Bizarre Bazaar

Posted on Sun Nov 20th, 2022 @ 12:05pm by
Edited on on Wed Nov 23rd, 2022 @ 8:16pm

1,390 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Short Treks
Location: Freecloud
Timeline: About one year ago

Jack hated Freecloud. First, being forced to accept thousands of pop-up ads simply to orbit the planet. Second, the ridiculous peacocking - the art of dressing in clothes that make you look outrageous just to catch attention. In his case, he was dressed in a Sherlock Holmes costume. The tweed and twill, the deerstalker cap, the pipe that smelled but the tobacco that didn’t quite taste of vanilla. Lastly, the exorbitant amount of money it took just to walk the streets.

He was fortunate in that last bit because his employer was picking up the tab. She called herself Colossus, as if she was a shining statue unto humanity. She was a member of the Collector’s Guild and she had been trying to purchase a great swath of Tholian silk for another of their repugnant galas.

Jack had milled around the large stores, spending hours talking about thread counts and fittings for his woman friend. He’d heard from endless retailers how lovely she was going to look in this green to compliment the colors of his waistcoat and bow tie. In the end, he had turned them all down.

What she wanted was in the planet’s most expensive place, the miles long bazaar. His feet already hurt and now he needed to peruse. Like most men, he hated shopping and perusing. Still, he knew exactly where he was meant to go and how much he was meant to pay - a generous amount, but no more - and then he could leave.

Two hours later, after tobacco shops, pet stores, carpeters, silks, boots, knives (he’d made some minor purchases there), fruits and vegetables (fresh and dried), clothiers and more retailers, he had finally made his way to his destination. Before him, through the billowy curtains, Jack finally stepped into the only shop he had come to see.

“How much does she offer this time?” the woman asked. Like everyone, her accent was just off Earth normal accent. Like the Irish sounded more like leprechauns and the French like Maurice Chevalier, this woman sounded like a bastardized version of Moroccan, he supposed. “I have eyes. They watch you make all her usual places.”

But Jack wasn’t really set to talk about the silk. His eye had caught on something that should not have been in this shop. Mesmerized, he walked over and touched its cold skin, now hardened by time. It wore a dispassionate look. It’s eyes, skin and hair all whitened with time. His head moved over every square inch.

“That is not in her collection. She would not want a piece of trash. I have my son haul it from waste pile. Is worth nothing, just figure to drape clothes over.”

Jack waved her away with a frown. “I don’t work for her. How many of her people have you turned away? At least a dozen, I’ve heard through rumor.”

“Oh! Many more than that! Times two, not worker for Colossus. You want junk, I sell for ten bars,” she concluded.

“Ten bars of latinum for something your son pulled from a waste pile?” Jack balked. “I’ll give you ten strips.”

“Is not even worth taking dressings off for ten strips. I make you deal, six bars, no less.” The old woman grabbed her broom and began sweeping behind the counter, as if this was of little bother to her.

“I’ll give you twenty strips, no more.” Jack couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d only ever seen one before. It would have been more than fifteen years ago on a very distant world where no Terran had a right to be.

“You make hard bargain,” she said, clearly a lie. “I make offer three bars. You undress, you pick up. My son no is as young as before.” The storekeeper wiped her eyes with a small cloth tucked into her sleeve.

Jack inhaled and exhaled loudly. “One bar. I undress and pick up. Do we have a deal?”

Jack turned to see her with the contract, one bar already written as the price. She was a shrewd, old woman but worth every word of haggling.

“As for Colossus, she offers five thousand bars for the Tholian silk.”

The old woman spat on the ground. “For this I would wipe my ass with softest, most luxurious silk ever known. For even double this, I would sew curtains for home.”

Jack shrugged. “I was authorized to go as high as ten thousand bars, but as you would only make curtains at that price, I’ll have to decline. I can’t spend money I don’t have on things she doesn’t need. She just wants…”

“And she will have your head for failure.” The woman went back to her imaginary sweeping.

Jack smiled. “She won’t get near me. As for my purchase,” Jack paused to look on it again. “I’ll be back in one hour.”

“Is fine,” she grunted, plopping herself down onto a chair as though she was winded from her exercises. “Is awkward haul. Leg is broken, shoulder broken. I have…how do you say?? Propping up.”

“An hour,” Jack answered, his tone brokering no argument as he touched its arm.

Jack moved out of the stuffy tent, the smell of incense and burned candles now clinging to his own heavy drapery. Touching his arm, he activated a small screen. “Not even for ten thousand,” he told his employer. “Look, Colossus, she’s not going to sell to you. Ten thousand bars would buy her into the middle caste of Freecloud. It’s also overly generous. You need someone she would never put together with you. Either that or kill the old woman and be done with it.”

“My dearest Jack. All dolled up in that stupidly expensive, outrageous costume and she wouldn’t sell to you?” Colossus whined a bit, her face approximating what she assumed sadness looked like. But, like the psychopath that she was, her mood flipped to a smile. “Then again, you always do propose excellent solutions. Thank you for your services, my dear, sweet man.”

“Give me a day, at least, before you get your silk,” Jack asked.

Colossus batted her eyelashes. “I have another month to procure my silk, Jack. After that, I will have to look into other materials. No!” she exclaimed, “that just won’t do. I have to have that silk. If nothing else, so none of the other Collectors can have it.”

She waved at him on the tiny screen. “Bye byeeee, Jack!”

The screen went black. The old woman said she could watch. Hopefully, she could hear too. If not, the silk would be sold to Colossus or the old woman and her son would be dead within three weeks - at most.” And Jack had given Colossus the idea.

It took Jack all day to mill about Freecloud and its eccentric bazaar and another forty five minutes to walk back to his Hesperian transport, a bigger, ostentatious ship provided by Colossus to improve Jack’s odds at procuring the silk.

Taking the ship into the atmosphere, Jack awaited his departure by dermally regenerating his blisters, now raw and bleeding. When his lane was cleared, Jack flew to the coordinates and transported the android aboard his ship.

It wasn’t until they were a hundred light years from the solar system that Jack even bothered to walk away from the helm. A quick scan with his tricorder told him the android was damaged, but not beyond repair.

He would also have to modify a power cell for the android. He didn’t know how long the android had been offline, but it would be more than a day’s work just to fix the femur, which was properly compound fractured and the collarbone and dislocated shoulder.

Yes, Jack had his work cut out for him, but this old X-1 had no place as a mannequin modeling clothes. No, this was sentient life, akin to Noonian Soong’s android types. This was no synthetic drone whose programming could be hacked by Tal’Shiar. It was free, independent and it needed repair before it could tell him it’s story and the story of its planet.

Jack longed for simpler days…

 

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