Fixer #9

Emily had to find a way to contact the woman in the picture she had been shown of Juneau. She pulled her copy of the photo from her bag and studied the background for other clues of the woman's whereabouts. Again, there was that look of a club in the background of the photo. She absolutely didn't have the time to go through every club in Mesca. Who could she contact? She felt like she had writer's block, only spies couldn't get writer's block. Could they? Maybe she had a covert block.

She decided to head out into the city; perhaps she'd get some inspiration from that. Mesca, even though it was a big city, felt like a place with lots of small cities in it. A city of neighborhoods like New York used to be. As she walked out of the hotel onto the square, they were setting up for market. It was Saturday, and that took her aback; when was the last time she had consciously realized what day it was? Usually they tended to run all together, but as she stood staring at the square she was it was market day, Saturday, in this part of Mesca. The vegetable peddler was setting up his stall even though the day looked like rain. There were rows of carrots, still on their stems with the leafy greens, next to the bright red, shiny tomatoes, and lying right in front of the leeks, big bushy leeks, next to the lush full heads of lettuce. Three different colors of peppers, red, yellow, and green were piled high. They stood next to fresh melons, cut open for a taste, so they could be sold. The melons flanked pineapple, which must have been imported for it was too cold on Mesca, or the surrounding planets to grow them. There were flats of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, piles of peaches, apricots, and nectarines.

On the other end of the table there were mounds of potatoes and every kind of cabbage you could think of for preparing the Mescans favorite dish of cabbage and potato dumplings.

The cheese cart was next to one of the vegetable stalls. Looking at some of the soft, fragrant cheeses oozing from their rinds she wanted only to home to the kitchen to cook, but she knew that would be a long time in coming. There had to be every type of cheese imaginable -- cheeses that she knew from Earth -- which meant that artisanal cheese makers had come to Mesca after the nuclear winter to create their artistry once again. Edam, gouda manchego, brie, camembert, just to name a few, were piled on the table.

Emily shook herself out of her reverie. "I've got to find this woman." She took the picture out of her bag and started asking the vendors if they could i.d. her. As she moved from stall to stall -- the crowd seemed to part, making her progress easy. It was like magnets that repel each other. A static electricity was charging the air. Emily could feel that something was about to pop.

And pop it did, literally. It was the pop-gun sound of rifle-fire and she dropped quickly behind a cart of apples. She watched as first a bright red apple and then several green ones spattered into apple sauce.

She scrambled backward trying to keep her eye out for the sniper and not lose her balance and go sprawling. As she slowly worked her way behind a pear wagon she saw the muzzle fire of an 810 Meegan -- this was the choice of any sniper worth his salt, and definitely the weapon of choice; the one that NASA assigned to all their operatives.

Obviously she was on to something. It had to be the next vendor. It was galling to her that she might lose a lead. It wasn't going to happen today. She threw her bag over her shoulder -- carrying it like a messenger bag, and dove for cover as the pop, pop, pop started again.

"Damn," she pulled her gun from her waistband holster. It was useless to put a gun in your bag. You had to dig for it. As she pulled the weapon out, and glanced around, she caught sight of the 810 Meegan again. This time, rather than scramble back, she steadied herself, took the gun in both hands, and fired.

The 810 Meegan cartwheeled to the ground quickly followed by its operator. She jumped over the apple cart and darted around a cart of oranges hoping to get to the sniper before anyone else. She knew it was a long shot, but she hoped he might have been careless and was carrying i.d. As she pushed her way through two men, she saw Juneau lying at her feet. What was next?

This couldn't be the real Juneau. Was it that damned look-a-like from J9? the only real way to tell was blood i.d., but she didn't have the time or the i.d. kit to do anything with the blood.