Hot Smell

Unlike Ves and Nitaa, the middleman did not don any disguises. The man's messy brown hair fell from his head like a mop. The stubble on his jaw and neck hadn't been shaved in days.

Ves bet that the man's entire appearance and demeanor had been altered. With a judicious application of surgery and psycho-programming, transforming someone into an entirely different person was not as hard as it sounded!

"Are the two of you my clients for the day?" The man casually asked as he pushed himself off the shuttle he was leaning against.

Ves wordlessly withdrew a data chip from a pocket of his robes and slowly deposited onto the middleman's waiting hand in an unnaturally smooth motion.

The middleman frowned as he inserted the data chip into a slot on his secure comm. "Are you some kind of bot or something?"

"No." Ves answered with a monotone, distorted voice.

Nothing else followed, leading to an awkward silence.