aug-scan, and ran a quick call-and-response. For a good augmentor, this would take a minute. It took hir eighteen seconds. Green, green, and green.
The local augmentor’s voice was quiet, nearly a hiss: “Shiva!”
“You get faster with practice,” Formentara said.
Then zhe was into the flow, the sensoria of hands-on, mind-on VR that programmers and benders used to access the complexity of augmentation.
Time went away. There was only the
now
…
Zhe glanced at the timer’s inset automatically as the fugue ended. Preop done. Six minutes. Not bad. Not hir best, but it was a borrowed board and a scan zhe’d never seen before. And crappy gear. One had to allow for that.
Behind her, the local man stood as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Sweet Durga’s Taut Titties,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Who the fuck are you?”
“I have a little skill,” Formentara said. Hir smile was as sweet as zhe could make it. Had the hook been set?
“Can you show me how to do what you just did?”
“I can.”
“How much? I’ll sell my house if I have to.”
“I just want to ask a few questions, is all.”
“Questions? Shit, ask. If I don’t have the answers, I’ll find somebody who does.”
“Sit,” Formentara said. “Watch, and learn…”
Gunny had changed into civilian threads, not that anybody who’d ever spent any time in the military would be fooled by that. She knew she had the look, but she softened it a little. If somebody thought she was GU military? She could make that work in her favor.
The gray-on-black synthetics draped in the right places to showcase her body—muting the musculature and accentuating the feminine curves, such that they were. Tight here, loose enough there to hide her SOB-carry, a small precharged air pistol. She wore calf-length boots of faux ostrich leather, with a dagger in the right and a hand wand in theleft. She’d like a little more hardware, but she was going to a pub, and if things got spewey, she was going to retreat, and all she needed was enough to clear a path. A bunch of pub patrons was not the Chinese Army…
Not some kind of drop-dead gorgeous fem they’d be lining up to get at, but not so ugly they’d turn away in disgust. Especially after a few ales or hits of herb.
The first pub she’d picked was near the port, but a little off the tourist lanes. Mostly locals, she figured, but the odd soldier or businessperson who went for the booze and food. A good representative place.
She arrived around 2100. The pub, called Lakshmi’s Lair, was moderately crowded. Room for eighty or so, maybe sixty-five there, all humans that she could tell. The place was two cuts above poor, four below rich, a working soul’s watering hole. There were small oval tables and seats, a long bar of what looked to be flame-grained, dark wood, with a line of stools, and rows of bottles, bulbs, nebulizers, and vaporizers behind the three tenders working the bar. Lot of wood construction, what with all the forests on this world.
It smelled like dopesmoke, a pleasant, burning-leaves scent.
Gunny made her way to the bar, ordered one of the tap ales, and turned to look at the room while she sipped on her drink.
Ventilators sucked out much of the smoke from those who indulged in lit hemp or other herbals. There was a mostly happy walla from the patrons, noisy, but not overly so, people having a good time. In her experience, the drunken brawls, if there were going to be any, would generally start later in the evening.
There were two bouncers working the floor, easy to spot from how they moved around, watching for trouble. One of them was short and built like he had molded armor on under his shirt—thick, heavy, but light on his feet.
The other bouncer was taller, muscular, but lithe, and very smooth as he drifted this way and that, making a circuit through the tables and patrons, looking for possible trouble.
Both men had zappers in palm-lock pockets on their
The local augmentor’s voice was quiet, nearly a hiss: “Shiva!”
“You get faster with practice,” Formentara said.
Then zhe was into the flow, the sensoria of hands-on, mind-on VR that programmers and benders used to access the complexity of augmentation.
Time went away. There was only the
now
…
Zhe glanced at the timer’s inset automatically as the fugue ended. Preop done. Six minutes. Not bad. Not hir best, but it was a borrowed board and a scan zhe’d never seen before. And crappy gear. One had to allow for that.
Behind her, the local man stood as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Sweet Durga’s Taut Titties,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Who the fuck are you?”
“I have a little skill,” Formentara said. Hir smile was as sweet as zhe could make it. Had the hook been set?
“Can you show me how to do what you just did?”
“I can.”
“How much? I’ll sell my house if I have to.”
“I just want to ask a few questions, is all.”
“Questions? Shit, ask. If I don’t have the answers, I’ll find somebody who does.”
“Sit,” Formentara said. “Watch, and learn…”
Gunny had changed into civilian threads, not that anybody who’d ever spent any time in the military would be fooled by that. She knew she had the look, but she softened it a little. If somebody thought she was GU military? She could make that work in her favor.
The gray-on-black synthetics draped in the right places to showcase her body—muting the musculature and accentuating the feminine curves, such that they were. Tight here, loose enough there to hide her SOB-carry, a small precharged air pistol. She wore calf-length boots of faux ostrich leather, with a dagger in the right and a hand wand in theleft. She’d like a little more hardware, but she was going to a pub, and if things got spewey, she was going to retreat, and all she needed was enough to clear a path. A bunch of pub patrons was not the Chinese Army…
Not some kind of drop-dead gorgeous fem they’d be lining up to get at, but not so ugly they’d turn away in disgust. Especially after a few ales or hits of herb.
The first pub she’d picked was near the port, but a little off the tourist lanes. Mostly locals, she figured, but the odd soldier or businessperson who went for the booze and food. A good representative place.
She arrived around 2100. The pub, called Lakshmi’s Lair, was moderately crowded. Room for eighty or so, maybe sixty-five there, all humans that she could tell. The place was two cuts above poor, four below rich, a working soul’s watering hole. There were small oval tables and seats, a long bar of what looked to be flame-grained, dark wood, with a line of stools, and rows of bottles, bulbs, nebulizers, and vaporizers behind the three tenders working the bar. Lot of wood construction, what with all the forests on this world.
It smelled like dopesmoke, a pleasant, burning-leaves scent.
Gunny made her way to the bar, ordered one of the tap ales, and turned to look at the room while she sipped on her drink.
Ventilators sucked out much of the smoke from those who indulged in lit hemp or other herbals. There was a mostly happy walla from the patrons, noisy, but not overly so, people having a good time. In her experience, the drunken brawls, if there were going to be any, would generally start later in the evening.
There were two bouncers working the floor, easy to spot from how they moved around, watching for trouble. One of them was short and built like he had molded armor on under his shirt—thick, heavy, but light on his feet.
The other bouncer was taller, muscular, but lithe, and very smooth as he drifted this way and that, making a circuit through the tables and patrons, looking for possible trouble.
Both men had zappers in palm-lock pockets on their
Similar Books
