Peye’s promise, years ago, ensures that Ellie will always be welcome at the Carny and that all employed there will always know her as friend. No matter what they say about Peye (and they say many things about her), she cannot be accused of going back on her word. The debt she owes to Ellie goes deeper than barter and, as such, can never be repaid in full.
Ellie has always been careful never to abuse that debt.
The rain roaring on the canvas awnings threatens to drown out the calls of the barkers or short-circuit the power to their holoads. Even in the reduced visibility offered by the downpour, Ellie knows she needs to be careful; Bigmark doesn’t operate by anybody’s norms; IT being what we’ve come see as anarchy in practice, a state that lies somewhere in the overlap of the safe/dangerous Venn diagram.
She keeps her hood up and lower face covered behind her snood; sweat trickles down the deep valley of her spine as she makes her way down the high street. Daniel once commented that she walks like a man, a trait that has stood her in good stead on more than one occasion.
Unnoticed by the throng of commerce; eco-tourism and the psychic violence of the crowd, passed the station where the brothers keep the trains running with brutal efficiency, all the while the thrumb of the generator plants vibrating through the soles of her boots, Ellie arrives at the entrance to the Carny
The doorman scans the tattoos on her forehead, the barcode of Ellie flashes green in his artificial eye, he nods and lets her pass, the neutral expression on his pockmarked face does not change. He never learned to read proper but that never stopped no one.