Trinity: Atom & Go Page 2

  “Koze, what time is it here?”

  “Three forty-two,” Kozue said in his ear. “Sunrise is just under five hours from now.”

  Atom sighed. “I wish we had synched up on the inbound.”

  “You wanted the earliest possible arrival.”

  “And I got what I asked for.” A yawn split his face, more from the circadian-disrupting light of the planet’s twin moons than from actual fatigue.

  Devoid of traffic, the center of the street allowed Atom the smoothest path to meander.

  Every city looked the same. The people made the difference. Atom dwelled on that thought as he swiveled his head back and forth to take in the low-rise buildings surrounding them. Nothing stood more than two or three stories, but the brick and metal structures gave the impression of a humanoid canyon.

  People made the difference with fashion and custom and cuisine. They all appeared different, unique, from one planet to the next. And sometimes the smells varied, but oftentimes, Atom picked out familiar scents in each port of call.

  “What do you think, Fiver?” Atom asked, bouncing the pram to pop the front up a touch. “Is this place like all the others?”

  Margo wore a studious expression. “Same,” she cooed and then laughed.

  Atom shook his head, and as he made to reply, a soft whimper caught his attention. He stopped, his hand drifting to the rail-pistol at his hip.

  “Easy, Go.” He surveyed the street. “Something’s touched.”

  He twitched his head from side to side, sniffing as he did so, like a hound scenting his quarry. With eyes alert and searching, Atom searched out the source of the sound.

  Soft sobs wafted through the empty street.

  Scanning the storefronts that lined both sides of the street, Atom scowled. Most ocular windows slumbered, but farther down the street, a few patrons clustered in the soft pool of street glow outside a dockside tavern, and across the street, light streamed forth from an all-hours convenience store.

  The folks outside the tavern spoke, but distance muted their words, and Atom turned his attention from the group.

  He pulled the pram closer. “Hush now, Go. We’ll find the touch.”

  Sensing the tension in her father, Margo dropped down on her stomach, leaving just her eyes poking above the lip of the suspensor-pram.

  The sob echoed again.

  Atom spun.

  Behind and to the left, an ajar door leaked a weak trickle of harsh light and revealed stairs beyond.

  Drifting back along the road, Atom pulled the pram along until he could see past the entryway. From the glassed-in foyer, rough slate steps curved upward to what he assumed to be living quarters. Atom scanned the stairs, his eyes dancing between the light and shadows of widely spaced lamps.

  Flipping his coat back, he slipped to the door while eyeing the street with suspicion.

  “Ho there,” he called out, easing the pram out of the direct line of the stairs. “Everything all right?”

  The sobs cut short.

  He nudged the door open with the toe of his boot.

  Atom stared into the silence. Peering upward, he tried to see around the curve of the stair.

  A foot scuffed the slate steps, drawing into one of the shadow pools.

  “Go, hop to,” Atom said in a low voice as he powered down the pram.

  The girl slipped from the metal basket and like a monkey, clambered to Atom’s back. With his eyes locked on the stairwell, he settled her into place and hooked her to a discreet harness stitched into his jacket.

  Keeping his hand on his pistol, he drifted left, pausing at the foot of the stairs to glance back out the door into the darkness. Then, one cautious step at a time, he moved, maintaining his focus on the curve of the stairs that shielded the source of the sobbing from view. Atom strained to hear and thought he could just make out the low, ragged breaths of someone fighting to remain silent.

  Another step and a leg slipped into view.

  Atom stopped. For several heartbeats he studied the leg and foot: lean, curved, muscular, and youthful.

  He calculated.

  “Miss,” he soothed. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Get gone,” a sniffle punctuated the words. “Leave me be.”

  Atom heard defiance, but scented fear and pain lurking just beneath the surface. He flipped his coat over his pistol and stepped into full view with his hands out, palms up, peaceable.

  “I’m not looking to cause trouble, miss,” he said. “I just heard you crying and I don’t like to leave innocent folks hurting if I can help.”

  The curled figure walked the line between woman and girl. She clutched a flowered sundress to her chest. The dress, torn at the neckline slipped off her shoulder with each shuddering sob.

  With futile persistence she tried to keep the dress covering her.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, glaring through tear-stained eyes. “You want what they left?”

  Atom gazed into her sea-green eyes for a moment, then gave a slow shake of his head.

  “Aiming for no disrespect, miss,” Atom bobbed his head. He took in the split lip, bruised thighs, skinned knees and toes, the damaged sandals that threatened to fall apart on her feet as she curled into herself. “I was just looking to help.

  “Just hold a second.” He stepped back down a few steps and unhooked Margo, his eyes scanning for threat just the same.

  The girl stared at Margo with haunting sadness, a longing for innocence returned.

  Atom moved back up the stairs, slipping out of his coat as he did so and with a gentle flourish that still brought a flinch from the woman, he dropped it around her shoulders. Tucking away in pain, she clutched the jacket tight to cover her.

  “Are you hurt?” Atom asked.

  Margo climbed up close to the girl and leaned over to peer up into her face. “Don’t cry.” She placed a gentling hand on the girl’s bruised knee.

  A wan smile crept across the young woman’s face. Tentative fingers reached up and plucked back her strawberry-blonde hair, revealing hollow, pale eyes rimmed red as she met Atom’s gaze for a furtive moment.

  Atom started at the flash of calculating hardness, but the look retreated beneath the damaged façade like an elusive fish.

  “Do you live far from here?” Atom reached out and tousled Margo’s hair. He measured the girl as he dropped to a seat a few steps below his daughter. Something tickled in the back of his mind like a pebble in a boot, but the pain she radiated overshadowed any inkling of a ruse.

  “Upstairs,” she whispered in a hollow voice.

  “Is someone waiting for you?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ve a flat with a couple girls, but they’ll be sleeping.

  “I’m not usually out this late.” She dropped her eyes and a pair of crystalline tears darkened Atom’s dusty brown coat. Like the tears, the words began to drip between fresh sobs. “Gims asked me to work late. We had a handful of late docked haulers. Hungry crews mean big tips. If I fly.

  “Gims knew that.” She lifted her doe eyes to Atom, haunting and frightened. “He weren’t aiming to pop me in trouble. Just trying to help a girl out.”

  “I understand.” Atom pulled Margo into his lap as he leaned against the wall.

  “I didn’t expect nothing. Didn’t expect what happened,” she sobbed.

  “Nobody does.”

  “What do I do?”

  Atom sat in silence for a moment, listening to the girl’s ragged breaths. Then he rose to his feet and shifted Margo to his hip. “First off.” He began to sway with a gentle rhythm ingrained in a father cradling his child. “You’re going upstairs to take a shower. Wash this night off of you. Then you’re sleeping. Take something to help if you need it.”

  “Don’t know if I can.”

  “You will,” Atom’s fatherly tone calmed the girl. “And you’re going to put tonight from your mind. You are bruised and beaten, both physically and mentally. Some will say you have to embra
ce the pain and others to bear it in silence.

  “But I say,” he dropped his voice, leaning in with intimate vengeance. “It’s part of you, but it doesn’t define you. You can’t pity yourself, but you know it’s a part of your life now. Grow stronger and move forward. If you dwell, it’ll consume you.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Live in the moment and be a new creation with each breath, girl,” Atom commanded.

  Despite her eyes remaining downcast, the girl seemed to gather resolve.

  “I wouldn’t wish your night on anyone.” Atom turned and started back down the stairs with Margo smiling up at the young woman. “But, there are a couple things I need of you.”

  “Yeah.” The girl fiddled with her broken sandal as she watched them depart from beneath her veil of shimmering hair.

  “I want you to bring my coat back tomorrow. Look up the One Way Ticket. That’s my ship.”

  “And the other?” The girl crawled to her feet and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

  “In the pocket of my coat you’ll find a plasma punch. I want you to keep it and if you ever find yourself in a situation that could lead down tonight’s path, I want you to hide it in your palm. When they get close, you tuck it up against their knee and press the trigger.

  “I guarantee they’ll leave you be.” He waved farewell without a backward glance.

  “What if I see them again?” she called after him.

  “Don’t worry.” Atom paused at the door and looked up to the girl huddled deep inside the folds of his coat. “They’re freighters. I don’t think you’ll ever cross paths again.”

  “But what if . . .”

  “You have your heart, it’s strong enough to overcome.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “And now you have a plasma punch to back up your heart.”

  Atom nodded a final time and left the girl standing alone, clutching the railing as she watched them disappear into the night. He swung Margo around with one arm and dropped her into the pram. Accustomed to the sway of the suspensor-pram, she reached out and steadied herself as Atom stalked down the street.

  “What do you plan to do?” Kozue asked.

  “You don’t harm innocence.” Atom’s jaw clenched. “If they were my crew, I’d wait until we were aloft and walk them out the airlock without a wave goodbye.”

  “Well, they’re not your crew. Plus, you don’t know who they are.”

  “She’s just a girl, Koze. Not much older than our daughter Aamu would have been today.” Atom headed for the garish light of the nearby pub. “It’s one thing if she were older and willing. Happens she doesn’t fit either category.”

  Kozue refrained from further comment.

  As Atom approached the port-side bar, he looked up at the name. Despite several darkened letters, he read After-Burn by the soft glow of the city lights. The dozen loitering men fell silent and parted as Atom guided the pram toward the open door.

  “Ever feel like every planet’s the same?” Kozue asked as Atom walked into the neon glare of the interior.

  “How so?” He stopped, surveyed the scene, and then selected a corner table.

  “Seedy bars, loose women, flat beer?”

  “There are loose men too.” Atom sensed the shrug from his AI. “And how do you know the beer’s flat?”

  “Atom,” Kozue chided. “I’m a part of you.”

  A long-toothed waitress with too much lipstick bustled over, flashing a weary smile as she tucked a tray under her arm and pulled a touch-screen pad from her apron. “What’ll it be, sweets?”

  “This Gims’ place?” Atom leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head.

  The waitress glanced to the bar, a newfound wariness in her eye. “Who’s asking?”

  “I’ve no problem with Gims. I just ran into a mutual acquaintance.” Atom stifled another yawn. “I just thought a quick word from Gims would settle a bet I have with my Eye.

  “I’m not looking for any trouble, promise.” Atom held a hand over his heart.

  “That a fact?” The woman brushed purple dyed hair from her eyes and locked Atom with a conflicted glare.

  “Well, if things turn the way I’m hoping, there might be some trouble for some folks, but not on you or your lovely establishment. I’m professional enough to see to that.

  “So,” Atom said as he leaned on the table. “I’d like that word and a mug of red chi.”

  “Hot or cold?”

  “Hot, one drip.”

  “Hot with a drip of sweet. That’ll be half ko.”

  Atom pulled a chit from his pocket, punched in the cost of the drink, plus a hefty tip, and slid it across the table.

  The waitress plucked the chit from the table and turned to walk away. Her eyes widened as she registered the amount entered on the digital readout. Glancing back, she bobbed a thanks at the soft smiling Atom. “I’ll see if Gims is still here,” she called over her shoulder as she wove her way to another table sprouting five new freighters.

  Atom sat for a few minutes before the waitress whirled back with a tray full of drinks. She chose Atom’s heavy mug of chi from the forest of tall glasses and set it before him.

  Without another word she disappeared into the neon aura of the bar.

  After watching her bustle away, Atom spun the pram so Margo could look out over the bar. “See what you have to look forward to.” Weariness began to set in as he picked up his mug and savored the bitter-sweet scent.

  Margo pouted and leaned forward to rest her chin on the lip of the pram.

  “Dregs.” He shook his head. “Scum of the Black that give the rest of us a bad name.”

  The scattered patrons sat at three tables, two groups on the far side of the bar and a solitary drinker tucked in a booth to Atom’s left. The two tables on the far side held the most disparate groups in Atom’s mind. Tucked up beside the bar, three hard-looking spacers sat with a harder looking woman who the men obviously deferred to.

  The other table drew Atom’s attention.

  Six men surrounded a small table laden with half empty glasses and three pitchers of an earthy blue brew. Unlike the other tables, theirs remained boisterous to the point of disturbing. They laughed and cursed and acted like they owned the bar.

  As Atom sipped his chi, the men from outside the door returned and squeezed in around the table.

  Atom scowled at the men, his mood foul.

  Turning back, he rolled his shoulders and settled his mind. After closing his eyes for a moment, he opened them to Margo’s stern glare. The look caught him by surprise and a chuckle eased more tension from his shoulders.

  “Ease up, girl,” he blew at the steaming mug.

  Setting the drink down, he knuckled her jaw. As he leaned back in his seat, the waitress appeared at the end of the bar with an older man. Paunched and saggy, the man studied Atom before tossing a bar-rag over his shoulder and waded through the empty chairs like a swimmer through the shore-break.

  “I heared you’s looking for me,” the man gruffed as he whipped the rag from his shoulder and polished the spotless table behind Atom.

  “You Gims?”

  “Aye,” the man replied without looking up.

  “You got a young girl that waits for you?”

  “Aye, Genny.”

  “Anything odd happen on her shift tonight, or perhaps just after she got off?”

  The man stopped cleaning the table and straightened up with a sigh. He stared hard at Atom’s back. With an oblivious calm, Atom sipped his chi. He followed the man’s movements in Margo’s gaze. Without looking he nudged out the chair beside him.

  The man drifted into the seat, a conspirator’s look in his eye as he leaned forward. “What do you mean?” Concern framed his eyes and his jowls quivered.

  “Did anything happen that stuck out in your mind?”

  The man dropped his eyes to study the artificial grains of the table. His gaze darted along wooden paths as if searching through a series of images in his mind. Of its o
wn accord, Gims’ hand drifted to the table and he wiped at a ring left by Atom’s mug.

  “Genny,” Margo tried the name out as she rocked back in her pram.

  The soft voice jolted the man from his ponderings.

  “What was it?” Atom set his mug down and leaned toward the old barkeep.

  “Table with all them bokes.” Gims gave a slight nod. “They’re our usual type. Spacers fresh from the Black looking to blow steam. All handsy. Genny kept it pro-type, smiles and friendly, but nothin’ more. They wanted more, but she’d keep busy. Tickly thing, when she floated off her shift, ever last one of them up and out for a puff of fresh air.

  “Least I ‘ssumed that’s where they headed,” Gims said with panic flooding his eyes. “Is Genny a’right? Those ‘stards did’n do nothing to my Genny. If they did a’swear I’ll tear them . . .”

  Atom laid a calming hand on the man’s arm. “But that’s them? All of them?”

  Gims rose to his feet. His breath came in ragged bursts as he wrung his rag between his worn hands.

  “Are any missing?”

  Casting a glance over his shoulder, Gims leaned with a heavy hand on the back of his seat. “That’s all,” he sputtered.

  Sipping his drink, Atom studied the boisterous crew.

  “Go about your business, old man,” Atom said as he set his mug on the table and rose to his feet. “Don’t worry about those bokes, you won’t be seeing them again, or me. Look to Genny. Love on her.”

  Rolling his shoulders, Atom grabbed the pram and maneuvered it from behind the table. Like a cautious driver, he hovered the pram down the narrow alleys left between the chairs and tables. Instead of heading for the door, he detoured near the rowdy table.

  “Gentlekin,” he called out over their raucous laughter. One by one they fell silent and turned their baleful attention on the interloper. “I don’t suppose I could bother a couple of you to help me with my skiff outside. I’m having trouble raising my crew and need to get back to my ship. If you’d be so kind, I’d be happy to buy the next round.”

  Promise of payment shifted the mood and a pair of the men rose on unsteady feet. “Lead the way, guv,” the taller of the two slurred as he tried to smile.