A Deal
Entity took a slow bite from the dripping slice, letting him take his long, hard look. She was almost commonplace among the vendors, the above-ground dwellers and builders who saw her every day and night, either shouting orders to her workers, or presiding over the festivities once the oppressive sun fell.
But the sewer rats from below…they weren’t always so lucky.
A grin curled at the corner of her mouth as she dragged a thumb across her lower lip, and took several steps closer.
“Good. Then no need for introductions. I hear you’re a very capable man, good for more than shoveling shit. Is this true?”
Goose tensed. Not quite a flinch, but his posture lost some of its easy lean as she approached a little too fast for a squirrel-ly road warrior’s comfort. Back a little straighter, biceps bunching though his arms stayed folded. He didn’t step away.
“It aint a lie,” he allowed, as good as a yes to her question. Wasn’t going to sell himself short, but what were they saying he was capable of now that he hadn’t already said on his way in and had discarded?
His eyes dipped to the fruit in her hand and back up. The fresh sweet smell was distracting, foreign familiar, a tug at his nose toward a memory. A grocery store aisle. Apples, strawberries, but he couldn’t place the name of that one. ‘Peach’ was wrong-
Capable. Folk were passing it around that he was capable. Back to present. Goose blinked.
Yea. He’d loosed a few expletive laced suggestions down below. Went off once or twice on the incompetent mechanics banging around over his head and lent more elbow than strictly necessary for what they’d hired him to do out of exasperation alone. A little grease monkey stuff, nothing big.
He could do bigger. “... Ya got somethin’ short-term in mind, I’ll see what I can do.”
