As she walked away, Tasìa glanced back with a deliberate slow turn of her body. Alisha pretended to be unconcerned with Tasìa's agenda. The Arizona girl leaned in the opposite direction with her head turned away while she chatted vigorously with her new clientele.

She was watching me before I turned back around.

Tasìa paused.

What happened here?

She stood at the parking lot entrance of the motel.

A dilapidated sign above her announced - El Flamenco Rosa. Bueno! Bueno Tiempos!

The Pink Flamingo. Good! Good Times!

In the fore of Tasìa stood a decent-sized complex of buildings, several with two-tiered wings spread along a winding parking lot.

An open-air gambling hall sat ensconced between the two farthest wings.

Unfortunately, in its current condition, the fun palace was inoperable.

Tasìa had to step further into the lot before she encountered any signs of a living habitat. Beneath a canopy, two women worked a mechanical loom of modern vintage.

Tasìa had always admired a well-constructed machine and this one fit her taste. Several dozen pins set atop the weave controls that guided variant strands. An inset tool dedicated to seamlessly applying fonts to the designs hung above the pins.

She could see the font needles outlining the words.

Ama a una amor a todas

Love one, love all

One of the ladies worked at the pins. She matched strands of bold-colored fabric while marking which of the strands fed into which set of pins.

The other lady noticed Tasìa and greeted her with a smile while she stood up. They wore sundresses that matched in pattern while the color schemes were inversions of one another.

"Are your dresses handmade, as well?"

The busy woman's head turned with a jerk as she heard Tasìa speak. She went back to what she was doing.

"Yes. Most indeed.

"We make a lot of things, rugs, dresses, perfumes, flavor extracts, things that we sale at our flea market rental."

To her ears, the lady's accent was similar to Alisha's own. She had not met enough Americans in her thirty-two years on this mortal coil to discern one regional accent from another.

"Are you from Arizona like Alisha?"

The lady shook her head.

"I'm Cassandra. From Boston."

A few states to the North and East of Arizona, right? Even though she had memorized the states for a fourth-grade social studies test and received a perfect score for it, decades later, she wasn't so certain.

"I'm Avellana. Sorry to interrupt, but Alisha told me you may have seen someone who came by asking questions."

Cassandra nodded.

"Actually, there were two of them. A woman came alone the first time. And roughly a month after that, a man came inquiring about her."

"Do you remember what the woman asked about?"

Cassandra nodded.

"Oh, certainly. She is a human rights lawyer. I had seen her face a few times on the news feeds.

"She asked about the working conditions over there -," Cassandra nodded towards the SkyTether, "- where we all use to be employed."

If not for Alisha's one tell, the emphatic use of the word 'sure', Tasìa would have already considered this lead a dead-end, and dropped it to pursue one of the more promising ones listed on the flash drive that León had provided her.

Even if that involved riding a bus?

Tasìa bristled at the thought.

This lead happened to be within walking distance of Annebél's safe house where Tasìa stayed and recuperated. Until Annebél and Raúl returned to Asunción with her motorcycle, she was limited in the scope of her inquiry.

"So, she wanted to get your crew -."

"Commune," Cassandra corrected her.

"- wanted to get your commune on record for a formal complaint against the management of SkyTether?"

Cassandra stayed attentive to detail when she answered.

"Cross Felix Systems. That's the incorporated governing body with a majority stake and is chartered to run it.

"The lawyer seemed to have a personal vendetta against them."

Cassandra turned towards the other woman.

"Hey Judith, you spoke to the lawyer. What did you tell her?"

Tasìa noticed that the woman identified as Judith was distracted by something on the second-floor landing of the building adjacent to the main road.

The woman jerked her head towards Cassandra.

"I told her we are not interested. That was in the past, and it has nothing to do with what we now pursue and believe in."

Cassandra nodded her head.

"We are all less anxious and more fulfilled now. Happier with our lives. Most definitely happier."

Was it worth pushing them for more answers? Tasìa decided against it. Her hunch was too weak to be an asshole about it.

She turned around and glanced up. A door was open in the space Judith was previously staring at.

Tasìa squinted to peer deeper inside.

A misshapen shape appeared faintly outlined in the reflection of a vanity mirror that stood propped up on the one visible but highly shadowed wall. Tasìa felt a moment of recognition as a tingle went up her spine.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

It was something amorphous she had experienced before but she could not quite place where that fear originated.

So much had happened in the last few weeks. Too much weird shit for her to even hope to keep track of.

Fortunately, some revelation came to be.

The volume of light in that room swelled to a greater luminosity. It likely was sourced from a bathroom whose door had just been propped open.

Now that there were no obscurant shadows on the mirror's surface, Tasìa could see the shape of a slouching man wearing a tank top staring back at her as he hid behind a set of blinds.

That she was being spied upon by curious residents shouldn't have even been unexpected, so what was the tingling sensation about?

Just before the moment, she felt she would have been obligated to turn her head back around for the sake of appearing inconspicuous, the man turned his head to the side and started speaking to someone deeper in the room.

There were scars on his cheek, a metal plate just above his temple, and his eyes set unnaturally deep.

A freakin' mechhead, Tasìa concluded.

What were these solid citizen hippie types doing hanging with a lag-about mechhead?

Keeping her opinions suppressed, Tasìa politely thanked the two ladies and departed.

Tasìa gazed across the street. There were other abandoned buildings nearby that were not operational in the commercial sense, but were they also uninhabited?

A garage that sat atop a hill further down the street made a good locale to stake out the motel.

She couldn't merely walk over to it. No doubt the mechhead had already found another vantage point from another window from which to keep track of her.

To utilize the garage in her stake-out, she would have to double back from a vantage point out of their range of view.

Tasìa strolled back down from whence she came and passed Alisha's kiosk.

Two more blocks down from the motel, she determined from her study of a crow that sat on a spike partially buried in the side of a wooden pole that she was being followed.

The crow was no nightwing, but still possessed the feral intelligence common to its species. It kept its gaze on something in motion behind her.

The stalker crept by a brick wall of a gardening center she had just passed by. It was one of the few commercial businesses still plying its trade in this north-western hub of the city.

She spotted a thicket of trees and bushes to her right that occupied the space between the gardening supplies complex and a long, narrow coffee shop.

Tasìa darted towards it. While shuffling through a set of manicured bushes, she felt around her fanny-pack.

The two moon clips she grabbed held eight .22 rounds each. From her boot holster hidden beneath the left sleeve of her jeans, Tasìa produced a Magellani Intorno al Mondo double-chambered revolver.

Magellani was an upstart Italian manufacturer on the scene making its name for its unique wheel gun designs.

Tasìa unclipped the double chambers, slid them up, and popped the first moon clip in. It fed into the back chamber. Tasia fed the second clip after it.

Her revolver now had sixteen rounds. The back chamber in reality remained immobile. When the eight in the front chamber were spent, the holding pins spread out to let the eight rounds in reserve slide up.

Neat, but it was an impractical design for a higher caliber revolver if its purpose was one of concealed carry.

Tasìa once owned a Magellani chambered for the .38 Special (though not for its longer sister round, the .357). The barrel length that was needed to steady the frame configuration came in at a whopping nine inches.

Still, it fired like a dream with no recoil. Unfortunately, it was one of a dozen guns she kept in that little safe house bunker when the bounty hunters swept in and nabbed her.

So, lost to her forever.

Tasìa slipped the gun back into its holster. She did not feel it would be necessary; even so, it was best to be prepared.

One of the trees curved against the olive brick building. It was one of the three structures that formed the garden supply store complex.

She scurried up it and hoisted herself onto the rooftop. Tasìa grimaced at the sight of her scuffed boots, praying that none of the marks were permanent.

She had only purchased the boots that morning. That was how ill-prepared Tasìa was for her venture into Asunción. She had to buy footwear, and have the boots shipped to a Quick Mart via drone from a downtown supplier. She also had to sort through a small collection of guns looted off of dead men from her last standoff to find a weapon that fit the occasion.

Several seconds later, the mechhead came strolling around the corner. He quickly surmised that she wasn't there.

He rushed through the brush and pushed limbs to the side while he jerked his head to see if she hid behind anything.

With muttered curse words under his breath, "shit, shit, shit," the mechhead jogged to the opposite end of the building. He stood on the sidewalk and searched up and down the next street over.

His head bobbed side to side in an almost comical fashion in search of her. Tasìa ducked her head, knowing he would soon be doubling back her way.

For several minutes she lay in wait as she heard him rustling in the bushes below her.

Why doesn't he just give up? Why doesn't he just leave, already?

When she smelled the sweet aroma of opium, she understood.

Tasìa peeked out from hiding. Beneath her, the mechhead was packing the bowl that sat flipped out from his skull. It had opened up just above his temple.

With the bowl packed with opium, he folded the bowl back into his skull. A knob now stood out from its metal inset.

He twisted it and that extended the protrusive button out some more. Furiously, he pumped it with his thumb.

As the smoke began to pour out of his mouth and nose, the mechhead leaned his back against the wall to zone out.

Tasìa was pissed; the anger that now swept her was impulsive, and she knew it.

Sometimes, you have to just fucking do something, or say something to get the venom out of you.

As she climbed down the wall, she yelled.

"Don't tell me this fucking venture is going to lead me into another fucking opium den to chase down even more fucking leads involving worthless pieces of shits drooling all over themselves? Is that what you are telling me?"

The mechhead stared at her as if he was coming out of a daze.

That put a fire under his ass!

She continued to chew him out.

"I had a dude on my crew, just like you. What a bitch it was to drag him out of the dens and sober him up for the next job.

"You know how the non-interactives, balladas vaporitos, and game stories make the dens look glitzy and glamorous with hot people doing hot things to one another? That is a lie. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"They smell like shit, like piss, like vomit, and like the kind of sex you'd prefer to forget. Even the opium in those places smells stale."

The stoned mechhead bit at his lips.

"That's depressing," he said.

"Yeah. Well, the sight of you is depressing. You remind me of the ugly side of Vida Esconda."

He nodded along.

"Sorry to hear that, but I can handle my shit, okay? So, no reason for you not to calm down and chill because you are coming across as kind of harsh."

Tasìa folded her arms and leaned against a tree.

"Hey, I can see what you are saying. I'm here laying all my prior damage on you, and that is not fair, right?"

"Okay," the mechhead nodded along in agreement.

"Except for one thing. You are stalking me."

"Oh, that."

"Yeah, that."

The mechhead stood and stretched tall like he was trying to sober up.

"You besmirch my good intentions. I overheard you speaking to Cassandra and Judith, asking about the lawyer, and mentioning Alisha.

"I knew there were some things they would not tell you because when they freak out about shit, they stay freaked out about shit, so I decided to track you down."

Tasìa was taken aback by this admission.

"Why?"

"Because I can tell you are doing this for all the right reasons. You even look like her."

Tasìa blinked and played up her most sheepish expression.

"What's your name?"

"Travis."

"I'm sorry I cursed you out, Travis."

"It's okay. Listen. Those crystals that Alisha sells. They are the real deal in the capabilities she plays up. They are artificially fabricated and attuned to human bio-systems."

"What?"

Travis shook his hands, fingers spread out, and palms opened forward.

"Tatiana assumed we were disgruntled employees much like the ones she is investigating, but it is not true.

"Those crystals are used in the filtration system that keeps Asunción relatively spore free. We liberated a motherlode of bricks.

"Alisha knows how to break down their internal matrices into functional parts. She sends them off to a cutter shop with highly elaborate instruction sets.

"It's very profitable. More so at the central city flea market than here, but those crystals have a draw about them. Highly mesmerizing."

Tasìa opened up the fanny pack and picked from it the smoky quartz. At her safe house in Villa Marron, she had equipment dedicated to examining and testing gemstones, but here in Asunción, Annebél's burb retreat was instead built around a martial arts octagon.

She looked into Travis' eyes. The inset intensity she had picked up on earlier was quite dominant as one would expect of a mechhead addict.

Now, she noticed the sincerity there. They all had earnest eyes.

Yet, something was not quite right about the lot of them.

"Your lady folk were afraid that if I found out about your heist of the bricks of crystal, I'd go to the authorities. Or, that I may suspect some involvement on your part in my aunt's disappearance?"

Travis looked her in the eyes.

"We did nothing to her."

The emphasis on 'her' was very subtle, but Tasìa still caught it. She smiled and nodded her head.

"I believe you."

Something happened to Val there. She would have to return when it grew close to nighttime.