by Dave Austin
"He was trafficking women." She said, and this time she raised her voice.
"You're better than that, Amelia. We're well paid not to ask questions. What he does is up to him. You had a mission and you ignored it." Amadeus told her and slipped the page he had stuck between two fingers across the table, "I only have this rescue mission. The parents are desperate, and they pay well. Some princess called Vitoria run away."
Amelia grabbed the paper and read everything, "Kryptus? It's one of the most dangerous planets on this side of the universe. What is she doing there?"
"As far as I know, she got upset about something, took a security escort, and ran away. Along the way, they were hit by an asteroid chunk and crashed there. One of the guys sent the coordinates to her parents and they never heard from her again." Amadeus explained. He had a different attitude now. He was, above all, a charismatic businessman with a quieter, less hoarse voice.
"What if she's dead?" Amelia asked him.
"If you just bring the body to her parents, they'll pay you half."
"How about you? The same 30% as always?"
"Smart. Yes." He said and paused to pull a cigarette out of one of the screwed pockets in the brown leather jacket, "Draken asked me about you. I told him I haven't seen you since you ran away. As long as you're still profitable, you don't have to worry about anything."
"Obviously, there had to be a reason behind it. Don't worry about it." She said and looked at the white sheets already covered with grains of sand brought by the gentle breeze that escaped through the gaps in the tent. Amelia's hat swung both ways.
"I still have a business to take care of," Amadeus said.
"What about that boy, why is he taking so long?" She asked him, changing the conversation.
"Chris is a little slow, but he never misses. He won't take much longer," he said and sat down again. In doing so, he sighed as if that short moment had deprived him of all energy.
We still waited about 10 minutes before the boy showed up with three bags in his hand, one of them with the jellybeans on top almost tumbling down one of the flaps holes of the bag. He dropped them in front of us and returned to Amadeus, who, in an almost merciful gesture, took a brown coin out of his pocket and tossed it. It spun across the air until it fell into the boy's hand. He was so thin that even the wrist bones stood out, as did the clavicles in his slender chest.
"Didn't I tell you? He's a good boy." Amadeus said and signaled the boy to kneel so he could scrub his hair.
Amelia spat on the floor and motioned for me to pick up two of the bags while she picked up the remainder.
"I'm gonna get going. I'll get back to you when I rescue her." She told him and turned her back.
"Just be careful." He said and laughed one last time.
The megalomaniac laughter spread throughout the air and appeared to be following us the whole way back. The corridors were crowded, reeking of fresh seafood seasoned with salt and spices in one, and in the other, the aroma of badly roasted sirloin swirling on the air. They had food for all tastes. We went back to where the ships were parked. A small one, in front of us, was taking off, upright motors, black with dark green stripes, spewing blue and white gasses that hovered over the ground. Unlike Amelia’s ship, it had a more modern and realistic façade, almost minimalist even, with the cockpit at the front and protected only by a thick layer of glass, which allowed the couple to be seen inside, hand in hand, smiling, while the ship left the hangar.
"Honeymoon, probably." Amelia said, with a certain dreamy intonation, "what happened there... You can't tell anyone. Maybe there's a place for you on the ship after all."
"I think part of you wanted me to stay or you wouldn't take me there," I said.
"Don't be an idiot. I didn't know he was going to be there, and I even wish he wasn't."
"Who is he? From what I hear, I know he taught you, is that it?" I asked, “Why you accepted that mission? Couldn’t you have waited until we got a new one?”
"He saved my life and made me who I am today, including a hired killer." She said. We now walked through the central corridor, surrounded by shops of all kinds, and I tried to listen to it carefully as I glanced at everything. I felt like a child in a candy store, not that I had ever been to one, but I knew they existed on planets where happiness had found a home, “We are getting low on money. Matilda and Jessy have no idea, so we better keep this a secret,”
"What about your parents?" I asked, trying to know her better, “No problem. I won’t tell them anything that happened here,”
"I've never met them. He found me on the street and offered me a place to stay. He was like a father to me, he still is. I believe he cares in his own way even if it doesn't look like it."
"I don't think he cares about anyone," I answered her.
She lowered her head and took a deep breath, "it doesn't matter either. Let's go to the restaurant. They must be waiting for us by now. Remember, not a word about this. They don't know Amadeus."
"No? As he spoke of them, I thought they'd already met," I answered her.
Chapter III
We had already passed the last ship and had entered a narrow corridor, flanked by stalls of personalized arms dealers and body technology parts. There were arms of different colors, some with a thumb as a blade or a key, and even legs of all sizes, some suitable for jumping, others for running, and some for midgets under promotion. The mixture of colors puzzled me for a moment. The lights mirrored in the glasses of some men nearby, in the shining steel covered with fingerprints, and in the rings with a frog-shaped toad that all the salesmen had. Amelia explained to me that the rings were used to symbolize membership to the official sellers' group of the universe. "Whoever owns that ring has to sell his material at a regular price but is also entitled to certain benefits such as monetary embargoes in case they are stolen." She told me as we walked past another tapestry, this time with silky yellow fabrics, to get to the restaurant area.
Pizzas, hamburgers, vegetarian food, meat from all over the universe, and they even had a desert-only restaurant there. The cakes are covered with hot chocolate, strawberries or cream with chestnut shavings, and even a few cupcakes of mystery flavor. My eyes widened like never before and my nose inhaled the aromas that were emanating from everywhere. I had to stop for a few seconds and just seize the moment. Amelia stopped right in front of me and gazed into my eyes. For a moment, I thought she was going to drag me by the arm, but she didn't. I put the two bags on the floor and looked around. Neither the pain in my legs nor the irritation at the base of my fingers prevented me from getting lost between the smells, the sounds of knives gliding on the cakes or cutting the steaks, the customers toasting, and the salesmen calling the next person in line. That area was huge, and I was just a mere lost atom there. People walked past me, our shoulders colliding, and they grumbled but my feet stayed on the ground.
"The first few times are the most beautiful," Amelia told me and smiled. She had a nice smile, white, and with her two lower end teeth, spiked.
"Are you smiling?" I asked her and smiled too. I wasn't a big fan of my smile. Having worked in the mines for years and growing up using the same toothbrush that my two brothers had not resulted in a good mouthpiece scenario.
"Me? No. Of course not. If it looked like that, you got it wrong," she said and turned her back on me, "but... But it's nice to see you like this. It reminds me of the times when I still wasted time visiting the planets before fulfilling the missions." She added and started walking.
I followed her before the crowd had covered her and before getting lost, having to wander around to see if I could find her. By the time we got to the restaurant, Jessy and Matilda were already at the door.
"Finally. I didn't even have breakfast just to fill my belly now. We've already booked a table." Matilda said, rubbing her hands.
A well-dressed man with black trousers, with the menu under his arm, led us to a table at one of the corners with a view over a part of the desert filled wi
th curves, metal blocks, and plastic balls hovering in the air.
"Matilda has a huge addiction to watching ship races," Amelia told me.
"There'll be one in 15 minutes. Shrimps and fast ships? This is the dream." She said and sat in the chair closest to the windscreen, "Let me guess, you've never seen a race?"
"Never..." I said, "Have you ever been in one?"
Amelia laughed. A shrill, voracious, unabashed laughter. I never had seen her this unselfish. I arched my eyebrows and asked her what was going on.
"Did she participate? She's the racing queen. We used to participate for the money and we never lost one." Amelia said, "It's not my kind of fight. It's very distant and impersonal but those last 20 meters competing with another ship, both near the finish line, I have to admit that the adrenaline rushed through my veins."
"Why did you stop?" I asked them. Six ships were flying in from the horizon and they all stopped next to each other. A man with a flight backpack rose to their level. He had a green flag in his hand and requested that they took their places.
"Nobody wanted to compete with me." Matilda said and yawned, "They're bad losers. Come on, it's starting."
The man raised the flag above his head. He started counting. One. Two. The ships snored and fire of different colors burst out of the tailpipes. Three. The ships ripped the clear sky and departed at high speed. We were at the temperature peak. The sun shone on the glass and the ships, half of them being gray. The restaurant extended the awning until the shadow was upon us. We ordered the shrimp and waited for them. We watched the race in the meantime. A black ship, with red stripes and a thin triangular appearance, had distanced itself from the others. Matilda added that there were still 10 laps to go. The restaurant filled up and the line outside stretched for miles. They were already on the third lap when the waiter came up with four metal bowls, each full of fresh shrimp, heads still to be ripped off and a thin trail of orange sauce on top.
She was right. The shrimps were excellent. I had to disguise the tear that sprang up in the corner of my eyes as soon as I chewed it and savored it in my mouth, my teeth shredding it, fearing that that moment would end. I was still afraid it was all a dream. Having a place to stay, a spaceship to sail on, and missions to accomplish alongside three women who made my body ablaze.
"What do you think?" Matilda asked, "It's good, isn't it? Eat more. Shrimps can never be too much."
"They're great!" I replied, "I was used to eating stiff bread and soup or meat from the day before." I confessed to them.
"That's it? What about your parents?" Jessy asked me. While Matilda already had greasy hands and a plate full of shrimp skin mixed with what was still to be eaten, Jessy had separated them both.
"My father was an adventurer. Not like you though. He didn't care about the money or the missions. He just wanted to visit new planets, write down what he had seen in his diary, and take some pictures." I told them, wiping my fingers with the red napkin that starkly contrasted with the white tablecloth, "after my father passed away, when I was about 12 years old, my mother was never the same. She started drinking a lot and missing work. My older brothers, 16 and 17, went to work in the mines. When I was 15, so did I. We've survived like this, but now, six years later, I couldn't do it anymore. I had to get out of there."
Jessy stopped eating. She wiped her fingers and coated my hands with hers. The amber eyes reflected the orange ship that ran past the glass at that exact moment like a fox's tail.
"You're with us now. You're not alone, right, Amelia?"
"Yes, yes. Hurry up and eat. We have a mission to accomplish and it won't be easy."
"Where are we going this time?"
"Kryptus," Amelia answered her.
"I haven't heard good things about this place. It's a planet full of savage gangs. They won't hesitate to kill us if they catch us." Jessy said, "When I worked in the hospital, sometimes some wounded soldiers arrived from there. Apparently at the time they were trying to build a factory to explore the soil, but they couldn't because of the constant attacks."
"It was the only mission available. We have to rescue a princess and we'll be out of there in no time."
"Have you been to all the mission distributors?"
"Yes, there's nothing for us. Some even avoid talking to us after what we did to the Draken." She said it and cast a ferocious glance at me.
The conversation ended there. By the time we finished eating, the ship race had finished a few minutes ago. Ship number three had won. It had dark blue wings and the rest of its body was brown. It was an old model, bigger than the other ships but with improved engines and a driver who knew exactly when to make the curves to take advantage. Matilda told us that apart from one mistake or another, he had done very well.
We just ate and left the restaurant. Amelia paid with her card. I didn't even have one. We returned to the ship and headed for the control room.
"Five days to get there." Matilda said, "The best thing to do right now is to get some rest. I'm full."
"Actually, a nap would be great," Jessy said and yawned.
Only Amelia was still in the room. I thought I could go to the prison room, but I dragged myself to my room. My world was spinning. At that time, on a normal day, I'd still be in the mines in the middle of a day's work. And now there I was, on a ship, after eating shrimps, lying on a cushioned bed, flipping over the pages of my father's diary, reading some of the passages and seeing the drawings he had made with coal pencils. One passage caught my eye.
"On the vast horizon of the universe, the planets line up like a pool game at the end of the night... The dim light does not reach them and the icy presence of space comforts them in eternal solitude. Exploring the universe leaves me as full of peace as terrified of fear. For no matter how many planets I visit, there is always one more to go, one more population, one more unknown technology, one more possibility to lie there, dead, bleeding to death, or with no oxygen until my face turns purple. And yet, I venture out with the dream of seeing the most beautiful landscapes and one day write a book about what I saw so that my children can also one day follow in my footsteps. I don't leave you the photos I took so that one day you can add color to the images you created in your head."
I ended up falling asleep with the book on top of my chest.
Chapter IV
Three days passed since we started traveling to Kryptus. Halfway through the second day, I had my first experience with an asteroid ring. Dozens of them, hovering in the air, and Matilda deviating from the loose bits as if she were playing in an arcade game like the ones there were in my village's bar.
On the morning of the third day, I went to the kitchen. In one of the wooden drawers, there were chocolate and wild fruits cereals. I filled two cups, one with each, a splash of milk and took them to the room where the serial killer was. I hadn't seen her since we kissed.
"Are you awake?" I asked when I walked in.
"Now yeah," she said, still a little stunned, rubbing her eyes. She had an eyelash on her right cheek and chapped lips, "I missed you, pretty boy."
I ignored what she said, deactivated the lasers, and placed both bowls at the entrance of the cell.
"Pick one of them. I'll take the other one." I told her.
She came up and looked at both bowls. She looked around before stretching her arm quickly, touching both bowls of cereal and backing up. She approached again, looked at me, and put a finger inside both bowls.
"To me? Nobody's ever made me food before. What do you want from me?" She asked, staring at me and the cereal.
"Nothing. Being a bad person doesn't mean you should have to starve to death." I answered her.
The truth was, I still had Amelia's conversation with Amadeus present in my head. She had also been a murderer and had changed. Why wouldn't the serial killer be able to do that too? Maybe she had a dark past, even worse than Amelia's. At least that was what I wanted to believe.
"I want this one." She said and picked up the chocola
te cereal bowl, "I haven't eaten chocolate in a long time" she said as she grabbed the spoon.
I was afraid that she would use the spoon for more than just eating, but at the same time, I knew that I could not expect her to trust me if I did not trust her either. It was a two-way road and it had to start with me. If someone listened to my thoughts at that time, they would probably shout out to the universe how stupid and crazy I was being, but something about her said that I could change her. I think I was always that person deep down; a boundless dreamer with the desire to save people. Many nights I had spent picturing scenarios in which I became a hero, in which I saved someone and now I had a chance to make it real.
"Good, isn't it?" I asked her as we both ate.
"Yeah. I still don't understand why you're doing this. I'll kill the rest of the crew anyway." She said, glancing at me like it was something natural to say.
"I believe that when the time comes you will think twice."
"You're one of those. A dreamer." She said, "What's that noise?"
I had no idea what she was talking about. There was no noise.
"Focus. Close your eyes." She said, seeing me confused.
I laid the bowl on the floor and closed my eyes. In the beginning, I still couldn't hear anything. Still, I didn't give up and, after a few minutes, loud steps, like lightning bolts of thunder, stepped on the ground of the ship. Weird. I had been there for days and none of them had such a strong, hollow walk. I walked to the door and leaned my ear against it. The steps were close to the door, now much stormier. The person seemed to be in a hurry and heading for the ramp.
"It seems to me you're in trouble." The serial killer said.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I can hear him. He's not a crew member. He's moving too fast. He's changed his path three times already. He doesn't seem to know where he's going. If you let me go, I can help you."
"You really don't think I'm going to fall for that, do you?" I asked her, "I'll see what's going on. You stay here."