As Bryce watched a tall man with a close trimmed beard, his wife with a light summer dress that didn't quite hide the synth-skinned lower left leg, and their two children lower a boat to the launch, he almost envied them their exuberance, their excitement, the normalcy of it all. As he continued to scan the growing crowd, he smiled, like many things in life, the closer you looked the more imperfections you saw.
At first glance there were those selling bathing suits, designed with hydrophobic fabrics, embedded with corporate logo's and trademarks, lotions and sprays that would allow exposure to the growing UV count, rebreathers that filtered pollutants out of the lake water, all the things that you would expect. His perfect Ikon-Ziess eyes picked up the fringe merchants, those peddling inhalers, narcotics, chips and worse, and even among this crowd, there were predators and there were prey.
He shrugged.
With his lined coat, he couldn't very well blend in to the crowd, he looked more like one of the outlying merchants or vendors. Might as well get it out of the way, he scanned the crowd for any sign of the courier, he kept the image that Raleigh had sent him open in the lower right of his field of vision, matching it to faces in the crowd. He threaded his way through them, looked at Troy's AR menu, floating above the establishment in hues of red and gold, perhaps to remind folks of sun reflecting off the lake. Saw an overpriced soy-cafe latte, selected it, watched the credits drain from his account, and activated his comm sub vocally.
>>Morning Barbara. Tell me what you have on this courier, name, SIN, employer, give me something to work with.<<
He sat down, tapped out another Szczepanski, noticed a waitress walking towards his table with his latte. He patted his jacket, like he was looking for something, looked up at her, smiled ruefully and spread his hands, the unlit slim dangling from his lips.
"Light?"
