Dirty Work: Volume 2

Story Four - The Highest Bidder - 2

Archers' Art and Culture Museum was a graveyard even before the shift began. I'd come to appreciate paintings in the past few months, perhaps even like them. But this place was wrong.

Museums are never meant to be the liveliest of places at the best of times, and with everything stored on screens you only go because you have to or you want to, which very few people do. It might not have helped that we arrived ninety minutes before closing time, but it was still quieter, and emptier, than any museum I'd ever been in.

We went up to the front desk where a young Torkaxion with fraying brown hair was holding a tissue up to his long snout. 'Hold on,' he said, before erupting into violent sneezes. Markro stepped backwards to avoid a flying snot ball. 'So sorry,' he said. 'I've had this for weeks. Can't seem to stop it. Tried nearly everything but it don't work.'

'We're looking for Mr. Archer,' Markro announced. 'We're the new security guards.'

The Torkaxion frowned. 'Mr Archer? No Mr. Archer here.'

'Mrs. Archer?'

'Nope. No Archers at all, except a few arrows in the exhibit about the colony on Outpost 7 before we moved in.'

'But this is Archers' Art and Culture Museum,' I said, baffled. 'How can there be nobody called Archer here?'

'Mrs. Arko calls herself Archer because its sounds old-Earthen,' the Torkaxion said. He smiled, or tried to. The globs of snot dripped into his mouth and made very unpleasant viewing. 'She's like that, you know.'

'She runs a museum,' Markro said, 'anything to sound more old-fashioned.'

'She's a good sort, though,' the Torkaxion said. He held his hand out and I shook it. 'Name's Hurrooruh.'

'Xayne,' I said, feeling small with my one-syllable name compared to his almighty three-syllable whopper.

'She's through there,' he said, pointing to a small corridor behind the desk. 'And some advice for you. Don't piss off Moony, when you see him. He's a damn grump when there's new people to show around.'

'Advice noted,' Markro said, throwing open the barrier and letting me through. 'Enjoy your day.'

Hurrooruh snorted with amusement before finding another tissue to mop up the puddle on the desk a second later.

The hallway smelled of must and old wood, something I'd only ever smelled in the boss' office. Wood's a novelty, something for the wealthy, the old, or foreign travellers. Celestria didn't like wood too much; reckoned it was only decent for burning, and even then it doesn't do squat to powering an interstellar freighter hauling Halo-Cores to Xylaris. Celestria is, after all, the business hub, the money sector, and if you don't make money, you can bugger off; trees included.

Markro rapped on the door with the plaque reading ARKO. It opened and, to our surprise, we were confronted with a man with a shaved cue-ball head covered in skull tattoos. 'The hell are you?' he grunted.

'Who the hell are you?' Markro asked in return, frowning. 'That's my question. We're looking for Mrs. Arko.'

Mr. Tattoos looked us over with utter contempt. For a moment it looked like he was considering spitting in our faces. 'Mrs. Arko ain't in right now,' he said. 'I'm in charge right now. Night watchman. Moony. Who're you?'

'Your new understudies,' I said, holding out my hand to try and keep the peace. 'My name's Xayne. This is Markro.'

Moony took my hand. Hurrooruh was right; the bugger was a grumpy lump of melting lard. 'I can deal with you,' he said, releasing his crushing grip. 'You'd better learn damn manners.'

He and Markro shook hands. I've never seen Markro hate a man so instantly. His shoulder was quivering slightly, and I knew he would've loved to throttle the beefy sack of meat right there and then. 'Sorry,' Markro whispered through gritted teeth.

Moony looked as if he was going to ask for Markro to say it again a little louder, but decided against it in the end. 'This way. Find yous some uniforms. Then you can do a job'n get outta my way.'