Cold Call

Noa didn't think he'd ever been to this part of town before.
It took a train ride, for one thing. Noa hadn't ridden the train since he'd left home, and it made him oddly nervous. The weight of Kenshin, who sat on top of his fingers wrapped around the overhead grip, was slightly calming. 

Noa noted the stop where they got off and the exit they left from. They stayed on the main street at first—a high street, clean and stuffed with businesspeople in suits walking at a brisk pace. Then Kenshin ducked off onto a side street, and from there onto another one. Noa tried to keep track of the twists and turns, but mostly he was glad that the station building had been rather large and distinctive. 

They ended up on a street far from the main roads, with no signs on the buildings Noa could see. He wasn't sure all the fronts he was seeing were actually attached to buildings at all, really—some of them just looked like booths set on what had originally been street.

There was the faint smell of garbage coming from the collection point on the end of the block, where it looked like several tenants had missed the collection time. 

The streets leading here had been coated in a heavy silence, but it was broken here by rough voices. When Kenshin darted ahead through what looked like a fire exit, Noa took a deep breath before following him in. 

He'd been right to do so. The smell of cigarette smoke—laced with something else, something earthier—hit his face in a blast he could almost feel. There were a large number of people crammed into a dimly lit space—mostly men, mostly bigger than Noa, but a few pixies also buzzed overhead, and he saw a handful of women as well, plus a person or two he wasn't sure about. This almost looked like some sort of bar, or possibly a store—there was a counter on one side with a line of stools some people were sitting at. 

It seemed everyone inside was waiting for something.

Rather than looking around too much, Noa tried not to catch anybody's eye. He found a spot of bare brickwork to lean against, and Kenshin settled in atop his head, apparently not much of one for personal space. 

Noa noticed the curtained door at the back of the room when a man pushed through it. He had a sleek suit, a popped collar, and the kind of scruff that Noa suspected took effort to cultivate—and a scar down the side of one cheek that stood out starkly in the low light. 

"Gentlemen. Ladies. Friends old and new," he said to the room at large. Noa thought his gaze brushed him for a moment and stayed carefully still. "Good morning, and welcome to a new day. I've got a lovely list of assignments from upstairs with some of your names on them already, so let's start with those…" 

He rattled off a list of jobs—shorthand, though they sounded like a mix of everything from construction to daycare to barkeeping—and a mix of first names, last names, and monikers that didn't sound like either. Some people stepped up and took a sheet of paper that the man handed over with a flourish. Others just lifted a hand or nodded in acknowledgment before exiting. 

When the room had emptied out by about a third, the man set aside his list and picked up a new one. "And now, a few new jobs that need filling for the rest of you. Let's keep this nice and orderly, please. Experience takes priority. Questions go last. All right, a trustworthy hand to manage the till at Itsuki's place—yes? Ritsu-chan? Great, see you. Next, bodyguard duty for a bigwig's kid on a school trip, details here—Kosuge-kun, excellent, you're a perfect fit. Here you go. A transportation job, discreet vehicle required—Numata, your group will be perfect for this. Good." 

This continued for several minutes, with regulars raising their hand before the man was even finished speaking. Noa craned his neck slightly, questioning, but felt a tiny hand pat him once, then twice. It seemed he didn't need to speak up yet—which was good, because he couldn't imagine successfully getting a word in edgewise. 

Besides which, some of these jobs…he could see what Kenshin had meant. All sorts of things could be "transported," for example, and he doubted that the "bigwigs" mentioned were corporate CEOs. Politicians, maybe, but then only the kind that didn't look too hard at where their employees came from—so crooked ones, almost certainly…

"Aaand that's all for the emergency jobs," the man drawled, interrupting Noa's suspicions. "If you want to consult on something, come on up and take a number. The rest of you, if you're looking for quick money, you're probably outta luck for today. Come back later." 

There were some grumbles as people filed out of the room. Noa tilted his head back again and felt Kenshin stand up. 

"Wait a bit," he said, fluttering down to Noa's ear. "That bit he said about numbers? That's what we're waiting for. Safer not to rush it, so just take your time." 

Noa could feel the truth of that. There were a few people—a couple women dressed in clothing for notably warmer weather, a man with two full sleeves of tattoos poking through his ragged clothes—who were pushing to the front of the forming line, and he didn't want to get in their way. He stepped to the back and waited his turn, Kenshin's hand a little tense on his shoulder. 

The "number" they took at the front of the line came out of a little ticket feeder, like something you'd see at a popular restaurant. Noa took one and returned to his spot. There was a little murmuring in small groups around the room, but it was nowhere as loud as before. The man had vanished into the back of the room, but occasionally he shouted out a number and a person disappeared into the back. 

People came out wearing different expressions. Some looked annoyed, others hopeful. One woman yelled loud enough to carry through the entire building before storming out. Twenty minutes later a man was carried out by a pair of large, muscular bouncers who'd appeared from somewhere in the back. 

Noa turned to Kenshin. "How often did you say you've been here?" 

"Oh, you know, a couple times," he said. Up close, he looked a little pale. "A, uh, an acquaintance introduced me." 

"Right," Noa said. He settled in to wait, feet starting to throb. The nervousness had kept his mind off the boredom of waiting at first, but as the wait continued, restlessness started to creep in. 

He was starting to lose the battle against biting his nails when the man's voice rang out from inside.

Noa checked once more just to be sure. It was his number. 

He squared his shoulders and let Kenshin lead the way to the back room.