Under Dark Sky Law
ceases to
amaze me when you dress up like this. You look so harmless,” he
said.
    She brushed a strand of the tightly affixed
wig away from her face. A thick smearing of foundation covered up
the remains of her black eye, and with some careful shading you
could barely notice any of the lingering swelling. She smiled with
sickly pink lips. “I kind of like it. People never even see it
coming when I’m dressed like this,” she said. At least people in
the domes. Out in the flats and pits, people knew better than to
trust someone in fancy clothes. They’d probably see her poison
lipstick from a mile away.
    She looked him up and down. “You actually
don’t look so bad yourself. You’d be the kind of boy that I would
have had a crush on in high school—the kind you’d see on the
fashion magazines and on the walls of clothing stores in the mall,”
she said. None of them had tattoos or piercings because it would
impair their ability to wear various disguises when necessary, so
any style choices had to be limited to hair and clothing.
    Since he was playing the hired muscle and
would do little of the talking, he could get away with being more
casual. He had on a pair of good fitting jeans and a tight white
t-shirt. His unruly hazard cone orange hair was covered with a
pretty-boy brown wig. He scratched at the industrial strength glue
that was holding it to his head. “Fuck, I hate wearing these wigs.
This gutter glue itches like hell,” he said.
    “That thing is on there so tightly that even
a decon shower won’t get it off. Don’t knock the gutter glue,” she
said and leaned over to see behind him. “Your ass looks nice in
those jeans.”
    He put his hands up. “Don’t even think of
trying to kiss me,” he said.
    She made an exaggerated pout. “You’re no
fun,” she said. “No time for that business anyway.”
    Walking around the blood stain, she reached a
long arm over to snag a small black clock off the dresser and
thrust it in his face. “Look at the time. Get Calavera on the horn
right now and figure out what is up,” she said.
    Argon silently slunk off to grab a
transmitter and get outside where the reception was better. The
broken domes of the flats made for a natural radio barrier that
made communications difficult. With a little luck and ingenuity you
could get things to work, but trying to use something straight off
the shelf was a losing bet.
    He reappeared a few moments later. “I got
ahold of the nearest enforcer crew again, and apparently they’re
having some trouble at the border. I guess there are some local
skirmishes going on at that compromised south entrance we passed on
the way in last night. I wonder if that has anything to do with
this mess,” he said.
    She squinted her eyes. “I don’t like the
sound of any of this—highly suspicious,” she said and exhaled
loudly. “Look, I don’t like thinking about this, but I think we
might have to split up temporarily. Which means you would need to
be the one to stay behind because you don’t have the clearance to
trigger the supply order on your own. Once I’m through dome
security the papers should be in order for you to follow behind me.
It will take most of the day getting the cargo and paperwork in
order anyway, so you should have most of the day to get to the
bottom of this. Do you think you can handle this on your own? I
really need someone to stay here and get to the bottom of this.
I’ll have a transmitter on me if anything goes down. If shit gets
really hairy, call our emergency back up and get the fuck out of
here.”
    He nodded slowly. “You’ve still got some
connections to the local gangs?” he said.
    “Yeah, they’re not terribly reliable, but in
an emergency they owe enough to us that they should come through.
I’ve had to put them in their place often enough in the past that
they’ll be really reluctant to let me down again,” she said.
    “It’s really creepy to hear you say that with
that wig on,” he said.
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