“Four million is good money,” was what Jocasta tried to say. The actual words that came out of her mouth were closer to. “Formsgum.” Ok, so they weren’t actual words. She picked up her cup, glared at it and set it down on the side of the tub. It had been a while since lunch, or whatever meal it had been when you adjusted it for the time zones of two different planets. The bioelectric implants sucked down a considerable amount of calories, and it wasn’t like she had been taking it easy for the last several days. Maybe there was room service, or barring that a restaurant nearby.

“Of course it means someone can’t or won’t come up with a way to do it cheaper. Local talent varies, particularly with amateurs,” the word had a certain edge of contempt in her mouth. The galaxy was awash with amateur would be thugs, most of them not worth spit, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get lucky. Jocasta had been in battles before, but she personally found shooting to be a clumsy way to resolve a situation. With a little planning there was almost always a better way.

 

“People don’t hire me to get kittens down from trees,” Dirk responded. Jocasta blinked, unfamiliar with the metaphor, but Dirk didn’t expand. Jocasta lay back and closed her eyes, letting herself relax. Her hair, a rusty brown, seemed to fade into a silvery blonde.

“Everything alright?” Dirk asked levelly. Jocasta cracked an interrogative  eye open.

“Oh… yeah sure, nano enhancement,” she explained and narrowed her eyes slightly. Her hair turned a bright Celtic red and then flowed into a straw blonde before diving into a deep jet before returning to the silvery shade. It had the aspect of a chameleon shifting with its mood, or an octopus giving a warning.

 

“I can do some other colors too, but I need to prep myself,” she explained. The enhancement could only express pigments that a human could naturally produce, but if you knew what you were doing and you had a decent chemistry kit you could whip up some injectable analogues that could do almost any color. Jocasta had on occasion turned her hair a brilliant green and an electric blue, but artificial pigment only lasted a couple of days and tended to fade out unevenly.

 

“A useful skill.” Again so deadpan she didn’t know if he was being serious.

“Not as much as you would think, the difference between ‘help! A hundred twenty pound blonde is beating my ass, and ‘help! A hundred twenty pound brunette is beating my ass’ turns out to be largely academic.” She replied.

 

“Mostly it’s fun, you know that thing that you don’t have time to do because you are too busy not eating sweets and drinking?” she teased. A pair of the dragonflies dived into the water flicking and splashing with their wings in simulated playfulness, renewing the bubbles while they were at it.