Heroes - ch5
News Bulletin - and now for our daily weather report. If you’re thinking of going out today, our only advice is don’t! It’s raining, and it’s going to be raining all day long. If you have to go out to work, then you have our sympathies, you really do. Temperatures are going to be low, and there’s a bit of a breeze, too, so don’t bother with an umbrella. Take our advice - call in to work sick, today, and stay tuned to the Pleasure Channel. We have plenty of great music to cheer you up, and the hottest DJ’s to keep you warm! Remember…
With a groan, Jewel rolled out of bed, and switched the pocket-com off. If Esthar did not start behaving soon, she would have to remove its batteries, or something equally drastic. She sat on the edge of her bed, and ran her hands through her hair. For the briefest moment, she considered taking the advice of the Pleasure Channel’s weather reporter, and getting back into bed. Then she remembered that Rocky had agreed to go shopping with her after work. Of course, she could just as easily go tomorrow, but she had no idea of his plans.
A suspicious little voice at the back of her head asked why her sullen new acquaintance should be willing to go clothes shopping with her at all, let alone after knowing her for so brief a time. She remembered one occasion when she had dragged Spex along to help her buy some boots. It had tested their friendship to the limit, and she was not a fussy shopper by any means. She always had a clear idea of what she wanted, but she had to search out all the possible examples before making a final decision.
Smiling at the memory of Spex’ finally exploding outside the sixth shoe shop drove out all doubts about Rocky, and she headed for the sonic shower. Clean and dressed, she ate her breakfast whilst using Esthar to flick idly through the net sites of a number of different clothes shops, wondering which of the impossible and impractical garments would look least wrong on her. With a sigh, she switched Esthar to conversation mode.
‘OK, Esthar, let’s see how you’re doing, today,’ she began, cheerfully.
‘Good morning, Jewel,’ purred the pocket-com in its even, soothing female voice. ‘What can I do to help you, today?’
Jewel paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. Even at full capacity, Esthar needed fairly precise instructions in order to search effectively. ‘Please run a check of all the fashion articles posted on the net over the past couple of weeks, and show me three items of clothing that they all agree on.’
The pocket-com hummed gently for a few moments, and then said, ‘Ten days ago, Fashion News published an article entitled, “Feeling Blue!”, which indicates that any blue garment would be acceptable. Five days ago, Stylista published an article entitled, “Blue Skies”, which also has a blue theme, and has photographs of a number of models wearing fine tunics worn over bikinis, camisoles, and each other. Yesterday, Modern Miss continued the tunic theme with an article entitled “Beware the Ides of March”, showing hippopotami wearing…’
‘Esthar,’ interrupted Jewel, frowning. ‘Please repeat that last sentence.’
‘Yesterday, Modern Miss continued the tunic theme with an article entitled “Beware the Ides of March”, showing models wearing tunics in various colours, and different fabric weights,’ Esthar murmured, as if nothing had happened.
‘Thank you, Esthar,’ said Jewel, more puzzled than ever by the pocket-com’s behaviour. ‘So, the hot look is a semi-transparent tunic worn over something else to preserve one’s modesty, eh?’
‘Today is not a day for heroes,’ Esthar responded, still in the same calm, soothing voice.
Surprised, Jewel said, ‘Pardon?’
‘That is a reasonable assessment of my findings,’ came the reply.
She was about to query the pocket-com again, when she realised that it was answering her previous question. Feeling that she was descending into some kind of surreal waking nightmare, Jewel decided against continuing the conversation. It was almost time for her to leave for work, anyway. In a minute or two, the bed was tidied away, and her dishes were in the sanitiser. Switching Esthar off, but leaving its batteries in place, she slipped the device into one of her pockets, and left the flat.
Hunching her shoulders against the rain, which, in vindication of the weather report was cold and steady, she made her way as quickly as she could to the Security Building of the Citadel Guard. There were the usual numbers of people on the streets, all leaving flats like her own and bustling along wrapped in coats and hats and heavy shoes to protect them from the weather.
A little way ahead of her, the crowd suddenly parted, and revealed a girl simply standing in the street, her head tipped back, so that the rain pattered down on to her face. She obviously kept up with fashion trends, because she was wearing a gossamer fine sleeveless tunic in sunshine yellow that reached the ground, and which was plastered to her like a second skin by the rain. Beneath it was a shorter dress with full sleeves, in a paler yellow.
Her hair and make up were also in various shades of yellow, and even sparkled as she turned her face this way or that. She was a ray of sunshine left behind when the real sun disappeared behind the clouds. Her face was a picture of perfect joy, her eyes closed, a seraphic smile on her lips. Jewel watched her for as long as she could, until her own feet carried her past. When she looked back a few paces further on, the girl had vanished back into the crowd, and Jewel even wondered if she had really been there. Nobody else seemed to be taking any notice of her at all.
Inside her work station, she hung her jacket over a corner of her desk, where it dripped rain water on to the floor, creating a small puddle in only a few minutes. She switched on her terminal, and found that Spex was already waiting to speak to her. Smiling in anticipation of a few moments of friendliness in her otherwise dull morning, she clicked the button and connected to his com back at their Clan House.
‘Hey, Dudette,’ grinned Spex, as soon as his face appeared on the screen.
She waved in response. ‘How’s tricks, Dude?’ she replied.
Spex shrugged. ‘You know - pretty much as per. How about you?’
‘I’m off shopping, after work. I’ve got to find something to wear!’ she exclaimed in frustration.
‘What’s wrong with what you’re wearing, now?’ enquired her Clan mate, peering at the slogan on her tee shirt. ‘What does it say? “There’s your hat, where’s your hurry?” Sounds just the kind of sentiment I’d encourage.’
‘Well, not everyone agrees with you,’ she smiled, with a slight shrug.
‘Like who, for instance?’
She made a vague gesture with her hands. ‘Oh, you know, just people.’
‘What people?’ he pressed, and something in the seriousness of his tone really irritated her all of a sudden.
‘Not that it’s really any of your business,’ she said, huffily, ‘but I’ve made a new friend, and he says…’
‘He says?’
‘Yeah, he says. He’s a dude, so what?’
Spex shrugged. ‘So, nothing. You’re the one getting defensive.’
‘I am not…’ she began, then stopped, giggling as she heard the rising tone of her own voice. ‘Sorry, Dude. I suppose I was a bit defensive.’
‘So, do you want to tell me about him?’ he asked, raising one eyebrow at her.
She rolled her eyes back at him. ‘Not particularly. At least, not yet, anyway. He’s still a new friend, and I don’t want Marmee reading too much in to something that might not go anywhere.’
‘Why would Marmee have anything to say? Or do you have a secret channel for her, too?’ he asked innocently. He almost carried it off, too, she noted. He must have been practising.
Smiling affectionately at him, she replied, ‘As if I didn’t know that everything I tell you goes straight back to her!’
He had the grace to look sheepish. ‘She’s your Clan Mother. She’ll always worry about you.’ He looked up suddenly, looking right into her eyes. ‘We’ll all, always worry about you.’
‘I know,’ she answered, quietly.
Pushing his glasses up his nose, he blinked at her, owlishly. ‘Well, Dudette, the day calls! Anything new with Esthar?’
‘Yeah! She’s definitely getting weirder. Come up with a suitably weird theory for me, yet?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, no. I’ll keep working on it.’
‘OK. Well, I’ll let you go. Speak to you, tomorrow.’
She broke the connection, and watched the screen’s normal display fade in. Exactly why she was so reluctant to tell Spex about Rocky she was not sure. There was certainly no reason to expect her Clan mate to be jealous; they were more like brother and sister, than anything else. In fact, she was closer to him than to her birth brothers who had stayed in Leopard Clan when they reached the Age of Choice.
A thought struck her, suddenly. Why not ask Spex to contact her birth mother, to ask her to check Rocky out? She still had contacts in Infinity Clan. But why would she want to check Rocky out? What possible suspicions could she have of him? After all, she had only just met him!
Exactly, the quiet voice said. She knew absolutely nothing about him, except the little he had told her. And really, he had not told her very much, had he? Shaking her head, she dispelled the doubts. Spex was getting too inquisitive, she told herself, poking his nose into her personal life, where he had no business. Of course, he was concerned about her, but it was up to her how she lived her life. There wasn’t much her Clan mate could do from the Slums, anyway.
With a sigh, she turned her attention to her terminal, switching on the link to her secret camera almost as an after thought. Somehow, she had a feeling that something might happen this morning. Of course, she had thought that yesterday, reasoning that the death of young Henton might bring some of his peers on to the streets a little earlier than usual.
She had been wrong. Although the news bulletins had been full of almost nothing else but the investigation and his family’s reaction, none of the other young Citadwellers had seemed very much bothered. What exactly she had expected from them, she could not have said, but certainly not this apathy.
Protected beneath the arch of the gateway, the camera and scanner remained clear, and unobscured by the rain. The microphone, however, picked up the constant drumming of water against pavement. Leaving the screen on, she turned her full attention to her work, and for the next hour or so she was lost in performance graphs and measurements.
What distracted her was the sound of voices. She was so unprepared, that, for a moment, she thought someone else was in the room with her. As she quickly turned around, however, she caught sight of the screen. The camera did not show much, even with its wide angle lens, but she could see that a young man and woman were sheltering under the arch. She was about to dismiss them as simply passers by who were grateful to get out of the rain, but she suddenly realised that the girl was the one she had seen in the street that morning.
She reached out and turned up the microphone to catch what they were saying. As she did so, the man crossed the scanner beam for a moment, and his details flashed up on the screen. Dryfe Henton, notable by his absence from all of his family’s appearances and statements on the previous day. She did not blame him. Something about the official report into his brother’s death just did not seem right. It was all too neat.
Tuning out her own thoughts, she listened instead to what the couple were saying. ‘Are you sure you’re alright, Gloria?’ Henton was asking. ‘You’re absolutely soaked through!’
‘Chill baby!’ the girl replied, her voice low and husky. ‘I love the rain. It washes the world clean. The world needs a lot of washing.’
‘You do too much Smoke,’ her companion observed. Jewel found herself wanting to shout at him for being so dismissive. She felt that Gloria, whoever she was, had a point. The Citadel, far from being the pure, gleaming place she had imagined, was as grimy, in its way, as the Slums. Not on the outside, perhaps, since there was an army of people who worked through the night to clear away litter and dirt, but beneath the surface, it was far from pristine.
‘So, what are we doing here, anyway?’ asked Gloria, asking the very question that Jewel most wanted Henton to answer.
‘I’m not really sure,’ he admitted. ‘It’s just that this is the gate Gramard and Lizzeth must have used to escape. It’s the only one whose security system has been out of action all week. I suppose I thought there might be some kind of clue, here. At the very least, I thought I might feel a bit closer to Gramard, here.’
Gloria laid a graceful hand on his arm. ‘It’s OK, baby, I understand,’ she said, gently. Turning in a full circle, she quickly scanned the whole gate. ‘So, what kind of clues are we looking for?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ came the reply, but to Jewel’s surprise, as well as that of Gloria and Henton, the voice came from beyond the gate.
The camera had no chance of picking the new comer up, but her presence caused Gloria to move forwards through the scanner. Jewel made a note of her full name, Gloria Therford.
‘And why would you want to know?’ asked Henton, sharply.
There was a pause, presumably whilst the unseen woman collected her thoughts, decided how much to tell them. ‘I have a vested interest in finding out exactly what happened to your brother, Mr Henton.’
The young man started. ‘How do you know…’
‘Who you are? Well, apart from the fact that your face has been all over the news bulletins for the last two days,’ the unseen woman said, dryly, ‘I know because I was the one who investigated Gramard’s death.’
Henton suddenly sprang forwards, but Gloria got in front of him before he could reach the other woman. ‘Listen to her, baby,’ she advised. ‘She must be here for a reason!’
‘Your girlfriend is talking a lot of sense,’ came the voice. ‘You should listen to her.’
‘She’s not…’ and ‘I’m not…’ Henton and Gloria began together, before falling into an awkward silence.
‘Well, whatever you are… At least you’re willing to listen. So, I’m Sergeant Shale, and I could lose my job for being here.’
News Bulletin - looking for something to indoors, tonight, since no sane person will be going out? Of course, if you’re insane, and actually enjoy being drenched to the skin, feel free to go out and do whatever you normally do in Alexandria Citadel’s club district, and stop listening, right now! OK, have all the mad people gone? Good! So, on the Pleasure Channel tonight, you know you’re going to get nothing but great music! Stay tuned, and you could also be a winner in one of our excellent competitions. But if you feel like watching rather than listening, there are some…
Esthar interrupted Jewel’s reverie, breaking through her thoughts, and dragging her back to the present. Her mind had been lost in replaying the conversation she had witnessed between Henton, Gloria, and Shale, and, even now, they seemed more real than the information about broken security equipment that flashed on the screen in front of her.
At that moment, a small window appeared in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Rocky’s face appeared in it, and he gave her a thumbs up sign.
‘Hey!’ he said, his voice low.
Instant messaging was one of the permitted programmes loaded on to their work coms, but techs were not encouraged to use it, since it was believed to distract people from the work they were supposed to be doing. Jewel thought there was probably some sense in that view. However, it did make conversations about technical issues possible without people having to trek through the building trying to find each other amongst the almost identical corridors and work stations.
She smiled back. ‘Hey, yourself,’ she replied, also keeping her voice down. The door to her work station would keep most ordinary conversation from being audible in the corridor, but there was no harm in being careful.
‘What time do you finish?’ asked Rocky.
For a moment, she had no idea what he was referring to, but then she remembered their proposed shopping trip. ‘Oh, Rocky!’ she exclaimed, slapping her hand against her forehead. ‘I’d almost forgotten, that!’
He pulled an exaggerated ‘sad’ face. ‘Glad I’m so memorable,’ he replied, with a wry smile.
‘It’s not you, honestly. It’s just that my head is all over the place, today.’
‘Why, what’s up?’ he asked, leaning a little closer to the screen.
She opened her mouth to tell him, but then hesitated. There was surely no need to bring him down with her own worries? Also, she had not quite decided that she should be concerning herself with the problems of some rich kid. After all, what was there to be concerned about? Someone whom she had never met had been killed in the progress of a theft - what was there for her to be interested in?
Realising that Rocky was still waiting for an answer, she put on a smile and shook her head. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, really. I have a progress review coming up, and I’m not sure how Cartonian is going to score me.’
‘Oh, you’ll breeze through!’ he stated, confidently. ‘You’re work is the best, isn’t it? That’s how you managed to win the competition to come up here, after all, right? Right?’
Giving him a more genuine smile, this time, she nodded. ‘I suppose so, yeah. Well, I’ve got an hour left, and then I’m out of here. I’ll meet you at the front of the building, OK?’
‘I can’t wait,’ he replied with a slow smile, the one she was beginning to think of as his ‘sexy’ smile, she realised as a couple of butterflies suddenly started fluttering in her stomach.
‘See you later, then,’ she chirped, and quickly broke the connection.
Analysing her relationship with Rocky took up most of the next hour, leaving her no time to return to her consideration of what she had seen and heard on her hidden camera. They barely had a relationship, that was the initial problem, and probably the reason why she was so reluctant to discuss him with Spex. Chemistry they had in abundance - or at least, she was certainly attracted to him. When they talked, she found herself getting lost in the smoothness of his skin, or the length of his eyelashes. He was the most beautiful man she had ever met, she had to admit.
What he felt for her was less easy to determine. Certainly, he had no personal reason to go shopping with her, this afternoon, unless he simply enjoyed her company. After all, it had been his suggestion that he go along, as soon as she had mentioned finding something. How much help he would be was doubtful, she admitted to herself, since his mode of dress was even more distinctive than hers.
So, he just wanted to spend time with her, and she was more than happy to spend time with him. Where that might lead them, she was not ready to think about, just yet. The klaxon that announced the end of her shift sounded suddenly, making her jump. The excuse she had given Rocky about being worried about her performance review was perfectly true, and, if it was based solely on her productivity today, she really would have had something to worry about.
Shrugging mentally, she slipped into her jacket, now completely dry, thanks to the heating in the building, shoved Esthar into her pocket, closed her terminal down, and left her work station. The other techs who worked on her floor streamed past her, all hurrying to get home without getting too wet. Glancing idly at their clothes as they passed, she noted that three out of five women were wearing semi-transparent tunics. She wondered why she had not noticed it before.
Rocky was standing just inside the main door, keeping out of the flow of techs starting or ending their shifts. She smiled at the sight of him, and felt a little shiver of pleasure at observing him without him observing her. Then he caught sight of her, and raised a hand in greeting. She hurried over, ignoring the tuts and sighs of exasperation as she cut across the paths of a number of her colleagues.
‘Sure you want to do this today?’ he asked, nodding towards the street where the rain was still falling steadily.
She thrust her hands deep into her pockets, and stared outside. ‘What else are we going to do?’ she asked, as casually as she could.
‘I’m sure we could think of something,’ Rocky replied, his breath hot against her ear.
The butterflies had started up again, she realised. She had never been any good at flirtation, or the gentle skirting around the issue that lead irresistibly to the final point. There was too much room for misunderstanding and disappointment. She needed to be absolutely clear about what he was suggesting, so that she could decide whether or not she wanted to join in.
‘Let’s go and get a coffee,’ she said, ‘and we can, er, discuss the possibilities.’
‘My place is closer than the nearest café,’ commented Rocky.
She risked a quick glance in to his eyes, and glanced away again. His gaze was too intense, too full of meaning to ignore. ‘I don’t mind…’
As if she had not spoken, he continued, ‘And I have a genuine bottle of wine just waiting to be… enjoyed.’
Jewel swallowed hard. They were the only people left in the building’s entrance hall, and they would have to leave soon. The Citadel Guard at the reception desk was already glancing their way.
Taking a deep breath, she shook her head, firmly. ‘I really do need to get something to wear,’ she said, half apologetically. ‘I’ll understand if you’d rather just go home and keep dry…’
‘Don’t be silly! We can go back to my place after, and dry off,’ he said, with a wink.
Feeling better for having won her point, though unsure as to why she had pushed it in the first place, she smiled. ‘Well, we’ll see how we feel. We might get completely worn out with shopping!’
‘Always plenty of juice in my tank,’ he told her, giving her a huge wink. Then he burst into laughter. ‘Let’s go before you run off screaming!’
She joined in the laughter. ‘Good idea! I have a few places I want to check out,’ and she waved a printed list at him. ‘They’re all pretty close, so we shouldn’t get too wet.’
Without any further hesitation, they headed out into the street. The rain, whilst still steady, was lighter than it had been, and they reached the first shop on her list without getting soaked. They were the only customers, and two shop assistants, both dressed in the very latest fashion, headed over to them as soon as they stepped inside. One of them glanced at the other, who immediately turned sulkily on her heel and went back to rearranging one of the display racks.
‘Madam!’ trilled the remaining assistant. ‘How may I help you?’
‘Oh, um, I’m just looking…’ Jewel began, but Rocky interrupted.
‘She wants to change her image,’ he drawled. ‘We were thinking about one of those floaty tunic things, all the chicks are wearing.’
‘Oh, yes, Sir! I’m sure we have something that will suit the lady, perfectly!’ She considered Jewel with her lips pursed and her head on one side, until Jewel felt like a specimen in a jar. ‘Would you mind removing your jacket, Madam?’ she asked, at length. ‘That’s better! If you would just follow me, please…’ and she bustled off towards a rack labelled “Just in!”.
Jewel glanced at Rocky, looking for some moral support, but he just grinned back at her. ‘Go with the nice lady, Jewel,’ he urged. ‘I’ll be waiting right here to, er, witness the transformation.’
She rolled her eyes at him, but squared her shoulders and marched after the shop assistant, feeling as if she was going to her doom. The girl had already reached the rack, and was searching through the flimsy garments, still with her lips pursed as seriously as if she was engaged in some life or death crisis. She held up a red tunic for Jewel’s inspection, but she shook her head.
‘I want something in black,’ she stated, firmly.
‘In black?!’ the girl replied, clearly horrified at the thought. ‘But I thought Madam was looking for a change?’
‘I am looking for a change, but not a complete overhaul, at least not right away. One thing at a time!’ she smiled.
The shop assistant did not smile back. ‘Well, there is this,’ she sniffed, pulling out a knee length tunic in sheer black.
‘How about something a bit more colourful to go underneath,’ came Rocky’s voice from where he was lounging against the counter.
Brightening considerably, the girl nodded. ‘Oh, yes, we could do something colourful underneath. We have some dresses…’
‘Trousers,’ Jewel stated, firmly.
The shop assistant wilted a little again. ‘Trousers?’ she asked weakly.
Jewel nodded, and Rocky chipped in again with, ‘Skin tight ones!’
She shot him a look of pure poison, but the girl was back in her element. She thrust the tunic into Jewel’s arms, and then hurried off to another rack, returning a few moments later with a pair of black trousers and a red top with a high neck and long sleeves. Jewel began to head for the changing room, but the shop assistant stopped her, disappeared into another area of the shop, and then returned with a pair of boots.
Too weary to protest, she headed behind the curtain of the cubicle. She changed quickly, and even put the boots on, even though, normally, she would not have been seen dead in them, with their pointed toes and high heels. Looking at herself in the mirror, she had to admit that the result was quite good.
‘Let’s see, then,’ Rocky called.
She pulled the curtain back and stepped outside. For a moment, she was worried that his silence meant that he did not like the outfit, but then he smiled. ‘You look great!’ he said.
Feeling herself blushing ridiculously, she busied herself with digging her debit card out of the pocket of the pants she had arrived in. ‘I’ll take them all,’ she said, before disappearing back into the cubicle to change back into her original clothes.
She emerged a few minutes later, and handed the bundle of new clothes to the shop assistant, who folded everything neatly and slipped them into a bright orange carrier bag. Jewel checked the total amount, and pressed her thumb against the identification pad with only a moment’s hesitation; the clothes had cost almost twice what she had planned to spend, but she had next to nothing else to spend her credits on, after all.
Taking the bag, and her card, from the shop assistant, she thanked her for her help, and made for the door of the shop. Rocky held the door open, and they stepped back out in to the rain. They paused under the awning that stretched out over the window of the next shop, and Jewel wondered if he would renew his invitation to her to visit his flat. Part of her hoped that he would, although she had no idea how she would answer him if he did.
‘So, that bottle of wine is still waiting for someone to drink it,’ he said, at last, but so quietly that she barely heard him.
She turned to face him squarely, noting how the rain drops glistened on his hair, and dripped into his eyes. His beautiful eyes. She closed her own eyes, to give herself a chance to think without distractions. There was no doubt in her mind about what would happen once they got back to his flat. She seriously doubted whether or not they would bother opening that bottle of wine, though. Or at least, not before…
He surprised her by laying a hand against her cheek, his thumb tracing the outline of her lips. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself looking straight into his eyes, drawn helplessly in to them, drowning…
‘Why are you hesitating? I’m not asking for any commitment, just a bit of fun, Jewel.’
‘I know… I just…’ she took a shaky breath. ‘Maybe I want more than a “bit of fun”?’
Still he held her gaze, his expression slightly teasing, but only very slightly. ‘Do you?’
She nodded silently, licking lips that were suddenly very dry. ‘Yes. So, if you don’t…’
He silenced her gently, yet firmly, simply by kissing her, his hand slipping behind her head. A small part of her mind noted idly that the rain from his hair was now dripping in to her own eyes, but most of it was drifting on a golden cloud, lost in the bliss of finally feeling his mouth against hers.