Interlude - A Roaming Raccoon's Reasonable Relationships [Part Two]

Rac tried to look confident as she walked.

Before, in the gutters and the undercity, she had to make herself small, inconspicuous and unimportant, like the racoons she’d been named after. There, but not important enough to bother with.

Up here, heading to the Barber Shop, the attitude was different. She had to look like she belonged.

“You’re going to need some sort of ID to get past the bouncer,” she said. “He’s this big full-borg guy who doesn’t fuck around.”

Cat shrugged. “I could take him,” she said.

She hadn’t even seen Molotov as she said she could take him. Then again... Cat could take him, and that wasn’t something Rac wanted. “No. He’s actually kinda nice? But he’ll sound the alarm if he thinks you’re corpo or a samurai.”

Cat grunted. “How’d you get in? I doubt they carded you.”

“I’m a merc,” Rac said. “Once I had my status fixed, he let me in no problem. You need someone to vouch for you to become a merc though.”

“Could probably fake it,” Cat said. Then she frowned. “Really? Huh. Well, that’s actually kind of clever.”

Rac pursed her lips and half-turned to look at Cat. “What is?”

“Right, Mercs mostly use paper. Easier to destroy, and not something Myalis can just break into. So, that idea’s out.”

Rac nodded along. “Maybe... I think you could get in just like a normal person going to the bar, but not if you’re with me. Maybe if you try to pass yourself off as a specialist? For like, a job?”

“What sort of specialist? An infiltrator? A sort of cyberninja? Oh, I can totally use Myalis to pass myself off as a meshrunner, no problem. Or some sort of front-line alien killing badass. I’m pretty decent with bombs too. And stealth.”

“Uh-huh,” Rac agreed. Cat probably could get away with all of that, but it wasn’t the kind of shit that an actual merc did. Well, maybe some of them, but the average merc like Rac did work that was a lot less complicated.

Her last few jobs had been standing around looking tough, or helping someone load up some crap into the back of a van in a hurry, or escorting someone through a rough part of the city. Cat was a Samurai, she was doing the kind of crap that legends did all the time, but most of the people in New Montreal were as far from legends as they could be.

She heard the Barber Shop before she could see it. A low, distant thrum of bass-boosted swing music from last century and a faint stink to the air that was unique to this one level of the megabuilding. It was piss (which wasn’t unique) but also booze-filled vomit and sweat and cigarette smoke.

They came around a corner, and the front of the Barber Shop was right there. A big rotating door, painted in blue and white and red, with Molotov the bouncer standing next to it, massive arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey Molotov,” Rac said as she came closer. The music was louder now, so she had to pitch her voice up. Molotov heard her though, probably. The entire upper half of his head was prosthetic. Borg eyes in a chrome skull. It stopped around the upper lip, where he had a long, rather awesome beard and moustache that he tucked into his three-piece suit.

His eyes twitched down, scanning her, then back up towards Cat. “Hey Rac. Who’s your friend?”

“She’s a specialist,” Rac said. “Lookout specialist. Thought we could use the extra hand today, and I wanted to introduce her to Millenium Animal.”

Molotov eyed Cat for a long, long time, then he gestured them in. “Behave, little Racoon,” he said. “And your friend too. The Barbers don’t like trouble.”

“Yes sir,” Rac said.

They slipped through the rotating door, and the music hit her like a slap to the face. Loud swing music, accompanying a woman on a far stage swaying her hips and multiple fox tails while she crooned through a song.

The bar was split into three distinct areas. The big central dance floor, with the stage and its musicians and a few holograms along the edges of men, women and anthropomorphic animals in suits and nice dresses from over a century ago dancing, and to the left was the bar itself, with a bunch of round tables and a counter that ran the length of the room.

The place wasn’t as busy as she’d seen it, probably owing to it still being early in the day. Still, there were some three dozen or so people around the bar and the floor, some in nice anachronistic suits, others with varying amounts of animal parts either worn on as clothes or as elaborate prosthetics, and a few just... normal street people, like she could have seen anywhere.

The right side of the bar was where she dragged Cat. There was a dividing wall, the bottom half fake wood, the upper bulletproof glass. Behind that were the booths, which is where business happened.

“Who’s Mister Millenium Animal?” Cat asked.

“He’s the one who hands out jobs,” Rac said. “He’s a troubleshooter. He gets jobs, gives them to the crew.”

“And what’s with his name? Sounds Samurai-ish.”

“It’s because he’s old,” Rac said. “Apparently he was born in like, 2000. And the Animal part is, uh.”

They entered the booths section, and Millenium Animal was right there. He was a fox today. A well dressed, dapper fox, with a little fedora on and everything. “You didn’t tell me he was a furry,” Cat hissed.

“Aren’t you?” Rac asked.

Cat’s mouth worked, and Rac noticed her cheeks warming up before she glared. “I’m not,” she said.

Rac shrugged. “Okay. Whatever suits you.”

Millennium caught sight of her and waved even as the mask he wore twisted to give the impression of a smile. “Little Racoon, you’re right on time. And you brought a friend too. Nice ears, ma’am.”

“Thanks,” Cat bit out. “I’m Rac’s... big sister, of sorts.” She walked right up to Millennium and stared him down, ignoring Rac’s quick and aborted attempt to gesture for her not to do that.

Millennium was big in the Barber Shop. He’d been here since forever ago, and while he was definitely... weird, he had one of the best reputations for troubleshooting in New Montreal. A lot of people didn’t pick him for jobs, mostly because he kept things on a smaller scale, but he also refused a lot of clients. He also almost exclusively picked which mercs he was going to work with.

It was practically a fluke that she’d gotten in with his current crew of low-tier mercs, and that was only because of her name.

And right now, Cat was glaring at him as if he was some double-digit alien threatening to eat a baby.

Millennium took it in stride. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name? I’m Millennium Animal. It’s a pleasure to meet you, especially seeing as how you seem to care so much for our dear Raccoon here.”

Cat’s anger subsided a little, and she glanced at his hand for a moment before shaking it.

Rac sighed. She wasn’t about to shoot her boss.

“Call me Cat,” Cat said. “And I’m not a furry.”

“As you wish,” he said with a shrug. “A lot of us would rather identify with the animal within, rather than with the community without, and that’s perfectly acceptable as well. In any case, how can I help you?”

Cat seemed to be caught flat-footed for a moment before she shook her head. “Look, I just discovered Rac was doing... something with you, and I was worried. I wanna see what you’re all about. Make sure it’s on the up-and-up.”

Millennium laughed. “It’s anything but that. And it’s not entirely safe either. But... I run a good crew, and I pick my jobs. The price isn’t the best, but the work is as safe as it can be.” He shrugged again, and somehow his ears and tail moved in such a way that he looked way more innocent than Rac knew he was. “As we used to say when I was young, it is what it is. Now come, sit. Today’s job is nothing complicated, and if you’re as comfortable with that handgun as you look, then maybe you’ll want to sit in on it?”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Cat said.

Rac held in a groan. Not only did she have to introduce Cat to her friends, now Cat would be babysitting her on a job.

“Can’t see why you’d want me on a job though, you don’t know me at all,” Cat pointed out.

“Free labour is free labour,” Millennium pointed out with a fox-like bark. “I don’t look gift horses, or cats, in the mouth. Now come, I’ll show you to Raccoon’s friends, and you can determine on your own that she isn’t so unsafe.”

***