Chapter 6—Trust

Marco and Jeanne took their conversation inside, where he convinced her to take off her cloak and veils. She was slim. The fit kind, not the malnourished, which was less common in Junkyard. She wore a black tank top that stuck tightly to her skin, and her gloves covered half of her arms. Two pouches hung to each side of her waist, together with a girdle that held a few remaining potions in their loops.

Her trousers had several additional pockets sown into them, each crammed with small weaponry and utensils. Among them, he could see throwing knives, needles, and a pair of forged iron rods that weighted down its pocket. Marco glanced over them, his attention grabbed by the green hues of her other items. The cloak she'd slung over her shoulders. Her daggers and her gloves. He stared at the greens, wondering about their effects, when Jeanne coughed slightly.

"Eyes up here."

He smirked and told her to make herself comfortable. She chose a random pile and removed her mask, revealing her face wrecked by exhaustion. Her blue eyes were matt, and he noticed the paleness of her skin. She looked like she would fall over at any moment. Her brown hair was cut short enough to not reach her eyes. Utility over appearance, Marco guessed, which seemed to be a general theme of hers. An incessant frown marred her face further. It didn’t look like agreeing to his deal had eased her worries much. Well, why should it?

“New human is back!” In contrast to the walking dead, Gob ran circles around her like a dog welcoming home its owner.

“Not now.” Marco said. “You can talk to her later, if she wants to.”

Gob agreed with a half-hearted nod. Jeanne watched after the little guy who went to play with his comb across the room. She looked like she had a lot of questions on her mind, but she didn’t voice any of them, much to his relief. It didn’t seem like she’d seen him without his helmet. That she would have questioned, no matter what.

“Sorry that I can’t offer any decent hospitality.” Marco sat on his recliner. “My guests rarely stay long enough to warrant it.”

She shrugged her shoulders, trying to keep the tapping of her feet at bay while her left hand kept fondling around her pockets, playing with the needles between her fingers. Marco tried to meet her eyes, but kept one of his cameras on her hands, keeping the screen in his view. Just in case.

“I’ll cut to the chase, then. What exactly are we looking for, and how did you lose it?”

“It’s a silver necklace with a small pendant.” She made a circle with her fingers. “About that size. It says, 'For JT' on the back.”

“I see, interesting. Incidentally, where did you get it? Sounds like someone crafted it for you, or were the letters engraved afterwards?"

“Bought it in a shop in District A, called ‘None-of-your-business.’ You should go there sometimes.”

“Fair enough.” He chuckled. “So, what happened? Frankly, given your stealth-attributes I find it difficult to believe anyone could steal from you.”

When he poked at the glaring issue at hand, Jeanne fell silent. With the necklace in her possession, the girl could probably stand in the middle of his hideout without his cameras detecting her. Most wouldn’t be able to see her unless she wanted them to. There were counter-measures, but if those had been used, she would likely know who the thief was.

“I screwed up. I thought, I...” She sighed, trailing her words. “You remember that fat ass chasing me? That’d been going on for hours before I met you, so... I had to rely on a few potions.”

"A few.” He scoffed, not even trying to hide his tone. “I guess the rebound hit you hard?”

She looked away and nodded. “I was already at my limits when I returned your items... Sorry about that... I guess. It’s like a reflex.”

“It’s alright, I know that feeling. We’re all suffering from a terrible condition without a cure. Woe to us.”

“Anyway,” her mouth twitched, “I escaped him and I heard what was going on in ‘D’, so I figured I could find a spot to sleep out the side effects. I set up some portable security bots in a desolate corner and fell unconscious. Next thing I knew, I woke up to the alarm of my chip to find my necklace was gone. A few more potions later, while searching for clues, I found you stomping on the streets and you were the only one I met face to face on the run.”

“So you thought it had to be me.” He said. Part of her probably still believed that, with the way she was looking at him. Marco let the story sink in, pondering. Was it believable?

“It’s ironic.” He said, thinking of something. “Stealth hides you from others. But your attributes are so high, it instead draws attention. If someone notices even just a blur by accident, they can guess enough from that. It makes it obvious that you have rare stealth items on you. Finding you isn’t easy, sure, but people have tried their luck with worse odds, evidently.

“Someone must have found you asleep by sheer luck. Or they were chasing after you and Winston with the deed already in mind. You should consider yourself lucky they didn’t strip you clean... At any rate, you said something about security bots? Can you show them to me?”

Jeanne hesitated before pulling out two metal disks from her pockets. He placed one of them in his hand, and he waited for her to push the button and deploy the disk. It transformed into a small sphere with three legs protruding out at the bottom, securing it to the ground. It looked like a giant red eyeball rotating around its axis. Marco held the sphere, first frowning, then bursting out laughing.

“Are there any problems?” She asked, displeased with his actions.

“No, nothing.” He calmed down, but he couldn’t wipe the grin from his face. “Great choice. I don’t see any fault with them, so I’m sure they warned you as soon as your thief was nearby, but you slept through it. It’s just...”

“What?”

“I don’t remember selling them to you.” Marco held up the sphere, pointing its bottom towards her. A large ‘M’ with a diagonal that crossed it out was engraved into the metal. Her eyes went wide with understanding.

“So I stole them from someone.” She crossed her arms. “Sue me.”

“I don’t care about that. But I can confirm they work as intended. And they’ll make my part of the job much easier. Trade one to me.”

Again, Jeanne hesitated, which prompted him.

“I know, I said we don’t trust each other, but if you act like that about every little thing, we won’t get anywhere soon.”

She grumbled something inaudible to him when the notification rang in his mind.

Jeanne Teller wants to trade with you.

Accept?

Yes.

Jeanne Teller. The chip’s messages were immutable, so she hadn’t given him a fake name. That’s a surprise. She transferred the ownership over to Marco, making the item officially his. If something was stolen you had to wait seven days until the item was yours. That was the case for anything classified as as well. During that time frame, you couldn’t use tools to their full capabilities, nor use or equip items without a penalty.

“What are you going to do now?” She asked.

“Check the security feed, obviously.”

“What?” She jumped to her feet, causing the pile she sat on to crumble. “You’re saying they can record?”

“You’d know, if you’d actually bought them, and read the manual.”

“Okay, I get it. I’m a bad person.” She raised her hands in defeat. “But then, why did I have to give it to you? Couldn’t you have just told me how to do it?”

“Sure, but this is faster.”

Jeanne looked like she had a lot she wanted to say, but he cut her short. “Get some rest. You’ll need it when we find your necklace. I need some time to search through the recording and process the information, as well as some much needed rest of my own, since I’m not a junkie. Come back once you wake up again.”

“...If you’re deceiving me, you’ll regret it.” With that, she stormed off, but her stomps sounded hollow. Gob hurried after her, testing the waters as he unlocked and—to Marco’s delight—locked the door after she left. He came back with his head hung low. She’d completely ignored him.

“She was nice... But she didn’t talk.” Gob said.

“I told you to be polite, but you don’t have to be if someone else isn’t, you know.”

“Oh. Complicated.” He went back to do his own thing where he quickly recovered his mood.

Sitting in his recliner, Marco was playfully throwing the small bot into the air while in thought. He lied about the recordings. These bots couldn’t do that. He’d just needed some reason for her to leave him alone for a while. The drawbacks of the potions should keep her knocked out for an entire day, at the very least. Now, how should I actually go about this...

“I’ll be out for a bit.” He said to Gob, who waved his hand in goodbye after doing his duty.

“Marco!”

He looked over his shoulders to find a man entering the alley he’d been waiting for over an hour. District A won the price for the cleanest one in Junkyard, but it was still a dirt hole. The walls and ground painted with spots of dried blood were plenty to make it an unpleasant dating spot, but it gave him ample time to make sure they were alone. It might be safer to message each other over the chip, even when one stood next to each other, but the function was not without its faults or limitations. For one, the software had a real cost attached to it.

The man took off his hood, greeting him with his rugged face. His firm jaw looked like it kept the parts of his face divided by scars together. What little skin he showed was covered in black ink, blending into the scrawny man's clothing.

“Inky.” Marco nodded. His actual name was Keyn Orland, and they had first met about two years ago. Since then, they’d been in contact. A helpful little fellow, in a different way than Gob was.

“My favorite customer and dear friend, you called for me, and I came as fast as I could.” His hoarse voice fawned over him, blowing past the hollow gaps between his teeth. “What can I do for you this late at night?”

“Give me anything remarkable going on.” Marco started off with the usual.

“Not much to tell, not much.” Inky counted on his fingers. “Natural-grade item, Holden, Scrapyard D. I’m sure you’ve heard it all. It’s all over the place. Nothing of substance I can sell in good conscience to any of my friends.”

What a poor joke. He would sell his grandmother’s coffin if he knew where to dig and throw in her remains as a bonus. Inky just learned better than to rip him off.

“But there is this one, small, yet interesting thing going on...” He stretched out his hands, and Marco dropped a few pellets into them.

“There’s someone running around lately. ‘The Phoenix’, he calls himself. Ridiculous, right?” Inky snickered and made the pellets disappear under his cloak. “He is terrorizing shops from all districts, stealing from them. Sometimes, he just leaves behind a mess, destroying items he can’t take with him. Few know it’s even happening, because the victims try to sweep it under the rug. Reputation and whatnot. Some of them sell security bots, so that’s not a good look, as you can imagine.

“Now, I know what you think.” He raised his hand as if to silence Marco’s unspoken words. “Stealing. Pillaging. Wow, great news. But you’re a tinkerer. I know your business and I smell a great opportunity here. Security, is it not one of your own specialities?”

“Interesting.” Marco said, digesting the information. “I’ve got a lot on my hands for now, but I should tell my warden to be more careful. That all?”

Inky nodded.

“Then I need two other things. First, information on a woman called Jeanne Teller. Here's a picture of her.” He sent the picture his chip had taken of her over to Inky. "Ring any bells?"

He gave it little thought before shaking his head. “Never heard of her, nor seen her before. Did she screw you over?”

“No.” Marco said. “Well, not yet. I have some interest in her. Check her background for me. I’ll pay the usual fee for anything valuable. The other thing I need you for is to find a stolen item. A rare accessory.”

Inky’s ears perked up like Gob’s when he found a new toy. Marco described the pendant to him, including time and place of the theft. After he finished, the alley fell silent.

“Wait, that’s it?” He looked at him, puzzled, his posture crumbling as he was begging for more. “Any hints about the thieves? Suspects? Which district they like to hide in? Allegiances? Vulture or scavenger?”

“If I knew that much, I wouldn’t need you, Inky.”

“But... Marco. It’s a stinking stealth necklace! You’re asking me to look for a needle in a scrapyard while blindfolded.” He shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

“This is important to me, Keyn.” Marco looked him straight in the eyes. “It’s fine if you don’t find it. I’ll pay for every piece of useful information. Anything that can narrow it down, I’ll pay up. And you know how handsomely I can pay for good information.”

His words returned some hope to Inky’s eyes, and he nodded. “I’ll do my best. Then, if you excuse me, I’ll get to work immediately.”

He turned around, ready to leave, when Marco’s voice chased after him. “Not that I need to remind you, Inky, but some information is not for sale.”

His shadow twitched to a halt, and he looked over his shoulder with a nervous chuckle. He bid his goodbyes with some eager nodding, leaving Marco behind in the alley.

Inky wouldn’t sell information about the necklace’s existence. That was too easy for Marco to track it back to him. He didn’t even count on him for any clues about it. It was true, finding it would be next to impossible using regular means. What he actually needed him for was the information about Jeanne.

After all, trust had to start somewhere, and who was to say it wouldn't by sniffing around for a dirty past. Someone needed to look into her and Nyle was currently not an option, which narrowed his list of contacts to one.

He hoped the rare-grade item would distract Inky enough to not notice his intention. Information about relationships between people was easier to sell and their sources hard to track. Nothing he could punish Inky for in good conscience, as the fellow loved to spout, if he chose to sell it. Marco didn’t need any kind of those rumors, especially since he didn’t know who he was getting involved with yet.