Chapter 12 - Garbage Collection

It looked like a pile of old clothes someone had forgotten to put into the disposer, as Kara came back out of the aircar park a good deal richer than she had gone in, carrying another 'john's' love juice up her arse. She could hardly wait to get to the toilet and clean it all out; she didn't want it trickling down her legs and making her sticky!

Then she saw a hand sticking out of one end of the bundle and realised that it was a woman; the ring on one twisted finger told her that it was her saviour from years before, and now rival, Martha. She certainly looked in a bad way and Kara was halfway through calling an ambulance when she realised that would mean lots of nosy policebots asking questions and she would lose half a night's work. Things were difficult enough as it was without policebots chasing her around asking silly questions. And it put the 'JohnsJ off if they saw you talking to one.

Changing her mind, she called the Madame of the brothel she used to work in.

"Hello, it's Kara ... Fine thanks ... Working ... Very well ... No, I don't want to come back ... Listen, there's a working girl I know been beaten up ... Purity League bastards I guess ... By the Plaza aircar entrance ... Yes, just inside the kids' playground ... Can you call it in for me? As a favour? I don't want the policebots after me ... No, she hasn't got a friend I could call; she's an independent ... Great, thanks, must rush," and she closed the call and went into the toilets to hide.

After a very few minutes she heard an emergency aircar arrive and there were ten agonising minutes of comings and goings outside. Then a woman paramedic came into the toilet.

"It's OK, you don't need to hide in here. There aren't any policebots with us. We're a private ambulance."

"I'm not hiding," replied Kara with great dignity.

"I read you when we arrived, and you haven't moved in fifteen minutes. That's hiding," came the uncompromising reply, "Like I said, don't worry; we're private and you're the Kara who called Madame. Go on, back to work."

Kara left, feeling stupid. Of course ambulances could read anybody near the site of an accident. That was how they decided who was alive and who was dead and where they were needed.

Then she started wondering why Madame had sent a private ambulance. A public one would have done to save the whore's life and it would have been free. Madame must be looking to recruit again, but the heap of broken flesh and bones she had seen didn't look very hopeful to her.