Chapter Text
It is strange that I wake up alone in bed and immediately feel that this is somehow wrong. That someone is missing. For years, for most of my life, it was the common state of affairs. It used to be that waking up with someone next to me was a cause for alarm. But all that has changed in the past year, all thanks to one lovely, yet impossibly stubborn detective, Juno Steel.
My name, for the moment, is Peter Ransom. In this room however, while Juno is in here with me, my name is a different one. An older name, one that I’m slowly growing fond of again, the more I hear it spoken in his voice. But Juno isn’t here now, and I….
Wait, where is Juno?
As I slowly awaken from my slumber, the events of the past couple of days come rushing back in full to the front of my mind. The heist for the Curemother Prime after a year of preparations. My own unforgivable mistake, Jet’s injury as a direct result of my failure. How grateful I was that everyone else’s performance was impeccable. Our frantic escape from that incredibly secure vault we had successfully breached, just as security was rushing in to check on the alarms we had no choice but to trigger on our way out. The speed and stealth of the Ruby 7. And the relief of being back safe onboard the Carte Blanche, only to be turned to panic again at the state Captain Aurinko was in when we returned.
Two days had passed, the spoils from our heist now safely hidden away somewhere else until the time came for the second part of our Captain’s plan. We would wait, until she could get out of her bed on the ship’s medical bay; or better said, until Vespa allowed her to.
The thing is, I really expected Juno to be here when I woke up. He usually is. My beloved tends to sleep quite a lot more than me, especially these last few weeks. As the weight of my debts kept crushing me more and more, I have had quite a lot of restless nights. But maybe - as I finally bared my past to him last night, and we made plans together about how to bring it up with the rest of the crew this morning - maybe I have slept more soundly than I had before.
I open my eyes as I turn to his bedside shelf, and onJuno’s comms I see the time. It’s early enough in the morning to still be considered night. That unease in my chest only grows as I look around some more, finding only Juno’s clothes from yesterday still strewn across the floor. Why am I sensing such dread, when the most plausible explanation is simply that he got up to use the bathroom, or get some water? Surely, he must be on his way back to bed and I’m simply reacting out of my own deeply seated fears.
It is just as I try to calm myself with these musings, that I realize what had so abruptly woken me up in the first place.
*beep*
My comms, which somehow ended up under the pillow I was sleeping on, are signaling me that I have a message waiting.
*beep*
I try and force my heart to stop pounding in my chest as I reach and grab the comms that keep steadily beeping away as if mocking my trepidation. I’ve only ever gotten messages on this apparatus from one person since I came aboard this ship. Always from a different unknown number, and always with instructions to delete the message after reading it.
*BEEP*
I look at the screen, and all I can see is a blur. It takes my panic addled brain more than a second to realize; my glasses! I quickly reach for the shelf next to me and place the blasted things upon my face, and I finally can see the message notification. Unknown number. One message. One photograph.
*BEEP*
I unlock the screen, and the image comes up first. It’s dark, but I can still make out what it shows: this room, this exact bed I’m sitting in right now. Me and Juno, fast asleep, limbs tangled in a messy embrace. I can see his mouth slightly open, his expression relaxed in a way that’s rare to see when he’s awake. His hand gently placed on my waist, one of his feet visible from under the covers.
My sight goes blurry once again, and with a start I realize it isn’t because of my glasses this time. Quickly I wipe my eyes, this isn’t the time for useless emoting! I read the accompanying message.
If my heart was pounding before, now it feels as though it has deserted me all together. I don’t breathe, and my gut feels like a block of ice, as I read the same message two, three, four times, trying to make it say something different. Anything else, at all. But the words don’t change.
“-... Do this alone, we don’t need more people involved ”
I don’t know how to save Juno alone; how to save Buddy. But I cannot , I must not do this on my own. If this last heist has proven anything, it is that my crew mates are more apt at their respective jobs than I am.
And I cannot trust these man to do as he says either. Even if I thought doing as I am told would actually spare them, I don’t even know where the Curemother Prime is hidden!
I rush out of Juno’s room. Out of our room , my traitorous mind supplies. I don’t know how I will explain everything to the others, how I can make them believe me, and I half expect to be killed by Vespa before I can get through everything I need to say. But if the last year has taught me anything, it is this:
I cannot do this properly on my own.
I can only hope the lesson hasn’t come too late.
-------------------------------------------------
“So what you are saying, Ransom, is someone, somehow , kidnapped both Juno and Buddy from the ship without anyone else noticing?”
“Yes Mr. Sikuliaq, that is what I am saying”
I take all of my fear and shame and I lock it away tight in a box. I need to get the crew to understand, and help me fix this, and in order to achieve that I need to be coherent.
“But Mistah Ransom, how ?! I mean, sure, it’s happened before, but after that Dark Matters bot got us and then Mistah Jet fixed the ship we got some very good security alarms, better than before, and-”
Vespa comes rushing to the kitchen we’re all standing in, a look of panic in her eyes I understand all too well. Before Rita can say another word, the doctor pushes me back into a wall. A sharp knife positioned under my jaw, and sharper eyes staring at me demanding an answer I couldn’t give.
“Where is Buddy, thief ? She was in the med bay; she isn’t supposed to be moving around yet. She’s nowhere to be seen! Where. Is. She?”
“I do not know, Vespa. These people, I’m not sure where they operate from. I’m not even sure of their name! And I can’t -”
“You expect me to believe that?” she wails. I feel the tip of the knife press closer, and a drop of what I very much doubt is sweat drips down my neck.
“I don’t expect you to do anything Vespa, but I have to get them back, and I’ll need your help to do so. Now if you would please give me a minute to explain -”
Whatever I was going to say next gets lost as she raises her other arm and chokes the breath out of me. I see murder in her eyes, and it’d be so easy to just let her, to just let go… but no, I can’t. Not while my love and my captain are still in peril because of my own foolishness. I lift my hands to try and push her arm away, to get a single word out, but before I am able to, Rita interrupts.
“Ah... Miss Vespa, ma’am, there’s something in his comms I think you’ll wanna see. See, I was checking his calls and messages, because he said he’d gotten a text that woke him up just now, and also because if he was up to something fishy there’s bound to be something about it here, and I really don’t want to think he’s being fishy but in that last job he definitely had a bit of a fishy smell y’know? And now he says Mistah Steel is missing, so I just thought I’d check -”
“Rita, I think you better just show us what you mean before Ransom faints from lack of oxygen. Time may be of the essence here”, Jet comments, interrupting Rita’s chatter.
“Right, right Mistah Jet, just look right here” - Rita shows both Jet and Vespa the text message I had received, although Vespa still refuses to relax her grip on me. - “And there’s also this picture! And I mean, it’s a very sweet picture and they both look pretty cute, but if Mistah Ransom was behind all of this , then who took it?”
Slowly, Vespa releases the pressure on my windpipe and I can breathe again. She does not, however, bring down her knife. With a hoarse voice she tells me - “Alright thief , you have five minutes to make all of this make sense. After that, the cut in your neck might make it harder for you to keep lying. Now start talking.”
I take a deep breath and attempt to gather my thoughts. It is difficult to know where to start, when I know anything I say will most likely not be believed. I guess when all else fails, one must go back to the beginning. One more deep breath, and I begin.
“My real name, if I even have such a thing, is Peter Nureyev. I’m originally from Brahma, in the Outer Rims. Rita can confirm this is true, as she actually figured it out before, all on her own. When I was young, I…” - how do I even say this? What is it I actually did back then? - “I got myself into a really bad situation. At the same time I… no longer had the only family I had ever known.”
“I needed to do one last job, to destroy something abominable, to fix my mistake, and then I needed to disappear. In order to achieve this I needed funds that I did not have. So, the young naive fool that I was, I made a second mistake to make up for the first. See, there was a family back in New Kinshasa, Brahma’s capital city, with seemingly endless funds and no qualms about who they lent it to. For an absurd amount of interest, and rather extreme ways of enforcing their collaterals, of course.”
“But I had no loved ones left, and no doubts regarding my abilities to disappear. No wish to remain in Brahma either. So I took the money, a substantial amount, I got the job done, and then I left.”
By now Vespa has loosened her grip on me, slightly, and her eyes look like she’s trying to make sense of something, or maybe just remember something. But when I finish recounting my leaving Brahma she tightens her hold once again - “So you do know who it is that’s got them -”
“Vespa, please , I beg you allow me to finish. I only have two minutes left from the five you allotted me” - I refrain from mentioning the dread I feel at having to recount this story more than twice in as many days - “I left my home planet, my name, my past, and - I had believed - my debts, behind me. And for ten years I was left alone, to build my career as a thief, and hone my skills. Only then did someone come collecting. They knew my name, they knew what I had done, they knew how I had done it and how much it had cost. They knew exactly how much I owed after ten years of compound interests. But… they were not Brahmese.”
“He said his name was Jon Davies, though I do not believe that to be the truth. He also claimed to be a debt collector for a large multiplanetary company, although he never told me what the name of this company was. He only deigned to explain that his employers had bought out my debt from the original loaners, along with my past and personal information. Apparently New Kinshasa came into quite a bit of strife after what I had done, as did the wealthy family I had made my deal with. They needed to get out of the planet in a rush, and this… nameless company provided them with safe passage into the solar planets in exchange for all critical and useful information they may have had. And my debt… my past… it was part of said information.”
Vespa had released her hold on me completely by now, and at this she finally brings her knife down. The expression in her face as she looks at me now, I can’t quite figure it out. And I do not have the time to try. I continue on with my story, hoping she won’t change her mind again.
“The interest, that’s really how they get you, isn’t it? There was no way I could pay all that I owed in full, not with a lifetime of thieving. And I could not run away any longer. This Davies, his company, they had my whole life on file. Every job I had done, every alias, every face I had donned. I tried, I really did, but he proved to me time and time again that he could find me. Anywhere. No matter what I did or how I disguised myself.” - I try to hold back a shudder as I remember the sheer panic I had felt back then, at the realization I could no longer just disappear.
“After the fourth time being captured in as many years, I had to admit my defeat. We came to an understanding. Every monetary profit I made I was allowed to keep, but every item, weapon or piece of information that could be of use to them, I had to give to him. Some I would even search out by his commands. And in return, I’d be allowed to live-”
“The only time I ever failed to follow this agreement was back on Mars, the first time Juno and I… worked together. I was supposed to gather every Martian artifact a woman named Miasma was bent on obtaining, and deliver them all back to Davies, but I didn’t. He was” - I feel myself tensing at the memory - “less than pleased with me after that, and after some rather lengthy and painful renegotiation, I was given one last chance. Either I proved myself still useful or he would be finally done with me. I was told to…” -
I know I have to tell them. Anything less than the absolute truth from me right now only endangers Juno and Buddy further. But I still can’t stand to look at them as I finish my story-
“I was told to apply to and infiltrate Buddy Aurinko’s crew. He never told me what I was supposed to get for him while I was here, and I initially only offered to retrieve the four items we used in our latest heist, once we were done with them. I think by the end I was just trying to buy some more time, to find a way to get out of this without causing any further harm to any of you. I never even mentioned the Curemother Prime to him. But he knew. He… he always knows”
The end of my confession is only met with silence. I dare not lift my eyes, see the look on their faces as I just confirmed all their worst suspicions about me. I can only carry on in a whisper, my strength failing me suddenly.
“I can’t even imagine what you may think of me right now. But that is not of any importance, not when Juno and Buddy are in the hands of this man. We must get them back. He is dangerous, sadistic, and efficient, and I cannot bear to think of them being under his power. We do not want to know what will happen to them if we let the deadline he has given us go pass, they have to be brought back before then. I am begging you, please… please help me fix this.”
More silence. Five, ten seconds go by. Then…
“They’re probably tracking your comms, so I’ll need to get that fixed.” - Rita starts.- “But trying to get a lead or general direction of the place they sent this message from is probably our best chance to find where they took’em to. I’ll get right on that!”
Jet gathers himself as well, watching as Rita scrambles off to her computer. - “We also need to figure out exactly how they took Juno and Buddy out of the Carte Blanche, to prevent any further invasions. I’ll start checking our security systems, and search for any hull breaches that may have gone unnoticed”
“Right, I’ll….” - Vespa runs her hands through her hair, as she looks off to Rita and Jet- “I’ll check on the cameras, maybe they caught something. You, thief, just…. just stay here. Don’t do anything. Just…. stay”
Deep breaths, in and out.
As I look at the three remaining crew members go and do what they can, I let my back slide down the wall until I hit the floor.
Seven days , said the message. Seven days to deliver the Curemother Prime. To save Juno and Buddy..
Maybe they can do it. Maybe… we can do it. Any alternative is not acceptable.
Breathe in, breathe out.