Page 4 of Vex
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Luisa hated working with amateurs.
The message from her contact had been sparse on details, but crystal clear on one thing: she'd have a partner. A partner she'd never worked with, never vetted, never even heard of in the networks that kept track of who was competent and who got people killed.
If she'd known about the partner when the offer came through, she would have turned it down flat and walked away. It was what any self-respecting loner would do.
She scoffed. Yeah, right. Like rent wasn't due and her accounts weren't teetering between low and empty.
There's an easy way to fix that, a traitorous little voice whispered in her mind. It would take nothing to fix her money problems. One computer terminal, a few clicks of the keyboard, and voilà, an unending stream of credits.
Her fingers twitched. The old hunger stirred, that electric thrill of cracking open a system and watching numbers cascade across her screen.
Luisa refused to entertain the idea. The allegedly unending stream of credits tended to end at the end of some goon's bat or in a cell. There weren't laws on Aetis, not really, but separating rich people from their money led to bad things.
Very bad things.
She'd seen what happened to thieves who were unlucky enough to steal from the wrong mark. The memory of broken fingers flashed through her mind before she could stop it.
Luisa was reformed. She didn't need to steal to make a living, not when the Intergalactic Dating Agency was out there offering a ludicrous amount of credits to someone who could retrieve their stolen data.
And that she could do.
But she hated the undercity.
The neon-slicked streets stretched out before her like a fever dream painted in electric blues and poisonous greens. Holographic advertisements flickered against crumbling concrete walls, promising everything from synthetic highs to flesh that would love you for an hour. The air tasted of desperation, thick with the exhaust from hover-bikes and the sweet cloying smell of whatever they were cooking in the food stalls.
Bodies pressed past her in the narrow alleys, some putting on elaborate fronts of wealth they didn't possess, others so beaten down by the weight of survival that they moved like ghosts. A woman in a torn sequined dress leaned against a doorway, her smile bright and brittle as she called out to potential customers. Two blocks down, a man sat slumped against a wall, and he didn't look like he'd see tomorrow.
She reached the edge of The Veil, that slim slice of the undercity clinging to respectability or clawing its way out of the muck, depending on who you asked.
Here, the streets were wider and somewhat clean. Corporate security guards in crisp uniforms stood at strategic corners, their presence a reminder that someone with money cared enough to keep the chaos at bay.
The lights were softer, more tasteful, advertising legitimate businesses alongside the questionable ones. But the streets were nearly empty, as if the sanitized atmosphere had sucked the life out of the place along with the obvious crime.
The Veil was an illusion. Give her the grit of the undercity any day.
But Undertow didn't suck.
It was one of the seedier bars in the Veil, with digital gaming tables in the back that were always busy with patrons. The porn machines in the back room were even busier. A middle-aged man in an expensive coat emerged from that back room, his face flushed with shame but his stride carrying just a hint of swagger. He avoided eye contact with everyone as he hurried toward the exit.
The swill out of their taps was drinkable, and she'd never gotten food poisoning there. It was a good place for a first date.
She snorted.
But working with a partner was a bit like dating, and she had to feel out her amateur before they got to the show. Her contact at the IDA had been scant on the details. Dating profile data had been stolen. That data included information from high rollers across the galaxies that could be used for blackmail, or worse.
Luisa wondered what people were putting in their dating profiles that could get them blackmailed.
Then again, people were ashamed of the strangest things. She glanced back toward the porn room, where another patron was trying to look casual as he slipped inside.
The bar's interior was dimly lit, dark shadows and flickering holo-displays showing sports feeds from a dozen different worlds. Conversations buzzed at a low level, the kind of careful murmur that suggested everyone was keeping their own secrets.
Undertow was full of its usual mix of patrons, which made her contact stand out like a piece of gold in a trash dump.
He was … elegant.
Dark hair swept back from a face that belonged in a corporate boardroom or a government building, not a dive bar in the Veil. His suit was perfectly tailored, the kind of understated luxury that cost more than most people made in a year. Everything about him screamed money and breeding, from his straight posture to the way he held his hands.
