Vaster turned his head. Sitting on the barstool to his left was a heavily tattooed woman with curly black hair. She wore a low-cut black dress by an unknown designer with fur trim that partially showed off the runic tattoos on her chest. She turned to face Vaster and leaned against the bar, almost falling over as she put her weight on it.
“I think I recognize you from the Colonist’s Club.”
The woman opened her eyes halfway and gazed past Vaster, her eyes apparently unable to focus properly.
“The Colonist’s — have we been there? I don’t remember seeing you — I don’t think we’ve met.”
“I remember your tattoos. You were sitting in a banquette with Dr. Rasteban.”
“Was I — Govard? We were there together — I don’t remember being there. Not with Govard.”
“But you know him?”
The woman nodded, her eyes still empty and looking somewhere behind Vaster. “We work very closely — we know each other well. Very well!”
“What can you tell me about him?”
The woman blinked. “Why do you — what do you want to know? About him?”
“Did he ever tell you about, you know, experiments he was performing?”
“Maybe…” The woman grinned and her eyes came into focus, making eye contact with Vaster for the first time.
Vaster grinned back. “Maybe?”
The woman’s grin widened. “I think I’m — buy us a drink. Starting to sober up. A little.”
Vaster laughed. “That’s the price for your information?”
The woman nodded.
“What do you want?”
“Havemalort — double. Make it a double.”
“Give us — hand over the bottle!”
Vaster shook his head. “I need some, you know, the thing, you know… the, um, the information first.”
A viscous drop of drool and vomit fell from the corner of Renata’s mouth and landed on her chest as her eyes rolled back in her head. Was this an expression of ecstasy? Agony? Delerium? During a binge, they’re all the same thing.
Renata closed her eyes as she started to laugh.
“I’m, you know, fucking serious, you know!”
Renata continued laughing as the laughs turned into gags and the gagging turned into heaving that forced a stream of vomit through her teeth and down the front of her urine-soaked dress, the vomit pooling between her legs. She opened her eyes and made lazy eye contact with Vaster. “I’m fucking — what do you want? To know?”
Vaster took another gulp from the whisky bottle. “Did Govard ever, you know, do the thing… you know, his… the thing, the experiments on, you know, burn victims?”
Renata smirked. “We — give us the bottle and I’ll tell you!”
Vaster picked up his fresh glass of whisky from the bar and took a sip. He looked over at Galena. “Found anyone you know yet?”
Galena shook her head. “Govard’s here, but he’s with that awful, tattooed witch again.” She turned and glared at a woman seated next to Doctor Rasteban in a banquette on the far side of the club. Vaster turned to look. The woman was slouched behind a table with five empty spirits glasses in front of her. Vaster scrutinized her tattoos: a circular sigil occupied most of her chest, with words written in Unified Zeelean and an unknown script etched under each side of her collarbone. Fragments of a larger tattoo in Old Efirian Runic peeked out from under her dress. Her arms were covered in scrawled text in Old Efirian Runic, Zeelean, and other scripts Vaster had never seen before.
“Who’s the tattooed girl? Do you know her?”
Galena sipped her senniver tonic. “Govard introduced me once. I don’t like her. She kept trying to steal my drinks.”
Vaster laughed. “I thought you got off on people stealing from you.”
Galena smirked. “Not my alcohol. I have principles.”
Vaster looked at the woman again. She gazed back at Vaster through half-closed eyes, struggling to hold her head up as she leaned against the back of the banquette.
Renata took another gulp from the bottle, which came right back up as more vomit and bile streaming down onto her chest and dress. “That was Darya’s — life extension. Her project — the serum! It was — was part of it.”
“And they, you know, gave the serum to burn patients?”
Renata leaned forward, close enough for Vaster to smell vomit, whisky, and havemalort on her breath. “Darya used — she experimented on herself. Gave herself the serum.”
Vaster leaned forward, his face nearly touching Renata’s. “What happened?”
Renata locked eyes with Vaster and grinned. “She got — she killed herself after she got sick. She broke — jumped out a window.” Her grin widened. “Squish!” Another drop of drool slid from the corner of her mouth and dripped down her chin.
“Do you, you know, remember anything about her?”
“We met — Govard introduced me when she was dying. I was pretty — I don’t remember much. I’d been drinking hospital sanitizer.”
“Do you, you know, remember her family name?”
Renata leaned back and stared into space. “Something — Carygon? Like that?”
“Cairngorn?”
Renata shrugged. “Could be — hospital sanitizer. I’d drank a lot. Of it.”