Gattar stepped into Craze’s space,
grabbing onto the front of his coveralls, tugging the material away from his
skin. She peered down, running a hand down his abdomen. “You know what wealth
they offer. I can tell you know.”
It was the potential fortune more
than the Jix tempting Craze. He didn’t try to hide it, didn’t pull away.
“Chocolate,” he whispered against her cheek. “Did you get to taste it?”
“No,” she admitted.
“I hear it’s silky.” A good thing
to bring up while she touched him.
Those neon green irises grew as
large as his hand and pierced through his calculations, stirring up pangs of
guilt. He didn’t know why, didn’t know what there was to feel guilty about. A
trait of her kind? Craze made note of the possibility.
“You can quit trying so hard,”
Gattar said, “I already decided to take you on.”
Shit. It was what he wanted, then
again he didn’t. He feared what getting involved with her might mean, but he
wanted this deal involving chocolate and would risk lying with something not
entirely female to get it.
“Good.” He backed her up against a
grimy wall, tugging on that single zipper, aiming to find out before he lost
all nerve.
Her chest heaved and she gasped.
Her mouth was a little perfect
O
, enjoying his eagerness before she
pushed him off, glancing at the busy avenue a block away at the end of the
alley.
She wet her lips, but it was more a
nervous twitch than sensual. “Fo’wo’s be damned, no. Look we can’t be seen
together any longer out here. It’ll ruin things.”
He understood the paranoia with chocolate
involved. No unnecessary risks. Craze was glad of the reprieve yet put on his
best dejected pout, pocketing his hands. “Sure. If that’s what you want.”
Sauntering between broken bottles
and crates, sashaying his hips, he headed for the main street. Gattar stopped
him, tugging him back into the shadows, thrusting a tab into his meaty palm.
“Be there in four hours. Plenty of
time to get you ready.” She let her hand run down the inside of his shirt again
and pulled him in for a kiss, inhaling his tongue and his malt-scented breath.
He was stuck with her sour taste from the swill, but the Jix knew how to use
that mouth, which made up for it some.
As quick as the passion started,
Gattar ended it. She took off, slinking and trotting, disappearing once she hit
the end of the alley and maneuvered into the avenue.
Craze pulled one of the bottles
he’d swiped from Bast out of his bag, swigging a good mouthful to get rid of
the nasty tastes of inferior malt and rancid beer. No more than that, though.
He didn’t want to dull the excitement. Chocolate! More wealth than he could
imagine, and he could imagine a lot.
How would he get the luxury goods
out of Gattar’s hands and wholly into his own? His first thought was to call
Bast and the council, but he quickly discarded that. Their help would guarantee
a successful sting, but they didn’t deserve the honor. Instead he pinged the
aviarmen he met on the transport.
“How’s the ship
buyin
’
goin
’?” Craze asked when Talos answered.
A tiny head with spiky blue hair
glowed in a corner of the tab’s small screen. “We looking at it now,” Talos
said. “It needs some work to fly again.”
“Can I come see?” A working
spacecraft would go a long way toward getting the chocolate all to himself.
Talos pinged him the location and
Craze made his way there. It was an abandoned hangar at the edge of the city
surrounded by moldering warehouses and factories. Weeds wound their ways up the
walls and over the walkways and roads. The pavement and structures crumbled.
Craze kicked at the chunks, walking down the nearly deserted street bordered by
chain-link fence, searching for the right gate. He pushed at entry 24357C,
which screeched unwilling against the buckled tarmac.
Craze stood still, taking in the
place, searching for motion and voices. He heard something in the direction of
an old hangar, the roof sagging and groaning in the gentle breeze. The lot in
front of it was littered with transports of all kinds: land, water,
subterranean, air, and space.
A shock of blue hair bobbled above
a flattened space transport. Shortly after, a crown of red appeared beside it.
Craze waved at the aviars, shouting a hearty hello, greeting them as if long
lost brothers.
“I can afford the ship,” Talos
said, “but not it ‘n the propellant injector it needs to run.”
A lime-green spacecraft, color
chipping off the hull, sat on the rotting tarmac. It was a bizarre shape
marrying six caterpillars ringing the center where a couple of beetles met
back-to-back. Besides peeling, the green hull was pitted and dented. The hatch
groaned when summoned open, threatening to stick or disobey altogether.
“How much does a propellant
injector cost?” Craze asked. It’d be worth the investment if he could afford
it. “How long to get it installed?”
“Lepsi ‘n I could get the injector
put in quick enough. It’s only a two-hour job. The cheapest one is ten thousand
chips. It’s been hard used. Will get us out to the Edge ‘n landed once. Then
we’ll need to find another to go anywhere else.”
Ouch. That would spend most of
Craze’s startup fund, maybe leaving him enough for a coat and some basic
supplies if he found a frugal shop.
“This one would be better.” Talos
pointed at another injector. “It’s almost eleven thousand. Older, but not used
as much ‘n would last longer than the other. Probably has a hundred jumps ‘n
stops left in it.”
A much wiser buy, but shit, barely
enough left for a meal unless Craze bumped into a desperate wholesaler. He’d
have to take the risk. Once he got his hands on the chocolate, he wouldn’t have
to worry about a budget ever again. “I think we could work
somethin
’
out.”
“Really?” Talos hopped from foot to
foot, rubbing the pin his mother had given him. “Carry On.”
“You about to get it good,
Federoy
,” Lepsi said to his tab, his bother’s image
summoned to the screen. He started to sing. “A ship for chips. Give me your
chips. Pretty, sheeny chips.”
“Let’s go talk about it.” Craze
shrugged a shoulder at an empty corner of the tarmac. “Away from ears ‘n eyes
not ours.”
They climbed over treads and
massive tires, ducked under hull frames and ship plates, then trudged over
rubble and weeds until out in the open and alone.
“I fell into some business. So, I
offer to finance the injector you need, if you can give me what I need,” Craze
said.
Talos took a step back, his eyes
narrowing. “What is it you need from us, mate?”
“To get that vessel in
workin
’ order by tonight ‘n to keep tabs on me. When you
get my signal, you come in ‘n take up the cargo.” Craze crossed his toes, hoping
he’d judged the aviars as hungry as he was.
Talos chewed on his lower lip.
“What kind of cargo?”
Just as he’d suspected some
interest sparked there. Craze fed the aviarman a little more. “One that will
afford you an armada. Your own transport line.”
Talos stepped closer. “What?”
Craze whispered in Talos’s ear,
then Lepsi’s. “Chocolate.”
The
aviarmen’s
eyes popped. Talos’s tongue flicked at his lips several times, his fingers
clutched over his prized pin.
“How’d you bump into that?” Talos
asked
The hook sank in like a docking
clamp on the aviars, holding tight to the lure of great wealth and a less
difficult life. Craze breathed easier. “I met a Jix—“
“A Jix? Oh, shit. You can’t trust a
Jix, mate. Did you see the chocolate or did the Jix just say?”
“I saw it.” Craze crossed his arms
and squared his jaw, annoyed at the aviarman and afraid he’d made a big mistake
teaming up with Gattar.
Talos chewed on his lower lip. “A
plus, but still, a Jix is a Jix.”
Craze needed all the information he
could get. “You know about that race then?”
“Anyone who does any extensive
traveling on the Edge or lives out there knows of the Jixes. They thugs who go
about taking what they want from worlds that can’t defend themselves ‘n their
assets.”
Users. No better than pirates. Craze
had thought so. “How many Jixes is there?” He had to know exactly what he was
messing with.
Talos shrugged. “No one ever sees
more than a few at a time. They have their own ships though. The implication is
a whole population of them. Like in the old days before the war.”
Craze would have to be extra
careful then. Being hunted by the Verkinn was more than he could take. He
didn’t need other races ostracizing him, too, telling him where else he wasn’t
allowed to be.
“Ever hear of one named Gattar? She
presented herself as a lass.”
Talos’s brows flew up and he
whistled. “Shit. You mixed up with Gatt? A Jix with quite the reputation as a
swindler. You won’t get the best end of the bargain from her, mate. In fact,
you should be thinking the shipment ain’t chocolate.”
Craze kicked at a vine. “Shit fifty
times over. What should I be worried about?”
“Something more illegal.”
Craze crossed his arms and drummed
his fingers on his elbow. “Chocolate isn’t illegal.”
“Bet it was stolen. Either way,
it’s a great thing to use to cover up something that is very illegal.”
The aviarman had a point. “Then we
take the chocolate ‘n leave the rest. Call the authorities in. Will help our
getaway while the Jix jaws her way out of that mess. Brilliant.”
Talos chuckled, apparently not
opposed to wheeling and dealing. “Could work. Believe me, I want the chocolate
as much as you do. We’ll figure something out. Especially if we can find an
Eptu
or two.”
“The
Eptus
?
I don’t know them.”
“A lot like the Jixes, but they
don’t look anything like them. Where the Jixes be graceful, the
Eptus
be burly. They have big noses that can smell a lie ‘n
huge-ass ears than can hear an atom fart. I’ve seen the two bickering in
saloons out on the Edge.”
The
Eptus
could prove a useful diversion. “They don’t like each other, huh?”
“Not at all. Rivals to the bitter
end.”
Very useful, indeed. “Finding one
or two would be to our benefit.”
“Leave that to Lepsi ‘n me. Deal?”
Talos offered his hand, his prized button “Carry On” cradled in the palm.
Craze had one condition. “All
before nightfall.”
“Speed is a trait of the aviars,
mate.”
“Faster than lightning, superior to
Federoy
,” Lepsi sang. “Soon to be the richest sons of
bitches in the Backworlds.”
Craze took Talos’s hand, then
Lepsi’s, shaking them. “Deal. Partners.”
Craze headed back toward the
central city, checking on the address Gattar had given him. The building rose
eight stories, a ramshackle midrise of rented rooms squiggling left and right
like a drunk, not too far from the seedy bar where she’d taken him earlier. It
had been allowed to deteriorate, fading and dingy from the neglect of years,
and Elstwhere’s invasive vines threatened to reclaim it. Trash littered the
stoop. The door sat half-open, stuck where it was by the buckling doorframe.
Craze circuited slowly around the
block, noting the other businesses—pharmacies, bootlegged goods spread over
cramped street corner stalls, diners, grungy mini-grocers, gambling parlors,
and dancing girls. Other types of gals hung out in the shadows, trying to catch
his attention. He brushed them off, branching out his surveillance to the
adjacent blocks.
With his tab, he took photos and
video, noting the placement of security cameras and motion detectors. Craze
wondered if the patrollers really kept track of it all, figuring they only
reviewed images when there was call to do so. Would tonight create such a
moment? He tugged at his suspenders, worried about exposing his face so much.
Although, hiding it would perhaps bring attention sooner than he wanted. So, he
kept on, playing tourist, stopping to look at products meant to part visitors
from their funds.
“One of a kind Elstwhere
plasticine
. You’ll be the envy of your friends on the
central planets. Everyone will want an invitation to your place, to eat off
your
plasticine
-ware.” Not needing envy, Craze
shuffled on, fingering scarves and knickknacks, scanning the side streets.
The Jix would want the meeting
tonight to go off as low-key as possible. Those mystery people wouldn’t want
any notice either. Therefore, Craze figured the exchange might happen nearby.
The Jix had only ventured to the docks for a rube, otherwise she seemed to
prefer staying in this general vicinity. Craze could see why. The bustle was
enough to hide in, yet not so much as to get in the way. It wasn’t flagged as a
notorious crime area. In fact, when Craze looked up the district on his tab,
InfoCy
said it was a good quarter of Elstwhere for families
and shopping. Plus, it was close enough to the docks to make a ship useful and
a getaway quick.
He enlarged his circuit by another
block, keeping the location where he was to meet the Jix in the center. A row
of wholesalers promising the lowest prices on Elstwhere led to an avenue with several
abandoned storefronts. The street held promise as the place where the chocolate
deal might go down. Craze noted fanned objects partially opened in front of the
motion detectors on that road and boxy red modules attached under the security
cameras, which hadn’t been on the cameras on the other streets. Craze
photographed them, relaying the data to the aviarmen.