Trinity: Atom & Go

by Zach Winderl

  “He left a half-slagged bottle of Svit’s brew sitting inside the atmo control panel.”

  The crew stared at her, waiting for the link.

  “I tried to nail him for a similar job a few years back, but he slipped the system before I could apprehend. The two hundred cycle limit on charging passed, almost to the day,” Coffey placed a clenched fist on the table and tapped the metal surface a couple times before pressing on. “Facial recognition pegged him that time. He was smarter this time.”

  “But he left the bottle, just to let you know it was him.” Atom weighed the information. “I understand. Could you step down into the hold and let us discuss this before we commit to anything?”

  Sheriff Coffey rose to her feet and headed towards the stairs, but paused at the hatch. With a worried look she turned back. “There’s one other thing, a matter of payment.”

  “And that would be?” Atom asked in a neutral tone.

  “I don’t have access to that kind of money, but I could pay in information.”

  “Words don’t put fuel in my ship or food in our bellies.” Atom hid his disappointment behind a stern look.

  “It has to do with that table you were so interested in.” Coffey turned and exited the galley, slapping the hatch shut behind her.

  “Gamble,” said Hither with a playful arch to her brow.

  “I like a gamble.” Shi snapped a fresh cylinder in her pistol, spun it, and sighted across the mess to a pot sitting on the galley counter.

  “What can she know beyond what we already have?” Byron piped up.

  “She’s been living in the same town as Blonde far longer than we’ve been on this rig. And while we’re chasing a wisp, she knew the man with the information.” Atom looked down at Margo snuggling into his chest. Her eyes drooped. “All in favor?”

  Three hands rose. Only Byron hesitated. “I en’t ‘gainst it, so much as I just don’ know which point to pull.”

  “Why don’t you hop and get her, By.” Atom nodded to the hatch.

  ***

  They walked back toward the town tavern with Coffey a short time later.

  “We’ve never been paid in information for a completed job.” Atom walked with his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his worn, brown coat as the pram glided a pace before them. “How do we manage the half up front?”

  The sheriff, at his side, hunched a shrug. “I can give you half the riddle now and half when you finish up.”

  “A riddle?”

  “It was something Blonde told me a while back. Actually, the first time he shared it with me was when we were kids. His va made him memorize it and I helped him out. Fortunate for you, I have a fair good memory.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Pausing outside the tavern door, Coffey turned and looked up at Atom with the squint of a range-rider used to snow glare. “Do you want me to write it down or can you remember it?”

  “If I don’t, Kozue will.”

  “Who?”

  Atom shook his head, trying to hide a shiver. “My ship’s AI.”

  “I’ll send it over to her.” Coffey blinked several times in rapid succession, her eyes unfocused and distant. “There, did she receive?”

  “I did, Atom,” Kozue replied with a distracted air.

  “Firm.” Atom waved for the trailing crew to head through the doors into the warm embrace of the tavern even as he stayed in the chilled dome-air with Coffey. “Can you read it to me?” he asked the AI.

  “Inside, a man mourns long lost sheep, break. Walking nowhere, but continues to weep, break. No one descended from nowhere above, break.”

  “Sheep?” He looked to Coffey.

  She quirked her mouth in a half smile. “I asked Blonde the same question and he said it floated straight down from his grandva. I looked into the old codger later and he definitely weren’t from around here. We don’t do sheep.”

  “I guess it really is a riddle, because I don’t have any idea of what we’re looking at. That’s it?”

  “Those are three of the six lines. The other three will backend our deal.”

  “I’ll get your man.” Atom extended his hand, palm up. “It seems your riddle at least touches on some of the other information we’ve gathered. How did you know to give it to me and not the people who came for Blonde?”

  “Well,” She hitched her thumbs in her gunbelt. “First off, I ain’t never seen ‘em, but even if I did, I ain’t habituated to workin’ with folks as kill my friends.” Turning to the tavern with a sad droop to her shoulders, she continued. “Second, Blonde told me if anyone ever looked to his table like you did, they’d be in the know and would have already piece bits from the old story.”

  “Old story?” Atom followed Coffey into the warm interior of the tavern with a grateful sigh.

  “The Blonde family had only been here four gens.” Coffey shucked her heavy coat and hung it on a rotating rack beside the door, but kept her wide-brimmed hat on her head. “The first Blonde dropped out of the sky back long before my time. My va said he had worked a berth aboard a scavver. For some strange reason, he seemed to like the notion of the quiet hab-farming life.

  “Simple as that.” She waved to Svitać as she wandered to the table the rest of the crew had claimed. Atom parked the pram beside the coat-rack and followed with Margo in the crook of his arm. “He found a local girl and settled.”

  “That’s the story?”

  “Every once in a while, when I was just a kit, Ol’ Blonde would tipple a touch and tell tales of an old war.” She drawled as she dropped into a seat Daisy slid out for her, and tipped her hat back. “He never went into detail on which war, but he talked about his ship going down with almost all hands. He always drank a toast to the Mother’s lost souls.

  “I never heard of a warship called the Mother, and over the course of his youth there were half-dozen wars over the Hand and honest to the void, I never really looked too careful,” as she spoke Svitać brought a round to the table.

  Atom held up a finger as Svitać dropped a juice in front of Margo. “Could I trouble you for a red chi with a drop of nectar?”

  The barkeep bustled away with purpose. Atom pushed his beer over to Shi and gave Daisy a look. “This isn’t the time to cut loose,” he spoke with quiet command.

  Daisy knuckled his brow with a grin and sipped. “Slow and low,” the giant grumbled.

  ***

  Later in the eve, while Daisy sat nursing his third beer in as many hours and the rest of the crew had shifted to less potent drinks, the lights dimmed and the dinner crowd drifted in from their scattered habs and jobs about town. The tavern grew louder and cozier in the span of a few minutes.

  After the first round, Coffey wandered away to greet her people.

  Leaning back in his seat, Atom closed his eyes and turned over the riddle in lieu of worrying at how Toks Marshall fit into the big picture.

  “Enough,” Atom sighed. “We can’t make headway on the lost ship until we get the rest of that riddle. In the meantime, all we can focus on is the next step. Our task right now needs to be finding this boke, Kim.”

  “You kin help with that, right Koze?” Shi slipped from her seat and shifted around the table to lean against the wall. Crossing her arms, she stared through the crowded room.

  “Firm,” Kozue replied.

  “First off, who is Johan Kim?” Atom asked, closing his eyes and listening.

  “And more importantly.” Daisy stared into his glass and swirled the dark liquid. “Where is he right now?”

  “Kim is a system skipper,” Kozue said. “He has a long list of petty crimes, but nothing he’s ever found long incarceration for. Longest he’s ever been away is a thirteen-month stint for smuggling. He was just the transport, but he gave up the limited information he had on the sellers and buyers.

  “Kim appears intelligent,” Kozue hesitated as she sifted through information. “On that charge, he kept blinds on both ends of the deal. That meant he gave up everything he had, b
ut the information ultimately led nowhere.”

  “How’d he go firebat?” Atom opened his eyes with a pinched look and squinted at the loudening crowd. “Seems everything I’ve heard has pegged this boke as a low-level mover. It’s a big jump from theft and smuggling to taking life. And the method means it’s not a passion kill.

  “He rigged that ship to fire in flight.” Atom massaged his temples. “Nobody there to see it. That fire wasn’t about fame or recognition or even fetish. That jug meant it was a message.”

  “A hit?” Hither asked.

  “Seems as such. Questions: who was the target, why the escalation, and why the taunt to Margie?”

  “Does it matter?” Daisy drained his glass and thumped it down on the table.

  Atom scowled. “It could tell us if we have bigger fists to worry about or if this boke is just drifting into psychosis.”

  “I’m with Daisy on this one,” Shi said as her eyes roamed the room. “We stay quiet, slip someone in, an’ pop the someduck. Exfil and away to the Black. Nothin’ bigger and nothin’ on us that ain’t already there.”

  “I wish Lilly was still with us,” Atom said with a frown.

  “Easier at the anonymous?” Hither asked.

  Atom nodded.

  “I’ve been toyin’ wiff some t’oughts on tha matter,” Byron said in a chipper tone. “That darl’s whirled me gig.”

  “Spill,” Atom sat up, curiosity driving the headache to the background.

  “Couple options, to slip in prison we need a way to skip-trip facials.” Byron flashed his cocky, half-smirk. “Meanin’ we flip yer face or ghost yer face.”

  The others stared at him, waiting for the scheme to emerge.

  Byron relished the theatrics a moment longer than necessary. “We could reconfigure wiff the medoc, that would alter yer features ‘nough to slip past scans. Then we cook a new ident to match the face.

  “On the dark side.” Byron leaned closer. “Remember that gear the Astral Points fused ta their spines? I’ve been toyin’ wiff it.”

  Before Atom could reply, the lights of the hall gave a slow flicker, like a landing pad strobe. A hush fell over the crowded room as everyone turned their attention to the unlit stage. Svitać hustled up the side stairs and out into the center where a floating spotlight caught him.

  “Folks, we have a few minutes until the show starts,” he said as he squinted into the light. “If anyone wants eats or drinks for the first act, now’s the time. Once the lights’ve dropped the players have asked that we stay sittin’ down. I think there’s to be some action out ‘mongst us. So, keep the kits out of the main aisle.”

  Svitać bobbed his head and trotted down to resume his post at the bar. A low murmur arose from the townsfolk as they waited. A few souls trotted up for last-minute refreshments and returned to their seats.

  Then, Atom watched the lights fall and silence follow suit.

  For a moment, the tavern sat shrouded in a darkness only broken by the dim lights behind Svitać’s bar. Then a faint aura rose on the stage like the predawn light of a cloudy morn.

  The stage remained empty, but a flicker of fog seeped along the floor.

  A haunting wooden flute broke the silence. For a few measures the flute danced and settled the audience back in their seats, weighing heavily on their spirits. Then pipes skirled in, jerking Atom alive with fear and passion.

  His hand crept to his pistol.

  Shaking his head to clear his senses, Atom leaned forward in his seat and watched a stout actor appear in the center of the stage.

  Standing motionless, the player let his eyes wander over the audience with intense scrutiny. A line divided his face into smiling black and groaning white.

  He gathered himself, drawing up to his full, short stature. “Knucklers,” he began in a deep, attention drawing baritone. “The Globe Players present The Seven Samurai of Verona, a tale from the lost dark of time before time. We tantalize with a tale set in the mythos of our people’s storied past.”

  “What’s a samooray?” Shi whispered as she dropped into her seat and turned her rapt eyes to the stage.

  Atom shrugged.

  “Our story is one of good versus evil; of tragedy and romance; of unselfish sacrifice and death.” The man paused, leaned forward, and craned his neck to sweep the audience with a hard stare. “In a time of distant strife, a small village lay besieged by vicious demons that terrorized the humble peasants, stealing their food, and even snatching the odd wayward child.”

  The man grinned down at a young boy in the front row, causing his mother to clutch him close.

  “What recourse had these poor folk on the frontier of their kingdom?” The thespian stepped back from the edge of the stage and threw his arms wide. “What choice had they, but to fight or die? But did they fight with sword and arrow? No, these weak peasants chose to fight with their minds . . . their minds and their food.

  “Because, remember this if nothing else today, it’s not always what you can do, but who you know.

  “I set the scene as two of the common-folk have left their homes and traveled to a distant city in search of brave warriors to protect them from the demon-spawn that plague their people. In fair Verona, at a poor inn, these two farmers begin their journey to greatness.”

  The lights dropped.

  Atom looked around, suspicion crawling beneath his skin. Then, with a hiccup of a holo-projector a busy street appeared behind two men hunched over wooden mugs at a rough-hewn table. Atom shrugged and turned his attention back to the scene and studied the actors as they stared into their drinks with the dejection of the damned.

  Clambering from her seat in silence, Margo bypassed Daisy’s lap to drop in the cradle formed by Atom’s crossed legs.

  “Wherever shall we find salvation?” one of the actors wailed, throwing his hand to his face as he over-acted the measure of despair plaguing his soul. “Five days we have dwelled in this wretched hovel in the hopes that our savior might happen by.”

  Margo snuggled into Atom’s chest, enraptured by the players.

  The back door flew open with a bang. Several yelps skittered from the audience as heads jerked to follow the course of a rugged swordsman. Margo gripped Atom’s collar and stood with concern on her face, watching the man saunter through the dimmed audience only to hop up onto the stage with graceful ease.

  The man nodded to the two sitting at the table and walked over to the bar, where he ordered a drink with the flip of a coin.

  “What of him?” one of the farmers asked in a stage whisper.

  “Look at his coat.” His companion pointed out the newcomer’s ragged brown coat. “He can’t be good with a sword if he can’t afford better duds than that.”

  Margo looked down at Atom’s coat, gripped tight in her tiny hand, and then back to the stage in confusion. The others glanced over to see Atom’s reaction to the actor and stage and his uncanny resemblance to their captain.

  Atom cradled Margo to his chest and studied the scene with furrowed brow.

  A well-dressed dandy waltzed in from the crowded street upstage, one hand on a flashy rapier and the other holding a handkerchief to his nose. “I was told there were gentlemen here in search of warriors,” he declared to the audience.

  “Dos bokes,” the mother-clutched boy yelled from the front row.

  “These men?” the dandy played to the audience.

  “Yep.” The boy beamed despite his mother’s attempts to rein him in.

  “But they look so….” His dramatic pause drew a rippling chuckle from the audience. “Poor.

  “Surely you must be mistaken, my good lad,” he continued speaking to the audience. “These cannot be the benefactors in search of a swordsman of my caliber.” The dandy shrugged and pranced on his toes back to the table.

  “Good day to you, gentlefolk. I am Indigo Skapulette,” he said to the farmers with a flourishing bow. “I am the greatest swordsman who ever lived.”

  The two peasants stared up at the
newcomer in awe.

  “I hear you are in search of swordsmen for a worthy cause.” Indigo turned downstage with a jaunty toss of his head. “For the right price, you may purchase my blade to take part in your crusade of justice.”

  “How do we know you are any good?” the first farmer asked.

  “Is my name not enough?”

  “I’ve never heard of you before.” The second farmer’s timid reply brought a look of disdain from the swordsman.

  “You, there.” Indigo turned from the table and verbally accosted the brown-coated man leaning on the bar, lost in his own world of thought. For a moment he remained aloof, unaware that words flew in his direction.

  “I say, good man.” Indigo crossed to the bar and made to slap the rough man’s shoulder. “Would you care to—”

  Before his hand landed, the mute stranger flipped out an arm and deflected the descending blow. Indigo lost balance, but shifted a foot to steady himself. He studied the man’s back.

  “Would you care to spar? A demonstration of skill for these gentlemen?” he said, straightening the ruffles of his fine, white shirt.

  “Nope.” The man drank deep from his wooden mug.

  “It would just be a quick bout, a demonstration.” Indigo stuck up his nose in disdain. “A mere showcasing of my skills for my future employers….”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the brown-coated player spun into a well-choreographed dance/fight sequence. Atom watched with fascination as the pair tumbled and leaped about the stage with flashing swords and acrobatic martial arts.

  Atom lost himself in the story.

  ***

  As the stage-lights dropped and the tavern lights flickered back to life, Daisy turned to Atom with a puzzled expression etched across his dark face. “Should we be worried?” he asked.

  “About what?” Atom slipped Margo from his lap and watched as she wandered over to a group of children who had congregated in the center aisle of the ad-hoc theater. “Do you think that’s somehow supposed to be us? I see what you’re saying with the brown coat and masterful skills of death, but we don’t use swords.

  “Closest I’ve come to that was Shi’s friend back on Oligump.” He rose from his metal seat and stretched his back. “But there wasn’t any real fighting with that, unless you count the grass Margo cut.”