Shinoda moved into the car without waiting for Nestra, directly in the driver seat. When she climbed in the passenger seat, his seatbelt was already fastened.
That was a breach of etiquette, and a grievous one at that. Seniority meant he would decide who drives in the pair but they were supposed to agree on it as a form of respect. He’d completely bypassed that, so Nestra gave him an unimpressed look. He misinterpreted it.
“You had them handled, Palladian-san. I was backing you as a partner.”
“So is the car gene-locked or…”
“Sonna… Oh! I apologize. Oh, sorry. Please forgive me for this display.”
Nestra chuckled at how bashful the grim detective suddenly was, all red and sputtering. It felt so weird it was a little embarrassing.
It also revealed what sort of partnership he thought they had under the veneer of politeness. That… was actually fair. He was an overqualified person twice her age while she… well, she was doing her best. And he was mostly respectful.
“It’s ok, haha, it was a distracting experience.”
“Yes. I admit, I have faced users in the past over certain allegations. It has been… difficult. Sometimes. In truth, I am impressed by your handling of the situation. Are you not concerned they will retaliate?”
“My partner would just like her belongings back,” Shinoda said.
“They were made by a good friend so I don’t get jumped,” Nestra agreed. “So return them or I’m wiping us both. You got three seconds.”
It took less than one to have her drones return to her control and for the seller to spread his arms around with a radiant smile.
“Heyyyyy no need to get angry lah, just playing around a little? Little hazing for you newcomers. So, we good anot?”
Nestra deactivated the charge.
“I still owe you for that dick joke.”
“Heeyyyyy come on angmoh, give Flash a break. Walao, you guys are sooo tense.”
“Please do not mind Flash, boss,” the food stand guy behind them said. “He’s just an idiot. Good guy though. Don’t buy his rice cookers.”
“It was just one time!”
With the crisis averted, Shinoda was left talking to Flash which left Nestra with a choice. She could play second fiddle in an exchange with someone who’d tried to nab her stuff. Or! She could ‘interrogate’ the other guy who happened to sell skewers of grilled meat and shiitake mushrooms drenched in chili oil with, if her nose was right, some cumin.
Obviously, they could split to cover more ground if they were just a few meters apart. The food seller was a short guy wearing an actual apron and a white hat. His nose flared, smelling a good deal with the same accuracy Nestra smelled diced garlic.
“Lay ho! Hello! Welcome to my stand. I am old Lin. Meat? My best stuff. Try one!”
Nestra grabbed the thin wood piece and chomped on the offered piece of meat. It was pork, very tender, unnaturally so. No mana but enough calories to achieve happiness.
“You like? Is my juiciest rat,” the guy said with a nice, wide, gotcha smirk.
“Oh good. And here I was afraid it might be vat-grown pig.”
“Hah! You have good tastebuds. Skewers? Four creds for meat. Two for mushrooms and one for momo bread. Crispy and nice.”
Nestra ended up with a nice spread for twenty creds, reduced from twenty-two because she was such a pretty gweilo (another term for white people, there were quite a few of those) and also because she made Flash shut up. That was apparently worth something here.
“So, why you are here Leng Lui? Racket? Please say no.”
“We’re just supposed to show ourselves and help when needed.”
“You and what army?” her cook replied with naked disbelief.
“No army unless we get jumped. I’ll let you on a secret,” she said, leaning forward.
“We don’t actually expect a lot of people to ask for our help.”
“Ooooh, very smart, very smart. Yes. Because you cops are useless?”
“I mean, we got to build some trust first. Anyway, I should leave. Nice food.”
Shinoda was done telling Flash he was impressive for breaking decent encryption that fast. The young asshole was positively preening. The two strangers in a semi-hostile land regrouped and moved on.
The trip through the market remained uneventful. Most people were not quite as welcoming as old Lin had been but they provided service, most of the time.
“That smells quite nice,” Nestra told a lady selling naan she stuck to the inside of a bell-shaped oven.
“Yeah but smelling is all you’ll do. I don’t do business with pigs,” the lady replied with a calm expression that said the only way Nestra would taste it would be theft and battery. Nestra shrugged. Not a surprise.
Except for that one incident, they were mostly just tolerated as they moved through a crowd that gave them a wide berth. Only the most confident people asked them questions.
“So you guys think you’re here to stay?”
“Are you going to try and tax us?”
“What are you going to do about trash collection?”
“When’s the hospital coming? We were told there would be one?”
Obviously no one trusted them farther than they believed they could throw them but at least there were no overt shows of hostility, and they reached the end unmolested. Shinoda pointed to a set of wide stairs and the long trek up began. Long, because Shinoda was taking his time since he could not afford to run out of breath. And also because the place was a maze.
What reports failed to say was that many of the hab blocks’ corridors were obstructed by very deliberate blockades, not piles of trash but welded bars, corrugated steel amalgams and, in one case, an actual wall made of concrete blocks cemented in place with surprising professionalism. Some of the passages ended with locked doors and others with concerned guards who were more than eager to point the way up.
“There are elevators but they are limited to the manufacturing levels. They have jury-rigged security access. We will not take this path very often,” Shinoda explained as a way of apology though Nestra didn’t care.
The place was messy and fascinating and also some of the graffitis were frankly impressive. The ones without dicks, that is.
“They’ll let us use them?”
“I will ask politely. Please do not override anything unless there is an emergency.”
“Sure,” Nestra replied. “Not that I’d know how to do it. That’s Stibs’ domain.”
“The friend who gave you the drones?”
“Her setup is very impressive. We are lucky she refused to join a corporation. Are they deployed now?”
“All the time, yeah.”
They reached a long corridor overlooking the central courtyard. Some of the railing was missing. Shinoda slowed down.
“So, are they telling you what I suspect?” the detective asked.