by Sam Renner
So he settles for thinking about it. For mentally watching the flames from the mattress lick the ceiling. For mentally seeing the ceiling start to smoke and then glow red. Then the glow turn to flames. And eventually everything on this block is roaring and crackling.
He walks away, the mental fire burning bright behind him. He repeats the address Shaine showed him over and over in his head. Exte’s first sun still isn’t up, and the streets are darker than dark. Dangerous, he thinks, to be walking out in the open like this. But at least he has the black to cover him. He won’t forever, though. The walk is across the city, and by the time he gets to where he’s going, both suns should be up. He’ll be vulnerable. He runs a thumb over the heavy handle of the Uzek blaster still tucked away.
At least I have that.
Nixon hates these moments, when it still feels too early for it to be tomorrow and it’s too dark to think about it being anything other than night. Nothing good ever happens in these moments. There are people skulking in what would be shadows if there was enough light to create them. He hears them whispering as he passes. Talking to each other. Planning. Plotting. Plotting against him? He wouldn’t doubt it.
He doesn’t always understand the language. Is it Uzeki? Sometimes? Maybe.
He pulls the hood of his cloak over his head and makes sure its edge covers the top of his face.
He fakes a limp, falsely favoring his right leg. Anything to disguise himself. It’s just a matter of time until the Uzeks start looking for him. Probably already have. He picks up his pace, the limp turning to more of a hop.
There was a time when he would have been one of those in the crook of a doorway or a couple of steps deep into an alleyway. He’d have been waiting and watching, looking for opportunity. Opportunity to do what wasn’t as easily defined. Not necessarily to rob someone or rough someone up. Maybe it was an opportunity to take advantage of a situation. Someone drops something. Or they get distracted by something and quit paying as close of attention as they should to their belongings.
Maybe that thing they get distracted by is Shaine. The two of them always made great partners, especially when they were new to Exte.
Shaine: Big body. Big personality.
Nixon: Long and lean. Skinny fingers and gentle touch.
One performs; the other picks.
Nixon is lost in his own memory, remembering days with Shaine and the schemes they pulled and the credits they took. He’s lost in a time when it didn’t hurt to get up in the morning because Uzeks couldn’t catch him. He’s lost in a time when there was more life ahead of him instead of behind him, and the world was exciting with possibility.
He’s so lost in his own memory that he doesn’t notice that the real world around him is getting brighter, that the rising sun is bringing everything to life. Not until a woman comes out of her small home and dumps a pot of something from the night before out into the street. Then he notices that it’s past first light and that he’s still not close to arriving at the address Shaine gave him.
A horn blares in the distance, and he steps to the side of the road. The horn goes again, three quick blasts. Nixon looks behind him and sees it—a people mover. He pulls out his datapad and checks his credit balance. Still small, but hopping a ride now saves him time, even if it costs him a little money.
The people-mover blows its horn again, and Nixon raises an arm to request that the vehicle stop. It pulls up next to Nixon. It slowly drops to the ground, and a small ramp unfolds from the side allowing him to step on.
He puts his pad in front of a small scanner. He watches five more credits disappear from his total then turns to find a seat. It’s mostly folks who look like him. There is a Snapsit man who has folded himself into one of the seats, his knees pushing hard into the seat back in front of him. And there are three Uzeks in the back. There’s a seat near them, but Nixon opts to stand near the front of the people-mover. No, not all Uzeks run seeds for Uzel and the cartel, but what’s the point in testing these Uzeks out just in case they do.
He pulls the hood down farther over his face and slumps down lower in his seat. He listens to the automated driver announce stops. But he always has an ear on the Uzeks in the back. They grunt and snort in their very basic language.
He steals glances back there when he can. They aren't carrying anything. Nothing that indicates they are headed to some kind of work. But they don't try and sneak looks at him, either. Still … he doesn't like sharing a mover with them.
He closes his eyes and crosses his arms and pretends to sleep again. Pretends and listens. A chime dings and an automated voice announces the next stop. He hears people get off. Then he hears how the ambient noise changes as the mover gets closer into the heart of Exte. The city shifts. The streets are no longer made of hard-packed mud. They become properly paved. There are no more mud walls on these buildings either. They are now made of metal and glass.
The mover stops, and Nixon sneaks a glance. A woman sitting near the door stands to get off. He looks behind him and the Snapsit man struggles to unfold himself out of his seat. The Uzeks haven’t moved.
The mover starts again. There are only two others on board besides Nixon and the Uzeks. Seats are open, Nixon hears the Uzeks move to spots a few rows behind him. Their whispered chatter is getting louder. Nixon doesn’t recognize any of it. Such an ugly language.
They aren’t too many steps above animals.
Nixon pulls his right arm inside his cloak and rests his hand on the handle of the Uzek blaster tucked in his waistband. The automated voice calls out another stop and the mover slows. The woman sitting next to Nixon stands, and he steps to the side to let her pass. He looks behind him when he does and two of the Uzeks are looking at him.
Nixon grabs the rail above his head that runs the length of the car. The mover jerks to a start. It’s moving out of the main part of Exte’s business district now, and the only remaining person on-board other than the Uzeks stands. The mover calls for a stop and the gentleman steps toward the front of the car.
The ramp closes again, and the mover starts to move. The Uzeks are talking again. Nixon hears them step forward. The breath from their snouts tickles the back of his neck.
Nixon wraps his hand around the handle of the blaster. He puts two fingers around the trigger and pulls the gun from his waistband. He’s ready to fire. He doesn’t want to shoot. He doesn’t want to fight here. Three of them and one of him. Close quarters. The blaster makes it more even, but they likely have them too. Plus, he doesn’t want to have to shoot a hole into his cloak.
Then there it is, a meaty paw-hand on his shoulder. It pulls at him just slightly, and he turns. Face to face with an Uzek. The snout. The yellowing eyes. They jagged teeth.
“Excuse me,” the thing says in its gravel voice and steps past, the other two right behind.
The mover announces another stop as the trio steps to the ramp. They wait for the mover ramp to open then step off.
Nixon drops into a seat. The blaster hangs at his side then slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground. His heart is racing so fast that he swears it’ll make the mover fall over.
04
The mover drops Nixon off outside of the glass and sparkle of Exte’s central business district. Things here still aren’t as rough-built as the part of the city that Nixon calls home--called home. The buildings here are lower and longer. The builders spread out. They gave themselves space. They didn’t go vertical. But the walls aren’t mud packed. The streets are still paved.
Nixon steps out and onto the street. Shaine’s address is still a block or two away, but he can walk it from here. Even after the Uzeks exited, that mover felt too confining. He liked the streets better. They were open. He had visibility.
Exte’s second sun is about to rise, and Nixon hotfoots it to Shaine’s address, hoping that the job is still his to have. This is well past first light, and he knows Shaine well enough that if he said first light he meant first light.
The nu
mber Nixon is looking for is sloppily painted above an opening on the front of one of the buildings. He steps through cautiously and turns the corner into a wide courtyard. There in the middle is Shaine. He sits alone at a table, his head down and reading something on his datapad.
“Good morning,” Nixon says.
Shaine looks up and smiles. “You’re late.” He’s breathing heavy, and his cloak is sitting crooked on his shoulders.
“Rough commute.” Nixon pulls out a chair across from Shaine and sits.
“Mira didn’t think you’d show. She owes me a stack of hot griddle cakes with dinner tonight.”
“You’re so domesticated.”
“It’s not actually bad, You should try it.”
Nixon shrugs.
Footsteps behind them and Nixon turns. It’s a woman. She’s also got her head in her datapad. There’s a bag over her shoulder. She doesn’t see either Nixon or Shaine, just heads toward one of the doors that open out into the courtyard.
“We waiting on someone else?” Nixon asks.
Shaine shakes no and says “This job is mine.”
“So you just waited around to rub it in my face that I was late and you decided to take it?”
Shaine shakes no again. “That’s not what I mean. I’m the one hiring out this job.”
“I’m not following.”
“I don’t do these kinds of courier jobs anymore. People come to me looking to get goods from one place to another, and I find the people to do it.”
“Oh, big boss man.”
“It’s not like that. I’m a small operation. Mira’s idea. Said it’d keep me home with her and the kids more. And wasn’t nearly as dangerous.”
“And has it?”
“I am home more, and that’s great.”
“But…”
“You know the but.”
“People need private courier service for a reason.”
Shaine nods and reaches down beside him. He pulls a metal case off his seat and sits it on the tabletop.
“Still interested?”
Nixon nods. “I have no other options. I need credits, and I need off Exte. This gets me both. And it’s not like I haven’t been doing dangerous work before now.”
Shaine smiles. “Good,” he says. “Then here’s the job.”
He rubs his hand across the top of the metal case and begins to lay out the details: Get the case to Planet Azken within 45 days. Shaine can provide a ship. He pssses a small card with engine codes and a stall number where he’s storing the ship. It’s not much, but it’ll fly straight.
“And what’s all this pay?” Nixon asks.
“Five thousand.”
Nixon hesitates. “Excuse me?”
“Five thousand. I’m getting fifteen thousand total. Keeping ten of it for me. You understand.”
Nixon is still mostly speechless. “Five thousand,” he finally says again. “So what’s in the case that makes getting it somewhere else worth fifteen thousand credits to someone?”
“I don’t know what’s inside. It’s pretty well sealed. It’s not coming open without some kind of digital key.”
Nixon doesn’t understand. “You agreed to move this box for fifteen thousand credits and you didn’t ask what’s inside?”
“I don’t … I can’t … The people I tend to work with don’t like a lot of questions.”
“I get that, but still … fifteen thousand credits.”
Shaine leans forward and says in a whispered voice: “I need you to take this one. I need someone I can trust handling it. And I trust you.”
“It’s a lot of credits, but you aren’t really selling it.”
“It’s a lot of credits, and I know we can get the box to Planet Azken on time. But if we don’t, it’s not just the credits that are lost.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s Mira. And the girls.” Shaine stands and paces a tight circle. “It’s Mira and the girls. If the case isn’t delivered they’ve said they’ll …”
“Who’s said they’ll what, Shaine? Who are you working with?”
Shaine doesn’t get the chance to answer. Blaster fire sizzles past Nixon’s ear and hits Shaine in the shoulder. It spins him to the ground.
Nixon turns to see who’s firing and pulls the Uzek blaster from his waistband. He gets off two wild shots that don’t hit anything but do give him time to duck behind the table, putting it between himself and their new visitors.
“The case!” Shaine shouts. “Grab the case!”
A blaster shot hits the table and it explodes in a shower of splinters. The case flies a dozen feet away.
Nixon looks toward Shaine. “You have the address,” Shaine says. “Get the case and go. For Mira. My girls.”
The air crackles, and blaster fire peels the paver tiles from the ground in front of Nixon.
“Please,” Shaine says.
Nixon sprints to the case and scoops it up in a single motion then heads for the opening that’s opposite the one he came in. He fires wild over his shoulder and the fire from the other side stops momentarily.
He dives through the opening and finds a safe spot behind a wall. He pokes his head around the corner, ready to fire. Ready to set the case down and go help Shaine. Blasts from the other side of the courtyard blow apart huge chunks of the wall near him. He pulls his head back around the corner, but not before he sees blaster fire tear his friend in two.
05
Nixon grabs the case off the ground again and sprints away from the courtyard. He doesn’t know where he is. These are all tight alleys and small streets that he’s never seen, so all of his turns are serving only to confuse him more. But, at least for now, he’s not worried about confusion. He just doesn’t want to hear any more blaster fire burn by his ears. He doesn’t want to get hit in the back by a six-inch laser slug and look down just in time to see it burn it’s way out of his chest and through his cloak.
So he runs for a few minutes more until he gets to some deep-set doorway and stops.
This is the first time he’s been able to think about what just happened. He doesn’t know enough to think much. The one thing he does know is that the people on the other end of those blasters weren’t Uzeks. They weren’t Snapsits either. They were humans, like him and like Shaine.
“He’s dead, right?” He asks no one.
Then he sees it again—three blasts hitting Shaine across the torso. His body bouncing as each shot ripped through him. Then the last shot tearing through flesh and bone and … He doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
He sets the case down and then finds a spot on the ground beside it. He’s breathing heavy. He hasn’t recovered from being chased by the Uzeks the day before, and everything hurts, especially his nose.
He thinks about leaving the case here. Catching his breath then getting up and walking away. Leave whatever trouble it’s going to bring with it in that doorway.
“Sorry, Shaine,” he says to himself. “Whatever trouble you’re in Mira’s going to have to find her own way out of it.”
But he doesn’t mean it. He’s not going to do that to Mira. Mostly, he’s not going to do that to Shaine.
He stands, still sucking air like someone is going to take it from him, and racks his brain for the stall number at the starport that Shaine mentioned.
Six something.
Six ...
Six …
“Come on, brain.”
Twenty eight.
Six twenty eight.
“That’s it.”
Nixon steps from the protection of the doorway, blaster up and still inside his cloak. These streets are narrow and the buildings all look the same, one long and low profile structure after the other.
He knows he needs to get to the space port. He turns a circle in the middle of the street looking for the towers that are under construction. Their ragged tops reach above the rooftops behind him and he starts in that direction.
He keeps the Uzek blaster in his
hand, two fingers resting lightly on the trigger. Shaine’s case is in his other hand and tucked under his arm. First light has come and gone. Second light too. It’s well into the day now. People are walking these streets. They are going between these buildings.
Nixon keeps his hood up and his head down, only raising it to make sure that the new towers are still in front of him. He walks what feels like a couple of blocks and starts to hear the sounds of engines. Then come the shadows of ships passing overhead.
