Chapter 11

When Lucie woke, very early the next morning, she was starving. So much for losing all appetite under stress the way the heroines of the historical novels did. She dithered over the breakfast menu on the printer, then sighed. "Who are you kidding? Just order it, Lucie Jelen!" She stabbed at the Emperor's Mess item.

She didn't like the silence that was her company while she ate. It was so early that few people were up and about in Celestial, and the usual village noise that reached her from over the walls of the house were absent.

"Barney, are you busy?" she said, lifting her voice a little.

A few seconds later, Barney said from the speaker; "Good morning." His tone was the super-polite one he had used with Elijah, the one time Lucie had heard them interact.

"I'm not mad at you," Lucie said.

"You…don't sound upset, either."

"I'm not," Lucie said. What she was, was tired. Despite the marathon sleep. "I have a request to make to the city-mind, Barney."

"Recording," Barney said, in the flat tone all official records used.

"I want to register my legal intention to change my body and open bidding from any interested institutions."

"A list of fees for the procedure will be provided. They will include a transmission fee for retrieval of any and all documents and registered re-filing with central records. What change do you want to make?"

"I want different DNA. With tailored gene expression."

Silence. Then, "Luce, are you sure?" Barney asked, in his normal voice. "The cost! You don't have that sort of money."

"No, but I've got nearly a decade of earning history. I'll qualify for a mortgage, now." She said it calmly, even though she didn't feel calm at all.

"What does it matter, now?" Barney pressed. "You'll be gone in three days, more or less?—"

Lucie smiled at his very human imprecision.

"—and anywhere else but here, it doesn't matter what body you're using."

"It matters to me." She gripped her spoon harder than she should. "This body doesn't belong to me."

"Yes, it does. I'm looking at the records," Barney said.

"I know what the legalities say," Lucie said. "But there's in here, too." She touched her chest. "And in here, I feel like I don't deserve this body. I'm not…good enough."

"You're tired," Barney said, very gently. "Give this some thought."

"I have," Lucie said. "This is what I want."

"You'll be drowning in debt for a century! The interest rates alone will kill you."

"Just get the process going, please, Barney."

He sighed.

●

Lucie worked listlessly, that morning. Any energy she could scrounge up was instantly depleted when she realized that Elijah had not arrived at usual. Or perhaps he had chosen to sit back in the hidden corner once more. She was too afraid to check around the corner. If she saw him there, it would mean he didn't want to talk to her.

Better to not know.

But his absence sat in the back of her mind, pinging away whenever she wasn't talking to a customer.

The sudden silence falling over the entire restaurant made Lucie turn away from the customer whose order she was taking, and check to see what had happened.

Sona Shearer stood just inside the slowly shutting glass doors, looking around for a table.

Lucie's heart lurched. She squeezed her order pad.

Shearer looked toward the kitchen. Olivette was peering through the serving slot, her bruised eyes very wide.

The tankball player nodded, as if they were friends, then strolled over to a table where a couple were just getting to their feet.

Actually, many people were hastily chugging back their coffee or gobbling down quick mouthfuls as they rose. The thin stream of customers heading for the glass doors made Lucie's middle squeeze.

The table Shearer was sitting at was one of Lucie's. Lucie stood frozen for what felt like a small eon of time. There was nothing that would get her out of this. Olivette had not pressed charges. No one could order Shearer out of the restaurant. Lucie couldn't even call her a thief and order her out, because someone had paid her breakfast bill the day after the stomping incident. Shearer was entitled to eat breakfast. There was nothing Lucie could use to refuse service.

There was no way around it. Lucie would have to get close to her and serve her.

Lucie gripped her pad and swallowed. Her feet felt enormously heavy as she made her way around the half wall and along the row of small two-people tables to where Shearer sat watching her approach.

Shearer was smiling.

"What can I get for you today?" Lucie asked.

Shearer's smile grew even broader. "The usual."

Lucie could hear her heart thudding in her ears. It muffled all other sounds. But the restaurant was very nearly silent, anyway. Was everyone listening?

"I don't know what your usual is. You'll have to tell me," Lucie made herself say.

Fury flooded Shearer's face. It was an instant change, as if the woman had thrown a switch. Her features flushed redly and she straightened up. "What do you mean, you don't know what I want?" Shearer spoke in a loud voice that carried to every corner of the restaurant.

Lucie quailed. Inside, she could feel herself shrinking, and every muscle in her body wanted to move her back away from the table. But she was too afraid to move. She was frozen on the spot.

That just left talking. She could talk. She swallowed, trying to work some spit into her mouth so that she could speak. "If you will just tell me this once, next time, I will have it memorized." She realized she had automatically lifted the ordering pad to punch in the order.

Shearer slapped the table, hard enough to make everything on it bounce and rattle.

Lucie flinched.

"What sort of a stupid restaurant is this?" Shearer screamed. "You don't know my order! Go ask your stupid cow of a boss back there! I want my breakfast. Now!"

"I'll order our medium breakfast platter." It was difficult to speak, because her throat was squeezed in and her chest was locked.

"I don't want the stupid platter!" Shearer shouted, raising her hand.

Lucie would have scurried backward, out of the way, but for her frozen legs.

Is she going to hit me? The question formed on top of the chaotic gibbering her brain was producing.

A memory surfaced. Elijah's voice. Causing any bodily harm to anyone in the city will terminate your residency.

Wouldn't the people who ordered the act also have to pay the same penalty?

The question barely formed in Lucie's head before she acted. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and spoke directly to Shearer in a firm voice that wouldn't reach nearly as far as Shearer's shouting, but everyone nearby would hear it. "You need to calm down and speak civilly. Tell me what you would like and I will get the order started."

Shearer's face turned deep red. She swore, in a long deep exhale, that sounded more like the growl of a predator.

All the fine hairs on the back of Lucie's neck stood up with a sharp prickling sensation. She lifted her hand, and extended her finger. Her hand shook. She wagged the finger. "Tsk. Tsk. That's not the language we like here. Let me get you a coffee. You clearly need the restorative."

Around and behind her, Lucie could hear the collective indrawn breath of everyone watching.

Shearer's hand curled into a fist. "Who the hell do you think you are? You little pipsqueak!"

Lucie laughed. "I am one hundred and seventy-seven point eight centimeters tall. I'm not even close to being a pipsqueak. Although…." She cocked her head and considered the lanky tankball player. "You're certainly drawn out, aren't you?"

Shearer screamed, making the tendons in her neck pop. She lurched to her feet, putting her within centimeters of Lucie. Lucie made herself stand still.

Shearer's fist swung through the air, swiping so close to Lucie's face that Lucie felt the brush of air across her cheeks.

Her heart lurching sickly in her chest, Lucie looked Shearer in the eye. "You missed."

Shearer shoved her fist into her pocket and pulled it out again, triggering the folding knife.

Lucie stared at the blade, which seemed longer than a sword to her, but which her digital mind, the only part of her brain that was still working, reported that it appeared to be ten centimeters long and made of folded plasteel, which wouldn't break under normal use.

"Hey, put that way, Shearer," Elijah growled, from right behind Lucie. He stepped forward, his hand up, ready to grip her by the shoulder, or perhaps take her arm, and force her to drop the knife.

Shearer, though, was quicker. She was used to working in zero gravity, and overcoming slowed reactions, so her natural speed was lightning fast. She reacted to Elijah's reach for her by swinging the knife around in a vicious arc that would slash across his stomach.

Time slowed down. Lucie dropped the order pad and lunged forward, both hands up. She got them on Elijah's flank and shoved, as her foot landed and her weight transferred to that front foot, to complete the lunge.

Elijah sagged sideways, out of the way of the swinging knife blade.

But Lucie's lunge had put her in the place where Elijah had been.

White fire scorched across her upper abdomen, and instantly, a strange draining sensation flowed through her limbs, pulling all the strength from them.

Lucie fought to bring her hands up to her stomach, as time returned to its normal speed, and pain registered.

Such pain!

She gasped. Under her fingers, she could feel the edges of skin spreading wider. Her knees buckled.

"Lucie! No!" Elijah was there. It was his hands holding her. Stopping her from falling.

Lucie blinked. She couldn't turn her head. All she could see were customers on their feet, watching her with horrified expressions. And Shearer, staring at her, while blood dripped from the knife in her hand. All Shearer's anger had gone. Dawning dismay was building in her face.

Lucie was lowered to the floor. Elijah leaned over her, so that all she could see was his face, and his eyes, filled with terror. "Lucie…" He choked on her name.

"Yeah, that's me," she whispered.

"You provoked her!"

"To protect the restaurant," Lucie breathed. "Ollie will explain." She sighed. "So tired…"

He stroked her cheek. Brushed the tendrils of hair that always escaped the clasp away from her face. "Rest," he said quietly. But his eyes were glittering.

Lucie tried to reach for them. For him. But her arms were too heavy. "Stay with me?"

"As long as I can," he whispered.

She closed her eyes and rested.