Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

made a serious Junior Pirate gaffe. He entered the alley with a loud walk and along the edge of a cone of streetlight. There were only a few apartments behind the Regal, so the daily habit of finding it empty had him growing sloppy over time. If he hadn’t seen the figure at the alley’s end moments before the man turned around, Walter would’ve missed out on the heist of a thousand lifetimes.

By the time the man turned to survey the noise, Walter had flushed his skin to dull the sheen of his exposed flesh and moved quickly and silently into the alley’s darkness. He stood motionless, his back against the rough brick of the Regal, while the man at the far end peered past him and out into the quiet street.

Walter waited.

Nothing on him moved, save his eyes. He picked out several darkened routes to his apartment door, just in case. He also sized up the figure crouching a hundred feet beyond his stoop. By his bulk, Walter pegged him as Human, which was out of the ordinary for this time of the rains. He watched the man wipe his brow—and even though the humidity was creeping up, Walter sensed the gesture was as much from nerves as condensation. He took in deep sniffs of the alley’s air, but the figure was too far away for him to pick up anything.

After a long moment of staring his way, the man turned back to something at his feet. Walter took immediate advantage. He danced through the shadows along the blackest route, halving the distance between himself and the stranger. Crouching behind his apartment’s crumbling landing, he peered through the flood-rusted rails and watched the man sift through the detritus in the alley’s dead-end.

Finally, the man stood and scanned the alley. He shuffled noisily in Walter’s direction and could be heard mumbling to himself as he passed. Walter tried to catch a glimpse of the man’s face, but the figure happened to be glancing over his other shoulder as he hurried by. When he reached the end of the alley, the Human looked one direction, started to head off the other way, stopped, then hurried toward the Regal’s entrance.

The pathetic display did nothing to undo Walter’s disdain for Humans. That such a dull, noisy, numb-nosed race prospered while his people languished could only be attributed to the unlucky geography of his planet. He knew from his own studies that Earth had many continents and very little ocean. Rains there came sporadically and rarely flooded. Give his people such a place and see who’s naming other people’s stars, then. Oh, he would love to hear a Human throat attempt to gurgle his native tongue. And to think of never needing to hiss English again!

Walter stood from his hiding spot and glowered after the departed figure. His joyous mood from the game of Rats had eroded, marred by the presence of the Human. He turned and crept down the alley to see if the man had left any traces of his curious actions, sniffing the air as he went.

The first thing he noticed was a reek of paranoia. The man had left behind a braided odor of lies of such density, only one living in abject terror of discovery—discovery of something bad—could have created it. That certainly got Walter’s attention. He followed the scent to its locus: a heap of alley trash seemingly no different from the rest.

Walter stooped to inspect the bag. He wiggled its white plastic mouth open and peered inside. It looked to be normal trash: rotting fruit rinds, balls of paper, a tin can. Walter picked the bag up to look under it, but it was caught on something. He moved some of the neighboring trash out of the way and saw that the bag had been tied down to an iron rod poking out of the pavement. Someone didn’t want the bag moved, even in the floods.

Walter peeked back inside at the garbage. He considered running to his apartment for gloves so he could sift through the foulness, then noticed something odd about the mouth of the bag. There were two layers. A bag within a bag!

Walter’s heart raced with the series of discoveries. He knew, as surely as stumbling across a wallet in the market, that he was about to uncover treasures. He glanced over his shoulder at the mouth of the alley and began digging between the two plastic liners.

At the very bottom, behind the cool dampness of the mucky filth sitting inside the inner bag, he felt a cloth bundle. Walter pulled it out to see what he had lucked upon.

Clothes. A stupid Navy uniform, but the pockets felt heavy. Walter reached in one and came out with a radio. He felt the urge to twist the power on, but radios were poison, too easily traceable. And besides, they were worthless unless you had friends with the same models. He chucked the thing over the wall at the end of the alley, taking delight in the sound of its splintering demise on the other side.

In another pocket, Walter found a neat surprise: A gun. Navy issue. He figured it would fetch at least what he should’ve won at Rats. He slipped the thing into his waistband and rummaged through the rest of the pockets.

Nothing. There was a row of medals above the breast of the jacket, so he took those, just in case any of his friends would be dumb enough to trade for them. He then flicked the useless jacket over another heap of garbage.

Walter patted the pants down next and felt a single item. At first he thought it was a credit chip, and his mood again waxed. When he saw it was a Navy ID badge, his stomach sank and swelled at once. He’d seen them before, mostly from wallets lifted off soldiers on training furlough. They were like lottery stubs, always with the allure of high-ranking passcodes and first-class tickets off Palan, but usually coming up as worthless as the plastic they were printed on. Part of Walter knew that he would access the chip and find useless codes he could just hack in his sleep if he wanted. But another part, the hopeful gambler inside, imagined the man was an Admiral with codes that could summon havoc-wreaking forces with a single dispatch, or admit him to a distant university on some foreign aid GI bill.

Walter clutched the plastic chip, which may or may not contain his dreams, and tossed the black pants as far from him as he could. He thought about rushing to his mother and telling her about the curious man in the alley, but he needed to get to a computer first. There was no point exciting her weakened heart only to let it down when nothing came of the find.

Walter slipped the chip into his favorite pocket, the small one with the silent zipper that he greased daily. He trotted down the alley and considered which computer to use: the one at the library kiosk, or the one at Hommul HQ? And should he try and pawn off the gun immediately, or spread some seeds amongst his friends to drum up the price? Or should he just keep it?

Walter was so distracted by the decisions as he slipped past his apartment door that he didn’t notice it opening. Nor did he note the three large Palans sliding out into the night after him.

••••

“Walter? That you, boy?”

Walter’s heart skipped a beat. He slid to a stop in the alley. He looked for the deepest shadow to dive into, when a powerful, meaty hand slapped down on his collarbone, fixing him in place.

“Aren’t you out a little early to be on a proper raid?”

Walter turned and met the squinty gaze of his uncle, then saw the old man was escorted by two of his large goons.

“And aren’t you a little early to come pay your respects?” Walter asked. He nodded toward his apartment door. “She’s not dead yet, you know.”

His uncle laughed and slapped his back. “Not yet, you are quite right. Doing a fine job of tending to her, I see.”

Walter shrugged. “Some other clan leaders pitched in equipment,” he said.

His uncle wagged a finger at him, and the two brutes to either side shifted their bulk as if eager to put some of it to use. “Careful,” he said. “You know I’d do more if the clan wasn’t hurting like it is.”

The clan wouldn’t be hurting if you did more, Walter thought.

“What’s this?” his uncle asked. One of his fat hands darted toward Walter’s belly and came away with the pistol.

Walter flinched, but it was too late.

“Hey—”

“Very nice,” his uncle said, turning the gun around in his hand to inspect it. One of the brutes stepped closer to get a good look. Walter’s uncle beamed. “Excellent find. I’ll add it to the clan coffers.”

“But that’s—”

“You’ll get your share, of course.” He sniffed the air. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me about?”

Walter shook his head and thought of mintberry shakes and shiny new laptops.