Chương 53: Chapter Forty-Six - A Certain Type of Person

There were certain types of people that spent time in bars on dingy old space stations, and these could broadly be divided into three categories. The first were locals. People who genuinely went to these dives to spend a few hours with friends, inject some alcohol into their system, maybe watch their favourite sports and argue over shit that didn't matter. For these, the bar was a home away from home.

Some were there to forget, because the dim lights, the unfiltered air and the easy access to inebriants made that so much easier. The second were there to prey on the first. They were people looking to meet others, to make connections in a place where others were willing and ready to accept them. It wasn't all nefarious. Some people just needed attention, and they found it there. Some were, because they needed more than just attention.

And finally, there was the third sort, the kind of person that saw a shitty bar, with its thirty-year-old decor, crappy audio and rowdy patrons as an aesthetic. They revelled not in the people but in the location. Missy was that last kind of person, Ivil realized. She walked into the bar, a place called the Top Floor, and instantly relaxed while striding over to the darkest, dingiest corner of the place, a booth that Ivil glared at before sitting down.

The plastic-covered cushions looked like they would stick and she refused to sit on it before sweeping the surface clean with a small effort of will.

"Nice place," Ivil said as she looked around. There was some classic pop in the air, one speaker was hissing faintly, ruining the already poor acoustics, and of course, it stank of vomit, sweat, alcohol and bar-b-que sauce.

"It is what it is," Missy said as she tapped a screen inlaid into the centre of the table.

"Oh, it's gonna be nice to eat with gravity again."

"I can't imagine that being a common occurrence for you," Ivil said.

"You were raised on Haumea, right?"

"Born and raised, yeah," Missy said.

"We do have some gravity. Barely. Mostly it's centrifugal ring gravity in most of our stations. It's kind of a bitch, being raised away from a planet, you know?" Ivil nodded. She was aware, though that hadn't been the case for herself. She was Martian from birth and didn't leave the planet until she was a teenager.

"Growth hormones, I imagine?"

"Urgh, yeah," Missy said. She tugged at the collar of her coat and jumpsuit, exposing the side of her neck. There were several small scars there.

"We don't get the good shit way out there. Stuff's twenty years behind, even for the kids. Strange to think that in a lot of ways people born in the shittier parts of the system are still better off than we are, but that's the price the Lunatics pay for being so isolated."

"I've noticed that you sometimes talk about it as if you're part of the group, but then sometimes you don't," Ivil pointed out.

"Hmm," Missy said. She gestured to the menu and she glanced over her options for drinks and the like. Ivil leaned forwards a little and scrolled through. Missy herself had ordered a Driftwood martini, which was really just a sour apple martini with a splash of bourbon and a sugar cube. She... didn't think that would taste good, so she scrolled until she found the simpler, better drinks. No Titanian Bourbon, but they did have a 'Scotch' that came from one of the moons of Jupiter named 'Scotch.'

"Food?" Ivil asked.

"Yeah, some finger food couldn't hurt if you want it. You're paying after all." Ivil smiled slightly. She didn't mind. Actually, she was more or less aware of Missy's financial situation at the moment, and the prices for things on this menu were bordering on the criminal. She picked out a few things that would be hard to mess up, even for a place like this.

"I... am Haumean," Missy said with some confidence.

"I don't know if I'm a Lunatic anymore. Can we leave it at that?"

"We can, I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes there," Ivil said.

"If you want, we can talk about something other than our sordid pasts?"

"Hah! Alright, do you follow Goalball? Haumea got its ass kicked by Mars last circuit, but we kicked Earth in the balls." Ivil grinned.

"I don't follow Zero-G soccer much," she admitted. She did root for Mars, of course, but only tangentially. She wasn't one to sit down and purposefully follow the sport.

"I do enjoy following MMA, though."

"Mixed Martial Arts? Really?" Missy asked.

"I kinda threw sports out there as a topic expecting it to get shot down. You don't seem the type. Especially not MMA." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Why not? I enjoy fighting well enough, and they do allow some degree of core-battling," Ivil said.

"I've seen you 'fight'," Missy said with little air quotes.

"You just stood there like a statue of... some sexy ancient death goddess or something. You never got in close." Ivil shrugged. This was a far more comfortable conversation than earlier, and she didn't mind being called a sexy death goddess at all, not that she found her ego wanting.

"Before I had as many cores as I have now, I did have to get in close. I appreciate the art in martial arts. There's something very beautiful about hearing the snap of someone's bones. And core-wielders often underestimate how dangerous CQC can be." Missy nodded.

"Yeah, that's fair. There..." she hesitated for a moment, then went on.

"There were lessons for any Warmime that basically relied on that. People that have a few cores tend to feel like they're immortal, like they're the most special thing in the world."

"It only gets worse the more cores someone has, trust me," Ivil said. Missy laughed, a raspy chuckle that Ivil loved to hear.

"Yeah, I guess so. But yeah, we had lessons on taking them out. The easiest way was almost always to just shoot them, and if that didn't work, then sometimes getting in close with a knife would. A lot of core-wielders are tough, but there's almost always something that'll kill 'em."

"It's their humanity," Ivil said.

"Being human means having more weaknesses than you can account for. As a species, we are terribly frail."

"Mhm," Missy agreed. She perked up as their drinks were delivered by an actual flesh-and-blood waiter, a young man that looked bored with a job that most places had replaced with a machine.

"Thanks," she said before grinning.

"Did you tip him?" Ivil glared across to Missy who only smiled wider. She sighed, then added a gratuity to the payment before sending it off.

"Happy?" she asked.

"A little," Missy said.

"That'll help him forget that we were ever here, which might be handy once my friend arrives."

"Your friend... who is this, anyway?" Ivil asked.

"Someone that can help us with our bounty and pirate problem," Missy said.

"They're technically a mercenary, but they're in tight with the bounty hunting guild around Jupiter. They get paid for taking out pirates."

"I see," Ivil said.

"So, I spent a few hours going over the telemetry and footage of our little fight. We have pretty concrete proof that we took out six ships. And they weren't little fighters and boarding craft either. That'll bring in a nice chunk of cash, and some rep. The rep's the problem."

"Because we don't want people to know that we're that dangerous?" Ivil asked.

"Because only one of us actually deserves that rep," Missy said.

"Pixie will take care of it for us. At least, I hope. She can be pretty cut-throat for someone so unassuming, she's gonna want a slice. So best behaviour, alright?"

"I'll do what I can," Ivil said without promising anything. She sensed someone coming into the bar, someone with a few cores. They'd crossed perhaps two others in the station so far, and she could sense some two dozen more sprinkled across Driftwood, but core-wielders only made up a tiny fraction of the population here. A young woman was standing rather awkwardly within the bar. She was wringing her hands together nervously, then when she noticed, her arms dropped and she adjusted her dress.

It was a pretty little sundress, very colourful, with flowers splashed all over it. It made her look younger than Ivil guessed she was, though her height wasn't affording her any favours there.

"Is that Pixie?" Ivil asked. Missy leaned forwards and out of the booth, neck craning to see.

"It is," she said.

"Pixie!" Missy stood and walked over, hands going to her hips as she sauntered over.

"Been a while." Pixie perked up, then smiled past a blush.

"Missy. Hi."

"Nice to see you again," Missy said.

"Hey, before we sit down, I should introduce you to someone. This is Evelyn Ville, she's... kind of part of the crew. Don't fuck with her, she's dangerous." Ivil stood and walked over, then she extended a hand towards Pixie. The woman was... tiny, barely reaching Ivil's upper chest. She followed Ivil's arm up with her eyes, then stared at her.

"Ah-ah, hi," Pixie squeaked.... This was the bounty hunter Missy was so impressed with? That didn't seem possible. How could a mercenary that was supposed to be talented be this cute?