Rogue(114)

One of them asked Silver, “Where are you bound, ma’am?”

“A resort on Govannon. A gift from my uncle.”

“Nice,” he said, sounding impressed. He was discreetly ogling her cleavage as he interacted. Some fetish crowd appreciated being looked at, and her bandanna was apparently folded for that. She smiled and leaned slightly.

“How long is that?” he asked.

“Only a couple of weeks, then we move on.”

“I’ve heard it’s expensive.”

“Ten thousand a day, and that’s not one of the groulier places.” She handled the slang well.

He recoiled a bit.

“Trif. Have a good trip.” He handed our cards back.

“Thanks,” she said, and then, “Forward, boy.”

In the Freehold, someone might say, “Slave.” Not here. It wasn’t illegal per se, but it was certainly impolite. Not that this type of thing had a lot of market in the Freehold, at least not in public. There was no shock factor to be gained, and the public display was of little cultural value.

Then we were through, into the port proper, and only had a few thousand wandering goons to worry about—facility security, line security, port police, local police, regional police, UN police, drug inspectors, contraband inspectors, information inspectors. Ordinarily, I’d have one questionable item for them to seize as a precaution, with a pro-forma objection. This time, we were the questionable item and walked right past them all.

If we played this right, we could transit completely out of the system without ever talking to another person. We’d been inspected, detected, stamped and approved, and no one cared anymore. There were cameras here, too, but of much lower priority than at the gates. If someone reviewing data made us in the outfits, I wanted to be out of them and go to the other end of the spectrum: completely mundane.

We found a family friendly restroom, which should only have an emergency camera, and went in. Again, normal for the subculture. The sub went with the domme. Some even helped each other with toilet functions. I found that disturbing in the context of pleasure. For a casualty, sure. For fun? Yuck.

I was a bit concerned about someone seeing us come out, but if we took a few minutes, it shouldn’t be obvious. Silver changed into a business suit in black, pulled her hair back severely, oiled it down and put on dark lipstick and broad eye shadow past the eyebrows. I threw on slacks and a coat and iridescent shades of the newest type. I slapped the well-distressed travel stickers over the bag, we swapped, and out we went.

However, bad security didn’t mean no security.

We’d cleared train, station, a section cordon, and were approaching the controlled area for departures when some kind of message came down. Several extra personnel came out into the security lines, and started asking travelers for ID. Then I saw them make another offworlder pull out his chip and physically show it them, while they scanned it. They were on to us. We couldn’t use the ones we’d come in with, and if I handed them a phone with a fake, that was it.

“Divert,” I said softly, and Silver nodded.

We stopped and talked for a moment, about nothing. She pointed casually, I nodded, and we walked into a vid store. We perused, bought a vid that was in the popular rack, Best of Sik Pranks, and left. We walked back the way we’d come, took a turn, took a slide and headed for the exit. It was easy to get out toward the trains, and there was a substantial crowd. However, someone had seen us. There were cops coming into the area.

I had the doccase that was largely a prop, filled with meaningful looking docs and notes that would yield nothing. There was text, pictures of various buildings, and contact numbers at semirandom. It would keep them busy and distracted for a bit while we tried to formulate other plans.

At this point, I simply wanted them to misinterpret our intent. Walking would indicate a local destination, so we walked.

The cops were on to us. They had a good cordon set up and I could see them closing in. They weren’t as good at stealth as they thought they were. However, they were close enough to negate any public transport. We’d have to E&E on foot, and meet up at our agreed point.

I gave Silver a brief nod, which she interpreted as a command of preparation to bail. We reached a corner, I found a likely person, meaning the first one who made eye contact with me, and I shoved the case into his hands. He looked surprised, and Silver and I pivoted, took two steps in different directions, then sprinted.

I didn’t watch but could hear. A cluster of cops dogpiled the poor bastard, turning him into another innocent person abused by the system. It wasn’t going to hurt the system. It probably hurt him. I wondered how long it would take for him to be released.