Silence lingered in the air between them, mere inches apart. The lashunta didn’t flinch, but Tono knew better. Tono strolled toward where the agent stood-against the wall of a nearby bookstore-and squinted against the window. Slim, tall, lithe-the kind she figured made her coin in close combat rather than a gunfight. Without making eye contact, Tono sized the woman up.
She may have followed Tono the whole way, in fact, or even watched her leave her apartment. Tono was paranoid, to be sure, but the more precisely Henig described this lashunta woman, the more obvious her presence became, just a few dozen feet away, watching them talk the entire time. People tended to be very alert when they were tailing someone, after all. This part had to be done carefully, she thought. Tono got up and stretched before strolling back down the busy market street beside the shop. Just a silver pin on the collar.” He wiped a large blue ceramic bowl and placed it in front of her. Figured they were well-paid hired hands of some sort.” “Probably thought I couldn’t tell the duds concealed armor. “Maybe some of the most drift threads I’ve ever seen,” he said, finally casting an eye on the simmering stock pot behind him. “The suits… d’you figure they were top-notch?” Don’t want to see those two in a hurry again.” And one of ‘em, a lashunta woman, had a scar across the lip like so.” He made a diagonal downward motion across his own face, then shrugged. Just… black suits, cold eyes, no manners. “Exactly.” He lit the stove behind him without looking. Tono struggled for the next words and resigned herself to just a shake of the head. “Politely, I’ll ask.” Henig looked right at her. Just a chat with some folks at Fythe Dynamics for a client… a routine interview with Sepp Yolen. “You really askin’ me?” Henig shot her a wicked glare. “Gotta think she’s on the run for some reason, gree?” Made it sound like they’d been to her apartment… didn’t find nothing. “Two folks in black came up the block asking for her, but I hadn’t actually seen her come out to the market in days. He glanced down pensively, and then toward the street, as if worried someone would find him. Henig’s lower limbs continued pulling dough into thick noodles as he spoke. She always trusted that Henig was smarter than the goofy, kindhearted cook he presented as. Which is why she regretted having to ask her next question. He probably didn’t know what she did, but word got around quickly. She tried not to bring her work-or her difficult demeanor-to Henig’s shop whenever she could avoid it, but she knew she wasn’t easy to deal with. Tono nodded in amused agreement before ordering a large bowl of the house special. Illustration by Michael Soong from Starfinder Galaxy Exploration Manual. “You ain’t gotta worry ‘bout me, Hen… only nice people come by your shop.” For another, she grinned wide at the chef and said what she always said whenever he worried about her getting in trouble because of him. For one thing, this part of the city was where all her informants were. Strangely, her justification for habitually returning was twofold. Tono winced at the thought-she hadn’t scrounged enough recent work to pay for another check-up, let alone replace a cybernetic augmentation. If just one of their associates ever knew she also was willing to drive this far into the city just for a bowl of noodles and a conversation in the middle of the night, she’d be face down in the alley beside the shop with a fist-sized gap in her belly.
She had been working on this side of the surface for only eight months, and even she had made enough enemies to know better than for any of them to know where she slept. Tono gave a gentle nod, the neon of the night glancing off her chrome dermal plate. Don’t want anybody making off with your whereabouts, gree?” “You know how the streets can be,” he whispered. “No, no! It’s just that…” He leaned over the counter, inches from Tono’s face. Henig let out a deep chortle, as if it were emerging from his feet and rising out of his body. “Every night I come here and order the same thing, and suddenly you ain’t know me, Henig?” The skittermander at the counter flexed his fingers and grinned.
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