"It's you again," said Salmidon.

"Yes," said Welton, "it is."

"I'm not done with the AR unit yet," he said. He stood, legs extended spider-like, just in the entrance to his inner cave, blocking Welton from seeing much of what lay inside. Not that he didn't already know what it looked like.

"I'm not here for that," said Welton. "I'm here for my companion."

"She hasn't been back here yet either."

Welton hesitated. "But... she... she will be back, won't she? I got separated from her. So now I'm going to wait here for her." Something nagged at him about this statement, but he wasn't sure what.

"No," said Salmidon. "You aren't. You're going to wait outside for her."

"But-"

"I can't have distractions," said Salmidon. "Especially not from filthy beasts like yourself. Imagine, trying to get any work done over the constant oinking! Now, get. Shoo."

"I don't constantly oink," protested Welton.

"Shoo!"

He shoo'd, albeit reluctantly. He could wait for Rakkel at the shark curtain.

Welton had first met Salmidon a couple of days earlier, at one of the smoke dens. Salmidon had boasted at great length about his skills as an electronics engineer to anyone who'd listen. Welton, not really believing the man, had played along for the sake of making friends, and because at that precise point in time, his head felt as though it were stuffed with mint-lavender meringue. It's hard to be disagreeable when you have a head full of mint-lavender meringue. But then Salmidon had shown off his mechanical legs. And then they'd gotten to talking, and Welton said some things about holo-scribing, and Salmidon had gushed about a fancy AR project he'd been working on, which sounded terribly impressive at the time, though most of the details had gotten stuck in the meringue before they made it to Welton's actual brain. He remembered being terribly impressed, though. And then Salmidon had invited him back to his workshop. Well, not Welton, specifically. He'd invited a whole section of the bar. Most of the bar hadn't taken him up on it. Welton wasn't actually sure if Salmidon realized that Welton - and only Welton - had been following him as he stumbled down the streets of Forash back to the marketplace and the artificial cave.

There hadn't been any complaints about oinking then. Or at least, not very many. Welton expected a bare minimum of abuse from any stock human, and tended to ignore it. Especially when he had meringue figuratively dribbling out his ears.

When at last, in the wee hours of the morning, Welton had stumbled back out of Salmidon's cave, he'd been convinced the two were fast friends. Certainly, whatever gadgets Salmidon had shown him, or whatever subtleties of electronic design, or whatever had happened while they'd been together, had convinced him of Salmidon's genius.

Even if now that he thought about it, he really couldn't remember what any of them actually were.

And even if, come to think of it, he'd left because Salmidon had started shouting at him to leave. At great length and with remarkable volume.

He loitered just outside the shark curtain, anxiously scanning the crowds for Rakkel's fuzzy, pointed ears. He was increasingly certain that he owed her an apology. He was increasingly uncertain that he'd ever see her again. Without an AR device, she couldn't see the guide arrows that would lead her back through the marketplace to Salmidon's workshop, so for all he knew, she'd gotten hopelessly lost. For all he knew, she'd been mugged and left for dead in some dark corner of the tubes. He wondered if he should go looking for her.

The best thing to do, he decided, would be to wait. Give her a chance. She seemed capable enough. Sooner or later, she'd turn up, and he could apologize and pay for the AR device repairs - the least he could do - and maybe they'd wind up being friends after all. Maybe there was still hope for that.

Hours passed, and he saw no sign of her. He felt hungry. Maybe she'd given up on the AR device. Maybe he should look for her after all.

Maybe, at the very least, he could get some food.

But he'd be a total idiot if he went away and she came back while he was eating, wouldn't he? He should at least try to get Salmidon to cooperate.

He went back into Salmidon's cave. "Hey," he called out as he stepped through the fiber optic cables, "I promise, no oinking. I just want to say, I'm going off to get some food. If she comes by while I'm gone-"

"She's already been and left, dude," said Salmidon. "She took the AR device, paid in full, and left."

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"What?"

"Yeah. Thought you were standing right outside. I guess pigs are blind as well as fat, huh?"

"Hey, look, don't-"

"Listen," said Salmidon, "I told her you were looking for her. Not sure what else I can do, here."

"She took the AR device?"

"Yeah."

"And paid in full?"

"Yeah. I guess she found some money since this morning."

"And she left again?"

"She isn't here, is she?" He waved an arm around at the cave, which was full of spare electronics parts, shelves, boxes, and in one corner, a beat up old fridge that had some kind of extra bit welded onto the side, the purpose of which Welton could only guess at. But no lemurs.

"I was standing right in front of the curtain," said Welton. "Right in front of it. There's no way she could have gotten past me without me seeing."

"You didn't go anywhere this whole time?"

He hesitated. "Not really," he said. He had paced around a bit, gone to look at some of the nearby stalls, that sort of thing. But he'd never gone far enough to lose sight of the curtain.

"How long ago?" he asked.

"'Bout half an hour, give or take." Salmidon smirked. "Either you're blind, or she snuck past you deliberately. You know, I kind of like her. Menial beast though she is. She paid me extra, too."

"You mean you overcharged her," said Welton. Had she really snuck past him deliberately? What had he been doing half an hour ago?

"No. She volunteered it."

"What? Why would she do that?"

"She didn't really say. And I didn't really press her on it. That wouldn't be good business. What if I made her change her mind?"

Welton brought his attention back around to something else. There was something Salmidon had said that he couldn't ignore.

"I'm not fat," he said.

"Huh?"

"I'm not fat. Nor am I portly, husky, pudgy, stout, chubby, or overweight." He patted his trim tum. "In fact, I'd say you've got more of a 'front porch' than I have. Don't get much exercise when you walk around on mechanical limbs all the time, do you?"

Salmidon looked confused. "You're a pig," he said. "Pigs are fat."

"No. Humans fatten pigs. On farms. To use as food. Or they did, before vat meat was invented. The pigs aren't naturally fat - the humans make them that way."

"Uh," said Salmidon, "Sure. Okay. If you insist. Fat, thin, it's all the same to me. You're still a beast."

"Beast I may be, but fat I am not. Please do remember it," said Welton. He stomped out.

Rakkel'd gone right to Salmidon's cave after leaving Mme. Flore - why not? It was right there - and picked up the AR device. The first thing xe'd done with it was tip Salmidon the rest of the 5000 credits, after he showed xir how it worked. Xe still wasn't sure why xe'd done that. It was a sudden impulse that had surprised xir as much as it surprised Salmidon. But it'd made xir feel better for some reason. Like a weight had been lifted. Salmidon, for his part, had been surprisingly gracious about it, and had only insulted xir three or four times; beneath the raw, unbridled anti-body-mod bigotry and the self-absorbed egotism, perhaps there was hope that he was a decent person.

He'd told xir Welton was looking for xir. That had surprised xir, actually. Xe'd figured it was just possible, at some point in the future, xe'd bump into Welton again, maybe while walking down the street or something, and it'd be unbearably awkward. Xe'd made up xir mind to avoid him. Xe'd assumed he felt similarly.

If he was really looking for xir...

Xe hoped he didn't think xe was a girl or something. That was the problem with having such a slender body shape - people tended to associate it with femininity. And xir voice, though not feminine as such, certainly wasn't deep enough to sound masculine, either.

It wouldn't be the first time that someone had gotten a really, really awkward crush on xir. Rakkel's usual strategy for dealing like this was to blush furiously under xir fur and avoid the person in question until they either got the hint or just felt so bad about not even being able to get Rakkel's attention that they gave up in a fit of depression. Xe hoped someday xe might discover a better strategy for the situation. But since talking it through with them like an adult was clearly out of the question - xe could imagine doing something like that, as an outlandish fantasy, but didn't believe such impossibilities could exist in the mundane reality in which xe lived - xe figured xe could only stick with what xe knew.

Of course there was always the possibility that Welton wasn't straight, in which case the risk was that he'd mistaken xir for a guy. That'd be more or less exactly as awkward.

But xe didn't really want to think about that right now anyway. There was something else pulling at xir attention: Rakkel simply had to know what the "cages" were.

So, having re-acquired the AR device, and having shoved it more-or-less safely into the messenger bag, xe set off not for the entrance to the tunnel and the marketplace outside, but back up the tunnel towards the entrance to Mme. Flore's building.

There were plenty of side-tunnels down the hall. Most of them were made of the same cheap, corrugated metal as the main market tunnels, just much smaller and without the neon colors painted on them. Some had homemade signs on them made of cardboard or plywood advertising various services, none of which caught Rakkel's attention as much as the door.

Xe'd passed it earlier. It'd grabbed xir attention then, but only on a subconscious level. Too much of xir consciouness had its hands busy trying to figure out why it was following a shark-shaped person into the local equivalent of a dark alleyway. Now that that business had been settled, xe could slow down and sort out the other thoughts that had queued for processing during that time.

There were two things about it that stood out: The first of these was the style. Not that the Forash markets had anything resembling a consistent architectural style, but whatever the style was that they hadn't got, this wasn't it. The door put Rakkel in mind of old barns, wide porches, and tornado cellars. Flat, unbroken landscapes with distant horizons. Stuff like that. It looked weatherworn. It had, for crying out loud, splinters. It simply didn't resemble a Forash door.

The second thing was the way the paint seemed to glow. No - xe walked up and put a paw up next to it. Light shone onto the white strands of fur around xir palm. It really did glow.

Xe moved the paw to the doorknob, which was brass and had a slight dent in the side. Xe turned it. Xe opened the door just a crack.

Music came out. Jazz music.

Xe opened it wider. Smoke poured out. Rich, thick, herbal smoke, of a scent Rakkel had never smelled before.

Xe stepped through.