Chapter 2
Tracking the drug dealer was a lot harder without Ed, but in the end, the usual method of asking street goers and showing pictures led Jet to Bestow, one of the smaller Venusian floating colonies but the largest producer of the disease causing spores. The rock was really one big botanical garden surrounded by little villages of vacation cottages for the overstressed financial tycoon.
For the first time since the incident, Jet was positive people were staring at his clothes rather than his arm. Everyone around him was either a socialite or someone from the upper middle class that ran the tourist attractions. He stuck out like the Bebop in a yachting dock.
The tourist bureau told him nothing he needed to know. There were, in fact, poppies growing in the botanical garden but they weren't the right kind to make narcotics. Still, not ready to give up, Jet headed out to check the flower shops.
~~~
"What's wrong, Faye-Faye?" asked Ed, staring intently at her. Ein gave a whine.
Faye knelt in front of "Tomato", staring at the screen and Spike's name on it. From Edward's point of view, Faye-Faye was staring so hard she could make the screen explode by glaring at it the way she was, looking all grave and serious.
Ed leaned over and stuck her nose close to Faye's so they could see eye to eye in a literal sense. "Nya?" she made a sound offering her concern.
With so much on her mind right now, the last thing Faye needed was the child breaking her concentration. "Poppies," she heard herself say and decided to go along with it. Might as well give the kid a job to do while she assessed the situation. "I'm trying to find a bounty whose growing poppies, Ed," she told the girl, putting on her poker face to hide her discontentment. "See if you can find a place on this planet where someone can grow a lot."
Ed beamed and gave her a backwards salute. Faye moved aside and allowed Radical Edward to crawl back to her computer on all fours, chanting "poppies, floppies, copies" while she accessed the search engine.
With the kid sufficiently distracted, Faye headed over to the beaten Red Tail. Although the craft was on its side, she climbed in and leaned against the pilots chair as best she could. Sideways. That's how everything seemed to be right now—not upside down, but getting there.
Surprisingly enough, the assassin went to the back burner of her mind. She wasn't surprised at all to know someone wanted her dead. She tended to, after all, leave a long trail of enemies as she went along her unmerry way. Still, marooned on Earth wasn't the best to be nor the best place to hide, and although she wasn't scared, the thought did agitate her.
The moon disturbed her; there was no running around that thought. That final image of the white orb, seconds before the accident that ruined her, was freshest out of all her memories. Faye hadn't wanted to see that thing again, let along begin thinking of an explanation for its reappearance.
And Spike… Now let's think about this rationally—the hell with that, what kind of a bastard was he!? Alive. He'd been alive these past weeks, and if he was capable of bringing in a bounty he most certainly was capable of calling! So why hadn't he?
Even if he'd intended to leave the Bebop, he should have at least had the decency to tell them so. He could've at least written for his belongings. He could've at least asked the ISSP officers at the YMCA post to tell Jet he was all right. He could've at least done something…anything…
It seemed like the wall she'd erected when he'd left had finally crashed under the full weight of the hell she'd been through. She still didn't know why she'd been so depressed about him. They hadn't been close—but then again they'd been connected.
They had, whether by purpose or on accident, found out each other's secrets. She'd found out about Vicious--although their situation still confused her--and about Julia. Spike had eavesdropped on her, opened her mail, and ended up knowing more about her than she'd have consciously shared. But in the end, where had that gotten them? They'd both had too many problems to worry about the other's, and yet in the end… in the end….
Faye needed a cigarette. What she really wanted was beer; something she could feel killing her brain cells so she wouldn't have to think any more. She didn't have any alcohol so she settled for satisfying the first craving. Taking a cigarette out of her jacket pocket, she placed it between her lips, lit it, and tried to loose her troubles in the relaxing smoke.
A whine from Einstein interrupted her long deserved peaceful moment. Faye looked down into the face of the corgi, and he stared back with an anxious expression one wouldn't expect on a dog. She glared at him for a moment, feeling like the mutt had her on trial all of a sudden.
She found herself staring at the smoking cigarette between her fingers. It was her last, or rather, the last of Spike's that she'd taken. She couldn't remember why she'd stolen his stash, or what her thoughts were at the time. Faye just assumed she'd been angry at him for his idiotic, testosterone driven suicide and wanted a little revenge. Now it just felt wrong.
Still, it was the last one and she'd left without her own pack. She set the cigarette back between her lips and slowly smoked the rest of it before extinguishing the butt on the side of the Red Tail.
"Come on, Ed," she shouted, grabbing the girl by the collar and dragging her in the direction of the ocean. "We need to find a transport off this rock."
Edward made one of her confused sounds and Ein trotted behind them, barking happily. "Where going to?" asked Ed.
"Mars."
"Faye-Faye is not going after bounty?"
"I can't right now, I'm out of cigarettes."
~~~~
Jet ended up at a little shop near the edge of the colony, settled in a busy shopping district full of places that sold various souvenirs but nothing of real use. It didn't have a name as much as a label, with a sign saying "Classic Oriental Flower Arrangement" over a green painted door.
There were no customers in the place, and the windows were so full of flower displays that the miniature jungle blocked off light to the rest of the room. But despite the dimness, the girl at the cash resister wore tinted glasses. She stared at Jet over the rim of them as he walked to the counter.
"Excuse me," he began, pulling out the mug shot of Yolan Davis, the opium dealer and latest target. "Has this man been in your store?"
The girl stared at him without expression for a moment, then leaned over to look at the photo. "Yeah…" she replied slowly. "Came in last week. Bought daises."
"Daises?" Jet reiterated.
She shrugged and settled back to her stool, picking up the paper she'd been reading before his interruption. "Well I don't know; it was some kind of yellow flower."
Jet noted that this girl didn't talk like the rest of the people he'd run into in Venus's upper circle. She seemed unconcerned with how bored she sounded, no matter if it was impolite or not. She talked normally, like the people he was used to, and Jet figured she probably hadn't grown up in the colonies. She probably wasn't even from Venus, judging by the turtleneck shirt she wore on a planet notoriously hot and humid.
"Are there any sales records you can check?" he asked her, eyeing the antique register and wondering if it did anything actually useful.
She shook her head. "Paid cash, I remember that," she told him, then lowered her newspaper a little as she recollected. "In fact, he bought out our stock of those flowers plus a bunch of seeds. Don't know how he afforded it though—dressed like a hobo."
Jet scratched the side of his head. This was the best lead so far, and obviously the source of the poppies, but he didn't want to stay on Venus any longer than he had to. "Is there any record of the receipt? I need to know what he bought exactly."
The girl set down her paper and smirked, reminding Jet of the face Faye made when she won a hand of cards. "That's mighty nosy of you, Cowboy," she said, then picked up the paper once more, previous expression returning to her face. "And a mighty inconvenience. Not only are our records off limits to the public, they're filed by yours truly and therefore a complete mess."
"I'd of course compensate you for your trouble," Jet pressed, hoping a teenager wouldn't ask for too much.
She laughed a little, not looking up. "This is Venus, Mr. Lone Ranger. Bribes are a small bounty." She smiled to herself and put all her attention to her newspaper, dismissing Jet altogether. But when she turned the page, her mouth dropped open and her eyes were—probably, he couldn't really see—wide behind the shades. "But maybe there is something you could pay me with.."
Jet arched an eyebrow, skeptical about this girl's sudden change of heart. "What's that?" he asked carefully, moving over to the counter to try and peek at newspaper article she'd reacted to.
The girl quickly folded the paper and, taking off her glasses, shot him a glare. But as soon as she achieved eye contact, Jet felt strange, almost sick to his stomach and light headed. A smoky fragrance he hadn't noticed before filled the air like old, bitter perfume, and he found himself unable to blink or look away from the child's eyes.
Something was definitely wrong with this girl.
She continued to stare at him, though him, for several seconds before finally dropping her eyes back to the paper. Instantly Jet felt normal again, and could hardly recall that strange sensation he'd just experienced.
Something must have happened to change her mind, for she unfolded the newspaper and set it down so he could see the article. There was what Jet first thought to be an old picture of the earth and its moon, before the Gate accident, but at closer inspection it seemed he was mistaken. This photo was very recent, for the fragment ring around the earth was unmistakable. Also unmistakable, was the pearly-gray moon floating before its planet.
"I need to get to Earth," said the cashier girl. "Quickly. You have a ship, right? I have information." She smiled at him, kind of aggressively. "I find an exchange of favors much better than currency."
Jet sighed. Transport her to earth? That would probably work out since it was his next stop anyway. It wouldn't really be much trouble to take on another passenger and it would give him the information he needed. Besides, it wasn't like he was adding another moocher to the crew, for her destination seemed rather final.
"All right," he conceded. "Tell me what you know about opium."
~~~~
Finding a transport to Mars was easy, getting to port to reach it was next to impossible. Faye didn't want to just abandon the Red Tail, even though it was now unflyable it was still the one thing she owned and didn't owe money on.
Taking out her communicator, she tried the number of one of Spike's mechanic friends. Once again, the comm. wouldn't dial or make any kind of connection to the local communication system. What was wrong with this thing? Perhaps it had been damaged in the bumpy flight, although it didn't look dented in the least.
She ended up getting Ed to send a request for tow by email, but when they'd waited a half-hour for a reply, things began to go wrong.
It started with the sound of a ship flying overhead, which Faye had ignored and Ed looked sadly at. Ein was barking like crazy. Minutes later, they heard the ship again, flying much lower this time.
"Spike-person!" Ed cried, pointing up. Ein continued to bark, then grabbed Faye's shoe in his mouth and tried to pull her in the Red Tail's direction.
She looked up to see that Edward was very much mistaken. The ship wasn't the Swordfish II, but the same dark blue monocraft that shot her from the sky.
Faye quickly looked left and right, searching for something to inspire some genius method of escape. Rocks, sand, dog, Red Tail, Ed—Ed would have to do. "Where's that remote of yours!?" she demanded, running over and grabbing the kid's shirt. "You have to crash that ship or fly it away or something!"
"Aye!" Ed chirped, wriggling out of Faye's grasp and scurrying to her pile of mechanics. She retrieved the remote, and tumbled on her back with her legs and feet in the air. "Fly away! Fly away!" she aimed the remote at the ship and twisted about in various directions on the sand.
But the ship was holding its course, circling low and coming in for a landing.
"What's wrong?" Faye demanded, searching her jacket for her gun but finding it missing. It must have fallen out in the crash. She ran to the Red Tail, climbing in the cockpit and searching underneath the seat for her weapon. It would be her only chance if—"What the--!?" she was flipping over.
The Red Tail now stood right side up again, though some feat of engineering when the engines started of their own accord—no—of Ed's accord. When Faye regained her sense of equilibrium she saw Edward standing nearby, pointing the remote control at her ship.
"Is not broken!" Ed announced cheerily, referring to her remote. "Ed needs a minute to connect to blue ship." She fluttered over to "Tomato" and began to work. "Blue is behind a firewall! Password…password…"
Faye watched the oblivious girl typing madly as the dark ship hovered in the air a few yards away, extended its landing struts and settled down in the sand. Out of time.
Still unable to locate her gun, she rushed foreword and scooped up Ed and "Tomato" under her arms and made a beeline for the Red Tail, Ein at her heels.
~~~~~
Most people wouldn't trust a cowboy. Making a deal with one would only benefit you half the time, depending on what the Bounty Hunter got out of it and if he was willing to pay. Another person would've waited until they'd reached earth to give Jet the information he'd asked for, but either this girl was especially trusting or she knew that he had at least some morals.
Margaret was her first name, and she refused to mention her last. Jet had assumed her to be around seventeen, sixteen at the youngest, but as it turned out she was fourteen and tall for her age (not to mention that superior look she had which added years to her appearance). She was smart, and knew not only about the flowers she sold but what a person could do with them.
"Opium comes from the Opium Poppy," she explained. "It was pretty popular around the nineteenth and very early twentieth century, but people tended to think pot and other things were more fun—not as bitter you know--and the business pretty much went under. It can kill you pretty easily, and it's extremely addictive." She frowned. "Most people wouldn't think about starting that kind of a business. I mean, there are plenty of drugs you can grow in an alley or a closet, but poppies need to be right out in the open sunlight and they're needs to be a lot to produce anything—not to mention it's the type of flower you got to replant every year. It's got a distinct smell, which is a dead giveaway if you know it. It's not too easy to hide. Yolan is an idiot for trying; too much trouble if you ask me."
Jet nodded and inhaled deeply from his cigarette. He knew he was addicted to nicotine, just like Faye was and Spike had been, just like nearly every officer on the force, just like nearly every bounty hunter in the solar system. Somehow, after hearing about opium, the tobacco tasted better.
"What do you know about Yolan Davis?" he asked her again, now that she seemed to be in the mood to share.
Margaret, sitting on the counter, rested her chin on her hands and smirked. "I told you about opium like you asked," she reminded him. "Extra information means an extra favor."
Jet sighed. Should've known. Just like a female to be so greedy. "What else is it you want?"
She reached out and tapped his false arm, creating a hallow sounding 'pang'. "If that were to break," she asked, "could you repair it? What I mean to ask is how much do you know about cybernetics?"
Jet blinked. Odd question from an odd girl. He would have preferred to keep his arm out of their discourse, but a bit of curiosity forced him to overlook that. "I know enough to handle it."
Margaret scratched the back of her neck while continuing to stare at his shoulder. "Would you be able to disconnect the mechanics without hurting the skin?"
Frowning, Jet extinguished his cigarette. This was a bad conversation. "I could, but I wouldn't."
"Course not. Didn't ask you to," Margaret snapped back, apparently insulted at the insinuation. "What I mean is," she reached up to her turtleneck shirt and pulled down the collar a ways. "Could you disconnect this?"
Coiled around her neck was some kind of device. It looked like a dog collar made from the same metal as Jet's arm, but darker in color and full of ports for wires to plug in to.
"What is that?" he asked, not sure what to make of it.
Her face looked plain but grave, and her stare was icy. Jet wished she'd put those glasses back on, he hated those eyes. "It's a guarantee that I stay right here," she said, tapping the choker. "Until I'm not needed anymore."
~~~~~~
Spike Spiegel walked through the dusty Martian streets, leaning foreword with his hands in his pockets, demeanor unchanged. Anyone looking wouldn't think twice about him, for he appeared light on his feet and unchallenged by the weight of the solar system.
In reality, Spike had much on his mind. But for almost three weeks now he'd been without a real place to sit back and order his thoughts. For the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, he didn't know what to do next.
Turning off the side streets and onto the main road, he began to observe a change in pedestrian traffic. People of all sorts were heading in the same direction he was, up the street and into the center of town. Venders were leaving their stands and grubby looking children raced each other.
Spike kept his pace, curious but not enough so to produce any enthusiasm. When he made it to the source of all the commotion, a ring of people surrounded whatever it was so he still couldn't see. But the gossip trial was enough.
"Crashed right into the courtyard—luckily she didn't hit any buildings."
"I heard there was a kid inside, but he ran off right away."
"Her child?"
"Couldn't have been, she's too young."
"Did someone call an ambulance?"
"I know it was a rough landing but how does a ship get ~this~ beaten up?"
"My, how horrible…"
"Does anyone know first aid?"
"Is she alive?"
"I can't tell."
Spike stared at the crowd of onlookers in disapproval before continuing on his way. He didn't see much more than a few thin wisps of smoke; the rest of whatever accident had occurred was obscured by the spectators. Most of them didn't have any real concern for the victim, but merely wanted to see something interesting. It was kind of a sick thought, but who was he to judge?
Although he had no interest in staring at some pike of wreckage he had just as little interest in the causalities. Bad luck goes all around, that's the way of the universe. Spike lit a cigarette.
"Five..."
He couldn't bring himself to feel sympathy after all he'd been through. It was too much to think about, and he didn't want to start trying.
"Four…"
He'd thought he'd finally taken a step—maybe not foreward or backward, but at least in some direction. But then the road got blasted out in front of him, or rather blasted out of the sky.
"Three…"
Spike had woken up to very bad news, and now he was back to the place he'd been at the lowest point in his life, when he'd escaped from the Syndicate. Alone.
"Two…"
It seemed that his life had already gone the circle, and yet he'd barely started living it (if you could call what he did living). He'd figured out what he wanted. He'd even taken measures so he could grasp that very small goal, but then…
"ONE!" arms suddenly grasped around his neck, and Spike had to bend far backwards to avoid choking from his small assailant. He would have flipped the person, had he not heard that familiar voice. "FOUND HIM! FOUND HIM! SPIKE-PERSON IS HERE!"
He quickly turned around to find a beaming Edward still dangling from his neck. "ED!" he had to admit, this was the first welcome surprise he'd had in a while. Even if the kid had annoyed him, he was still—secretly—relieved to find her just the same. "What are you doing here?" he asked, detangling the girl's arms and setting her on the ground.
From next to her heels, Einstein barked in hopes of some acknowledgement. Pushing the goggles away from her eyes and back to the top of her head, she explained in as clear a way as she was capable. "Ed flew here. Faye-Faye said go to Mars."
"Faye!?" he repeated. That couldn't be right, Faye was… but maybe that guy had been wrong and—no—this was Ed here. The kid wouldn't know how to navigate a Gate; she'd probably taken weeks to get here. "Ed," he said, putting his hands on the kid's shoulders and trying to get her to pay attention. "How did you fly here? Why did Faye tell you to come?"
Ed 'nya'd and pointed up at the sky. "Ed flew the Red Tail," she said. She then reached out and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. "Faye-Faye wanted these."
"How did you get the Red Tail?"
"Faye-Faye brought it. Tail won't fly, Ed had to make it."
"Where is it now?"
"With Faye-Faye."
Spike stared at Ed for a moment in silence. This kid got mixed up quite a lot, but she wasn't a liar. Maybe Faye really was alive "Where is Faye?" he asked cautiously.
Ed, looking confused by the faces he was making, lifted a rubbery arm and pointed at the crash site.
To be continued
Hey all, it's the author again just letting you know I'm about to have an ulcer. Man! A note to all you aspiring authors out there, you don't know stress until you've started something you have no idea how to finish. Yes folks, I'm pretty much making this up as I go along.
But enough about that, ooo fun chapter eh? I thought so. More action, less angst, but fans of that deep though stuff will have chapter three to look foreword to so there's something for everyone! Wondering why Spike thought Faye was dead? Well don't worry, I have at least that explanation ready for the next chapter.
Hmm I started plot building. I know the Jet scenes were kind of boring but they come in handy for the, you know, plot that you'll be seeing unravel. (oh and a note: I don't actually know much about opium beyond that it comes from poppies. Yes all you Wizard of Oz fans, in that poppy scene, Dorothy was high! Man, that sorta smudges a whole raft of fond childhood memories… hmm…)
Heh, I better stop typing before I do that annoying thing I do so well. Please review! I have no life so it's my only motivation. (like the guilt trip there? Fun stuff, heheh, but seriously feedback is unbelievingly appreciated!.)
Tracking the drug dealer was a lot harder without Ed, but in the end, the usual method of asking street goers and showing pictures led Jet to Bestow, one of the smaller Venusian floating colonies but the largest producer of the disease causing spores. The rock was really one big botanical garden surrounded by little villages of vacation cottages for the overstressed financial tycoon.
For the first time since the incident, Jet was positive people were staring at his clothes rather than his arm. Everyone around him was either a socialite or someone from the upper middle class that ran the tourist attractions. He stuck out like the Bebop in a yachting dock.
The tourist bureau told him nothing he needed to know. There were, in fact, poppies growing in the botanical garden but they weren't the right kind to make narcotics. Still, not ready to give up, Jet headed out to check the flower shops.
~~~
"What's wrong, Faye-Faye?" asked Ed, staring intently at her. Ein gave a whine.
Faye knelt in front of "Tomato", staring at the screen and Spike's name on it. From Edward's point of view, Faye-Faye was staring so hard she could make the screen explode by glaring at it the way she was, looking all grave and serious.
Ed leaned over and stuck her nose close to Faye's so they could see eye to eye in a literal sense. "Nya?" she made a sound offering her concern.
With so much on her mind right now, the last thing Faye needed was the child breaking her concentration. "Poppies," she heard herself say and decided to go along with it. Might as well give the kid a job to do while she assessed the situation. "I'm trying to find a bounty whose growing poppies, Ed," she told the girl, putting on her poker face to hide her discontentment. "See if you can find a place on this planet where someone can grow a lot."
Ed beamed and gave her a backwards salute. Faye moved aside and allowed Radical Edward to crawl back to her computer on all fours, chanting "poppies, floppies, copies" while she accessed the search engine.
With the kid sufficiently distracted, Faye headed over to the beaten Red Tail. Although the craft was on its side, she climbed in and leaned against the pilots chair as best she could. Sideways. That's how everything seemed to be right now—not upside down, but getting there.
Surprisingly enough, the assassin went to the back burner of her mind. She wasn't surprised at all to know someone wanted her dead. She tended to, after all, leave a long trail of enemies as she went along her unmerry way. Still, marooned on Earth wasn't the best to be nor the best place to hide, and although she wasn't scared, the thought did agitate her.
The moon disturbed her; there was no running around that thought. That final image of the white orb, seconds before the accident that ruined her, was freshest out of all her memories. Faye hadn't wanted to see that thing again, let along begin thinking of an explanation for its reappearance.
And Spike… Now let's think about this rationally—the hell with that, what kind of a bastard was he!? Alive. He'd been alive these past weeks, and if he was capable of bringing in a bounty he most certainly was capable of calling! So why hadn't he?
Even if he'd intended to leave the Bebop, he should have at least had the decency to tell them so. He could've at least written for his belongings. He could've at least asked the ISSP officers at the YMCA post to tell Jet he was all right. He could've at least done something…anything…
It seemed like the wall she'd erected when he'd left had finally crashed under the full weight of the hell she'd been through. She still didn't know why she'd been so depressed about him. They hadn't been close—but then again they'd been connected.
They had, whether by purpose or on accident, found out each other's secrets. She'd found out about Vicious--although their situation still confused her--and about Julia. Spike had eavesdropped on her, opened her mail, and ended up knowing more about her than she'd have consciously shared. But in the end, where had that gotten them? They'd both had too many problems to worry about the other's, and yet in the end… in the end….
Faye needed a cigarette. What she really wanted was beer; something she could feel killing her brain cells so she wouldn't have to think any more. She didn't have any alcohol so she settled for satisfying the first craving. Taking a cigarette out of her jacket pocket, she placed it between her lips, lit it, and tried to loose her troubles in the relaxing smoke.
A whine from Einstein interrupted her long deserved peaceful moment. Faye looked down into the face of the corgi, and he stared back with an anxious expression one wouldn't expect on a dog. She glared at him for a moment, feeling like the mutt had her on trial all of a sudden.
She found herself staring at the smoking cigarette between her fingers. It was her last, or rather, the last of Spike's that she'd taken. She couldn't remember why she'd stolen his stash, or what her thoughts were at the time. Faye just assumed she'd been angry at him for his idiotic, testosterone driven suicide and wanted a little revenge. Now it just felt wrong.
Still, it was the last one and she'd left without her own pack. She set the cigarette back between her lips and slowly smoked the rest of it before extinguishing the butt on the side of the Red Tail.
"Come on, Ed," she shouted, grabbing the girl by the collar and dragging her in the direction of the ocean. "We need to find a transport off this rock."
Edward made one of her confused sounds and Ein trotted behind them, barking happily. "Where going to?" asked Ed.
"Mars."
"Faye-Faye is not going after bounty?"
"I can't right now, I'm out of cigarettes."
~~~~
Jet ended up at a little shop near the edge of the colony, settled in a busy shopping district full of places that sold various souvenirs but nothing of real use. It didn't have a name as much as a label, with a sign saying "Classic Oriental Flower Arrangement" over a green painted door.
There were no customers in the place, and the windows were so full of flower displays that the miniature jungle blocked off light to the rest of the room. But despite the dimness, the girl at the cash resister wore tinted glasses. She stared at Jet over the rim of them as he walked to the counter.
"Excuse me," he began, pulling out the mug shot of Yolan Davis, the opium dealer and latest target. "Has this man been in your store?"
The girl stared at him without expression for a moment, then leaned over to look at the photo. "Yeah…" she replied slowly. "Came in last week. Bought daises."
"Daises?" Jet reiterated.
She shrugged and settled back to her stool, picking up the paper she'd been reading before his interruption. "Well I don't know; it was some kind of yellow flower."
Jet noted that this girl didn't talk like the rest of the people he'd run into in Venus's upper circle. She seemed unconcerned with how bored she sounded, no matter if it was impolite or not. She talked normally, like the people he was used to, and Jet figured she probably hadn't grown up in the colonies. She probably wasn't even from Venus, judging by the turtleneck shirt she wore on a planet notoriously hot and humid.
"Are there any sales records you can check?" he asked her, eyeing the antique register and wondering if it did anything actually useful.
She shook her head. "Paid cash, I remember that," she told him, then lowered her newspaper a little as she recollected. "In fact, he bought out our stock of those flowers plus a bunch of seeds. Don't know how he afforded it though—dressed like a hobo."
Jet scratched the side of his head. This was the best lead so far, and obviously the source of the poppies, but he didn't want to stay on Venus any longer than he had to. "Is there any record of the receipt? I need to know what he bought exactly."
The girl set down her paper and smirked, reminding Jet of the face Faye made when she won a hand of cards. "That's mighty nosy of you, Cowboy," she said, then picked up the paper once more, previous expression returning to her face. "And a mighty inconvenience. Not only are our records off limits to the public, they're filed by yours truly and therefore a complete mess."
"I'd of course compensate you for your trouble," Jet pressed, hoping a teenager wouldn't ask for too much.
She laughed a little, not looking up. "This is Venus, Mr. Lone Ranger. Bribes are a small bounty." She smiled to herself and put all her attention to her newspaper, dismissing Jet altogether. But when she turned the page, her mouth dropped open and her eyes were—probably, he couldn't really see—wide behind the shades. "But maybe there is something you could pay me with.."
Jet arched an eyebrow, skeptical about this girl's sudden change of heart. "What's that?" he asked carefully, moving over to the counter to try and peek at newspaper article she'd reacted to.
The girl quickly folded the paper and, taking off her glasses, shot him a glare. But as soon as she achieved eye contact, Jet felt strange, almost sick to his stomach and light headed. A smoky fragrance he hadn't noticed before filled the air like old, bitter perfume, and he found himself unable to blink or look away from the child's eyes.
Something was definitely wrong with this girl.
She continued to stare at him, though him, for several seconds before finally dropping her eyes back to the paper. Instantly Jet felt normal again, and could hardly recall that strange sensation he'd just experienced.
Something must have happened to change her mind, for she unfolded the newspaper and set it down so he could see the article. There was what Jet first thought to be an old picture of the earth and its moon, before the Gate accident, but at closer inspection it seemed he was mistaken. This photo was very recent, for the fragment ring around the earth was unmistakable. Also unmistakable, was the pearly-gray moon floating before its planet.
"I need to get to Earth," said the cashier girl. "Quickly. You have a ship, right? I have information." She smiled at him, kind of aggressively. "I find an exchange of favors much better than currency."
Jet sighed. Transport her to earth? That would probably work out since it was his next stop anyway. It wouldn't really be much trouble to take on another passenger and it would give him the information he needed. Besides, it wasn't like he was adding another moocher to the crew, for her destination seemed rather final.
"All right," he conceded. "Tell me what you know about opium."
~~~~
Finding a transport to Mars was easy, getting to port to reach it was next to impossible. Faye didn't want to just abandon the Red Tail, even though it was now unflyable it was still the one thing she owned and didn't owe money on.
Taking out her communicator, she tried the number of one of Spike's mechanic friends. Once again, the comm. wouldn't dial or make any kind of connection to the local communication system. What was wrong with this thing? Perhaps it had been damaged in the bumpy flight, although it didn't look dented in the least.
She ended up getting Ed to send a request for tow by email, but when they'd waited a half-hour for a reply, things began to go wrong.
It started with the sound of a ship flying overhead, which Faye had ignored and Ed looked sadly at. Ein was barking like crazy. Minutes later, they heard the ship again, flying much lower this time.
"Spike-person!" Ed cried, pointing up. Ein continued to bark, then grabbed Faye's shoe in his mouth and tried to pull her in the Red Tail's direction.
She looked up to see that Edward was very much mistaken. The ship wasn't the Swordfish II, but the same dark blue monocraft that shot her from the sky.
Faye quickly looked left and right, searching for something to inspire some genius method of escape. Rocks, sand, dog, Red Tail, Ed—Ed would have to do. "Where's that remote of yours!?" she demanded, running over and grabbing the kid's shirt. "You have to crash that ship or fly it away or something!"
"Aye!" Ed chirped, wriggling out of Faye's grasp and scurrying to her pile of mechanics. She retrieved the remote, and tumbled on her back with her legs and feet in the air. "Fly away! Fly away!" she aimed the remote at the ship and twisted about in various directions on the sand.
But the ship was holding its course, circling low and coming in for a landing.
"What's wrong?" Faye demanded, searching her jacket for her gun but finding it missing. It must have fallen out in the crash. She ran to the Red Tail, climbing in the cockpit and searching underneath the seat for her weapon. It would be her only chance if—"What the--!?" she was flipping over.
The Red Tail now stood right side up again, though some feat of engineering when the engines started of their own accord—no—of Ed's accord. When Faye regained her sense of equilibrium she saw Edward standing nearby, pointing the remote control at her ship.
"Is not broken!" Ed announced cheerily, referring to her remote. "Ed needs a minute to connect to blue ship." She fluttered over to "Tomato" and began to work. "Blue is behind a firewall! Password…password…"
Faye watched the oblivious girl typing madly as the dark ship hovered in the air a few yards away, extended its landing struts and settled down in the sand. Out of time.
Still unable to locate her gun, she rushed foreword and scooped up Ed and "Tomato" under her arms and made a beeline for the Red Tail, Ein at her heels.
~~~~~
Most people wouldn't trust a cowboy. Making a deal with one would only benefit you half the time, depending on what the Bounty Hunter got out of it and if he was willing to pay. Another person would've waited until they'd reached earth to give Jet the information he'd asked for, but either this girl was especially trusting or she knew that he had at least some morals.
Margaret was her first name, and she refused to mention her last. Jet had assumed her to be around seventeen, sixteen at the youngest, but as it turned out she was fourteen and tall for her age (not to mention that superior look she had which added years to her appearance). She was smart, and knew not only about the flowers she sold but what a person could do with them.
"Opium comes from the Opium Poppy," she explained. "It was pretty popular around the nineteenth and very early twentieth century, but people tended to think pot and other things were more fun—not as bitter you know--and the business pretty much went under. It can kill you pretty easily, and it's extremely addictive." She frowned. "Most people wouldn't think about starting that kind of a business. I mean, there are plenty of drugs you can grow in an alley or a closet, but poppies need to be right out in the open sunlight and they're needs to be a lot to produce anything—not to mention it's the type of flower you got to replant every year. It's got a distinct smell, which is a dead giveaway if you know it. It's not too easy to hide. Yolan is an idiot for trying; too much trouble if you ask me."
Jet nodded and inhaled deeply from his cigarette. He knew he was addicted to nicotine, just like Faye was and Spike had been, just like nearly every officer on the force, just like nearly every bounty hunter in the solar system. Somehow, after hearing about opium, the tobacco tasted better.
"What do you know about Yolan Davis?" he asked her again, now that she seemed to be in the mood to share.
Margaret, sitting on the counter, rested her chin on her hands and smirked. "I told you about opium like you asked," she reminded him. "Extra information means an extra favor."
Jet sighed. Should've known. Just like a female to be so greedy. "What else is it you want?"
She reached out and tapped his false arm, creating a hallow sounding 'pang'. "If that were to break," she asked, "could you repair it? What I mean to ask is how much do you know about cybernetics?"
Jet blinked. Odd question from an odd girl. He would have preferred to keep his arm out of their discourse, but a bit of curiosity forced him to overlook that. "I know enough to handle it."
Margaret scratched the back of her neck while continuing to stare at his shoulder. "Would you be able to disconnect the mechanics without hurting the skin?"
Frowning, Jet extinguished his cigarette. This was a bad conversation. "I could, but I wouldn't."
"Course not. Didn't ask you to," Margaret snapped back, apparently insulted at the insinuation. "What I mean is," she reached up to her turtleneck shirt and pulled down the collar a ways. "Could you disconnect this?"
Coiled around her neck was some kind of device. It looked like a dog collar made from the same metal as Jet's arm, but darker in color and full of ports for wires to plug in to.
"What is that?" he asked, not sure what to make of it.
Her face looked plain but grave, and her stare was icy. Jet wished she'd put those glasses back on, he hated those eyes. "It's a guarantee that I stay right here," she said, tapping the choker. "Until I'm not needed anymore."
~~~~~~
Spike Spiegel walked through the dusty Martian streets, leaning foreword with his hands in his pockets, demeanor unchanged. Anyone looking wouldn't think twice about him, for he appeared light on his feet and unchallenged by the weight of the solar system.
In reality, Spike had much on his mind. But for almost three weeks now he'd been without a real place to sit back and order his thoughts. For the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, he didn't know what to do next.
Turning off the side streets and onto the main road, he began to observe a change in pedestrian traffic. People of all sorts were heading in the same direction he was, up the street and into the center of town. Venders were leaving their stands and grubby looking children raced each other.
Spike kept his pace, curious but not enough so to produce any enthusiasm. When he made it to the source of all the commotion, a ring of people surrounded whatever it was so he still couldn't see. But the gossip trial was enough.
"Crashed right into the courtyard—luckily she didn't hit any buildings."
"I heard there was a kid inside, but he ran off right away."
"Her child?"
"Couldn't have been, she's too young."
"Did someone call an ambulance?"
"I know it was a rough landing but how does a ship get ~this~ beaten up?"
"My, how horrible…"
"Does anyone know first aid?"
"Is she alive?"
"I can't tell."
Spike stared at the crowd of onlookers in disapproval before continuing on his way. He didn't see much more than a few thin wisps of smoke; the rest of whatever accident had occurred was obscured by the spectators. Most of them didn't have any real concern for the victim, but merely wanted to see something interesting. It was kind of a sick thought, but who was he to judge?
Although he had no interest in staring at some pike of wreckage he had just as little interest in the causalities. Bad luck goes all around, that's the way of the universe. Spike lit a cigarette.
"Five..."
He couldn't bring himself to feel sympathy after all he'd been through. It was too much to think about, and he didn't want to start trying.
"Four…"
He'd thought he'd finally taken a step—maybe not foreward or backward, but at least in some direction. But then the road got blasted out in front of him, or rather blasted out of the sky.
"Three…"
Spike had woken up to very bad news, and now he was back to the place he'd been at the lowest point in his life, when he'd escaped from the Syndicate. Alone.
"Two…"
It seemed that his life had already gone the circle, and yet he'd barely started living it (if you could call what he did living). He'd figured out what he wanted. He'd even taken measures so he could grasp that very small goal, but then…
"ONE!" arms suddenly grasped around his neck, and Spike had to bend far backwards to avoid choking from his small assailant. He would have flipped the person, had he not heard that familiar voice. "FOUND HIM! FOUND HIM! SPIKE-PERSON IS HERE!"
He quickly turned around to find a beaming Edward still dangling from his neck. "ED!" he had to admit, this was the first welcome surprise he'd had in a while. Even if the kid had annoyed him, he was still—secretly—relieved to find her just the same. "What are you doing here?" he asked, detangling the girl's arms and setting her on the ground.
From next to her heels, Einstein barked in hopes of some acknowledgement. Pushing the goggles away from her eyes and back to the top of her head, she explained in as clear a way as she was capable. "Ed flew here. Faye-Faye said go to Mars."
"Faye!?" he repeated. That couldn't be right, Faye was… but maybe that guy had been wrong and—no—this was Ed here. The kid wouldn't know how to navigate a Gate; she'd probably taken weeks to get here. "Ed," he said, putting his hands on the kid's shoulders and trying to get her to pay attention. "How did you fly here? Why did Faye tell you to come?"
Ed 'nya'd and pointed up at the sky. "Ed flew the Red Tail," she said. She then reached out and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. "Faye-Faye wanted these."
"How did you get the Red Tail?"
"Faye-Faye brought it. Tail won't fly, Ed had to make it."
"Where is it now?"
"With Faye-Faye."
Spike stared at Ed for a moment in silence. This kid got mixed up quite a lot, but she wasn't a liar. Maybe Faye really was alive "Where is Faye?" he asked cautiously.
Ed, looking confused by the faces he was making, lifted a rubbery arm and pointed at the crash site.
To be continued
Hey all, it's the author again just letting you know I'm about to have an ulcer. Man! A note to all you aspiring authors out there, you don't know stress until you've started something you have no idea how to finish. Yes folks, I'm pretty much making this up as I go along.
But enough about that, ooo fun chapter eh? I thought so. More action, less angst, but fans of that deep though stuff will have chapter three to look foreword to so there's something for everyone! Wondering why Spike thought Faye was dead? Well don't worry, I have at least that explanation ready for the next chapter.
Hmm I started plot building. I know the Jet scenes were kind of boring but they come in handy for the, you know, plot that you'll be seeing unravel. (oh and a note: I don't actually know much about opium beyond that it comes from poppies. Yes all you Wizard of Oz fans, in that poppy scene, Dorothy was high! Man, that sorta smudges a whole raft of fond childhood memories… hmm…)
Heh, I better stop typing before I do that annoying thing I do so well. Please review! I have no life so it's my only motivation. (like the guilt trip there? Fun stuff, heheh, but seriously feedback is unbelievingly appreciated!.)