by Sam Renner
“Here’s what I want to do,” Nixon says.
He then lays out his idea.
● He contacts Tychon.
● He arranges a meeting in a moderately public location.
● He goes, just him. Laana waits back here on the ship.
“What if something goes wrong? You don’t want someone there as backup?”
“No,” Nixon says, “because I’ll have the original case in my cloak. EHL’s coordinates will be already programmed and waiting. I make the swap. I get the credits. And before they can realize they’ve been given a fake case, I toss the orbs and disappear.”
Laana looks off into the middle distance, her mind lost in thought. She considers Nixon’s plan.
“It’s simple,” she says. “I’ll give you that.”
“It’s how I like it. Overly complex schemes have too many places where something can go wrong.”
Laana nods while Nixon speaks. “There’s a reason I work solo. Seems like you only have two places where this could go sideways.”
“And what are those?”
Nixon is looking out EHL’s windscreen. The ship is still trying to find a place to put down, and is giving Laana and Nixon a tour of Azken. It’s all looking the same. Neon lights advertising every kind of store and shop imaginable. All of the buildings made from glass and steel, and their fronts slicked with rain.
Laana: “If your contact at Tychon doesn’t come alone.”
“Fair,” Nixon says. “And the second?”
“If Aldius’ case doesn’t pass the test.”
09
Laana’s face is bathed in a rainbow of neon, and she’s holding her reader out in front of her. Azken rises up all around. The tops of the buildings disappear into thick clouds, and, on the ground, hucksters stand out in front of every shop, doing everything they can—shouting, grabbing, cajoling—to try and get the people passing by to come in and part with their credits.
Laana wipes rain drops from the reader’s screen and the indicator blinking there is clearer. It’s noting Aldius’ location.
Trash swirls at their feet, food wrappers dancing in the breeze. This food is all served from carts parked on the sides of the street. Their owners are shouting for any passer’s attention. The mix of cuisines gives the air a vague but delicious aroma, and Nixon’s stomach reminds him that he’s hungry.
Large red banners hang from wires that stretch between the buildings and across the street. They snap and pop in the wind. The messages written on them long faded in the Azken skies, a combination of harsh conditions and pollution erasing whatever it is the people who’d placed them there wanted to say.
Nixon’s reader vibrates in the pocket of his cloak with another notification from another of these shops, pushed to him as he and Laana pass. Most of them are announcing sales and specials, all of these shop owners desperate for some kind of attention.
“Are we close?” Nixon asks.
Laana wipes her screen again. “Getting there. A few blocks ahead we’ll take a …”
She’s interrupted by one of the cheap store hucksters throwing his arms around both of their shoulders and pushing his face between theirs.
“You two look hungry, and I’ve got a solution for that. Come over here to …”
Nixon pulls his cloak aside just enough for the man to see the handle of the blaster. He lets go of their shoulders.
“So not hungry? OK. I get it,” the man says as he backtracks to his previous location. “But next time. We’ll get you next time.”
Nixon says just loud enough for Laana to hear “I don’t like it here.
He pulls the hood of his cloak over his head and tugs it down to cover his eyes. It doesn’t do a great job of blocking the blinking and pulsing of the neon signs that hang above the doors to each of the shops.
“You never been to the big city before?” Laana asks.
“Exte is a pretty big place, but this is … ”
“Yeah, it’s something different.”
Nixon peaks from under the hem of his hood at those distracting signs, and in the bottom left corner of almost all of them is a small black circle. And inside that small circle is Tychon’s bisected T. Eventually, even with all the built-in distractions, it’s just about all that he sees. The place is practically polka dotted with them. All of this a reminder of where he’s at and who’s in charge.
“Over here,” Laana says and points down a new street with her reader. Nixon looks at her screen and sees the indicator. They’re close.
He follows her down a different street that’s just as crowded, just as loud, just as distracting.
“A block up and on the right.”
Nixon lifts his head and looks at the signs in front of him. None of them look like an ideal place to make this swap. Hucksters are dancing out in front of every shop. Nixon’s reader continues to buzz in his cloak pocket.
“There,” Laana says and points.
It’s the door to a bar. It’s just a skinny space between two larger businesses. The sign out front says The In-Between in a gentle script with a dim red glow behind it, lit but not obnoxious. Most importantly, though, there’s no black dot underneath. There’s no bisected T. This should be a safe space. Should be, but this is still Azken, Nixon won’t take his chances. Laana opens the door, and Nixon pulls his arm inside his cloak and places his hand on the blaster tucked in his waistband.
The whole place is dark and glows faintly red like the sign out front. Aldius’ big body is folded into a booth just to the left of the door, and the horns on his head are a slight purple. He gives Laana and Nixon a subtle wave as they enter.
Laana slides in the booth opposite Aldius, and Nixon follows.
“Thank you again for your help,” Nixon says. “I know we called you last minute. This project couldn’t have been…”
Aldius pulls the case he’s made out from under the table. He places it in front of Nixon and Laana, and Nixon doesn’t finish his sentence.
“Gorotza,” Laana says.
Nixon doesn’t say anything. He grabs the case instead. He rolls it over in his hands. He runs a finger across it. He feels the etched lines pass under his fingertips. The marks are light and thin, just like on the original case.
“I mean, like, for real, ... gorotza,” Laana says. She leans in toward Nixon to get a closer look.
Nixon passes the case to her, and she takes a closer look. Her eyes go even wider. She puts it right to her face. She looks at the seams. She studies the corners.
“Just …”
Nixon interrupts. “Safe to say we are both impressed.”
“Thank you,” Aldius says and holds a hand out palm up in front of him. “Let me show you something.”
Laana hands him back the case. He works the locking mechanism on the top then pulls his canvas pouch of keys from under the table. He inserts the right series of small pins into the case and it opens all the way. It glows from the inside and provides a near-spotlight on everything happening at their table.
Inside the new case are even orbs. “You can pull these out, but if you throw them you aren’t going to create a portal to anywhere. They’ll just land a roll away. So, you know, it’s not a perfect replica.”
“It’s more than perfect,” Nixon says. “We really do appreciate it.”
“I’m glad you’re saying that. Because things are … different now.”
“Different how?”
“I was burned on Otanzia. It didn’t happen immediately, but soon enough. Things started getting tough, and I couldn’t stay. So, now …”
“Sorry to hear that,” Nixon says. “What’s that mean for us?”
“Means I’m here. Means I can help if you need me to. Figured a bit of extra muscle might come in handy.”
Nixon picks the case back up off the tabletop. Extra muscle isn’t a bad idea. Especially here. Especially now. This is Tychon they are trying to scam. No, he doesn’t want a big team, but this is just one more moving part. One mor
e is fine, especially if he can keep Aldius close, and Nixon’s already working through how to do that.
10
The spaceport EHL found is small. It’s a fenced-in space with a control tower on the farside from where EHL put down. Nixon, Laana, and Aldius have to walk the length of the yard to get back to the ship.
Nixon jumps as steam vents from a grate a few feet away, a column of vapor shooting dozens of feet high and making the air stickier and thicker with moisture.
The three of them pass ship after ship after ship. They are all well-used. Their paint is beaten and scarred where it exists at all. Most of them are mid-sized. Captains and their crews wander outside of several of them. Nixon puts one hand on the blaster tucked into his waistband. He grips the new fake case tighter with the other.
“I see you guys didn’t spare any expense here,” Aldius says.
“Options are limited,” Nixon says.
A crew from across the yard watches the three of them walking and talking. Nixon points them out to Laana, and she nods that she’s seen them.
“Besides,” Nixon continues, “it’s better than the alternative. I’m not going to try escaping from a Tychon-owned spaceport. That feels like adding a layer of difficulty we don’t need.”
Nixon opens the ramp to EHL and follows Laana and Aldius onboard once they can go inside.
“What now, boss?” Laana asks.
Nixon doesn’t answer. He scratches and scrambles through the small bits of paper that have collected on the dash since this whole adventure started. It never seemed like a lot until he had to go through all of it. He’s picking up individual pieces then putting them down almost as quickly.
“Tell me what you’re looking for and maybe …”
What he’s looking for is the card he got from Shaine when he gave Nixon the case in that courtyard.
Nixon had been avoiding thinking about that moment, but, right now, there’s no getting around it. As he looks for this card, the one that has the name of the person he’s supposed to contact about the case, he pictures those last minutes with Shaine.
Shaine waiting for him in the courtyard. Talking before the whole situation flipped over. The men coming in. The fire fight that left Nixon scrambling to safety. The same one that left Shaine dead.
He sees his friend’s body being pummeled by blaster fire. He sees it bounce on the paver stones as bolt after bolt rip it apart.
It’s not here. The card is in the crew quarters.
“Seriously,” Laana says as Nixon pushes past her and down the hall. “Let me help.”
Nixon knocks over a pile of papers he’s stacked on the table next to his bed.
“Ha ha!” he shouts and pulls the card from the near-bottom of the stack.
“Found it! Found it!” he says as he heads back to the main cabin.
“Found it,” he repeats once he can see Laana and Aldius again.
It’s not much. It’s just a card and a reader address. He doesn’t have a name or a real location. He’s at the mercy of whoever it is that answers this message. That makes him pause. He’s suddenly wondering if the small team is the smartest play. This is Tychon, after all. They’ll have a whole squad of people. People with uniforms and ranks and chains of command. His whole team is now just three people.
His mind rushes to try and find a plan that includes finding a team here on Azken. He thinks for a moment about going out to the crews and captains in this spaceport and trying to recruit more members. They are parked in an independent space port. Nixon has to assume that’s for a reason. Once he has a few more people willing to help and he knows the size of his team Nixon can build out a new plan.
No. It’s a momentary thought and a bad one. He has his plan. He has his team. Adding more hands just complicates things. It also adds more hands waiting to be paid at the end, assuming things go well.
Nope. What he needs, instead of a different plan, is a better idea of when he’s going to pull the plug, when he’s going to abandon this whole thing because it’s suddenly turned too dangerous. That is something he can define with his team. But before he even needs to worry about that he needs to set up a meeting.
He pulls out his reader and types a message to the address written on the card.
“I have your case.”
He sends it then the three of them wait. Laana, Nixon, and Aldius all look at each other, but none of them say anything. A moment later Nixon’s reader chimes. He looks at it, and it’s coordinates and a time: Mid-day tomorrow.
11
“We have our meeting,” he tells the other two then begins laying out his plan. After all of that thinking, it’s still simple.
He looks to Aldius: “I’m going to show them your case and ask for half of the fifteen thousand credits before I give it to them. That way we are sure to get something for all of this trouble.”
“And what if they refuse?” Aldius asks.
“I figured you’d be standing to the side looking, you know, big and orange. They’d be intimidated.”
Laana climbs into the navigator’s seat. Nixon continues.
“They’ll open the case, check it out. Before they get too deep into that inspection I’ll ask for the other half of the payment. Once we have it, I throw the orbs and you and I disappear through the portal. That puts us back here, and Laana gets us off this planet.”
Aldius: “Sounds a little … simple.”
“Exactly,” Nixon says.
Aldius lets out a long breath and then says, “This is your show. If you want simple, then well do simple. I just don’t want your simple plan to simply get me killed.”
“We’ll be fine. I’ve got a blaster. I assume you’ve got some kind of protection you plan on bringing.”
Aldius shrugs a yes.
Nixon continues. “Every time I’ve been part of a complicated plan or scheme something goes wrong. Too many contingencies. Too many parts relying on the other parts to go right. This plan has one contingency: your case. If that hadn’t been done well then the whole thing would fall apart. But you made us something amazing. Now, if I can get whoever this is we’re meeting to not try to toss your orbs …”
Laana snickers. Nixon gives her a look and continues.
“... then we’ll be fine. And I’m confident I can do that. So, I feel good. I feel like this will work. Are you two comfortable with it?”
“If you’re good then I’m good,” Laana says.
“Sure,” Aldius says, “you’re back here watching and waiting.”
“Then trade me places.”
Aldius shakes no. “No offense, but you aren’t all that scary.”
“You’ve never been on the wrong end of my scope.”
Aldius says to Nixon, “I’m good with it. I was just expecting something that was more …”
“I don’t do complicated,” Nixon says. “Not anymore. If you’re good with it, be back here tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be back here light of the first sun.”
Nixon activates the ramp, and it opens with a hiss. He shakes Aldius’ hand before Aldius steps off.
“Again, thank you. None of this works if you hadn’t made that case.”
“You paid for my best work. Or, you will.”
A breeze from the still-open ramp ripples the bottom of Nixon’s cloak as he pulls it over his head. He grabs the blaster from the dash and puts it in the waistband of his pants.
“Where are you headed?” Laana asks.
“Out,” he says. “For some air. I want to try and clear my head before tomorrow. Too many thoughts dancing around up there. I’ll never be able to sleep. A walk will do me good.”
“Want some company?”
“Not this time.”
“All right,” she says. “I’m going to get EHL ready. Be careful.”
Nixon gives her a small wave as he steps down the ramp and back into the night.
More crews are outside of their ships. Some are gathered around small fires built to thwart
the coming chill. There’s an industry here, a hum of business and commerce and creation, that seems to keep the city warm during the day. But now, out on the streets everything is mostly empty. The crowds are gone. The noises from earlier are now silent. That rainbow of neon has vanished as most of the businesses close once night sets in and the population goes home. Only a spot of blue or a shock of pink are left, those businesses still open that cater to the small crowd of people who like the night, prefer life lived in the relative dark.
