"Gorgeous," Horatio said as she settled the bill and she smiled back at him without forcing it.
"Where do business women shop?" she asked him.
"How much money do you have?"
She squeezed the ring, checking. "Two thousand credits."
He borrowed her tablet and scribbled the address with a stylus. "Ask for Sophia. And use the shampoo I gave you. Red fades fast."
By the time the aerial finally landed in front of her apartment, the sky had grown dark. Claire ducked into the entrance and walked up the stairs to the fourth floor. She pressed her thumb to the keypad. The lock clicked open, and she stepped inside.
Walls of warm inviting yellow greeted her. The floor was textured tile in a dozen shades of pale green, brown, and beige. Soft green couches waited to be sat on to her right. A curved coffee table carved from some reddish rock rested between them, and on it in a wide glass dish floated burgundy-red dahlia blossoms. Ahead, double doors framed by diaphanous curtains led to a balcony.
Claire dropped her bags.
The apartment was completely quiet. She walked across the floor to the door and slid it open. A small balcony presented her with a view of the sunset: above her the cosmos was deep purple and far ahead, at the horizon, where the setting sun rolled behind the distant mountains, the sky glowed with bright vivid red. Wind fanned her, bringing with it a scent of some flower she didn't know.
She sat down on the floor of the balcony, behind the trellised rail, and cried.
Chapter Three
Claire opened her eyes. The ceiling above her was cream, painted with yellow stripes from the rays of the morning sun filtering through the window.
She rolled out of bed and walked out onto the balcony. Outside New Delphi buzzed with life. In the sky, crisscrossing currents of aerials flowed one above the other, sliding toward the distant buildings of the business sector. Below a wide street led into the distance, framed by buildings in every color, shape, and size. People strolled on the sidewalk. Claire watched a young woman leading two little girls walk down the street. Both children wore flowing white dresses and straw hats with small flowers in the brim. Their little sandals made loud slapping sounds on the sidewalk: flop, flop, flop. The woman stopped at a small stall, offering buckets of fruit under a bright green awning. The vendor offered the little girls a cup of some sort of round red berries.
Suddenly she was starving.
Claire rummaged through the new clothes she'd hung up in the closet, found a simple pale blue dress, slipped it on, and ran out the door.
The street vendor was old, his hair almost completely grey, his nose large with a bump, like a beak of some bird. He squinted at her with dark eyes as she looked at the fruit.
"What's this one?" she pointed to a bulbous green fruit.
"Pears," he said.
"And this one?" She pointed at the big sphere of yellow blushing with red on one side.
"Dahlia peaches."
Claire picked up a peach and smelled. The delicate, sweet aroma teased her.
"You're from Uley?" he asked.
She nodded.
"I've seen a few of you in the neighborhood," he said. "You're braver than most. Usually it takes your people ten minutes to decide to talk to me." He pointed to boxes one by one. "This one is sweet but firm, this one is sweet and soft, this one is tart..."
"One of each," she said and held her ring to the scanner mounted on the stall's support.
"We can do that."
The vendor took a satchel from a stack and filled it with fruit, sliding it carefully into the bag one by one.
A brush of a familiar mind made Claire turn. A woman approached, her dark hair pulled back into a bun. She wore a familiar grey tunic of simple cut over the plain trousers. Tonya Damon, Claire remembered. She lived across her mother's apartment.
Tonya saw her and halted, awkward. The look of worry in the woman's eyes stabbed at Claire. She'd seen this reaction before: she was a psycher, an officer, and a killer and Tonya was afraid.
"Are you here for the fruit?" Claire asked, forcing a smile.
"Yes. No. I was just looking."
Claire took the satchel from the vendor's hand and pulled out a pear. "Would you like to try one?"
Tonya looked at the pear.
"I got carried away and bought a whole bag," Claire said.
"She did," the vendor confirmed.
Tonya swallowed.
"I can't possibly eat it all by myself. It would be a
waste
."
She'd said the magic word. Tonya reached out for the pear and took it. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Tonya hesitated.
Claire waited, the smile in place.
"When did you arrive?" Tonya said finally.
"Yesterday. You?"
"A week ago." The woman blinked. "I found a job. I work for a chemical laboratory. That's what I did on Uley, so it worked out."
"That's great," Claire told her. "I found a job, too, as an admin."
"That's nice." Tonya smiled.
What was her husband's name... "How's Mark?"
"Mark died," Tonya said. "Killed on the front line two years ago."
"I'm so sorry."
"That's alright. It was nice to see you."
"Nice to see you as well. I live in that building over there." Claire nodded at the apartment. "Fourth floor. If you need anything..."
"I'm down the street. I better go. Thank you for talking to me."
"Thank you."
Tonya turned, took a few hurried steps, turned and came closer. She licked her lips, unsure, leaned closer and said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Your hair is too bright."
She ducked her head and hurried on, the pear in her hand.
"What was that all about?" the vendor asked.
"It's a kindness," Claire said. "She was trying to save me from embarrassment, because my hair draws attention."
"Don't listen to her. I like your hair," the vendor said. "It's sunny."
"I like my hair too. Thank you for the fruit." She took the satchel and went to her apartment.
Claire washed the fruit, arranged it on a plastic cutting board she'd found in the kitchen and took it and a knife to the coffee table. She cut the fruit into slices, put it into a bowl and took it to the couch. She linked her tablet to the larger digital screen on the wall and pulled up the work manuals. The Guardian procedure differed slightly from Uley's military protocols but the basic methods were the same. She'd finished with them and looked at the screen.
She still had a lot of fruit and nothing to do.
"Net search: Venturo Escana."
"Venturo Escana," the AI announced in a pleasant male voice. "Son of Haldor Madsen and Malvina Escana. Founder and joint owner of Guardian, Inc. Personal net worth estimated at seven million credits
-
"
"No audio," she said. "I want to read it."
The digital screen flashed, opening various news articles. She scooted deeper into the couch and reached for a piece of some green fruit shaped like an ancient hour-glass.
She sifted through press releases, financial statements, and tabloid gossip. There wasn't much. Guardian, Inc., seemed to have a stellar reputation. In the eight years of its existence, the firm had grown from a small start-up to the third largest provider of the bionet security in the southern hemisphere. Its chief competitors, Apex and DDS, both had decades of experience and a lot of family capital backing them up.
The entire Escana family preferred to fly under the radar. All she found were random images of Venturo in a formal setting in a company of New Delphi Elite, usually escorting a beautiful woman. She tried to narrow down his type. He seemed to show no preference. The only common ground between his dates consisted of expensive tastes, beauty, and superior grooming.
Studying the New Delphi's movers and shakers proved highly educational. There was no color too bright or inappropriate for clothes or hair. She ended up laughing at the ridiculous dresses and insane shoes. It was the best time she ever had in the last decade.
A small link popped up on the screen in the corner. She followed it to an eighteen-year-old news item. "Rumors of Engagement between de Solis and Escana."
Hmm. Now that was interesting, provided that de Solis owned DDS.
"The persistent rumors of a union between de Solis and Escana kinsmen families can be put to rest. When asked for comment, Castilla de Solis debunked all speculation of the proposed engagement between herself and Venturo Escana. It seems the de Solis heiress holds the rising star of the Escana clan in low regard. Had the rumors proven true, the struggling Escana Family would have reaped great financial benefits..."
"Castilla de Solis, image," Claire said.
A picture of a woman filled the screen. Tall, slender, athletic, she leaned back, laughing, the bright lavender dress falling off her shoulders, held up seemingly by her breasts alone. Jet black hair spilled down her back in a glossy wave.
No way to gauge her psycher capacity.
If that was Venturo's type, she'd chosen the wrong hair color. She should've dyed her hair black.
Claire leaned back. "Delete."
Castilla disappeared, replaced by an image of Venturo: golden, muscular, his green eyes sharp with intellect. Her body tightened in response, eager for contact. She imagined sliding her hands along those carved arms...
Claire exhaled slowly. There was no rational explanation why when she looked at him, she thought of sex. It was an involuntary response, completely at odds with her personality and training.
Sex was a means of relief. On Uley, it was an understood fact that one engaged in it, but it was rarely discussed. She had a sexual partner once. His name was Dominic. She was eighteen, he was twenty-two. She had just made lieutenant and he was in line for the captain promotion. They had three months together and in those three months she had something to look forward to when she returned to her apartment. She could still recall the feel of his hands on her, the way he said her name, the way he felt inside her.
The Intelligence had transferred him across the city. They had no warning. One day he was simply gone. It didn't take her long to put it together: she was a rising star and he was perceived as a distraction. He didn't try to look for her. He didn't put up a fight. Since then, she'd kept her sexual impulses under lock and key. Masturbation brought her the same relief, and while it came with no intimacy, it didn't carry a burden of disappointment either. In her last weeks on Uley she hadn't even felt the need for it.
She looked at Venturo Escana on the screen. It was as if some vital part of her, the one that was female and craved male contact, sex, and love, had withered. Somehow this man managed to resuscitate it without doing anything at all. And he felt nothing except pity for her. The irony made her laugh.
She would see him again on Monday. She had to make sure to not make a fool of herself.
*** *** ***
Her supervisor was a woman three years her junior. Her name was Renata, her hair was dark brown, her nails bright yellow, and when she was surprised, she opened her brown eyes so wide, she looked slightly deranged.
"How did you get through these so fast?"
"I'm motivated." Claire smiled.
Renata scrolled through the bionet activity reports with rows of tabled data. "Hang on, I have to find something to gripe about." She kept scrolling. "Oh. Here, look, the Radon sector heading should be in blue and you have it in grey." Her fingers flew over her keyboard. "Fix, fix, fix! Fixed."
Claire studied Renata out of the corner of her eye. Her mannerisms were so... carefree. Not exactly childlike but completely devoid of the somber poise common to Uley. If you had dropped Renata, the big smile, wide eyes, and purple dress in the middle of an Uley's skyscraper, people would pretend she wasn't there. They'd just refuse to see her. Maybe some well-meaning soul would walk up to her and confidentially inform her that her hair was too bright and she was making a fool of herself...
A mental tug interrupted Claire's musings. Venturo Escana, approaching fast. A walking mental firestorm of a mind behind an invisible wall of a steel will.
"All set." Renata raised her hands from the keys. "Did you review the Sangori file?"
"Yes." Venturo's mind was coming closer.
"And the recommendations?
"Yes."
"Good! Be ready to spit it all back at Ven when he comes by. He has a meeting with them later this afternoon and he prefers the spoken summary. But don't worry, he knows most of the file already. He just needs a refresher course."
He had a heightened auditory focus
-
his mind processed sound better than visual cues. Although for most people the theory of learning styles had long been debunked, for psychers it remained true: some were visual learners, some listened, and others had to write every scrap of information down. She'd worked with auditory psychers like that before. There was a trick to it
-
the combination of the correct intonation, vocabulary, and the information presented in a logical manner.
Renata's eyes widened. "Speak of the devil."
Venturo had turned the corner. Claire braced herself and turned to look, slowly.
The amicable man she saw yesterday was gone. He wore a black shirt that clung to him like paint, focusing attention on every contoured muscle. A fine mesh of hair-thin fibers snaked its way through the fabric, widening into oblong scales on his chest and the larger muscles of his shoulders. He looked as if he wore armor, if armor could be flexible and formfitting. His eyes were dark, and his mind churned
-
something occupied his attention. He moved with a purpose, striding straight down the hallway with a kind of fierce masculine determination. People moved out of his way.
"What is he wearing?" Claire murmured.
"A bionet suit. When psychers log into the net, their bodies don't move at all. A human body isn't designed to be completely immobile unless it floats," Renata said. "The suits start pulsing after a while, exercising the muscles and making sure lymph keeps moving."