Exharks #2 - Unequivalent Exchange

When Old Jaim had mentioned he’d been spotted a few days ago by “sentries”, Sharkerbob could have guessed they’d been spying on him the entire time since. He’d probably had a few tails following him or keeping track from a distance as soon as he entered the city. So he wasn’t too surprised to see two of the dark-skinned humans standing where he’d initially dropped down from his base. What did mildly surprise him was the fact they were dressed in somewhat outlandish costumes, distinct from the rest of the civilians.

The man wore some kind of colorful outfit lined with beads and leather tassels. A row of long, multi-color feathers lined his arms, and he wore a wooden condor helmet reminiscent of the designs seen on Native American totem poles. The helmet had wide glassy lenses built into the eyes, tinted so he couldn’t see the man’s eyes underneath. He stood a few inches taller and broader than Sharkerbob himself, his exposed arms rippling with muscle.

The woman, on the other hand, wore some kind of loose, one-piece body stocking made of a solid black silky material, covering everything except her head, bare hands, and feet. It mostly hung loose, but was cinched around the waist and at the ankles and wrists, to keep the folds from bunching awkwardly. She wore a solid black blindfold over her eyes, and her hair come off her head in long, straight spikey locks, completely unlike the wavy or curly hair of her fellows. She was only an inch shorter than Sharkerbob, and while the baggy outfit didn’t give any hint of her musculature, he could guess she was no slouch in that department.

Both stood tall and imposing, the man with his arms crossed, the woman with her arms at her sides, but with a slight forward lean that made him think she could pounce at a moment’s notice.

“Halt, Stranger,” said the man, his voice a gruff grumble. Sharkerbob wondered if he was putting it on a bit, or if that was just how he talked. “State your business in our city.”

The man skipped straight to using Common, either out of a practical guess, or being informed of Sharkerbob’s linguistic capabilities ahead of time.

“I’m just wanting to sell some stuff,” said Sharkerbob. “Old Jaim has an artifact I would very much like to get my hands on.” He gestured to the Sky Shark. “I’m just going to see what I can trade for it.”

“You have been hovering in the valley for several days,” said the woman, her voice low and affected with a deep vocal fry. “What business do you have there?”

“Um, I kind of just settled in there after, ah, getting teleported. Like a teleportation accident. I was taking time to get my bearings. I wasn’t staking out your city or anything.”

The man looked to the woman, who didn’t look back. Sharkerbob wasn’t sure if she could see through the band around her eyes, or if she used some kind of extra-sensory perception, or what. The woman’s expression didn’t shift. She spoke to the man in their native tongue.

Sharkerbob glanced up at his base, trying to stay calm. He hadn’t done anything wrong, unless he’d somehow violated some kind of trespassing law, but the way everyone had been avoiding him while watching him was making him second guess their reactions. He understood the wariness, but had the whole city been waiting with baited breath for him to try and blow the place up or something? More immediately relevant, just how enthusiastically did the authorities throw their weight around on foreigners?

The two spoke a few more lines, before the man looked back to Sharkerbob. “You will leave the city, immediately.”

Sharkerbob blinked, then held his hands up. “Okay, I’ll go, but I really, really need something from Old Jaim’s shop.”

“Considering the profile of your vessel, you would appear to have all the Relics you need.” The man loomed forward. “You will take your ship and leave this district. If you attempt to linger within thirty miles of Brixity, including trying to hide in the mountains again, we will know, and you will be removed by force.”

Sharkerbob felt a pang of panic. Had they been inside the Sky Shark? Could they activate the teleporter? Or did they just fly up to it and enter the balcony door? Come to think of it, the door didn’t really have a lock, so probably anyone could just enter that way.

“This is a matter of great personal importance,” Sharkerbob said, forcing himself to stay calm so he wouldn’t start stumbling over his words. “I promise you, I just need to get that hat. Relic. Relic hat. Afterwards, I’ll go to a whole other Sector.”

The two spoke again, then the man scowled. The woman beckoned him forward. “We will escort you for this task. I will enter the vehicle with you, as my partner watches from outside. If you attempt any sort of ambush or trickery, he will smash your Relic ship out of the sky.”

Sharkerbob’s first thought was, With you in it? but even if he’d wanted to be indignant, he in no way needed the trouble. Frankly, the longer this went on, the more he was having trouble not panicking. In “real life”, he’d never been good with confrontation, especially against people who looked like they could snap him in half like a twig. Who knew what abilities the woman had; for all he knew, she probably could survive the Sky Shark being smashed into the ground while she was inside it. Her bare feet on the rocky ground hinted at some enhanced durability.

The woman’s expression still didn’t change, but she said, “Worry for your own health.”

Sharkerbob blinked. Had she just read his mind? Or simply guessed what he might have responded with? This was going to drive him nuts, not having any idea what any given individual might be capable of in the Endless Frontier.

He cleared his throat, and said, “Alright. Um. I’ve never taken someone else with me, so I’m not entirely sure how this works. But, uh, just stand next to me, I guess.” He stepped up to where he intuited the teleport pad of the Sky Shark was pointed towards. Having tested it in the valley very briefly, he knew all he had to do was stand in the pad’s “line of sight”, will himself to be raised up, and make a jumping motion.

The woman latched onto his arm as he tried to step around her, her fingers forming a very firm grip on his bicep. The condor-themed man stepped back, spread his arms, and lifted into the sky, flying without actually using the wings for lift. Sharkerbob watched the man rocket up to the Sky Shark in just a couple of seconds.

Great. So he was probably some kind of Superman figure, if he could fly like that and could supposedly smash his floating base out of the air.

The woman tugged his arm, saying, “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can be out of each other’s business.”

“Sorry about all this,” Sharkerbob said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“I suspect you mean that, but your presence has been a source of wild rumor throughout the city. No one simply flies around a Relic such as yours without either a corporate or military intent.” Sharkerbob lead her a couple dozen feet forward, then put his hand over hers. He did the little jump trick, and suddenly, the two of them were standing on the glass bottom of the Sky Shark.

She let him go, and stepped over to the side, then faster than Sharkerbob could follow, she whipped out her hand, and something made a hard thunking sound, followed by a staticky shout. Sharkerbob leaped to the side, throat catching, heart thudding in his chest, as he turned to see another man hitting the floor, electric arcs sparking over his body, a straight-blade dagger jutting out of the dermal plate on his upper arm.

Sharkerbob stared at him, hand to his chest. The man was a Thryth, at least as tall and muscular as the condor-themed man, who was presently hovering outside the windows of the Sky Shark. “Wh-what the fuck?” Sharkerbob gasped out.

The Thryth made a hissy sort of chuckle, and, gritting his teeth in pain, reached up and yanked the blade out of his arm. The wound immediately began to bleed. A full four inches of the six-inch dagger was streaked with blackish blood, a testimate to how hard the woman could throw the thing. Thryth’s natural armor was tough enough to bounce arrows and deflect swords (presuming the wielder wasn’t overtly super strong), so a throwing knife should have bounced right off. The Thryth hissed out something while making a pained grin, but he reached his scorpion-like tail tip to touch the wound. There was a bright sparking and sizzling, and the scent of burnt husks touched Sharkerbob’s nose. The wound was cauterized shut.

A superpowered Thryth, too. Like they weren’t dangerous enough at their baseline.

The woman spoke in the throaty dialect the bookseller had tried, and the Thryth answered. His voice was a skittery hiss, with a staticky reverb, but it still sounded like the same language being used.

The woman, standing in a relaxed pose, spoke in Common again, although she kept facing the Thryth. “Stranger, you would do well to better secure your belongings. Troublemakers like this one can loot you in a blink.”

Sharkerbob swallowed back the lump in his throat. “H-how did he even get in here if your people were watching this place?”

“It behooved us to allow a fool such as this to trigger any potential booby traps you might have laid. I see, however, that you took no steps to secure your vessel.”

“And what if I had some kinda nuke tucked away he could have found?”

“Nuke?”

“Nuclear bomb. Um, radioactive explosives.”

“Do you?”

“Well, no.”

“Then there was nothing to worry about. Besides, we searched your vessel prior to ensure there were no dangerous Relics or Technologies stored within.”

His brow furrowed. “When?”

“The first night we discovered you. We sent one of ours to scout. You were asleep, and kept asleep, throughout.”

Another spike of panic struck through him. He’d slept through getting his base inspected? They’d just waltzed right in while he was unconscious? They could have slit his throat and just taken the vessel at any time!

The Thryth grinned and said something. Sharkerbob guessed he was speaking “Thrythian” or whatever he would have called their language. The woman stalked over to him. His tail lit up and arched over his head threateningly, arcs of electricity sparking off the barbed tip. But as she came up to him, he didn’t bother trying to stab her, or blast her. Instead, he suddenly turn nearly invisible, his body shifting to a slight heat-haze silhouette. He tried to dash to the side, but the woman snapped out her hand at speed to grab him by the tail, and whipped him hard enough against the wall to dent it. The Thryth let out a shout and turned visible again, electric arcs bursting off his form and arcing between himself and the woman. Her clothes puffed up, and her hair stood higher in the static field, but she was otherwise unharmed. The Thryth man then slumped, unconscious, the electricity dying down. The woman then went to the door that lead to the balcony garden, stepped outside, and tossed the man overboard. Out of the corner of his eye, Sharkerbob saw the condor-themed man start and bolt below the Sky Shark to catch him.

The woman reentered, and came right up to Sharkerbob, who stumbled back. She stopped short a couple feet from him. “Well, Stranger? We came here to acquire something for trade. Let’s get it done.”

***

Sharkerbob stayed silent as he tried to figure out what to sell. He frankly wasn’t sure what to think. His mind was fogging from the sudden rapid-fire scares. It took a physical effort to get himself moving again, and even then, he half-stumbled through his motions, forgetting what he was about to do immediately after starting to do it. He didn’t physically show any shakes, but he felt jittery and his breath was slightly erratic as the panic churned through him. After his fourth attempt to grab and inspect one of the smaller Relics, only to not really be able to focus on it, the woman stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He stiffened and let out a sharp breath, visions of being thrown into freefall flashing through his head.

“Relax. We will not harm you if you intend no harm.”

Sharkerbob swallowed hard and just stood there for a moment, reminding himself why he was here, and to focus on that task. He didn’t clear the anxiety by much, but after a few moments to settle his nerves, he was able to concentrate on what he was doing. The woman let go of him, and he set to work.

Okay. So. Despite being based on a Minecraft structure, the Sky Shark in its current form was not just a bunch of blocks stuck together. It was a fully-constructed vessel, appearing as a futuristic hovering craft, but apparently functioning entirely like a magical device. The appliances inside the vessel were the same way, presumably distinct Relics that had their own functions. He’d tested this during his initial testing of the teleporter, carrying one of the chests out of the Sky Shark, setting some freshly caught fish inside, then coming back a day later to see if the fish had spoiled any. They were fresh as the moment he’d placed them, despite sitting on the valley floor all day. The smell of them hadn’t even filled the chest. None of the local animals, not even insects, had tried to get into the chest, for that matter.

Aside from the Stasis Chests, of which he had twelve in total, there were the four self-heating Furnaces, the Toilet, the Sink, the Shower, and the Loom. He was pretty sure the Balcony Garden and the Fishing Trough that cut through it were also some kind Relic, or couple of Relics stuck together. When he’d arrived, one of the chests had crop seeds and root vegetables, while one had strings and cloths and dyes, the latter of which the Loom had been able to produce his clothes with. However, he was pretty certain the seeds and textiles themselves had no magical qualities.

To be honest, of the few things in the vessel he could actually part with without compromising his basic needs, the Chests were the only thing he could spare, and while he didn’t imagine he’d be hording much, he only had so many. Ultimately, he did figure a chest capable of stasis storage would be a very practical Relic to have, so he grabbed two of them, somewhat awkwardly holding both by the side handles. Each was about three feet wide by two deep by two tall, and were heavier than the looked, probably forty pounds each, despite seeming to be made of simple wood with metal frames.

The woman came over and held out her hands. Sharkerbob gave her one chest, but she motioned to give her the other as well. He decided there was no honor lost in letting her haul his stuff for him, considering she was the one muscling in on his residence without a warrant. He stepped over to the teleporter, put and hand on her shoulder, and made the start of a crouching motion, the activation trigger to be sent to the ground.

The condor man flew down to greet them, scowling at his partner. There was no sign of the electric Thryth thief. Sharkerbob could only assume he’d been hauled away already. The condor man spoke gruffly in their own language, and she made a short retort. He scowled deeply, then motioned for Sharkerbob to follow him. The three set off at a brisk pace, until they came to a tram just as it was stopping at the road’s end. The man made a declaration, and the handful of people onboard cleared out, while the handful who’d been waiting stayed off. A few equally gruff responses were shot back, but when the riders saw the pale man being escorted by two of the local cops, or whatever they were, they quickly shut up and complied.

The tram was only about the size of a small bus, and was even simpler in construction than he’d thought. A wooden bench with a thin leather cushion layer on top lined the inner wall, with a row of grab handles coming off the ceiling. He didn’t hear the creaking of any gears, other than the rolling of the tires. He had to assume the trams were themselves some kind of Relic, or had a magical propulsion system built into the frame. The lanky man at the front who operated the vehicle simply held his hand on a metal panel to get it moving, then lifted it to stop.

Sharkerbob couldn’t help but ask as they got seated. “Am I really that terrifying?” he said, motioning to the people giving them looks as the tram rolled down the street.

“Brixity is not one of the main travel-through settlements, so we do not see many outsiders,” said the condor man. “I would presume that as a traveler yourself, you would know how contentious a mysterious figure showing up in a less-visited settlement would be.”

“I suppose so,” he said. He gave the two a glance. “So, um, who are your people, exactly? I recognize the Thryth and the Du’Rast, but, uh, not any of you.”

Even though he could not see their eyes, he had the feeling the two shared a glance, or that at least the man glanced at his partner. “We are the Migree. Our people have several settlements in this Sector, but I suppose you would not find many of us beyond the immediate neighboring Sectors. Are you new to this region of Sectors?”

“Yeah. I’m from… uh…” he paused. To be honest, he could easily just say he was from the Missouri World Shard or the America World Shard or whatever, and what would they know? Hell, those Shards probably did actually exist somewhere out there. “Missouri,” he settled on. “The Missouri Sector. It’s… I honestly don’t know how far it is from here.”

“I see,” the condor man said.

Sharkerbob opted to let it drop there, and went back to looking around the settlement, taking in the brick buildings. He blinked. “Brixity” they’d called this place. “Oh, I get it,” he muttered. “Brick City. Ha.”

“Something funny about our city?” the condor man said gruffly, slightly puffing out his chest.

“No,” said Sharkerbob meekly, cringing back slightly and looking out of the tram again. He noted the mixture of mostly Migree citizens, with a few Thryth here and there, and a small group of Du’Rast walking by. The thought occurred to him to ask if the Migree were humans, but stopped himself from voicing the question as he realized how insulting that could sound.

He only meant to ask if they were human as opposed to another species, not as a metric of personhood. In other words, were they homo sapiens, or something-else sapiens from a different evolutionary line? It shouldn’t have been an out-of-line sort of question. One of the species he’d created for a fantasy project had looked human, but had been descended from racoons instead of apes, while another human-looking species had actually been stone elementals whose flesh was a form of living clay, covering skeletons of petrified wood. Both species he’d come up with for the Endless Frontier when he’d first made the setting, so that precident was already set. The Migree could have similar origins, for all he knew.

Still, the way he’d been raised, there was something fundamentally distasteful, to say the least, in a “white man” asking a “black person” if they were human. He had the feeling the two probably wouldn’t take it that way, given this was a fantasy culture already used to some intermingling with demihuman species, but he decided he didn’t want to open that potential can of worms.

The thought did make him consider, though, how he really was now at the mercy of the Author’s own creative whims. He hadn’t made them up himself, and he had the strong feeling the Migree had not existed as a concept until he’d arrived in the Endless Frontier, his creative impulses always pushing him to come up with something new to sink his teeth into, before tossing it aside for the next shiny thing. For their sake, Sharkerbob sincerely hoped that the Author wasn’t going to dispose of this settlement and its people in some outlandish fashion as part of some kick-off to starting the epic adventure he’d been wanting to write. If he pulled some needlessly overdramatic bullshit like that, Sharkerbob was going to resolutely hole himself up in the Sky Shark and refuse to do goddamned anything for the rest of this series!

“We’re here,” said the woman, getting out of the tram the second it stopped. The condor man motioned Sharkerbob to step out next, then followed him. The two kept him between them as they approached Old Jaim’s shop.

The old man was still there, and he raised an eyebrow as he saw the pale stranger being escorted by the two costumed figures. He said something in what Sharkerbob assumed was the Migree language (Migreean? Migreese? Migrish?). The condor man shot something back. The two bickered back and forth for a moment, and the old man rolled his eyes. He motioned to one of his workers, then motioned for Sharkerbob to step up to the counter.

“Stirred up enough trouble to get the Troubleshooters on your ass, hmm?” he said. Before Sharkerbob could answer, he cut him off with a, “Well, what have you got for me?”

The woman plunked the two chests on the counter. Sharkerbob motioned to them. “So, uh, these chests are Relics which preserve anything put inside them indefinitely. Just close the lid and it’s like time stops inside it. As far as I’ve tested, it just does it on its own, no need to recharge it that I can tell.”

The old man cocked an eyebrow at the thing. He fished a pocket watch out of his side pocket, glanced at it, opened the chest, then tossed the watch inside and closed it. He waited a minute, during which time the worker came back with what looked like a hat box lined with runes. He set the thing to the side, exchanged a few words with the old man, then walked off, glancing a little nervously at the two costumed escorts.

He pulled the watch back out, then nodded. “Time freeze, as you said.” He motioned to the two objects. “Useful. Very useful. How was it built?”

“I’m sorry to say I don’t know.”

The old man scowled. “Figures. In that case, we’re going to have to pick one of these apart while using the other as a control. In theory, we could get rich if we can figure out how to replicate the thing, but reverse-engineering it is gonna cost us man hours. And it’s good you brought two, because if we end up breaking the first one irreparably, then we’d be out of luck. Plus, there’s no telling if the only thing that recharges it is your vessel you don’t want to part with.”

“To my knowledge it—”

He cut him off with a wave of his hand. “What I’m saying is this wouldn’t be the first, or even the hundredth, object someone’s tried to scup some coin outta me with, promising me a hundredfold return, and it turns out to be some gilded lump.”

Sharkerbob swallowed. He was a terrible negotiator. That whole confrontation problem. “I’m not trying to scam you.”

“Oh yeah? Then what else can you tell me about this stuff to convince me to invest?”

Sharkerbob opened his mouth, then closed it. He genuinely had no idea. He wasn’t a salesman by even the biggest stretch of the imagination. “All I can say is I can give you a few more if you really need them.”

The old man grinned. “And how many you think your little headgear is worth?”

The woman cut in, sharply speaking in the Migree tongue. The old man started slightly, as if he’d forgotten she was technically a part of the negotiation. He scowled, talked back at her, and Sharkerbob could do nothing but stand there feeling like a moron while a couple strangers bickered over the fate of his deal.

Finally the old man let out a disgusted scoff, then turned to Sharkerbob. “The lady drives a hard bargain. Take the damn hat.” He opened the rune-lined box and tossed the old leather headgear at him. Sharkerbob reached to catch it, but the condor man snatched it out of the air, and held it to the side. Sharkerbob whirled on him, and for the briefest of moments, a flash of anger let him forget the man was probably half again his body mass in pure muscle.

The man held up a hand. “Without knowing what this thing is and what it can do, I will hold onto it until we return to your vessel. Once we hand it to you, you will leave. Agreed?”

Sharkerbob cooled his head as he was starkly reminded he had no power in this situation. All he could do was trust his escorts were true to their word. He nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

“If that’s all?” said the old man.

Sharkerbob was about the nod again, then paused, and said, “Um, I did say I’d buy something from the bookseller if I made a trade. I, uh, don’t suppose you can give me enough to buy a book?”

The old man scowled. He looked to the woman and spoke again, then pulled a larger silvery coin out from his drawer and tossed it at him. Sharkerbob caught it. It was a bit larger than an American half-dollar, but he couldn’t tell the value from the symbols.

“It’s enough to buy one book,” said the woman.

“Alright,” said Sharkerbob, depositing it in his pocket. He nodded to the old man. “Thank you.”

The old man just waved him off and pointed started inspecting the two chests, waving one of his workers over to help carry them to storage.

“Let’s go,” said the condor man.

***

The visit to the book shop was brief, the condor man staying outside to keep watch, the woman escorting Sharkerbob inside. The bookseller smiled at them both, and spoke in a friendly manner to the woman. He wondered if they were related in some way, or maybe friends, as the blindfolded woman’s voice seemed slightly more emotive than before. Wouldn’t that be a narrative convenience?

He took a quick look around, and on the shelf where the “foreign language” titles were, he found what looked like a picture book, and to his surprise, he recognized the writing as German. Or at least some variation of it. Not that he hardly remembered any German from his High School classes, but it was at least a recognizable language. It seemed to be a children’s zoology book, but the animals were none he recognized. Similar to Earthly creatures, but decidedly of different evolutionary paths.

He wasn’t sure if the coin he got actually covered the book’s cost, or if the bookseller just gave him a discount, considering it was illegible to anyone in the city anyway. She took the whole coin either way, and saw him off with a “safe travels”. He thanked her again for the help, and then the blindfolded woman was leading him out the door. The condor man commandeered another tram, and the three took silent trip back to the city limits.

Just to be safe, both Troubleshooters entered the base with him this time, and Sharkerbob was again startled to see another intruder in the Sky Shark. This one was another Migree female, dressed in colorful purple and lavender robes. She and the other two Migree exchanged words, and the robed woman glanced Sharkerbob over, giving him a bemused smirk.

The blindfolded woman gestured to her. “Just making sure no one else tried to stowaway. She says you are clear.”

The condor man went over to one of the chests and tossed the hat inside of it. He turned and crossed his arms again as he commanded, “Leave immediately. Do not stop to inspect your new Relic until you are out of our Sector.”

“You need not fully leave the Sector, but we would advise you stay away from our settlements, unless you have business you can wrap up quickly,” said the woman. The condor man turned to her, and Sharkerbob could sense the scowl from his stance. The woman gestured to him, and for once, spoke to her partner in Common, so Sharkerbob wouldn’t miss her assessment. “He seems of little threat, as I can sense, and bears no ill will. He also seems completely out of his depth. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, to the point I cannot imagine he is capable of much harm.”

“Which means he is trouble waiting to happen,” said the condor man. He jabbed a finger at Sharkerbob. “Our neighboring cities will be alerted to your presence in the Sector. Don’t cause any trouble, and we won’t have cause to deal with you.”

So saying, he strode out to the balcony, the two women following him. The purple-robed woman climbed onto his back, while he hooked his hands under the blindfolded woman’s arms, and flew the three of them off the platform.

Sharkerbob let out a breath. Despite what he was just told, he was tempted to open the chest and pull the hat out immediately. But he was clearly not in any position to take chances, and the hat could wait at least a couple more hours. Who knows how long he’d already been waiting in that shop?

Sharkerbob went to the console at the Sky Shark’s forward, set the ship to fly back over the mountains, and continued on past them, going about a hundred miles an hour. Once he was far enough away the mountains were distant on the horizon, he was going to stop and reassess his options. Once he figured out what was going on with the hat, his first priority was going to have to be to find some way to secure the ship from intrusion.