Max smiled at the two workers, then looked inside the store. "It has been a pleasure to meet you again, but we are in need of outfits for an event this evening, and we really should get to it."
The shop was one of the finer lingerie shops in town, but Max was surprised to see that they didn't cater exclusively to more feminine clothing. There was a wide array of men's underwear in high-tech fabrics, like the military base layers that kept a near-perfect environment inside, as well as more conventional items, like silk or cotton.
Of course, the focus was still on ladies' wear, but since Nico didn't know what they were up to for the day, she didn't know what sort of outfit she should be picking for herself. Instead, she went by Max's recommendation for the staff that they find her something that looked good but would be comfortable all day long.
"Certainly, Commander. I think we have just the sort of thing that you are looking for. It's in a new fabric sourced from the Alliance and does a most excellent job of wicking sweat away from the body. That will keep them comfortable all day long, even if you should happen to get hot and steamy later in the evening." The shopkeeper told him with a wink while twirling her hair around one finger.
The movement made her look like the stereotypical bored bimbo salesgirl, and there wasn't much going on in her thoughts, but she was well dressed, so Max wasn't going to argue with her advice.
Nico wasn't so kind. Even without reading her mind, the look of disdain on her face was enough to have the manager running over to help her out directly. He quickly ushered the sales girl into the back to do inventory and came back to help Nico find just exactly what she needed.
"Subcommander Nico, it's a pleasure to see you here today. Forgive my daughter. She isn't particularly excited about the family business." The middle-aged human woman explained.
"That's understandable. Life is good here on Absolution, so there are quite a few of the younger generation who don't see the need to work when their parents can easily provide for them." Nico agreed.
"But on the brights side, business is doing quite well here. It's much better than in the hive city. The air is clean, there's so much space, and everyone gets their own bedroom. Motivating the youth is a secondary concern, I think. When you picked us up from our planet in Cygnus, I was running a tailoring shop for bureaucrats' suits in a hive city with two hundred million people in it, but a quarter the size of this floor of the ship. Maybe less than that.
Now, I get to make what I want instead of altering the same identical suits every day. I owe you both quite a bit for this opportunity."
Max smiled at the woman's enthusiasm. "There's no need to appeal to our better nature now. You're already here."
"There's never a bad time to suck up to good customers." She replied with a sly smile, then went to the rack and brought back a set of lingerie for Nico.
"Here, try this, and then we can work on the Commander. It's custom-made, and I think it should be just your size. Let me know if any of the spots don't fit right."
Nico disappeared into a changing room and came back out a little over a minute later, admiring herself in the mirror on the wall.
"I like it. Now, I'll just give myself a bit of a tweak, and it will be perfect."
Nico adjusted her chest size a little to better match the cup size, and slimmed down her waist a bit, then nodded in satisfaction.
"How, wait, what?" The shopkeeper stammered.
"Morphable outer shell. I can alter my dimensions a little to make things fit better or to disguise myself." Nico explained.
The woman sighed as she looked Nico over to ensure the fit was perfect. "You know, there are a lot of women in the world who would kill to have that ability."
"Killing isn't necessary, but death might be. The only reason that I am in this body is that I was so severely wounded in combat that even the healing of an Alpha Ranked System wouldn't have healed me enough to get back to combat duties in any sort of reasonable time.
Lab-grown limbs weren't available on the battlefield, so I ended up with an experimental full-conversion body. It has its upsides, though."
"You know, I had heard the story, but somehow it never really seemed real until I saw you in person. The Ghost of Tarith's Rage is supposedly being made into a feature film now. There are some famous actors in it, so maybe it will do justice to the reality.
I know it sounds silly, especially for me, who grew up in a bureaucratic world, but gritty war movies have always been somewhat inspiring. Defending humanity from threats both internal and external and all that."
Max smiled at her simple worldview. Those movies were all propaganda films, made to create a heroic image for the soldiers, to keep parents from rebelling when their children didn't make it home from their tour of service, but for people who lived their whole lives in a huge crowded city, it was as foreign to them as any alien horror flick.
"They always do a good job of them. I don't know how actors can deal with making a whole movie, though. I made an advertisement for the Kepler Government once, and that was stressful enough. It was only one day, but those movie sorts are at it for a year." Max agreed.
"I think it's just that they get paid so much that they wouldn't give it up. I heard that Prad Bitta got over a hundred million credits last year alone after his new action film went viral through the Alliance Data Net." She sighed.
"The data net has been good to everyone. I should pick something out and get moving to the next store, though. If we hang around too much longer, we will be late for our next stop."
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