[i][b]—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City, Chinatown[/b][/i]

Footsteps tapped an approach on concrete behind Mateo. Defensive of his tarp-draped treasure, he turned and beheld a pale, blonde, blue-eyed hipster adorned, of all things, in wrinkle-free washed attire—she even smelled good! As Mateo prepared to address her, Fesyen darted around a massive stack of color-sorted denim and pleaded, [i]"No~o! That filthy lout a designer? Puh-leez!"
[/i]

He paused to catch his breath, his hands on his knees, looking like a sage-crowned white parakeet.

[i]"You're here for the, uh, oh my,"[/i] — a digital display scrolled through his bobbing opera glass lens — [i]"the historical footwear; yes?"[/i] he peered at her appreciatively, finally eye-level with an actual customer rather than a penniless scamp, dollar signs evident in his dark brown eyes.

[i]"Hey, first come, first serve!"[/i] complained Mateo.

Fesyen scowled at Mateo and grumbled, [i]"Without an appointment, my sexy little catamite cesspool! No business until we've cleaned you up, if what you're trading is worth waving the spa fee! Now!"[/i]  — he turned his attention back to Han — [i]"a moment please, while I look under this tarp." [/i]

He lifted up the edge, appraised the corpse of, he hoped, just an io; an implant overdoser. Glasses glinted as they switched to x-ray, and he gasped at the sheer number of mods. He stood up, clapped, and sent a silent signal through his local mindnet cluster. In response, a loader bot slid off the wall, grasped the tarped corpse in one of its grippers and plucked Mateo up in the other. Of course, Mateo struggled, and perhaps fortunately for him the clamps were layered in a rubber-foam tricoat that gave in around his form rather than crushed him with the raw brutality of metal.

[i]"Put me down, Jose-Queen-Mo! I'm not walking out of here empty-handed!"[/i]

[i]"Tut tut tut,"[/i] Fesyen waved his finger, [i]"Bath time for you, dirty boy! As a reward for this trove, you'll walk out fully clothed with your pick of accessories, whatever you can hold, within reason! Or does the purist want daddy Fesyen to touch his insides and leave some mods behind?"[/i]

The loader strutted through a set of bay doors opposite from where Mateo and Han entered, and Mateo shouted back, [i]"Clothes, a weapon, and the io's cy-weave!"[/i] Through an up-tilted ramp across the boulevard, it eventually reached a pleasant commercial services complex, in particular the spa: a high-end bathhouse body rejuvenation salon, with options for fish, maggot, laser, or wage slave skin exfoliation; stone, goat, machine, or wave slave massage; showers, saunas, hot and cold jacuzzis, a heated olympic-sized pool, scent-select enema pump stations, and of course solicitation. Freed from its tarp, which went directly into an incinerator, the io was dropped in a private maggot exfoliation tub where, within 24 hours, every gram of dead flesh would be consumed. Mateo, meanwhile, was stripped of his socks and swim trunks, all he had on in the first place, and confined to a scrub-in-plug to be thoroughly groomed while his clothes were laundered.

Fesyen turned to Han and said, [i]"Please, remind me of our communication? Did you want your genuine war-era marschstiefel professionally restored or are you looking to buy? If the former, you can enjoy the full services of the spa while I attend to your request."[/i]