531

The Muck

Chan Yi hated wearing gloves. His skin was far too sensitive for cheap synthetics and something like genuine leather drew too much attention around the Piles. He pulled on the black gloves he kept in his jacket pocket and hoped no one noticed they were silk. He'd spent 7 years here, but there had never been security like this in the Piles. The people in the Piles were left alone to deal out their own justice. Today, cops patrolled the streets in twice their numbers and Yi had seen men in non-descript black uniforms going into two different sections. Xian wasn't wrong about the crackdown. Whatever they were looking for, they were coming for it hard.

Yi took to the second level and crossed away from the black uniforms that were doing... whatever they were doing. It wasn't a raid. It was more like a shakedown, but on a scale Yi hasn't seen before. Someone high up was nervous about something. It had nothing to do with him though, so he left it behind and used the sky-walks to get two blocks over. He came down beside a butcher's shop and tried not to notice what the catch of the day was.

He scrambled across the narrow street and waved at the Parlour whores watching from the second-story overhangs. They cooed and called to him, but he wasn't in the mood for banter today. He slipped between two idiots racing past on their delivery bikes and slid through the doors of the old, abandoned church. It was just an orphanage now, but the pews and confessionals were highly polished and cleaned with a fervor that had nothing to do with religion and was more about discipline and keeping idle hands busy.

He stepped into one of the confessional boxes and waited.

It wasn't long before Yi heard someone settle on the other side of the screen. He could hear the scampering of feet beyond the wall and ignored the warning in his head. They were children but he knew if anything happened to the man that had come, gunfire would follow quickly, and the plaster walls wouldn't offer much cover.

"I don't have time for your sins today," the man said. His heartbeat was fast, but nothing more than a brisk walk would do.

"Who ever does?" Yi answered. "Just need some information. Looking for Jason Fulmer. I was hired by his wife, Charity. You know anything about him?"

He heard the flick of a lighter and the smell of smoke pulled through the screen before the man answered. "Fulmer. Not a bad guy. Selling some trash tech, I hear. Nothing special about him though. He's just a small man with a tie strung around his neck a little too tight if you ask me. You check with the mistress?"

"According to his wife, he ain't got one," Yi answered.

"They never do," the other man replied.

"You heard anything about the crackdown in the Piles?"

"Nasty business, that. Lots of people around here are getting antsy."

"How antsy?"

"Turn on your neighbor antsy," the man said. "My kids are keeping an eye on things, but we haven't seen anything concrete yet. They're looking for something, but no one knows what. Raided a trash tech dealer last week. The week before they hauled off a truck driver. Even one of the whores got taken away and you know Madame K doesn't let that happen lightly."

Yi was surprised by that bit. Madame K's Parlour was as respectable as business as they came in the Piles. Her people did their job, they kept their mouths shut about what they overheard, and no one messed with her Baubles, as she called them.

"Let me know if you hear something?" He slipped a piece of paper under the screen to the man. It wasn't much, but the credits would come from an untraceable account and the man had more mouths to feed than he knew what to do with. He might use the kids to get information, but he trained them, fed them, and looked after them like they were his own. Much like Madame K and her Baubles. No one messed with the kids on this street. The Confessor didn't allow it.