Chapter 37

  They came to rest before yet another display. The large gray box sat on a raised platform, the lack of a lid giving it a look somewhere between a chest freezer and a bathrub.

  "Is that a coffin?" Natalie's voice startled Adam, coming from right over his shoulder.

  "Sorry," she added with an apologetic smile.

  "No. This is a fabricator,” The Salesman said, making a sweeping gesture toward the box. "In this case, I believe technology will suit your needs far better than magic."

  He reached down and lightly touched the lip of the box. An electric whirring echoed up from inside, and the tangy scent of hot metal filled the air. Adam felt the hair on his arms stand on end as the machine came to life.

  "Please, step back and do not look into the fabricator until it finishes cycling. You will go blind." The Salesman lightly stepped away from the box and approached Hector.

  Adam shuffled back until the lip of the box blocked his view of the interior, taking the warning seriously and doing his best not to glance toward it.

  This time, Adam caught the movement as the Salesman retrieved his ledger, sliding it smoothly from the inside of his jacket.

  "Hector, are you satisfied with the object and of its significance?"

  Hector nodded, still clutching the small piece of bone in his maimed hand. "I am."

  "Then I believe we should discuss price."

  He opened the ledger, flipped to a page, and placed his finger precisely on a line. "Hmm. I think... Yes. That will do. The memory of your son's first steps."

  "Choose something else." The words were out of Hector's mouth before Adam could even process the exchange.

  "Hmm," The Salesman said, his porcelain brow lifting in surprise. "Your answer intrigues me. I am not in the business of haggling, Hector. Is there something you would like to add, or a reason that this price is not acceptable?"

  Something about the way the Salesman pushed made Adam feel like he wasn't used to rejection. It was as if he took it as an insult, the refusal wounding his pride as much as denying him satisfaction.

  "I was not there for my son's first steps." Hector's eyes dropped to the floor, shame plastered across his face. "I can’t give you what I don’t possess. But if I could give it to you, the answer would still be no." Adam had no doubt Hector meant every word.

  "Ahh. I see." The Salesman frowned, then his features smoothed and the friendly smile returned. "Telepathic links are… imperfect. I see now that you regretted not being present for his first steps, and that regret has replaced the true memory. I appreciate your honesty and fair dealing. It is not as common among your kind as you may think. Or... perhaps not. Are you still open to negotiation?"

  "Yes,” Hector said, the word quiet and small, swallowed up by the room almost immediately.

  "Then I propose this: I will take your false memory of his first steps. Memories are flawed, ephemeral things, but even false ones have value. Given my initial mistake, I will accept a small loss on this bargain." The Salesman looked eager again, his features lit from the side by occasional flashes from the fabricator's operation.

  Hector hesitated and then let out a deep, weary breath. He nodded once. "Nothing but the false memory? I will still remember everything else?"

  "Correct," The Salesman replied.

  "Go ahead." Hector stepped forward and closed his eyes, apparently ready for whatever came next.

  The Salesman lightly touched Hector's temple with the tip of one finger, his smile growing so wide Adam wondered how it didn't split his cheeks. "Excellent. Please, sign here." He offered Hector the pen and the ledger, and Hector signed, blinking several times as if waking from a deep sleep.

  "It should be nearly finished,” The Salesman said, walking to the side of the box and staring inside. Even the reflection in his eyes made Adam's water, and he quickly looked away. A loud ding replaced the electric whirring, and Adam thought it sounded comically like an old toaster oven going off.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Reaching inside, The Salesman pulled out a steaming baseball bat. He turned and offered it to Adam.

  Adam took the bat, his fingers sinking lightly into the butter-soft grip. The weapon was a dark gray length of metal, and it sat heavily in his grasp. He stepped back and gave it an experimental swing, the balance nearly perfect in the follow-through. Adam ran his finger down the metal. The texture was almost glass-like.

  "That would have been, pre-invasion, one of the most expensive objects a human being has ever held,” The Salesman explained, his smile more proud than friendly, a distinct edge of satisfaction in his voice as he admired the weapon.

  "It's a nice bat. A little heavier than my other one, but the balance is good." Adam flipped it end over end, catching the head. A sharp crack of electricity arced between his fingertips and the tip of the bat. His eyes lit up. "So, I'm guessing it's not just a bat?"

  "You're really going for the obvious approach lately, Adam." Natalie smirked, then winced as Samantha's elbow prodded her ribs.

  "No, it is 'just a bat,' as you said. The material it is made from is what makes it special." The Salesman paused, as if waiting to be sure everyone was following along. "The science is quite out of your species' reach at the moment, but I will attempt to explain it in terms you can understand. It is a plasma-forged alloy approximately a thousand times harder than chromium, with a tensile strength an order of magnitude greater than tungsten."

  He paused, letting the weight of the information settle while Adam's mind caught up.

  "It will not scratch, dent, fracture, or melt at temperatures below those found in the heart of your primary, Sol."

  "Anything else?" Adam asked, unable to stop himself. He could barely process the fact he held the most expensive object a human being had ever possessed, and it was probably the single most valuable object currently on the planet.

  The planet. Earth. He looked around, suddenly unsure. Were they even still on Earth?

  "It is also a room-temperature superconductor that will grow heavier the more current you pass through it."

  Samantha raised her hand, and the Salesman nodded, his expression appreciative of her polite interruption. "I'm not super well-versed in material science, but... if it’s that dense, shouldn't it be so heavy Adam couldn't hold it?"

  "Very good,” The Salesman said, nodding enthusiastically. "It should be, were it not entirely hollow. The outer shell is only two hundred microns thick, and the interior is filled with cold plasma. The grip is, regrettably, just leather. You may need to replace it periodically."

  Adam almost laughed at the regretful tone in that last admission.

  "If everything you just said is true, and not that I understood half of it, I don't think I can afford this. You've just handed me something that, two weeks ago, every scientist on the planet would have killed to study for five minutes."

  He started to hand it back, but the Salesman reached out and gently pushed the bat back into his hand.

  "I would not have offered it to you if you could not afford it. Not anticipating your client’s means is a sign of poor salesmanship."

  The words felt more ominous than they sounded, and something in the back of Adam’s mind recoiled from them.

  "If it were just your world," The Salesman continued, "you would be right. But the technology to create that material exists on many other worlds, even within your local reality."

  "Alright," was all Adam could muster.

  "And now we come to you." The Salesman slowly faced Natalie, his smile as genial as ever.

  "Absolutely not,” Natalie said, her shoulders squared and her gaze hard as she stared him down. "You may not read my mind, and I don't want anything from you."

  Adam was surprised by her raw hostility. Natalie had been standoffish before, especially when they met Hector, but something about this felt different.

  “Everyone wants something,” The Salesman practically hissed, all of the warmth draining from his face and voice at the same time. His smile remained, but it had turned feral. “I understand you, though. I have no need for a telepathic link, I know precisely what you want.”

  Adam stepped in beside her, anger bubbling up in his chest. "If you want to get us all killed, keep this up. You saw what he did to those goblins. Do you really want to piss him off? Get yourself together, Natalie.”

  Her expression flickered, surprise, anger then something closer to defeat, and finally exhaustion. "Whatever you say."

  She brushed past him and approached The Salesman, leaving Samantha and Adam behind. "Let's just get on with it. What do you have to show me?"

  The Salesman regarded her for a moment. "This way. And Adam?"

  Adam froze, startled by the sudden address.

  "No amount of disrespect will cause me to harm a guest while we are conducting business. I take my offer of hospitality very seriously. Afterward is another matter.”

  He turned sharply and strode down the aisle, leaving them in his wake.

  "Do you have any idea what's going on with her? I know she doesn't trust strangers, but this is out there." Adam kept his voice low, almost a whisper near Samantha's ear.

  "She's always used anger to cover up her anxiety," Samantha said, her eyes fixed on Natalie's back as they followed behind. "It might not seem like it, but she's really not much of a fighter. She hates conflict, but always makes herself run headlong into it. I've never really understood why, but it's how she deals. Something's eating at her lately, above and beyond everything that's happened, but she won't tell me what it is."

  Adam grunted, mulling over the idea of Natalie hiding something.

  They walked for more than a minute before coming to yet another display case.

  The Salesman didn't pause. He reached in and withdrew a single bright orange feather. The color pulsed along its edges as if it were on fire, and Adam could feel subtle waves of heat brushing against his skin.

  “This is a Phoenix Feather,” The Salesman said, but didn’t elaborate further. He held the feather out to Natalie.

  "And?" She stared at the feather and then at him.

  "Hold out your hand," he said, the feather balanced delicately between his fingers.

  Natalie sighed and reached forward and The Salesman dropped the feather into her palm. It began to smolder on contact, flickering on the edge of ignition. Natalie's eyes burned with the same orange hue, tiny embers of light dancing behind her pupils.

  "Oh..." she groaned.