Claustrophobia

Chapter Three - Acquaintances - 2

When she was younger, Z9 used to resent the fact that not many in Celestria had dark skin like she did. She used to stand out in her school days, back when she still had yet to experience terror inside the household. She used to feel people's eyes on her, her classmates trying to pry past her deep, ebony skin to see if the remnants of old Earthen experience were true, to see if she really did bleed the same colour as they did. She remembered many days of walking home through the rain, telling herself that her worries were nothing more than paranoia brought on by being a little different to the others, and besides, not all of her classmates were human, anyway. The dirt of the streets would cling to her skin and not show. With darker skin, you could maintain the pretence that poverty was invisible, but when you went around other people that had a mixture of skin colours, you knew that the darker the skin, the darker the looks across the room.

Now, however, as she walked into Dining Hall 3 a few minutes after everyone had sat down, where the great chandeliers hung down like great glass spiders on crystal silk, she could feel eyes turn to her and trace her flesh that was as dark as the night in the emptiness of the void, and she relished every second.

Ok, she thought to herself, maybe more than slightly vain.

Those that had looked up returned to their conversations a few seconds later as she wandered through the hall, eyes peeled, looking for anyone she needed to see. She mentally flicked over from the observed to the observer.

A flash of blue, and there on her right as she prowled through the dining table islands, she spotted Guran Mysen, a man with five separate deals with known terrorist organisations in Celestria, with two more rumoured. In her mind she saw the faces she had seen on the infosleep highway, matching the quick flash of his face to the image in her mind. Match. So there was definitely one of her five in the dining room with her.

Her heart rate bounced up a few beats per minute, and then settled again. She resumed her walk.

A hearty laugh from nearby caused Z9 to look across, where Lar.4G was busy spinning a tale for three women who all looked to be enraptured by his story, his arms flinging wildly as he wrestled with an imaginary HyperGP kar.

And in amongst them, the only one of the five on the table not completely caught up in an imaginary racetrack, Z9's skin crawled.

She had found her jackpot. Kassre DyGleyre.

She sat quietly, still looking over the menu that was projected before her from a small Halo-Chip in the table. She had small, unassuming features, with green eyes and glasses perched upon the bridge of a petite nose. She wore a dress of crimson which clung tightly to her figure, a ribbon of fabric trailing from a sash that wound around her left arm to her wrist that swayed as she moved the menu back and forth with a casual flick of her index finger. Unlike the rest of the table, she looked so calm and tranquil that it was almost as if she didn't really know where she was. She was almost absent-minded, not all there in the room.

There's a seat spare right next to her, Z9 said to herself. Time to introduce myself.

She smiled, zeroing in on Lar.4G's table like a fighter pilot locking in on a target to shoot down. She made sure to give her hips a slight extra kick as she walked, making sure the diamonds in her dress shone like cosmic sand.

Lar.4G looked up from his story to witness her approach to the table. She smiled at him, reading his gaze perfectly. With a racer's lightning reflexes his eyes flicked down to her exposed cleavage and then back up again, and no amount of charisma could disguise the heat that was beginning to form between his thighs. Z9 reckoned she could smell it across the room, the smell of burning crotch.

'Might I join you?' Z9 asked.

Lar.4G grinned. 'Please, make yourself comfortable. The table's just got room for one more, I should think. Ah, there's a seat next to Miss DyGleyre, there.'

DyGleyre looked up and smiled pleasantly. They made eye contact for a brief second, and Z9 found herself irritated by the lack of spark that passed between them.

Is everyone on this ship sexually inactive aside from the loud, obnoxious racing driver? Z9 asked herself. It's like someone's shoved all their genitals into a vat of liquid nitrogen.

Z9 sat down beside DyGleyre and held her hand out to be shaken.

'Z9,' she said. DyGleyre looked up and shook her hand. Her palm was perfectly smooth, not a mark on her skin, not a pimple or a birthmark on her icy, snow-white flesh.

'DyGleyre,' she said quietly. 'Kassre DyGleyre.'

One of the other women on the table laughed, and DyGleyre bowed her head. 'You'll have to forgive her,' she said. 'She's only recently come into a large amount of money and, as a result, isn't used to civilised culture.' The woman held out her hand; palm down, to be kissed. 'Princess Yvatra, of Korcanth.'

Z9 took the hand and kissed the fingers.

(Korcanth, Empire of Humanity colony in the Sunburst Galaxy, same planet grouping as Aldesar and Hawkestrion. Don't piss her off.)

'Your highness,' Z9 replied, courteously. Yvatra laughed again.

'If it isn't too insensitive to say so, Z9, I just love how dark your skin is. It's absolutely beautiful. A complete contrast to Miss DyGleyre there, sat beside you.'

Z9 smiled and laughed along with her, and turned to look to DyGleyre to try and get a reaction, even a giggle, out of her. She went back to studying the menu, the last one on the table besides Z9, who had only just pulled it up, to choose her dining option.

Wow, Z9 thought, getting into bed with this one is going to be harder than I first thought.