Decisions
“Wait!” barked another man, this time with a smaller, nasally voice. Kani blinked back beads of water, tried to see who was talking. A small man in a scratched and dusted black jacket was kneeling over Stacey, jaw set tightly.
“Leave her alone!” Kani yelled, and found herself dunked under water. She struggled to get free, but couldn’t escape the tattoo’s grip. She started to choke on the water as she screamed, only to be pulled out, gagging and wheezing.
“You shut your trap,” said the tattoo.
“Bring her out of there,” said the small one. “This is not good. Look at this.”
He held up Stacey’s arm, and Kani gasped at the sight of blood.
“What did you d—”
A slap to her face ended the protest.
“This is not good,” repeated the small man.
“Who are you people?” Kani asked, watching the big man with the tattoos carefully. He had on small round sunglasses that made his head that much more bulbous. The words across his arms weren’t English, but they looked angry.
“I’m Augusto Fantoni,” said the small man, puffing his chest and throwing Stacey’s arm away, standing up. “I’m the one in charge of your little friend here. She tell you about me?”
Kani shook her head.
“It don’t matter now. I’m your new best friend.”
“I doubt it,” muttered Kani.
“This fellow who helped you out of the water, he is Erlenmeyer.”
“Erlenmeyer?”
“He spend time in Germany—”
“Austria,” said Erlenmeyer.
“Whatever. It make no difference. He’s a good guy. Strong guy. He does good work. Unlike you!”
Fantoni kicked Stacey in the stomach. She yelped, but kept quiet. A bone was sticking out of the back of her hand, and blood was seeping towards the river. She was pale, shivering.
“She needs a doctor,” Kani said.
Fantoni and Erlenmeyer laughed.
“Doctor! That’s funny! You a funny kid! I like you. You an’ me, we gonna get along very well, I know.”
“You can go to hell,” Kani spat, and Erlenmeyer slapped her again.
Fantoni crouched down next to her, held her chin, spoke to her like she was a child.
“Her hand is busted, you know what that means?”
“You’re a bastard?”
“It means she can’t do what I pay her to do. She’s no good to me no more.”
Stacey bent her head up, reached towards Fantoni with her trembling, mangled hand.
“They know about me…” she said. “Please, we need to stop. They know…”
Fantoni sighed, scratched his chin, then slammed a foot down onto Stacey’s hand. She cried out in agony, curled into a ball and whimpered to herself. Kani wanted to go to her, but she was held too tight.
“Since Stacey is no longer useful, with the broken hand, I have a problem. She isn’t free and clear until her debt is paid, and like this, I don’t think she’s going to be paying much. But you see, I need the money. Broken or not, that money needs to come in. So how about this, little friend? You get to fly in her place.”
Kani jerked to attention.
“Fly?”
“Do not worry so much, it’s very easy. If Stacey can do it, you can do it no problem.” He snapped his fingers, motioned to a third man. “Find the bottle.”
Stacey groaned as she was rolled over, her bag taken from her shoulder. Her books and papers were dumped on the ground, along with a large bottle of painkillers with the label ripped off. Fantoni scooped it up, shook it.
“This is for you.”
He opened it up and handed it over to Kani. She took it reluctantly, forced to accept by a tightening grip on her hair.
She dumped the pills into the river.
Fantoni looked back at her, eyes narrow.
“You have fire in you.”
“Yes I do,” Kani said.
“It will be your funeral,” he shrugged. “Now you do what I say, you fly this one time, and Stacey gets to go home. If not…”
He aimed a gun at Stacey’s head. There was so much blood, she was barely awake at all to notice her life being threatened.
“Wait!” Kani said. “I don’t know anything about flying! I’m just a teenager, I don’t—”
“It’s not hard,” said Fantoni. “They make it easy these days. Here…” He fished Stacey’s phone off the ground, turned it on, held it forward, but paused. “If you drop this in the water, you both die.”
Kani paused, nodded reluctantly.
“You take this phone, you ride the westbound train to the Guelph express stop. Get out there, and there’s a big field behind you. Look west, walk about three kilometres through that field…”
“Wait, what am I doing there? What am I looking for?”
“You keep your mouth shut, and I tell you.”
“Fine,” Kani grumbled.
“Three kilometres in, you will find a shack. Wooden thing. Looks like it was built by Erlenmeyer’s mamma, yes?”
Erlenmeyer’s grip on Kani’s hair tightened.
“You find the ship, plug the phone into the dashboard and—”
“Hold on,” Kani said. “What ship? What’s this about?”
“You plug it in, it takes care of the rest. You just punch in the code when it says to. Right? Right, Stacey, girl?”
He prodded Stacey with his toe. She barely reacted. Kani’s breathing got more urgent, furious.
“Any funny business, and we kill your friend. And maybe your family, too. I can’t decide. I will let Erlenmeyer decide.”
Erlenmeyer chuckled to himself.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kani said, taking the phone and pocketing it. “How am I supposed to do what you want if I don’t understand what you’re after?”
Fantoni laughed, and his men joined in. He started up the embankment, glancing into the sky with a wide grin on his face.
“You don’t listen well, do you?” he said. “You’re flying for me. Up there. Bringing home… how does it… yes, bringing home the bacon.”
“What bacon?” Kani called as he reached the top.
“Minerals, I think. I don’t know, I don’t do that part.”
“Wait, asteroid minerals?” she gasped, taking a step back. Erlenmeyer caught her before she fell into the river again.
“That’s the one,” he grinned. “For today, you get to play a pirate. Will be fun, yes?”