text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  The streets of Coventown are little more than muddy paths so you're glad you're wearing your boots. All about you are a wide array of men, women, children, and even a few other robots. It looks like every race and nationality is represented here. You find yourself shouldering your way through people in fezzes, bamboo hats, pork-pies, flyer's caps, Fedoras, and even an occasional bowler hat. Beyond the eclectic head-gear, though, you notice most of the peoples' clothing is very practical with a lot of leather jackets, gray spacer tunics, flack jackets, and worn business attire. There don't seem to be any ground-cars, but there are people riding bicycles or pulling rickshaws. You smell the acrid aroma of smoke and realize it must be coming from what pass for restaurants in this town.
  
  Along the sides of the street you and Esmeralda are walking down are low-slung scrap metal buildings with open fronts. Some of these have metal tables and chairs with people eating meals and drinking. Sitting at one these tables is a beautiful blond woman in a green satin dress. On her head is a matching hat with a yellow band and a wide brim shading her eyes. She is sipping a cup of coffee while absently reading a folded newspaper. Occasionally, she takes a drag on a thin brown cigarette.
  
  You tap Esmeralda on her metal shoulder and point at the woman. "Esmeralda, do you recognize her?"
  
  Esmeralda appraises the woman with her bright red eyes. "Yes," she says in a stage whisper. "That's your late father's secretary, Andrea Laughlin. I don't understand why she'd be in a place like this."
  
  "Strange. Do you think she knows about my parents? She has to be wondering why she hasn't heard from my father."
  
  "Your father was taking an extended sabbatical when those terrible men came. He wasn't expected back at the mine for another month. Perhaps we should move on."
  
  "Why? You don't think it's a little suspicious that she's drinking in a cafe in Coventown?"
  
  "I advise we just ignore her for now."
  
  "No, I want to know why she's here. I want to know if there's any news about my parents. Maybe the company sent someone to Lozano's Island to check on my father when he didn't contact her by radio. He always had a direct line to his secretary, even when he was at home. I've know my father to make business calls when we were on vacation. He did that most of the time when we went to Mars when I was ten. Andrea probably had to be wondering why she hadn't heard from him in a while. She could give us some information."
  
  > take Esmeralda's Advice and Move On for Now
  Esmeralda seems so insistent that you decide to follow her advice for now and skip talking to Andrea Laughlin, but you make a mental note to pass the cafe tomorrow to see if you can talk to her then. You let Esmeralda take the lead since she seems to have a better idea how to get to the Port Authority Building. She guides you through several muddy streets, when you finally stop her.
  
  "Look, Esmeralda, I haven't had any breakfast...or last night's supper, for that matter. There's got to be someone here who will take my father's gold coins and give us normal currency in exchange."
  
  Esmeralda gently touches a claw to your shoulder. "Poor child. Of course you need to eat. It's not as if you have an atomic battery like I do. Very well. I shall ask about to see if there is any type of exchange where we can trade the coins for cash. Here, you go sit down and rest on one of those old crates. I'll be right back."
  
  You look to where she's pointing and see several dingy, disused wooden crates in front of one the metal buildings. Esmeralda scuttles off and starts talking to different people in the street so you go ahead with your metal suitcase and sit on a crate. You almost immediately nod off. When you come to, you notice a hairless Asian man with a half-burnt face shaking your shoulder. He's kneeling on a wooden board with rollers. No, you realize. He isn't kneeling. His knees end in fleshy stumps.
  
  "Sorry to bother you, my girl," he says, "but this is my busking site. No offense to you or anything, but I got to ply my trade." He holds up a battered old acoustic guitar by the neck. "This here guitar's my one and only meal ticket. Now you don't want an old man to go hungry, do you?"
  
  You sigh heavily. "Mister, I haven't had a bite to eat myself since yesterday."
  
  The burned side of his face remains a hairless pink mask, but the other side pulls into a frown. "Oh, sorry to hear that, kid." He reaches a hand into the inside of his brown leather jacket and fishes out a biscuit. "Here, it's not much, but I'm sure to you it'll seem like a full-course meal."
  
  "Uh, I can't take that from you. I'm sure you need that."
  
  "Aren't you hungry? Here, how about you earn your meal? I'll let you have the biscuit right now and you can work it off."
  
  He holds out the biscuit and you take it and bite into its still-warm crust. You find yourself devouring the entire morsel in a less than a minute.
  
  "Well," he continues, "if you don't want my charity, you can assist me. Do you know how to play guitar?" He holds out the instrument.
  
  You reluctantly take the guitar from the man. "Well, I can sort of play...just not very well."
  
  The man smiles at you. "Can you play three chords?"
  
  "You mean like with the Three-Chord Trick? Yeah, I know how to do that! I don't know that I'm all that good a singer, though."
  
  The man scoots his roller-board to your side. "Hey, you don't have to be perfect. People are gonna walk by and see some poor orphan girl playing her heart out and they'll just want to throw money your way. Sorry, I didn't mean to presume you're an orphan."
  
  "I am."
  
  "Poor kid. My condolences. Where are you from?"
  
  "I was born on the continent of Tereshkov, up in the northern city of Aphrodite."
  
  "Aphrodite's Child."
  
  "You mean Aphrodite's Orphan. My name's Sandra Acosta."
  
  The man holds out a hand to you and you shake it. "Mine's Bill Tanaka. I used to be a space jokey like you see here in Coventown. That is, till the rocket ship I was in crashed. Me and two other men were the only survivors. As you can see, though, I didn't make it out in one piece."
  
  He hands you the guitar and you place the bowl of the instrument in your lap and start strumming on the strings.
  
  "Just get a feel for it," he continues. "Do you play movable position chords or open chords...or both?"
  
  You place your left hand on the neck and form your fingers into a G position. You strum again and feel a sense of satisfaction upon hearing the G chord. "Open position's all I've ever known. It's all my mother ever taught me. She was a classical guitarist."
  
  The unburnt side of Bill Tanaka's face smiles. "Hey, that's great. Always wanted to learn to play J.S. Bach on guitar." He holds up his left hand and you see that several fingers are missing their ends. "Unfortunately, the accident made it so's I can only play fifth note chords. You know, dyads. I can go up and down the neck, but no open positions and no scales."
  
  You switch you fingers to a C chord, strum it, and grin. "Still gives you a huge vocabulary to work with."
  
  > Busking in Coventown
  "Okay, now here's another old chestnut from the American songbook," you say to a crowd of onlookers who've gathered in front of the crates you and Bill Tanaka have made your base of operations. "It's a beloved old standard by the name of 'Tom Dooley'." Esmeralda stands to your side with your suitcase on a crate in front of her. On the case's upturned face you've toothpasted the letters C, G, and F. She points a claw to C and then makes a strumming motion with her other claw to indicate a pattern in 4/4 time. You shape your hand on the guitar neck in an open C chord and are about to strum...
  
  "Hey," says a tall, dark man with aviator's cap and goggles on his head and East African tribal scars on his cheeks, "do you know 'Lost Lovers/Lost Times' by Karen Locust King?"
  
  You begin strumming the guitar and say: "No, sir, I'm afraid I only know the classics. Nothing contemporary, I'm afraid. Plus, I don't have an Oscilliotron to play on like she does. Just this old guitar." You go into "Tom Dooley"
  
  "Hang your head, Tom Dooley
  
  Hang your head and"
  
  stumbling a bit when Esmeralda points to the G chord on the suitcase. Bill smiles at your flub but pats you on the shoulder as you continue playing
  
  "Cry.
  
  Killed poor Laura Foster
  
  And you know you're bound to die."
  
  The crowd seems impressed with the song's morbid details. You feel tempted to stop singing and explain to them that Appalachian hillbillies have been warbling these lyrics for over a century now. With all I've been through, you think as you strum the guitar, a song of dark justice is about the only thing that still makes any sense to me. You continue singing, not realizing you've skipped an entire stanza:
  
  "Took her on the hillside.
  
  Stabbed her with a knife.
  
  Took her on the hillside
  
  And then you took her life."
  
  You've been at this busking business for about an hour now and are slowly gaining confidence in yourself. If only your mother had encouraged you all those years ago. You've already collected a sizable amount of funds from the people on the street. Esmeralda had come back not long after Bill had handed you his guitar, and she explained that the one person she was told would exchange your father's gold coins for money is currently off-world right now. But now that fact doesn't seem to bother you anymore. Maybe if Mother could have seen how successful you've become as a musician, she'd actually be proud of you. She used to be an in-demand Classical musician in her home-country of Mexico, until your father saw her perform in New York and swept her off her feet and made her his trophy wife. Perhaps she was just bitter he'd insisted she stop touring and become a housewife. Or perhaps she'd expected her only child to be a musical prodigy like she had been when she was a child. Sorry, Mom, I can't be perfect like you, you think as you round out "Tom Dooley" and the audience applauds and places bills and coins into Bill Tanaka's outstretched cap.
  
  "For my next song, I'm going to do something a bit more Old South. Here's 'Camp Town Races'." You look to Esmeralda to see which Chord letter she's pointing at, but you notice beyond her is Andrea Laughlin walking with a tall space jockey with strawberry blond hair. They're moving down the street when they are stopped by a middle-aged red-haired man with a mustache and a black flack jacket. They briefly talk with him and then all three head down the street together till they're out of view. You're pretty sure the man they met was Jay.
  
  > try and Catch up With Them and Confront Jay
  You feel a cold chill on your skin and realize it's not just your damp blazer. Jay's the one you came here to find, and you just saw him walking down the street with your father's secretary. None of this can be good and nothing here can end well. You shut your eyes a long, long moment and slowly inhale till your lungs are full, then let the air hiss through your lips.
  
  "Hey, when are you gonna start playing?" shouts a chubby, balding man in the crowd.
  
  "Uno momento, por favor," you reply in a hollow voice.
  
  "Huh?"
  
  You look to Bill Tanaka and hand him his guitar. "I'll be back shortly," you tell him, standing up and placing your hands in your blazer pockets and gripping the cold metal of your gun.
  
  Bill takes the guitar and nods approval as you walk off. Esmeralda rises up on her praying mantis legs and follows you.
  
  "What is it, Sandra?" she asks.
  
  "I saw Jay, the man who got away. I'm going to catch up with him. I'm going to kill him."
  
  "Sandra, dear, I would advise caution on your part here. It would not be a good idea to shoot a man on a crowded street in broad daylight."
  
  You press through a group of space jockeys and several men in threadbare suits and ties, scanning the grimy metal buildings on either side of the street. Finally, you reply: "This is why we came here, Esmeralda."
  
  Soon you stand before the rocket ship field at the center of Coventown. Your eyes passes over the rows of craft, occasionally catching glimpses of people moving between them. Jay and Andrea and the space jockey are nowhere in sight. Maybe they turned into one the buildings behind you. You sigh heavily, drop to your knees, and place your hands on your face. You feel moisture in your eyes, squint, and let warm tears wet your palms. Esmeralda's cold claw touches your shoulder, probably the most sympathetic gesture she's capable of. You wipe your eyes, stand up, and brush the dirt off your knees. You look to your robot and catch your breath.
  
  "You didn't see them, did you, Esse?"
  
  She stares at you with her glowing crimson eyes and cocks her head to the side. "You saw them behind me, Sandra. They must have been out of range when got up to follow you. No, I have not seen them."
  
  "Esmeralda, you're not lying to me to make me stop this, are you? Are you afraid of what I'm turning into?"
  
  "Sandra, if you're asking me that, you must realize that you have self-doubts, that even you're not sure about what your doing."
  
  "You didn't answer my question. Don't be evasive. I didn't see you stop me when I attacked the rocket ship on Lozano's Island."
  
  "You were almost killed then. In fact, you surely would have died that day if I hadn't saved you."
  
  You turn away from her and stare at the landing field. Why can't this machine understand my reasons for doing this? you wonder. She's programmed with certain behavioral guidelines. Beyond those, she can only improvise based on the information at hand. Your musings are interrupted by the flash of several people darting between two ships twenty feet ahead of you. That's them! You walk forward, pulling the ray pistol out of your blazer pocket. You hear Esmeralda's servos whirring as she follows you.
  
  > Facing Your Parents' Killer
  You pass several rows of black witch ships and silver VTO rockets till you reach the lane you're sure you a glance of Jay, Andrea, and the space jockey. You saw them going left so you turn in that direction and move forward, your eyes darting about for any signs of the them. Eventually, you pot the party loitering in front of a VTO rocket with a Soviet flag and the letters CCCP embossed on its hull. The space jockey and Jay are in conversation with two men in gray coveralls with shoulder patches of a gold hammer and cycle on a field of red. Andrea stands off to the side, her head down so that her face is blocked out by her green hat.
  
  You scurry sideways and peak out at them from behind the girder-like front land gear of a witch ship. From your hiding place you can just make out what they are saying.
  
  "Anton, I don't care if you think it's too soon," says Jay. "I saw that little bitch who tried to kill me. Her and her homicidal robot. They must be here in Coventown to tell their story. I don't think this can wait."
  
  "I'm still trying to work out the trajectory we have to take to hit the Port Authority building so we don't get ourselves killed," replies one of the Soviet spacers.
  
  "It's for the greater good," says the space jockey with the strawberry blond hair. He steps past Jay and puts his hand on the Russian's shoulder. "If you guys die, I promise you my men will get your bodies out of your ship and put them under ice. Have faith in me; I've returned from the dead."
  
  Something touches your shoulder and you jump around to face your assailant.
  
  Esmeralda stands before you. "We should contact the authorities," she says in a low voice.
  
  "No," you whisper to her.
  
  "I don't want you to be killed."
  
  "The only authorities here the people in the Port Authority building. And it's pretty obvious I don't have time to try and convince them there's a conspiracy afoot." You turn back and loot at the party by the Russian rocket ship. "These people are ready to do something drastic. I have to act now."
  
  Crouching low behind the landing gear, you aim your ray pistol at Jay. Your finger slides onto the cold metal of the trigger. There's a burst of blue light and you hear a shrill scream. Jay's legs buckle under him and he falls to the ground, his head a smoldering torch.
  
  The Soviets dash up the ladder of their rocket ship and disappear inside. The strawberry blond space jockey pulls out his ray pistol, wraps an arm around Andrea, and pulls her to the Soviet ship.
  
  You point your pistol at the ship's ladder and fire another beam of energy. The metal tongs of the ladder flare up with light and glow a molten orange.
  
  The space jokey and Andrea look around frantically till they site you. You fire again before the space jokey can aim his weapon at you. His chest recoils as his tunic front bursts into flame. Andrea screams as the space jockey falls on his back. She kneels down at his side, her eyes never leaving you.
  
  You step from behind the landing gear, your pistol raised, and slowly step up to her.
  
  Andrea crouches by the dead space jockey and you see she is now holding his pistol in her hand. She points it at you. "Sandra, oh God, it is you," she says, tears streaming down her cheeks.
  
  Part of you wants to fire at her, but the other part just wants to ask her why.
  
  "You're mixed up in this," you finally say. "They murdered my parents. What is this? How could you help them? Why would you betray my family this way?"
  
  Andrea slowly rises to face you. She looks weary, broken, out of options.
  
  Esmeralda comes to your side.
  
  You look to your robot and ask, "Did you know she was involved?"
  
  "No," says Esmeralda, "I only knew she had had a schism with your father over a personal matter."
  
  "Schism," says Andrea with a sad chuckle. "That's a bit of an understatement. These men offered the possibility of life after death. I wasn't working with them for my own sake. Sandra, you of all people know what a person would be willing to do on behalf of their own flesh and blood."
  
  The rocket ship's thrusters start rumbling and you see a blue glow flickering in the exhaust port. The metal ladder, black plumes of smoke blowing off it, retracts up into the craft.
  
  You and Esmeralda immediately step back till you're pressed against the landing gear of the witch ship.
  
  Andrea looks up at the rocket ship above her. She shuts her eyes and more tears run down her face. She drops the gun and spreads her arms out like she's receiving a miracle. As blue exhaust blasts from the rocket engine, she says: "I'm sorry, Janice."
  
  Her entire body ignites into flame as the rocket ascends. You watch as her burning body slumps to the ground.
  
  "I...I don't understand," you say in a barely-audible whisper.
  
  Esmeralda puts a metal arm around you. "It's a long story, my dear child. I will tell you as much as know on our way back to Lozano Island."
  
  The End