Pawn shop in space

Jim stood at his desk and stared into space. That is to say he quite literally stood and stared into the part of space that was visible from his window. In his distant view he could see the slowly spinning globe of a planet and behind that the forms of two more. When he’d first arrived in the store he could see the planets just more clearly. He knew the first one seemed like a bare planet and white and sandy clouds covered its surface. The one behind that was a deep blue, a colour similar to what he imagined Neptune to look like and the one behind it a starling miss match of green blue and predominately red. Sometimes he would get lucky enough to be awake when the iridescent clouds cleared to reveal a section of earth where the three different coloured landmasses collided, mashing together to create a land a beautiful shade of purple.

Nothing on that planet lasted though, everything seemed temporary and temperamental. The shining clouds often swirled into typhoons and tornados visible from even where Jim floated in space. But then these typhoons and tornados would dissipate almost as soon as they formed, more of a warning to the world below than a real threat. Those beautiful islands where the disparte colours combined would crush quickly together, giving the illusion of idyllic pains and allowing Jim to dream of fields of flowing violet wheat. Then, when it seemed as if harmony was or might be reached, the ground broke apart again, green rock breaking away and forming islands of their own with blue rock swiftly following. This left abundant red flakes to drift together and form a third island of their own where a purple one once stood, the three islands then moving through translucent waters or staying stagnant until the process repeated. Of the three, this was Jim’s favourite planet to watch, and he was disappointed to be floating away from it. While the calamitous and never lasting nature of the world may have cause others to view it as destructive and ugly or even desolate. To Jim, the worlds nature just made it all the more beautiful.

The water world, for that was what Jim thought the surface of the navy world to be, did not compare. It was a world of deep and fathomless depth, staring into its surface was contemplating the unknown, looking into the void and allowing your mind to fill the silence with thought. The mutterings of the subconscious mind were different to the state of silent awe the more colourful planet rendered.

The desert world was a tapestry of rich cloud stuff. The pure white clouds were peppered with duty sand, in places soiling what was an angelic view. In other sections of sky the sand crept through the fluffed clouds like viens of dirty gold, shining a colour more appealing then Jim would think sand capable of. The sky constantly shifted, showcasing constant new formations that all seemed bent on always obscuring the land below. The sand and cloud cover clashing and reforming constantly across the globe. The harsh interplay spoke of an unforgiving world that made feelings of unease creep into even the stoutest of hearts, an inexplainable and yet unceasing conflict. The surface of that world was forever hidden to him, an intriguing and perhaps bloody mystery.

But now he had drifted to sit many more miles away from them. The pawn shop he inhabited didn’t seem to have any discernible orbit. He would say that he had moved a bit leftward over the course of his time here and he was sure he was still steadily drifting backwards, but a steady circular motion? The pawn shop had never done that before. The fact that the pawn shop seemed to move through space of its own violation was not a particular concerning revelation on its own, but when combined with other factors it did seem to confirm a rather troublesome theory in Jim’s head. The most obvious and yet ridiculous explanation aside Jim did sometimes wonder if the pawn shop moved as it did because it was actually being pulled by a black hole. While such a thought used to cause sweat to bead on his skin and eventually make his shirts damp now such thoughts were more idle, like the fear a boy might feel when he learns of the suns explosion fading into dread when he learns it is actually many years away. If he was on such a course, he had time till he ran it through.

Jim’s musing were interrupted by the ring of the pawn shops bell. Jim had no idea where people landed when they visited his pawnshop but they certainly didn’t do it in front of him. This was actually the reason Jim had installed a bell in the first place. That meant that unless Jim spotted the approach of a visiting space craft he was liable to be scared witless as a customer entered the door-as he was now.

Jim jumped in distress, holding hands out in front of him as if to ward off danger. As his hands were not possessing any special defensive or offensive abilities they could in fact not ward off much of anything. However, the aliens didn’t know that.

Looking down at the entrance to his store Jim saw a small alien bent over in the entry way he could of sworn had not been there a second ago.

The alien un crouched and looked up at Jim nervously. Guilty in fact, the aliens whole posture screaming ‘I’ve just been caught in the act’. The nervous fidgeting reminded Jim of a child caught by their parent at the precipice of mischief or maybe even more serious mal action. The alien refused to meet his eyes as it straightened up, its hands pressing against each other as it displayed its guiltiness.

Jim, arms still help up stupidly, called out to the alien. “Hello?” Ever the intimidating figure Jim’s voice wavered out over the silence. The alien dropped its timid demeanor and responded.

“Hello.” Jim’s translator immediately kicked into gear, relaying the aliens reply.

That’s a first.

Silence stretched across the store as Jim and the nervous alien looked at each other, the small man struggling to maintain eye contact for long.

”So uh, you gonna buy something?”

The alien was lilac, well Jim was pretty sure it was lilac. He didn’t think he was colour blind, but after seeing as many purple and green aliens as he had you began to have your doubts.

“Buy something?” The alien muttered softly to itself in confusion. Then, as if seeming to remember it was in a pawn shop, it began to nod eagerly. “Yes buy something!” The alien was small, with four limbs like a human and they wore a tight fitting suit overlaid with straps carrying ammunition and mirror like devices. It wore a hat upon his head that was little more than a flat plate. It squashed the top of its dome down and somewhat hid its true shape. From the bottom of the hat a bunch of the same weird mirror devices were stuck, the whole getup made the alien look like he was on leave from a market stall that only sold one item and was very enthusiastic about doing so. Its eyes were just black with no pupils and its mouth had no discernible lips but was otherwise pretty normal. It was its nose that was perhaps the most concerning part of its features.

Stuck bang in the middle of its face was an off coloured and large human looking nose. It looked disproportionately big for its face and was closer to the colour brown than it was purple. The words stuck on were fine descriptors for the thing, because to Jim’s eyes and surely to anyones eyes in the galaxy, the nose was very obviously fake. Jim stifled a laugh and dropped his hands to his desk as the alien came closer. The nose was secured to the small aliens face, so much so that when the two foot being nodded vigorously the thing didn’t wobble or move in the slightest. Instead of making it look more realistic this had the opposite effect. Sure the nose wasn’t falling off, but the rigid lack of any wobbles or skin ripples just made the prop even less convincing.

Jim gestured to the dude to come to the counter and kicked the bottom of his long divider. With Jim’s kick a small platform shot out for the alien to stand on, and two more kicks created a staircase for the alien to walk up. When face to face/ face to stomach with Jim the small alien looked up at him and waited for him to speak. That wait was prolonged by Jim struggles to begin a conversion without breaking into laughter.

“So, you’ve come here to buy have you?”

”Yes buy.”

Wow, fount of all knowledge is this guy.

”You looking for anything in particular?”

“Particular, hmm. Anything particular” The alien said the word particular like they were testing the feel of it in their mouth. “Particular…” They adopted a pensive expression.

“Hey you got a name by the way, I’m Jim.” Jim considered offering a handshake but didn’t want to startle the being by sticking a hand in their face, so settled on a smile instead.

“A name yes, I have a name.” The alien eye balled him and puffed his chest out a little in pride. “My name is! Hasta uh.” the alien’s eyes darted from side to side “Hastazarhand.” Jim looked behind him and saw his gloves sitting on a counter top.

”Right. Hasta-zar-Hand” Jim responded, putting extra emphasis on the last word.

“Uh no no. HastzaraNd” The alien-who was definitely not called hastazarhand- replied, dropping the h from hand and emphasising the n as if to give the name more legitimacy.

“Ahhh Hastzarand!” Master of subterfuge Jim thought as he replied with the ‘proper’ enunciation this time. “So you’re here to pursue my wares? Nothing in particular you’re looking for hmm.” Jim smiled an almost predatory smile.

”That’s right although I-“

“Great!” Jim quickly cut him off before he could finish, capitalising on the opportunity in front of him. After all, the worst place to be unsure about a purchase was a place that sold everything, and if you weren’t walking into a pawnshop with a clear goal in mind, then you weren’t walking out empty handed. Jim smelt blood in the water, and while he wouldn’t consider himself much of a salesman, he could admit to being a little profit motivated.

“So then, let me tell you about some of these artefacts I just got in.”

Jim walked the suspicious ‘Hastzarand’ to one of the final shelves on the tour. Honestly some of this stuff Jim didn’t think he’d even seen before, he mostly just let clients pursue his shelves at their own leisure. Walking amongst his merchandise though with an eye for really selling his wares and not just cleaning them up, he had to admit he had some pretty cool stuff-some stuff which definitely wasn’t legal too. I mean Jim knew he had a bomb or two on this unit of shelving, but he didn’t realise that the entire stack of shelves were chock full of both bombs and detonators. For context imagine a stack of shelves similar in size to those at your local grocery store. Metal mesh five shelves high, lined with not food items, but enough explosives to send the pawn shop into the stratosphere-well if it wasn’t already above that anyways.

Hans(as Jim had taken to calling him) hovered in the air besides him, having some manner of device that he couldn’t see that allowed him to float in place over the ground. From his vantage point he could scan the shelves and take in all the wepons of mass destruction. To say Hans looked overwhelmed was not too far from the truth. Next to him sat a motorised basket keyed to follow his body signature around the store, the basket was an old innovation of galactic shopping. Inside of it was piled an assortment of trinkets and dodads. Including a new rifle that matched Hans bandolier ammunition and an instructionary moduel on the art of snail rearing-an ancient and respectable practice which generated all sorts of mucus for the astute farmer. Jim was not really sure why Hans had picked this module, but it was made in the shape of a snail- which Jim had to assume gave it mad interior decoration clout in the snail breeding community.

Seeing Hans’ eyes hover over the middle shelf he passed him the multi detonator to look over. It was a rectangular piece of tech with pull able tabs surrounding each edge. It was a few inches bigger than an iPad and made out of a plastic like material. On its bottom was a sealed cover that opened and revealed branding technology. On the top of it was four symbols. One red and one green circle filled with shapes, an empty grey circle that lined up with the brander on the bottom of the object and an orange circle with a squiggle in it. “I see you’re continuing to prove yourself to be of discerning taste, for the multi detonator is no crude tool! Beyond a mere detonar the MD is an accessory necessary for any discerning demolishalist. Why bother to carry around countless detonators for each explosive when you can simply key them all to one machine! Gone is the hassle of bomb belts and trigger gloves and detonator holsters and bam handles-here is the future!

So why don’t you sheath the impractical Hans, and pick up this multi detonator today! I’ll even throw in four already keyed in bombs as part of a bundle. As you can see these symbols on the edges of the MD correspond to the marks on each of these four, uh five bombs.” Jim picked up a small circular bomb that lay nestled between two large misshapen bombs with timer screens on an higher shelf and added it to the pile.

“Matter of fact.” Jim pressed the circular green button on the multi detonator that Hans was holding. The multi detonator subtly pulsed and sent a scan out. In response the pile of marked bombs on the shelf all emitted different colours of light. 4 more lights shone from various places from within the jungle of bombs covering the shelves and upon a deep search to retrieve them all Jim found an extra two bombs who’s light emitters were partially blocked. With a nervous smile on his face Jim grabbed the MD from Hans’ hands.

”Let me just borrow this for a sec.” Jim hit the green circle twice and a chime emanated from each bomb. Jim walked up and down the shelf playing the chimes until he was sure he had found all the keyed in bombs.

“Okay so, the multi detonator and 9 already keyed in bombs. The manual for the MD and I’ll give you a 20 percentage discount on any more bomb purchases you make today.” Jim would have to modify the manual before he gave it to Hans, because the first two pages of it embarrassingly contained the sales pitch and some promotional phrases Jim had just used to sell the MD to him.

Hans looked over the pile of bombs that had accumulated before him with wide eyes. “Uh no more bombs please.”

“Ah so you’ll just take what’s here then? The MD and the bombs should come to around 5,000 credits.”

“5,000 credits?” Hans looked at Jim’s expectant face and looked back at the destructive tools laid in front of him. “I’ll take them!”

“Excellent! Now how about we swing around to the knifes and see if anything appeals to you.”

One rather distressing conversation later and Jim was back behind his desk. He had learned that the little alien in front of him didn’t need a knife as he actually used the large ammunition on his bandolier as weapons. He would float up and stab the bullets into his enemies necks where they would eventually explode from the impact. He was actually very gleeful to have found a rifle that could properly fire the bullets and had chosen to skip out the knife section entirely. Jim was getting increasingly concerned about the sanity of his latest customer, buuuuuut he was buying a lot of stuff. Sure he was buying trackers and weaponry and explosives and digestible signal and light emitters. But he was also buying snail rearing manuals, night soil and soil compounds as well as what Jim had determined to be (after extensive testing) an alien popcorn maker.

Of course Jim didn’t know that certain types of snail mucus were powerfully poisonous and paralysing. Some species even produced inflammatory trails and one specific genome produced extract which could be injected to make a person feel like their blood was on fire (the popcorn machine was an unrelated purchase).

“So the basket total plus some pen fencing I’ll send over to your ship comes to around 12, 212.” The rifle and the bombs were the most expensive items he had bought. Jim was on track to make his biggest sale yet. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you with maybe a gift for someone special. This frog idol is priced at 7,900 credits, but for you? I can let this go for 7,080.”

Hans looked at the golden idol Jim slid across the desk and swung his jaw side to side.

“Come on, maybe a special lady?” The lilac alien blushed a deep indigo at Jim’s cajoling. “Ahhhhhhhh, you sly dog you. Come on Hans, be spontaneous”

“Okay okay, add to basket.” Hans grinned at Jim with his cheeks still comically darkened. He was a rather pleasant psychopath in Jim’s mind.

“Let me get you some things to polish it with.” Jim happily bent over to access the cabinet behind him, glad to be assuring his new buddy.

”Hey Jim, you wouldn’t happen to have any exotic flesh would you? Like any special skin pieces, could be useful for my snail farming.”

Jim froze. He tried to mask the movement by wrapping his hands around the wax spray and cloth he’d been searching for in the cabinet and straightening, but he wasn’t sure if he had effectively masked the movement. “Special skin buddy, what do you mean?” Jim tilted his head to the side inquisitively, trying his best to school his features into that of an earnest store owner.

”Well you see I don’t really want it for the snail farming.” Hans rubbed the back of his head, careful to not disrupt the hat he wore as he did so. “I’m something of a collector you see. I understand it could be seen as a morbid hobby but I don’t see how me forming a collection is much different from a research society forming a ‘catalogue’. What do they even do with all the samples anyways, I never see much output. Just input, can’t tell me they aren’t forming collections of their own, even if they do claim to have a higher purpose.

So uh, would you have anything I might be interested in? I figured a store like this so far out in this galaxy was sure to have some good samples. You got any rare skin scraps anywhere, remote species or you know, hard to get material.” Hans looked up at him almost expectantly after delivering his query.

What a coincidence Jim thought, because Jim did actually have a rare skin sample in his fridge-one acquired quite recently in fact. A skin sample that he had spent an extraordinary amount of money on.

“Well I did have some adventures come through here recently hauling some rare genomes.”

”Oh?”

“Yeah they had a taste sense cananite and a liquid gold material that seemed able to come alive. That the type of thing you were looking for?”

”Ah well that certainly is interesting, Gold part especially. This where you got idol too?”

“Yeah it was actually.” Jim replied, smelling something fishy in the air.

“Well that’s not really my meaning. When I say exotic I mean exotic, you know, the stuff that is impossible to find any where else.” Hans had a very simple and relaxed way of speaking. It eased Jim into thinking of him a somewhat simple alien himself. When combined with how easily influenced he was into making purchases and his small stature, it was easy to imagine Hans as more of a boy than a man. Someone closer to a child then a fully developed adult with the capabilities for complex thought and meticulous scheming. When you interacted with the alien you tended to forget that behind those eyes could be a brain that was functioning on a much higher level than your own. Jim began to wonder if this impression wasn’t created exactly by accident.

The fake nose on his face was funny sure, hysterical even. Jim was certain it wouldn’t fool anyone, but it did still mean the alien was concealing his appearance, and the name he gave Jim-however silly-was still fake. Jim wasn’t sure if Hans was the dumbest or most devious spy he had ever seen but Jim was pretty sure that Hans was some sort of spy. One who could creep up on his enemies and stab them in the neck with a lethal explosive. One who might even be able to complete conceal themselves from sight, maybe that was why Jim hadn’t noticed him enter and maybe that was why there were so many mirrors attached to his suit.

“I can check in the back if you want, see if I have any exotic samples hanging about. I’ve got a pretty good fridge and your right about me floating pretty far in the end of nowhere, so I probably do have some stuff impossible to find anywhere else that only a collector like you could recognize. You just wait here and I’ll go look in the back.”

“No you don’t need to. If you don’t have anything to sell there’s no shame in it.”

”I’m gonna check anyways.” Jim called over his shoulder as he walked into the back room. He waved the door closed behind him and engaged the panic lock. The pawn shop counter ran the whole length of the rook and presented a clear barrier between customer and cashier. Of course Jim often broke this barrier by walking people through the store or eating with weary travelers like he imagined any good pawn shop owner would. For this reason he often left the door to the back room open, enticing customers with the mass of unorganized items he possessed. He believed it showed that there was a world of hidden treasures here, that whatever item they were trying to access might not be displayed on the shelves, but instead hidden in the hoard Jim guarded.

Now however, that door was firmly closed, putting a wall of safety between him and his suspicious customer. Jim grabbed the broom resting on the wall and swept the empty air around him, making sure no tiny assassins lurked. Satisfied he wasn’t followed he walked to his fridge and immediately created a huge two layered box. He formed this box around the one that was already containing the flesh and used the interface to slide the flesh to the back of the fridge, behind the possibly radioactive isotopes he had in lead storage and at a specific temperature to prevent implosion.

Scrolling through his menus he found what looked like a gecko in deep storage of the fridge. Figuring this was better than nothing he clicked retrieval.

“You okay Jim?” Hans shouted from the other side of the wall.

”Yeah I’m just retrieving something I think you might be interested in.” Jim shouted back.

The gecko was currently in the process of shooting up a shaft in the bottom of Jim’s fridge he assumed went into the rock this store was on. It emerged with some sort of liquid on its container as if something had been in the middle of digesting it. Not worrying about what was wrong with his rock or what creatures could be inhabiting it right now Jim cleaned and binned the box before forming a new one to carry the creature out with. Looking at the animal peacefully resting in the box he knew the colour of its flesh to be white, and yet something in his brain kept telling him it was actually yellow. Shaking his head he walked back out to his desk.

“This Interest you Hans?” Jim placed the gecko on the counter.

”May I?” Hans asked, hands paused before grabbing it. Jim nodded his assent. “Hmmmmmm.” Hans twisted the box in his hands, careful to examine the creature from every angle without disturbing it. Jim was reminded of when he had ‘inspected’ the idols in from of Yil and Arkatosh- although it was possible that Hans was legitimately examining the specimen. After scrutinizing the creature for a while he set it down. “I will take this actually. Despite the color I know this creature to be something seems to be telling me it's actually green, even in this animals current state it gives off this suggestion. Fascinating. Its claws are magnificent as well, fractaled. I will take it.”

Huh, maybe I was wrong. Jim briefly considered showing Hans what he was really packing but decided against it. It wouldn't be appropriate.

Jim stuck to his guns and kept his costly purchase hidden. As much as it hurt him to miss out on a potential payday, it would hurt him more to get nailed by the galactic empire. This choice was compounded by the fact that whatever government or shadowy organisation Hans worked for they seemed be big fans of organised violence. This meant Jim wouldn’t be landing himself in prison if he turned out to be holding onto the biological makeup of the divine one or whatever it was that dude sold hum, he’d be landing in the afterlife. Jim wasn’t willing to push his luck that far. He’d try selling the flesh when a really, really creepy guy came into his store who spoke in sibilant whispers. That guy he would believe to be a skin collector, stereotypes be damned! When a guy like that popped in he would offload the flesh, and for a fraction of what he payed for it too if he had to.

“Considering you’re the expect I’m gonna have to trust you to set the price on the gecko my friend. I’m afraid I don’t know it’s true value.” Jim uttered words that should never come from a salesman’s mouth and hoped he wouldn’t get too much of a fleecing for them. I mean Hans seemed like a nice enough guy for an evil assassin.

“I’ll give you around 8,000.” Jim’s eyebrows raised up comically high.

“Really that much?”

“Yeah, for your honesty and discretion.” Hans’ smile was friendly and he waved to Jim to put the stuff in the cart. Blue streams flowed from across his body to accumulate on top of the coaster like holder on Jim’s desk. A cube steadily formed, very large in its own right but still smaller then what Jerry had charged him.

“Thanks Hans, feel free to come back any time.” Jim’s smile was a bit uncomfortable as he loaded stuff into the cart, he was being patently dishonest after all.

”Will do Jim!”

“Oh and if you need any fuel there’s ports round back, it should charge you automatically so you can deal with it all from back there.”

“Thanks friend.” Hans waved over his shoulder without looking back and left the store with the trolley in tow, not stopping for further chit chat. Jim could have sworn he flickered out of view as he rounded the corner and left the view of Jim’s windows. After a few minutes the empty trolley hovered back to his desk and Hans' ship shot into the distance.

Jim collapsed against his desk suddenly exhausted. What have I gotten myself into.

Jim lay slumped on his desk for a while pondering the dangers of espionage and bemoaning his existence. His moaning was interrupted by his voracious pawnshop's rumblings.

‘Hanszarand’ sat in his ship and piloted himself to the edge of the galaxy. As he plotted a jump a call began to come in for him and he accepted it. A shadowy figure came onto his view screen and he turned up the brightness in order to see his boss's face. Her flair for the dramatic was one of the things he loved about her even when it became blatantly impractical.

“So did you retrieve the sacred flesh?”

“Wasn’t there boss.”

“You’re sure?”

”Yeah it wasn’t. That guy wouldn’t have even known what it was if he came across it-seemed pretty clueless. He knew something though, maybe the guy went through there-offered to sell it to him. Makes sense he wouldn’t purchase it, what idiot spends thousands of credits on something they don’t know anything about?”

“Hmm, whats the recommended course of action.”

“Send someone to set up monitoring, I set a beacon down and prepped the basics. Whoever the seller is he’s gotta be getting desperate fast, we already found all his other potential offload locations. Unaffiliated pawn shop at the edge of the universe seems like a good spot for a revisit.”

“Fine then I’ll send someone round. Good work 47. Were you spotted?”

“I improvised, needed to talk to him anyways.” The only response he got was a long sigh from the other side of the screen.

“Hey boss don't be down, I got you something.” Hans reached into the bag at his side and lifted the frog idol into view of his camera.

“Gods dammnit Steffan! What have I told you about touching our discretionary budget. Why did you buy a stupid figurine! What makes you think I would even want a gift in the first place/ Do you even try and focus on your damn missions. W-”

Steffan confirmed the jump into light space and his bosses berating faded into the distance.