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“The RWE Bagger was first crowned the largest land vehicle in the world at the end of the twentieth century. The first one ever used was in Germany. A few decades later, the US ordered three of those to be used on their excavation sites. They improved the technology and made them easier to operate. They had been excavating tons of earth for a few years when the Rise happened. They stayed unused for a few more years, until four men had the idea to build the Traveling Market on top of them. Their insane idea, against all odds, has survived for almost twenty years now.”

Extract from The Traveling Market and its King by Nolan Sigmond, published in 2062.

Jude guides Fyfe to the open hangar on the lower side of one of the Baggers. There is a huge ramp connecting it to the ground, allowing vehicles to climb. The ramp is held by massive chains, the links as big as a human’s head.

The Firefly is stealthy as it gets, and yet a man is standing at the end of the hangar, gun in hand. The artificial light reveals his serious face. As soon as we land, he aims the gun at us.

“Hey now,” says Jude, coming out of the Firefly. “That’s no way to greet an old friend, Stellan.” Fyfe has opened both doors simultaneously.

“You’re not a friend of mine,” says Stellan. “I only tolerate you because of Perri.”

Stellan is tall and well-built, with blonde hair and a sharp jawline. He’s wearing a blue overall tied at the waist. There are other vehicles in the hangar. It looks like they’re being repaired. He must be a mechanic. Another extremely prized skill in the world after the Rise.

Jude sighs. “I love you, too.”

“You didn’t warn us that you would come accompanied,” Stellan says, gesturing to me with the barrel of his gun.

“Oh, him? He’s a ghost. Or soon to be,” Jude says. “I just needed him to fly the aircraft. As soon as Perri manages to hack into the AI, I’ll kill him myself. He’s too weak to cause trouble.”

I do my best to convey my hatred in my eyes as I glare at the both of them.

“Wait until you’re back in the wastelands before doing it,” says Stellan. “Don’t let Perri know about it. You know how he is.”

“I know.”

Stellan lowers his gun. “Move him inside. I have people coming in the morning to pick up their rover.”

Jude nods. “I’ll need your help. He’s a dead weight.”

Both men carry me inside, and I never wished for my electricity more. I just want to burn their entrails.

Stellan grimaces as they drop me on an old couch. “He smells like death,” he says, eyeing my bloody clothes and the crusty wounds on my chest.

I can’t say he’s wrong. I’m a corpse hanging onto life.

“Jude!” comes a voice from the other room.

It’s the one who answered the radio signal.

A young man appears and throws himself into Jude’s arms. He has long brown hair tied in a messy braid. Perri is small, even compared to Jude’s thin frame. Just like Stellan, he looks to be in his twenties. He has on a long pink shirt and shorts.

“Hey, sweetheart,” says Jude with a bright smile.

I blink. There is no hidden shadow lurking in that smile. None of the usual cruelty that I’ve been used to for the past two days.

“You dickhead,” retorts Perri, holding the other man in a tight embrace. “I was worried sick.”

Stellan watches them with a strange look. Worry, perhaps.

“I’m sorry,” Jude says. “I had to leave fast. I couldn’t say goodbye.” He kisses the top of his head.

Perri tightens his embrace even more. “I forgive you.”

Stellan smiles at last, watching them with something akin to fondness etched on his face.

Envy burns its way through my entire being. Those three share something deep, something I always craved. I thought I had it with Helios years ago, before he ran away from me. I close my eyes.

“Who is that? And why is he tied up?” asks Perri after a moment.

He’s watching me, something like shock and pity on his pretty face. It’s much worse than Jude’s hatred or Stellan’s disinterest.

“No one of importance,” says Jude, pulling him back to him. “Don’t mind him. He’s my prisoner.”

Perri’s eyes widen. “Your prisoner? Why?”

Stellan walks to him and runs his fingers through his hair affectionately. “Go back to bed, love. You can rest for a few more hours before sunrise.”

But Perri shakes his head. “I want to catch up with Jude.”

“Then let’s go eat breakfast.”

And the three of them disappear into another room.

I take a moment to observe my new prison. The walls are made of insulated metal to keep the air conditioning inside and survive the desert heat during the day. A traveling merchant once joked that a tornado had ripped the market to pieces a few years ago. In less than three days, it was back to its former glory. The entire market is built to be lightweight and ready to be disassembled on demand.

The room is small but practical. There are two couches, one chair, and cupboards reaching to the ceiling. Everything is bolted to the walls and floor.

If I wasn’t on the brink of death, I would explore the Traveling Market to understand how they make it work. How do they manage their waste? And how do they get enough water for all the traveling merchants and inhabitants of the market? Stellan and Perri look like they live here full-time.

I fall asleep before knowing it, and when I open my eyes again, Jude is nudging my face with a fork. The four points dig into my cheek.

I jolt, but the movement cost me. I grunt, as pain radiates through my chest.

“I’ve brought you food,” Jude says.

He has changed clothes since our arrival at the market. He’s no longer in the simple military attire we gave him in Bunkertown. He’s now wearing blue jeans and a black tank top. I think those are Perri’s clothes. They’re very snug.

“Why?” I croak, glaring at him.

“Because Perri and Stellan looked at the Firefly and told me that it will take a few days to hack it. Dumdumb might be stupid, but he’s hard to hack. I need you to stay alive a while longer, little monster.”

I hired a hacker two years ago. It took him a week to get into the Firefly’s core.

“I’ll show you who’s little…” I say, glaring.

I expect Jude to punch me, but he snorts with derision instead. “I would like to see that.”

I grind my teeth. I’ve not felt that powerless since my childhood in the lab.

He offers me a bite of what looks like meat. At first, I try to ignore his attempt at feeding me just to spite him. But he grabs for my throat and squeezes hard enough to cut my airflow. As soon as my vision darkens and my mouth goes a little slack, he pushes the fork between my lips.

Hateful bastard.

Unlike me, he seems like he’s enjoying it. It’s another kind of torture, to force me while I’m at my most vulnerable. He loves having power over me.

After a few bites, I know that I will just get sick all over the couch if he forces me to eat more, so I ask a question to distract him.

“Is Perri your lover?”

Jude smiles but shakes his head. “Nah. We hooked up once when I first came to the market years ago. We had fun, and I stayed around for a few days. But he’s not really my type. He’s too sweet. Too fragile. And either way, as soon as I realized Stellan was in the picture, I knew we should just be friends.”

“Why? Are they…?”

“Yes, and no. It’s complicated,” he explains. “They’re childhood friends and they fuck, but they’re not lovers. They’re beyond that, if you ask any of them. Soulmates. They can’t be apart from each other. They can’t live and be happy without each other, but they still expect to find lovers. They aren’t enough to satisfy one another. They’re weird, I know. I’ve learned to navigate around them. Sometimes, they even share partners. But none of their lovers ever stay. They come in a strange package. You can’t have one without the other, and you have to accept sharing them for life.”

I stare, eyebrows raised. Sharing was never my forte. I understand why no one stuck around.

Jude finishes the plate of food. My eyes fall on his beautiful lips as he licks a drop of sauce. He catches me in the act and snickers.

“In your dreams, little monster,” he says before disappearing into the next room.

Rage rises to the surface. He’s so full of himself. The only reason I would kiss his lips would be to rip them with my teeth. I want to ruin that pretty face of his.

The short exchange with Jude exhausted me, and I let my head drop back on the couch. For an hour, I contemplated how my life went to shit in less than three days. I was a king in my own right. I ruled over my underground city with a tight fist. And yet, here I am. A crusty mutant at the mercy of a little shit.

“What have you done to find yourself in this predicament?” asks someone from the door.

I turn my head and find Perri observing me.

“I was too powerful,” I say.

“That sounds like an oversimplification and a fancy way to say that you were an asshole.”

I frown at him. I should kill him for the disrespect as soon as I’m able to move a finger.

He walks toward me with a metal box and sits at my side, unaware of my murderous thoughts. He pulls out a pair of scissors, and my mind focuses on the possibilities. If I can overpower him now and steal them, I could get a chance at stabbing Jude in the eye.

“Don’t move. I need to cut your clothes to assess your wounds,” Perri says.

My dark fantasies dissipate like smoke. I can only stare as he gently cuts my clothes to free my chest and arms. I shiver under his touch. The recent days have left me starved for kindness and human touch. Especially after Helios broke my heart irremediably.

Perri grimaces as he sees my wounds.

“Gods… How are you still alive?” he says.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

He goes to the kitchen and comes back with a bowl of clear water and a cloth. He starts washing away the dried blood on my chest, neck, and arms. I tense, knowing where this is going. Knowing what he’s about to realize.

Perri’s hand stops, and his eyes widen as he notices the dark veins all over my body reaching to my neck. They were hidden under all the blood.

“You’re a mutant,” he says after a few seconds.

I’m just glad he didn’t say monster.

I nod. “I am.”

My blood is still red, but it’s thicker, which turns my biggest veins a darker shade than normal humans.

He searches my face, putting the pieces together. I’m half Korean, half American. And very tall. Easily recognizable.

“You’re that mutant from the South. The one who’s at the origin of the slave trade.”

I keep my mouth shut.

His eyes harden. It looks strange on such a kind face. But surprisingly, he starts cleaning my wounds again, in silence this time. He helps me into an old Hawaiian shirt. It’s yellow with pink and blue flowers. I balk at the style, but beggars can’t be choosers. At least, it’s cleaner than the rest of me.

He leaves without a second glance, but says, before disappearing into the other room, “You deserve to be in chains for what you did.”

I certainly do. The fact that I’m a monster has never been refuted, even by me.

A few minutes later, Stellan walks into the room with some kind of tool in hand. He does a double take when he sees my shirt and sighs. He walks hurriedly to the other room, and his voice rises over the ruckus of the waking market as he berates Perri for his ‘reckless behaviors and stupidly kind heart’.

When he comes back into the room, he points the tool at me and says, “You touch him, or even look at him wrong, and I’ll kill you right here and throw your corpse to the coyotes.”

I nod. This is the kind of protective streak I can relate to. If Stellan loves Perri as much as I loved Helios, I understand.

He disappears again into the hangar where he started working on vehicles an hour ago. I heard them talk about covering the Firefly with a tarp during the day and working on it at night, so no customer sees it and starts asking unwanted questions.

The day goes by, and I sleep. My rest is plagued by nightmares. The jellyfish are not the only ones to visit my dreams. Helios, too. I see him when he was a teenager, so open and sweet.

But his face morphs into the grown-up man I met five days ago. A man who hates me and wants me dead.

When I wake up some time later, night has fallen. There are no sign of my captors except for the bottle of water and a sandwich on my lap. Made with corn flour, if the color is any indication. Something tells me that it’s courtesy of Perri. Jude would have just choked me with it. I manage to bring it to my mouth and take a small bite. Against all odds, it looks like I’m regaining strength. I knew I was resilient, but I didn’t expect to survive two swords in the gut. But there is still no trace of my electricity. I don’t feel a spark.

My hand drops back on my lap. It’s already too much effort.

I chew and make a face. It’s a peanut butter sandwich. I fucking hate peanut butter.

It must have been written all over my face because Jude says as he walks in, “Not so fond of peanuts? Good. That’s all I’ll feed you from now on.”

“Fuck you,” I say, my voice rough from spending too much time sleeping.

Jude laughs. “In your dreams, Sparky.”

I do my best to convey all of my hate in my glare.

He’s not cowered one bit and sits on the couch. “Perri started hacking into the Firefly two hours ago. Dumdumb is resisting, but not for long. Perri is the best hacker in the wastelands. So, how do you want to go?”

“What?” I ask. Even though I was ready to ignore him thoroughly. But something about him just always raises my hackles.

“I could throw you from the Firefly and watch you splatter on the ground. Or a bullet in the head, but that would be too quick. What’s the fun in that? I’m personally a big fan of knives. They do the trick nicely, but it tends to be messy. I don’t want to dirty the Firefly.” As he talks, his hateful smile grows. He’s taking so much pleasure in threatening me.

But I’m not easily frightened. The only person who really instilled fear in me was my father.

“Your lack of imagination is not surprising,” I say calmly, holding his stare.

Jude’s smile turns wicked. But right as he’s about to retort something, Stellan rushes into the room.

“You’ve been found,” the mechanic says, out of breath. “The King is coming.”

Jude jumps on his feet in a blink. “Shit.”