The younger Cawdor noted that the businesses concerned with services such as clothing and shoe repair, ironmongery and blaster maintenance, were doing well. There were more than a few people availing themselves of these services. On the other hand, the businesses and trading posts concerned with food were devoid of both stock and customers. Water was being sold, and slate boards that had recently wiped and rechalked prices on their surfaces, told of the drought that had started to bite into the ville.
Dean was conscious that they were dressed differently from the everyday ville dwellers of Charity. Their dark, thick clothing was not only uncomfortable and swelteringly hot in the increased temperatures of the ville streets, but also stood in sharp contrast to the lighter clothing— both in material and color—of the other people that passed them on the streets. At one point, Danny suddenly changed direction and led them down a side street. From his body language, Dean understood that Danny had seen someone or something that he wished to avoid, and so kept his head low and followed suit. A few yards down the street, Danny pulled Dean into a quiet doorway and watched as a man walked down the end of the street.
“Knew my dad…and me,” he said by way of explanation before leading Dean out into the street again.
“Where are we going?” Dean asked as they turned back to their original direction.
“You’ll see,” Danny replied enigmatically.
The streets became quieter the farther out they went, until they were nearly out on the edge of town, entering the old industrial area. Like the main drag, this part of the ville was now given over to bars and gaudys like those on the main drag. There was now more activity on the streets, and a number of gaudy sluts and drunks littered the streets. The sluts tried to proposition Dean and Danny as they passed.
“Hey, sugar, want a piece of ass?”
“Action sweetie, real cheap, yeah?”
It was difficult to know how to reply without attracting attention to themselves. The usual response in this part of the ville would be to pay jack and use the service. Any attempt to avoid buying a woman would seem out of place, yet neither young man wanted to waste time by even appearing to make a transaction. Their brief dismissals were met with insults and curses, and attracted attention from some of the drunks.
“Shit, how much farther?”
“Not far,” Danny replied in an undertone. “Baron Al loves to keep his stock of old tech hidden in plain sight. I reckon he doesn’t know anyone else is aware of it outside of him or his sec.”
“Let’s hope so,” Dean muttered. In a few moments they arrived outside an old factory building that looked to be as decrepit as any of the bars and gaudys that surrounded it. However, it didn’t escape Dean’s notice that the building was less used than any of the others, with gaudy sluts hanging around outside but not entering, as they did the other buildings, and drunks sprawled unconscious outside it rather than coming in and out with brew and spirit. “That’s it?” Dean asked.
Danny nodded. “And, my friend, I know the way in that bypasses the sec guard,” he said with a grin.
Dean took note of the guard who was positioned by the main entrance, posing as a drunk but noticeable to Dean’s combat trained eye by the manner in which he held his blaster, deceptively close to a firing position. Danny took them away from the building and past the bar next to it, weaving his way in and out of the drunks who were loitering outside. The two young men slipped around the side of the bar and walked along the rear of the bar until they reached the alley that ran between the two buildings. Dean could see another supposed drunk lurking at the rear of the old tech warehouse, also cradling his blaster in a manner that would make it easy for him to come into a firing position.
“How do we do this?” he whispered.
Danny looked at his wrist chron. “We wait. Unless they’ve changed the routine drastically in the time I’ve been away, the guy at the back should saunter around to the front in a few minutes, just to check with the guy at the front.”