The last party-like event Eva and Vakar had attended together ended in a lengthy firefight and both of them got hauled off to the brig afterward. It had gotten worse from there, but that was Tito’s fault, not Eva’s. Not a good precedent.
But besides that, there was the diplomatic-incident possibility to consider. “No, better if you stay here,” Eva told him. Too bad; he would have been adorable in formalwear.
“Might be good for him to be along to rein you in,” Pink said with a half-smile. “Don’t want you showing your ass to anyone.”
“Mija, de qué rayo estas hablando?” Regina asked. “Is this for work?” She tapped the arm of her hoverchair with her forefinger like she was sending messages in Morse code.
Eva hesitated, unsure of how much to spill. “Sort of,” she said. “There’s a big fancy party tonight and I’m invited.”
“How fancy?” Regina asked.
“Very fancy.”
Regina stared at Eva as if she could read thoughts as easily as a commlink visualization. “Bueno,” she said finally. “I would let you borrow something of mine, but my nice dresses are cut for me to put on easily. You might ‘show your ass’ as your friend said.”
Right, because of the chair. Just as well; her mom’s sense of fashion was very particular, and Eva had never been in love with it. Some hoop earrings were too big, period.
Sue had apparently started listening, because she spoke up now. “Captain, did you find out something about my brother?”
Eva closed her eyes for a moment, reopening them as her mother swiveled to cast a frown in Sue’s direction. Let her look, Eva thought. Maybe she’ll realize Sue’s not a monster like she’s been building up in her head.
“Maybe,” Eva said.
“Is he here? Is he okay?” Sue asked, jumping to her feet so quickly she stumbled, knocking over a chair.
Eva winced. The more she told Sue, the more Sue might blab to the wrong person. And a very wrong person was currently seated a meter away, looking back and forth between Sue and Eva like she was waiting for one of them to draw a weapon.
“We’re still checking things out,” Eva said, holding up a hand as if to stave off more questions. “I don’t want to get your hopes up.” Especially since Josh had almost certainly come voluntarily, based on what Dr. Lucien had said. It made sense; he’d bounced around the universe apparently trailing Lashra Damaal, then showed up here working in her labs. The more she thought about it, the more Eva suspected that had been his plan from the start.
“Bueno, I think a party sounds like a wonderful idea,” Regina said, clapping her hands together and folding them primly in her lap. “I know the perfect place to go shopping for a dress—”
“Pants, please,” Eva said.
“Not in this climate,” Pink said. “And take Vakar to the party.”
Eva winced. “That’s not—”
“Ay, sí, you and your partner should go together!” Regina exclaimed. “Qué fun. We’ll find him something nice, too.”
Once again, despite all her arguments, internal and external, Eva was suddenly regretting her decision. But what harm could a little shopping trip do?
Eva had entirely forgotten what shopping with her mother was like. Even though they had a purpose—buy something for Eva to wear at the party—Regina wandered in and out of nearly every store they passed in the huge open-air complex that a human would call a mall or market, but the locals called a Stop Cluster. It certainly felt like she was stopping constantly, to Eva’s intense exasperation. Rotating holographic cube signs expanded into circular ones based on proximity, showing the name of the place as well as an image of what could be obtained there. As they entered each building or paused at each stall, the sign’s color slowly shifted from a pale blue to a purplish pink, as if to mark the ones they had visited already for easy visual reference.
A trail of pink spread out behind them like breadcrumbs in a fairy tale.
“Mami, they don’t sell clothes here,” Eva said for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Pero mira, don’t you think your sister would like one of these?” Regina pointed at a colorful carving that hung from the ceiling, catching the light as it gently turned.
“No. Maybe. But she doesn’t need it.” Eva wondered how tacky it would be to wear her spacesuit to the party. She could pretend it was the new fashion somewhere in the fringe. Maybe she could even find some new gravboots to replace the ones that kept malfunctioning? No, cheaper to have Sue keep fixing them.
“Ooh, look at those!” her mother exclaimed, dashing off to another part of the room. The xana proprietor of the shop stood impassive in the corner, psychically emanating helpfulness and polite restraint.
Pink sighed, her arms crossed over her chest. “She doesn’t stop, does she?”
“Her batteries will run out eventually,” Eva said. “Then she’ll start complaining about everything and asking when I’m going to have kids.”
“Merciful heavens.” Pink uncrossed her arms long enough to give Eva an affectionate shoulder pat, which Eva accepted with a sour expression.
Eva approached her mom to beg her to keep moving so they could buy something before the party was over. Regina had stopped in a corner with a lovely view of a street behind them, and was quietly tapping the arm of her chair like she was lost in thought. But then she angled slightly to the left, pausing the tapping for a moment before starting again.
What is she doing? Eva thought. The street looked like any other here, albeit with fewer of the blue holographic signs. Pedestrians ambled or hovered about, while Watchers mingled among them or loitered on corners, their pale uniforms a different kind of light reflecting the local star’s brilliance.
Strange that they were so obvious. If Eva were running a spy network, she wouldn’t advertise it. Then again, these were the ones she could see; that didn’t mean others weren’t wearing plain clothes. And if this were anything like other places with a robust system of constant vigilance, enough locals would snitch to the Watchers that they hardly needed to go out of their way to sneak around.
Not to mention whoever was in the neural network, voluntarily or by force. Eva thought of what Dr. Lucien had said and scowled.
“Only fourteen,” her mother said, bringing Eva out of her own reverie. Fourteen what? Eva wondered. The hoverchair spun around and Regina yelped.
“Coño carajo, mija, you scared me!” Regina exclaimed.
“I was just standing behind you,” Eva said.
“Sí, pero you snuck up on me. I didn’t know you were there.”
“Sorry. Are you going to buy anything?”
Regina gave her a pursed-lipped frown and shook her head, casting a side-eyed glance at the xana watching them. “You’re probably right, your sister has too many things, and she’s never home anyway. Bueno, let’s go.”
The next store was, finally, one that sold clothing. Most of it was the loose-fitting outfits a lot of the xana wore to leave room for their arm flaps, adapted to fit various species, but there were other options no doubt carefully selected to appeal to the tourist composition that Spectrum City attracted. Only a few things were on physical display, while others were holovids that cycled through multiple items, probably based on data culled from their commlinks. Pink’s eye lit up as she noticed one of the holographic models, whose style Eva would have best described as “home decorations,” given that most of the clothes looked like a fancy chandelier or curtains or even rugs.