbs. “Speak fast and earn fifty.”
The other’s gummy eyes went wide with avarice. “For fifty I’d jump offa bridge widout lookin’ ta see if dere was any woter. Whatcha need, T’umbs?” he slurred eagerly.
“Still living on Seventeenth and Cuban?”
“Sure. Ya needs a flop?”
Jail would be preferable to that cesspool. The only reason the rotting doss had no cockroaches was that the crabs used ’em as garnish for the devil rats. “Thanks, but no.”
“T’en whatchawant?”
“Don’t open ya curtains, but look outside and see who’s checking out the busted telecom near the pawnshop.”
Beaver’s face contorted into unasked questions, but he merely nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. The tusker returned in a minute. “Man, it’s a party down
Smart move. During the day, nobody sane would ever bother him. So he was safe from molestation, unless he ran into someone who knew and didn’t like him. If the locals found out he was a fake, they’d become a mob and violently tear the dwarf apart with their bare hands, then set his bloody bones on fire as a warning to any other braindeads who dared to violate the unwritten law of Overtown.
Thumbs gave a half-smile as he crossed the street to stay behind the Johnson. Little guy must be desperate to try that, and he obviously had more nuyen, a lot more, to get Lucky to cough up a disguise that fast for an alien. Just for a tick, Thumbs debated sliding into the store to get the scan from the ork. But his quarry was moving with a purpose now that he was disguised and Thumbs knew he’d lose him if he dallied.
“Take a cab, nullhead,” he mentally ordered the other. Be a lot easier to track the halfer sitting down. But the dwarf scuttled along, humming pictures of everything and everybody. Which made more than a few of the local denizens scurry for cover. Last thing a SINless gleeb wanted was some alien recording the fact that he lived but did not have a System Identification Number. That could get a person killed down here.
On a littered corner, a girl troll from the Slammers raised an arm to hail him. Thumbs quickly gave her a curt hand slice and frowned, never pausing for a beat. The fem’s face went neutral and she leaned back against the crumbling brick facade of the old movie theatre, now a joyboy brothel, and began cleaning her nails with a Japanese-style long knife.
Smart. Talia was shaping up real good. And not just ’cause she was reaching her teens. Big troll like him had lots of beds to warm, but drek-few chummers who knew when to keep their fragging mouths shut, [f the hammer fell on this and things got dirty, Thumbs’d bring her in as cannon fodder and see if she really had the stuff. He wondered if she had a gun. If not, he could supply her. For a price, of course. Nothing was free.
Why would anybody shoot a telecom?
Moving through the thickening traffic of the wageslaves heading home, the answer hit him. To stop a possible trace. No phone link would mean no ID. Even an ace decker couldn’t reconstruct what was no longer there. Then he remembered how fast the sirens had sounded. Lone Star would never race into Overtown simply for a blown phone. The police had bigger problems than that just staying alive in this town. But no, they’d been on their way. Ergo, some red-hot decker had already done a trace. If only he could check to make sure.
Another block passed before the dwarf stopped at a noodle stand, becoming third in line for service. Spying a telecom, Thumbs quickly decided to make a call to a chummer who lived practically on top of that public telecom box. Keeping an eye on the dwarf, he punched in the LTG code, and the screen cleared into the image of a sleepy troll in greasy clothes, tousled hair, and a badly broken tusk. On the wall behind him were rain-smeared sex posters and gaping crab holes. No furniture was in view.
“Yeah, who the frag is this?” the troll demanded.
“Beaver, it’s me,” rumbled Thumbs. “Speak fast and earn fifty.”
The other’s gummy eyes went wide with avarice. “For fifty I’d jump offa bridge widout lookin’ ta see if dere was any woter. Whatcha need, T’umbs?” he slurred eagerly.
“Still living on Seventeenth and Cuban?”
“Sure. Ya needs a flop?”
Jail would be preferable to that cesspool. The only reason the rotting doss had no cockroaches was that the crabs used ’em as garnish for the devil rats. “Thanks, but no.”
“T’en whatchawant?”
“Don’t open ya curtains, but look outside and see who’s checking out the busted telecom near the pawnshop.”
Beaver’s face contorted into unasked questions, but he merely nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. The tusker returned in a minute. “Man, it’s a party down
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