Free Lone Wolf by Nigel Findley Page B

it’s a case of self-defense. (That’s one order that’s going to be honored more in the breach than the observance, you can bet your hoop on that.) I know there are other soldiers stationed throughout the safe house, so the corp reps are going to have to march through a gauntlet of armed and nasty gang muscle—a reminder that they’re in deep and had better play nicely. Blake and Springblossom are already in the ops room, waiting, while Vladimir has the singular honor of greeting the guests (and being first on the chopping block if their main purpose is just to blow drek up).
    So now I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. I see Box draw himself up as close to his full height as the ceiling allows, and I do the same myself. We see four people: Vladimir and three others. I don’t stare—got to be polite here—but I do give them what scrutiny I can via my peripheral vision. Vladimir’s talking quietly to a tall, thin elf in a corp-style suit that probably cost almost as much as my bike. Handsome guy, this elf—young (of course), but with a real serious air about him, like he’s seen a frag of a lot in his life. Definitely corp.
    To his left and half a step back is a human I take to be the elf’s executive assistant or aide or something. Medium height, medium build. I can’t see his face—it’s screened by the elf and Vladimir, both of whom are taller than the aide. And then my attention’s grabbed and held by the third of the corp reps.
    I’ve seen elf women before, of course. Who hasn’t? But never one like this. She’s tall—probably more than two meters in bare feet (oh, what a thought . . .)—about as tall as me. But she looks much taller, and it’s not just because of the silver-capped heels on her shoes. She’s thin and willowy and long and lithe, and she moves like quicksilver—fluid and effortless. Long, pale face with eyes that gleam like bright gold. Her hair’s fine and straight, so pale it could almost be white, and it falls free to just above her butt. She wears a biz-style jacket of severe cut—black velveteen over a synthsilk blouse of faintest jade-green. Her skirt’s the same fabric, calf-length, but slit up the side to just below the point of her hip.
    Politeness be damned, there are some times you’ve just got to stare. I do, she notices, and she likes it. I get a speculative glance from the corner of one of those gold eyes, and the hint of something that couid be a smile, and suddenly I want to run in circles howling, or dragging a wing, or some damn thing. (No, be honest, what I really want to do is investigate the degrees of freedom allowed by that split skirt.) I watch her receding rear aspect until the group is into the ops room and the door closes behind her. Then I grin over at Box.
    The big troll’s shaking his head sadly, apparently feeling yet another aspect of the tragedy of goblinization. I can commiserate: I’m not going to get my hands on any of that either.
    * * *
    It’s a long meeting, and I’ve got plenty of time to think things over. Mainly, that means, to put the elf woman in perspective. The big question is, since there’s no way I can hear what Blake and the Tir reps are discussing at the moment— what can I provide the Star that they’ll want to know?
    The answer is, the best descriptions I can give them of the reps. Obviously, verbal descriptions aren’t as good as holos or vids—and why, I ask myself again, didn’t the Star ever upgrade my headware so I could download actual images into a datachip?—but they’ll be better than nothing. If the three people meeting with Blake always work together, even incomplete descriptions of all three could be enough to idee them.
    Okay, so I had a good mental image of the woman, a very good image. Not as much on the elf talking to Vladimir, though, and nothing at all on the human aide (if that’s what he really is). So that’s my task when the meeting’s over.
    And finally— finally, thank the patron god