Endosymbiosis

7. Proteasome

Sixth circle of the Empire
The landfill

She didn't seem to be the kind of person who gave up easily; and, at that moment, I was the shortest bridge between her and her goal.

But that wasn't going to last, because she would never tolerate the mess of my life. My clothes on the floor would be hives, my secrets in the drawer would be poison, and, as soon as she took her first step inside my ship to face my nature, she would beg me to abandon her right there, in the middle of the vacuum of space. I would at least do her the courtesy of letting her into the nearest world.

She didn't seem to be the kind of person who deserved to put up with me... No one did.

"Do you know where they took your ship?" She asked, breaking the dangerous cycle of my thoughts. I confirmed.

"To a landfill. Which, according to the map..." I pointed to the drawing on the bus wall. "It's at the next stop."

Her eyes roamed the darkness behind the windows, full of questions. I got lost in the soft curves of her features, the golden glow of her honey colored irises and the hues of her lips reddening as she bit them, lost in thought. Her face was so different from mine, so much more delicate, that I just couldn't stop staring, as one ceaselessly observes an optical illusion in the futile attempt to understand how something so challenging could exist.

When she turned to me, her eyes were still full of questions. Apparently she hadn't found her answers outside.

"Landfill? Why would they discard an entire ship?"

Because anything that belonged to a criminal could have secrets too easy to retrieve if its parts weren't completely destroyed. But I wouldn't say that to her. Instead I just shrugged.

"One man's treasure is another man's trash."

"But what if inside it you kept a treasure that was precious to everyone?"

"Then may they keep thinking it's garbage." I smiled. "The best treasures are buried, after all."

She smiled and stuck her tongue between her teeth for a moment, as if trying to contain it. But then letting it escape:

"You've done this before." This wasn't a question.

"It's not my first rescue mission."

"And you like this." I raised an eyebrow. Apparently she also made assumptions about people she barely knew.

"Why would I want to have to fight for things that were already mine?"

She smiled, as if it were obvious.

"That's how they turn into treasures."

I avoided looking at her so she wouldn't see my smile, but the iatric watched me, making me decipherable; and I didn't like how easy it seemed to be for her.

"What's yours then? The treasure you fight for?"

She thought for a moment, trying to find out if I was trustworthy enough to know; but I already had too many treasures to fight for hers.

"I don't have one. Treasures are worthless if in the hands of those who don't deserve them." A disciplined seriousness took her voice, as if she were reciting a speech she had never let herself unlearn. "I make myself deserving before. And, eventually, I will have something that deserve me."

"Sounds harder than digging for a chest."

"What a chest contains does not satisfy me."

"What does then?" She led me into the trap of her smile... And her answer was like ambrosia to a mortal: