“Yes, sir,” he said. “My apologies.”
“None needed.” Abraham melted from killer to kindness in less than a second. He smiled and patted his shoulder. “It was my fault. I should have told you I invited a companion this evening.”
“No need—no need at all,” the man said. “I’ll see that she’s comfortable.”
“Thank you.” Abraham glanced over at me, and I was pretty sure that hot smile wasn’t just for the civilian’s benefit.
Man knew how to handsome up a place when he wanted to.
Abraham returned to the others, and Spiked Hair walked my way.
“I’m sorry to shout,” he said. “But you wouldn’t believe how many people try to get a little time backstage with the galvs.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t want to be in the way. Where should I stand during the show?” I crossed my arms and tapped two fingers against my elbow. He didn’t notice.
“If you’d just step right over here, you’ll have a good view.” He pointed to a chair set near the door.
“Thanks.” I dutifully took my seat.
There was a bit more rushing about and music was building in the room beyond the stage. I tapped two fingers, as if humming along to the song, but none of the workers responded.
So no help here. I needed to get that message to Neds.
Abraham turned to see where I’d gone off to. I smiled and waved my fingers at him. He gave me a “stay there” look and I turned on the “you betcha” smile.
Right.As soon as the show got started and he was busy, I’d sneak out and find someone in House Brown who could run the note for me. If someone noticed, I’d just say I got lost.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer called out. “The moment we have all been waiting for. Please help me welcome our esteemed guests, the galvanized!”
The audience erupted into thunderous cheers, whistles, applause, and stomping. I put my fingers in my ears to take the edge off it.
Didn’t help much.
“Helen Eleventh, House Silver!”
Compact, lacy-stitched Helen strode out onto the stage.
From where I sat, the stage stretched out in a wedge beyond the rigging and gear, lights above and around pulsing silver, the audience a dark sea of bodies, noise, and flashes of light. Helen waved at the crowd as one of the multiple screens lit up with images from her life.
Her stitches were brown, white, black, silver as the images flashed by: Helen wrapped in survival gear, dragging half a dozen men out of icy water, a sniper rifle to her eye as she took the shot that ended the Left Street hostage crisis. Helen leading a hundred men, women, and children out of the devastating three-county inferno. Helen standing behind Reese Silver, Vice.
She sat in the chair farthest down the stage.
The noise hadn’t lowered but the announcer called out for Obedience Tenth, House Blue.
Spritely Bede hopped out on stage, waving just as Helen had.
Images of her past rolled out under blue lights, stitches fading from brown to green to yellow to blue. Obedience’s history involved her world-changing breakthrough in clean-water production, and a haunting image of her running through a cloud of poison gas, her gas mask on the child in her arms. In the last image, she stood beside the regal Troi Blue.
Two more galvanized to go before Abraham took the stage.
Loy Ninth was announced next, and he swaggered out, kissing his fingertips and spreading his arms wide to the crowd.
Lights shifted to red and his past was played out on the screen: Loy opening the water valves of a damaged nuclear power plant, Loy digging through rubble of a collapsed mine shaft to reach trapped workers, and, finally, Loy standing beside the hard-edged Aranda Red.
Buck Eighth strolled out onto the stage and raised his hand to greet the crowd. Lights switched to flood the stage in colorless black and white, and the screens flashed with his life.
Buck’s stitches were brown, gray, silver, gold, and black. The screens filled with images of Buck throwing himself in front of an assassin’s bullet to save a head of House, Buck defusing a bomb set in the middle of a city, Buck taking down the top ten crime lords in Hong Kong.
