underlondon_npc | Outside of Muses: Camden Market, Christmas 2032

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Outside of Muses: Camden Market, Christmas 2032

At first glance, the busy street Nix ushers Reid out to looks like something out of a Charles Dickens book, although slightly more sanitised than that. The street is narrow and jammed with stalls selling a massive variety of food, clothing, small animals, tools, odd-looking electronics and virtually anything (and everything) else. Few people in the street look particularly well-off - or particularly clean - although there's a wild variation in outfits, ages, genders and races. There are even horses and carts, although the occasional electric flicker betrays the fact that the horses, at least, are some kind of hologram, and in the sky are pigeons, and odd flying shapes that look as if they might be some kind of motorcycle or quadbike. Far off, and high up, an odd-looking machine like a train or perhaps a tram whirrs and rattles along elevated rails into the distance as it snakes through the tallest buildings.

The overall impression is that of noise and ragged colour and smoky late-afternoon air, all highlighted by the rather incongruous-looking strands of fairylights and the lightly falling snow. London smells odd: not entirely unpleasant, but smoky and damp, with an odd note of petrol and oils, maybe even gunpowder, behind the smells of dozens of cultures' worth of cooking food.

Nix turns to Reid with a laughing, red-lipped grin, gesturing with her furled umbrella. The door she's holding open for him is now that of a pub, the George Cross, with people laughing, shouting and drinking behind them as they had been in Milliways, but unlike Milliways it's far pokier, darker and overheated: it's no surprise that she preferred to drink at the end of the universe, when the opportunity presented itself.

"Welcome to London!"

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Nix's smile is slightly more self-conscious but pleased, and (though she hesitates very slightly) brightens even more as she links her arm with his.

"Right, then." Flustered? Her? CRAZY TALK. She looks at the list scribbled on her other hand, moving carefully so as not to shift the umbrella from covering them.

"One last thing to get, I think - Eden's Christmas present. That's back on the main road, down nearer the river."

"Lead the way," he replies.

"I'd salute, but you've got my arm," she tells him, looking (totally not) woeful. "This way's a shortcut."

The way she leads him is a tiny, cramped alley just off the one they originally came down, filthy but deserted, and it opens out within shouting distance of the canal. Fifty feet above them, a chain of carriages rattles through the gap between buildings, louder than a tram but quieter than a train.

"That's the Overground," Nix explains, when it's gone and she can speak without shouting. "They built it nearly twenty-five years ago, to replace the Underground. The old tunnels are where I live, now."

"Why replace the Underground?" Reid asks, looking up at the tracks. "I mean, was there-- is there something wrong with it?"

"A couple of the lines got bombed t'hell and back, back in the early 2000s," Nix explains. "That was just before the Establishment took over. Official story's that it was easier to build something new than it was t'replace it, though I dunno how much of that is true."

"Hmm. It might be true," Reid allows, after giving it a little thought. "I think... I think it would depend on the extent of the damage. Though," he continues. "I think that provides preliminary evidence that this is not my future. I think I would have heard of bombings severe enough to close the Underground."

Nix smiles, then, with a sideways glance at the graffiti on the alley wall: a red phoenix hastily spray-painted onto an Underground sign.

"Good," she says simply. "Come on, this way."

Reid nods.

"I take it that at least some of the Underground is safe enough to live in?"

"Couldn't live there if it wasn't, could I?" She grins at him. "But yeah, it's pretty good. We had an architect an' a couple of builders an' that with the first lot who joined, which got us started. Lea got shot a couple of months in, but she left the plans and we've got it pretty well sorted these days."

The alleyway opens out, at this point, into a little enclave of market stalls whose contents are markedly more sharp and metallic than the rest, and whose proprietors are generally more masculine if not necessarily more male. Nix looks rather like a child in a toy shop.

"You... look like you're having fun," Reid observes.

Nix beams at him. "I like shiny things. So does our Eden. Do us a favour and take the brolly for a bit, please?"

She picks up a particularly long knife from the display of the nearest stall and examines it thoughtfully. "Eh. Bit impractical."

"Sure thing," Reid says, taking the umbrella, and holding for them.

"...How is it impractical?" Not that he knows much about knives anyway...

Nix laughs. "Ede's only five foot two, and she likes t'carry her knives on her hip. She'll wind up trippin' over."

"Hey, Nix." The stall-holder is an enormous, tattooed white man with very long dark hair tied back, marbles doing duty as ear-stretchers in each earlobe, and an attractive grin. "See anything you like?" he asks, teasing, but his eyes are watchful, sizing Reid up.

"I've seen worse," she replies, half-laughing again, but her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. "We're Christmas shopping for Eden. Got any ideas?"

"Got some new stuff in she might like," he says, but he's still looking at Reid more than at her. Abruptly, "Who's the stranger?"

Nix gives him a warning glance, but her voice is still friendly. "A mate. Spencer, this is Tonnerre."

"Pleased to meet you," Reid replies automatically.

He doesn't offer a handshake. "Yeah, you too. You want a look at that new stuff, Nix?"

"Wouldn't mind, yeah," Nix answers ... and very maturely pulls a face at him once his back is turned.

(Nevertheless, she has contrived to put herself between Reid and Tonnerre, even though her arm is still linked through Reid's.)

It doesn't take a genius to deduce that Tonnerre is Bad News. He makes Reid's FBI-sense tingle. He tries his best to keep his face bland and friendly, to look harmless - something he's been told he's very good at.

Tonnerre is not, in Nix's admittedly biased worldview, a bad person. Unless you're a copper, in which case he is nearly as much bad news as she is, and in some cases more so, because Tonnerre lacks even her rather flexible rules.

She'd thought (in so far as she'd thought) that Tonnerre would probably be too busy, four days before Christmas (and in a place where policemen do not go except in squads of ten or more), to pay enough attention, and that if he did the guarantee of her being there would be enough, but apparently she'd thought wrong. It isn't the first time.

He's probably, probably no danger. Few people who are not paid to do so risk offending the Underground these days. But she's judged him wrong once today, and sees no reason to risk doing so a second time - and besides, she's over-protective. She always has been. So with an eye on Reid's deliberately bland face, and on Tonnerre's pointedly turned back (amazing, how expressive a back can be) she shrugs to herself, and decides not to push her luck.

Besides, there are still four days until Christmas. Plenty of time for shopping.

"Fuck it," she mutters, and tugs Reid away. "I'll come back," she says, voice raised. "Later, Tonnerre."

Okay, he's relieved as she pulls him away, he can admit it to himself, even if it seems like a bad idea to say out loud.

"Where are we going next?"

Tonnerre flips the bird at them as they walk away, a gesture which Nix returns without bothering to look back round. At Reid's question, however, she pulls out her gold watch chain to check the time, frowning slightly as she considers.

"We've got ten minutes," she says. "Anythin' you want to take a look at? 'Cause otherwise we might as well head down to the skating, I expect some of my lot'll have got there already."

"Um. Everything?" he says with a little laugh. "But for now, I'll defer to my local guide."

She smiles at him, eyes dancing. "You'll have to stick around a bit longer for that. C'mon, then, we'll go down to the river."

An enormous, scruffy German Shepherd comes bounding up as they negotiate the path between stalls, a small girl of about six toddling in its wake.

....uh-oh.

"Uhm. Nix?" he says, voice pitched a little higher than usual. "I think i should probably tell you that dogs don't really like me that much. Kids, either." He's speaking very fast.

Nix gives him a brief, reassuring grin.

"Don't worry. I wouldn't've let Tonnerre hurt you, so Spike's got no chance."

She whistles sharply, but slides her arm out from Reids's and goes to the dog and child before the pair can reach Reid. "Spike! Heel! Elodie, why the hell aren't you with your mum and the Abbess?"

"Dunno," Elodie tells her, allowing herself to be picked up - luckily, she's very small for her age - as the dog dances around them, looking proud of himself. "I looked away'n'they were gone, and there were people, and then Spike found me."

Nix tickles the dog's ears, settling Elodie comfortably on her hip. "Good boy. Ely, sweetheart, we're goin' down to the skating now, so I s'pect we'll find your mum there, okay?"

The little girl nods, leaning tiredly against Nix's right shoulder, her afro tickling the older girl's cheek until Nix carefully resettles her, clinging to her shoulders as best she can: her left arm has been amputated just below the elbow since eighteen months ago. Large, fearless brown eyes peer at Reid curiously.

"Nix?" she asks, muffled, "Who's that?"

"He's a friend," Nix tells her. "He's nice. This is Spencer, Ely."

"Oh." She's still looking at Reid, but this seems to be sufficient explanation at present. "Hello."

The dog, meanwhile, is looking at him with some suspicion, but another word from Nix causes him to subside, trotting off in front as she offers her arm to Reid again.

"Er, hello," he replies, giving a little wave. What is he supposed to do now?

Nix raises her eyebrows at him enquiringly, still holding out her free arm.

"You coming?"

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