Jane really mean it when she said she's willing to answer all questions. After a good night sleep, she called Lukman in the morning for a regular check up. All hotel does this, mostly to wake their tenants for a room clean up. She notices the pamphlet he got, it sticks from his backpocket. The bright and neon light color of its artwork catches the eye of Jane. It's odd that she brought it up in a conversation, she knew about Mirrors Palace is an adult establishment after all.
"Please be careful around that place, only visit it at night when the business is open as usual." She said so with a hint of caution in her voice.
After a good wake up, some breakfast, sightseeing, and staring at the TV for a while, it's finally night time.The sky is beautiful. It's clear, peaceful, and there are no noise of the city to ruin this experience. Only low speaking tone and whispers can be heard around each stores. Everyone act in modesty, contrasting workers wearing their best looking lingerie, outside of their stores. The choices are abundant. Young girls, old ladies, dark skinned, light skinned, flat, bouncy, and everything in between. They are designed to exploit the basics of our instinct as a human being. Lust and curiosity.
"Alright what's with the codenames and colors here. Isn't this supposed to be legit?" Lukman wonders the content inside the pamphlet, each "packages" has its own codenames, colors, and alien sounding abbreviation. His eyes are down to the paper, even when girls have started to call out to him.
"They are legit now, but not then. Everything was either dirty, loud, or very secretive. This one choose to be secretive. You gotta be well connected to even gain a right for a service. You will get used to the jargons in no time, just ask me about it." Jackson is still unmarried despite his age. Because of that, he felt no guilt when traveling for entertainment purposes.
On the bottom right of the pamphlet is a piece of tear-off paper that can be used to redeem a one time discount. There's a name attached, "Mirrors Palace". Currently, the building is located right in front of them. This is their true destination, for tonight.
The building itself looks unordinary. There are several floors, each separated on the outside with a horizontal wooden line that stretches from side to side. The name of the place is written on a square wooden plaque, hanging from an iron bar with two metal chains on its edges.
There's only one woman outside of the building. A lady in her lonesome, she is in her tonight choice of skimpy black clothing. She looks more like a bouncer for a club, rather than a promo-girl that usually hangs in front of their store. Occasionally, she can be seen puffing on her cigar, taking a deep breath to maximize the flavor of the death stick.
"That'll kill yer lungs, ya kno'." A random passerby tries to make a conversation with her.
"Name?" She replied in boredom.
"I don' know. How 'bout Louis. How's it sound?" Her eyes rolled to the side, she is uninterested in this man's antics. The bouncer presses a button under her chair, openning the door behind her.
"Enjoy yourself." She said it without any change in tone. The night is slow, not many customers came in today. Despite that, she still need to utter those words as a customary appreciation, from the store.
"I'll think about you, madam."
"Fuck off."
Both Lukman and Jackson saw what happened and stare at each other. Disbelieved, they match up the look of the building with one in the pamphlet. No apparent differences found. They really did just mock each other. No kind of good business mock and insult their customer like that.
Jackson tug Lukman's back-shirt. It's a warning for what's to come. His guts grumbles, there is something wrong with this store. "Hey man, can we go somewhere else. I'm getting some bad-biz vibe from this one."
"Nah man, Hancock gave me a good discount for this. We are in Roze for god sake, what's the worst that could happen?"
"No- Oh god pl- man." Too late, Lukman already spoke to the lady-bouncer. He gave her the pamphlet, waiting for a reaction. She scoffs at it and press the security button
"First timer get a discount for full service. Don't be greedy, we'll know."
He reflexively gulp, but his curiosity got the upper hand. He went inside anyway, leaving Jackson behind. Now they are truly separate from each other.
They just renovated the place. The owner works up a theme to bring every aesthetic aspects of his establishment. Currently, they chose for a cafe like lounge, with a single-person round table in front of a long sofa that wraps around the corner. The receptionist is manned, or rather womaned, by a mature lady with a book on her hip. She gestured Lukman to sit by a table like everybody else, and he complied.
Her name is Rena, a mature lady in her forties, primarily working as the custodian of Mirrors Palace. She is wearing a red and black dress, gentle but authoritative. Her perfume are soft but rich in texture, it's directly extracted from a rare insect that natively lives in the jungles, inside Milium's territory. There's a book on her hips, a printed "menu" with black leather cover. The logo of Mirrors Palace is embossed to the cover. She gave it to Lukman, he's already sitting on his seat, as if it were a restaurant.
The menu of course, are not filled with food and beverages. Each page are filled with details of a woman. These includes their main attractive characteristics, their age, memorable skills, notable reviews, and their price. Everything is laid in clear words and descriptive photos.
A part of him feels that this is wrong. It's like buying a cattle, or going through a marriage market list back in rural Republic. He is a virgin for visiting this kind of store, so his enthusiasm with the culture and weirdness of Pink District still lingers.
After half an hour of waiting, Rena walks back to Lukman. He is still flipping through the menus, indecisive of his own choice. "What would be your order, sir?"
Lukman is scratching his head, so many choices, so little time. In an act of desperation, he just shows his first choice instead. "I would like this one. Code B-55, Miss Rena" He noticed her name, written on a silver tag and strategically place on her left bust.
"A fine choice, I will process your order. This dining experience, is of course for mister...?" Her head tilts and the words coming out of her mouth stagnate.
"Wick. I've always wanted to be called Mister Wick."
"What a name, Mister Wick." Rena gave him a warm tell of departure, bowing before going backstage to prepare his meal.
Not long after that, Rena came back with a silver plate on her hand. She presents it to Lukman, while bowing as an act of respect. On it is a key, laid down on top of a warm towel. The key is analogue, a piece of metal with ridges and painted in silvery shine. Imprinted on the handle is a series of numbers, it says "211".
"As requested, it will be a three hour service. The room is two level upstairs, turn left and it's near the end of the building. Please, enjoy the night, Mister Wick."
"Yeah." Lukman nods back in agreement. The transaction has been settled, now is to reap what he have sown.
The building has no elevator available. Just an old carpeted stairs. On the second floor, everything looks red, cold, and dark at the same time. He expected sounds of the others to leak, but that's not the case. His curiosity took the better of him, his left ear is rested on one of the doors. The jumping, humping, and thumping noise, it's all there. This is the real deal.
His room, number 211 is now in front of him. He put the key in and turn it with excitement, just like a kid to a candy. Inside, is something that he has been waiting for. The girl of his dream, his choosing, prostrated in white dress on the floor.
"Please raise your head, Miss."
She raises her head up, but her body is still in the same pose. As he walks closer to her, suddenly a fleeting but intense sense of danger taken him aback. The exact same gut feeling Jackson was talking about. The girl she's looking at, her body is smaller than the measurement given in the "menu". This woman's face, it also looks similar, like he have met her before.
In a blink, she leapt off the ground, her right hand reaching him by the throat. Despite her tiny frame, she is able to subdue Lukman's body. A small non-reflective blade came out from her hand, whilst her left hand is covering his mouth. This is definitely not the woman he was expecting. He wanders the kind of people who gets off from this kind play.
"I will slit your throat if you move, scream, or otherwise made me unhappy. Glasses Man, you are under arrest for slavery of the Heis people. Give me one reason not to avenge those who died in your camps, or I will send you to god now!"
Her voice, demeanor, and expression. A familiar trademark he's aware of. But Lukman is too afraid to speak. His years of working in the field doesn't prepare him for such an ambush, especially while he's in his "vacation mode".
She slowly spreads her finger, allowing Lukman to talk. Lukman is trying to answer her question, as silently as possible. He whispers it, his voice is shaking, the words aren't coming out smoothly. "I am not... Glasses Man."
She quickly tightened her choke, Lukman coughed involuntarily as a consequence. "Yes you are, today is Eros and you always reserve a time for Miss P!"
"But I'm not here for Miss P. I ordered B-55, the Jovian girl!"
Her control of the blade is immaculate, a little movement would be the difference between life and death. She took out a square leathery cloth from her thighs and put it on the ground. She then forcefully put Lukman's hand on it with just a bit of mana being dripped from her hand. Symbols which hovers above reveals his true identity. It's clearly different than one she expects.
"You really are not him. Were you being followed?"
"What?"
"Shh. I hear something."
"How come, it's all soundproofed."
Her ears picked up the small and imperceivable amplitude of steps and metallic sounds in the air. Outside of the door, a bunch of men lined up in neat formation, their body are facing their room.
These men are clearly civilians. At least they look like one, wore clothes like one, and sounds like one. They are not wearing any protective gears, nor uniforms. Everyone is in their everyday wear. Shirts, thin clothed tropical pants, and sandals. Her hearing made out three men, readying their rifles and aiming it towards the room. There's also a fourth person, the leader. He has his left hand up, preparing to signal his team mates to fire. The leader's mouth are placed close to the door, enough for Lukman to hear what he is saying.
"Enjoy your last day Glasses Man, The Heis sends their regards! Fire!"
Finger on the trigger, a rain of bullets storms and wreak chaos around the room, stripping paints off the wall, and crushing furniture in the way. Thunderous snap of each shots bounces off the walls, creating an echo chamber that deafens anyone nearby. It can even be heard and felt by other customers, piercing the supposedly soundproofed wall. After a moment of chaos, their gun now have spent the last bullet in the magazines.
Thankfully, both Lukman and his woman are already in prone position. They are unharmed, an unbelievable feats of luck. After a moment to stare at each other in disbelieve, the woman finally breathe out a sigh of frustration. Someone is about to pay.
"Wait here." She said in a flat tone.
She crawled back slowly to the other end of the room. There is a shoe, hidden beneath all of the blankets which were given by the staff. It has the appearance of regular sneakers, those with higher heels than the male counterpart has. Miss P reached for it, turned the heel counter clockwise, and lobbed it forward. It goes through one of the big holes which was made by the shots. The shoe bounces twice from walls to floor, and settled on top of a decorative wooden counter.
One of the guys outside shouts "Shoe!" on the top of his lungs. Immediately after, it then releases smoke from its heels. The shoe was designed in such a way so it will most likely land upside down, making sure there's ample space to release the smoke. The huge hallway is now a filled with a white, thick, and hard to breathe in gas. Miss P took a deep breath and marches towards the door, hands on her shoulder to protect against an impact. She decided to smash the door away from its hinges, crushing a man, instantly knocking him out of the fight.
The one farthest away from her, the leader, starts to shoot blindly through the smoke. It created patterns of straight holes within the smokes. His vision is obscured and the flare from his gun did not help. Through sheer amount of speed, the woman starts to punch, knock, and kill the others. The leader can only hear bones being crushed, screams of his men, followed by a deafening silence.
The leader's feet are moving back paces. He is trying to flee the effect of the smoke, until his back touched the end of the hallway. A high frequency noise, like that of a knife flying in the air, can be heard for a moment. Turns out, it really is a knife flying through the air, and he is the target. It turns out, the way he moved and the step he took made enough noise for the woman to notice him. That was his last mistake. She triangulated the rough position of The Leader's head, took a handgun from one of the dead body, aim, and then took a shot inside of the opaque smoke.
Some knew the woman as a person without morals. Her friends called her a maniac. But most importantly, she gets the job done. Her name is none other than Parmadita. The drunk lady that bumped with Lukman at the start of the story.
For now, the hallway is truly silent. Parmadita felt her way around with her hand, she's searching for her shoe. After twenty seconds of feeling around, she finally found it. It's buried under a knocked down cupboard from the result of close quarter combat. She then deactivated the smoke by rotating its heels back into place.
Lukman can finally see again. He is confused and scared by the noise outside of the room. Although currently, he is oblivious to the true cruelty that had just transpired. He is moving slowly through the room, reaching the doorway and surprised by the fact it has no door anymore. In the hallway, he saw Parma basking in the nightlight, which steals its ways in through the window. She is resting herself, her back is to the wall, her mouth calls someone using a smartphone. It's someone important
"CP, White Bird here. Situation stable, mission status unknown. New instruction needed." She sounded disappointed. Her target, a man named Glasses Man, should be aware of the firefight, she thinks he most likely have fled the place.
"CP acknowledge, White Bird stand by. Target acquired, C.U.C. inbound." She put out a sigh of relieve, at least the main objective has been reached.
"Thanks, C.U.C. most definitely needed. How did you get the target though, I thought he'll be my client tonight. Instead I got a civie caught in the middle."
Clean Up Crew is an elite taskforce that have gone through an intense training and certification to restore a place to its original state. Because of their high amount of standards, they are paid by The Agency more than the usual field agents. Although it's still far below Parma's pay grade.
Control Point, abbreviated as CP, replied Parma in a not so reassuring tone. "Negative, more investigation required. Report to CP as soon as possible, sterilize the civilian before proceeding."
"Understood."
Lukman heard of the conversation. The word "sterilize" does not feel foreign to his ears. It means interviewing every civilians nearby, get them background checked, and then release them within a given time frame. This is standard procedure, to make sure The Agency's activity are not disturbing civilian lives. At least not too much.
But Parma does not know Lukman is working for The Agency, not yet. She stepped away from the moonlight, back into the darkness, and then cornered him using her feet which she planted into the wall. His body is perfectly flush to a maroon colored pillar behind him.The blood of her enemies runs down the hallway, enough to communicate that he need to be cautious.
"You will answer me truthfully and quickly. Don't lie, or you'll join them instead. Give me your name, habitat, and occupation. Now."
"L-Lukman, Calculus, Field Agent." He had his hand up in the air, even when no one instructed him to.
"Field agent? What kind?"
"The Agency kind..."
"Bullshit no you're not." Parma is trying to make sense of the situation. For his own safety, she quickly put him under arrest, using a cuff that she found in the nearby drawer. It doesn't hurt one's wrist, there's fluffy pink hair that made sure the skin won't irritate.
After confirming that he won't go anywhere, Parma began to get some air. She is holding down her thoughts, physically by pressing her own head with her hands. Parma began to realize something. The target is captured, but at the cost of four dead men. Then, a possible field agent, which she assumed to be on a vacation, are unexpectedly caught in the crossfire. This is going to generate a lot of headaches and paperwork.
They sat far apart from each other, thinking about the future. The clean up crew from The Republic will be here soon. As long as they could restore everything before the sunrise, everything transpired here will be nothing but rumours in the wind. Authorities of The Feds will never know what happened. Naturally, The Republic will deny any involvement.
It feels like no one is winning anything tonight. Except for Jackson, he is enjoying a couple of good wine and bread nearby. It was delicious and cheap.