Page 7 of Skyn (After the End #3)

Don’t Be funny. Don’t Be smart

Three hours later, I’m sitting on a barstool made of old bicycle parts, spinning myself dizzy while three other women chug the free potato alcohol.

I have three layers of clothing on and two scarves, hoping the layers will hide the brilliant diamond in my collar.

They keep asking the bartender if the drinks are really free, right before he hands them another one, no matter how many times he assures them that yes, it’s free.

The walls are made of rough-cut stone, and one of the women carves her initials into the grime that’s built up over God knows how many years.

The low ceiling is crisscrossed with exposed pipes that hiss and drip ominously in the shadows.

We’ve been here for an hour, and everyone’s losing patience.

The faint hum of machines vibrates through the walls, and the sticky floor gives our footsteps cartoonish sound effects.

A woman teeters toward me with a shot glass the size of her fist. She’s homely in a comforting way, with a large nose and large eyes that make you think she could keep your secrets. I decide I like her, if for no other reason than the huge nose like a cross-legged god that seems to sit on her face.

“Shot!” They all clap and scream, “Shot! Shot! Shot!” pointing to me and jumping. They’re all dolled up in their best, with bright metallic lip stain, tiny skirts with lights and buttons, and feathered eyelashes. But didn’t the shopkeeper tell me to come as I am?

Am I being tricked?

The shopkeeper told me not to have any liquor and to wait for the back doors to open. But he didn’t say anything about the free fried onions. So, I take a fat bite of the ball of batter and shake my head at the women. “Sorry, ladies. Allergic.”

They boo me, laughing, and I laugh a little too.

Damn, I could use a shot right now. But the door creaks open, and all eyes in the room swivel to a tall, dark figure stepping through the threshold.

He’s dressed in a long black coat that brushes the floor, and his mirrored sunglasses gleam unnaturally in the dimness, though there’s no sunlight in the mines that would require such a ridiculous accessory.

His presence sucks the air right out of the room. The door clicks shut behind him.

It’s time.

The girls—who were slumped over tables, laughing—suddenly straighten, but their eyes are unfocused, and they move clumsily. The man takes his time, walking the length of the room with slow steps; the sound of his boots sticking to the floor is less comical, more ominous.

He stops in front of the first girl, the one with glitter lips and an unfortunate underbite.

“I’m going to ask you three questions,” he says, tilting his head slightly.

The girl nods weakly, trying to focus on him.

“What is your allegiance to the Iku family?”

The woman puts her hands to her mouth like she’s holding in a laugh, and I realize with horror that she is laughing. “Fine until lunchtime!” she slurs, waving her hand dismissively.

Two other girls cough to hide their laughter.

The man’s expression doesn’t change, but there’s a subtle tightening around his mouth. That must have been enough because the girl’s laughter dies in her throat. She’s roughly grabbed by one of the silent figures with chrome masks on and dragged toward the door.

This sobers everybody up fast.

He moves on to the next girl, his shadow falling over her like an eclipse. “What’s your skill set?”

The girl hesitates, clearly scrambling for the right answer. “I—I bake,” she stammers.

“What do you bake?”

She looks at him like he’s strange. “Bread.”

“And how’s business?” he asks, his tone deceptively casual. Whatever he’s doing, she shouldn’t fall for it. “Are your profits steady?”

The woman smirks. “Well,” she begins, her voice gaining a bit of confidence, “my net profit increased by about seven percent last quarter, thanks to a more efficient supply chain I started. I’ve also been optimizing my pricing strategy based—”

He makes his funny little mouth movement again. The woman freezes, and she, too, is roughly dragged away.

“But—” she begins to protest, but her voice cuts off. She’s intelligent, and it looks like it cost her a ticket aboveground.

Okay, so far, I’ve learned two things: Don’t be funny. Don’t be smart.

I tremble a little, despite being as sober as a judge. This man’s rules are impossible to predict, each one crashing down like an axe from above. The uncertainty is maddening. The place is as quiet as a storage room now; all the hissing and dripping seems to have stopped.

The man’s gloved hand slips into his coat before pulling out a slender metallic wand that hums softly as he activates it. The device emits a faint blue light, which he passes first over me, then over the other woman.

The high-pitched beep makes me jump. The girl in front of me, the one with the cozy face and large nose, has triggered his alloy detector

The man’s lips curl into a sneer. “Cybernetic tibia,” he says with disdain.

“No!” the girl cries out in genuine surprise. “There must be some mistake.”

He moves the wand over her body again, and the harsh beep sounds. “Ninety-three percent titanium, seven percent nickel,” the man declares, his voice dripping with cold indifference. “Did you think we wouldn’t check?”

“I didn’t know—I had bone cancer as a child. It must be from that—I swear, I didn’t know!” Her desperation is palpable, every word tinged with fear for what comes next.

But the man is unmoved. He’s heard it all before, or perhaps he simply doesn’t care. “Get out,” he commands, and she’s dragged away. Her screams cut through the bar until the door closes behind her, leaving nothing but silence.

That sucked.

Now it’s just me—the last one standing. My heart is galloping in my chest. The man turns to me, his gaze hidden behind those mirrored lenses.

I force myself to stand tall, though my legs feel like ribbons beneath me.

The sweat trickling down my back, the sour tang of my own fear mingling with the onion on my breath.

He takes a step closer, close enough that I can see my own distorted reflection in his sunglasses.

He wrinkles his nose, a faint curl of disgust twisting his mouth as he takes in my appearance. Or is that just his default expression? Hard to tell. My mind races, trying to remember every little instruction, every piece of advice the shopkeeper gave me, but it all seems to dissolve into nothing.

He runs the wand up my body, then down.

I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for the inevitable. Any second now, that chrome-masked goon will come and drag me away, just like the others. Instead, there’s a pause—a long, tense moment where the world seems to hold its breath. Then something unexpected happens.

He smiles. “What is your allegiance to the Iku family?”

I scramble for a second, then remember an old radio jingle. “Iku Foods: they make the meat we get to eat.”

He rolls his eyes. “What is your skill set?”

“I don’t know how to do much of anything,” I say. I realize I’m pigeoning my toes and talking like a baby. How do people fall for this?

He gets a whiff of my onion breath, and his eyes tighten.

Well, it’s more of a grimace, really, like his mouth isn’t quite sure how to form the shape. But it’s there, and it’s directed at me.

“You’ll do nicely.”