Designed Destiny

1. Nasty Business

Planet: Argos

"Ehhh," the black-market dealer pawed through the crochet sack full of ancient weapons with long cruddy nails. "'Em's are al'ight -"

"No, the Hades they're not alright, they're beautiful!" The seventeen-year-old insisted, absently rubbing the back of her wrist over her face, leaving a grease smear over her sparkling gold freckles. "Look, man, there's a reason these babies are illegal these days! They each have eight pounds of battery acid in the barrels; you shoot these baddies at a motherfucker and they'll be regrettin' fuckin' with your mother," she smirked and leaned against the counter. "So, what's it worth to you?"

He shrugged and knotted the bag. "These are hard-times, sweetheart -"

"Wait, I'm hard hearin', what did you say?" She tossed her matted mess of dyed red hair over her shoulder.

"I'm sayin' I ain't got no use for this shit when the gods be damned government is crackin' down on ghettos like this'n tryin' to squeeze out all the illegal goodies. This is a dyin' business, sweetheart -"

"Ah, see? That right there is what I thought you said." She suddenly leaned over the counter and seized his beard, yanking it to bash his face against the dirty glass counter. "You don't call a woman sweetheart when you're trying to do business! It's damn near insultin'!" She wildly snatched up her goods again and made a break for the door as he cursed loudly and fumbled for the security switch. She snatched a pair of sunshades from a rack and twirled around to break through the glass door with her back just an instant before a heavy chain-link curtain fell from the ceiling.

She was laughing as she hit the sidewalk on her butt and scrambled up to her feet with her bag slung over her shoulder, giving the dealer the one-finger salute with both hands as he yelled and banged on the window. She swiftly threw on the sunshades and took off running as creatures turned to stare at her.

She darted down a smoky side-alley chuckling.

"Percy!" Meda jumped off the closed trash-engine that was aggressively vibrating back and forth; the motion of crushing the garbage that infested the city generated enough power to supply the block with energy for a week. There were trash-engines scattered all over the industrial world of Argos. Argos was an epic hellhole of a planet, full of gang lords, violence, overflowing with garbage, drugs, more garbage, and the government was just as twisted and corrupted as the next crook hocking his shit on the street corner. "Percy, damn it! You pissed off another one, didn't you?!" Meda shot her girlfriend a frustrated look. "How are we going to make it off this rock if you keep shooting us in the ass?"

"Hey, that douchebag had it comin'!" She insisted. "He called me sweetheart," she sniffed dismissively and adjusted the collar of her milky brown trench coat that covered her cropped tank top and cut-off mini shorts adorn with patches; bracelets and necklaces hung off her annoyingly sparkling freckled limbs. She had her duffle-bag spray-painted with the quote "Love Is Love, Motherfuckers!" The O's were rainbow hearts. "You don't wanna do business with a creep like that do you?" She widened her pale-yellow eyes behind her stolen pair of shades.

"No," Meda huffed, her breath lifted her jagged bangs off her tattooed forehead briefly. Also a seventeen-year-old of Vietnamese heritage, Meda was a self-taught tattoo artist and expressed her unbridled creativity with extensive body art. Whereas her soft skin was covered in tattoos of lilacs, lavender, and pansies, Percy's golden, shimmering flesh was streaked with grizzly burn scars she refused to talk about, but Meda knew enough. They were next door neighbors before they ran away from their toxic families together. "Times are gettin' so crazy, Perc. I don't know how we'll ever earn enough for passage off this rock. I just saw on the HALO board that the Spartan government is sending their droids over here to clean up this city. We really won't have anyone to do business with then."