She wore skintights and shades and a jacket open all the way down, and walked as though she owned the whole city. Maybe she did, at that; everything else on Earth was for sale, so why not Manhattanland? She was human, too, at least originally; a Zhir might have chosen that tiny body, but it wouldn't walk like that, and it certainly wouldn't stroll into a blind alley. She must have had those legs since she was thirteen. I wondered what they were worth.
Seven muggers followed her into the alley before I could cross the street. I heard the first scream and the sound of something breaking a few seconds later. By the time I was in a position to see the show, there was a knife-slash across the woman's jacket and the first mugger was on all fours, his mouth and chin and moustache wet with blood. It was easy to guess what had happened; he'd been a little faster than she'd expected, but she'd managed to grab his wrist and disarm him and throw him face-first into a wall before he'd done any real damage. The others were already backing away when she hook-kicked the first in the ribs; he rolled with it, and scampered out of range, leaving his carpet-knife as a souvenir. The Guild doesn't pay them to be heroes.
I whistled, piercingly, and the pack turned around and stared at me: a moment later, they'd melted into the darkness so well that even I couldn't see them. I walked into the alley cautiously, bowing when I was a safe three metres from the woman.
"Who the fuck are you?" she growled.
"Edgar Allan Poe, at your service, my lady--"
"Cut the crap."
"--but you can call me Eddy."
She looked at me for a moment. Her night eyes must have been better than mine: probably infra-red. Zhir stardrive kills anything larger than a single cell; anyone who wants to travel between worlds has to have a braintape played into an android body. This one was obviously a combat model.
"Shouldn't you have a blackbird on your shoulder or something? What are you doing here?"
"I live here," I replied. "I'm one of the attractions; the city pays me to walk around, pose for holos for the tourists, give directions, that sort of thing. What about you?"
She laughed. "I'm from out of town. New Geneva. And I didn't need any help."
"No, probably not."
)
