As the echoes of the earlier disturbance faded, the bar returned to its accustomed late afternoon lull. Suddenly, a chocolate-flavored, caffeine-infused, high-protein slushy wobbled onto Adi's table. The imitation dark chocolate, imitation vanilla, and artificial cherry-flavored drink is not one that Adi would have chosen, but she will not refuse it. Moments later, a loaded disposable plate slides from the service chute.
On the plate, there are several generous slices of wood-smoked, spicy ostrich summer sausage. Next to the sausage slices are two long, plastic-wrapped packages of large, round Martian red wheat crackers. Next to the crackers are three types of white cheese: one is mild and creamy, another is mild and hard, and the third is sharp, infused with red dragon pepper, cayenne, and serrano peppers, as well as basil, cilantro, parsley, marjoram, and thyme. There are two separate packages of thickly sliced cheese, one containing a block of scotch bonnet pepper jack. The other packaged cheese features rosemary, habañero chilies, garlic, and spicy jalapeños studded throughout the cheese. In addition to the meat and crackers, there are three disposable condiment dispensers. One dispenser contains very hot, Asian-style spicy yellow mustard, accompanied by severe warning labels. Another holds chunky, ground, prepared horseradish, and the last dispenser has chunky, stone-ground yellow sweet and spicy mustard. Lying underneath the cheese is a small disposable dispenser of spicy honey substitute.
The unexpected but highly appreciated food gift arrived with a note from Niles via the bar's security network, thanking her for sparing the foolish sanitation worker's life. While she has killed no one in Nile's bar yet, she has injured and forcibly removed unruly patrons in the past. Adi doubts the Blues care about an injured or even a dead sanitation worker.
At best, the Sanitation Workers' Union might demand Adi pay an exorbitant weregild based on the deceased workers' supposed and sudden lofty union status. She tries to avoid debt collectors from the SWU, called "trash ghouls" on the street, as much as possible. Everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knows to avoid letting the trash ghouls get their hooks into them, as they never come out. SWU debt collectors are among the most ruthless slime in the business.
While working on other merc jobs, Adi has occasionally encountered SWU debt collectors. Adi's unpleasant experiences with SWU debt collectors made her vow never to take a debt collection job. She was stunned by their uncompromising ignorance.
After finishing her meal and drink, cleaning her hands, and thanking Niles through the secnet, Adi returned to her solitaire game, her fingers moving the cards calmly. The comforting rhythm of the game provided a brief escape from her daily worries. Most of the infrequent patrons had thinned. The remaining regulars appeared content in their solitary pursuits.
As the hours slipped by, the dim light in the room enveloped the bar in a warm, golden hue, casting long shadows that danced across the walls. The soft murmur of conversation faded into a comforting background hum as patrons settled into their familiar routines, each lost in their own thoughts. A bluish haze, thick with the scents of various drugs and tobacco and spilled cheap booze, hung in the air. The tinkle of crystal glasses mingled with the low murmur of conversation, a soft, indistinct hum.
A new presence entered the bar, the secnet again claiming Adi’s attention. Two thoroughly bored-looking whores walk in, their stunning beauty and clothing a stark contrast to the bar’s gritty surroundings. Adi searches her memory for anything related to the two women who were looking at the bar's patrons with disdain plain on their faces.
The rise of immersive virtual reality caused a decrease in physical prostitution in affluent areas, and in some places, that ancient profession has wholly disappeared. In poorer areas, prostitution is as prevalent as it always has been, despite the frequent attempts by well-meaning or religious zealotry-fueled fevered leaders to abolish it.
I have nothing against sex work, Adi thought, but it is not something that I believe I could do or would be good at.
Both scantily dressed women wear minimal clothing designed to show off the merchandise more than in deference to the late-afternoon Chendiurian heat outside. Both women wear nearly transparent "skirts" that barely cover their asses. Adi doubts the prostitutes' skirts are even 20 cm wide. Their midriff-baring stretchy and sparkly tops barely contain their large breasts and clearly advertise that neither woman wears a bra. The two women confidently survey the room, their gazes sweeping over the bar's patrons. Their presence was out of place, a pair of rare blooms in a desolate wasteland.
Adi could never wear “come fuck me shoes” with such high stiletto heels. I wonder how Nyomi would look like wearing such shoes. Perhaps naked. She tucks that thought away. Thinking of Nyomi naked but for a pair of 'come fuck me shoes' tightens things lower in her body. Maybe I will mention it this evening when Nyomi comes home from work.
According to Nyomi, Adi might dress outwardly as a man, but underneath, she always wears suitable yet sensible panties. Adi hates thong 'butt floss' underwear and never wears a bra, as it is unnecessary; her muscle mass and augmentations resulted in her being flat-chested. Nyomi has a lush, curvy, café au lait body that looks good in dark, jewel-tonedhigh-end thong panties and matching bra. With some effort, Adi wrenches her mind out of the gutter. Lieutenant Kalb often said that the human brain works all of the time—only stops when you're in love.
Adi's advanced military-grade neural network HUD, an extension of her Marine bionic augments, activated as a hologram visible only to her, displaying the profiles of the women. In a matter of seconds, she had pulled up their service menus, a smirk tugging at her lips as she perused the audaciously priced options. The price of a BJ was more than most people in this part of town made in several months. The discrepancies were glaring—this part of town was no place for their upscale services.
Adi scanned the two women, their augmentations unremarkable—slightly better-than-essential communication, commerce, and bio-wetware. Standard issue, she mused, a cynical curl to her lip. But how much of them is original? Many high-end prostitutes, she knew, earned a full-body sculpt, paid for by the company or organization they served. Then, the company bound the prostitute to an indentured service contract, a digital leash that yanked until the debt was paid.
Every Chendiurian citizen receives his or her basic communication package, which includes a prenatal viral-based augmentation as part of the Chendiurian Basic Living Standards program. Under the Chendiurian BLS, modeled after the similar Mars program, no citizen faces hunger or homelessness. Many parents enhance the basic BLS communication package right after birth. This upgraded package becomes a permanent fixture integrated into their bodies, eliminating ancient concerns about phone battery life, theft, or loss.
Regardless of their birthplace, every individual has a unique communication node address encoded in their DNA, assigned during the 35th week of pregnancy. Both women possess private communication nodes, safeguarded by slightly illegal wetware applications cloaking their personal communication nodes. Although using an illicit comm node shrouding app might attract the attention of the Galactic Net Regulatory Committee inspectors, the inspectors seldom venture beyond Mars, making the risk minimal, at best. Adi doubts a GNRC inspector has ever been close to Chendiuria.
The women's business communication nodes are wide open, and Adi accesses them quickly using an equally shady comm node-shrouding app. Adi’s glance reveals that both consider themselves straight but will go gay for pay.
Adi shakes her head. Only at the ass end of nowhere do people still label themselves as per their perceived sexual orientation.
Adi's worldliness comes from her eight years of active duty in the Corps. Her first assignments, before she volunteered for the Myrmidon regiment, each for two standard years, were on gigantic Helium-3 harvesting and refueling space stations in the Sol system. The first was at Jupiter on Tlerraria Fuel Terminal, the oldest and still the largest H3 mining and refueling station in the Sol system. Her next posting was at Uranus, on Helios Fueling Station, one of the largest and newest H3 mining and refueling stations. While on those stations, Adi encountered a wide variety of people from all walks of life.
Adi almost laughs at the absurdity of some things either will do for credits. The quite graphic pictures on the menus do not help, and Adi covers her mirth with the cards. There are even short, one-to-three-minute video clips of the prostitutes performing some of the sexual acts offered on their menus.
The bar’s secnet revealed that both women carried small, concealed four-millimeter spring guns loaded with darts containing a fast-acting paralytic. The little spring guns have an effective range of approximately three meters. Adi doubts the four-millimeter darts would penetrate her subdermal armor, and her nanites would destroy the poison before it entered her bloodstream.
Adi notes that both women have shielded gray market bioware. Although the bioware is well shielded, Adi bypasses the masking apps with her 'net. Upon her discharge, the Corps kept the operability of only a few of her intraocular lenses in her bionic eyes, with the telescopic IOL being one she frequently uses the most to spot hidden details. Adi's enhanced vision makes her an unparalleled observer. She can spot hidden details, track targets over great distances, and operate effectively in low-light or obscured environments.
Switching rapidly between IOLs always gives her a slight headache. Being cautious, Adi flips through her infrared vision IOL. Adi doesn't bother with either her night vision or macro-vision IOLs. Adi's enhanced vision enables her to function effectively in low-light or obscured environments, making her a formidable combatant. Because of her vision combined with her 'net, she possesses precision targeting skills and heightened situational awareness. Her ability to switch between different IOLs gives her an unparalleled advantage in various combat scenarios.
While she doesn’t expect fighting either woman, having more knowledge about potential opponents gives her an advantage. Captain Ekmekçi always said that there was no secret that time does not eventually reveal. Neither woman is an obvious threat, but the presence of gray market offensive weapons could mean that Adi is missing something. The women could have undergone unknown wetware upgrades and less obvious bioware enhancements.
The good quality Nifterik-Nakajima-made bioware usually passes unnoticed by most secnets, but alerted by her 'net, Adi's enhanced IOL telescopic eyesight spots the telltale markers on their necks. A quick query reveals that each woman has two sublingual, one-shot oral aerosols identified as military-grade pepper spray and a fast-acting paralytic. Each prostitute also has the industry's standard vaginal cyber and bioware dentata installed, but cannot determine their specs. Because of Adi’s Marine enhancements, most civilian-grade poisons and sprays are ineffective against her. The women's pepper spray might give Adi a short-lived runny nose and teary eyes. Her nanites will purge the irritant from her system in seconds.
Adi’s quick web search confirmed her suspicions, drawing a low chuckle from deep in her chest. Neither woman worked for any local escort company. They catered to medium- to high-middle-class clientele—entirely out of place in a seedy dive bar tucked in the decaying industrial sector.
Adi also noted from their sales history that neither woman had ever been to this neighborhood. Prostitution on Chendiuria is legal, loosely regulated, and heavily taxed. It’s not a career Adi would ever choose, but there’s nothing wrong with it. She’s worked with several prostitutes—men and women—and knows the local escort agencies and some of their people. Usually, she’s escorting the prostitute for some wealthy patron.
On a notable job, a female prostitute served as the distraction, while Adi provided armed cover and acted as a lookout for a B&E team. She never found out what was stolen—never cared to. She got paid, and that mattered more than whatever was lifted from some rich asshole while he got his dick sucked. Adi always wondered why the guy didn’t find it suspicious when a prostitute showed up out of nowhere, eager to screw without even discussing payment first.
Adi verified that the women usually worked fair-to-good neighborhoods near the base of the New Delhi arcology. Oddly, they were over 60 kilometers outside their typical territory. Both were well-connected to the Blooddrop Vipers cartel—an organization Adi had previously tangled with, thanks to Rat. She leaned back, her enhanced gaze flicking between the two women now standing at the bar. Both were stunning, their sleek attire a stark contrast to the grimy patrons around them.
Niles shot a wary glance their way, his smoldering cigar twitching from one corner of his broad mouth to the other, like it was scanning for threats. The bar’s regulars—grease-stained, half-stoned and drunk mechs, burnouts, shift rats, twitchy mod-junkies, and wage-zombies still wearing their shop collars—had clocked the women too. Curiosity rippled through the room in hushed murmurs and sideways glances. The usual clatter of cheap drinks and broken conversation thinned to a low hum, tension hanging in the air like static before a hard rain.
Adi leaned back, eyes running a slow scan. The women didn’t belong here—not with those synth-silk dresses, not with that predator calm. Too clean, too smooth. Like chrome knives tucked into velvet. They were too polished, too poised, like vipers dressed up for a wedding. And nothing that slick ever wandered into a place like this by accident. Whatever they were here for, it wasn’t the watered-down booze or the company. And nobody walks in this part of town unless they’re hunting.
Those two? No muscle backing ’em—no drones, no meatshields—probably loafing in some dumbass monstrous armored limo outside, flashing more chrome, testosterone and muscles than sense. The meatshields were sitting targets for the gutter rats, junkie scum, and code-ghosts that haunted these parts. Adi didn’t even flex a finger; a ghost ping slipped through her neural net like a silent virus—zero trace, zero noise.
Heads up, fuckers. Don’t make me have to clean up your mess.
Her ocular implants ran rapid micro-scans—heat signatures shifting in the shadowed corners, faint bio-auras flickering like dying neon, micro-expression twitches in the barflies trying too hard to look casual. The stale mix of piss, burned oil, body odor, drugs and decayed synth-meat slapped her senses raw, while subdermal haptic mesh sensors picked up distant vibrations echoing through the floor.
Just the damn tram grinding by again, Adi noted, the sonic hum scraping her teeth like a hangover in stereo. She was damn glad she wasn’t jammed inside one of those coffin-coach cars—sweat, cloying perfume, burnout stims, and broken dreams all recycled through the same air scrubbers.
The women’s eyes flickered—confused, scrambled like corrupted code—scanning the piss-and-oil stink of the joint.
Perfect. Lost pups sniffing blood in the city’s veins. What’s the worst that could happen?
Their brows twitched, then turned to Niles. Quick back-and-forth. He shrugged, half-bored, and motioned to the stools. The women slid onto them smooth as synth-lube, flashing the bar crowd—no panties, and zero proof the drapes matched the carpet. A cheap stunt. Calculated.
Adi’s net flared to life. Audio filters isolated their voices—scattershot topics, artificial laughter, rhythm too fast to be natural. Her Threat Assessment program on her HUD tagged it as performance chatter.
Trying to tune out the whores’ screechy, half-coded verbal spillage was harder than it should’ve been. Their voices cut through the bar like rusted blades—loud, grating, and void of subtlety. The blonde bitched about a client with a thing for commercial-grade lav cleaners—something unsanitary, possibly illegal, and definitely painful.
Both ordered knockoff cold drinks—cheap synths laced with low-grade ethanol and a narcotic buzz just shy of regulation on some colonies. They chain-smoked fat, clove-heavy rolls of mixed tobacco and street weed, the air thick with chemical spice and burnt leaves.
When the redhead launched into her tale of woe—something about a rich pervert and a malfunctioning sex drone—Adi’s neural dampeners kicked in. She shut the channel, muted the noise, and went back to watching for real threats.
Heat signatures pulsed behind her retinas—warm at the core, cool at the limbs, adrenaline spiking. They were scared, no matter how glossy the packaging looked. Her olfactory enhancers pinged them: sex-hormone laced synth perfume clashing with the familiar faint traces of burnt ozone and nerve blockers. Military-grade, maybe cartel.
Micro-expressions flickered like broken neon: a too-fast blink, tension in the jawline, fingers twitching like they were still wired for a weapon. Her haptic mesh mapped vibrations through the floor—Niles shifting weight, someone in the back booth tapping out a steady rhythm against a table leg. Morse code? Nervous habit? Her net flagged it inconclusive, monitor.
And beneath it all, that low buzz of static again—digital noise bleeding in from somewhere nearby. Scramblers? Surveillance? Adi couldn’t tell yet. But the city’s gut was churning, and she could feel it in her bones.
Adi didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just let her net run dark and wide, eyes half-lidded behind her drink like a wolf pretending to nap. The women played their part at the bar, but the seams were showing. The way they perched on the stools—too upright, too aware. Civilians didn’t sit like that unless they were expecting incoming fire.
She let the booth’s synth-leather press against her back, absorbing the ambient tremors of the bar. Her 'net picked up the rhythmic hum of the ventilation system, a slight drag in the air pressure near the rear door—someone big, maybe armored, standing just outside. Her overlay ghosted a faint outline: male, heavy, heart rate steady. Waiting.
The static in her 'net pulsed again—closer now, sharper. Something was about to break.
As the afternoon sun cast elongated shadows across the worn floor, Adi continued her solitaire game. Adi kept the women at the bar in the back of her mind. Their presence, a puzzle amid the bar’s regular clientele, added an intriguing, unusual layer to the quiet rhythms of Niles’ Haven.
