Vickers (Corp.s.e.)

"Hi."

Half of the first pair was a petite redhead with green eyes, large breasts and a slight lisp.

"My name's Yvo

"Hi Yvo

Joha

"Are you more of the hard men from down in security?"

"That's us."

"They say a hard man is good to find."

Joha

"Ignore her. She watches too many old movies."

"She'd be hard to ignore."

Yvo

"We do, let's face it."

"Like your friend here. He's never heard of charm."

She nodded toward Eggy. At that moment he was in deep leering conversation with a trio of blondes who, although obviously not triplets, had taken some pains to look that way. He seemed poised to take all three to some dark place where they could all become better acquainted. Without thinking, Vickers threw back about half his drink. He immediately regretted what he'd done. The stuff burned like only really cheap booze could. It was the kind of stuff they served in Skid Row wino taverns. Usually it took you one of two ways, either maudlin or fighting mad.

"Christ."

Both Yvo

"No brand name booze up here. They don't figure we're worth it. We're just the gene pool."

There was undisguised malice in their laughter. The two women might be coming on to them but they didn't feel obligated to make a pretense of liking them. When you were confined to the first and second levels it was easy to become bitter about how all the good stuff was reserved for those down below.

"The deeper you go the better it gets, only we don't get to go deeper."

"It'd be a nice thought when you boys come up here because you're feeling horny, if you brought some of those down-below goodies with you. We're getting fucking sick of this crankcase gin."

A big muscular woman with close-cropped hair was reeling through the crowd. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and she was at the far end of drunk and maybe more. Each of her lurches caused its own outbreak of confusion and curses and produced its own jostling ripples in the tightly packed mass of people. Yvo

"Goddamn fucked up dyke. She's like that every night. She doesn't even try to hold her liquor." She handed her empty plastic cup to Parkwood. "Here, sweetie, get me another one."

"Sometimes I think we'll all be like her inside of six months."

"Drunks or dykes?"

"Either, probably both."

Vickers was begi

"You want another?"

"I'd rather get out of here and go somewhere marginally quieter."

"I figure we should have one more each."

"You want to put a bit of distance between us?"

"I was thinking more about putting a bit of distance between us and the environment."

Joha

They called up two more shots and finished them quickly. Vickers turned to see what was going on with his companions. Eggy had vanished and Parkwood was kissing Yvo

"You know where we are?"

"Sure. This is my neighborhood." She slipped her arm through his. "I know I should be grateful that I've got a place down here and I'm safe and everything but sometimes I think this living is going to drive me crazy."

"What did you do before?"

"I was doing public relations at the Global office in LA. I profiled out when they ran the first shortlist program. They offered me a place down here and I took it. Everything looked so bad. Of course, it was a hell of a wrench going from buying drinks for TV producers to riding a bunch of robots on the loading dock but anything has to be worth it to survive." She gave a slight shudder. "There are times when it gets to me, though."

"So you worked for Global?"

"Right. It seems like another life now."

"You heard what happened to Herbie Mossman?"

"It doesn't bother me. I used to hear stories from the girls in the Vegas tower. By all accounts he was a disgusting, fat freak." She tightened her grip on his arm. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. I just want to feel and not think. I don't even know your name."

"Mort Vickers."

"Are you really one of Lloyd-Ransom's top hired guns?"

"I guess so."

"Hmm." She snuggled up against him.

After walking for about three minutes, they turned into the entrance of a handlers' dormitory. The sign over the doorway read General Living Area 30.

"GLA 30. Home sweet home. You can believe me that the living here is pretty general."

The living area was a very different place, during the down period, from the bright, cramped regimentation that Vickers had seen previously. The main overhead lights had been turned off but, while the majority of bunk tiers were in complete darkness, here and there some of the women had rigged candles or small bulbs shaded by colored scarves inside their bunk spaces. The daytime effect of gray metal uniformity was softened and hidden, made feminine even. Brute reality was held at bay and there was an almost magical quality. Each lighted space was like a cell of muted color in some giant, shadowy honeycomb. There was a trace of musky scent in the air, a mingling of incense and perfume, and low murmured conversations combined with the normal background sounds of the bunker. A few tiers away, someone was quietly playing something Spanish on a guitar. Dark moving figures in some of the bunks made it clear that others had come back to the area with intentions similar to those of Vickers and Joha

Joha

"It's lucky that I was assigned a bottom bunk. Any kind of athletics in an upper bunk can be quiet dangerous."

Joha

"I have really horrible wine if you want some. It even came in a plastic container; or some of that scotch from the messhall."

"You are… very… weird."

Her breath came in scarcely muffled, vocal gasps. Vickers was still conscious of the potential audience in the shadows but Joha

"Very… weird… indeed."

Vickers gri

"I'll… stop if you… don't… like it."

Joha

"I didn't… say I… didn't like it… quite the… reverse… I like it very much!"