Week 27: Street Culture training

Xu leaned on the wall outside Phoenix, tapping his foot to the music playing on his internal systems. That didn't mean he wasn't alert, of course - far from it. When people saw someone looking like that, they tended to assume he wasn't listening, and if he was, he could often pick up interesting, or at least diverting, information.

He saw Ace approaching from a mile off. The WF agent might have changed out of his usual fatigues, but he just didn't walk like a man used to the street. Xu levered himself off the wall, turned the music off and headed for him.

"Hey. Good to see you here," he said, as he approached Ace, glancing at the people around them out of reflex more than anything else.

Ace wasn't the most comfortable of people at that moment. Han had bought him some new clothes, sure, but they didn’t fit properly. Oh, they were the right size but they were not tailor made for him like his fatigues or the suit Ida had got for him. They didn't feel right, mainly the trousers which seemed to be rubbing and meant Ace had to walk differently. It was odd and uncomfortable but he had been told to dress casually, which most people did differently than Ace, so he wore the hoodie and jeans as best he good as he walked up to the man leaning against the wall.

He was sure it was Xu. It was hard to tell whether a person was actually Xu or not but this man was exactly where Xu said he'd be and Ace recognised the form from a mission at some point.

"Hey Xu. Is this where you live? It looks very secure. Where are we headed?"

"Yeah, that's right. Thought we might take a quick stroll round the Old City - I need to have a few words with some of my contacts, and brush up on who's been doing what lately. Nothing especially serious, so don't worry. Just follow my lead, keep your mouth shut if you can and you should be alright." Oh, and by the way, my name's Xun Yu for this little excursion, he added via smeaker.

He started walking down the street, then stopped and sighed as Ace made a move to follow him. "Okay, first things first...you're gonna have to walk a bit differently. Not so straight. Try and...slouch a bit more."

"Slouch. Right." Ace tried to adopt a less upright pose. It wasn't easy. Years of drill practice and strict military discipline didn't go away in an instant, but he tried his best. After a little bit of trying he found that the clothes actually seemed to fit better if he bent his body in some ways. If he leaned forward a bit and... there. Suddenly they weren’t so uncomfortable after all. Ace smiled at his new found skill. "I've spent most of my life walking properly, practicing swift movement and strict discipline. I've never done anything like this before, though. Am I doing it right, Xun?"

Xu eyed him critically. "Hmm, I suppose it's a start. Could do with your legs being less straight, and you need to bend your head over a bit more, but I guess we can work with this. The other thing to be careful of is your accent - you practically scream "foreigner" whenever you open your mouth. Better now than it used to be, but still pretty bad. Not that much I can do to help with that, though...just try and speak like one of us natives. Sosie, or Han, or someone. Right, let's get moving, and try not to look like you're marching."

With that, he turned and started walking, keeping an eye on Ace. Keep the shoulders forward, he instructed over smeaker, and try not to swing the arms too much.

Ace followed the given instructions precisely, getting the feel of walking wrongly as he did so.

"I can't really help my accent. I grew up in the mid-west with Spanish and English voices all around me. I'd never heard Mandarin before I came here, apart from on news casts, and then not much. I learned it via a correspondence course the Underground smuggled in for me, but it was text only. I've been picking up bits of dialect, but I don't think I'll ever sound like a native. It's just too different."

Xu grinned at that. "Yeah, that's the problem. To be honest, it's really probably best if you just keep your mouth shut. Just watch and learn. But it's possible to change or acquire an accent, I can tell you that. It's amazing how much my Japanese changed when I was trying to impress the Shi Yukiro. Still, these things take time, and I can't really do anything on the spot." He looked around again, smeakered another couple of instructions to Ace, and then spoke again.

"First guy we're going to see is called Ox-Hand Li. He's a member of one of the bigger gangs, and I'm paying him a bit of money on the side on occasion to tell me any useful bits of info he picks up. He doesn't usually have anything, but I'm not really looking for much today, so that should work out fine. He's not too touchy, and not too bright, so I doubt there'll be any problems with him. Just don't mention his hand and we should be fine."

"Ox-Hand Li. Got it." Ace kept silant for a moment while concentrating on walking right. "Where are we meating him then?" and after another pause. "And what did happen to his hand?"

"Alley, couple of streets along. As for the hand..." Xu paused for a moment, savouring the dramatic statement, "I don't really know. Some kind of botched back-street bio-enhancement or something, I think. He doesn't talk about it much."

He turned a corner, watched Ace follow him and sighed. "You know, it would probably be a good idea not to make it quite so obvious when you're going to turn. Makes you a lot harder to follow. Don't start staring at the turning until you're actually there. And try to keep that slouch goiing, even through the turn. Okay, next left, then down the street a bit and we're there."

"Alright, so a sharp turn around corners rather than a wheel? That's easy enough." Ace wasn't sure how to do it while slouching though and his voice betrayed his actual lack of confidence. Ace made a mental note to not stare at the limb, whatever it may look like, and followed closely behind Xu Yun into the alley.

As they approached the alley where they were meeting Ox-Hand Li, Xu started humming tunelessly, and then turned into the alley as they drew up beside it. A hulking figure was lurking in the shadows and stepped out as they approached.

Ox-Hand Li was big - not big enough to suggest augmentation or enhancement, but big enough to be intimidating to most non-agents. The part that was really intimidating, though, was his hand. His right arm was massively swollen, and was an extraordinarily unpleasant shade of red, almost as if the skin had been turned inside out. The veins along the arm were swollen and purple, and pulsed at regular intervals. The hand itself was much the same, but the grotesque mockery of scale was even more evident - his fingers thick and bloated and his knuckles like great cancerous lumps. And just to add the final touch a clear liquid was slowly seeping from the skin. The whole thing also smelt terrible, as though somewhere in there something was decaying, although with a faint overlay of something sweet, almost sickly.

"Afternoon, Yu," Li grunted. "Who's your friend?"

"He's a colleague," Xu said shortly. "Thought I'd show him a few of the interesting bits of town."

"Colleague, huh?" Li didn't sound especially sure. "What's your name, then?" he asked, turning to Ace.

Just don't say anything stupid, and you'll be fine, Xu smeakered to Ace.

Ace didn't meet the big man's eyes, instead looking around the ally and over his form, looking for weapons or anything obviously threatening. "I'm not here to talk, just to watch and learn. I'm not telling you my name."

Ace considered this for a moment. Before he came to Seoul he wouldn't have hesitated to give this man his name, rank and serial number for asking that question, but he had changed. Over the months he had grown more confident, confidant enough to avoid answering this direct question. And he wasn’t lying either. All in all Ace was quite satisfied with his response and looked to Xu. "You're not here to talk to me"

Li glanced over at Xu and then turned his stare back on Ace. "I don't like people watching-and-learning at me. And you look like some wet little kid who's never been out on the street before in his big brother's clothes to me. So either Yu's taking in homeless little strays out of charity now, or you're more than what you look like. So what are you then?"

There was a flicker of nervousness on Xu's face. I didn't expect that, he smeakered. Li might be a thug, but he knows the street. Lie - don't tell him you're an agent. Keep the lie simple, if you can. I can supply details if you need it.

Ace wasn't going to smeeker a reply with the thug looking at him. It would be too obvious. Instead he refused to make eye contact with Li "I don't even know why he brought me along, really. I think he wanted me to see how he worked, what things he did. Training. We all have to start somewhere, right? You are right about the clothes, not about who gave them to me, but I'm not really comfortable with them. If you want me to, I'll go." Ace turned slightly to try to walk past the large man and out of the alley.

Li waved his good hand, gesturing for Ace to stay put. "So you're Yu's apprentice or something? Gotta say, you look like you've got a way to go yet - you act like someone fancy from the Spires or something. Still, if you don't wanna tell me about your past and why you're here now, I guess that's fair enough. We've all done things we ain't proud of." He winked at Ace and, almost unconsciously, flexed his damaged arm.

"Anyway, Yun," he said, turning back to Xu. "What did you want to know?"

"Oh, just the usual," he replied. "How the gang situation's going, who's done anything particularly stupid, stuff like that."

Xu and Li talked for a few minutes on gang politics and then, as the conversation drew to a close, Xu said almost off-handedly, "Oh, and Li - heard of anyone called Han Yul? Friend of a friend wants to know about this guy - apparently in illegal cybernetics or something."

Li shrugged. "Doesn't ring any bells, but I'll ask and see if I hear anything. I guess I'll see you around." He turned to Ace and winked again. "You too, kid. Do drop by again - I'd hate to think you were anything but Yu's apprentice."

"I'll do that." Sir, he wanted to say, but he held his tongue. It seemed to Ace that being over polite was just as bad as being rude to these people. He nodded once, curtly, and followed Xu out of the alley, almost with precision but remembering and remaining in an unfamiliar slouch for the walk.

"So, where to now 'Master?'"

Xu took a deep breath as he and Ace moved out of Li's sight. "Well, that could have gone better, could have gone worse. Remind me not to underestimate him again. Well done on the response, by the way. I thought he was going to catch on that something was wrong once he started grilling you. I'd hate to lose a contact, and killing him might have been messy. Anyway, the next guy is Poison Yi. He's a drug dealer, hence the name. He's generally higher than the Spires on one of his own concoctions, but it's possible to squeeze some useful information out of him sometimes."

Ace has thought that went quite well until Xu's comment. Then he was not so sure. "I appreciate you bringing me out, helping me develop and learn and all, but are you sure this is a good idea? I don't really fit in and if I do mess up it could undo all your hard work. I don't want to be in the way"

"Don't worry about it," Xu said, not even glancing back at Ace. "These aren't any of my important contacts, so we can always just kill them if they get too suspicious and it won't undo any real work. I can always find more guys like these. You could really do with this kind of training for missions and besides, I've not really had much of a chance to watch you try something like this. Tells you a lot about a guy, how he reacts in a situation like this, and I like to know my colleagues."

"Well, if it's not too much trouble... Alright. What do you want me to do at the next place?"
Ace was getting more used to the new walk now. It helped that his outfit was different. He'd have never been able to walk like this in his fatigues, too many drill practices and punishments had ensured that Ace's military bearing was excellent.

"Well, considering what I've already told you, first see if you can find him for me. It shouldn't really be that hard." With that, Xu stopped walking, and leant against the wall, his eyes turning to Ace with a look of expectancy.

"Well, you are looking for a Drug dealer, so he will be somewhere quiet. But he is also a drug addict so it will be somewhere with easy access to supplies. I recon he isn't going to be in a back alley but in a building of some kind. Not a good one, but then this isn't a good neighbourhood, but it is residential. And if he is sampling his own wares then he's got to have some people around to make sure he isn't being ripped off. So I think it'll be one of the apartments, possibly a few of them. And he'll have someone who isn't stoned looking out for him."

Ace looked around at the buildings nearby and spotted a youth loitering in a doorway of a building nearby.

"It is that one there?"

Xu nodded approvingly. "Not bad, not bad at all. We'll have you reading the street in no time. Though he doesn't actually have "people" watching him, just that kid. He used to have more, but he can't afford them at the moment. He's seriously down on his luck, which is why he's willing to give me any information he can scrounge for small doses of credits. It's really quite pathetic - he'd be willing to sell out his own parents for enough money to get the next hit. Now, just follow me, and let's hope Yi isn't as quick off the mark as old Ox-Hand was."

With that, he strode over to the building, exchanged a couple of muttered words with the youth and handed over a couple of notes of slip. The youth rather ostentatiously looked to the sky and whistled while Xu and Ace walked past.

Ace tried his best to not make eye contact with the kid as he walked into the building, though he saw enough of his face for his facial recognition software to record his face but not come back with a hit. Ace followed Yu closely, practicing his walking and trying to look inconspicuous. Badly. He followed Yu up a short flight of stairs and stopped when he did outside a door covered in burn marks with faded and peeling paint.

Xu opened the door and the two agents were immediately assaulted by a horrific tangle of smells. Burning was in there, and so was ammonia, and cheap alcohol, and something that smelt like paint thinner and a terrible tangle of other chemical smells. And beneath all that was the smell of somebody who had no concept of hygiene, and probably never had.

Poison Yi was lying in a heap on the floor, surrounded by glass tubing and bits of chemical equipment. Most of it was growing some kind of mould, and bits of chemical slop were sloshing around in most of the jars. Yi himself was covered in a shapeless pile of filthy rags (some of which were also growing mould), and had the face of a man who hadn't shaved in at least two months and done so poorly then. Besides that, his nose was red and dried blood was caked under his nostrils, his hair was ragged and looked as though it had fallen out in places and his eyes were bloodshot, wide and held the promise of insanity.

As the two of them entered, he sat up, sniffed the air and grinned. "Ah, Yu. Is good to see you, and your friend." His Mandarin was poor, although whether that was due to him being foreign or just being in no condition to speak was unclear. "You come with credits? Credits for information?" His head tilted to one side and his mouth twitched. "Yi can give you lots of information, for lots of credits, yes."

"That's right," Xu said, his nose wrinkling ever so slightly. "Me and my...colleague would like some information. Nothing special this time, we just want to know what's going on."

Yi hissed and stared at Ace with those bloodshot, crazy eyes. "And who exactly is this colleague? I thought Yu worked alone, yes? Well?" He was still staring at Ace, obviously expecting a response.