1.10.1

The Markets

Astrid hugged her own body. Beset, and excited, by uncertainty.

The energy within the multitude of people and the bright colors that whorled around turned their foray into a stroll through a wonderland. Astrid could only imagine the rest of the city outside the hub. What streets and museums, theaters, and courts, supported such life?

“Feel anything?” Tenya uttered lowly while they intertwined with the strangers that moved through the streets.

“Everything,” Astrid answered. “How do people keep it all straight?”

“They don’t.” Tenya gave a little shrug and smiled. “Some think they do, but there’s too many moving parts. You just have to deal with what’s right in front of you.”

Astrid began to understand. The Statics were practiced in a different form of focus, but for the same reason. It was all too easy to dissolve into the galaxy without purpose.

Anders, at Astrid’s left, strode to meet Karth on point. “We’ve got a tail. Following a row down.”

Across the stalls, a man in a tan jacket matched their pace. His face turned away when Astrid spun in place as if to peruse the patterned dishes of a nearby cookery.

“He’s been with us the last five minutes,” Anders detailed to the commander.

“Maybe it’s coincidence,” Karth sagely warned. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“He has a camera,” Tenya whispered.

She then slid an arm over Astrid’s shoulders in a show of friendship while she looked to admire the gossamer curtains of the shop opposite.

The team came to a halt around the booth. Anders smiled to the shopkeeper immersed with a customer over a selection of prints. Meanwhile, Karth gestured to a deep blue material to draw their eyes from the onlooker.

“He’s stopped, too.” Karth chanced a brief glimpse over his shoulder. “Tenya’s right. Camera at his waist so he doesn’t have to look directly.”

“Can you take care of it?” Anders hugged himself to Astrid to speak lowly.

“I’d need to get closer.”

“At your will…” Karth nodded in thanks to the shopkeep for allowing them to loiter, then led the team off.

Rue fell a step behind, to watch their backs, as the squad shifted around the corner to angle their way back up the next aisle, and past their spectator.

Astrid, in her nerves, purposefully avoided eye contact.

It left her to be caught unawares when the teammate behind her, Rue, hitched a boot around Astrid’s ankle.

She launched into a stagger with a tiny yelp, and just barely rallied in time to aim her collision right into the stranger’s arms.

“Oh my god!” Astrid sputtered. She latched onto him until her vertigo settled. Thinking fast, her finger stroked over the device latched to his hip. “I am so sorry, are you okay!?”

“Whoa, darlin’!” The man, surprised but clueless, held her. “Been walking long?”

Now thankful for Dell’s demonstration, Astrid felt for the tiny battery within and gathered what little power resided inside.

As she stammered bungling apologies behind ruddy cheeks, a single finger directed the charge instead to the device’s memory cartridge, to fry it.

Satisfied, she planted her feet firmly beneath her once more and detangled herself.

“You wouldn’t know it! I’m so sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s alright.” The man smiled. “Feel free to run into me anytime.”

The others wandered on, but Tenya and Anders subtly lingered.

“Hopefully not so dramatically,” Astrid laughed. Hopefully, she thought, her genuine nervousness would lend credence her ploy. “I better catch up with my friends. But, thank you. For not being a brick wall or something.”

The strange man waved when she parted, and she hurried to catch up with the others.

She passed Karth a discreet nod then reclaimed her place in the center, and they continued.

“Think that was about us?” Tenya’s voice blended with the crowd as they trekked further.

“Probably not,” Anders answered, “but better to be safe than sorry. We don’t know who’s looking. We could be recognized.”

“Not anymore,” Astrid assured.

Silks and home goods gave way to ammo and armor stands. Then blades, security devices, and firearms.

Rue perked up at the display, and the whole team slowed to examine the various stores, and notably, to give Astrid some time to "work her magic".

Tenya picked up a conversation with an ammo dealer about modifications and special ammunitions, and Anders worked a merchant a few stalls down, with nearly a dozen questions about different materials and their advantages.

Astrid peered, instead, at the traders. None would display illicit goods so openly, nor could she detect a weapon's energy signature unless they were powered on. But she could wade through the white noise of the shopkeeps for anomalies.

She found herself amused when Rue got into a heated debate with one of the retailers about the benefits of big guns when mitigated with slow reloads.

“If your enemies are all packing semi-automatics you’ll get mowed down before your second shot!” the dealer criticized.

“Not if you’re a good enough aim with your first one!” Rue argued.

“Oh, and you’re that good, are you?” The trader crossed his arms.

“Yes. I am.”

Astrid concealed a grin as she ambled between her new friends. She paused at each booth, listened non-committedly to each ensuing discussion, and felt out the merchants individually.

By the time she reached Karth at the end, he excused himself and guided her aside for seclusion.

“Well?”

“The one in the middle with Tenya seems a little… darker. He’s anxious. And hiding something.”

“That’s not enough. These are weapons dealers in an open port. At least half of them are involved in shady deals. Withholding illegal inventory isn’t uncommon.”

“I’m sorry. That’s all I’ve got. This isn’t a perfect science.”

The commander sighed but patted her shoulder. “It’s fine. It’s not like we’re any worse off than if you hadn’t come.”

Astrid panned over the crowd, as if any random indicator might pop up and allow her to feel less useless.

Instead, she found a small group of people gathered around a video screen. Images flickered over the surface, and the eight or nine gathered wavered in their energy, enough to bury the sensation emitted by the television itself.

Karth followed her gaze, and when she moved toward the group, he followed after.

They joined to see a news anchor sharing tidbits of some far-off machinations that meant nothing to Astrid.

“The Council of Septimus met with Earthen Officials this week to discuss the outflow of exports, and taxes to Earth. Septimus is now ranked second in net worth and gross goods, just behind the Darwinian Delta.

“Officials made no comment as to whether the talks on Septimus indicate any formal movement for independence, or if the Council seeks to levy their production to improve conditions or concessions for the Colony. Governing agencies on Merica, Morda, and Isanbur, also have declined any comment as to whether the push on Septimus bears any influence on their own obligations to Earth.”

Before Astrid’s eyes, images of vast, previously unimaginable cities flashed in sequence. Spires, rotundas, and aerial views of far-off places for which Astrid held no reference. But their sheer magnitude, and the implication of millions, maybe billions of lives, still struck her, while those around looked upon the scenes with quiet anxiety.

“I don’t understand…” she said softly. “What does that mean?”

Karth spoke near to her, though he glanced to those with whom they shared the space. “It depends on who you are.”

Astrid watched the footage of countless numbers. A whole civilization beyond reckoning, that made the sample she stood among feel impossibly small.

“There’s so many. I didn’t realize…”

“We can’t make it our problem until it is. All we can do for now is focus on what’s in front of us and trust others to do the same.” Karth refocused her, and his voice cast to the side when he looked back toward the team, ready to conclude their business.

Astrid caught his meaning and pulled herself away from the distraction. She looked up at him while Karth scanned the surrounding buildings with a troubled scowl.

“If they’re here, they’ve got to be holed up somewhere. Maybe we’ll have better luck just outside the markets. They’d need a warehouse or something…”

Astrid nodded. They backtracked to the stalls, and with a wordless gesture from their commander, the others regrouped. Rue with a new pack of modifications to play with.

Tenya linked her arm through Astrid’s and led her behind the commander.

“What’s it like to be out? Crazy, huh?”

“Definitely surreal,” Astrid acknowledged. “I wish we had more time to just look around.”

“We get shore leave on occasion. We’ll show you a good time. And keep you safe,” she promised.

Karth located an exit from the market, and they detoured between structures and away from the main shops.

Distanced from the massive hum of the congregation, Astrid could finally sense enough void to pick up on individual life signs, sometimes through the walls two and three Statics at a time.

The squad circumnavigated the trade center, and arced around the outside at a meander, until Astrid stopped in front of a large building that pricked at her nerves like a wasp nest.

“What is it?” Anders probed.

Astrid’s eyes fell on heavy, bolted doors. “There’s been a handful of people in most these buildings. But in this one, there’s a whole bunch. Maybe… thirty? It feels like the ship.”

“It doesn’t look like a shop front,” Tenya observed, “or that it’s open for business.”

“We can’t take thirty,” Karth decided.

Rue shifted in her boots. “Maybe you can’t.”

“We don’t know that it’s anything pertinent.” Anders gauged the building ahead. “Could be a common house, or a brothel. It could even be a hideout for a street gang, and it wouldn’t be relevant. Or our business.”

“Anders?!” A new voice called from behind them.

The squad rotated in unison to a trio of armored humans at their backs.