Brooke held the vial up to the flickering light of the holo-display, turning it this way and that. Even in the weak glow provided by the substandard lighting here on the seedy side of the spaceport, the liquid within sparkled and shone like liquid emerald. She'd never seen anything quite like it.
There were a few possibilities, of which the most likely was that it was worthless. She believed the lummox thought it was valuable, but he was the type who would buy dish soap for fifty credits and ounce if you told him it was some new designer drug.
Then again, it could actually be a drug, legal or otherwise, or something else that might pad out her evening's earning's nicely.
It could even be what he'd seemed to think it was, some kind of secret formula that "they" were willing to kill for. The whole thing sounded a little too stupidly cloak-and-dagger for her taste, but what if? Could be a good way to get very rich. Could also be a good way to get very dead.
Either way, she decided, the first order of business would be identifying the stuff so she could tell whether to put it in a safe deposit box or a garbage can.
Fortunately for Brooke, she "knew a guy" for just about everything. She slipped the vial back into her pocket.
The holo-display flickered and lost focus for a minute, then the McDonalds' ad -- a slowly rotating close-up of the new McPlankton, four feet in diameter -- disappeared. The motion sensors had finally kicked in enough for the display to realize someone was standing near it, and was futilely searching for public information on her to base an ad on--not that it would find much. It must have given up, because it tossed up the generic Young Woman Ad: diet supplements.
"Do you want to do this," said the slim, spandex-clad girl in the ad, grinning brilliantly. She held up a cheesecake which must have weighed ten pounds and flopped face-first into it, "--without doing this?"
There was a rumble, and suddenly the girl ballooned up to twice her former size. She looked worried for a second, then smiled again and popped a handful of red-orange pills into her mouth, shrinking back to normal almost at once.
"Body Furnace Plus!" she said triumphantly, holding up a medicine bottle. "Another fine Shadow-Tech product! Because you deserve to be thin. TM"
Brooke smirked wryly, putting a hand on her flat stomach. She was all natural--she'd never used either Body Furnace or Body Furnace Plus. Waste of money to blow a week's pay on taking off ten pounds when you could just keep fit in the first place.
Still, she decided, she did like cheesecake. Especially the real, rich, imported-from-Earth kind you could feel your pants getting tighter just looking at. Maybe if whatever she'd found was the real deal, she'd get herself a little treat.
Hey, if it's the really real deal, and I can unload it without get shot, I'll be able to retire and live on the stuff.
She chuckled, imagining herself as a blimp in Roman robes, licking crumbs from her plump lips as servant boys fanned her.
Heh. Like she would ever really let herself go that much. She, get fat?
What a ridiculous thought!
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