“Later,” she said. She hopped down to the sand, her knee still a little sore, and slung her gear bag over her shoulder. She grabbed the two cases from the sarfer’s haul rack and extended the handles. Dragging them to her house on those small and useless wheels, she cursed the madness the old world’s allure made in men. The promise of buried treasure warped their minds. Vic liked to think she was more rational than that.
But of course, her mind was prone to dreams of sudden riches too. And she had her own guesses about the location of Danvar. She wasn’t immune to the idea of seeing a city untouched by time and scavenge. Even with the craziness around her, the hysteria, the fun she might poke at Marco and these people off their rockers, she knew her own rocker was prone to tipping, too. It tipped right back, that feeling of vertigo as some momentous event loomed underfoot, until she was the one asking herself: What if it’s real? What if?
But only a fool runs around shouting “A find! A find!” when they haven’t seen it in their own visor. Right? She tried to convince herself. Because the greater fool sits in a bar alone, nursing a warm beer, while hauls of coin start coming into town and the stories that will one day be legend fill the pub. It’s a fool either way, so it’s all about cost. Which fool would she more loathe to be?
She dragged her two bags across the sand. It was early morning, but so many people were out and about. Divers who would’ve normally asked where she’d found the cases rushed right by in a hurry. Shopkeeps who would’ve begged her to come pop those latches on their counters were too busy haggling over the rising price of a fuel cell or the use of a generator or the purchase of a haul net. Vic slid through the throngs to her house. She set the cases down outside her shack and fumbled in her pocket for the key. Out of habit, she tapped her toes on the kickplate along the bottom of the door to knock the scrum from her boots loose. The gentle raps caused the door to swing open, hinges squealing. Vic pulled her hand out of her pocket. She was damn sure she’d latched it when she’d left.
“Palm?” she called.
Her brother often treated the place like it was his, had started spending as much time in Low-Pub as Springston and liked to take advantage of the fact that Vic spent most of her nights over at Marco’s. He was the only other person with a key. There was no answer from inside. She studied the door, saw the scratch marks from someone jimmying the thing open with a screwdriver, which brought back memories of the dozens of times she’d jimmied the damn thing open with a screwdriver. She hesitated before going in, wondered if maybe the latch just hadn’t caught that morning. It’d been dark and she’d been groggy when she’d left.
“Hey Palm? You asleep?”
Vic reached into her boot and pulled her latch-break out. She used the metal rod to push the door all the way open. It was dark inside, the west-facing windows getting little of the morning sun. She didn’t hear anyone. Must’ve not pulled the door shut when she left. That was it. She lit a candle and checked the bedroom and bathroom, was satisfied with her theory. She went back for the two bags, brought them inside, and kicked the door shut.
Two days, max. That’s how long before they’d know if Danvar had been discovered. No harm in waiting and getting in on the action late. No harm in that. She had plenty of places she could dive that no one else could. Hell, it might get nice and quiet around Low-Pub for a couple days once everyone cleared out. That would be a pleasant change.
Vic stood under the beam she used for pull-ups and jumped up and grabbed the palm-worn wood. She held herself with one hand while she patted for the key. Securing it, she dropped back down and removed the padlock from the hatch in the living room floor. Grabbing the black case full of clothes, she lowered it down to the slope of drift below. The silver case she left out; Vic wanted to take a peek before she got some rest.
Opening her icebox, she grabbed half a shriveled lime and a jar of homebrew, squeezed the former into the latter, and sipped on her breakfast. She set the Samsonite up on its edge and tried the latches. Stuck. Both of them. She took another swig of the beer, stale but cold, and was wiping her mouth when there was a knock at the door.
“Begging won’t make me change my mind—” she started to tell Marco, when the door opened and two men barged into the room. Brigands, by the smell and look of them. Vic recognized one of the men. Paulie. He used to run with the Low-Pub Legion. Couldn’t hack it as a diver and took to muscling people. The red Legion ker was gone, though. Both men sported the golden kers of the northern wastes. Vic wondered what the hell these guys were doing this far south. And then she saw that the bigger man had a gun on his belt. Probably didn’t work—as most of them didn’t—but the problem was in the probably.
“Hey, wrong house, assholes.” Vic stood up and blocked the view of the Samsonite. “If you’re looking for Danvar, it’s not in my cellar—”
“Save it, Vic,” Paulie said. “Where the fuck is Palm?”
“How the hell should I know? And you guys are tracking sand in.”
The larger man with the gun stomped toward the bedroom and peered inside.