The hooker looked familiar.
McIvor’s Bar was no different from any other backwater bar on every other shit-hole mining rock. Dusty, noisy, full of smoke, and smelling of booze and the piss, sweat and puke of the assorted life-forms evolution had cursed with sentience.
But to Joe Smith, McIvor’s was home. His daily escape from the boredom and crushing despair of eking out a living on the frontier.
Joe sat in his usual spot in his favourite booth, a near-empty bottle of whiskey and two glasses the only adornment to the polished ebony tabletop in front of him. Joe liked it because the booth was close enough to the exits, but far enough back to view the bar entrance without being seen.
Scattered around the bar, humans of various sizes and persuasions outnumbered the aliens five-to-one. Although out here, it was the humans that were the aliens, and the Binati, Drexians and Sarangi—collectively referred to as the Races by the humans—made sure the humans never forgot it.
The Sarangi and Drexians mostly stayed close to Setas, their home system and were not often seen beyond the inner Perseus bases. El Hoyo, the shit-hole mining rock Joe currently inhabited, was several lightyears beyond Perseus Four, the most remote base. Carved out of an asteroid rich in thorium fuel, El Hoyo had been built by humans to accommodate humans, which was how Joe liked it.
Humans had been in Perseus for over three hundred years, but the Races still treated them like vermin. Useful vermin, though. Human enterprise had brought vast wealth to the Sarangian and Drexian elite, but they still gave the humans that I-just-found-a-shit-stain-on-my-best-underwear look every time they made eye contact.
It made Joe’s blood boil. Just seeing that look made Joe want to hit someone or something, so it was always better when there weren’t many of them around.
Tonight, the Sarangian drug dealers had already been and gone, leaving Andenu’s cut on the bar as they left. Andenu now stood at the far end of the bar, near the register, his usual imperious look on his fish face. OK, so the Sarangi looked more like the amphibians they were than a fish, but “fish face” had a nicer ring to it than “axolotl face”.
The Sarangi had a hairless, tilted-egg shaped head with large eyes and a lipless slit of a mouth. They lacked external ears, instead they had a soft, round membrane that shone silver against their mottled grey-green skin. While this was great for hearing underwater in the endless swamps on Setas, the Sarangi couldn’t hear for shit in dry air. So, they all wore headset hearing aids that, with the help of a little human design and a lot of Sarangian vanity, had become a must-have fashion accessory in a myriad of styles. Andenu, being the cheap bastard he was, had a generic black set that dropped down the side of his neck and looped under his breathing holes.
Setas was also blessed with a flying apex predator with razor teeth and a taste for Sarangian flesh. In defence, the Sarangi had evolved a hard, almond shaped back shell and armour plates on their arms that they could tuck their soft tasty bits behind as they cowered in the mud. Of course, nostrils weren’t much use with your face in the muck, so the Sarangi had two breathing holes at the top of their back shell that poked out of the water and allowed them to breathe while the rest of their body was tucked out of harm’s way.
Joe looked back to the hooker. She was with a prospector, standing behind his shoulder, her head tilted down. Joe couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in his gut.
Why does she look so familiar?
The prospector scanned the room. Joe couldn’t see through the opaque visor of the prospector’s helmet, but he was sure his gaze had rested on Joe’s face for a moment. A hard lump formed in Joe’s throat as the man gestured toward the bar.
A group of Binati stood just inside the door. With their melon heads, large eyes and spindly limbs, the Binati were much like the aliens in the ancient videos Joe was fond of watching. Except, you never saw the Binati outside their exo-suits. Even light G would crush their twig-like skeleton into powder. They also had hands with four opposable digits, which made the little buggers extremely dexterous, but created a nightmare for any human trying to use the multi-button joystick controls characteristic of all Binati tech. The Binati fell silent, watched the hooker pass, then resumed their conversation, babbling in their language.
Joe was no stranger to the carnal pleasures of El Hoyo, but this woman was not a regular. Nor had any GTC escort shuttles arrived in the last few days.
As she approached the bar, her shiny black plastic miniskirt flashed in the bar lights. Her matching FM boots looked too big, and her revealing top showed nothing worth revealing. In the stark overhead lighting, Joe could see her heavy makeup doing a poor job of hiding the dark circles under her large, almost colourless eyes. Joe suspected she was an addict, one happy prospector away from her next fix.
The bartender was Drexian—massive square jaw, jutting brows and swept back forehead affixing the permanent scowl characteristic of her species. She had long red-brown hair braided and beaded in the colours of her tribe. Her name was something unpronounceably Drexian, so Joe had nicknamed her Sue, which, to Sue’s consternation, had stuck.
Sue hovered to the left of the hooker and the prospector. She polished the filthy counter with an even filthier rag, trying and failing to look disinterested. The prospector turned and said something to the hooker. She said something back and smiled.
She had been beautiful once. The smile told Joe that much.
Shaking his head in puzzlement, Joe turned to his long-time drinking buddy, Brian, sitting near the back of the booth, twirling his empty glass between his fingers, his mind somewhere else. “Hey Bri,” Joe said. “What d’ya make of the hooker that just walked in?”
Brian looked up, his eyes focusing on Joe. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, Brian was the near opposite of Joe’s blond and blue-eyed heritage. A whippet build, Brian had also stayed lean despite putting away as much booze and shit food each day as Joe.
Brian shuffled around the booth, dragging his arse to the cushion opposite Joe as Joe half-filled each of their glasses. Brian turned to look at the bar. “What about her?” he said. “You lookin’ for a bit of action tonight, Joe?”
“Hardly.” He downed his whiskey in a gulp. “Just drinking until the money runs out.”
Brian grinned and followed suit, clinking his empty glass next to Joe’s.
Joe split the remaining whiskey between the two glasses. “That hooker looks really familiar,” he said. “Have you seen her before?”
Brian paused for a long moment. “Not that I remember.” He grinned. “But I reckon I might try to get to know her later.”
Joe gave a derisive snort. “Not likely. You couldn’t afford a five-dollar fondle at Foxy’s.”
“You’re right, I suppose.” Brian shrugged. “On that sour note, I’m going for a piss. You order another bottle.” He stood and walked towards the bathroom at the back of the bar.
The empty lounge stared back at Joe as he sunk into his thoughts, staring at the silhouette of Brian’s sweat on the cushion opposite him, watching it slowly trickle down the red leather.
Joe emptied his glass and waved at a server. She nodded and gave Joe her best smile. Andenu paid McIvor’s serving girls a percentage of their nightly earnings. Joe reckoned he had drunk enough booze to put all their kids through the Academy. No wonder they were friendly.
A hush settled over the room. Joe looked past the server to the front door of the bar. His whole body froze as he saw the familiar black and purple uniform on the three GTC security troops that now blocked the door. He tensed, ready to run, but realised escape without being noticed was impossible. Too much open space separated him from the back door.
Joe stared down at his drink, sliding as far as he could into the booth while still watching the three men. The GTC Captain, barely out of nappies, stood with confidence borne by the two hundred kilos of muscle standing behind him. He turned to the Binati by the door, thrusting a personnel dossier at them. The Binati all shook their heads. A dark ball of fear lodged in Joe’s throat; suddenly sure it was his face in the dossier.
The GTC captain turned to the prospector as Joe looked to the crowd, desperate for a distraction, but they were all watching the drama unfolding at the bar. The captain gestured angrily at the prospector to remove his mask. The kid was a fool. A prospector was no more able to remove the mask and breathing tubes that protected his lungs than Joe could pull off his nose.
The prospector stood there, arms folded, the hooker behind him, her face turned away from the GTC goons. The captain pulled his stunner as his bodyguards pushed forward and grabbed the prospector, one guard lashing out and pulling the man’s mask off. As the prospector’s face came into full view, the ball of fear in Joe’s throat dropped and slammed into the bottom of his guts. The hooker may have been vaguely familiar, but the prospector’s face was as familiar to Joe as his own.
Fear of getting caught overcoming all caution, Joe leaped from his seat and charged for the back door. Unfortunately, most of the other patrons had the same idea. A sudden rush of bodies heading for the door slammed Joe sideways into the next booth. Joe fell forward, the edge of the table catching him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.
As Joe tried to regain his breath, there was a guttural shout from the bar as Sue chose that moment to leap into action, her giant arms t-boning the GTC captain and his guards. Sue and the guards crashed to the floor and one of their blasters fired into the ceiling, spraying the crowd with plaster, concrete, and dirt.
At the sound of gunfire, chaos erupted throughout the bar, patrons either trying to get out or leaping into the fray. Panicked, Joe tried to push through the crush but got knocked to the floor. Boots and bodies crashed around him as Joe dragged himself under the table inside the booth.
As Joe sat wondering what to do next, a heavy set of boots thumped onto the table above him. “Joe!” a voice shouted. Joe stuck his head out from under the table to see Brian standing above him.
“Brian, where the hell have you been?”
“No time. C’mon.” Brian jumped from the table and ran towards the bar. “Hurry up.”
Joe crawled out from under the table and caught up with Brian, who had stopped at the far end of the bar. “What now?” Joe asked.
Brian grinned, leaping to the other side of the bar. “Ever wonder how Andenu comes and goes with no one noticing?” Joe looked to the end of the bar. The rare exception when Andenu left his spot at the end of the bar and away from the smell of money was when there was trouble, which was why he was currently nowhere to be seen. Brian pushed a panel on the back wall of the bar, and a section of the wall swung open, revealing a narrow slit of darkness behind the bar.
“How did you know this was here?”
“I help behind the bar, remember? One night, I came up from the cellar and saw Andenu disappear into the wall. It took me a while to find the latch to the hidden door, but I knew finding it might come in handy one day.” Brian beckoned to him. “Hurry up, we gotta get out of here.”
Joe glanced at the melee on the other side of the bar. Given no easy exit, the rabble had resorted to the next best thing—an all-out brawl. “No argument from me,” he said, swinging himself over the bar and following Brian through the door.
As the narrow door closed behind them, the passage plunged into darkness. “Wait a sec.” Brian clicked on a torch and pointed it to a narrow passage ahead of them. “This way.”
After a short while, they passed a door on the left. “Where does that go?” Joe said.
“Andenu’s apartment. I think. But we don’t want to go there. It’s just up ahead.”
Joe followed Brian to a low flight of stairs, the smell of rot and rubbish assailing Joe’s nose and making his eyes water. “Shit, that’s foul. Do I even want to know where we are going?”
“There’s a door at the bottom of the stairs. It opens out to an alley behind the bar. Turn right and follow it. The alley comes out on the block behind us, beside Foxy’s.” Brian turned back down the passage, “See you later Joe,” he said.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going back in. I’m curious why the GTC showed up,” Brian grinned. “Plus, Sue’ll need help once the brawl breaks up. I can earn myself a few free drinks.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew the guy at the bar.”
Brian stopped and looked hard at Joe. “Who was he?”
“Nobody you need to know, but him turning up on the same night as the GTC means they’re looking for me, may even know I’m here.”
Brian narrowed his eyes. “Who’d be after you, Joe?”
“My past is a little…complicated,” Joe gave a crooked smile. Complicated didn’t even come close. “Just be careful, OK? I don’t think they saw me. Hopefully, they’re still searching, but I’m getting off the streets for the night, just in case.”
“You watch yourself,” Brian said. “The past has a habit of catching up with all of us eventually.” Brian turned, walking back into the darkness.
Joe wanted to scoff at that. Joe’s past was ten thousand light-years away and didn’t know where he was. But for the first time in four years, he wasn’t so sure.
The door into the alley was as narrow as the one behind the bar. A pile of garbage, smelling of rotten vegetables and long dead flesh, partially blocked it. Joe had to push hard to open the door enough to squeeze through. Grasping his nose, eyes watering at the smell, Joe was glad he couldn’t see any detail in the dark.
He hurried back to his apartment, thinking first about the hooker and then the prospector, wondering how it all related. For one, the man in the bar was no prospector. Luc Rousseau was once Joe’s closest confidant, and more like a brother to Joe than his actual brother.
Joe gnawed on his thoughts all the way back to his apartment, doing his best to stay in the shadows.