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Normally, I’m game for whatever is expected of me. It’s my job, I aim to please. I pull the girl off of my face and finger her instead, and when I finish in the other girl, I point at the one who just came from my fingers.
“You two finish up the party.” I smile apologetically. “I’ve gotta go.”
“But, Jackal,” the one pouts.
I don’t doubt she wants my cock, but it’s really all about a potential chance at pregnancy going down the drain.
“Not tonight,” I tell her and get out of there before some other desperate woman can corner me.
There aren’t many places in the upper end where you can get useful information. The Regions, once America, are divided into two classes: the filthy rich and the desperately poor. Desperate for food, desperate for resources—not desperate for information. They’ve learned how to talk to each other, while the other end has learned to stay quiet. Tell me who’s free and who’s not? The wealthy, as I’ve come to understand them, prefer to wear rose-colored glasses, believing everything they’re told. Third-generation narcissists don’t want to admit the world has gone to shit due to their lack of empathy. One class is bound by their greed, the other by the law. Some of the End Men like it that way, some of us like the dirty truth. I belong to anything that has the worddirtyin it.
I ask my driver, Yvonne, to take me to the lower Blue. We leave the city at dusk and head east along the river. Blue reminds me of Cruella De Vil; a colorfully dressed-up bitch.We have art!it says.We make old things live! But at what expense? The Blue only pays for the most popular End Men. They need us to make enough money to sustain their beautiful illusion. Foley spent five tours here. There are probably more little Foley bastards running around here than any other Region. A steel-hearted city wrapped in silk and fur.
The city drains of color as we drive, graphite and neons fading to an indistinguishable wash of brown. The billboards that once advertised the End Men have been vandalized, sprayed over with the wordsBABY KILLERS. There are posters of Laticus’ face everywhere, tagged with the word:Remember. I bow my head when I see those. I’d been the one to tell his mother where he was after the Red Region and the Statehead seized him from his home in the Black and took him to the Genome Y lab. It was a complete coincidence that Folsom, who had fathered the boy, was also there recovering from a heart attack. I pass a long stretch of graffiti where people have tagged Blue rebels and the lineFree the Menis everywhere. Gwen’s name is there too withFree the truth teller! You can’t keep us quiet.Gwen, a little rich girl from the upper Red incited a rebellion and because of that they took her baby and imprisoned her. Gwen Allison became a household name, and not because she did something, it was because she said something—something no one else was willing to say. The fact that a privileged woman said it had incited the lower end to cry out. One voice, where it mattered, could change the course of history. For Gwen, it had destroyed her life.
I rub a hand across my jaw as we pass through a tunnel. We’re getting close. There’s a bar in the lower Blue where you can buy almost anything, even information. Foley told me about it after his last tour here. We might not all be tight, but the men keep each other in the loop regarding the Regions—where to get things and how. While my black market buying usually consists of recreational drugs, I’ve occasionally needed information too. I glance out of the back window. My security detail trails the car as I tap my knee impatiently. Folsom only asked about Gwen. Has he heard about his son? Word has been circulating that The Red Rebel is being raised by another woman.
The Dive is lit in blue neon lights. Inside, there is a haze blurring the edges of the tables. I narrow my eyes and look around. There are low hanging bulbs over the tables and a long bar to the right. Everyone in the place stops talking when I walk in, resuming once I pull up to the bar.
“What do you need to feel?” the bartender asks me. Her voice is bored; she plucks absently at the piercing on the bridge of her nose. Ah, a feelings bar—my favorite.
“I would like to feel…” I tap my fingers on the bar top, considering my options. “Numb.”
She juts her chin at me once. “What do you want that in?”
“Shot of tequila.”
“Aye aye, captain.”
She moves away to make my drink, and I turn around to survey the rest of the space. It’s a motley crew of interesting types. None of them seem to care that I’m here. Foley had said nothing about who she was or what she looked like, just that I’d know her when I saw her. When the bartender comes back with my drink, I lean toward her.
“I’m looking for a woman—”
“Yeah? Me too.”
“Maybe we have the same type,” I say, leaning forward.
She stares at me, her expression blank. “Oh yeah? What’s your type?”
“I like a woman who knows things. Someone who has access to hard-to-get items…”
“You End Men all have the same taste,” she says.
“Yeah?” I ask, livening up.
Her chin lifts toward the back right of the bar.
I throw back the rest of my drink and toss a few bills on the bar top before standing up.
The booth sits on its own in the back of the bar, the leather seats high around it creating a cocoon. She has a guard dog; he stops me as soon as I get close.
“Nature of business?” he asks. His voice is gruff.
“Information.”
“She’s busy,” he says. “You need an appointment.”
I lick my lips. “All right then. I’d like to make an appointment.”
