Three Relics

Alita bites her lip in frustration. An hour spent trawling the morning market and all she has to show for the trouble are a few luminescent paints and some cheap chocolate hardly sweet enough to merit the name — and she isn't counting the chocolate.

Ducking into an alley to escape the sun and steal away a few chalky bites, she happens upon a sandwich board tucked neatly behind a crook of concrete. The face of the thing is caked with with years of Iron City grime, but Alita can make out the image of a bauble beneath. It's not gold and glamorous like ones the market jewelers advertise with — rather, it has the slipshod appearance of an amateur handcraft. The curio shop door is lacquered oak and thick enough to stop a bullet, which it appears to have done on more than one occasion. Sure as sunrise, this is a place for treasures.

Stale air and darkness greet Alita, with only a few flickers of scattered candlelight to illuminate the merchandise.

"Hello? Oh, hi!"

Alita spots the proprietor slumped behind a counter in the far corner, half-occluded by a mesh wall of knick-knacks that runs the room longways. He gives a lazy wave of acknowledgement but is otherwise preoccupied with something that sounds an awful lot like the stirring of dice in a tumbler. Between the hideaway location and the decrepit signage and all the other signifiers of solitude just about anyone can figure this is not a man interested in being found, but his latest customer isn't much for picking up on cues.

"Um, excuse me. Do you mind if I take a look around? I'm trying to find a gift for a friend of mine and haven't had any luck at all in the market."

The man perks up a bit and sets his dice aside, now lost in a sea of trinkets. His voice is graveled and severe, painfully so.

"No luck to be had out there if you've any taste. People in Iron City only seem to care about practical or gaudy, depending on how much clink's in their pockets. I sell neither."

"That suits me. I'm interested in something personal."

"Well, you're in the right place. The rest of the scavengers pick around for broken cybernetic components and shimmering nonsense; I scoop up what little artistry Zalem mixes in with the trash. Accidentally or otherwise, it doesn't matter to me."

Sliding past the mesh wall, Alita finally catches a better look at the man behind the counter. He's a middle-aged fellow wearing a few more creases than any middle-aged fellow ought to have. A lash of candlelight reveals many of them to be scars, deep and leathered and nearly enough to rob the man of his natural good looks. Alita's imagination runs wild and her blossoming smile sets a great puzzlement upon the poor shopkeep.

"You're a Hunter Warrior, aren't you?"

"Strange question. What would make you say that?"

She moves in closer now, palms down on the countertop as she cranes in curiosity.

"All those scars! I bet you got those chasing bounties, didn't you?"

The man bores into Alita for a few silent seconds before moving for the tumbler and shaking out a pair of dice — three and six, but he doesn't look.

"You've taste, but no manners to pair it with. It's horribly rude to ask about a man's deformities in such a fashion. Particularly if you haven't thought to learn his name."

Alita withdraws back off the counter, feeling a bit embarrassed at the rebuke.

"Oh...sorry. Just got a bit excited. My name's Alita. What's your name?"

He retrieves something from a drawer and places it face-up before Alita — a Motorball trading card. She understands it to be him from context, but there is little resemblance between them.

"Hmm...Naja? That's a nice name. You play Motorball?"

"Retired. A typical second-league burnout story you've heard a thousand times before and I'm no longer interested in telling. Besides, I've forgotten enough of the truth that most of it would be embellishment at my own expense, and I only self-flagellate on weekends anymore when no one's around to see me in the bottle."

The sound of metal grinding on metal fills the room as Naja moves from his hideaway behind the waist-high. He's dressed like a man who doesn't care how he looks.

"I apologize. That made me sound more miserable than I am."

"No, I understand, really. I'm second-league myself."

The words catch him mid-stride, freezing him to the spot like someone cracked a bullet across the floorboard.

"Are you now?"

"Sure am! I don't mean to brag, but I've been doing pretty well for myself lately, too. You haven't heard of me, even in passing?"

"I don't keep appraised of the sport any longer — too dirty. Not that it was any less dirty in my day, but I've lost the stomach for it."

He moves again, fingers brushing along a clouded display case housing a family of small metal mechanisms. Alita flips the Motorball card absentmindedly and isn't at all surprised by the number she sees on the back. The man with the dozen scars and the hundred antiques and the story told a thousand times never managed to win a single match. She says nothing, but Naja hears her regardless.

"Still had a few seasons left in me after that, but my face was so mauled I couldn't bear to keep any of the later editions. Held out for that first win a lot longer than I should have. Facial reconstruction isn't cheap. You can see how that plan turned out. How is it, anyway, winning?"

"That's an assumption."

"It is, yes. But no one does pretty well for themselves in second league unless they're winning."

"Would you be disappointed if I said hollow and transient?"

"Quite the contrary."

"Well, it's the truth. Points and rankings are arbitrary; I never cared about any of that crap. I know it's not very glamorous to admit, but I race for the thrill of it. There's a part of me that only feels at home on the track playing games of life and death."

"You're better off than I. A lust for violence without affectation is a wonderful trait for a professional Motorballer. Perhaps once the speed leaves your skates you could swing it as a Hunter Warrior. It's an honest living — if you want it to be."

"I wasn't expecting you to say something like that."

"Then we've surprised each other today. Even I can be practical. I'd hate for you to end up cast out with the garbage like me and my companions here."

The phrasing sends a shiver though Alita. She smiles weakly in place of words that have fluttered away. There is a long and electric silence that signals an end to the conversation.

"Come — we'll find something nice for your friend."

***

The morning hours are uneventful: a few simple courier jobs and some table waiting out by Midtown. A lady Hunter Warrior comes to the cafe drunk as can be, crowing about a 70K bounty or some such. You know it's a crock but the badge looks real enough so you keep your mouth shut and the taps open. That's what passes for a highlight today.

The morning hours are always uneventful when Alita isn't around. She's being evasive again, which for most anyone else means you've done something to offend — with her it just means she's planning something.

You return to your apartment just after noon for lunch and a slice of peace. You set your things aside and make for the bedroom only to find it locked. Surely you didn't lock it before you left? Curious. Another try and — no, it's definitely locked. You place an ear to the door and hear a faint metallic sound like pins falling into place.

"Hey! Someone in there?"

"Oh!"

The tinkering stops as your heart leaps ten stories.

"You're home early!"

Alita. Locked in your bedroom. Your mind races, grasping at a thousand possibilities all more embarrassing than the last.

"What are you doing in there? How the hell'd you get in?"

"You never lock your window."

The casual phrasing indicates she's done this before, likely more than once, but you set that fresh fear aside for the moment and throw some leftovers in the microwave - plain mashed potatoes with a side of greens and the last of the morning coffee. The orange you left on the counter earlier for a spike of midday energy is missing. You don't have to ask.

"Can you at least tell me why the door's locked? I'm going to need a change of clothes before heading out."

"It's a secret, that's why. Give me another second, I'm almost done."

"Alright. No snooping, okay?"

"Why? Are you hiding something?"

There's a thick, sinister joy to how she drags the words out and you decide to stop pushing your luck. With a resigned sigh you sit down at the dinner table and dig into your mashed potatoes. The tinkering resumes, accompanied by a sharp hum of self-satisfaction. It's a sound so sweet it almost makes you want to lose.

Before long the lock clicks on your door and Alita emerges wearing a big smile along with a shirt you recognize as your own, over-sized for her frame and sliding deep down one shoulder. She's hiding her hands behind her back as if she found something you wouldn't want her to find. You lose interest in the mashed potatoes rather quickly.

"Hey, I was gonna wear that."

She ignores you and glides over to the table, never once breaking eye contact.

"I know you've been having trouble sleeping lately, so...I made you this."

You push your bowl aside as she brings the gift into view: a small cube, resting in the palm of her hand like it's the most precious thing in the world. You take it into your own and it may as well be. The deep brown wood is grooved with silver inlays depicting a lighthouse standing watch over a tempestuous sea. The silver bleeds in spots and there are a smattering of wounds and abrasions along the edges, but nothing so grievous as to detract from the beauty of the piece. Though it could never be mistaken for the work of a master artisan, you appreciate all the subtle flaws of character.

"You made this?"

"Well, mostly. The design was already there, but it was so degraded I had to re-cut the channels and set the inlay myself. It's pretty amateurish work, but I'm proud of it."

"You should be! This is amazing!"

Though she tries to hide it, the compliment sends her sailing with joy.

"You haven't even seen the best part yet."

"That's hard to believe."

You return to the piece with curious eyes and make a few new discoveries. Protruding from the back of the cube is a wind-up key in the shape of an anchor, all greens and oranges like it's been roused from a long slumber on the ocean bed. Below that is a hinge attached to the bottom face, and the nearby seam tells you this isn't just a decorative cube. Alita shifts and sways with nervous energy as you pull back the lid.

Within the cube are various bits of machinery you recognize as the components of a music box, but it's the inside of the lid that catches your eye. Painted upon it is an undersea vista in miniature, brought to life with a remarkable level of detail — even if the composition is cluttered and the colors a bit garish.

"I wanted it to look like the sea beneath the waves of the inlay when you open it. The paint's luminescent, too, so it'll look really cool at night."

You try to place the box down on it's lid for the full presentation, but the balance is off and you have to catch it falling forward.

"Yeah...I didn't really think that part through. Oh, and a few of the pins on the cylinder broke when I stuffed the mechanism in there, so the song doesn't really sound all that great. Sorry."

Fighting back tears, you wind the key and rise from your seat as music begins to fill the room. It's a soothing little lullaby, lovely even through the skipped notes that make Alita wince.

"I could try to fix it if—"

You do something you've never done before and shush her. The music plays on, and you see tears forming in her eyes too.

"There's nothing to fix. This is the most wonderful gift anyone's ever given me."

A smile and an embrace, as the final note sounds.

"Perfect the way it is."