12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
I wish I could report that the dress was not nearly as revealing as it had initially appeared; in truth, it was much, much worse than I’d feared.
I’d guess it was about a size too small for me, which meant everything fit rather snugly, particularly in the areas one would wish to not be quite so very accentuated.
Because my chest couldn’t quite fit into the bodice, the tops of my breasts were spilling over the edge in a way that made me self-consciously fold and then refold my arms; my skirt was so tight across my posterior, and the material so flimsy, that I feared the back might split open if I so much as sat down.
In fact, it felt like the whole thing might burst at the seams if I did so much as breathe too deeply.
“This is absurd,” I grumbled to Tobago as I emerged from the washroom. “I am a doctor, for goodness sake.”
Tobago just eyed me over critically, unapologetically. “What do you think?” he asked Croydon—who was, apparently, representative of the target audience for this ridiculous spectacle.
Croydon ogled. There was really no other word for what was happening. It was a rather uncomfortable sensation, to be stared at so blatantly. But, at the very least, I hoped it meant my outfit was passable for whatever purpose they had in mind.
Finally, he wrenched his eyes up to my face. “Take off the glasses. Put her hair in space buns. Give ’er something to suck on.”
My jaw dropped. Even Tobago seemed to think this was going too far, based on his warning look.
Croydon just grinned, the flecks of gold in his teeth glinting. “Get your minds out of the gutter. I meant a candy stick.” He winked at me. “Unless you can think of something else you’d rather have in your mouth.”
Oh, Havens. Luckily I was saved the necessity of answering that particular statement as Tobago grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him in the other direction. “Thank you for your feedback.”
Once he was certain Croydon was gone, he looked back to me with an apologetic grimace. “Better do what he says. He grew up on Newearth. Knows how they think.”
That bit of information surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. Croydon had known a lot about giggle gas, after all. Sighing, I handed over my glasses to Tobago for safekeeping. “You can see without these, can’t you?” he asked.
“Enough,” I returned glumly.
Pulling my hair loose from my plait, I then parted it in halves so I could fashion it into space buns. Space buns! I hadn’t worn these since I was a little girl. It hadn’t felt degrading then, but it certainly did now.
I couldn’t see Tobago’s face clearly any longer; he was more of a tannish blur.
But I could hear the way his voice had softened.
He didn’t particularly enjoy asking me to dress up like a floozy, I knew, but he would do it if it meant ensuring the success of the job.
“You, um, might need to try not to sound so smart. If you can.”
“And how, precisely, am I meant to do that?” I demanded. I’d agreed to go along with this degrading charade, but I had never agreed to be pleasant about it.
Tobago shrugged.1 “Smaller words. Higher-pitched voice. A rising inflection might help.”
One advantage to not wearing my glasses was that he could more clearly see my eye roll. “Yes, thank you. Very helpful. Not at all demeaning.”
He laughed at me, that arsehole. “How’s your giggle? We could workshop it with Croydon if you like—”
“Shut up,” I returned, fuming.2
It was deemed “unsafe” and “foolhardy”3 to tell me the entire plan for accruing the giggle gas, lest I be captured.
While I found that to be a deeply unflattering indictment of my character, I suppose it wasn’t entirely incorrect, since in the end, it only took me approximately six minutes to be arrested.
But that’s probably getting ahead of myself. I suppose the Brethren will want to know some of the details.
The plan was thus: I was going to be dropped off a safe distance from the guard station outside of the distribution factory.
I would then approach and pretend that I was having trouble with my vehicle.
Ideally, I would be able to lure at least one of the guards away from the station, but failing that, my primary objective was to distract the guards as long as possible so the rest of the Achaeans4 could procure the giggle gas and make a hasty retreat back to the ship.
Croydon made sure to emphasize to me, more than once, that I was to use “any means possible” to keep their attention.
Based on the lascivious grin he gave me, I’m certain he meant for his instructions to have a sexual connotation; little did he know that I still remembered all the words to the Madrigal Ensemble Christmas Festival of Winter 2131 program—and, failing the appeal of that, I was a passable juggler.
It honestly didn’t occur to me, until I was about halfway down the empty stretch of road leading to the factory, that nothing in Tobago’s plan accounted for how I would return to the Trojan Horse.
Even if I managed to successfully distract the guards so the crew could achieve their mission, how was I meant to then disengage myself, ideally before anyone realized a large shipment of giggle gas had been stolen?
Oh, bother. That was really the sort of question I ought to have asked before I was dropped off.
The only thing I could do now was hope that retrieving me was part of the larger plan I was not privy to. I'd paid Tobago for my passage aboard the ship, and he was one of my oldest friends, but somehow neither of these facts were as comforting as they ought to have been.
I attempted to push the worry from my mind as the guard tower came into view. It was an imposingly tall building, with no discernible doors, windows, or entry points built into the jagged concrete exterior, except for a glass viewing floor and balcony at the very top.
Now was the time to embrace the character I would be playing on this heist. I’d decided—very accurately, I think we can all agree—that there was no way Dr. Minerva Eloise Smithe-Canfield could convincingly be a ditzy decoy.
But Odelette5 de Ventadorn,6 a down-on-her-luck interstellar troubadour who was perhaps a little loose but had a heart of gold? Now she would do nicely.
Channeling my inner Hotsy, I gesticulated broadly with both arms7 to the men up in the tower, whose vague outlines I could see as I drew closer.
“Hello, good sirs!” I called at the top of my voice, using my diaphragm to project as I’d once been instructed by my choral leader.
“Many bounteous blessings to you both! Might I call upon you for some assistance?”
After a long moment’s pause, a staircase emerged from the side of the tower and began lowering to the ground.
I was quite relieved to see that it appeared as though the guards would be coming down to speak with me, rather than requiring me to ascend to them.
In this dress, I truly didn’t know if the range of motion required to climb a staircase would be possible.
When the two men reached the ground level, they eyed me warily—though, to give Croydon credit, the outfit I was wearing did appear to do the trick of being suitably distracting.
Both men seemed to find it very difficult to keep their eyes away from my chestal region—ugh, no.
There really is no nice way to say that.
My boobs. They were staring at my boobs.
Odelette de Ventadorn’s boobs, I reminded myself.
I waited until they finally managed to drag their eyes up to my face before giving what I thought would be Odelette’s most winning smile—open, friendly, a little flirtatious. “Hello, good gentlemen. I am Odelette—”
Before I could finish the speech I had so carefully prepared, I was interrupted as one of the guards raised a laser rifle and aimed it toward my forehead. “What’re you doin’ here?” he demanded.
It was really quite difficult to keep smiling when one had a gun aimed at oneself, but I did my very best. “So glad you asked, good sir. My vehicle has broken down and I am in need of some assistance. I can, of course, repay your kindness with the gift of song—”
A warning shot was fired at my feet. I squawked, which was a rather strange sound to make in response to being shot at, but it turns out one doesn’t have much control over these things. “Get outta here,” the guard warned me.
“Juggling?” I tried, my voice cracking.
The two guards exchanged a glance. For a moment, I thought it was because the offer had tempted them, and I perked up, eager to display my rusty talent. But then the second guard spoke. “Something’s wrong. She’s too set on staying here.”
“And check out that getup. Someone’s trussed her up like a whore to distract us.”
Another squawk from me, this time of indignation. “I’m not a whore. I’m clearly a troubadour!”
The men stared at me blankly a moment before looking back to each other. “Cuff her and take her up to the tower. I’ll set the factory on high alert for intruders.”
Dash it all. That really hadn’t gone according to plan.
I’d try to run for it, but in this dress, it would be more of a penguin waddle.
Instead I glumly held out my wrists, hoping that Tobago’s team had already done what they needed to do.
With the time it had taken for me to walk up the road and for the guards to come down the retractable staircase, that had to be at least—
Oh, only six minutes, I saw to my consternation, if the time on the guard’s wristwatch was accurate.
Drat. That really didn’t seem like enough time to pull off a heist. Then again, I’d never participated in a heist before, so maybe they moved much quicker than one imagined.
As the guard dragged me toward the tower, all I could hope now was that Tobago had been successful, and that the necessity of rescuing me from the guard tower had been factored into the plan.