The cart was full. It rolled on rusted wheel brackets making Mina feel like she was pushing it across gravel instead of the slick linoleum floor.

  AJ’s Mart was the third storefront she and Murphy had visited, but the first one he allowed them to enter. It had to do with the entrance scanner, the same kind they saw at the deputy office, and a feeling that Murphy said came with years on the job. Regardless, AJ’s was what they were looking for. Eight narrow rows of hardened produce, dry meats, and supplies for drifters and mining convoys which, they observed, made up the majority of the economy on Quay.

  It was Mina who noticed the matching symbol upon most of their jumpsuits. Harvest was the biggest company pushing flack from Mercury to Jupiter back in their own time, and apparently it still was today.

  “Quay is a halfway house for these mining teams, they’re all coming or going, few are staying very long.”

  Mina looked about the mart, the people inside seemed like they hadn’t talked to another human in years. Eyes unblinking, limbs slow to move, as though they hadn’t had to consider time for awhile.

  “So they’re all just waiting to go home? Back to Jupiter, I mean.”

  “Some. Or they stay in town long enough to find another expedition crew short on men.”

  A never ending cycle of dirt and grind, Mina thought. Suddenly her years competing for top marks at university seemed a paradise.

  Several people moved out of their way with a glance, a frequent reminder of how poorly she and Murphy blended in but Mina didn’t mind the proximity. She caught sight of something crawling on one of the miners, and gagged at the smell of another.

  Belt miners... Mina was reminded of old photos from the gold rush on Dearth where prospectors were kooked out from spending too long underground. As their carts skirted by one another, she wondered what kind of things they saw over the years. Were there really gila monsters the size of trucks like in children' s stories? She was never closer to believing than she was now, after witnessing the way these people moved; half alive, like eroding statues.

  The line to checkout was slow, as expected, and when they reached the front Mina was surprised to find it wasn’t the shoppers but the cashier holding everyone up. On Dearth, especially in the capital of Toasamir, a cashier was expected to be lithe and charming. Their job was to get people out fast; the faster the better. In most cases, automated registers removed human error from the equation entirely. These conveniences, like so many Mina had come to realize, were just as mythical to the people of Quay as belt monsters were to Mina.

  Temmy, as it so read in chicken scratch on her name tag, chewed gum Mina couldn’t see and had two lazy eyes. Mina tried not to stare, but couldn’t help herself. Temmy was old, and her skin sagged so much her hands on the counter looked rooted to the surface. She made no greeting or movement suggesting she would be helping scan the contents of their cart.

  Mina grabbed a pack of microcables and brought it uncertainly across the register scanner that laid between Temmy and their cart. The scanner beeped and Mina placed the pack gently into the courier at the end of the counter. Temmy’s eyes didn’t move much, and Mina paused a moment before continuing, expecting the woman to contest. She didn’t, and Murphy impatiently slid the next item from their cart across the scanner, rolling it down the counter.

  Halfway through the cart, Mina looked at the screen to see the total so far.

  “Is that in Imperial Credits?” She asked, though Temmy didn’t answer with more than that incessant chewing sound her mouth made.

  “Must be,” Murphy added instead.

  The increased tax on stellar outposts like this were already high, then factor in a century’s worth of inflation… She paused her scanning, a thought occurring to her.

  “His Imperialness will be covering this, right?” Murphy didn’t answer her at first, “as an official liaison from Le Orden, I think that’s fair.”

  He still didn’t answer her as he grabbed the last few items from the cart, scanning them robotically. That done, he reached for the payment scanner, which was uncomfortably close to Temmy’s own hand. Mina wasn’t sure if the woman would whip out her lizard tongue in protest.

  The scanner made the same rejecting noise as the warden’s scanner from earlier. A red light flashed across the screen facing Temmy. Both eyes zipped toward the message, suddenly aligned.

  “Expired,” she said, though the word seemed to have an extra syllable somehow.

  Murphy pursed his lips, removed his thumb, and tried again with the same result.

  “Expired.”

  “Do we both have to scan?” Mina asked, thinking back to how they’d gotten into the warden’s office. Temmy’s eyes split again as she looked at Mina. Trying not to move too quickly, Mina said, “or do you think the empire cut you off?”

  “Unlikely, operative credit is resilient. Has to be for those of us in and out of ice.”

  He tried again. The red light across Temmy’s face turned her from odd to scary.

  “You using a fakey on us?” The woman asked.

  “A what?” Mina asked, regretting doing so as Temmy wheeled her gaze toward her.

  “A fakey. Y’all driftin’ to sneak us?”

  “Drifting… what are you talking about?”

  “Zeek,” Temmy said to no one.

  Mina looked around, the line behind them was growing, but she didn’t see anyone perking up at the name. Temmy said the name again unrushed.

  “Eh?” A voice called from behind a curtain Mina had mistaken for a tapestry.

  “Drifters,” Temmy said.

  “Tell ‘em to dust off.”

  “They ain't listening,” Temmy’s gum suddenly appeared as a gray bubble, popping to emphasize her point.

  Mina shared a look with Murphy.

  “You haven’t asked—” Mina started but the voice behind the curtain interrupted her.

  “Ain’t listening?” A man appeared in the doorway, metal rings skating across the curtain rod like nails on a chalkboard. Hunched and wide, he looked cut from the same cloth as Temmy, “whas the problem here?”

  Murphy sighed heavily. Mina noticed, and was beginning to recognize how often he did that. He was clearly a man used to taking or giving orders, this middle ground was foreign to him and he hated it.

  “Zeek? Are you the manager, or is AJ—”

  “AJ aint a manager, it stands fer AutoJule, marker of free trade, which you seem to be havin’ a misunderstanding with mister.”

  Zeek hiked his suspenders and Mina saw the grooves in the man’s poor shoulders from where they’d given his flesh permanent red stripes.

  “I agree, we do have a misunderstanding,” Murphy said after yet another breath, “I’m a representative of la Orden Bravista, here on business. I have an active line of credit that may need to be manually keyed for—”

  “That’s a good one,” Zeke interrupted, “haven’t heard Bravista in a while. We’ll be sure to input your code, or telegram, or whatever into the ‘puter straight way. Though in the meantime, I’ll thank ya to leave the store. Other people need buyin’.”

  He gestured at the line behind that was indeed growing. Mina never liked inconveniencing people at the best of times. Call it a people pleasing vice, but the thought that the total pairs of eyes watching this interaction was growing didn’t ease the tension.

  “It’s fine, I’ll pay,” she said and reached across the counter, shoving her thumb into the scanner like it was about to disappear. The light flashed red again, and she removed her thumb curiously before placing it down again, but with the same result.

  “Expired,” Temmy said, taking the time to shake her head. It seemed disappointment fed her engine.

  “That makes no sense,” Mina said, sweating as the weight of every person in line projected their frustration upon her.

  “This must be your first time,” Zeek said while Temmy popped her gum. “Drifters like you steal a line of credit, maybe your thumbs got a peel on it, or you changed the code in some blockchain. Think us rim folk are too stupid to catch ya. How smart are ya now? Now get on, and do so before we call the warden, eh?”

  “We’re not drifters.” Murphy said.

  “Drifters, thieves, liars. Like I said, don’t matter,” he reached over to a switch board on the wall. He flicked the com link open and paused with his finger on the call button, “now, we got a problem, or can we get onto business?”

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  Outside, the wind kicked their clothing up, and dust blew over the buildings into the street, and against their sides. It found their eyes with each gust no matter which way they faced.

  “You really don’t think the Empire cut you off?” Mina asked again, feeling like she was instructing a toddler in something simple.

  “Doubtful.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they only do that when the operative’s been pronounced dead,” Mina paused in the middle of the road. Murphy took another step before turning back, “same as citizen accounts.”

  “Yeah…” Mina said.

  So far they’d been under the illusion that time had passed on ice, but this was the first time Mina felt like time had left them behind.

  “But we got into the store…” she said meekly.

  “Probably just an entrance log, it wouldn’t check credit accounts, just IDs.”

  Mina rubbed her arms, suddenly chilly in the gray-dying town.

  Murphy paused, and she saw a sliver of understanding in his face before he said, “come on, if we can’t get supplies we might as well look for the other two and regroup.”

  Mina pursed her lips, and caught up to him.

  “You really don’t care that the empire thinks you're dead?” she said.

  “Why should I?”

  “You mean besides the fact that we’re stranded on the most remote satellite of Jupiter, without supplies, money, or a plan?”

  “We have a plan.”

  “Get to Alma Prime isn’t a plan. It’s a direction at best. My dad used to say…” she hesitated and noticed Murphy looking at her with that huge head. She shook the memory loose “Whatever, so we go with your plan. What’s next?”

  “We’ll catch a mining envoy on the next pass to Jupiter.”

  “And they’ll believe us, right? Just like the Warden, just like Zeke and…?” She didn’t want to say Temmy’s name, or think about those frog eyes.

  “La Orden Bravistas isn’t just a security detail. Agents like Alexi and I are assigned to high ranking military officials for proactive defense. Getting to and from places is part of the job.”

  This was the first time Murphy mentioned his partner, Alexi. Besides her father, it seemed nobody was really prepared to talk about the people they’d lost; at least on purpose.

  “So,” she said distractedly, “how much trouble do we think Val and Roman got into by now? A couple hours is enough time to drink themselves aground.”

  “We’ll see. If our line of credit is dead, theirs surely is.”

  They walked to a familiar cross road. Most of the buildings looked alike, though Mina knew they were getting close to Quay’s center because the buildings were going from one story to three. A crowd began to chitter and form around one of the buildings, and Mina ran into Murphy ogling it.

  “Let’s go around,” his grip on Mina’s arm wasn’t tight, but it was uncomfortably firm. She let herself be dragged, but a second glance at the crowd caused her to pull up short.

  “Wait,” she said, staring.

  Murphy looked from Mina’s gaze to the building, where the chatter had crescendoed into a full on ruckus.

  “Is that…” Mina said. “No…”

  Murphy might have cursed, but he moved so fast it was hard to tell.

  The crowd started to bubble outward, leaving a circle in the middle. People in the crowd were throwing trash and yelling at something.

  For all his size, Murphy couldn’t move through the crowd faster than a step at a time. Mina grabbed hold of his coat from behind and followed him in. He didn’t mind, or didn’t notice, but those they passed looked at her like they were stealing their seats at a movie theater.

  “What’s happening,” she called up to Murphy who waded as though through water.

  “Trouble.”

  The crowd’s din was many sounds, but one in totality: violence. Mina somehow heard Roman’s voice, or rather his guttural gasps. When Murphy pushed himself through the last line of people and into the circle, Mina nearly fell forward onto him.

  She witnessed Roman stumbling toward a large man, one hand cocked back like a drunken boxer. Another more gangly man appeared from the side and clocked Roman before he made it within three feet. Roman swung anyway, momentum causing him to pirouette before collapsing to the ground.

  The bigger man stooped down to grab Roman by the scruff, but his body slid away as Murphy grabbed his ankle and pulled him to the side. The crowd held their breath as the spectacle paused.

  A melodic whistle skated on the silence as a figure stepped out from the shadowed bar patio dressed in a black duster, and matching black hat peeling away from the darkness—a smile dazzled from beneath the brim.

  The two men Roman had been fighting sauntered to either side of the newcomer, several other supporters waited on the patio.

  “A hero arrives,” the voice said, “can’t say many are glad to see you come though.”

  Neither Murphy or Mina spoke, but Roman coughed and used his hands to prop himself up on the ground. She rushed to him.

  His face was red and already starting to puff up. There was blood running down his nose and lip, but his knuckles were scraped and the cruel, bloody smile told Mina the fight hadn’t been completely one sided.

  Murphy straightened, “whatever happened here is done. We’ll leave. There doesn’t have to be any more fighting.”

  The man in black smiled. It was a lot like Roman’s. “Oh we didn't want a fight, mister. He volunteered, and he knew the stakes. Ain’t that right, Ace?”

  Roman spit to the side “Your hands are pretty clean over there, Mac.”

  Murphy looked back, curling his lip in quiet disgust as Mac continued.

  “See what I mean? Uncivilized folk will find the trouble they have coming, one way or another. Today it was me. Maybe tomorrow it’s you,” Mac adjusted his hat with one hand and fingered the hilt of a knife at his belt with the other, “now, I can tell y’all ain't too attached, so why don’t you let us have him back and we can kill this bird with one stone?”

  Roman tried standing but Murphy put a heavy boot on his back. .

  “Watch it,” Roman said hotly, but remained pinned under the weight.

  Murphy kneeled and said something for only the three of them to hear, “as far as I’m concerned, you’re just cargo that I could throw in a box. Let me know if you’d like to do that, or walk out of here yourself.”

  Roman tried getting up again, but Murphy put him down easily. Mina just watched bug eyed.

  On the third attempt, Mina heard Roman curse, but he didn’t try again.

  “We’ll be leaving,” Murphy said.

  “You’re not seeing the situation you’re in, friend.”

  “I see it fine,” Murphy said.

  The rest of his gang joined him in the street. Beside Mina’s fear, the logical side of her did a threat assessment. Roman wasn’t in much shape to fight, and while Mina could probably hold her own against one of them they were outnumbered, even with Murphy counting as more than one man.

  She looked around for a way out, and spotted a face squeezed between members of Mac’s gang still crowding near the saloon entrance.

  “Val?” Mina’s questioning tone cut across the conversation.

  The gang turned, and Val’s eyes went wide, then turned around, imitating everyone else looking in her direction.

  “What is she doing?” Mina whispered.

  Roman stood slowly, like his joints would pop if he was too quick, “hiding. What else?”

  Val waddled to the saloon railing, smiling idiotically along the way. She put one leg over the railing and then the other, all the while the Mac watched with a growing grin.

  When she hit the dusty ground, her casual pace disappeared as she ran and slid behind Murphy.

  “About time you guys show up!” She said, between the teeth of her smile, “And you!” She kicked Roman in the shin, “what the hell was all that?”

  Mina caught Roman as he fell, but their momentum brought them to stumble into Murphy, who stumbled himself further into the circle. He wheeled on them.

  “Get. it. Together.”

  Thunder in the distance—everyone looked down the main road where a trio of cycles roared into view.

  “Ah, the gang’s all here then,” Mac said, but his demeanor changed as they came close. The men were just as bloody as Roman, and as spooked as Val. When Mac spoke, his voice was somehow calm and menacing. “What happened?”

  “See, Mac, we were out on the skirts, and found this ship-”

  Another pushed past, more frantic than the first, “we tried to get in but there was an army waiting inside. Then they set a goddamn Frame against us.”

  The first rider reeled the second back.

  “It wasn’t no frame, Mac, it was a meck true. Got a face too. Weirdest thing we’ve ever seen. We barely got out of there with our lives.”

  Mac looked at Bluke and nodded. The bigger man took some of the gang around the back of the building. Mina and the crew shared a knowing look.

  Arthur.

  The cycles restarted and began to pull away. Mac looked back at their group, “opportunity calls, friends. But I’ll be back.”

  “Prick.” Roman said.

  “He’s letting us go,” Mina said in a whisper, “shut up.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that darling,” Mac said. Mina flinched at his strength of hearing. “Can’t say I’d let a pretty one like you get away without a proper introduction. So I'll be keepin’ ya around until we're done.”

  “You shouldn’t of sent half your gang away then,” Roman said, stepping to the side of Murphy, who didn’t shoo him away this time.

  “It won’t be me, Ace. Warden?”

  Several people in the crowd slid to the side, isolating a resentful looking hound-eyed man, trench coat billowing in the dust.

  “There ya are, Warden. Do us a favor and take these fine folk to your establishment, make sure they go nowhere. I’ve a feeling we’ll be wanting to talk after our work is done.”

  To the side two people stepped forward, throwing back their own dusters to brandish their holstered guns. One of them she recognized from the warden depot earlier.

  “We haven’t done anything wrong,” she said.

  The warden cracked his neck, and seemed to regret having been asked to speak at all.

  “We’ll decide that together, now keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

  Mac tipped his hat and approached one of the cycles. The driver hopped off at the first sign that Mac had picked it for his ride. When they tore away, the dust cloud they left behind was suffocating. For a moment the town disappeared.

  A hand gripped her upper arm and she thought the sheriff and his deputies had gotten to her, but she saw Murphy bring her close.

  “Get the idiot!” He said.

  Val grabbed Roman's shirt and Mina grabbed Val who clung to Murphy. The crowd shifted in the commotion.

  “We’ve gotta get back to the Razor,” Mina called.

  “I know.”

  “You think it’s true?” Val said as Murphy pulled them through the crowd, “what they said—was there a fight?”

  “Know any other mecks with a head?” Murphy asked, “now stay close, the dust is clearing, we'll have to make a run for it.”

  Mina felt Murphy tense, then pulled up short abruptly. She peeked around his back to find the warden and his deputies standing in a triangle around them, guns held evenly in their direction, the warden standing at the front.

  “Trouble and I don’t get along well. No room for it in a cell either so best to leave it behind right now.”

  Mina went from scared to angry quicker than she thought possible—she nearly turned around and gave Roman a second black eye. What have you gotten us into?