A gray-haired man walked across the stage carrying a bass guitar and a case. He set up at the far end, resting the guitar on a stand and attaching an amp bot to the front panel. It lit up neon green when he linked his cuff to it and tinkered with the settings on the holoscreen. An earsplitting feedback screech drowned out the hum of conversation from the bar.
I leaned over to my boss, who sat on the cushy barstool to my left. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“Positive. There’s only one Brackish Bar on Andaress-4,” he said while scanning the room.
Lead Agent Grayson Wright had traded his usual department uniform of black tactical pants, dark Henley, and forest-green jacket for a much more casual pair of charcoal tactical pants, navy-blue shirt, and gray zip-up. He’d even gone a little crazy and let a shadow of dark-blond stubble grace his formidable jaw.
We’d both arrived early and snagged a high-top to the right of the stage. A server dropped off the plate of bacon-and-cheese crispers I’d ordered and the pitcher of craft beer Wright bought for the table. I was more of a whisky girl, but the beer was light and refreshing and just the thing to combat the dry heat of a Salin summer.
A couple in their early eighties passed by, and their cuff signals pinged my implant with notifications. She wore a fuchsia sweater set with skin-tight black leggings, a wide belt, and a chunky necklace that glowed in the dark. His white hair was gelled into tiny blue-tipped spikes, and he wore a leather jacket that didn’t quite cover his potbelly, as well as sensible orthopedic shoes. They joined a similarly dressed group of octogenarians at the table beside ours who greeted them with a round of back-slaps and hugs.
The people-watching was fascinating, to say the least.
As the bar continued to fill, it was clear we were the youngest people there by a couple of decades. “When DeAjamae invited us to check out her band, I expected something a little…”
“More rocker and less rocking chair?” Wright supplied.
“Exactly. This crowd looks like they’re out to spend their monthly pensioner credits.”
A flurry of notifications splattered across my vision. My Intell neural implant chip was a greedy little bastard and sought sources of information.
As each new person entered my three-meter personal bubble, the Intell tried to access any of their connected devices—cuffs and medical implants being the most common tonight. It also registered the band’s equipment and the bar’s payment systems, ordering stations, and cleaning bots.
Designed as a black-market device for corporate espionage and covert operations, the chip had no issues hacking its way into any of the civilian equipment it found here—whether I wanted it to or not. Information overload was a problem.
That many signals often gave me a raging headache, but I’d dosed myself with four pain tabs before heading over. At the moment, it was only a dull throb in my temples. It was worth it to support DeAjamae and spend time with the team. We’d gotten off to a shaky start—what with me being a fugitive and them tracking me down and all—but things had been good lately. The last couple of months, especially.
Being on this team was the best thing to happen to me in a very long time. I didn’t want anything to jeopardize it. Besides, I wouldn’t drag them into another one of my messes, not after what had happened to Jarrett. It was my problem to figure out.
Agent Ravi Singh, our team’s fourth member, sidled through the crowd and slid onto the stool we’d saved for him. Unlike Wright, he’d dressed up in a tailored burgundy suit coat and a black button-down shirt.
“Wright, Reliance,” he greeted us with a smile. “Wow! It isn’t even dark outside yet, and this place is packed!”
“Yeah, I had to park my hoverbike three blocks away,” I said. “I didn’t realize DeAjamae’s band was so popular.”
“Have you been to one of her shows before?”
I shook my head. “The timing’s never worked. Her last gig was when I was traveling.”
Wright rested his hand on my forearm. It hadn’t been a pleasure trip. I’d been delivering the ashes of two friends to their families—Fax’s to his estranged brother on Sol-4 and Jarrett’s to his parents on Ritru-6.
Ravi flashed me one of his signature smiles, attempting to derail my negative thoughts. “Well, you’re in for a treat. She’s amazing.”
Three more band members joined the bass guitarist on stage. All were middle-aged men who looked like they’d be more at home watching holocasts of the latest sports game.
“What kind of music do they play again?” I asked, because DeAjamae was the epitome of cool, and my brain had a hard time reconciling that with the scene before me.
“Songs you’ll recognize.”
“Helpful.”
“I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
An older gentleman with a thick walrus mustache, caterpillar eyebrows, and soup-chicken skin shimmied his way over to the group next to us. He led with his bony pelvis, making little thrusting motions and shooting finger-blasters as he winked at the ladies. While the women were far too seasoned to blush at his antics, more than one gave him a perusing look, including the woman in the fuchsia sweater set. I didn’t miss the possessive arm her partner wrapped around her waist.
Wright poured Ravi a glass of beer and slid it across the high-top as the lights dimmed a fraction. It was still bright by normal club standards. Scented fog rolled out onto the dance floor from a pipe built into the edge of the stage. Light and citrusy, it tickled the inside of my nose when it reached our side of the room. The guitarist strummed a lone chord, hushing the crowd as everyone spun around on their stools toward the front. Someone whooped and it was answered with a smattering of claps and whistles.
A spotlight drone flipped on, cutting a beam of bright white light through the fog to the edge of the stage where DeAjamae stood. She wore a pair of low-slung, faux-leather pants with a matching bralette that showed off her toned abs and generous curves.
“Hello, Brackish Bar!” she yelled into her microphone drone. It was decked out with shimmery silk scarves that fluttered in the draft of its propellers. “I’m DeAjamae, but you can call me Miss Dee. We are the Come-Back Comets, because everything good comes back ’round again, and that includes music. How are we feeling tonight?” She gave a high kick and then pumped her fist to a round of applause. “Let’s get this party started!”
I let out a whoop that would be heard over her screaming fans, and Wright did the two-finger whistle thing that threatened to pop my left eardrum. Ravi jumped to his feet, clapping.
DeAjamae picked up a guitar and strummed a single note. “Get your asses out on that floor. I want to see you shake it!”
A barrage of old folks rushed—well, shuffled—to the dance floor. They cheered her on as she jogged to the center stage, arm raised above her head and waving. The band launched right into its first number, a thirty-year-old hard rock song that was popular several years before DeAjamae was born. I remembered my parents listening to it as a kid.
My Intell picked up a flurry of notifications from pacemakers, cochlear implants, dialysis scrubbers, and bionic hips, knees, and shoulders as people danced to the music. They appeared as rapid pop-ups in the lower half of my field of vision. Even though I denied the connections as soon as the Intell registered them, splotches of color danced across my eyes and a wave of dizziness hit me hard. I reached for the lip of the table to keep from toppling over.
Wright grabbed my elbow, steadying me and keeping me from making a fool of myself. “You okay, Reliance?” he asked. He’d leaned in to be heard over the music, and I could smell the bergamot and lime scent of his soap—clean, crisp, and bright.
“The stool’s a little wobbly,” I lied.
I couldn’t look him in the eyes, so I focused on his fingers pressing into my bare forearm instead. His grip was firm but warm, much like the man himself. If his hand lingered a little longer than necessary, I tried not to read too much into it. Like I tried not to read too much into him using my first name. He’d been doing that more lately.
The table next to us moved to the dance floor. Ravi scooted in to let the woman wearing fuchsia squeeze by. The blue-haired guy followed her, and Walrus Mustache was close behind. They found an open section near the middle and whipped out a couple of moves that I wasn’t sure I could replicate, and I was only thirty-two.
On stage, DeAjamae strutted from one side of the stage to the other, working the crowd. She looked the part of a rocker with her dark-brown curls streaked with pink highlights, nails painted electric blue, and a thick, blue bar of stage makeup across her eyes. No one would believe she was a digital forensic analyst in the Department of Enforcement of Criminal Affairs.
After the first song ended, DeAjamae stopped in the middle of the stage. “Did we like that?”
The crowd cheered.
“Say, ‘yes, Miss Dee.’”
“Yes, Miss Dee!” the crowd yelled back.
Ravi choked on his beer.
DeAjamae introduced her band members. Besides the bass player, there was a man on electric drums, one on lead guitar, and a third on some kind of complicated four-tier keyboard with a hose he blew into. They launched into the second song, and I recognized it, too. It was the anthem of rebellious teenagers when I was growing up. DeAjamae’s voice had a raspy, gravelly quality that suited the song well.
I snagged a bacon-and-cheese-ladened crisper from the plate and patted myself on my back for running an extra three kilometers that morning. Being planetside for the last six months had reminded me how much good food I’d missed out on while living in space for a year. Bacon was worth the extra exercise.
Half a dozen songs later, I was thoroughly enjoying the people-watching. Fuchsia Lady fanned her face with her hand. The guy with spiky blue hair who’d been dancing with her all night leaned in and said something in her ear. She smiled and nodded, and he headed to the bar.
That was all the opening Walrus Mustache needed. He swooped in, grabbed the octogenarian and twirled her around several times. She smiled and put a little extra sway in her hips as they danced, pleased with the attention. A few more turns and he plastered himself all over her like hellaberry jam on toast. He had some fast moves, and I didn’t mean with his feet.
Ravi spotted the pair, too. “I hope I have half that much energy when I’m their age,” he said.
Walrus Mustache grabbed her behind and gyrated their pelvises together in a way that I could never unsee. “Yeah, and only half that much.”
From somewhere deep within the crowd, a bra flew through toward the stage. It arced gracefully through the air in all its beige glory to lasso the neck of the bass player’s guitar. He kept right on playing like women threw their undergarments at him every day. Who was I to judge? Maybe they did.
The blue-haired man threaded his way back through the mash of dancers carrying two glasses of beer. He dropped in and out of view until he reached the pocket of cleared space around where his date and Walrus Mustache were getting down and dirty.
“Uh-oh,” I said and nudged Wright’s arm with my elbow.
It only took a second for him to follow my gaze and see what I saw.
Blue Hair lunged for Walrus Mustache. The beer glasses went flying, spraying the three closest people with alcohol. One hit a woman on her shoulder and crashed to the floor in a shower of broken glass.
After that, I lost sight of the group as the dancers scattered. What they lacked in speed, they made up for in disorganization. Several were jostled in the chaos, and one almost fell down before his partner caught his hand. Both men made it safely to a table, but if we didn’t calm the situation, someone was going to fall and break a hip.
All three of us stood as the band stopped playing. DeAjamae had her cuff’s holoscreen up and was aerial scribing commands at a rapid pace. The room lights flickered on, and she sent the spotlight drone to hover above the two brawling old men.
“Where do we start?” Ravi asked.
“Sinclair and I will separate the men,” Wright said, flipping into work mode. “You work on crowd control.”
A loud crack split the air and everyone hit the floor. Blue Hair stood in the center, arm raised, and pointing a gun toward the ceiling.
Fuchsia Lady screamed.
Walrus Mustache lay on the ground, clutching his chest.