Third Quadrant, K-7 Trade Station
A week before the score
"Good lord, I knew I shouldn't have let you anywhere near the cockpit," Amarel huffed, shaking his head.
"Boy, shut your mouth. Would you have done better?" Law shot back, annoyed, his hands greasy up to the elbows.
"Law," Amarel said, firm. "Law. My friend. Please, don't flip it over. We were coming here, we were coming here in a straight line. It was a straight line. A straight-"
"I heard you, man."
"A straight line! So, to answer your question, yes, maybe I would have been able to execute a maneuver without damaging the engine irreparably." The young man with ochre hair exhaled hard and turned toward the bay's wide window. "Well, look at that. Welcome to K-7: the Third Quadrant's biggest orbital junkyard."
Beyond the glass, the station looked like a rusted ring stuffed with platforms welded on top of each other with little to no prior planning. Merchant ships poured in and out in a chaotic stream, while neon signs blinked over depots and improvised workshops. The smell of exhausted fuel and greasy fried food already seeped into the hangar.
"I mean, it's a place of chances," Law declared, gathering tools.
"Chances to get robbed," Amarel replied. "Well, come on. Let's find someone to fix this your heap."
"Fuck you."
–
"…You're impossible."
Apparently, their search led straight into a tavern, where Law was enjoying an ice-cold beer.
The place was carved into an old habitation module, patched together with scrap plating from decommissioned ships. The walls were covered in faulty neon signs, and every so often a spark would spit, crackle, and fall onto the sticky floor. The air tasted like fuel-smoke and cheap alcohol, and it sounded like distorted electronic music that jammed every three beats. Hell, even the playlist had rust in its gears.
Law and Amarel sat at a corner table after their long and grueling pursuit (lasting about half an hour). A porthole window showed a slice of K-7's annular corridor: wandering forklifts, vapor trails, and a child selling bolts like they were roasted seeds.
"…I mean, we could take the bus there," Law muttered, eyes still on his mug. A drop slid down the back of his synthetic hand and vanished into the seams of the prosthesis.
He did take the guy's advice.
"Yes, of course, to show up in front of a Claw with public transport?" Amarel snapped, dragging his chair closer until one leg squealed. "Enjoy the review on the website."
Law frowned. "Alright, first of all, fuck you. Second of all, you review after the job. Oh, and we can rate them too, you know. He doesn't get to be a one-sided bitch."
"I'm sorry, ratings for what, exactly? Hospitality?" Amarel asked, bored.
"I mean, yeah, you could. You don't get to be a good employer for free, y'know."
Amarel chuckled. "Orren still stings, doesn't he?"
"Fuck yeah, he stings. I told you it was an actual microwave."
"Good lord, I still can't believe that scam actually happened."
"Yeah. At least I scraped enough for the arm."
"Oh, right, the arm, what about it?"
Law clicked his tongue. "What about it?"
"Well, when we first met you ran through the entire building looking for it. So I figured I'd take it back for you. But what's with it? No offense, it didn't look that special. You even kept it."
"Oh, yeah, my old man gave it to me."
"Your father? You said you didn't have one."
"That's right."
Amarel sighed, then half-smiled. The smile he wore when he knew he'd hit something tender. He didn't press. They knew each other well enough to recognize the edge of the other's secret and stop there.
"Anyway, I asked about the collector," Amarel said, tapping a finger to the beat on the table.
"What? When?"
"You wandered off for ten minutes," Amarel rolled his eyes.
Law tapped his forehead. "Oh, yeah, yeah, I had to piss."
"Mhm. Either way, I found out two shops in the area won't steal your soul along with the ship." He glanced sideways at Law. "Not immediately, they told me. The soul, well, maybe they'll take it in installments."
Law chuckled. "We'll take 'not immediately,'" he said, setting his mug down. The foam left a clean ring, like a stamp. "How long?"
"Depends how many pods we want to burn." Amarel made a lazy circle in the air.
"We can't waste that much time. The meeting is in, like, twelve hours."
"Oh, so now you're competent?" Amarel teased.
"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"... Sorry, that was mean."
Law furrowed his brows. "Seriously, what are you talking about?"
The bartender approached, a woman with a scar across her eyebrow and a screw-stud earring. She dropped two bowls of fried something that smelled of sea and tired oil.
"On the house," she said, not quite smiling. "One of your old friends left a round. Severn."
Amarel lit up. "Old Severn!"
"Bitch, who?"
"Oh, whatever. Thank you, lady."
The bartender shrugged and walked away. On the monitor behind the counter, a muted newsfeed crawled banner after banner: Hypernexa opening a "technical depot" on Gaia Prime; a video of Elyrion, House Algotheon's Explorer, shaking hands with someone in a white room; the headline overlay talking about "interquadrant balances."
Nobody in the tavern really watched, but eyes fell there now and then, like drawn to the reflection of a knife.
"Interesting," Amarel said quietly.
Law leaned forward. "Amarel. You were saying…?"
The young man shook his head. "Sorry. I just always thought you were relatively new to this. I'm not that much of an expert, but still."
"Shit, that easy to see?"
"No issue with that. We still made our fair share. But why the underworld? I never quite understood that."
Law leaned back to the chair and chewed a couple of fries. "Guy once told me that contraband was the safest danger, or some shit."
"Your 'old man'?"
Law nodded.
"See? I can tell when people say the truth. And no, so far nobody you said was checking you out, was actually checking you out."
"Fuck you."
Amarel chuckled.
"Yo, finish the fries," Law said.
"I'm not really hungry."
Law lifted his shoulders and took some of Amarel's bowls.
"Well, that being said, I have to congratulate you for your bravery. You pretty much went blindly."
"Shit, I had to do something."
"After what?"
Man, please, stop asking. Law thought. "Uh… Nothing that cool. I was on the streets, that's it."
Amarel snorted. Silence aired between the two for a while, not that heavy but not that light either.
"I don't blame you."
"..."
"The world pretends it's in order, and we pretend to know what we're doing. No, more than pretend, we think we do. You must have had your own reasons."
"Thanks, I guess?"
"You're welcome."
"Just finish your fries," Law shook his head.
That's when he noticed her.
She didn't enter the tavern. She stayed in the corridor's shadow beyond the porthole, blonde hair tied in a ponytail, a worn but practical work jacket, a black scarf with white polka dots. She was arguing with a tall man; the glass muffled her voice, but the gestures were crystal: hands planted on hips, a finger stabbing toward the crate he was trying to shove onto her.
Amarel saw her a second later. "Uh. Heated."
Law only watched. The girl didn't give up an inch, not even when the man leaned down to loom over her. If anything, she returned a cold look that extinguished the merchant's smug grin. After a beat, he let go, raised his hands, and walked off grumbling. She picked up a bag of components and zipped her suit like it was armor.
"One who doesn't run," Amarel commented. "I like her."
"Not our problem." Law went back to his mug, but the image stuck behind his eyes. Something in the way she refused to yield, that stubborn, grinding persistence: an unpleasant familiarity.
She was already gone around the corridor corner, bag clutched to her chest. A brief apparition swallowed by noise and broken neon.
Amarel raised his glass. "Cheers."
"Cheers."
The sound of the glasses clinking, for a moment, covered the music's crackling stutter.