Dirty Work: Volume 1

Red Rose - 6

As the train slowed to a stop I got up to take my exit. Two others from the far end of the carriage also took to standing by the door in preparation for getting off. Eyes looked up from around the carriage, several in my direction as was to be expected. I felt them on me more than observed their gazes, but there was no way to tell which, if any, were malicious. Gazes, strangely enough, don't have the ability to portray emotion when you aren't looking at them. The gun began to feel heavier in my pocket.

I got off and headed straight for the exit. I forced myself to slow down, to act normal. Normal, but confident. People never questioned you if you seemed to know what you were doing. You put on a nurse's outfit and go walking through a hospital with a massive knife in your pocket and as long as you say 'just going to check on Room 356, won't be long' with a clear and stable voice, you can pass through undetected. It's astonishing really, how much people really don't want to get involved with anyone else, or take up any of their time. We care so little it's astonishing.

Not that anyone would question me anyway, of course, but it's always nice to know that you're doing something extra on the matter. That box was still heavy in my coat pocket and the vagueness in the boss's warning made it seem all the heavier. I never liked vague warnings. Still don't. They're annoying and incredibly unnecessary, especially when vague warnings are sent when the sender obviously has all the information. Hate them.

The original plan had been to get a taxi from the Main Station to Ochre Vaults, which would have taken me twenty minutes or so judging by Chorus' description, but the game had changed now. I stepped out into the street and began walking down, trying to decide how best to approach it.

I decided on a course of action that I wasn't especially fond of. I hate public transport at the best of times, and the incredibly cheap and dangerous ones even less. Can't we all just have a Zoomus for free and be done with it? We pay enough for the fuel as it is, and we don't have to sit next to anyone with bad breath and only five teeth left with half an arm hanging off. Free Zoomus for all, just saying.

I walked over to a stand and dug my hand into my pocket for change. I flung it at the tender and picked up a map of the Area.

'Glad to be of service,' he mumbled from behind a stack of Magna-Boards. I half thought about buying a Board and going the whole way at a leisurely pace, avoiding anything major and just slowly keeping to the shadows. But I hate those things as well. Can never keep my balance.

I leaned against a wall and opened up the map. I quickly found where I was and looked around the general vicinity. And lo and behold, ten streets down, I found what I was looking for. I shoved the map in my coat pocket and set off again.

The crowd was dense, but not dense enough that I couldn't make out faces. They were mostly looking down, heading home from the shifts or just ambling from place to place. Morning was coming slowly, and soon the whole crowd would turn around and the morning people would wander out onto the streets.

I glanced behind me as casually as possible. The man from the train with the rose jacket wasn't far away from me. He looked down at his Halo-Core and tapped away.

It wasn't that I thought he was following me, more that I didn't know if he was. I couldn't take any chances. And besides, he looked like he could cleave a man's face in with a one inch punch, and that mental image wasn't particularly appealing.

I ducked into a side alley, smaller but still with one or two people wandering down it. It had a very slight incline, which is something always unusual in the business areas of the Regions. Celestria likes flat for people and up-and-down bits for the borders of suburbia. It makes it somewhat more romantic and apparently more appealing. I've never understood those original designers.

I took my own Halo-Core out and held it up, using it as a mirror to smooth over my hair. In the reflection I saw Mr Rose turn into my alley. After me after all then.

I picked up the pace, power-walking now. I put the Halo-Core away and put it into the pocket with my gun. My hand rested on it.

I turned a corner and came face-to-face with Baby-Lady from the train. It was like a full family reunion. I tried to usher past her, but she called to me.

'Duck.'

Instinct has told me to just follow what people say, especially when they sound as commanding as she did. She took her right hand and, I kid you not, plunged it right down her baby's throat. She pulled out a gun and aimed it at me. I ducked. Mr Rose behind me got it full in the face.

'Let's shift,' she said.