by N M Tatum
Sam kicked his dusty boot and shouted, “Benny!”
The man startled and snorted. “What the sweet Christmas?” He adjusted his glasses and leaned in closer to get a look at Sam. “Huh, wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“Wasn’t expecting to be seen, Benny,” Sam said. She motioned toward the gate. “You mind letting us through?”
Benny stood from his stool and stretched his back, pushing his sizable gut out like a trophy. “Come to think of it, I assumed you was dead. Not many who can piss on Bruiser’s breakfast cereal the way you did and walk away.”
Cody’s face turned green. Reggie leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “It’s a metaphor.” That didn’t help the image which was now already in Cody’s mind.
Sam shrugged. “Well, guess I’m one of the lucky few.” She gestured toward the gate again.
“Yeah, yeah,” Benny said as he pulled a tangled wad of keys from his pocket. “Just give me a sec.” He flipped through each key, unsuccessfully testing them in the lock. Joel tasted blood as he bit his tongue. “Here we go,” Benny said, finally finding the correct key. The gate squealed as it opened. “Soon as he learns you’re back, he’s bound to come looking for you. Last guy who crossed him don’t have arms no more. Unrelated, but disconcerting just the same. Enjoy your time on Torex.”
Sam nodded to Benny, her eyes lighting up like he was an old man in a grocery store who mistook her for his granddaughter. The Notches followed her through the gate.
Seeing how they were alone, Joel figured it was okay to speak.
“So—”
“No,” Sam said, cutting him off.
“But—”
Sam spun and grabbed Joel’s collar. She pulled him close, bringing him almost nose to nose with her. “I said no.”
Joel swallowed hard and said nothing.
She let him go and led the way across the desert.
He mouthed, “What the hell?” to Reggie.
Reggie just shrugged and mouthed, “No idea.”
The airfield was surrounded by a small stretch of piss-colored desert, one-hundred yards across. Bordering the desert opposite the airfield was the marketplace. Or one of the marketplaces, anyway. There were hundreds scattered across the planet, but this was the big one. That was why they called it “Mother Lode.” It acted as a hub for all the other markets. When goods couldn’t be found elsewhere, the requests were sent to Mother Lode. The desired items were then located, shipped from the Mother Lode to the buyer.
Mother Lode was a tent city. Miles of canvas stretched over ramshackle booths and husks of dead ships that were used as storefronts. People raced down pathways on mechs and boosters like they were busy city streets. There was a rhythm to the place, a beat that made it feel alive.
The Notches continued following in silence, giving Sam a wide enough berth to accommodate her crankiness, but not so wide that they lost her in the crowd. The swarms of people were terrifying, both in appearance and attitude. It was a crowd of Meatballs and Sams—battle-hardened warriors and killers. They held nothing back, offered no pretense. The guys witnessed three fights, one stabbing, and an all-out brawl that appeared to have grown out of the disputed ownership of a pair of goats. They also saw one guy on the losing end of a duel get vaporized. And that was all within the first ten minutes.
So distracted were the guys by the action and the constant vigilance it took to survive the walk through the market that they didn’t notice Sam had stopped and stood facing them. They slammed on the brakes and collided with each other.
“Stay here,” she said.
Reggie scanned the area. “Here? But here is so exposed. Can’t we wait somewhere else?”
Sam pointed over her shoulder to a crumbling booth behind her. “I’m going to talk to that guy. Should be no more than five minutes. Stay here where I can see you.”
Joel scoffed. “Okay, Mom.”
Cody slapped his hand over his mouth and wished he could take part in the brawl for the goats rather than stand next to Joel.
Sam stepped up close to Joel, giving him the same punishing stare as before. He shrank under her gaze. Unaffected, she turned away from him without saying anything. As she walked toward the booth, she called to them, “Five minutes. Try to stay alive for five minutes.”
Before Sam had even reached the man at the booth, Reggie had wandered off.
Chapter Seventeen
Mother Lode, Torex
“I thought I was the irresponsible one,” Joel said as he and Cody scanned the market, trying to see through the crowd to pick out Reggie.
“You definitely are,” Cody agreed. “This isn’t like Reggie. Maybe he’s been kidnapped. Or stabbed. Or sold into slavery and he’s being forced to work the mines. He’ll get black lung, wither away, and die a painful, horrible death.”
Joel put a hand up to signal Cody to calm down. “He’s been gone two minutes. I don’t think he’s got black lung already. Jesus, and I thought Reggie was dramatic.”
They spun in circles, rooted in place and refusing to move for fear of Sam’s wrath. After a long three minutes of searching, they had all but given up hope of seeing their friend again.
Then Cody said, “There. By that booth at the edge of the market.”
With a clear destination, they felt it safe to move from the designated spot. They traversed as gingerly as they could through the crowd, careful not to touch anyone or make eye contact or get stabbed.
“Dude,” Joel said, grabbing Reggie’s wrist as they reached him. “What the hell? You trying to get killed? Or, worse, get Sam mad at us?”
Reggie didn’t seem to hear him. He didn’t even seem to be on the same planet. His face was plastered with a dumbstruck smile like he was staring into the face of an angel.
Joel waved his hand in front of Reggie’s face, trying again to get his attention.
“Hello? Anybody home in—?” Before Joel could finish his question, his attention was grabbed by the throat by a booth. It was directly behind Reggie and covered in trinkets and tech gadgets and small parts that Joel’s mind was already combining into big things.
“Well, hello there, beautiful,” he said to the rows of gizmos as he wandered over to the table, seemingly forgetting about Sam’s stern instructions.
Cody watched Joel walk away. Bemused, he looked at Reggie, still frozen in some sort of awestruck spell. “What the hell? Am I the only rational one here?” He stepped into Reggie’s line of sight and snapped his fingers in his friend’s face. “Reggie, what’s gotten into you?”
Reggie stepped around him, toward the booth, as if in a daze. He kneeled down and picked up something small. Cody had yet to actually look at what had stolen Reggie’s attention. He’d tried to avoid looking at anything directly in the marketplace. He wanted to remain perfectly still and quiet and unseen until Sam returned. However, he wasn’t so passive after he saw what had Reggie so enamored.
A fuzzy little creature nuzzled against the inside of Reggie’s elbow as he cradled it. The animal looked like what one might get if they took a bunny and a kitten and a puppy and a shitload of other cute things, tossed them in a basket, shook it up, and dumped out one single sickeningly adorable animal.
Reggie scratched it under its chin and spoke to it in a high-pitched, baby talk voice. “Who’s the cutest guy in all the universe? That’s right, it’s you.”
Cody wasn’t fooled. He knew exactly what the creature was.
“No way,” he said, plucking the creature from Reggie’s arms. “Nope, nope, nope.”
“Bingo,” Reggie said, longingly reaching for the creature.
Cody shoved his hand into Reggie’s chest, keeping him separated from the animal. “You have no clue with this thing is, do you?”
“His name is Bingo.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cody snapped. Like it was radioactive, he set the creature back in the small pen on the counter of the booth. “It’s a chinchutakes. They were bred to be companions, the adorable little
pet you think it is. But they ended up being one of the worst mistakes ever. They multiply at an insanely fast rate. Two becomes two hundred in a matter of days. Some stupid kid buys one at a county fair, brings it home, then the one chinchutakes becomes two, which becomes four, and soon they eat through the floorboards and dig into the foundation. Two days later, the entire neighborhood is a wasteland.” He grabbed Reggie by the chin and forcibly looked him in the eye. “They are a plague.”
Sadness colored Reggie’s face a pale pink. He looked at the chinchutakes like it was the puppy he had when he was four, as if he’d already created a lifelong bond with it. Like he would never find a more meaningful relationship.
“Fuck that thing.” Cody grabbed Reggie by the shoulder and steered him away from the booth.
He stopped abruptly, a wave of panic hitting him in the gut.
“Where the hell is Joel?” He ran to the table of trinkets where Joel had been moments ago. He was about to ask the owner of the booth if he knew where Joel went, but he saw the state of the man’s teeth—namely that he had none, just swollen, bloody gums—and decided he would rather not vomit. He scanned the surrounding booths, hoping Joel wasn’t stupid enough to wander out of eyesight.
Fortunately, Joel wasn’t as stupid as Cody feared. They spotted him at a booth a few stalls back from them, along the edge of the desert. Cody couldn’t make out much through the crowd and other vendors, but he could see animals in cages.
“Great,” Cody said to himself. “Everyone wants a pet today.”
He pulled Reggie by the wrist, away from the chinchutakes booth. He was mindful of his frustration, making sure it didn’t cause him to do something as equally brash as the others and draw unwanted attention and stabbings.
“Dude,” he said at Joel’s back. “Am I the only one who doesn’t want to die on this planet?”
Joel jumped at the sound of Cody’s voice. He scrambled like he’d dropped something then turned to face Cody. His face was flushed, and sweat had formed on his brow.
“Don’t sneak up on me, creep.”
“What the hell has gotten into you guys?” Cody used his shirt to wipe the dust off his glasses. “We weren’t supposed to move from that spot. Five minutes. We just needed to not fuck anything up for five minutes. Let’s go.”
He led the way back through the crowd, toward Sam. They closed the distance, but stood a few feet from her back and said nothing. She seemed to be embroiled in some testy negotiations.
“Fuck you, Trevor.” Sam slammed her fist on the counter of Trevor’s booth, overturning some cheap looking trinkets. “Tell me where he is, or I trash your stall.”
Trevor leaned back and smiled. He was tall, skinny, and looked like he was barely out of puberty. He swaggered with the confidence of a teenager, that sense of untouchability.
“Go ahead,” he told her. “But I don’t think my customers will appreciate you interfering in their regular day-to-day. They got needs. If I can’t fulfill them, they get angry.”
“That’s your problem,” Sam said.
“Not when I tell them who smashed up my shit.” Trevor chuckled as he took a palm-sized communicator out of his pocket. “Actually, come to think of it, I know someone in particular who will be madder than hell about you taking out my inventory. Maybe I just call the man up right now. Tell him you’ve shown your face around here. Save us both the trouble.”
Sam’s shoulders tensed like she was about to throw a punch. She took a deep breath instead, and the tension dissolved from her muscles. “Don’t go doing that. I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”
Trevor leaned to the side and looked around Sam. He stared straight at the guys, who were apparently not doing as good a job at blending in as they thought. “What ‘we’ are we talking about? You bring a crew?”
Sam spun and locked the guys in her sights. “Son of a bitch.”
“The price just went up,” Trevor said.
“You’re only selling me one map,” she said incredulously. “What does it matter if there are multiple people using it?”
“Call it a product licensing fee,” Trevor said through a shit-eating grin. “Perhaps you’d care to talk it over with your mates there?”
Sam grumbled and cursed under her breath as she walked toward the guys. They each prayed that her anger was reserved for the lowlife she’d been speaking with and not meant for them.
They were as wrong as any people could be, of course, and they knew it.
Joel tried to redirect her malice. “That fucking guy, am I right?” He pointed back at Trevor. “What a tool. Seriously.”
“Shut up,” Sam said. “Five minutes. How hard is it to not move for five minutes? It’s literally doing nothing. I asked you to do nothing.”
“In our defense—” Reggie began.
“No,” she said, cutting him off. “No defense. Don’t want to hear it. Here’s where we’re at. That shitbag over there I was just speaking with is named Trevor.”
“Fucking Trevor,” Joel said, trying one last time to warm the frigid waters. It didn’t work.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sam snapped. “Trevor refuses to tell me where I can find the biggest arms dealer on Torex. Instead, the fucker says he’ll sell me a map that leads to him. Problem is, it costs an ass-load of money. Bigger problem: now that he knows I’ve brought friends, it costs four times an ass-load. It’ll leave us enough to cover the gear, but we’ll be wiped out after that. Running on fumes.”
“So he’s just a middle man?” Reggie asked.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “A middleman we can’t get around. The dealer’s location changes regularly. He gives out maps to a few contacts, and the only way to get your hands on one is through them. Trevor is one of a handful of people on this entire planet who knows how to find the guy we’re looking for, and he’s the closest by far. Not like it’d be cheaper through any of the others, anyway… They’re all looking to make a buck.”
Joel wanted to say something along the lines of ‘Bullshit’ or ‘Fuck Trevor,’ but he didn’t want to risk another of Sam’s death stares. He just grunted in acknowledgment.
“As long as middlemen have leverage, they get paid,” Sam continued. “We need weapons if we plan on continuing this job. Good weapons. The last two rounds of gear shit the bed. We can’t afford to keep replacing our stuff. Spend the money on quality gear, and it will pay off in the end.”
The guys stared at each other, looking for signs of affirmation or disapproval on their faces, each of them still too frightened to speak. They finally nodded.
Sam walked back to Trevor.
“Give me the map, you piece of shit.” She smacked some knickknacks off the table and added, “Fuckhead.”
“Not that your charming personality ain’t enough,” Trevor said, “but I’m gonna need to see that cash first.”
Sam turned and nodded to Cody, who transferred the credits through his wristcom.
Trevor watched the readout of his account balance. When the money registered, his shit-eating grin spread so wide, it looked like it might wrap around his head. “Beautiful,” he purred. “Here you go. Bruiser will be mighty surprised to see you. Almost wish I could be there to see it.”
Sam snatched the map out of his hand. “I hope you die, Trevor.” She marched away from the stall, shoving her way through the crowd.
The guys hustled after her, hoping they wouldn’t be harmed by the mob of pissed off people she left in her wake.
They exited Mother Lode and stopped in the stretch of desert to examine the map. Sam handed it to Cody so he could compare it with maps from his wristcom, and get a better sense of where they were going. Cody gripped the map with his thumb and forefinger, trying to touch as little of it as possible. It was crumpled and discolored and smelled like it had been used as toilet paper.
He pulled up a topographic map of Torex, which showed the old mining layout. He compared the landmarks on those to the ones on the shit-paper map and found a location. “
He’s underground, in the old mining tunnels. According to this, there’s a labyrinth of them underneath us.”
“Wait,” Joel said, raising his hand. “Did Trevor say ‘Bruiser’? The same Bruiser who Benny mentioned, along with the armless guy and something about you peeing in breakfast cereal?”
Sam clenched her jaw. “Yeah, Bruiser and I have a history.”
“A bad one, I assume?” Joel said. “Unless the pee cereal is, like, a thing that you two do. Like, a sex thing?”
Sam punched him in the gut.
Joel doubled over and gasped to catch his breath. “Uncool,” he sputtered in broken syllables.
Sam grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him back to his feet. She pulled him close and gestured for the others to move in as well. “I don’t think you guys fully grasp how dangerous this planet is. It’s the most dangerous place you’ve ever set foot on, and Bruiser is the most dangerous man here. I will beat on you all day if that’s the only way it’ll sink in.”
Joel gave a pained thumbs-up. “Loud and clear.”
Sam let him go. “Good. Then let’s get underground. We’ve got weapons to buy.”
Chapter Eighteen
Torex
The hydrogen sulfide and whatever other subterranean gases existed on Torex came spewing out of the derelict mineshaft like it was a giant butthole. Cody got caught with his mouth open as Torex farted in his face, and he promptly puked all over the piss-stained sand.
“I’m not going in there,” he decided as he wiped his mouth.
“You want to stay up here by yourself?” Sam asked. “Do I have to give my ‘super dangerous planet’ speech again?”
Cody looked at the shaft opening like it was the mouth of a giant monster, ready to swallow them. “Is it going to smell like that the entire time?”
“Is that why you wear the respirator?” Joel asked.
He flinched when Sam looked at him. Anxious to avoid her increasing hostility, he walked toward the entrance to the underground.