This was the best clue I’d gotten in years. Of course, that didn’t narrow it down much. Xenopedia had listings for thousands of ethnic Japanese colonies all over known space. But it was something. I filed it away for later, and focused my attention back on the captain’s explanations.
It ended up taking a long time for the oyabun’s office to respond to Captain Sokol’s request. I did my best to keep busy with preparations, so I wouldn’t end up sitting around worrying the whole time. Emla was thrilled that I wanted her with me on a dangerous mission, and immediately started shopping for armor options.
“What can we afford, Alice?” She asked eagerly, already scanning through the ship’s design databases.
Ash perched on her shoulder, peering at the illustrations of different powered armor designs. He pointed at a suit that mounted a massive anti-armor cannon, and burbled excitedly.
Maximum penetration!
I chuckled, and scratched his chin. “Let’s not get carried away, here. The ship is paying for this one, so cost doesn’t matter as long as the materials are in stock. But you’re supposed to be guarding me against muggers and assassins, not our host. If you armor up too much he could take it as an insult.”
Mmm, scritches, Ash crooned. Silly little guy.
“I understand, Alice. Don’t worry, I know how to do this job. Strange Loop Sleuth gave me a bunch of skill packs, and one of them was a guide to being a high class bodyguard. I won’t embarrass you. What are you going to wear?”
“I have no idea,” I realized.
“Call Kara. She’ll be glad to help you figure it out.”
“Good idea.”
Sure enough, Kara eagerly volunteered to help me with an outfit. Her clothing database made the ship’s look puny in comparison, but more importantly she knew how to create a look. We tried out a few variations on the tough cutie thing I’d gone with for the club, but for this trip she wasn’t satisfied with that.
“You don’t want to look like a lamb when you’re surrounded by wolves,” she explained. “Just suggesting that you can fight isn’t going to be enough in this place. We need something that will make people think twice about trying to take advantage of you. Here, let’s see if you can pull off elegant.”
Her first stab at that made me look like a little kid wearing her mom’s clothes, and the next was way too revealing for me. I would have given up there, but she just got a thoughtful look and picked out another outfit.
This time I gasped when I saw myself in the mirror. The dress was black silk, with clean lines and a much longer skirt than I was used to. I’d expected it to look frumpy, but somehow the effect was just the opposite. I looked years older. Not sexy, exactly, but really pretty.
“Put these on,” Kara advised, handing me a gold bracelet and earrings. “Then walk like you’re in the middle of a martial arts fight.”
I put the jewelry on. “What do you mean, like I’m in a fight?”
“You know, that magic perfect balance glide thing you do.”
“What, like this?”
She grinned at me. “Perfect! Now do it again, and watch yourself in the mirror.”
I did a little spin and glided back across the room. With the long skirt it almost looked like I was floating.
“Oh, yeah. You can definitely pull off an elegant look. Put a little sway in your walk. Not that much. Yeah, there you go. You look like a young princess dressed for a ball, Alice. This will get you some respect. Let’s try it in a darker blue.”
We went through six more dresses, and most of them looked pretty good on me. I still couldn’t pass as an adult, of course. But dressing like this made me look like the kid of someone important, instead of a poor orphan girl. With light colors and a slight widening of my eyes I could look really innocent and charming. With darker colors the innocence bled away, and a colder expression created an impression of some domineering autocrat’s daughter.
“Off with their heads,” I sneered at the mirror. Kara giggled, and I couldn’t hold the expression. But my smile didn’t spoil the effect. I still looked like a refined young lady sharing a moment of amusement, instead of a giggling kid.
“You’re a miracle worker, Kara,” I told her. “This is perfect. Let’s get the real version fabbed up.”
“Aw, but I was going to try out some space Nazi styles next,” she protested. “Don’t you want to see what you’d look like as an evil princess?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’d never get the details right. Didn’t they have some kind of crazy sentient nanomorph clothing material, and shapeshifting crowns?”
“Did they? Well, it was just a thought. You know, if you’re meeting with scary yakuza bosses why not look like someone even scarier?”
“Are you nuts? They’d probably murder me on general principles! Why would you think that was a good idea?”
“Hey, Mina got all the common sense. I just know how to look good, and trust me, you’d look great in one of those sinister black uniform dresses.”
“Gee, thanks. I think I’ll just stick with the executive heiress look, if you don’t mind.”
The com pinged me with a notification. The oyabun had agreed to meet with us, and we had a time slot for our audience.
“Uh, oh. Only ninety minutes until I have to leave, Kara. Can we make that?”
She nodded. “If we work fast. Alright, I’ve got your dress building. What do you want in your jewelry? I guess you don’t need sensors or com gear, but that still leaves a lot of options. Explosives, com jammers, microbots dispensers. My spy gear is a little dated these days, but a lot of the designs will still get the job done.”
“Spy gear? You know, Kara, one of these days I’ve got to get you to tell me the real reason you girls have that kind of thing. I’ve heard three different versions of your secret past now, and none of them agree with each other.”
She grinned at me. “See why we want you to sign up with an agitprop service? It works. You know there’s some kind of story, but you’ll never really know which version is the truth. Maybe Thomas is a retired spy and we’re his team, or maybe we used to be data thieves before we hooked up with him, or maybe it’s something else we haven’t told you yet. Pretty cool, huh? Now focus, girl. Jewelry.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I thought about it for a moment, and was struck by an idea. “Hey, Kara. Security scanners are usually going to spot stuff like that, right? So what if my jewelry is just jewelry? Like, real gold and sparklies instead of clever fakes? Doesn’t that kind of fit the image I’m going for?”
“Oh, that’s perfect! Yes, that’s exactly what a snobbish rich girl would do if she were meeting someone important. Only no one does that in a place as dangerous as this, so their security guys will go nuts trying to figure out what they’re missing. They’ll probably have to pass that on to the ER network or something too, so everyone else will see that you’re taking their pretensions of being high class more seriously than anyone else does.”