The Backworlds (9 page)
The time approached when Craze was
to meet Gattar. He entered the building with the half-open door. Rotting carpet
curled up from the floor, peeling wallpaper in faded pink exposed crumbling
gray walls, a sour odor permeated the dim corridors, and the structure groaned
with each puff of breeze. Otherwise, the place remained as silent as a tavern
at sunup. He labored up two flights of stairs, the treads worn unevenly from
use, and knocked on the room number the Jix had given him.
She cracked the door, widening it
just enough to yank him inside. “Good, you on time.”
The room was no better than the
hallway, harboring a forgotten past, an era before the war with the Foreworlds.
Craze figured by the broken, splintering furniture, the building was at least
that old. Shades of lackluster pink tinted the walls, floor, ceiling, and
fixtures, like someone once had a fetish and no one ever dared to argue.
Craze squirmed out of Gattar’s
grasp, straightening his shirt. He handed her back the tab she’d given him in
the alley earlier. “You said I have a lot to learn. Let’s get to it.”
He didn’t want to renew their
lustful play, not so brave at this point about discovering what exactly the Jix
was under the silver romper. Besides, it was unnecessary. The Jix had gone too
far to dissolve their agreement.
“I hope there’ll be time for other
things.” Her lips brushed perilously close to his. “Depends on just how naive
you is as to how long it’ll take to teach you your part.”
He’d act plenty stupid then,
suddenly feeling the need for a bath. “I’ve never done
anythin
’
like this before ‘n I’m not exactly sure what this is we
doin
’.”
“We moving goods. That’s all. We
pay the sellers, they give us the codes of the crates. We take the crates. I
give you your cut ‘n we go our separate ways.”
The scenario worked for Craze,
especially the last part. “What’s my cut?”
“Twenty thousand chips. That’s a
whole lot of fortune.”
Not enough to buy two bars of
chocolate, and less than one percent of the haul. Awful pay. Craze bit his lip
not to grumble. Gattar would be suspicious if he proved he knew the value of
things. “Wow. So, what do I do?”
“We go to where the folks we met in
the bar want to rendezvous. You go in with the chips ‘n set the case on the
floor. There’ll be an
X
‘n an
O
. You put the money on the
X
‘n go back to the
O
.”
Mr. Slade’s Emporium was the
meeting place then. No doubt remained. He’d deduced correctly, making him want
to whoop at the top of his lungs. He swallowed the triumph, so as not to risk
this chance at great riches. No telling when or if another would come along.
“You wait there,” the Jix
continued. “They’ll take the money ‘n put down some crates. A few moments
later, they’ll give you the codes. We test them, check the goods, then we move
the crates. I pay you. You go away.”
Craze sure hoped Lepsi and Talos
would have everything ready in time, and he hoped they wouldn’t double cross
him. Nah, they were too grateful for the propellant injector for their ship.
They’d made him crew. They’d be true to their word. So Craze kept telling
himself. “Doesn’t sound too complicated.”
“But if you do it wrong, they’ll
shoot you.”
There was the rub. He’d be the one
on the firing line. “I see.”
“Still up for this?”
“Twenty thousand is a lot of
chips.” Craze grinned as if the amount really excited him. In a way it did. It
was more than Bast had given him. “So, yes.”
“Good.”
Gattar sauntered close, running her
fingers over his chest, getting too friendly, reaching for his exposed skin.
Craze really didn’t want to go there with the Jix. Really, really didn’t want
to. He twisted and wiggled to keep her touch on his clothes, checking the hour
on a pink clock on a tilting table. Three and a half hours until the
rendezvous, an eternity to do what she hinted at, and several times over at a
languid pace. Shit.
“Show me again exactly how to walk
into the place ‘n hold the case of chips. I don’t want to get shot.” Normally,
he hated acting so stupid, but not in this situation.
At an hour when the city lay motionless,
poised in suspension until the sun rose again, Craze stood inside Mr. Slade’s
Emporium. The front door was now unsealed, and a case filled with chips was in
his hand. The money weighed a lot, threatening to make him walk lopsided. He
resisted, striving to regain the dignity Bast and the council had robbed him of
on Siegna.
He set the burdened attaché down on
the enormous
X
on the floor. Nothing in the
lobby had changed from his earlier visit except for the sacks of rice piled
beside some trash on a shelf. Craze noted a piece of vine beside the sacks, a
signal from the aviarmen that the clear filament was attached, holding the jar
of pickled
snoink
at the fourth floor above the
magnet and pulley system the smugglers had installed. He chanced glancing up,
relieved not to see the shine of glass from the jar. The aviars must have
painted it black as they had planned.
Although he was glad to know Talos
and Lepsi had everything in place, Craze’s shoulders didn’t unclench and his
steps came off stiff as he lumbered to the
O
taped out a good twenty feet away. He stood mute in its center. A low hum
disturbed the heavy quiet. The case shot up. A loud clang thundered through the
empty building.
The magnet. Craze looked up,
studying every shadow for movement, but he couldn’t detect the mystery folks.
There had to be at least one above him to get the attaché of chips off the
powerful magnet. Where were the others and how many? Another wild card in
tonight’s scheme. He opened his ears wide to learn all he could, hoping the
aviars had discovered more
intel
on the smugglers.
Another clunk disturbed the
darkness. The hum stopped, replaced by the roaring engine of a generator. The
pulleys lurched, squeaking as they turned. Craze spied a cube swinging above
him. Light leaking in from the lamps outside weakly glinted off the large hook
and chains. Gyrating like a pendulum, a pallet of crates groaned toward the
floor, landing with a solid
thunk
.
As commanded by the smugglers,
Craze kept his hands visible and his mouth shut. He stretched his fingers wide
apart, knowing the aviarmen watched for his signals, subtle motions they’d
worked out earlier.
Excitement trembled through Craze’s
knees as he approached the pallet. His fingers shook unhooking it from the line
that had lowered it. The symbols on the crates were strange, not anything Craze
had seen before. A white circle with four thick red lines. He’d heard about it
though. It marked the Foreworlds.
Shit. The worse situation he’d
imagined could be possible. Like chocolate, frizzers only came from the
Foreworlds. Backworlders wouldn’t touch the cruel weapons that burned the skin
and calcified bone. Horrid, horrid things. It bothered him that some
Backworlders wanted those guns, and would stoop to using them. That went beyond
dastardly to traitorous.
He wanted to signal the aviarmen
now, his first two fingers snuggled tight against his thumbs, to call in the
authorities, but it was too soon. The smugglers hadn’t sent the codes. He
hadn’t gotten his hands on the chocolate. He desperately needed a return on his
investments in this venture. Just one sack full of chocolate would help him and
the aviars establish a great life out on the Edge.
Codes flashed in light on the
floor. Craze punched the icons and numbers into the keypad on the first crate.
The carton slid open with a soft whoosh. He placed the gum from his mouth over
the latching mechanism to prevent it from resealing. The door opened and shut
in a loop as it hit the sticky obstruction. Craze wiggled his left index and
middle fingers for the aviarmen. The response came almost instantly.
Eptus
streamed in from above, where they’d been hiding on the fourth floor. Square
torsos with powerful limbs, they moved more agilely than their frames
suggested. Enormous ears pivoted on their heads, which were canine in nature.
So were their noses. Barking and shooting flash guns, they descended into Mr.
Slade’s Emporium.
Craze covered his eyes against the
blinding weapon fire. Stumbling, he grabbed onto the crate for balance. He
missed. His hand sank into the chocolates, coming up with a frizzer. Craze
yelped. The
Eptus
shot all around him, too close to
be trusted. He dropped the forbidden gun and ran toward the shelf with the
rice, slashing at the sacks with his fingernails.
The grains spilled out, falling to
the floor as they depleted the sacks of their ballast in a rush. The bags
lightened, and the jar of pickled
snoink
pulled them
up off the shelf. The jar sank until the heavy glass hit the magnet switch and
broke with a crack then a tinkle. Blackened shards, feet and tails, and pickle
juice rained down, inciting the
Eptus
into a rage.
They fought each other to snap up the brined morsels, grabbing, shoving,
biting, swallowing without chewing.
The chocolates flew up, their metal
foil wrappings attracted to the magnetic field. The layer of chocolate bars was
thinner than Craze would have liked, but as few as thirty bars would allow him
to recover the money he had spent and make a decent profit to share with Talos
and Lepsi.
While the
Eptus
busied themselves vying for pickled feet and tails, Craze scrambled for the
stairs. Two people draped in black stood under the pulley system holding a bag
under the magnet. They turned off the power, chocolates dropped into their
sack. The dark figures snatched up the few bars that escaped onto the floor,
then their palms faced Craze, open and pale. They clenched their hands into
fists three times before running down to the second floor and into the deep
shadows. Craze sure hoped the chocolate takers were Talos and Lepsi. Their
signals said so, but their mimicking of the smugglers was spot-on enough to
stir up doubt.
He chased after them, his coveralls
working hard, his lungs laboring in air not as enriched as Siegna’s. Eyelids
fluttering and thoughts slowing down, his body threatened to hibernate. To
avoid it, he had to slacken his pace, letting the distance between him and the
chocolate grow. It worked, his lungs filled more easily and he no longer felt
an overwhelming urge to sleep.
Seven seconds later, the patrol
siren blasted through Mr. Slade’s Emporium. Much too early. They hadn’t made it
out of the building yet. Craze shouted at the aviars, gesturing wildly to cut
the blaring horn. They didn’t hear and didn’t see, racing toward the room with
the window leading to the balcony next door.
Craze sprinted after them, a good
twenty feet behind. He leapt out of the window and onto the plank, shimmying
over to the restaurant terrace. About to jump over to the deli, he was stopped
in mid-air. Three pairs of hands pulled him back, then inside the abandoned
diner, handcuffing him to a pipe.
Several badges flashed past Craze.
Blinking red and blue lights joined the sirens. The earlier alarm hadn’t come
from the toy Craze purchased at
Must Have Gear for
the Edge
. It had come from real patrollers. Swarms of them swathed in
lime green.
The brightly colored uniforms ran
past him, intent on Mr. Slade’s Emporium, pouring through every door and
window, raiding the failed deal.
Eptus
howled.
Amplified patroller voices barked orders. Craze wondered about Gattar and the
mystery folks in black. Had they gotten away? He doubted the Jix would pay him
now and tugged at his binds. They and the pipe held solid. Shit.
Five patrollers swaggered up to
Craze when the noise died down. They freed him from the pipe, herded him
downstairs and over to Mr. Slade’s, jabbing and shoving until Craze was
surrounded by
Eptus
. Some of them growled, low and
steadfast, giving Craze a headache. He didn’t see the aviars, the Jix, or the
people in black.
All of the crates were upended.
Patrollers quickly counted and secured the frizzers, glaring at Craze and the
Eptus
as they did. The only worse crimes than possessing
frizzers on the Backworlds were using them, and betraying fellow Backworlders
to the Foreworlders.
Craze was pissed the Jix had left
him to deal with the authorities alone, but relieved the aviars got away. Part
of him clung to a small hope they’d come after him and break him out of
patroller custody, but dammitall, if his own father had abandoned him, then a
couple of dudes who were little better than strangers probably would, too. He’d
have to get out of this mess using his wits, and watched his opportunity
approach.
A group of squat patrollers
swaggered across Mr. Slade’s lobby and came to stand before Craze. None of them
rose higher than four foot six inches. They all had wide, powerful frames, and
long silky hair. All but one of the six were dressed in green. The oddball wore
brown, layers and layers of brown.
The lead patroller sniffed at
Craze. “You Verkinn nutty. I don’t like when you come over here. You best stay
over on Siegna.”
Great idea. “I’d be happy to
leave.” Craze doubted escape would be so easy.
The patroller put his hands on his
hips, pursing his lips. “This is serious trouble, boy.”
Nope, freedom wouldn’t come simply.
Craze resisted sighing, concentrating on the patroller’s words, seeking an
opening to poke wider that would land him at the docks and on the
aviarmen’s
ship.
