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.

“…aaand that’s my cue!”

They were final­ly dock­ing. 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 ask­ing who he’d fall­en in love with. His aunt, or his uncle, or his moth­er, per­haps. A don­key too, and a piece of flot­sam, if they were feel­ing espe­cial­ly cre­ative. Who cared. It had been a long, wind­ing jour­ney to get as far as he had got­ten. He was only sane to be excit­ed after being trapped on this greasy lit­tle tub for six months.

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, like clean­ing the latrines. 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 had ever expect­ed. He’d snuck on, hon­est­ly half believ­ing being thrown over­board was a risk worth tak­ing. He was glad they had­n’t.

Yes, yes, it had been a great bless­ing, this trip. 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 that he’d actu­al­ly 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 com­fort­ably warm now, and the wall plat­ing was just pol­ished enough that he could tell how bad his stub­ble was based on the dark­ness of his blurred reflec­tion. It wasn’t, how­ev­er, reflec­tive enough for him to see a per­son approach­ing from behind, so only once a famil­iar voice spoke did he real­ize some­one was stand­ing right behind him. 

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

The cap­tain! Doro froze, half-cov­ered in soap. 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.

But again, why was she here? As he start­ed tow­el­ing him­self off, still with his back to her, 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. But 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--“

The bor­der­line kind­ly tone sent alarm bells ring­ing in his head. She was even extend­ing her hand. Gen­er­ous­ly. He inter­rupt­ed her with­out think­ing.

“Cap­tain!”

The loud­ness 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. No quar­ter or retreat, and so on?”

Doro nod­ded. “Yes, ma’am. You know where I’m head­ed, I can’t have your kind­ness mak­ing me soft. I’ll need every edge I can take. House burned down, dogs nip­ping me at my heels, and so on.”

“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 more than just words…”

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’s smile 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. True or not, the crew would beat him and throw him into the ocean long before the thought of due process ever crossed their minds! He had three flights of stairs to make his way through before he was even on the deck---and some­one was already call­ing out his name around the cor­ner!

The cap­tain sent him stum­bling back with a sud­den boot to his chest. Doro start­ed---but instead of tak­ing that as rea­son to fight, began he run­ning. He laughed breath­less­ly as a famil­iar des­per­a­tion kicked up the back of his heels, and squeezed his blood. The cap­tain’s laugh­ter fol­lowed him down the hall­ways, 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, either—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. Their par­tic­u­lar cab­in 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 his absurd­ly bul­bous pur­ple-red nose 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.

“Are 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 who exact­ly was here, and what they did.”

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 face. She shook her head, star­ing out into the the sta­tion. The doors slid open, drown­ing their shut­tle with the noise of the swarm­ing crowds, announce­ments, dull from the sheer quan­ti­ty of them. Her voice cut low, only dis­cernible to the guard because his eyes were caught on her lips, sur­prised, for some rea­son, by the curve of them.

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

“…and I have an meet­ing.”

---

“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. 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 skipped down the rest of the steps, light met­al frame­work bang­ing and shak­ing as she ran 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. So gen­tle that it would not push a hum­ming­bird off its flower.

Yet it was also utter­ly unyield­ing, in it’s own way.

Adda 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 a hair out of place, not a fold of his cloth­ing turned, not even a sin­gle unsteady breath from chas­ing after her down the stairs. She glared at her shad­ow 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. No, 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. What use was it to fight them, when they always had anoth­er way to exert their con­trol?

…then again, it was just the two of them right now, and Seth was tech­ni­cal­ly under her employ. Adda tried lift­ing her chin at 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?”

Her but­ler was not thrown off a sec­ond. His arm remained point­ed at the car, unwa­ver­ing.

“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.”

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. 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. 

“So where do they want me to go first?” she asked through the par­ti­tion.

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

His grey eyes met hers in the rear view mir­ror for a split sec­ond, and a com­part­ment built into the back of the seat in front of her popped open. A slim black binder embla­zoned with her family’s crest dropped out. She flicked it open and found a blind­ly dense sched­ule that made her gri­mace. Her whole day was bro­ken down to the minute, and not a sin­gle entry looked fun.

Same as always. Her eyes ran through the cal­en­dar to today’s date and hour that matched the time on the dash. Her eyes went to the next thing.

“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 again. It actu­al­ly contained.…emotion. Sheep­ish­ness, she thought.

“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 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. Some­one shout­ed in the dis­tance, result­ing in a series of honks from mul­ti­ple cars in return. Pedes­tri­ans were cut­ting between the gaps between the cars, com­plete­ly dis­re­gard­ing that they were slow­ing every­thing down by doing so. It took all of her con­sid­er­able train­ing to keep her voice still.

“On foot?”

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

“Mm-hm, yes. You’d bet­ter have packed a para­sol, then. And a fan.”

As Seth explain that he had, pop­ping open anoth­er com­part­ment to prove it, Adda stopped lis­ten­ing. Instead, as the car scoot­ed for­ward an inch at a time, she looked out at win­dow at the streets beyond---that were at a dead stand­still. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep a lit­tle smile from creep­ing across her lips.

Just her and Seth, walk­ing around in this ridicu­lous­ly busy city with no oth­er super­vi­sion?

Who cared about the heat? Sneak­ing 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.