Hiiro Volshebso

Normally, getting off Intatenrup would have been a nightmare of red tape, triplicated forms and security screenings. It was almost like the planetary bureaucracy went out of its way to make the process as drawn out and painful as possible to deter the average citizen from leaving. For someone like me, another faceless conscript who was just another number on a database in an office somewhere, it would have been impossible if I'd went through the official channels. Through the unofficial channels, skipping off world was as easy as packing a bag and asking a few well-aimed questions. If my eyes hadn't already been opened by a couple years on the renegade side of the law, that would have done it for me.

My ticket off Intatenrup was the Thread of Heaven, or by the more common name the lift. My stomach was fluttering while I waited, stuffed in the back of a cargo can in the dark. Supposedly, the lift was for materials only—things that wouldn't die under Gees—but my old fox assured me that unless I was already one foot in the grave, I'd make it to Heaven. Between my stitched shoulder, stapled calf and the metal plates keeping my finger bones in place, I was a far cry from mint condition. The old fox who'd smuggled me in said I wouldn't die… probably. I dug out a pack of smokes and lit up another coffin nail to soothe my nerves.

If I died, I might as well enjoy one last smoke.

I took a long drag, the smooth burn on the way down scratching the itch I'd been dancing with for years. If I died now, one last smoke wasn't going to hurt anything. If I lived, I'd have to quit again. I could afford to keep up my bad habit for once, so I might be able to just run out the clock instead of quitting. A long suicide, fit for a coward.

The cargo can moved around me, ash from my cigarette tumbling down into my painting supplies. My old boss had been able to arrange every aspect of my vacation, he almost seemed as relieved to see me gone as I was to get gone. There was a catch though, it was a working vacation. One last job to end things right after that whole mess with the boss's kids. That mess…What a mess that'd been. My eyes drifted down the the cherry tip of my smoke.

"In my light, you will burn eternally." I muttered, taking another pull. The ember flared into ruddy light as I sucked down that lungful of sweet poison, then faded into dull ash. "Not much of an eternity."

The cargo can moved again, clunking around me as it inched its way closer to the freight lift. The spongy, gel-lined casket I was sitting on trilled a little reminder that its lid was still open, as if I'd somehow failed to notice. The thing had the ripe, lingering scent of all the other outlaw emigrants the old fox had smuggled out ahead of me; it was an eye-watering measure of his competence that this single casket was still in use after so many runs. My cigarette was burning my fingers but my nerves still weren't settling despite the itch in my throat being well scratched. I was a damned fool for up and leaving like this. Who else in their right mind would drop everything to go fling themselves into the stars on a whim?

"Then again, I'm not exactly in my right mind, now are I?" I growled, spiking the embers of my smoke-butt across the can. A dozen sparks trailed from my stub embers, carving a handful of tiny shooting stars into my eyes. The lingering negatives accompanied me in the solitary, stygian darkness.

I had a good thing going with the local underworld. A good working relationship where everybody won and nobody who didn't deserve it got hurt. Throwing that away to chase after… whatever this heat and those words were, that didn't seem like a smart move no matter how I cut it. There was always the chance that there could be something better out there for me, but the odds that there were about a million things worse than a steady job of giving people what they deserved were a lot higher. None of that changed the fact that I was already in a cargo can about to get flung into high orbit. It was too late to back out of my vacation, but that didn't mean I had to say goodbye forever.

The casket trilled at me again, more urgently this time and I relented to its wishes. Then, I was being crushed under the weight of my own skin. I'd known that it was coming. That knowledge did nothing to prepare me as the air was driven from my lungs, as my compressing guts felt like bursting apart under the absurd forces at work. My left ass cheek was practically splitting between my hipbone and what must have been a metal strut buried under the absorption gel of my casket, the two solid objects doing their level best to push aside the intervening man-meat. My unmentionables were only slightly better off, the incredible weight of acceleration stretching the vulnerable flesh to its limits and quite possibly beyond if the wetness I was feeling down there was what I thought it was. I might have blacked out, without any light or change in noise there was no way to tell if I was fading in and out or not.

It was an unending hell, then gravity cut out entirely. I was floating between the gel cushions wrapping me, vertigo warring against my relief as I gulped down lungfuls of stale, vomit-scented air. I couldn't tell if the can had stopped and the temptation to unlatch the lid's bolt almost came in time for me to do it. Then gravity flipped and the hell of ascension got worse.

If I'd thought the gel's aroma was bad before, now with my face entirely buried in the stuff it was almost unbearable. Or it would have been if I was capable of drawing more than a tiny puff of breath through the air-permeable material at any given time. That I could breathe through the material at all was less of a miracle than my being able to draw breath with what felt like an entire armored vehicle on my spine. All of that crushing weight on my back seconds prior was nothing compared to what felt like twice that crushing me onto my face, ribs, knees, feet and groin. Assuming I still had anything between my legs when this was over, it would probably have been over three feet long, such was the force at work trying to separate me from little Hiiro.

As violently as it had started, the crushing forces ceased.

I choked down a breath and the acrid stench of some else's long-dried vomit, my hypoxic body finally signaling my brain just how much everything hurt. A solid wall of agony smashed into my panting form. Everything hurt, my finger had probably broke again and I was warm. As luck would have it, this was pretty much my default state this past week so I recovered quickly. A quick, trepidatious inspection of my person revealed that everything was still attached and based on the fact that my balls felt like they'd been used for day-long batting practice, they probably still worked. By the time my old fox's dockside counterparts were opening up the can, I'd already retrieved my scattered painting supplies and had plenty of time to chide myself for not stowing them properly.

Seeing everything I owned rolled up in a duffel bag had my stomach wobbling almost as much as my ears, but that might have just been from the ride. It wasn't much: my shot revolver and ammo, changes of inconspicuous clothes, a few paperbacks of Chon Wang's rough riding adventures, and the black book I'd felt tugging at my soul. I still hadn't worked up the nerve to try reading the damned thing, I don't know if I ever would.

When I tried to push myself up to my feet, I hopped a half meter into the air, my rubbery knees filled with more strength than I'd thought I had. A few more hops clued me into what my body had figured out already, the gravity was all cockeyed and light. Not anything ridiculous but enough that I felt twenty kilos lighter than I was back on Intatenrup. I was still bouncing on my toes when the dock workers final cleared me a way out.

I crawled out of the shipping can and took my first look at Heaven— and the two dock workers who'd dug me out. They were both women, or at least one of them was and the other had a girl's face on a lanky, stick-thin body almost a meter taller than me. Her proportions were repulsively fascinating, this stick-thin girl. She had a normal head with mid-length brown hair that looked short on her and soft features but the rest of her looked like she'd been stretched out and hadn't sprung back.

"Like what you see?" The stick-thin girl asked, striking a pose that might have been flattering except that it highlighted every aspect of her deathly skeletal form.

Both women were wearing the umber-colored skimpy offspring of coveralls and rompers, very low cut at the neck and fully slit at the sides save for the ankles and hips. If the thin girl didn't tower over me I'd have thought she was a malnourished child from her slim build and protruding ribcage. The other worker—a weathered petite woman with a black bob-cut, playful eyes cut like jade and an hourglass figure most women would kill for—stepped forward to cut the unnerving show short.

"You is painter?" The normal woman asked in the clipped, close-enough tone of a non-native language.

"Yes. Where's my contact?" I drawled, focusing on the human woman instead of her skeletal companion. "I'm supposed to meet someone-"

"At port-side bar soon as you arrive." The older woman finished. "This ain't first free-fall. Stow tough guy act, you pull close to 35 Terran Gees. Sit tight for hour so we make sure you no going to topple over dead when you take crap."

The list was shorter than I'd expected but longer than I'd hoped. Despite the plates, my finger was in for another round of medical bone cracking to ensure that everything was still aligned properly. My cuts had opened up some, but nothing a quick snip, staple and stitch wouldn't set to right. When they'd touched my skin, words like 'fevered,' 'pallid' and 'scorching' were bandied about; I let the misunderstanding slide rather than explain my unusual condition. The trouser wetness I'd felt on the way up was just my bladder—along with every other part of me—getting wrung like a sponge; heedless of either womans' objections, I refused to let them check for anything more serious around my nethers.

"You ladies are lovely, but I can take care of that myself."

"I bet you can." The bony giant smirked. My gaze flicked to her for a moment before I averted my eyes once more. Under her breath, but still plainly heard, she uttered. "Cunt tease."

"If you get lightheaded when you pop boner, it's because you're about to die from internal bleeding. We test that right now if you like?" The normal woman said provocatively, batting her jade eyes and making an obscene gesture with her mouth and hand that left no illusion as to what she meant.

"I'll do my best to avoid temptation."

"Whatever," young-in said with a spidery shrug of her thin arms. "There's a powder room in back. You can kill yourself thinking of us or freshen up in there and get out of our hair, cherry boy."

The two of them tittered something behind my back as I left— half walking, half bouncing with every juddering, lurching step. A quick bathroom checkup and a change of pants later, I was off to meet my contact. Finding the port-side bar turned out to be as simple as it sounded, what I thought were the lower levels were actually the upper ones and they only had one bar up here, Goodnight Moon. The name was tacky, so was the cosmos-themed decor. The view was anything but.

The stepped floors were more akin to a luxury cinema than a seedy bar; every booth and table was facing outwards towards the massive window of space beyond and Intatenrup above. The sight sent a dizzying burst of vertigo fluttering through my stomach; a disconnect between my eyes and ears made the room's gravity flicker in my mind. My ears won out, the lighter than normal pull on my body might not have been real gravity but it felt real enough. Rationalizing that said quasi-gravity was trying to throw me into the infinite expanse of space to die a horrible death however, felt disconcertingly unreal.

The room looked cold to my painter's eye: black, grey and blue filled the room as surely as the thin wisps of chill vapor pouring throughout the room. The accent colors of purple and green, meant to add to the space-faring cosmic theme were a muted undertone compared to the massive window showing the stars beyond. Plateaued to the entry's right, a bar sporting more color than the rest of the room combined; to the left, private booths buried in the walls and a mesa-styled dance floor; the room's center was all cinematic restaurant. The bar was bigger than the dock I'd arrived in, crisp bracing air spilled through the entryway like the bitter winds of Intatenrup's southern tundras. Once, I would have found the icy room unpleasant but since the arctic the cold couldn't touch me. At least, not until that house…

The bouncer who'd seen me in gave me a polite shove to get me clear of the doorway. A second, more insistent shove got me pointed towards a central booth seating five sharply dressed men finishing a meal worth more than the average wageslave made in a month back on Intatenrup. Two serving girls—dressed in subtly different skimpy coveralls than the dock worker—arrived to clean the plates, I shadowed in to take their place and await the attention of my next boss.

The head of the table sighted on me without acknowledging me— sizing me up as one might a street dog of questionable motive. The rest of the table deliberately failed to notice me, which didn't stop their hands from dipping under the table or into their jackets. The table was quiet enough for me to hear the muffled click of more than one pistol's hammer being cocked. As a conscript, I would have hated this kind of scrutiny. The slightest infraction—real or imagined—was grounds for corporal punishment. Since making the switch to the shadows, I'd learned of a new meaning behind the action. It was a show of power, not the childish tantrums of ineffective superiors who needed to bully their juniors into place, but the very real show a strength and a willingness to use it. My life was in the hands of this stranger, a single word could end me. If I fell short of his assessment then he would never notice me as a man and at some unseen sight to his bodyguards I would be dealt with— whatever that entailed.

I stood my ground, watching as he examined my character from the subtlest tells. The way I stood a respectful distance from the table. The slightest bend to my knees for stability and mobility. The tidied, off-the-rack cloths of hired muscle, smart but not so smart as to undercut any charges in my care. My remarkably unremarkable face, unimpressive yet functional trim hair style and clean-shaven cheeks were all absorbed impassively. His eyes lingered on my shoulder, then lower down to my mangled, purple finger. Having seen enough to reach a decision, the table's head finally acknowledged me with a tilt of the head. All eyes turned on me at once, just begging me to make a mistake. I bowed low, squaring my flattened back to the table's lip, ensuring all present would see my bared neck.

"You must be the painter." The table's head said. He spoke with a gruff, commanding voice; the tone that of a man destined and expected to lead from birth. His words were so neutrally inflected so as to border on maliciously calculated, not that I thought for a moment every utterance from this man wouldn't be planned, rehearsed and choreographed to exacting standards. "You come highly recommended by our friends up above."

"Thank you, boss." I said tersely, raising my head slowly and keeping my eyes on the table.

"Mister Satou will suffice for our dealings." Mister Satou jutted a chin to the outermost of his guards. The man bowed lightly, then left. "I was just about to order dessert, you should join me."

"Thank you for the generous offer, Mister Satou."

I slide into the booth, Satou's bodyguards staring me down with unmasked hostility while the man himself held an air of professional amiability. The guards could glare all they liked, without a signal from their boss they wouldn't act out of turn in front of an outsider like me. After a full minute of death glares without a single spoken word, the serving girl returned. There was a tantalizing flash of bright color poking beyond her umber jumpsuit, her swaying hips teasing the eye with every step.

"The usual for me and my associates. My new friend may order as he likes."

There was something in the way he said it, the slightest inflection of interest to his words. I was being judged on something as mundane as the dessert I chose. It was a childish test, a blind guess at what I thought Mister Satou would eat. I had nothing to go off, I hadn't seen any other diners on my way in, not a single menu either. Except that wasn't true, I did have something to go off. The room. Whatever the usual was, it would be something cold.

"Vanilla sundae, please."

The two 'associates' across the table from me shared a look, as if I'd failed the test. The waitress flashed a sheepish smile to me, then a nervous look to the table's head before bowing and scampering off. With as much discretion as I could manage I watched her go. I couldn't keep my eyes from the waitress's side slit as she turned, the flash of color I'd seen earlier taunted my imagination too much to leave the question unanswered. My imagination wasn't disappointed. Her vibrant sea-green lingerie paired with her body in profile were the stuff of dreams.

"Do you like her?" Mister Satou inquired.

"She certainly is cute." I answered.

"If I'm pleased with your work, I'll give her to you as a short-notice bonus."

I blinked twice before the crass implication clicked home. It made sense in hindsight that all of the angelic women were sex workers moonlighting as laborers rather than the other way around. I was familiar with bosses hiring eye candy even if I wasn't inured to it yet, but the flagrance of his offer was still surprising. Back on Intatenrup, most of my old bosses didn't mind looking for free, but touching was a separate matter entirely.

"That's very generous, Mister Satou. Perhaps we could discuss what I'll be painting for you?"

"An apartment, level 3 down by the docks, tunnel 2043, hab C-025. Single occupant, man by the name of Ivan Balakin. He's a data consultant who happened to find something of mine that he shouldn't have." Satou paused, knowing I'd have questions and humoring me.

"Is this data a priority?"

"No, but I would prefer it be turned over to my protectorate, should you locate it. If the data is still in his apartment, it is likely on a physical backup. You will be compensated for fruitful efforts, naturally. A lesser sum is available if you cannot retrieve the data but veritably locate or destroy it."

"Will I need to handle my own clean-up?"

"If you can handle the matter quietly, then yes. Should events force your hands, a robbery gone bad will prove easy enough to sweep out the airlock, not to mention personally lucrative to the burglar. I understand that he has done quite well for himself on Tengoku, despite being an offworlder."

"Resources? Mine and his."

"I've arranged a safehouse for you on level 7, buried in with the workers. You'll be given the comm-code for one of my men, any further dealings will be conducted through him. So far as I know, the target is acting alone and has no connections worth mentioning." Satou's tone was aggressively neutral for a moment. A verbal tick, or something else? "Of course, you know how quickly that can change." He finished cordially.

"Of course." I agreed politely.

"Which means the only matter left to discuss is your compensation. I understand you wish for a new identity and passage out of system." I nodded. "With my connections, this can be easily arranged."

"Thank you, Mister Satou-" He waved a hand to cut me off.

"Let it never be said that I am a man who does not repay his debts or share his prosperity with others. I've already arranged several bonuses if I am suitably impressed with your work. Should you desire to join my family instead of moving on, I always have work for a man of your particular artistic vision. Work that would make you extremely wealthy and me even more so."

The table laughed at their boss's joke. I joined in after a beat, faking with the rest of them.

"I shall consider your many generous offers and aim to impress, Mister Satou." I said.

Sensing that the conversation was over, I moved to bow but a twitch of his fingers stilled me. I followed his gaze beyond the table, spotting the serving girl returning with a platter of five parfait glasses; four identical cups of butter-white ice cream with a fifth coated in dark drizzle and crushed nut, a single red cherry crowning the outcast. As the cups were doled out, the aroma of sake filled the air— heady with a sweet fruity note I couldn't place.

"Very close, painter." Mister Satou said, his tone somewhere between wry and complimentary. "Perhaps you would like to enjoy your dessert elsewhere as you take in the orbital's scenery."

"I believe you are correct." I said, reading between the lines. "With your permission, I'll take my leave."

I was dismissed with a brief nod.

I stood, bowed low—but not so much as I had initially—and made for the exit, untouched sundae in hand. The chilled dew forming on the glass helped to relieve the worse of the pain in my mangled finger even if the cold couldn't penetrate past my skin. The image of the two bodyguards sharing a look across from me flashed to mind. If my choice of dessert was a test, I don't think I failed it outright but I was unsure if I had passed or not. The clandestinely armed bodyguard conversing with the club's bouncers turning on me like a shark, a hand reaching into the folds of his jacket.

"You can call me Mister Matsumoto or sir. I'll be your liaison from this point on." The bodyguard's hand leveled itself to my chest; instead of the weapon that would end my life it held a plastek card and a personal comm. "You may consider these an advance on services rendered."

I quickly pocketed the comm, focusing my attention on the station Ident card. It looked to be proper, not that I knew what an improper one might have looked like. The main details that caught my eye were my new name and my new job.

"It would seem you can call me Hero Sato, station janitorial and maintenance services."

As far as names went it left a bitter taste on my tongue. Not that they'd commonized my given name from the old words to standard, but rather that they'd ripped the only clue I had about my lineage from me. Anyone who studied the thicker features of my plain face or dense build could tell I wasn't from a homogenized bloodline. I could pass for a Nova-Kyoton at a glance, but it was only a matter of time until some slip up betrayed my Canzuk-Kassack peasant roots. My state education was another damning hole in my new persona, just one more mighty crack in flawed foundation of my new life.

"Very well, Sato-kun." Matsumoto stated, snapping my out of my bitter reflection. "I'll be taking a walk across the station for my duties, you will accompany me."

"Of course, Mister Matsumoto." I replied, stressing his position of superiority much like he had my juniority.

"You may be an independent, but this orbital has traditions, Sato-kun. You're not one of us yet, no matter how highly you come recommended. Should my family be seen treating you as an equal, that would raise unneeded scrutiny as to our affiliation. Now, finish eating quickly so we can depart; it wouldn't be seemly once we've left the upper levels."

The sundae was delicious, leagues beyond the canned knock-offs I'd been eating my entire life. I couldn't place how as I scarfed the frozen treat down, it was just a statement of fact. Within seconds I'd finished, Matsumoto spared me a derisive look and turned to leave. I shoved my glass into the hands of a puzzled looking bouncer and followed. The pace was leisurely, that of a person with nothing better to do than amble about for hours on end.

I wasn't sure if the orbital was supposed to be inspiring or lavish, it blended the two into something not quite either. The colors were vibrant, stores exclusively dealt in luxury services or goods and everywhere I looked there were beautiful women half-dressed in their promiscuous jumpsuits. The station's lighting varied with disjointing frequency, one minute we walked through a neon-lit twilight of unending nightlife, the next we were bathed in sourceless sunlight that made my skin sing with soothing warmth. The materials varied just as widely only instead of clashing in contrast, they all complemented and highlighted the cohesion of the whole. Stone, metal, textiles, digital, ceramics, glass and even flesh as working women adorned everything from glass box storefronts to overhead maintenance catwalks. It seemed that no matter where I looked there was always an angelic woman or ten in my field of view.

"This is your first time in Tengoku, isn't it Sato-kun?" Matsumoto finally said as we'd traversed of length of a wide side street.

"Yes sir."

"It shows. You stand out and it will take more than a pair of coveralls to make you blend in." Contempt was dripping from his words. It was a tone I'd heard throughout my life, that of someone who simply knows with absolute certainty that they were better than everyone else in general, and better than me in particular.

"You have advice, sir?"

"First, you need to learn how to walk in reduced gravity. Tengoku is the counterweight for Intatenrup's space elevator, which is why there's undoubtedly an irritating wobble inside your ears and why you'll lose your balance if you look out a window. Your stride is all wrong; stairs will prove challenging too, take them three at a time unless there is someone of status nearby."

"How will I know if who has status?" I asked, a sly glance over the scattered mass of humanity arrayed around our current corridor.

There was a woman offering cigars from a smoke shop, our eyes met when her current customer—a fat man that filled his snakeskin suit to near bursting—bent down to sniff at her proffered case. She flashed me a smile that left me blushing, then she flashed a lot more as she exchanged on cigar case for another from a high shelf beside her.

"Mister Satou is a good litmus test; maintaining paradise isn't cheap after all. In a single day cycle, more than twelve billion GSaC worth of goods and services trade from the hands of Tengoku's elite alone. Another twenty billion in materials, manpower and information circulate the greater whole. Men of status wear their wealth, they own entire tunnels and staff full retinues. Bodyguards are the simplest to spot, any more than four means you stop what you are doing and bow, more than nine and dogeza is expected."

"Dogeza, sir?"

"Face to floor prostration until your betters call upon you or have passed by. Most of the workers are indentured. The few that are not are company men and their wives."

"How do I tell which women are single? Do they get ringed here?"

As I asked the question, I spotted a woman smoking in an alleyway. Her full figure left her clothes hanging about her like drapes, fully nude at the sides. Her ears, nose and fingers shone from the wealth of gemmed rings hanging off of them but of all her jewelery nothing spoke out above the rest to signify if she was paired. She took another drag of her cigarette, the cherry glow scattering a million flecks of light off her jewels.

She noticed my attention and winked.

Matsumoto stopped dead and rounded on me where I'd lagged behind. He followed my gaze and the woman recoiled as if she'd been whipped. With a frantic bow, she stomped out her cigarette and returned to much more pressing duties elsewhere.

"The population of Tengoku is just over 50 000 permanent residents, more than 80 percent of which are owned women." Matsumoto explained, using the deliberate tone one uses when addressing the slow-witted and the doddering elderly.

"When you say owned-" I started.

"I mean owned in the same way you own the clothes on your back. There are establishments for professional companionship, but outside of these you must never interact with a woman outside of your working capacity. Don't flirt with them, don't talk to them and don't stare at every one you walk past like a starved mongrel eying discarded tuna. Do I make myself clear?"

A dozen questions came to mind along with half as many unpleasant revelations. From his tone and the thinly veiled exasperation on his face, Matsumoto had said all he would on the subject. I bit back the venom trying to worm its way into my words and smiled.

"Of course, sir."

Tengoku—or Heaven as I'd grown up knowing it—was only a surface deep paradise. The various Johnsons, Nikogos and Satous skimmed the top of this angelic pond, casting shadows that blotted out the murky depths below. Tengoku was reserved for the men who had made it to the top of their respective ladders; corporate, criminal or more often than not a blend of both. The further I ventured from the station's clear skin, in towards the blackened heart of the orbital, the more familiar things became to me. At the orbital's core, well away from the glitz and majesty frequented by the elite, was the ruthlessly practical life-sustaining industry powered by human labor.

Long halls of single-room apartments, all packed together to make up for the inefficiency of the ruling elites' luxuries. Much of said luxuries trickled their way down to the working class as an afterthought; working girls ran after hours bazaars selling perishable gourmet foods cooked but untouched, stunning clothes marred by a single errant stain and designer hardware one year out of date. Seeing a blonde stick-thin woman haggling over a half-kilo of rice for three whole-cooked lobsters was almost as jarring as watching a seamstress turn away silks and jewels as payment for restitching a pair of low-cut yet drab coveralls. As dissonant as the experience was for me, I would have thought I was a celebrity by the way I was turning heads.

While they looked at me in the same way a starving man might regard a feast, Matsumoto was implacable. Women took one look at him and went about their business, suddenly finding my presence as mundane as the gemstones they traded for basic necessities. Yet even Matsumoto's intimidating aura couldn't quell the surge of whispers that followed in our wake.

The bulk of my job as a painter required anonymity. Moving, seen but unnoticed amidst the crowds until I found an opening to do my job. Casting my eyes among the crowd, it was clear that everything I did would draw attention. Discretion would likely amount to scat all. If I had a gaggle of gossiping strumpets thirsting after me everywhere I went, any proper legwork on my target would arouse too much suspicion. Once Matsumoto lead us down a thinner branching tunnel there was finally enough privacy to talk amongst each other in hushed tones.

"I see why you brought on an outsider, sir." I said, keeping most of the grumbling undertone out of my voice.

"Tengoku is a smaller world than most. Anything that makes waves rocks the entire orbital, Sato-kun. So long as the waves are small and infrequent, no one pays them any mind."

"If you weren't here, I don't think I'll be able to walk out of my room without knocking Heaven back to Intatenrup. Sir." I hastily added.

"You are as off-limits to them as they are to you. Besides, no one of importance cares about the whisperings of owned women, Sato-kun."

"Who exactly owns these women, sir?"

"That depends on the day." Matsumoto said with a muted laugh. "It's best not to overly concern yourself with them, Sato-kun. Tengoku is the realm of powerful men and their families. The last thing you want to do is earn one's ire by damaging one of their playthings."

He'd turned to look at me with a smile that was supposed to be playfully compassionate. If it wasn't being worn by a slimy snake of a man, it probably wouldn't have looked so out of place or forced. Matsumoto's expression withered into abortion when he saw I wasn't buying it.

"This one is your's, supplies are inside. Everything else you need to know is on your comm. There's also the comm-code for several trusted workers Mister Satou keeps on retainer pre-loaded. Just tell them what you expect of them, they needn't be made aware of anything else. Any questions?"

"Nothing at present. Thank you for your insights, Mister Matsumoto." I said with a bow.

"You have my comm-code if anything comes up, but it's better if we're never seen together again." He dropped his voice even lower to less than a whisper. "For your sake, don't disappoint Mister Satou or me. We have high hopes for you, Hero-kun."

"I'll strive to be worthy of such expectations, sir." I said as I made my way into the safehouse. Once the door was finally sealed I allowed the polite smile to fall from my face. "Jackass."

I bled all the straight-backed tension the second I was alone, practically sweating out a bucket of the figurative stuff. Appearances mattered, both for corporate and criminal Johnsons— doubly so for corporate Johnson criminals. Being the center of attention was exhausting, I had no idea how a sleazy middle-management cutthroat like Mister Matsumoto could just walk around above everyone outside the family. Actually I had a pretty good idea of how he did it. He didn't consider any of them as human beings. In that regard he was no different from the tyrants below— er, above. The thought was dizzying.

My so-called safehouse was disappointingly grounded however. A single room all-in-one apartment with the fundamentals a worker needed to do their jobs: narrow bed on drawers, table that folded onto the bulkhead, in-built appliances with cupboards, closet stocked with blank worker's garbs plus accouterments and interchangeable patches, and lastly a privacy curtain for the combination toilet/sink/sponge bath. I breathed a sigh of relief after inspecting the coveralls, they were full-sleeved, collared and lacked the promiscuous side slit that would have made concealing anything needlessly difficult. The 'supplies' Matsumoto mentioned were a week's worth of rice and beans, a polymer holdout pistol and a primer on proper station etiquette for all new workers.

All in all, it wasn't any worse than my bunks from back in my conscript days, though it was a far cry from my old planetside condo. My comm was the next thing on my inspection. It was a luxury model, no doubt a few years out of date and hence, just as disposable as my printed holdout pistol. As sleek as the hardware was, the comm had been wiped a little too well and had crud knockoff software on it. The info was all there, it just took me longer than I liked to navigate the clunky operating system.

All the usual fire and forgot services a gun-for-hire would need; arms dealer, fast food, back ally street doc, cleaner services, trusted fences and my semi-trusted snake of a liaison. The info docket on my deader was lighter than I cared for, but with a rush job like this that was to be expected. What wasn't, was the fact that not three days ago there was a very public failed 'mugging' in which Ivan plugged his attacker with eight hollow-point rounds at point-blank. Which meant my deader was armed and jumpy, a dangerous combination for anyone looking to do some painting with his brains. No floor plans, no recorded regular schedule, not even a favorite tea shop. Nothing I couldn't solve with some legwork and observation, but against a deadline and my local celebrity status, proper legwork wasn't an option.

Looking at how disposable and threadbare everything was, I had to fight down some jumpy nerves with a smoke. Sink or swim was the name of the game. A real mushroom job; give me nothing but scat, keep me in the dark and see if anything useful came from it. Based on Matsumoto's comment of 'high hopes,' I got the feeling they weren't expecting to need a payout— if the job got done at all. Odds were that I was just as disposable in their eyes as the girl I'd been offered for payment, if not more so given my hardware. I found myself reaching for a second cigarette but checked the urge. I slowly flicked back through my burner comm and punched a message for the street doc.

P - Staple and stitch. Need a shattered finger checked too, possibly re-plated.

Doc - B there in 30.

28 minutes later there was a single knock on my door. With one hand on my gun—my real gun, not that plastic piece of junk I'd been given—I ushered in a petite woman with a no-nonsense black bob cut and a heavily laden backpack. A quick scan of the hall only revealed a woman idly chatting with someone about ten rooms down. She spotted me and winked before I ducked back into my room and sealed the door.

"That is other gun, or just you happy see me?"

The woman's clipped accent registered in my mind the same time her jade eyes and doll face did. The odds were probably higher on Tengoku than anywhere else that I'd run into the drop-dead gorgeous doppleganger of someone I'd barely met, but chances still were that this was the same woman from the docks.

"Neither." I growled. "You're lovely, really. I'm just not in the mood for a tumble in the snow."

"Maybe I put you in mood?" She said, raising her hands to start slipping off her coveralls. I grabbed her slender wrists and pinned them to her shoulders.

"No. Listen, I just-"

She took a step and pitched back, overbalancing me in the weird fake gravity. She fell backwards onto my bed, grabbing onto my hands and pulling me with her until my face was buried in her plentiful chest.

"I be quick. Let Nee-chan guide you-"

I got my feet under me and stood, lifting myself clear of the woman clinging to me. She held firm to my hands trying to topple me again, but without the element of surprise she couldn't manage the feat twice. She wrapped her legs around my back, grinding our hips together and pulled at me, causing a tearing pain in the meat of my shoulder. Then I felt the familiar hot rush of blood pouring down my arm. She let go and flopped onto my bed when the first red trickle met her skin, her disappointed pouting more evocative than the generous cleavage of her clothing.

"Strip, cherry boy." She said half-pouting, half barking.

"No! I'm-"

"Not for sex stupid! For arm and rest, I fix." In the frenzied heat, I'd forgotten why she was actually here. "Then sex."

I rolled my eyes at her addition but did as she'd demanded. There was still a blatant hunger in the way she looked at me, along with a cold clinical detachment that made her seem like an entirely different person than the manic woman in heat from moments earlier. The apartment was barely large enough for two people to be doing anything simultaneously; just getting my bloodied shirt off and rolling up my pant-leg had me tripping over the petite woman as she dug some surgical instruments from her backpack.

"Pants too." She barked.

"There's nothing to fix down there." I said, covering my groin.

"Pants off. I make sure you no die." Her gaze flicked from my groin to my face with a knowing look. "You feel light headed?"

"No, why?"

"That good. It mean you penis work good and you no die. Okay, pants stay on for now."

I held out my arm, weak spurts of blood trickling from the partially opened stab wound in my shoulder. "Fix this and stop thinking about my, penis."

"Okay okay. I fix you up real good, cherry boy. Then you take care of me, okay?" She gave me a thousand-megawatt smile, nodding all the while. As if she'd get me to consent through sheer persistence.

"Fix." I repeated. She gave me another pout that did more to stir me than her earlier attempts had. Lacking her previous force, she sat me down on my bed and straddled me. Almost reluctantly, she set to work on my open shoulder wound, the pain of her ministrations helping to keep my head clear.

"You so serious, cherry boy. No fun."

"My job isn't to have fun."

"I know all about you job. Mister painter, only paints with red." Her jade eyes tracking down my lean, shirtless form. "Never any white?"

"No." I gulped. "No white."

"Shame, good money up here for white paint." She said, grinding her hips into mine to drive the point home.

"Why?" I asked, desperately focusing on her words instead of her body pressing against mine.

"Pregnant girls get to go up to planet. Have healthy baby. No one down here wants saggy titted old mommies. Baby batter is way off station. Lot of girls give everything they own and then some for that."

She finished cleaning out my wound, switching over to needle and thread. I allowed my eyes to wander to her work, deep in the meat of my shoulder, as I chewed on yet another sour fact of life on Tengoku. Things were hard everywhere, expecting space to be better off than back on Intatenrup was just naive.

"That and it no feel as good when is only girls." She added impishly.

Our eyes met, my blue-grey gaze lost in her lush jade. Her face was rising up to meet mine, her lips ready. I broke our locked gaze, growling under my breath.

"You don't want to go down to Intatenrup."

"It better than work down here. No more master, find a husband, make a home, raise baby. Is happy dream, no? Worth put on five kilos and… tumble in snow?" She gave a little puff of a laugh that sent the sweet trill of her breath down my exposed chest. "I never hear that one before."

"Have you ever seen snow before?" I asked, silently rejoicing for the change in topic.

"Oh yeah, lots of time. I even have girl friend that likes sniff it off my ass. You want some for pain?" A folded paper packet materialized in front of me before I clued in that something had been lost in translation.

"Not the drug. Snow. You know, the stuff that falls from the sky when its cold out." She paused her needlework to put the packet away, when she resumed it was with a thoughtful curiosity under a poorly feigned indifference.

"There is other snow? I hear of sky before, but what is?"

I could only blink at her the same way she blinked at me. It never occurred to me that someone wouldn't know what the sky was. She was sitting right on my lap but suddenly there was this uncrossable chasm between us. What else had she never heard of? What was there that I didn't even know enough to start asking about? How could any two people have lives such vastly different lives and still gotten so close to each other? I hadn't even properly left my homeworld yet but space suddenly got a lot bigger than I'd ever thought possible, right before my very eyes.

"Have you ever been off this station?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, I grew up on old colony ship raising cow, chicken and fish. I spend almost twenty year there before I come here."

"But you've never not been in space?" She blinked at me, confused. "You've never been on any planet?"

"No, never." My shock must have started to bleed through, because her needlework hesitated again and her jade eyes started wandering to my face instead of the bare muscle of my body. "Has you never been in space before, cherry boy?"

"No, never."

"And…" She flicked her needle up and down. Once again I was made painfully aware of just where she was sitting and just how attractive she was. I peeled my eyes from her plump mounds and swallowed down the lump in my throat.

"No," I admitted breathlessly. "First time here too."

"You is real cherry boy? Not just act?"

"No, not an act."

At my words she ground her hips into mine once more, feeling the honesty of my body pinned between us. She leaned onto my good shoulder, the needle momentarily forgotten in her other hand. The hot rush of her breath was right in my ear, sweet and seductive. The softest hint of her whimper defeated any resistance I had left, making me a slave to this moment, to this woman on top of me. The fabric between us wasn't thick enough to block out the moist heat of her, the interposing garments were soaked with her eagerness. She ground down all the more insistently, sliding back and forth on my lap as if by friction alone she could lay me bare and make a man of me. My breathing became ragged to match her own. My body was aching for release, everything else was fading into the background. There was only the heat of this woman in this moment and I drank in everything I could: the sight of her clinging to me, her burning-hot breath in my ear, the earthy scent of her sweat mingling with mine. I wanted it to last, but the need for release was building and fight as I may, I couldn't hold it back. Then she whispered in my ear like a devil of lust.

"Don't worry cherry boy, Nee-chan will be gentle."

I stiffened under her before her hand had even reached my waistline. That shameful moment filled the room as my defeat spurted from me. She pulled back from our embrace, all softness removed from her jaded features.

"Did you just-"

"Sorry." I panted.

Her hand darted below my trousers and found the truth. She seized my member, savagely pumping the bruised meat, desperate to keep my abused flesh firm. Without the blissful embrace from moments ago, there wasn't any pleasure in her frantic actions— only a great deal of pain.

"Is okay. We try again." She said, smiling wide even as tears began misting in her jade eyes.

"Stop."

To my surprise she did. She must have known it was a lost cause.

"We try again tomorrow." She nodded to herself more than me and withdrew her hand. The sight of my own weakness glazing her fingers like so much white paint disgusted me. "I… I go wash now."

She climbed off me, taking the heat of her body behind the privacy curtain with her. Running water overwrote the sound of my own silent berating. Where her excitement had soaked through my clothes the fading scent of that moment lingered until the warmth bled away, leaving only a clammy reminder of my disgrace. Running water and shame, the two seemed to intermingle as I saw that frigid look of disappointment on her face when she'd pulled away from me over and over in my mind. It was the look she was still wearing as the privacy curtain slide back and her jaded eyes met mine.

"I fix rest now, cherry boy. This will be lot of hurt."

She wasn't exaggerating. Medicine was usually slower and less painful the more care the practitioner put into their work. She practically flew through my ministrations, the rapidity of her stitch and staple would have rivaled any corpsman from back in my conscript days. I endured the pain as a welcome distraction from the shame of my performance.

When it came to my trigger finger, she offered up her packet of snow again and I eagerly snorted half, the rest being dumped into the mangled sausage of cracked bone, metal plates and torn bloody tissue. She poked and prodded, aligning the bone ends to her satisfaction while I tried to avoid watching or crying out in pain to moderate success. Once she'd closed my finger back up, she clamped it straight with splint and tape the same burnt umber hue as her disheveled uniform.

Her work done, she cleaned her tools and packed her bag all without saying a word. I wanted to say something to her before she left but all I could think of were more apologies. She was lifting her backpack into place when I realized I didn't even know her name to call out to her. She took a single step and she was already at the door, seconds from leaving my life forever.

"Will… will I see you again?" I asked, the pathetic weakness of my own question disgusting me.

A quivering sigh filled the room like a gunshot. The silence that followed was pregnant with my own driving heartbeat. She turned from the door, her face a mask of clinical indifference.

"I come back tomorrow, same time. To make sure you is healing right. Okay?"

"Yeah, totally okay. Yes. Miss…" I saw the ghost of a smile on her face, as if asking her name was something dreadfully amusing. Then, she leaned in and gave me a goodbye kiss on the lips.

"Yang-Sarpi. Shenhua Yang-Sarpi."

That tiny touch was electric, my cheeks burning with an impossible heat of a forbidden possibility. I blinked and the door was open while I watched her walk away. In the cramped apartment I hadn't had a chance to appreciate much more than her bust and face, but watching her leave, it was almost enough to make me chase after her. To find out if she was the reason I was still alive after everything I'd been through. Shenhua rounded a corner then was gone.

My tunnel vision cut out, and I was suddenly aware that I wasn't the only one watching her leave my room. At least a dozen women turned as one to gaze upon my half-naked, blood-smeared body with starved, downright predatory stares. One of then decided that she wanted a closer look, possibly more and strode towards me, her intent worn openly. A glance over my shoulder and I discovered a trio of women inspired to action by the boldness of the instigator. More beyond them were lying in wait, carrion feeders waiting until the street dogs had made their kill and taken their fill. I backed into my safehouse—feeling that it was anything but—and locked the door, hoping none of the women had another way in or the determination to wait me out. Sealed inside my bunker, I made ready to wait out the siege.

The clock was ticking on this job and I was trapped in my room by the veritable horde. My safehouse still smelled of Shenhua's passion, paired with the sour tang of my weakness. I found my thoughts straying from the work to come, the possibilities that were now open before me.

Would they all be like her? Her dream—going planetside and starting a family—sounded more appealing than it had any right too. I could do that for her. I could change any woman's life with a few minutes of blissful union. I gulped at the possibilities. All I had to do was open that door and the women out there would handle the rest. The thought alone had little Hiiro standing resolute, aching and bruised as he was. Just imagining what would happen if I opened that door was almost enough to send me over the edge with another disgraceful release.

Would these women look at me with disappointment when I failed them too? How great would my shame be when failed them all? I was just a cherry boy who couldn't go the distance. The disgraceful truth of my inexperience left my earlier excitement stillborn. Faced with dwelling on my shame or getting on with my job, I was finally able to focus on the latter.

Legwork made all the difference between a clean painting and a messy one. Any two-time hustler with a piece could gun down someone in the streets, only to wind up dead or caught in a week's time. Painting was as much an art as a science. I'd been thinking of this working vacation as just another job, I needed to change that. This was a whole new canvas, in someone else's studio with new rules that required a new way of thinking. I popped a cigarette in my mouth, picked my way through what little intel I did have and got to work.

One nap to sleep off the lingering effects of my painkillers later, I was nibbling on a light meal, sipping down an ordered coffee and slipping into worker's coveralls with a duty bag on my good shoulder. I stashed what I could where I could, gaging how visible each hiding place was and how quickly I could get to my guns if needed. I reread my Ident, rehearsing my faked persona and affiliations until they were natural enough to sound plausible. My whole plan was paper thin but it was the best I could manage on short notice. I slapped on the appropriate patches to get me clear of my room's siege, planted a short brimmed cap on that barely did anything to conceal my face and wrapped a bulky yet lightweight toolbelt around my waist to better conceal the pistol in my waistband. Clutching at the new worker's orientation primer like a candle in the dark, I opened my door.

Instead of a clawing horde like I'd been expecting, an orderly queue had formed twenty bodies long. With a practiced glance to my primer and an entirely genuine awkward panic, I mumbled something about getting to my new job and made my escape. The chorus of desperate, if disillusioned, pleas fell on deaf ears as I all but ran from the hall. The crude, mass-printed map on my orientation primer got me pointed to the service corridors and worker only access tunnels. From there I was all but invisible, merging into the throng of the downtrodden and the desperate.

These corridors were stiflingly hot, the ventilation deliberately reduced to keep the scent of toiling humans confined to their section of the station and away from the glass paradises they served. I spotted several other men in the crowds but lost as they were within the press of feminine humanity, their sex and the promise of escape that it entailed went deliberately unnoticed. It wasn't long after that I spotted the clandestine cameras—and the looming threat they represented—at regular intervals. I stooped lower into the crowd, discretely swapping out my laborer's patch for another before breaking from the main flow at the next junction.

Stepping from the claustrophobic, stiflingly functional workers' crawlway into the posh airy halls of the station proper was jarringly disconcerting. One minute, I was practically buried alive in dimly-lit cloying heat, the next I was blinded by daylight. It reminded me of sewer clearance back in my conscript days, crawling through the filthy detritus to 'remove' those who couldn't find shelter anywhere in the sprawling, neon-lit city of opportunity above. The fact that one person could be feasting on the finest multi-course meals while another was hunting down rats with the hope of eating anything at all mere meters away was dreadfully bleak to me. The warm light of Tengoku seemed to get a little colder as the memory surfaced.

According to the primer, level 3 was the station equivalent of a suburban area with a mix of residential, commercial and convenience all pressed together for the station's more prominent members. Strategically placed between the necessary industries of level 4 and the executive high-life of level 2, residents were close enough to that better life to reach out and dream, while simultaneously seeing the price of disappointing their superiors. A firm reminder that what had been given could just as easily be taken away.

The tunnels were triple-tiered in a stepped V shape, regular arching walkways connecting the mirrored sides. Bright grey tile lined everything save for the ceiling which was a recreation of the daytime sky of Intatenrup, shedding imitation light that felt indistinguishable from the real thing to my skin. What people I saw were clearly divided; those few clothed in worker's garbs largely stayed on the bottom tier and everyone else went about their day above them. The sparse crowds on my tier weren't thick enough to disappear in, but no one should look twice at another worker who knew his place.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

There was only so much walking around and rubbernecking I could pull before someone noticed something was off— there was always a subtle tell that betrayed those in places they shouldn't be. Consciously masking my planetside stride, I kept my discrete investigation to a minimal. Hab C-025 was on the third tier, surrounded by what looked like mostly residential neighbors. Two square windows maintained the symmetry of the picturesque little condo— if anyone was home, they liked the lights off. Foot traffic got lighter the higher I looked in the tiers and those workers who did venture above their bottom rung for their duties were noticed with a sneer or a leer and just as quickly forgotten by their betters. That made things easier for me.

Being a social chameleon was all about who, when and where; the confidence that you knew who you were and that others should too. When you walked you always made ripples, too big and people took notice— a death sentence in this line of work. The walls between the well to do and those without were paper thin at best if all that stood between them was a change of clothes, a cocky stride and a cushy place to lie one's head. It was a laughably fragile illusion that a few strong prods would shatter in an instant. There had to be more to it than what I was seeing from the inside. If I'd had the time for a more thorough infiltration I might have parsed the subtle minutia of this false paradise but time wasn't on my side. Rush jobs always fell to scat, but I didn't have the time or the means to do things the usual way— the right way.

I'd done all the legwork I dared risk and turned my back on my target. I wrestled down the urge to find a place to smoke in my mouth, instead pulling out my comm in place of my box of coffin nails. Using my paper-thin excuse, I turned back towards my target on one last errand. The theatrics were probably unnecessary but it gave any tails a chance to betray their interest in me. A discrete glimpse around didn't spot any turning heads, which did nothing to placate my caution. I checked my comm as I reached the foot of a stairway, the barrier between where workers belonged and where people of consequence lived, feigning trepidation.

I climbed to the third tier and kept my damned eyes down at my feet. Approaching straight away would be too conspicuous, as would dallying where I didn't belong. I headed for C-028 and knocked on the door, tools in one hand and my forged credentials in the other. Working my way down the street wouldn't throw a determined observer off my trail, but a casual one would be hard-pressed to recall specifics that didn't exist. A pale, smiling woman in a dark business-casual skirt and pale blouse opened the door, her expression souring immediately when she saw me.

"Apologies ma'am," I said with a quick bow. "There's been some power drain in the area. We think there might be some damaged wiring in one of the units on your row." I gulped down a stuttering breath. "I-I need to inspect the wiring. Ma'am."

A glance at her eyes showed me just how displeasurable my interruption and indeed my very existence was. Averting my eyes, I saw the subtle shift in her weight as she no doubt sized me up. She swayed her hips as she thought, eventually reaching a decision.

"Hurry up then." She said with a sigh. "I'm not going to wait on you all cycle."

"Of course, Ma'am. Apologies for the intrusion, Ma'am." I gave another twitchy bow and stepped inside. She took a breath and wrinkled her nose at my intrusion. Her scowl deepened when I walked by.

"You should have bathed before coming here. The whole place will reek of you for days."

I hide my initial search behind an awestruck gaze around at the blatant luxury of the loft-style condo. My safehouse was little more than a closet compared to the plentiful opulence on display.

"If you drool on my floors, I'll have you flogged in the channel." The business woman coldly stated.

"Of course, Ma'am. Apologies, it's… where might the access p-"

"In the back with the plumbing. Your supervisor will be hearing about your incompetence, you trog."

I gave another bow and put some distance between her and I. The loft's design was an exotic sub-species of the planetside ones I was more familiar with; a combination bedroom/study/bureau overlooked the entryway den, the kitchenette further from the door and further back still the bathroom and utilities were pressed to the rear wall. The dividing floor was thinner than seemed possible to my terran sensibilities. The entire condo was rounded in a way that opposed the traditional square geometrics known to me, the ceiling and walls appeared carved to maximize the size of the upper demi-floor and make the most of the available light. I opened the utility closet and set to patching up my cover with some busywork.

"Who the hell are you?" The business woman demanded directly behind me. I could almost feel my cover crumbling around me as a familiar warmth started spreading through my limbs.

"Hero Sato, Ma'am. Station janitorial and main-"

"Botshit."

I froze in my work, assessing if the situation was still salvageable. It might be, unlikely though it was, so I turned to face the icy storm growing behind me. I slowly reached for my forged Ident card and offered it up, then bowed fully in prostration. Which just so happened to place my hands with easy reach of my concealed pistols.

"Hero Sato, station janitorial and maintenance services." She dropped the card to the floor. "I might believe that if you didn't walk like a dirty rock. That and, the help aren't permitted to drink coffee."

"Scat." I cursed, sliding on hand inside my coveralls.

"I'll give you twenty seconds to-"

I pounced upwards, throwing my weight into the business woman's midsection. My tackle propelled both of us into her bathroom, a luscious shag bathmat negligibly cushioned her impact as I hammered her down into the floor. She feebly clawed at my back for desperate seconds before she finally felt the cold iron of my pistol on her face. Before she could catch her breath I braced myself, shifting my weight to my off leg, confident that my knee on her stomach and hand around her throat were all I needed to keep her pinned.

"Scream and you die." I growled.

She nodded as much as she could. I slightly relaxed my grip around her throat without taking my hand away.

"I'm not here for you," I said. "but I will kill you if you compromise me in any way."

"And here I was hoping you'd come to do just that. Compromise me." She chuckled with a nervous smile that didn't get past her lips. Her rich brown eyes kept flicking from me to the gun. "Do you really need that?"

"Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather not strangle you."

"My, aren't you quite the gentleman? Well, you've got me pinned down, all hot and bothered, then you say you're not here for me. An indecent woman could get all sorts of jealous ideas." I put some more weight on her abdomen by way of reply. "So where oh where do we go from here?"

"I can kill you-" I started.

"Which I'd rather you didn't."

"-or we can come to a mutual understanding. Then I leave and we never see each other again."

"What kind of understanding?" She asked.

I climbed off of her slowly, keeping my gun trained just under her face. I unzipped my coveralls and reached deep inside. The business woman got off her back and onto her knees like it was second habit, pausing her advance once she heard me cock the hammer of my four-shooter. The pleading look in her eyes paired with her bedraggled state of dress and tasseled hair had me tempted to take her up on the implied offer. Instead I pulled the much quieter holdout pistol from of my waistband before tucking my revolver back under my shoulder.

"And here I thought you were happy to see me." She pouted.

"How much do you know about your neighbors?" I asked, ignoring her.

"Not much. Most are joy girls or married women, same as me. Except that recluse…" She started, then several things must have clicked for her. "Hero Sato… You're the Void Dragon's new hitman!"

"Not so loud." I hissed.

"Oh relax. You think these condos aren't soundproofed? I've been eight girls deep in screaming ecstasy without a single noise complaint more times than I can count."

"How soundproofed?" I asked, focusing in on the useful information to keep my imagination from wandering into the dangerous territory of daydreams.

"I can't really say. But I know how loud a gun is, you might not want to risk it."

"You don't care that I'm going to kill him?"

"Better him than me; he's a creep. I'll sleep better when he's gone. Plus, life is cheap in Paradise. Evan is one more pawn knocked off the board."

"Ivan Balakin." I corrected but she just shrugged. "What else do you know about him."

"I know he blasted the last hitman right in front of my door a couple days ago. The guy just bumped into him then the whole atrium heard gunshots. I've never talked to him but he always seemed like the nervous type, quick to assume the worst. And he's big, big and tall, kind of fat too."

"Scat." I cursed, finally relaxing my aim to her visible relief.

"Wait, that's it?"

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"There isn't anything else your going to do to me?" She clarified without actually clearing anything up.

"You do realize I can still kill you, right?" I answered deadpanned.

"Obviously. I know what a gun is for. But after all that," She motioned to the bathroom floor. "You're just going to walk out of here without having your way with me?"

"That's the plan." I said, stowing the flimsy printed pistol and straightening out my disguise. I could see what she thought of my answer. "Try not to look so disappointed."

"I am disappointed. It's not every cycle some sweaty planetside boy breaks into my home and pins me down. You're young and tight, a lean slab of meat compared to those flabby old pigs that paw at me while I manage their accounts. Then you up and leave without doing a thing to me." She cursed while blinking back tears.

"You're the worse kind of decent. A man like you doesn't belong in Heaven. How the hell could there still be any decent men in the galaxy? You say you're old fashioned, but you're just cruel. Reminding me that there's still good everywhere but here. And I thought I was done with hope." She flashed a heart-wrenching smile even as her lips quivered.

If it was possible, I'd have put a bullet in every single one of her problems then and there. I'd have lined up everyone who hurt her and shot them all dead without batting an eye. It was stupid to think impossible thoughts, but that didn't stop me. Heaven—Tengoku, Paradise, whatever the hell they called this station—was built on the suffering of thousands to make a handful feel all-powerful. If not for any other reason, that was why I could never stay here. I couldn't fix every problem with a bullet but I could comfort a crying woman in front of me.

She stiffened as I hugged her, expecting me to go further and do worse.

"Here I am, getting ready to kill a man I've never met before in his own home, and you call me decent; like I'm some cowboy from the past. I'm not." My final words were no more than a whisper. "This life makes monsters of us all."

She melted in my arms and started sobbing. Her arms clung to me with a desperate strength I wouldn't have believed her capable of. The broken, snotty mewling was completely at odds with the icy professional who'd first opened the door for me. While she bawled her eyes out, I couldn't stop myself from wondering if every woman on this station had to keep her heart locked away lest it betray her. Even with another woman in my arms, I thought back to Shenhua Yang-Sarpi and the frigid look of disappointment she worn with misting jade eyes.

"Umm…" The woman's half-heard word drew me back to the present. "Your gun is poking me."

"That's not-" I broke off from our embrace a little too quickly, tripping over the toilet and backing myself into the wall.

"The bedroom is upstairs and I've got the whole, day, off."

"Thanks, but-"

"That looks painful, the least I can do is take care of you."

"No, really-"

"If your worried about being caught, you can use my mouth."

"Don't make me pull a gun on you." I threatened.

"At this point, I'm kind of hoping you do." She leaned closer. "So how about it?"

Somehow the upper buttons of her blouse had come undone. The view was outstanding. I tore my gaze away, retreating out of the bathroom. My Ident card was still on the floor where she'd dropped it. I plucked it up, clipping the plastek onto the soiled breast of my jumpsuit. Her brown eyes followed my hands eagerly, then paused to fix on my dampened chest.

"If you go out like that people will know you did more than just inspect my plumbing."

"Well I didn't plan on bringing a spare." I grumbled.

"Spare? Oh right, blood." She said, answering her own question as her eyes flicked from my features to the subtle bulges of my concealed firearms and the less subtle bulge that wasn't. She was looking at two different versions of me, the cowboy and the murderer, both present but neither fully realized. Then she met my eyes and recoiled at what she found.

"How are you with scalding pain?" She blurted.

"Dare I ask why?"

"I've got an idea to cover that whole mess and your breath. Trust me, no one around here will blink twice at a worker having a cup of burning hot coffee thrown at them."

"Okay." I said with a shrug.

She blinked in disbelief.

"Okay? I could be lying to you, or just trying to hurt you."

"But you're not."

"You don't know that-"

"I may not be from around here, but I'm a halfway decent judge of intentions. Call it an occupational hazard." She laughed softly at me words.

"You really are something else, cowboy."

"As are you, miss…" She looked about her condo, as if someone else had snuck into her home to eavesdrop.

"June-Hahn." She whispered.

"June-Hahn, I'd be honored to receive first-degree burns from you." She laughed again, her smile finally spreading beyond her lips to the rest of her features.

"Where the hell have you been all my life, cowboy?" Her words held more than that simple question. There was an invitation there, a promise too. I wanted to say yes, to yield to that base desire, but I couldn't give my word when I knew it would be impossible to keep.

"I've been murdering people." I stated coldly, the temperature of the room seeming to drop five degrees as I did.

"Right." She said, taking the meaning behind my words like a slap to the face. "I should go get that coffee ready."

"I'm sorry." I whispered.

"Don't be. You said it yourself, this life makes monsters of us all. We've all got our jobs to do, so go do yours, cowboy. I'll sleep a little easier with one less monster around."

She put on a pot and we shared these last minutes of honest companionship in silence. This station, these women, they'd be the death of me if I stayed here any longer than necessary. I'd felt protective before, but never like this. The simple act of treating them like human beings was as foreign to them as the impossible vastness of space was to me. I could barely imagine the cruelties needed to put such a system in place, let alone to keep up the status quo for generation after generation. The thought of it set a burning, murderous rage in the pit of my stomach and the palms of my hands.

If I stayed, I would never paint again. Painting was an art and there would be no art in my butchery. I would slaughter everyone I could and tear Tengoku down to Intatenrup in order to put an end to such vilified indifference to human suffering. When the coffee machine started sputtering its last drops, I realized that I'd been hoping it wouldn't finish. That somehow, I could stay in this condo forever and shut out the rest of the universe or at least Tengoku. June-Hahn poured herself a brimming mug and I shut my eyes on that childish fantasy forever.

"You ready cowboy?" She asked, tension sounding clear in her voice.

"As I'll ever be. Let's put on a good show. Shall we?"

June-Hahn took a deep breath to steady herself. Her sad smile vanished under the icy mask of a jaded and ruthless business woman.

"Get out." She growled, letting her temper build as I moved to the door. "Get out of my house! Get OUT!"

The door opened, allowing me to make my very public escape from the enraged woman.

"I'm sorry Ma'am!" I said bowing parallel to the floor.

"I always knew you workers were worthless scum but don't they even teach you to read! I should have you flogged for wasting my time you insolent cur! C twenty-eight, not C twenty-five! Do you see the difference you moron!"

I raised my bow enough to see where she was pointing, gritting my teeth in expectation of what would come next. If anything, knowing it was about to happen made it worse.

"Did I say you could raise you head?!" June-Hahn roared, stabbing out with her mug.

Her coffee splashed messily across my chest, then my jaw, arms, and hands all caught the stinging excess. I knew better than to cry out in pain, but for the sake of a good show I did it anyway. I clenched my trembling fists until my knuckles were creaking as steaming coffee ran down my arms. A trickle of boiling liquid found its way into my splinted finger and the nerves that had been exposed by my recent surgeries. The second cry to pass my lips wasn't a show.

"Did I say you could speak, you cur?!" June-Hahn bellowed. "Well, did I?!"

I collapsed in on myself in agony, prostrating myself in the steaming puddle of black coffee even as it burned my palms and knees.

"No Ma'am. Apologies Ma'am, I beg your forgiveness!"

She let the moment linger while my skin burned.

"You're lucky I'm in a good mood today. Clean this up, go do your kusoking job and maybe you'll still have a job to do next cycle after I finish reporting your incompetence to your owner!" June-Hahn slammed her door hard enough to make the boiling puddle jump into my face.

I waited an extra second for good measure before leaping up in pain and sparing a bashful look around. Our show hadn't drawn a crowd like I'd been expecting, while several heads were turned in my direction—usually looking cruelly delighted—no one had stopped. I cast my gaze downwards, as much to take in my disguise as to maintain my cover. June-Hahn had certainly covered her tracks well, if it weren't for my layered attire my entire torso would been steam-fried instead of merely agonizingly pained.

I'd traded my ability to blend into the working masses for being a social pariah. I needed to finish this rush job before things went even more ploin shaped. I tagged the mess with a wet floor sigh and walked with partially-feigned indignity down to the worker's tier. There was a man holding a mop and bucket out for me with a look of muted, sympathetic pain.

"Hang in there pal." He whispered, offering up his tools.

I inclined my head imperceptibly and took them from him. Mopping up the mess while my clothes still dripped droplets of coffee seemed like exactly the futile effort indicative of the base evils within Tengoku. Human suffering for the sole purpose of imposing one's will on their lessers. Elevating some above the rest by making them sub-humanly small. A never ending cycle of pointless hardship for the gain of a mere handful. For all the white tile and bright lights, that atrium seemed as desolate and merciless as the southern tundras of Intatenrup. I gave my head a shake, focusing on the task at hand only to realize I'd finished.

Now all that was left was to put the finishing touches on this painting.

I cast a sly gaze through the windows of hab unit C-025 before knocking on the door. The curtains were partially drawn, obscuring a clear picture though I got the impression this condo shared a similar layout as June-Hahn's. My clothes were only damp instead of dripping wet, I ran a dryer portion of my sleeve over my Ident card to clear the lingering condensation. If I waited out here any longer I'd damage what was left of my cover, so I knocked on the door again and started palming a skeleton key.

I was expecting the worst, just another occupational hazard. Despite what I'd seen through the window, I couldn't help but imagine that when that door opened I'd be transported back to that hell-scape of a basement, stumbling through the perverse dark until that beast in the skin of a man pounced on me. The dull pain of my blistering burns faded, the memory of that black dagger slashing and stabbing into my flesh overriding my mundane suffering of the moment. The door opened to my surprise. The man was big, with a face that perfectly matched the headshot I'd been provided.

"I don't need a janitor." Ivan Balakin said, already closing the door before I could so much as bow.

"Please! Sir." I bowed, proffering my Ident. "Hero Sato, station janitorial and maintenance services."

"I don't need a janitor." Ivan repeated, adopting the slow speech one uses with the elderly and the slow witted. "And I don't care what your name is."

"There's been some anomalous power drain in the area. We think there might be some damaged wiring in your unit. I need to inspect the unit for fire hazards." I spoke in a rush of breath before meekly adding, "This is unit C twenty-five, correct?"

Ivan glowered down at me and I made sure to avert my gaze, looking suitably cowed— it wasn't entirely disingenuous either. Ivan was a big man, standing a head taller than me and packing on at least twenty kilos of excess weight under normal gravity, mostly solid fat but there was guaranteed to some muscle under that blubber. I couldn't get an accurate read of his physique due to the baggy casual wear of his shirt and pajamas; similarly if he had a piece strapped on him, I wasn't seeing it.

"Of course it is you lackwit!" A woman's voice roared behind me just before something less rigid than it sounded rained down on my back. It took every gram of my iron discipline not to round on my new aggressor until I recognized the raging woman was June-Hahn. "I'd hoped a cup of coffee would shake loose the worst of your idiocy, but it seems you need another. Perhaps this time I'll throw it in your eyes, you miserable cur!"

I sharply turned from Ivan and repeated my earlier dogeza to June-Hahn.

"I beg you Ma'am, do not waste another fine cup of coffee on such an unworthy dog as myself. I am not deserving of such an honor."

With my face on the ground, I grit my teeth hoping that June-Hahn knew that there was such a thing as overselling. A kick struck my ribs, missing my shoulder-holstered pistol by a narrow margin.

"I'll decide what you deserve and when you deserve it, you wrecked mongrel!" June-Hahn kicked me again, then a third time and finished by stomping her heel onto my unbroken off-hand.

"You there, Boy." Ivan said, but I didn't dare budge from my prostration. "Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

I raised my head without breaking my prostration, the sight of June-Hahn's smooth legs and the rest under her knee length skirt lingered in my mind as I twisted to face Ivan. This station was dangerous in a way I was ill equipped to deal with. These damned, beautiful, tragic women would be the death of me.

"Get on with it," He said motioning to his condo. "I have a meeting soon and if I miss it because of you, I'll have more than just your fingers broken."

"Of course, Sir. Thank you, Sir." I said while nodding my head.

"I suppose," June-Hahn said, grinding the bone in my hand under her heel as she deliberated. "If you need this mongrel, I shouldn't keep him to myself." She stepped off my abused digits.

"Thank-" My words were cut short by another driving kick to my side, just below the ribs with a savagery that threatened to bowl me over. I doubted she was aiming for my liver but her pointed shoe sure as scat found it.

"The next time I see you, I won't be so… compassionate to your duties, dog."

June-Hahn stormed off, leaving me to catch my breath on the floor for scant seconds before Ivan growled.

"I know you're paid to grovel, Boy, but I have a schedule to keep."

"Of course, Sir." I panted, pushing myself off the floor.

I'd finally made it inside Ivan's condo, all it took was two public humiliations, a beating and a score of minor burns to my face, hands and knees. Some cynic inside my head noted that it would have all been for naught if Ivan gunned me down the second he shut the door behind me. If Ivan did gun me down, someone else could come scarp my carcass of the floor because I'd had just about enough of my current cover. I pocketed my skeleton key while I fumbled my meter from my belt with deadened fingers, hoping that the feeling would fully return before I needed to pull a gun.

Ivan's condo was two story variant, more floor space but less open than a loft. I spotted the stairs but couldn't see beyond their edges. The ground floor was virtually identical to June-Hahn's, the only change of any significance being that where she'd had an entry living room; Ivan had a command center of wall-mounted monitors above a massive wall-to-wall desk with more screens on it than most people had in their entire house combined.

"I think I know why the power draw was off." I stated idly. "Uh, Sir."

"Is that all you needed to see?" Ivan asked, arms crossed on his barrel chest.

"No, Sir. I'll still need to take some readings from your panel and look around for damage."

"Be quick about it. And try not to touch anything."

"Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir."

I made my way to the command center and turned my head to goggle at all the wires while my eyes looked for my secondary targets. If the data was on a physical backup then there should have been a optical thumb drive but I wasn't seeing one. The entire command suite was all sleek glass and minimalist ergonomic design; with the displays in a dormant state an OSD would have stood out like dead pixels on a white screen.

"Everything looks good here." I said loudly without turning my head beyond my duties. "Is there another office upstairs?"

"No, just a wall screen. Do you need to look at that too?" He snapped, sounding almost defensive instead of annoyed. I'd still need to turn the house over if I couldn't kill him quietly, so it could wait.

"I shouldn't, a wall screen wouldn't cause the level of power draw reported." I said, turning from the array of screens. Ivan was still hovering by the door with his feet spread, arms folded and shoulders flared. Quietly would be an issue. "Uh, Sir. I'll just have a look at your panel now."

The utility closet was nestled in the back across from the bathroom, away from the door and the unobstructed windows. Upstairs might work better but it was an unknown, better to act on a workable situation that I knew then to gamble on an uncertainty. Ivan was a large man, it was a good thing that firearms tended to ignore such natural advantages as reach, speed and mass.

I tucked myself deeper into the utility closet as if reaching to look at something and pulled the polymer holdout pistol from inside my coveralls. The printed gun was so light in my off-hand that I could have mistaken it for a toy were it not for the groove furrowed in the grip that revealed a short stack of squat bullets in the internal magazine. The printed pistol wasn't a model I was familiar with, but it wasn't that difficult to figure out. The lack of a fire selector or safety was probably the most glaring idiosyncrasy compared to other disposable firearms.

"Um, Sir? Did you install this custom power converter yourself?" I asked, flexing my swelling fingers around the stubby holdout I held close to the chest.

"What power converter?" Ivan asked, leaving the safety of the doorway as he cautiously approached the utility closet.

"This one wired off the side of your panel. It's definitely the cause of the power draw on this row."

Ivan lingered near the kitchen some three meters away, close enough to hit even without aiming all that well, but if I spooked him, he could throw himself out of my line of fire. A cramped kitchen with cutlery wasn't an ideal place to be trading fire or blows, but if Ivan was smart he'd only hold me off while making a racket. Thwarting my goals at the cost of his life would be a bitter victory, but with the alternative being ignoble death and failure I couldn't factor it out. When people got desperate, they took anything they could get. I might have risked snap shooting with my revolver's shot shells, but stealth wasn't fully out of reach yet. One clean shot to the head would be all it took.

"There shouldn't be anything irregular about my panel." Ivan stated warily, glancing back towards the stairway for an instant.

"Should I note this as an 'unlisted' user modification then, Sir?"

"No, you won't." Ivan growled, taking that final step I needed away from the kitchen.

I backed out of the utility closet, flashily waving my meter in my main hand, hoping to draw his eyes long enough to bring my holdout to bear. If Ivan was worried about his power bill the trick might have worked. Clearly he wasn't.

His gaze was unfocused, taking in all of my actions at once without getting distracted by any one in particular. I'd have expected something like that from a martial artist but it was a neat trick for a data analyst. When he saw my pistol coming around, three things happened in the blink of an eye.

Ivan's crossed hands pawed under his corded arms, reaching for a twinned shoulder carry that wasn't there on reflex. Before his meaty fists finished closing, Ivan had already hulked out his bulk like a bear and started charging in a low rush. I squeezed my printed pistol's trigger. The pull weight was higher than seemed reasonable, refusing to yield until I savagely snatched down on it.

The sound of something plastic snapping inside my holdout was deafeningly loud.

With no better course of action, I snatched the hair trigger again. A round spat from the holdout I'd thought broken, tagging the charging man in the leg in the instant before his shoulder connected with my midsection.

Damn near a hundred kilos of enraged brute force hammered me into the anvil that was the bulkhead wall. The air rushed from my crushed lungs and I rained elbow blows into the back of Ivan's head even as he sank brutal hooked punches into my kidneys. I got the barrel of my holdout back in my narrowing vision and pressed it straight down into Ivan's back, feathering two rounds down into his hips.

Ivan sagged, throwing a hurricane of punches into my guts the whole time. Nausea and pain had my eyes swimming drunkenly in savage waters. His head and chest were too close to me for a clean shot without hitting myself, so I brought a coffee-burned kneecap crashing into his face. The brittle cartilage of his nose erupted in a geyser of blood while my freshly formed blisters popped messily.

Ivan was rocking back in a kneel and I finally managed to breathe, pushing back the darkness encroaching around my vision and worsening my vertigo twice as much. I leveled the cheap pistol to his face and Ivan bucked wildly, his forward leg kicking into my left ankle. I toppled left, my snagged shot went right, centimeters wide of Ivan's skull.

We both hit the ground, sprawling in the blood and sweat. Everything hurt, the coffee I'd drank earlier was trying to spurt out both ends and I couldn't catch my breath. Trading another round of body blows was about as appealing as mucking out a latrine in use after chili bean burrito night at the mess. I centered my unsteady aim on Ivan, indifferent about what I was actually hitting, and emptied the holdout's magazine at point-blank range.

The printed pistol clacked empty after the sixth shot. Without skipping a beat I dropped the cheap piece of polymer garbage and got a real gun trained on Ivan. He wasn't dead yet, but he sure as hell wasn't up for another round of fisticuffs. I watched the blood pour from him as I finally caught my breath, battling down my nausea with every gulp of iron-ripe air.

This wasn't a clean painting of any real skill or artistry, it was a rush job that left a pound of ground meat twitching on the ground. I thought about putting an end to that twitching when I realized my ears weren't even ringing after using that toy gun in a sealed room. It was a polymer piece of garbage, but damned if it wasn't quiet. I left Ivan to bleed out on the floor and picked my own ass up.

Glassware hit the floor in a burst of pinging shattered fragments. My eyes found a scantily clad, heavy-set woman frozen halfway down the staircase. It didn't take a genius to realize that, shocked though she may be, she recognized a corpse when she saw one. With the stiff, juddering motions of a wooden doll she turned to look at me.

"Scream-" She screamed at the top of her lungs before I could add 'and you die.'

I pulled the familiar weight of my four-shooter's trigger. A deafening blast of shot peeled throughout the condo, a clutch of bismuth pellets slamming the woman into the wall just as surely as any heavyweight body blow would. Absurdly terror, adrenaline and possibly something more kept her upright, desperately running towards the door as her bare feet were cut to bloody ribbons on the shattered crystal glassware she'd dropped.

My second shot ripped through her torso and suddenly her will to live wasn't enough to keep her going. Her jerky, wooden doll movements carried her down the rest of the stairs, her face splatting to the floor with long slivers of glass skewering her dead fish eyes. Her skull bounced once of the metal flooring, the hollow sound lost to my ringing ears. I didn't waste the breath to curse her stupidity, deftly slotting two fresh shot shells into my revolver's cylinder before locking the door and moving on to plan B.

I had to assume that someone heard the scream and gunshots, that any second now a response would be mustered and within a minute, a tactical unit of cops or crooks would be smashing down that door to come sniff around. A robbery gone bad was close enough to the truth that it didn't take much faking. The curtains were closed enough that adjusting them would draw more attention than it would spare so I left them alone.

Darting upstairs, I swept the house at gunpoint and breathed a sigh of relief that Ivan only had one girl over instead of a whole harem. I tossed the master bedroom first, a locked drawer on the nightstand drawing my attention. Shooting the lock would have been faster but I couldn't draw any more heat to myself, so I searched for a key and found it within arm's reach under the self-cooling mattress.

My stomach sank to my knees when I opened the drawer and found an OSD, a loaded service pistol and a semi-holographic Ident badge for one Detective Ivan Ballalikia, courtesy of Zashachetk Security Holdings. I knew more than most about ZashaSec from my work in the shadows; they were a private military corp that handled a few dozen city-wide high threat response contracts. When the cops couldn't handle something, ZashaSec stepped in to get the job done at any cost, be that cash or corpses.

"No connections worth mentioning my ass." I grumbled.

I shed my sullied worker's garbs, stuffing the loot into the pockets of my nondescript day clothes. The bloodied—and coffee'd—disguise plus it accompanying belt and hat got crammed into my duty bag along with a fistful of whatever looked valuable within arm's reach. I froze on the third handful of jewelery, remembering my walk through the worker's bazaar. I didn't know the first thing about what was actually valuable in Tengoku's luxury loaded economy, so I stopped wasting time and went back downstairs.

Both the condo's occupants were well and truly dead now. I tossed the kitchen, adding a collection of assorted pills to my stash. Figuring enough time had passed between the gunshots and now, I stepped over what was left of Ivan, expecting him to reach up with his dead hands and try to throttle me like the last guy I killed. Yet Ivan's jewelery encrusted fingers didn't so much as twitch, though one ring stood out from the rest. The craftsmanship was exceptional if antiquated, the wear of the years separating the ring from the rest of Ivan's glittering jewelery. Pocketing the antique ring, I made my escape.

It wasn't exactly a clean getaway, but I hit the service tunnels and dug out my comm.

"It's the painter, job's done. I used the alternate style and found some very interesting additions."

"Impressive work. We've seen waves about an uncouth worker near the painting, but haven't heard of anything else outside of the ordinary."

I wasn't in the mood to deal with Matsumoto's backhanded compliments or snide jabs. Getting myself lost in the station's depths had been more difficult than I'd initially expected, which was already a high bar to reach. I'd finally made it back to level 7, barging my way through the thinned crowds of the worker's bazaar.

"There were… complications. My oils ran outside the lines."

"Art is far from an exact science. I can assure you that such complications are the norm here on Tengoko."

"I see," I'd figured as much, but having it blatantly admitted sat poorly with me. "All that remains it the final hand off, it would seem."

"So it would seem." Matsumoto agreed, a calculating sneer peeling from my comm. "You already know where, a time will be confirmed when convenient on our end."

The line clicked dead.

"Jackass." I growled under my breath.

My burn-swollen thumb flicked down the list of contacts pre-loaded into my burner comm. The less contact I had with anyone on station, the better. I'd just need to forget about them and they'd need to do the same for me. But still… I tapped out a text for my pre-loaded street doc, Shenhua.

P - Got anything for burns? Just hot water. Not fire, electric or acid.

I'd been on Tengoku for less than a full day and it was like I'd been flung into space ages ago. Intatenrup was a stone's throw away—with a little help from gravity that was—and that distance was still impossibly far from me. I'd known getting on the Thread of Heaven was a one way ticket off world, but I hadn't known just how one way that really was. I could always go back down to Intatenrup, so long as I accepted that I wouldn't be the same man who'd left. It was a sickeningly bittersweet prospect, not the life I'd left behind but the sheltering ignorance from what the universe was like beyond the smog-lined sky of my home planet. In a sense, Intatenrup may have been where I was born, but it wasn't my home planet anymore.

Working my way through a crowd of drop-dead gorgeous women, I realized how utterly alone I was in Heaven. Not just in Heaven, I'd been lonely my entire life and I'd never noticed because I'd never been anything else. Maybe that was why I could never go back, I was born in Intatenrup but I'd never truly belonged there, I'd never actually been a citizen on anything more than records. If a single day had been all it took to make me notice how miserably pathetic my old life was, was I any better than these deluded kings brutally running their tiny slices of this glass bubble paradise? Would it be better to rule in hell rather than moving on, hoping for a chance at something better?

My comm buzzed, stirring me from my reflection but it was just Matsumoto.

Senpai M - 2230. Bring everything you found.

That was hours from now, hours I'd rather not spend stuck inside my own head. On a station this size, there was bound to be some kind of driving simulator or rental options but neither could compare to the real thing. The open road never failed to clear my head, but if I was stuck in space for the foreseeable future the odds of hitting the open highway were near nil. As it was, I'd have to settle for a few hours of shut eye and, hopefully, another chance to talk to Shenhua.

The shut eye came and went in a blink, my exhaustion trouncing the pain of my wear and tear. Bleary-eyed, I checked that there was still some time between my check-up and Matsumoto's meeting. I still hadn't gotten an answer back from Shenhua about a burn treatment, but there was still an hour until she said she'd come back. For an hour, I did nothing but wait and tidy up the coffin of a room as best I could. After that, just sitting in my room instead of constantly poking my head out the door to watch for her arrival took more of my willpower than I'd imagined possible.

An hour after she'd said she'd be back, I sent another text.

P - I think everything is healing right, but I could use a second opinion.

And for another hour after that, I did nothing but wait in my room for a text or a knock at the door. Neither one came.

By the time I couldn't delay any longer, I'd already worked through hundreds of conversations we might have, thousands of questions and answers to anything and everything and nothing at all. I made a dozen excuses for why she wasn't here. Surely it was no fault of her own; she had to work or there was an emergency somewhere or she was just sleeping and had her comm set to silent. When I finished my meeting with Matsumoto and Satou I'd probably have a message from her waiting on my comm. She'd want to meet up again before I shipped off station and we'd have a blast. It definitely wasn't because she hated me after how things had ended last time, it could have been anything but that. I must have told myself that at least ten times before I reached the dockside housing the Goodnight Moon.

The crisp recycled air seeping from Goodnight Moon was a better indicator that I was on the right track than the neon signs were. Now that I knew to look for it, the brisk currents turned up undertones of sake and a sterile chemical tinge just below that. The scent worked wonders for my focus. I had a job to do, I could deal with whatever the hell Shenhua was to me and my feelings for her once I was done here.

The bar was more deserted than it had been when I was last here; empty tables and booths reflecting outwards to the empty cosmos. The two governing bodies were in a similar reflection, Intatenrup glowering down at Mister Satou as he menaced upwards at it. I got the impression this was old hand for both of them, tow uncaring giants locked in hateful orbit around each other.

T

he wasted space could have housed a hundred workers with room to spare; as it was I spotted twenty guards as static as any other fixture in the room. The tables should have been bustling customers and servers, yet they were forsaken tombstones of polished rock capturing the light of the stars and the void beyond. The grandeur I'd first been struck with now reeked of corpulence all being mocked by the infinite cold indifference of space. For all that empty space, both within and without, Satou filled the room as only a minuscule titan could.

His raw presence blazed into a semi-solid aura of commanding authority as hot as the room was cold. He was a man who knew with absolute certainty that he was destined for bigger things than this bar. Without looking away from the heavenly multiplex before him, Satou asked a question that filled the room.

"Tell me Painter, in a hundred lifetimes could you every recreate such majesty as this?"

I figured his 'this' meant more than just the view, Satou wasn't a man of such narrow vision after all. No his meaning would have been everything around me; not just the bar or the view but the whole of Tengoku. For a second I was tempted to agree. Tengoku certainly had it's dazzling lights and luxuries I'd only dreamed of in my planetside upbringing. All that beauty hid a great deal more that repulsed me— that should repulsed anyone who called themselves human. The glorified slavery of indentured servitude, the top-heavy distribution of not just luxury but basic needs, and the selfish desire to maintain a status quo that kept a small handful in absolute power at the human cost of thousands of others. There was a beauty to Tengoku, but it was a shallow, ugly thing to me.

"It's been said that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' Mister Satou."

"Just so, Painter. Tengoku's cold beauty is very much to my liking." He turned from the void to fix me with a calculated smile absent of any genuine warmth. "Of course, complementing and contrasting these shades with warmer hues brings out the best in both spectrums. Your palette would be a welcome addition to my family."

I never cared much for verbal fencing, but much like a keen insight, it was a necessity in my line of work. Satou wasn't hiding his intent which meant this was a formal offer, if I joined the family I'd be a made man instead of a dirty secret. It was a sickeningly sweet temptation, same as every other treat offered on Tengoku. I would be trapped here, keeping the wheels of Tengoku greased with blood. The rewards of my labor would be a lavish prison cell serviced by attendants no better than furnishings. The offer was so sweet I could almost feel myself rotting away on the inside.

"Frankly, Mister Satou, I find that Tengoku's climate doesn't pair well with my… creative humors. I'm still intend on finding a more agreeable locale." Satou's scrutiny cut into me, taking the measure of my character as he formulated his counterstrike.

"So it would seem. Then we should toast your health and conclude our business quickly," He let the words hang as he marshaled the next, lending gravitas to his riposte. "Since my Tengoku is so… disagreeable, to your sensibilities."

I was still parsing his words as one of his bodyguards left his post to make a trip to the bar. Two glasses were served, Satou's no bigger than a thimble while mine was more traditionally sized. I kept a puzzled look off my face while Satou scrutinized me, clearly looking for something I wasn't seeing. The drinks were poured with due reverence by the guard turned tender. Satou lifted his shot between thumb and forefinger while I took up my filled glass in reply.

"To your health, Painter." Satou intoned, his face stony as he sipped his shot.

Without skipping a beat, I downed a finger of my drink. I was expecting the familiar burn of whiskey or vodka and was pleasantly surprised to find it lacking. Satou didn't seem like the type to poison, and if he was the mismatched glasses drew too much attention to the drink. Unless the drinks were just a feint and the real blow would come from somewhere else. Still, I couldn't figure out the significance behind the lopsided act, and from Satou's interest, I was clearly expected to.

"I've had a more comfortable booth prepared where we can discuss your work at length." Satou said gruffly.

We crossed the room and once again, the absence of patrons and workers stood out, especially with the guard cum server tailing behind us. The absence of life paired with the slight muffling effect of the bar's permanent chill fog reminded me of a barren moonscape, one I was being marched over to a shallow grave of a booth sank into the leftmost wall. The two guards flanking the booth did nothing to assuage my mounting doubts. Satou and I sat, our server stood to Satou's side, diligently topping off his tiny cup.

"I am a man who enjoys saving his dessert for last. You mentioned complications, what happened?"

"It was a robbery gone bad, as planned, but there was some extra… breakage. There was a girl-"

"One less slut in Tengoku is hardly worth mentioning."

His interruption caught me by surprise, more so than the words themself. He'd offered me a woman's life as a rush fee so his stance wasn't particularly shocking. All the same, I buried my shock under a sip of sake while I recovered.

"There's also these." I said, keeping my voice level as I placed Ivan's ZashaSec badge and antique ring on the table. "Ivan was far more connected than you were led to believe, Mister Satou."

His flinty eyes could have be cut from an asteroid for all the emotion behind them. The look of disdain, the faintest sneer of his lips was another story. I'd placed the items side by side but it looked like Satou's gaze was favoring the ring instead of the badge, meaning my hunch about its importance was right. This went beyond cool under fire. He'd known and he sent me in anyway.

"It is of no matter." Satou puffed. Downing his shot, he held out his glass for an instant refill. One was offered with due reverence.

"Then Tengoku is very different from Intatenrup. The Wardens and planetside ZashaSec teams usually take exception to one of their own getting murdered in the line of duty— more so off duty."

"They may take as much exception as they see fit; it is still of no matter to me."

I grit my teeth at his indifference but said, "So it would seem."

Cool though he was, Satou's eyes widened when the OSD was added to my growing collection on the table. Unlike the other items, I kept my fingers on the drive. I could tell in an instant that this info was never a secondary objective. The deader was a nuisance that needed to die, but this data was the final nail in his casket. And if the local security forces—assuming Tengoku even had cops as I would recognize them—had brought in a private military corp to get this data quietly then that meant major waves were rocking the orbital.

"And this," I asked. "Is a matter of consequence?"

Satou held my eyes even as his outstretched cup was refilled once more. My cup was still more than half-full from our toast yet now at some sign I didn't see, our tender finally topped me off. I ignored the glass, just as the tender had until now.

"Mister Satou, I wouldn't be so unprofessional as to renege on a deal after I'd finished my work-"

"That is good." He barked, flinty eyes flicking to my fingers. "Then why do you cling to what is mine?"

"I merely wanted to offer an outsider's opinion." Satou subtly inclined his head, baying me to go on. "I see that certain facts of our arrangement were… misrepresented. The need for discrepancy need not necessarily equate to the need for deception. Freelancers less understanding than I might take exception to your particular circumstances."

Satou narrowed his eyes to little more than accusatory slits. I listened for the clicks of pistols having their safety's disengaged but the sound never came.

"Your opinion, Outsider, has been noted." Satou said, once again inclining his head.

I removed my hand from the OSD and tried not to smirk at Satou's visible effort not to snatch it up. His collected demeanor was crumbling, which meant nothing good for me. The waves of change tended to make men in power jumpy and Satou didn't strike me as the type who wouldn't snip loose ends if he stood to benefit.

"Is there anything else, you wish to report to me, Outsider?"

"Nothing, Mister Satou." I said, bowing as much as the table would allow for good measure.

"Then your payment awaits, as soon as I've confirmed the veracity of your accounts."

"Of course, Mister Satou." I said, trying not to bristle after being called a liar so blatantly.

My pile of loot was collected by one of the booth's guards. Satou and I sipped at our drinks to while away the uncomfortable silence. Something had changed in his demeanor since out last meeting. Was it that he'd gotten what he wanted so there was no need to keep up the act, or was it something else entirely? The goon returned to whisper in his boss's ear, causing a wide grin to pinch Satou's flush cheeks.

"Your due reward awaits." Satou said with a cold smile, his flinty eyes as empty as the bar.

Satou led the way, his goon-bartender bringing up the rear as I was marched in the middle, much the same as a prisoner might be sent to his execution. The lowest level of this monoplex of a bar had discrete inwards-facing doorways I'd failed to notice before; the bar's dominating view all but ensured the eyes of any patrons would wander upwards instead of down. The door I was led through had us crossing through a cozy poker room staffed by yet more guards, then deeper still into an office.

Matsumoto stood to the side of a regal hardwood desk, silhouetted by a white canvased wall behind him. Every other wall in the office was splashed with dull metallic hues of blue, grey and black; the room would have felt suffocatingly small despite its size if not for the hanging scrollwork contrasting the frigid atmosphere. The meter-long scrolls created an air of mysticism savagely exaggerated by the bronze hooks scattered across the ceiling.

Satou took his seat behind the desk, wearing his thoughts openly for the first time since I'd met him. His face was a perversely contemptible mockery of childish delight. Just looking at him made my skin crawl, all the while he eyed me up like a fly about to have its wings plucked off. At a nod, the guard behind me left the room and shut the door.

I knew a show of power when I saw one. Marching me past almost thirty guards in an empty bar to a secluded location was as unsubtle as it was heavy handed. If I was an amateur to wetwork, I'd have been weighing my odds and finding them overwhelming. The fact that I'd been left alone with the boss and my handler spoke of a different battle to come. Instead of pulling my four-shooter, I pointedly examined the scrolls hanging from the walls while I waited for Satou to make me an offer I couldn't refuse.

"I want you to join the family." Satou finally said after realizing that I was no longer paying due attention to him.

"I refuse." I hadn't even turned from the scroll to answer him, though I refrained from fully turning my back to either of them.

"That wasn't an offer." Matsumoto growled, his tone all cold business and quick temper.

"The terms of our agreement-"

"Have changed." Satou cut me off.

"I've delivered your data, painted my deader, ransacked his abode. It wasn't perfect, I'll admit that, but I have done everything you asked for and now you see fit to renege on our deal. I wasn't expecting such poor form."

"You violated the terms of your arrangement." Matsumoto growled. Satou held up a belaying hand.

"Tell me painter, what does this room lack?"

I stopped looking around the office and started looking at it as a whole. The color balance was fair, a warmer mirror of the void-viewing bar overhead. A person's office, much like their home, said a great deal about their nature. Satou had a style of subdued extravagance, one that didn't scream its nature but proudly wore the fact of it. His office full of imports that highlighted his wealth and his solitary prestige, yet the wealth he showcased was always against a drab backdrop: his desk to a white wall, his scrolls to dull metal, even his bar with its magnificent background of the cosmos was ultimately nothing more than an accent piece.

"Your accent wall is too stark. The contrast too steep. It highlights your desk and your person but you are lost in its pale oppression."

Satou's perverse smile widened to appalling proportions, his splendor lost behind that frog-mouthed smirk.

"My thought's exactly, Outsider."

The door behind me opened as if on cue, two goons in suits dragging a limply struggling form between them, entered the office. She was stripped naked except for the black sack covering the petite woman's head and the manacles clamped around her wrists and ankles. In a single fluid heave they hoisted the woman until she hung a half-meter off the floor, suspended by her chained wrists to a brutal hook from the ceiling. The heavy lifting done, both guards took separate corners opposite Satou and his new office decoration.

Neither Satou or Matsumoto spared a glance for the spectacle, both keen on reading me. Whatever they were looking for wasn't forthcoming, the only thoughts swimming below the measured indifference on my face were disgust and wrath. I kept both sensations in check, heedless of how they brayed for blood. The killing heat flooding my limbs was beginning to burn from the inside, searing me in its murderous desire to be set loose.

"Not exactly the complimentary piece I would have went with." I said, my tone one of strained indifference that both men saw through in an instant.

"Do you not recognize your whore when she's not on her back!?" Matsumoto roared, tearing the black hood off the woman.

With the hood clear and her no-nonsense black bob cut settled, I recognized her now even with the broken jaw and swollen black eye. This whore—no, this poor woman—was Shenhua, the street doc who'd nearly made a man out of me. The woman who'd almost tempted me to stay here in this mock paradise because it meant I could have her. Her remaining eye lolled about the room in a daze, the pupil wide and unfocused from her beating.

I couldn't stop my mind from drawing comparisons to the last girl I'd seen hung from chains. My heart set a heavy, hammering beat just like my last boss's daughter's had back in that basement. Shenhua wasn't dying, not yet at least, not unless they'd broken her skull. From the looks of her, they might have. My limbs were aching for action, for bloody release. The last man who'd done this was barely human, lost as he was to the knowledge pulled from that cursed black book.

I pulled my adrenaline focused vision off of Shenhua's battered face to see Satou leering deamoniacally at me from behind his desk. How lost was his wretched soul that he would do this to an innocent woman who'd done nothing more than her job? If I shot him dead and ripped out his heart, what shade of blackest evil would I find at his core?

"You have my attention." I uttered the words, damned near choking them out.

"In truth, I don't care for this decoration either. As you said, it clashes with the room and doesn't address the blank canvas at all. Wouldn't you agree, Matsumoto?"

"Your vision is flawless, as always, Boss Satou." Matsumoto concurred, the drivel of his sycophancy as revulsive as his sidelong leering at Shenhua's naked flesh. "You were warned about playing with other men's toys, Hero-kun."

"I didn't- We didn't-" Satou's slammed fist cut my words short.

"Have you not disrespected me enough? Must you lie to my face, in my very own office as I offer you a path to redemption?"

"We know you called her to your room," Matsumoto added, sliding his hand between Shenhua's legs and reaching inside of her. "That your seed was sown in her barren womb as she came to 'play doctor' for you."

My vision was tunneling, a red haze narrowing the world to Matsumoto's smugly superior expression of contempt, his hand groping at Shenhua all the while. She didn't utter a sound of pleasure or pain, she only hung there like a corpse. My four-shooter was still loaded, if I could kill the four of them with a single shot each… I still wouldn't have enough time to reload. I still had Ivan's service pistol tucked in a pocket, I could use that, then scrounge for guns and ammo.

Then what? I was backed in a corner, Shenhua would need my help and there would still be around twenty-five armed goons looking to save or avenge their boss. I could only shoot my way so far before a lucky shot brought me down. If we were going to die here, I wish I'd taken Shenhua up on her offer, since we were damned either way.

"You said I had a path to redemption. I join your family and you let her live. Is that it?"

Satou laughed a frog-mouthed bellow, showing entirely too many artificially-whitened teeth.

"Of course not. The bitch will die for her betrayal either way. No, I'd thought it obvious what I expect you to do, Painter."

Simmering rage didn't help me put the dots together any faster. My gaze constantly flicking between Satou's grin, Matsumoto's smirk and Shenhau's good eye, now drunkenly focused on my face as tears poured down her own battered visage. Her split, bloodied lips were silently mouthing three words over and over again, her broken jaw shrouding the words but not the meaning.

Sorry, Cherry Boy.

"You want me to paint your office with her." I said. Impossibly, Satou's frog-faced grin widened further until it was practically ear to ear.

"And if you don't," Matsumoto said, drawing a pistol with his off-hand. "I will."

Satou stood, his deamonic frog-wide grin vanishing behind his earlier mask of impeccable control. My four-shooter was in my hand before I knew what I was doing with it. A stereo pair of clicks sounded to my left and right, the goons in the corners squaring my in their gun-sights.

"I'll leave you and Matsumoto to discuss the fine details." Satou said before departing, walking through our armed standoff without the slightest concern for his own well being.

Once the door closed behind Satou, Matsumoto drew back his hands, leveling his pistol at my hips and bringing his other moistened hand to his nose. His eyes rolled back in depraved ecstasy as he inhaled Shenhau's scent. His aim didn't even budge.

"If you'd just had a little patience, you could have bought any girl you wanted, Hero-Kun. But you couldn't contain yourself for a single day, could you? I suppose it was just too much to ask of a lowborn terran cur like you."

"That's not how it happened."

"Oh I know. She told us all about your little performance issue. How you distinguished yourself in the bedroom. You spilled your seed and left her to sow it by hand— how noble of you. Tell me, is that gun as volatile as you manhood?"

"Shut up." I snarled, my pistol centered on Matsumoto's torso.

"So you can get it up when you try. Does pointing that at me while I list your invalidities soothe your ire? Does it make you feel like the man you are so desperate to be?"

I cocked the hammer. Matsumoto smirked.

"Oh come now, we both know you lack the follow through for that. Even if you shoot me dead," Matsumoto backhanded Shenhua hard enough to leave an imprint of his knuckles. "This whore that you're so fond of, will spend the rest of her life begging for death and being denied. Killing her is the last kindness you can offer her. Paint with her and Boss Satou will let you hurl your worthless life to the stars, just as you wished to do last cycle."

Sweat was pouring off me, the heat of five bodies on the dull edge of conflict had made the room stiflingly hot. My blazing nerves were alight all across my body but try as I might, I couldn't summon forth whatever the heat inside me was. I could kill Matsumoto but that wouldn't save Shenhua— or myself, not that I had much hope of walking out of this room alive, one way or the other.

I dropped my aim, my four-shooter hanging heavy at my side. I couldn't save her. I couldn't save a single damned woman in this glass-bubble hellscape of a paradise. The only thing I could do was make sure she didn't suffer a second more of this humiliation then was necessary. When all else failed, I had nothing left but the cruelest kind of decency. Shenhua's good eye was losing focus yet it still clung to me, a dim candle in the cold darkness.

"Did you…" I uttered.

"Did I what?" Matsumoto blustered. "Rape her? As if-" Any further words from his serpentine tongue were stilled as he looked down the barrel of my four-shooter centimeters from his face.

"I wasn't talking to you. Shen, when you washed up, did you…"

Her faint nod was as damning as it was weak. Tears pouring from her jade eyes confessed more than she could with words.

"Why?"

"No more owner." She croaked in little more than a broken whisper. "It is happy dream, no?"

"Yeah. It is." I agreed, voice tense and throat tight. "Why don't you close your eyes and think about that?"

She nodded again, then asked, "Will it hurt?"

"It's just like falling asleep." I lied. "So dream a happy dream."

Shenhua closed her eyes while tears poured down her bludgeoned face. Her split lips were quivering in time with the sympathetic ache in my chest as she tried to put on a brave face. I reached for a word of comfort and found nothing. I couldn't offer her comfort. All I had was the most heartless form of mercy. My four-shooter's muzzle shifted from Matsumoto to Shenhua.

There wouldn't be a funeral for a working girl like her. No one would weep over her sealed casket longing for one last look at her face. My pistol's muzzle hovered ten centimeters from her temple while I choked on my apology. She didn't deserve this. I doubted any of the girls in Tengoku deserved this. They would get no salvation from their damnable fate, only a lucky few could hope for mercy.

I squeeze the trigger with a lover's caress.

The white canvas receives its first wide stroke of red paint. The misfiring nerves of her spine make her body shudder where it hangs suspended, agony and death animating her body where her soul should have been. My aim drops to her throat: veins, arteries and her twitching spine all blocking my shot's path.

A kiss of the trigger makes my gun shudder.

The canvas takes its second splash of depth, the impression of a life cut short dotting its surface. Her body has stilled, clenching muscles now releasing in the ignominy of death's uncaring clutch. She isn't dancing on her chains anymore, rather she's swaying like a gruesome metronome to the reaper's waltz. My pistol glides down her skin, settling just under one of her perfectly plump breasts. The sight of her fair sex stirred no passion in me as it had yesterday; the vibrant woman was gone, only lifeless meat remained.

The third shot is teased from my draining pistol.

The painting drinks in her heart's blood; the gluttony of the canvas a disparagingly appropriate reflection of this station's own insatiable appetite. The final stroke of the brush is revealed to me as lines of dripping blood hint at the soul of this piece and the unquantifiable truth that it would represent. The leaking sack of tattered meat hung before me only resembled a person in the loosest sense; gone was the woman who might have been my answer. Its face was an unrecognizable mess of splintered bone, stringy meat and sloughing skin yet the faintest smile she'd tried to put on for me was still there despite the muscles needed being destroyed. The truth was buried in that haunting smile. I embraced the gore splattered flesh sac, playing the angles of my pistol's final shot through my mind. My inks were of the foulest origins, as a painter I was obligated to honor my work and its mortal cost. I leaned my weight into the once beautiful woman's body, aligning my final shot to conclude another painting.

I pressed our bodies together and brought my weapon to its climax.

Matsumoto's stiff profile made an ideal boundary; catching viscera, bone and bismuth pellets in plentiful quantities. There was a moment's delay before he registered that he'd been shot; a single moment where he'd been admiring my work with a degenerate's warped glee before his legs weakened and pain reached his mind. A straight-edged man, detached from the cycle of cruelty he perpetuated, slumps to the floor in howling anguish to unveil my masterpiece.

The painting was a work of grisly perfection.

There was a gruesome beauty in the runny red hues, a degree of artistic whim that captured the weight of an entire life on a single canvas. I'd made an angel on the cavans, her ruby wings weeping as they spread to take flight, the outline of a man in negative standing at her feet. This painting would be Shenhua's legacy, not mine. It was a heartless kind of immortality to be rendered in art paid for in blood. She was the angel trapped in marble and I was merely the mortal hand that had set her free of her earthly binding with brutally efficient butchery. Truly, Shenhua was nothing more than a sack of shredded meat, perforated by my damned mercy.

"She… is magnificent!"

I'd been so lost in my work, I hadn't noticed Satou reenter behind me.

"Yes," I said without turning from the woman who might have been my answer. "She was."

"What do you call it?"

"Shenhua's Escape From Paradise."

The words came automatically. A sense of absolute certainty washed over me at their rightness. I peeled my gaze from the woman I'd mercifully murdered to face Satou and his goons. All three were enraptured by the red angel, eyes fixed and mouths agape. Both goons still had their pistols pointed in my direction and Satou himself had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his suit jacket. I'd missed my chance to save Shenhua before, I couldn't let this opportunity to avenge her slip through my fingers.

My four-shooter slipped from my fingers, my hand already in motion for Ivan's service pistol in my pocket. The leftmost goon, snapped his head at my sudden movements, his pistol flinching up faster than I could dodge. I just needed one more second— a half second!

The fires threatening to consume me from the inside went from a raging inferno to a single white-hot mote of unparalleled focus on the pistol squaring on my chest. The pistol that would kill me. The pistol that would stop me from avenging my red angel. The goon leveled his gun, he had me dead to rights. He pulled the trigger.

And his handgun exploded like a string of firecrackers as the entire magazine cooked off simultaneously. Including the round in the chamber.

His bullet ripped through my shoulder as I wrapped my fingers around the pistol in my pocket. I tipped the muzzle as far as my pocket would allow, and hip-fired a burst at the second goon. Sparks flew in a puff from from the wall behind him, every blind-fired shot wide of my mark.

Goon two was patting himself down in disbelief when two shots cannoned through my guts and a third came bursting through my back. My legs folded like snapped twigs, the floor rushed up the meet me. I got my mangled hand out to slow my fall but not much.

My other hand ripped Ivan's pistol clear of my tattered pocket. I pushed myself upright and got the looted gun leveled on Satou just as a mule kick knocked the weapon from my hand. A follow-up kick had me seeing stars while the third had me seeing nothing at all.

"Enough! I don't need any more blood in my office. Drag him and his whore to the usual airlock, but let him bleed out before you flush it."

A searing ashy pain lanced into my back where a dull throbbing ache was spreading.

"After all, we don't want him dieing too soon."