_ _ _ 'Hero Sato'

  The sundae was delicious, leagues beyond the canned knock-offs I'd been eating my entire life. I couldn't place how it was so good as I scarfed the frozen treat down, it just was. Imitations couldn't hold a candle to the real deal. Within seconds I'd finished, Matsumoto spared me a derisive look and turned to leave. I shoved my glass into the hands of a puzzled-looking bouncer and followed. The pace was leisurely, that of a person with nothing better to do than amble about for hours on end— the simple luxury of someone who didn't have to work for a living.

  "You may be an independent, but this orbital has long-standing traditions, Sato-kun. You're not one of us, no matter how highly you come recommended. Not yet anyhow. Should my family be seen treating with an outsider as an equal, that would raise unneeded scrutiny as to our affiliation."

  I wasn't sure if the orbital was supposed to be inspiring or lavish, it blended the two into something not quite either. The colors were vibrant, stores exclusively dealt in luxury services or goods and everywhere I looked there were beautiful women half-dressed in their promiscuous jumpsuits. The station's lighting varied with disjointing frequency, one minute we walked through a neon-lit twilight of unending nightlife, the next we were bathed in sourceless sunlight that made my skin sing with soothing warmth. The materials varied just as widely, only instead of clashing in contrast they all complemented and highlighted the cohesion of the whole. Stone, metal, textiles, digital, ceramics, glass and even flesh as working women adorned everything from glass box storefronts to overhead maintenance catwalks. It seemed that no matter where I looked there was always an angelic woman or ten in my field of view.

  "This is your first time in Tengoku, isn't it Sato-kun?"

  "Yes sir." I answered.

  "It shows. You stand out and it will take more than a pair of coveralls to make you blend in." Contempt dripped from his words. It was a tone I'd heard throughout my life, that of someone who simply knew with absolute certainty that they were better than everyone else in general, and better than me in particular.

  "You have advice, sir?" I asked, already knowing he would.

  "First, you need to learn how to walk in reduced gravity. Tengoku is the counterweight for Intatenrup's space elevator, which is why there's undoubtedly an irritating wobble inside your ears and why you'll lose your balance if you look out a window. Your stride is all wrong; stairs will prove challenging too, take them three at a time unless there is someone of status nearby."

  "How will I know if who has status?" I asked, casting a sly glance over the scattered mass of humanity arrayed around our current corridor.

  There was a woman offering cigars from a smoke shop, our eyes met when her current customer—a fat man that filled his snakeskin suit to near bursting—bent down to sniff at her proffered case. She flashed me a smile that left me blushing, then she flashed a lot more as she exchanged on cigar case for another from a high shelf beside her.

  "You'll know. Maintaining paradise isn't cheap after all. In a single day cycle, more than twelve billion GSaC worth of goods and services trade from the hands of Tengoku's elite alone. Another twenty billion in materials, manpower and information circulate the greater whole. Men of status wear their wealth, they own entire tunnels and staff full retinues. If you earn one's ire dogeza is expected."

  "Dogeza, sir?"

  "Face to floor prostration until your betters call upon you or have passed by. Most of the workers are indentured. The few that aren't are made men and their families."

  "How do I tell which women are single? Do they get ringed here?" As I asked the question, I spotted a woman smoking from a sliver cigarette holder in an alleyway.

  Her full figure left her clothes hanging about her like drapes, fully nude at the sides. Her ears, nose and fingers shone from the wealth of gemmed rings hanging from her like shackles. For all her jewelry, nothing spoke out above the rest to signify if she was paired. She took another drag of her smoking tube, the cherry glow scattering a million flecks of light off her jeweled fetters.

  She noticed my attention and winked an invitation to join her. I was tempted to join her— I was itching for a cigarette. I slowed, reaching for my pack of coffin nails and discovered they'd been crushed on my ascent to Heaven.

  Matsumoto stopped dead and rounded on me where I'd lagged behind. He followed my gaze and the smoking seductress recoiled as if she'd been whipped. With a frantic bow that set her jewelry clattering, she stomped out her cigarette and returned to much more pressing duties elsewhere.

  "The population of Tengoku is just over 50 000 permanent residents, more than 80 percent of which are owned women." Matsumoto explained, using the deliberate tone one uses when addressing the slow-witted and the doddering elderly.

  "When you say owned-" I started.

  "I mean owned. The same way you own the clothes on your back. There are establishments for professional companionship should you be unable to control yourself, but outside of these you must never interact with a woman outside of your working capacity. Don't flirt with them, don't talk to them and don't stare at every one you walk past like a starved mongrel eying discarded tuna. Do I make myself clear?"

  A dozen questions came to mind along with half as many unpleasant revelations. From his tone and the thinly-veiled exasperation on his face, Matsumoto had said all he would on the subject. I bit back the venom trying to worm its way into my words and smiled. Playing my part even though it sat sour in my mouth.

  "Of course, sir."

  Tengoku (or its commonized name of Heaven as I'd grown up knowing it) was only a surface deep paradise. The various Johnsons, Nikogos and Satous skimmed the top of this angelic pond, casting shadows that blotted out the murky depths below. Tengoku was reserved for the men who had made it to the top of their respective ladders; corporate, criminal, political or more often than not a blend of them all. The further I ventured from the station's clear skin in towards the blackened heart of the orbital, the more familiar things became to me. At the orbital's core, well away from the glitz and majesty frequented by the elite, was the ruthlessly practical life-sustaining industry powered by human labor.

  Long halls of single-room apartments, all packed together to make up for the inefficiency of the ruling elites' luxuries. Much of said luxuries trickled their way down to the working class as an afterthought; working girls ran after hours bazaars selling perishable gourmet foods cooked but untouched, stunning clothes marred by a single errant stain and designer hardware one year out of date. Seeing a blonde, stick-thin woman haggling over a kilo of dried rice for three whole-cooked lobsters was almost as jarring as watching a seamstress turn away silks and jewels as payment for restitching a pair of drab low-cut coveralls. As dissonant as the experience was for me, I would have thought I was a celebrity by the way I was turning heads.

  While they looked at me in the same way a starving man might regard a feast, Matsumoto was implacable. Women took one look at him and went about their business, suddenly finding my presence as mundane as the gemstones they traded for basic necessities. Yet even Matsumoto's intimidating aura couldn't quell the surging tide of whispers that followed in our wake.

  The bulk of my job as an underworld painter required anonymity. Moving seen but unnoticed amidst the crowds until I found an opening to do my job. Casting my eyes among the crowd, it was clear that everything I did would draw attention here. Discretion would likely amount to scat all if I had a gaggle of gossiping strumpets thirsting after me everywhere I went. Any proper legwork on my target would arouse too much suspicion which meant this would be a half-blind rush job. I didn't care for doing things sloppy. That's how you get yourself killed in this line of work.

  Once Matsumoto lead us down a thinner branching tunnel there was finally enough privacy to talk amongst each other in hushed tones.

  "I see why you brought on an outsider, sir." I said, keeping most of the grumbling undertone out of my voice.

  "Tengoku is a smaller world than most. Anything that makes waves rocks the entire orbital, Sato-kun. So long as the waves are small and infrequent, no one pays them any mind."

  "If you weren't here, I don't think I'll be able to walk out of my room without knocking Heaven back to Intatenrup. Sir." I hastily added.

  "You are as off-limits to them as they are to you. Besides, no one of importance cares about the whisperings of owned women, Sato-kun."

  "Who exactly owns these women, sir?" I asked before I could shut my mouth.

  "That depends on the day." Matsumoto said with a muted laugh. "It's best not to overly concern yourself with them, Sato-kun. Tengoku is the realm of powerful men and their families. The last thing you want to do is earn one's ire by damaging one of their playthings."

  He'd turned to look at me with a smile that was supposed to be playfully compassionate. If it wasn't being worn by a slimy snake of a man, it probably wouldn't have looked so out of place or forced. Matsumoto's expression withered into abortion when he saw I wasn't buying it.

  "This one is your's. Supplies are inside. Everything else you need to know is on your comm. There's also the comm-code for several trusted workers Mister Satou keeps on retainer pre-loaded. Don't concern yourself with paying them. Just tell them what you expect of them, they needn't be made aware of anything else. Any questions?"

  "Nothing at present. Thank you for your insights, Mister Matsumoto." I said with a bow.

  "You have my comm-code if anything comes up, but it's better if we're never seen together again." He dropped his voice even lower to less than a whisper. "For your sake, don't disappoint Mister Satou or me. We have high hopes for you, Hero-kun."

  "I'll strive to be worthy of such expectations, sir." I said as I made my way into the safehouse. Once the door was finally sealed I allowed the polite smile to fall from my face. "Jackass."

  I bled all the straight-backed tension the second I was alone, practically sweating out a bucket of the figurative stuff. Appearances mattered to pricks like these and as much as it irked me, I had to play the part— for now. Being the center of attention was exhausting. I had no idea how a sleazy middle-management cutthroat like Mister Matsumoto could just walk around acting so above everyone outside the family.

  Actually, I had a pretty good idea of how he did it. He didn't consider any of them as human beings. In that regard he was no different from the tyrants below— er, above. The thought was dizzying. My so-called safehouse on the other hand was disappointingly grounded.

  A single room all-in-one apartment with the fundamentals a worker needed to do their jobs: narrow bed on drawers, table that folded onto the bulkhead, in-built appliances with cupboards, closet stocked with blank worker's garbs plus accouterments and interchangeable patches, and lastly a privacy curtain for the combination toilet/sink/sponge bath. I breathed a sigh of relief after inspecting the coveralls, they were full-sleeved, collared and lacked the promiscuous side slit that would have made concealing anything needlessly difficult. The 'supplies' Matsumoto mentioned were a few days of rice and beans, a fat-barreled polymer holdout pistol and a primer on proper station etiquette for all new workers. All in all, it wasn't any worse than the bunks from back in my conscript days, though it was a far cry from my old planetside condo.

  My comm was the next thing on my inspection. It was a luxury model, no doubt a few years out of date and hence, just as disposable as my printed pistol. All the usual fire and forgot services a gun-for-hire would need; arms dealer, fast food, back ally street doc, cleaner services, trusted fences and my semi-trusted snake of a liaison. The info docket on my deader was lighter than I cared for but with a rush job like this that was to be expected.

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  What wasn't, was the fact that not three days ago there was a very public failed 'mugging' in which Ivan plugged his attacker with eight hollow-point rounds at point-blank. Which meant my deader was armed and jumpy, a dangerous combination for anyone looking to do some painting with his brains. No floor plans, no recorded regular schedule, not even a favorite tea shop. Nothing I couldn't solve with some legwork and observation, but against a deadline and my local celebrity status, proper legwork wasn't an option.

  Looking at how disposable and threadbare everything was, I had to fight down some jumpy nerves with a smoke. Sink or swim was the name of the game. A real mushroom job; give me nothing but scat, keep me in the dark and see if anything useful came from it. Based on Matsumoto's comment of 'high hopes,' I got the feeling they weren't expecting to need a payout— if the job got done at all. Odds were that I was just as disposable in their eyes as the girl I'd been offered for payment, if not even more so given my hardware. I found myself reaching for a second cigarette but checked the urge. I slowly flicked back through my burner comm and punched a message for the street doc.

  P - Staple and stitch. Need a shattered finger checked too, possibly re-plated. Bring coffee too.

  Doc - B there in 30.

  28 minutes later there was a single knock on my door. With one hand on my gun (my real gun, not that plastic piece of junk I'd been given), I ushered in a petite woman with a no-nonsense black bob cut and a heavily laden backpack. A quick scan of the hall only revealed a woman idly chatting with someone about ten rooms down. She spotted me and winked before I ducked back into my room and sealed the door.

  "That is other gun, or just you happy see me?"

  The woman's clipped accent registered in my mind the same time her playful jade eyes and doll face did. The odds were probably higher on Tengoku than anywhere else that I'd run into the drop-dead gorgeous doppleganger of someone I'd barely met, but chances still were that this was the same woman from the docks.

  "Neither." I growled. "You're lovely, really. I'm just not in the mood for a tumble in the snow."

  "Maybe I put you in mood?" She said, setting a fat jug of coffee on the counter before raising her hands to start slipping off her backpack and then her coveralls too. I grabbed her slender wrists and pinned them to her shoulders.

  "No. Listen, I just-"

  She took a step and pitched back, overbalancing me in the weird fake gravity. She fell backwards onto my bed, grabbing onto my hands and pulling me with her until my face was buried in her plentiful chest.

  "I be quick. Let Nee-chan guide you-"

  I got my feet under me and stood, trying to lift myself clear of the woman clinging to me. She held firm to my hands trying to topple me again, but without the element of surprise she couldn't manage the feat twice. She wrapped her legs around my back, grinding our hips together and pulled at me.

  Something tore in the meat of my shoulder. Then I felt the familiar hot rush of blood pouring down my arm. She let go and flopped onto my bed when the first red trickle met her skin, her disappointed pouting more evocative than the generous cleavage of her clothing.

  "Strip Cherry Boy." She said half-pouting, half barking.

  "No! I'm-"

  "Not for sex stupid! For arm and rest, I fix." In the frenzied heat, I'd forgotten why she was actually here. "Then sex."

  I rolled my eyes at her addition but did as she'd demanded. There was still a blatant hunger in the way she looked at me, but it was tempered by a cold clinical detachment that made her seem like an entirely different person than the manic woman in heat from moments earlier. The apartment was barely large enough for two people to be doing anything simultaneously; just getting my bloodied shirt off and rolling up my pant-leg had me tripping over the petite woman as she dug some surgical instruments from her backpack.

  "Pants too." She barked.

  "There's nothing to fix down there." I said, covering my groin.

  "Pants off. You die, is trouble for me." Her gaze flicked from my groin to my face with a knowing look. "You is feel light-headed?"

  "No, why?"

  "That good. That mean you cock work and you no die. Okay, pants stay for now."

  I held out my arm, weak spurts of blood trickling from the partially opened stab wound in my shoulder. "Fix this and stop thinking about my, you know."

  "Okay okay. I fix you up real good, Cherry Boy. Then you take care of me, okay?" She gave me a thousand-megawatt smile, nodding all the while. As if she'd get me to consent through sheer persistence.

  "Fix." I repeated. She gave me another pout that did more to stir me than her earlier attempts had. Lacking her previous force, she sat me down on my bed and straddled me. Almost reluctantly, she set to work on my open shoulder wound humming something under her breath, the pain of her ministrations helping to keep my head clear.

  "You so serious, Cherry Boy. No fun."

  "My job isn't to have fun." I said, entirely unambiguously.

  "I know all about you job. Mister Painter. Only paints with red. So tough. Big scary, yeah?" Her jade eyes tracking down my lean, shirtless form. "Never paint any white?"

  "No." I gulped. "No white."

  "Shame, good money up here for white paint." She said, grinding her hips into mine to drive the point home.

  "Why?" I asked, desperately focusing on her words instead of the conductive warmth of her body pressing against mine.

  "Pregnant girls get to go up to planet. Have healthy baby. No one down here wants saggy-titted old mommies. Baby batter is way off station. Lot of girl give everything for that."

  She finished cleaning out my wound, switching over to needle and thread. I allowed my eyes to wander to her work, deep in the exposed meat of my shoulder. She was a good healer, she could have taken her trade anywhere but instead she was trapped on this station. There were probably hundreds, thousands of women in the same situation, it was just another sour fact of life on Tengoku. Things were hard everywhere, expecting space to be better off than back on Intatenrup was just naive.

  "That and sex no feel as good when is only girls." She added impishly, dragging my grim focus into the present.

  Our eyes met, my blue-grey gaze lost in her lush jade. Her face was rising up to meet mine, her lips ready. I broke our locked gaze, growling under my breath.

  "You don't want to go down to Intatenrup."

  "It better than work down here. No more master, find a husband, make home, raise baby. Is happy dream, no? Worth a year of big belly and… tumble in snow?" She gave a little puff of a laugh that sent the sweet trill of her breath down my exposed chest. "I never hear that one before."

  "Have you ever seen snow before?" I asked, silently rejoicing for the change in topic. Remembering my time in the arctic put a damper on the building heat inside of me.

  "Oh yeah, lots of time. I even have girl friend that likes sniff it off my ass. You want some for pain?"

  A folded paper packet materialized in front of me before I clued in that something had been lost in translation.

  "Not 'snow' the drug. Snow. You know, the wet stuff that falls from the sky when its cold out."

  She paused her needlework to put the packet away, humming that curious tune of hers between breaths. When she resumed patching me up, it was with a thoughtful curiosity under a poorly-feigned indifference.

  "There is other snow? I hear of sky before, but what is?"

  I could only blink at her the same way she blinked at me. It never occurred to me that someone wouldn't know what the sky was. She was sitting right on my lap but suddenly there was this uncrossable chasm between us. What else had she never heard of? What was there that I didn't even know enough to start asking about? How could any two people have lived such vastly different lives and still gotten so close to each other? I hadn't even properly left my homeworld yet but space suddenly got a lot bigger than I'd ever thought possible, right before my very eyes. I wondered if this was far enough. If the horror of that impossible house was strong enough to propel me into the distant corners of space beyond everything I knew.

  "Have you ever been off this station?" I asked.

  "Oh yeah, I grew up on old colony ship raising cow, chicken, fish. I am almost twenty year before I come here and learn doctor."

  "But you've never not been in space?" She blinked at me, confused. "You've never been on any planet?"

  "No, never." My shock must have started to bleed through, because her needlework hesitated again and her jade eyes started wandering to my face instead of the bare muscle of my body. "Has you never be in space before, Cherry Boy?"

  "No, never."

  "And…" She flicked her needle up and down. Once again I was made painfully aware of just where she was sitting and just how attractive she was. I peeled my eyes from her plump mounds and swallowed down the lump in my throat.

  "No," I admitted breathlessly. "First time here too."

  "You is real cherry boy? Not just act?"

  "Not an act." The flush of my cheeks confirming it.

  At my words she ground her hips into mine once more, feeling the honesty of my body pinned between us. She leaned onto my good shoulder, the needle momentarily forgotten in her other hand. The hot rush of her breath was right in my ear, sweet and seductive. The softest hint of her whimpered moan defeated any resistance I had left, making me a slave to this moment, to this woman on top of me. The fabric between us wasn't thick enough to block out the moist heat of her sex, the interposing garments were soaked with her eagerness. She ground down all the more insistently, sliding back and forth on my lap as if by friction alone she could lay me bare and make a man of me. I couldn't fight it, I didn't want to. My breathing became ragged to match her own, two bodies in sync. My battered flesh was aching for release, everything else fading into the background. There was only the heat of this woman in this moment and I drank in everything I could: the sight of her clinging to me, her burning-hot breath in my ear, the earthy scent of her sweat and something sweeter mingling together. I wanted it to last, but the need for release was building and fight as I may, I couldn't hold it back. Then she whispered in my ear like a devil of lust…

  "Don't worry Cherry Boy, I'll be gentle."

  I stiffened under her before her hand had even reached my waistline. That shameful moment filled the room as my defeat spurted from me. She pulled back from our embrace, all softness removed from her jaded features.

  "Did you just-"

  "Sorry." I panted.

  Her hand darted below my trousers and found the truth. She seized my member, savagely pumping the bruised meat, desperate to keep my abused flesh firm. Without the blissful embrace from moments ago, there wasn't any pleasure in her frantic actions— only a great deal of pain.

  "Is okay. We try again." She said, smiling wide even as tears began misting in her jade eyes.

  "Stop."

  To my surprise she did. She must have known it was a lost cause.

  "We try again tomorrow." She nodded to herself more than me and withdrew her hand. The sight of my own weakness glazing her fingers like so much white paint disgusted me. "I… I go wash now."

  She climbed off me, taking the heat of her body behind the privacy curtain with her. Running water overwrote the sound of my own silent berating. Where her excitement had soaked through my clothes the fading scent of that moment lingered until the warmth bled away, leaving only a clammy reminder of my disgrace and a burning shame in the pit of my stomach.

  Running water and shame, the two seemed to intermingle as I saw that frigid look of disappointment on her face when she'd pulled away from me over and over in my mind. It was the look she was still wearing as the privacy curtain slide back and her stony jade eyes met mine.

  "I fix rest now, Cherry Boy. This will be lot of hurt."

  She wasn't exaggerating. Medicine was usually slower and less painful the more care the practitioner put into their work. She practically flew through my ministrations, the rapidity of her stitch and staple would have rivaled any corpsman from back in my pioneering days. I endured the pain as a welcome distraction from the disgrace of my performance.

  When it came to my trigger finger, she offered up her packet of 'snow' again and I eagerly snorted most of it, the rest got dumped into the mangled sausage of cracked bone, metal plates and torn bloody tissue. She poked and prodded, aligning the bone ends to her satisfaction while I tried to avoid watching or crying out in pain to moderate success. Once she'd closed my finger back up, she clamped it straight with splint and tape the same burnt umber hue as her disheveled uniform.

  Her work done, she cleaned her tools and packed her bag all without saying a word. I wanted to say something to her before she left but all I could think of were more apologies. She was lifting her backpack into place when I realized I didn't even know her name to call out to her. She took a single step and she was already at the door, seconds from leaving my life forever.

  "Will… will I see you again?" I asked, the pathetic weakness of my own question disgusting me.

  A quivering sigh filled the room like a gunshot, deafening me to everything but my own driving heartbeat. She turned from the door, her face a mask of clinical indifference.

  "I come back tomorrow, same time. To make sure you is healing right. Okay?"

  "Yeah. Totally. Okay. Yes. Miss…" I saw the ghost of a smile on her face, as if asking her name was something dreadfully amusing. Then, she leaned in and gave me a goodbye kiss on the lips.

  "Yang-Sarpi." She whispered. "Shenhua Yang-Sarpi."

  That tiny touch was electric, my cheeks burning with an impossible heat of a forbidden possibility. I blinked and the door was open while I watched her walk away. In the cramped apartment I hadn't had a chance to appreciate much more than her bust and face, but watching her leave… It was almost enough to make me chase after her. To find out if she was the reason I was still alive after everything I'd been through. Shenhua rounded a corner then was gone.

  My tunnel vision cut out, and I was suddenly aware that I wasn't the only one watching her leave my room. At least a dozen women turned as one to gaze upon my half-naked, blood-smeared body with starved, downright predatory stares. One of them decided that she wanted a closer look and strode towards me, her intent worn openly. A glance over my shoulder and I discovered a trio of women inspired to action by the boldness of the instigator. More beyond them were lying in wait, carrion feeders waiting until the strutting street dogs had made their kill and taken their fill. I backed into my safehouse (feeling that it was anything but) and locked the door, hoping none of the women had another way in or the determination to wait me out.

  Sealed inside my bunker, I made ready to wait out the siege.