1.10

Doro Qucha­suna light­ly leaned against his mop as a sub­tle shud­der ran through the ship. As he wiped the day’s grime from his fore­head, he looked up and grinned. Final­ly! They were dock­ing.

“…aaand that’s my cue!”

With a lazy salute to the junior deck­hand work­ing beside him, Doro let the mop clat­ter to the floor. It took the bin with it, spilling grey-brown water every­where. His young crew­mate threw his rag angri­ly.

“Aw, come on! We still have half the crew quar­ters and the whole mess hall--”

“Sor­ry, pal. I’ve got places to be. Hey. Why don’t we just say we’re square on those twen­ty cterls you owe me.”

He gave the man a hearty pat on the back and ran off with a skip in his step that would’ve had his crew­mates call­ing him a lit­tle girl. Who cared. It had been a long, wind­ing jour­ney to get as far as he had got­ten. He was only sane to be excit­ed.

It didn’t take long for Doro to reach the ran­dom, dusty cor­ner near the engine room that he’d claimed as his so-called quar­ters. The dull, ever-present vibra­tion in the area and the make-shift cur­tain he’d pinned across the wall to cre­ate some sem­blance of space suc­cinct­ly cap­tured the vibe of his stay on the Bulk Car­go Freighter 9. Slap­dash and uncom­fort­able. Still, he couldn’t help but look back fond­ly at the met­al halls of this car­go ship he’d been serv­ing on for the past sev­er­al months.

Yes, his ‘uni­form’ was thread­bare and sec­ond-hand. Yes, he was always served food last dur­ing meal­time. And yes, he’d been assigned all the least pop­u­lar duties. But giv­en that he’d start­ed his jour­ney on the BCF-9 as a stow­away, steal­ing food from the crew pantry in the dark of night and tak­ing sneak show­ers while no one was look­ing, a place on the crew was more gen­eros­i­ty than he deserved. Or had ever expect­ed.

Yes, yes, it was all a great bless­ing. But all great streaks of luck came to an end, and greater hori­zons always lay ahead. So with an eager­ness that did­n’t at all betray the fact that he’d made a home on this ship these past few months, Doro began strip­ping out of his uni­form so that he could clean him­self of all that ship-stink. He’d left him­self a buck­et of water and soap atop a near­by radi­a­tor that morn­ing, so it was warm by now, and the wall plat­ing was just pol­ished enough that he could check his face.

It wasn’t, how­ev­er, reflec­tive enough for him to see a per­son approach­ing from behind. Only once a famil­iar voice spoke did he freeze, half-cov­ered in soap, and with a fin­ger in his chin-scruff.

“Crew­man Qucha­suna. I believe when I assigned you to clean­ing duty, I meant for you to clean the ship, not your­self.”

The cap­tain! What was she doing here dur­ing dock­ing? And, of course, he was half-naked. He dropped the razor he’d been plan­ning on shav­ing with and coughed.

“Cap­tain. I--”

“Pro­ceed, crew­man. You might as well fin­ish up.”

“Right, ma’am!”

Doro hur­ried­ly dumped the wash water over his head, try­ing not to think too hard about what bits he was acci­den­tal­ly expos­ing. The cap­tain was non­plussed, both by his nudi­ty and being sprayed by water. She sim­ply wait­ed for him with her hands behind her back, main­tain­ing that even gaze that had made her such a dev­il of an oppo­nent at the crew’s pok­er table.

Still, why was she here? As he start­ed tow­el­ing him­self off, the cap­tain spoke.

“Crew­man. It has been brought to my atten­tion that you are plan­ning to dis­em­bark at this port. And that you do not plan to return.”

“That’s cor­rect, ma’am. I have a job lined up in the city. Imports and exports.”

Doro rolled out the lie he’d been telling every­one else on the crew for the past few months. Most every­one did­n’t blink an eye when he said that. It was the eas­i­est, most cliché job to line up after get­ting tired of the seas, of course. Just the exact type of bor­ing­ly real­is­tic answer to get the con­ver­sa­tion to jump to anoth­er top­ic.

But the cap­tain did­n’t respond for a long time. It almost made Doro stop pulling up his pants.

“…I see. Well, good luck to you then. And on account of your good behav­ior, I’ll for­give this abdi­ca­tion of duties just this once.”

She sound­ed… dis­ap­point­ed? That was a sur­prise, since in his mind, he’d always likened her to an ice­berg. Cold, immov­able, and hid­ing more than could be seen in a small­er form. It seemed his rogu­ish charms could even reach the heart of a woman whom he’d only seen blink twice. Who knew?

As he final­ly got his jack­et over his shoul­ders, Doro turned to thank the cap­tain, but she spoke before he could.

“A shame,” the cap­tain said with a cer­tain know­ing­ness in her eye. “I was con­sid­er­ing offer­ing you a com­mis­sion--“

She was extend­ing her hand. Gen­er­ous­ly. He inter­rupt­ed with­out think­ing.

“Cap­tain!”

The vol­ume of his voice sur­prised both of them. It was like he’d felt com­pelled to make cer­tain she did­n’t fin­ish her sen­tence. Oth­er­wise, he might be tempt­ed to nev­er leave.

Doro snapped to atten­tion, with the sharpest salute he could. He care­ful­ly cleared his throat.

“Before I leave,” he said, “I want to thank you for let­ting me stay on this ship. For mak­ing me wel­come amongst the crew. For giv­ing me a chance. I owe you a great debt for that.”

“It was noth­ing, Qucha­suna. If any­thing, you were an asset. That’s why--”

“Even still, ma’am. I con­sid­er myself in your debt. But I have anoth­er favor to ask of you.”

She nod­ded with­out hes­i­ta­tion. It was that same deci­sive­ness that had won the admi­ra­tion of many a crew mem­ber. It was some­thing to see in the mid­dle of a heavy storm, when wave after wave was crash­ing into the ship.

“Go ahead, crew­man. Name it. You’ve earned it.”

Doro set his jaw and nod­ded.

“I need you to take back that offer, ma’am. Erase it from your mind.”

For a moment, the cap­tain looked affront­ed. But her expres­sion quick­ly soft­ened into a wry smile.

Because she knew.

“Ah, of course. No quar­ter or retreat, and so on?”

Doro nod­ded. “Yes, ma’am. I think you know that where I’m head­ed, I can’t have your kind­ness mak­ing me soft. I’ll need every edge I can take.”

“That you will. That you will…”

The cap­tain trailed off thought­ful­ly whilst nod­ding in agree­ment. She salut­ed back after a moment.

“Then to accede to your wish­es, I swear that as long as I am cap­tain, the name Doro Qucha­suna will nev­er have a place on this ship’s ros­ter, nor the man a place in our com­pa­ny. And to make it offi­cial…”

The cap­tain took the radio clipped to her uni­form and held it up to her mouth. She pressed a but­ton, and speak­ers all around the ship buzzed to life.

“Atten­tion, all crew. From this point for­ward, crew­man Doro is con­sid­ered a per­sona non gra­ta aboard this ves­sel. If you find him, grab him and throw him out the near­est port­hole.”

Her mes­sage echoed through the pas­sages of the ship. After a moment, her radio buzzed back with the first officer’s voice.

“Aye, Aye, cap­tain. But what did the bas­tard do? Cheat at cards again?”

He’d nev­er done that. He’d nev­er had to. The first offi­cer was just as bad a bluffer as he was a good bull­dog.

The cap­tain paused for a moment, think­ing.

“He was dis­cov­ered smug­gling con­tra­band, as well as steal­ing sup­plies from the crew. Also--” The cap­tain smiled glint­ed nas­ti­ly, “--he attempt­ed to kiss me.”

Doro gaped at the cap­tain as silence reigned on the comms for a while. The first offi­cer respond­ed, voice cold as ice.

“Roger that, ma’am. He’s as good as dead.”

Not a moment lat­er, the ship’s fire siren screamed alive, and Doro began hear­ing the sound of dozens of foot­steps pound­ing through­out the ship. The cap­tain winked at him.

“Best get going, civil­ian. My crew will nev­er for­give you for what you’ve done.”

Doro shot her a look of abject out­rage. That was-- That was-- way beyond what he’d asked for! They’d kill him if they caught him!

Doro wished he had time to speak his mind, but some­one was already call­ing his name around the cor­ner. He sat­is­fied him­self with a short and hissed, “Damn you, woman!”, before he duck­ing and run­ning away. The captain’s laugh­ter fol­lowed him down the hall­way, lin­ger­ing in his ears even as he escaped into the busy docks.

“Good luck and god­speed, Doro!”

“You’ll be need­ing it!”

---

“And you? What were you doing dur­ing the peri­od in ques­tion?”

Yaeno Khonoronezeni stared at the small, scrag­gly man seat­ed before her. She kept her gaze steady, her gray eyes cut­ting their form beneath a line of black bangs. The man glanced twitchi­ly around the train cab­in, uncom­fort­able at all the atten­tion every­one in the train cab­in was putting on him.

“I didn’t do nuf­fin’, nuf­fin’ at all, miss!”

The man was telling the truth. Yaeno already knew that. Not from some sixth sense—he’d been in her line of sight for most of the train ride, sneak­ing sips from a flask hid­den in his jack­et. He was noth­ing more than a harm­less, if nox­ious, drunk.

Which made him the per­fect bait to fess out the real cul­prit.

Ignor­ing the stench of alco­hol, Yaeno placed a hand right beside the drunk’s head and leaned in clos­er. He shrank back.

“Then why don’t you show us what’s inside your pock­ets, sir?”

“I’d v-very much pre­fer not to, miss.”

“And why not?”

“That’sa my per­son­al busi­ness, I thinks.”

The drunk drew him­self up with as much clum­sy dig­ni­ty as he could, not real­iz­ing that by refus­ing her request, he was all but indict­ing him­self in the eyes of every­one else in the cab­in. The train had been locked down for a while now, so every­one was eager to see the thief get caught. Even the secu­ri­ty offi­cers at the door stepped for­ward, hands on their batons, ready to take him down.

Yaeno didn’t let her focus waver. She kept her eyes on the drunk, but her atten­tion was on the periph­ery. The real thief would make their move soon, before the police could arrive.

So she ramped up the pres­sure. It was in her inter­est to avoid them as well.

“Let’s be clear, sir. We are not inter­est­ed in your lit­tle drink­ing habit.”

“My wha--?”

Yaeno slammed the head­rest, mak­ing the drunk jump.

“Stop play­ing the fool! We can all smell it on you. And every­one knows a drunk will do any­thing to keep the liquor flow­ing. It would be noth­ing for some­one like you to lift a few wal­lets, wouldn’t it?”

“But I’ve nev­er stolen any­thin’ in my life! You can’t jus’ keep accusin’ me like this just because I likes my drinks a bit too much!”

Indig­nant, the drunk looked around for sup­port. And found none. Gen­uine fear crossed his face as he real­ized every­one was eying him with sus­pi­cion.

“I didn’t steal noth­in!” he insist­ed again, “I didn’t…”

The man’s protests quick­ly weak­ened in the face of a cold room that did­n’t believe a sin­gle word that came out of his mouth. Too quick­ly, Yaeno felt. He shrank, already resigned, like some­one used to tak­ing beat­ings and blame.

She killed the guilt in her stom­ach. The hard part was almost over. He would be vin­di­cat­ed soon enough.

She touched a hand to his.

“Look,” she whis­pered, “We’re all just anx­ious to get out of here. If you didn’t steal the wal­lets, why don’t you just turn out your pock­ets and prove it to us? I promise you won’t get in trou­ble for any­thing else. All right?”

“…You promise?”

“Yes. On my word.”

The drunk nod­ded slow­ly. Then, with shak­ing fin­gers that Yaeno had to guide, he began tug­ging open his pock­ets one by one. Every­one leaned in, hop­ing to catch--

“There!”

Yaeno point­ed across the shut­tle at a young woman sur­rep­ti­tious­ly get­ting up from her seat. She froze like a deer in head­lights, back­pack straps in her hands.

With a snarl, the young thief bull-rushed the near­est exit--but it was too late. A near­by secu­ri­ty offi­cer, a burly man in his thir­ties, grabbed her by the arm. In the ensu­ing strug­gle, her back­pack broke open and a trea­sure trove of stolen wal­lets and purs­es spilled out.

“Would you look at that!” said the guard with a breath­less grin as he sat atop the strug­gling thief. “Miss boun­ty hunter actu­al­ly got ‘em!”

A smat­ter­ing of applause filled the cab­in, but Yaeno ignored it and turned back to the drunk. He snif­fled at her.

“Awful­ly cru­el to use a man like that, I says.”

“I am sor­ry. But for what it’s worth, it was nec­es­sary.”

“Says you. Man’s dig­ni­ty ain’t sup­posed to be cheap­er than a cou­ple of wal­lets.”

The man resent­ful­ly took a long draw from his flask, then turned away, pre­fer­ring to look at the fad­ed pat­tern on the seat cush­ions over her face. Yaeno bowed her head thank­ful­ly to him. Then she drew a breath and brusque­ly marched up to the guard who was lock­ing a pair of zip ties around the thief’s wrists. The young woman paused her strug­gle from the ground to scowl at her, but Yaeno didn’t give her a sec­ond glance.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, ignor­ing the guard’s efforts to keep the thief still, “but now that the sit­u­a­tion is resolved, I hope this means we can all leave with­out any fur­ther delay? You have your cul­prit, your miss­ing goods, and plen­ty of eye-wit­ness­es to cor­rob­o­rate.”

The zip-tie clicked secure­ly. The young woman on the ground groaned and slumped in defeat. Wip­ing his hands on his pants, the guard raised an eye­brow at her.

“You sure you don’t want to stick around? I’m sure lots of peo­ple would want to shake your hand for what you’ve done. Seems like a rare net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for some­one in your line of work, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I real­ize it’s not my place, but--“

“You’re right. It’s not.”

The guard blinked, not sure whether to be sur­prised or offend­ed by her curt atti­tude. Yaeno didn’t back down. She calm­ly met his eyes and wait­ed for a response. After a moment, the guard shook his head in dis­may and waved for his part­ner to open the shut­tle doors.

“Fine. You’re free to go. But just so you know, miss, it’s my duty to inform the police of every­thing that occurred here today. Includ­ing that you were here.”

The guard held up the busi­ness card Yaeno had giv­en him before she had talked him into let­ting her try to cap­ture the thief. The logo of the Boun­ty Hunter’s Guild, which was a B turned into a pair of cuffs, was print­ed neat­ly on one of the cor­ners. And her name, on the oth­er side. Stan­dard issue.

She tilt­ed her head with a bemused expres­sion.

“And why would I care if you did that?”

The guard gave her a know­ing look.

“Look, I’m not accus­ing you of any­thing spe­cif­ic, but boun­ty hunters don’t exact­ly have the clean­est rep­u­ta­tion, do they? Some even work… let’s say beyond the scope of law?”

Despite her­self, the insin­u­at­ing tone in the guard’s voice made a small smile cross Yaeno’s lips. She shook her head.

“You imag­ine too dra­mat­ic a sto­ry for me, sir. It’s just that the police work slow­ly…”

She calm­ly stepped through the shut­tle doors. Beyond them, the sta­tions bus­tled with activ­i­ty. She strode con­fi­dent­ly into the swarm­ing crowds with­out a glance back.

“…and I have an appoint­ment to keep.”

---

“Watch your step, young mis­tress.”

Adda Oloya sighed as she felt her manservant’s gen­tle, guid­ing touch on her wrist and back. She slapped his gloved hands away with a snap in her voice.

“I have it, Seth. No mat­ter what my par­ents would have you believe, I don’t need your help walk­ing.”

Adda pursed her lips and looked down at her foot­ing. The airstair had been attached to the exit of the air­ship in a slight­ly mis­aligned man­ner, result­ing in a small, few-inch gap. She could see the black asphalt some feet below through it, but what she couldn’t see was how Seth pos­si­bly thought this pre­sent­ed an actu­al dan­ger to her. Her. After all the train­ing she had endured, and the actu­al real-life threats to her life she had sur­vived.

There wasn’t even enough space for her foot to slip through.

She gave her helper her best and most sar­don­ic eye-roll as she took an exag­ger­at­ed step over the gap. Then, while Seth was daz­zled by that, she raced down the rest of the steps, light met­al frame­work trem­bling beneath her feet as she made her way towards this year’s grad­u­ate class. Though she could­n’t hear what they were say­ing over the pow­er­ful tur­bines that were still wind­ing down near­by, it looked like they were almost done board­ing the bus.

Before Adda reached the bot­tom of the airstair, she was stopped by anoth­er tap on her shoul­der.

It was just a fin­ger. Unob­tru­sive. Harm­less. Inof­fen­sive.

But also utter­ly unyield­ing.

She turned, scowl­ing, know­ing that she’d find Seth stand­ing there like he always was, with his neat grey hair and that ever-present half-smile of his. Not even look­ing slight­ly out of breath from keep­ing up with her. She glared at him as he dipped his head and extend­ed his gloved hand to the right.

“Miss. We have pre­pared a car for you.”

A sleek black lim­ou­sine was parked in the dis­tance, with lit­tle flags embla­zoned with her family’s crest flut­ter­ing obse­quious­ly on its hood. Though it was expect­ed, her heart still sank. She was being sep­a­rat­ed from the Acad­e­my grad­u­ates. Again.

She opened her mouth, ready to insist oth­er­wise. She hes­i­tat­ed.

Seth would nev­er direct­ly deny her entrance onto the bus. The word ‘No’ was too gar­ish for her ears. That she was­n’t sup­posed to sit with the ‘com­mon folk’ was implied. After all, how could she reject the con­ve­nience, the extrav­a­gance, the safe­ty of the lim­ou­sine her par­ents had gen­er­ous­ly pre­pared for her? Yet anoth­er instance where pro­pri­ety mere­ly served as a mask for the near-dic­ta­to­r­i­al con­trol her par­ents had over her life.

Then again, it was just the two of them right now. And Seth was tech­ni­cal­ly sup­posed to be under her employ. Adda lift­ed her chin and eyed her manser­vant impe­ri­ous­ly.

“But I want to ride with the grad­u­ates. That’s the point, right? For me to observe the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge first hand? How exact­ly am I sup­posed to learn any­thing in a sep­a­rate vehi­cle?”

“There will be plen­ty to observe, young mis­tress, as this city will soon be filled with aspir­ing Chal­lenger can­di­dates, impor­tant­ly, who are not from the Acad­e­my. They are to be the tar­get of your stud­ies, accord­ing to guid­ance pro­vid­ed by your par­ents.”

Her but­ler was not thrown off for a sec­ond. Adda ground her teeth.

“Seth! Most of those peo­ple won’t even make it to the start­ing line! This year’s grad­u­ates are… well, they’re not the best. But they’ll at least reach the Chal­lenge prop­er. If I fol­low them, I’ll be sure to run into the can­di­dates worth observ­ing.”

It was a sol­id argu­ment, most­ly because it was true. Although Adda didn’t real­ly care about learn­ing any more about the Chal­lenge. She had pre­pared for it more than enough.

Seth thought about it for a moment, then nod­ded.

“A good point,” he said, reach­ing into his jack­et pock­et to pull out his phone. “I will con­tact your par­ents to see if they are will­ing--“

Adda cursed under her breath furi­ous­ly. That was a dirty trick, involv­ing her par­ents. Of course, they’d nev­er agree to a devi­a­tion from their plans. Espe­cial­ly one sug­gest­ed by her. It had tak­en her every­thing she had just to get them to let her out on this heav­i­ly super­vised field trip.

“Fine, Seth! You don’t need to twist my arm! I’ll take the car!”

“As you wish, Miss.”

Seth bowed. With a resigned sigh, Adda let him guide her into the back of the lim­ou­sine. While she sank sulk­i­ly into the lux­u­ri­ous black leather seat­ing, he entered the dri­ver’s seat and start­ed up the engine. It rum­bled smooth­ly as they slow­ly pulled out of the land­ing zone, on a pri­vate path, away from the grad­u­ates from her par­ents’ school.

She resigned­ly called out to him through the par­ti­tion.

“So where do they want me to go first?”

“I believe a binder has been pre­pared for you. The program’s itin­er­ary should out­line every­thing sched­uled for today.”

Adda searched around and found a slim black binder embla­zoned with her family’s crest tucked in the car orga­niz­er. She flicked it open to the sched­ule and gri­maced. Her whole day was bro­ken down to the minute, and not a sin­gle activ­i­ty looked like fun.

“The cen­tral plaza’s next, then?”

“That’s cor­rect, young mis­tress. For the Director’s wel­com­ing speech. As for the rest, well… we may have to play by ear.”

“Play it by ear?” Adda perked up. That was a rare thing to hear from some­one under her family’s employ. “Why?”

As they made a turn off the air­port prop­er­ty, the car slowed. The sounds of honk­ing sound­ed through the bul­let­proof win­dows. Seth sighed and met her eyes through the rear-view mir­ror.

“Frankly, miss, there was a mis­cal­cu­la­tion on my part. It appears there are a great deal more par­tic­i­pants this year than I antic­i­pat­ed. We may have to tra­verse on foot a great deal more than planned.”

Adda peeked out the win­dow and saw the streets were jammed with cars. When the lights turned green, the traf­fic moved only a car length or two. It took all of her con­sid­er­able train­ing to keep her voice still.

“On foot?”

“Apolo­gies, miss. I know you dis­like the heat.”

“Right. Yeah. You’d bet­ter have brought a para­sol.”

Try as she might, Adda couldn’t keep the smile from spread­ing on her face. She tucked her head away from Seth, star­ing through the win­dow at the busy streets beyond as the car scoot­ed for­ward an inch at a time. A nefar­i­ous grin began spread­ing across her lips.

Just her and Seth, walk­ing around in this crowd­ed-as-butt city with no oth­er super­vi­sion?

Get­ting away was nev­er going to be eas­i­er.

---

With the engine run­ning at a red-hot roar, Mrs. Berros’s truck bar­reled its way along a long arc­ing road at the base of the near­by moun­tain range, fol­low­ing a thin riv­er that led to a port city in the dis­tance. A sky­line stood etched against the glim­mer­ing ocean behind it, burst­ing with sky­scrap­ers that looked like crys­tals emerg­ing from a stone. Car­nelia leaned out of the pas­sen­ger win­dow and let out a whoop as fresh salty air blast­ed her in the face.

Cam­mec City. The City of Bells. The host city for this year’s Can­di­date Chal­lenge.

She had made it.

Every­one had.