The Backworlds by M. Pax

movement, but he couldn’t detect the mystery folks.
There had to be at least one above him to get the attaché of chips off the
powerful magnet. Where were the others and how many? Another wild card in
tonight’s scheme. He opened his ears wide to learn all he could, hoping the
aviars had discovered more intel on the smugglers.
    Another clunk disturbed the
darkness. The hum stopped, replaced by the roaring engine of a generator. The
pulleys lurched, squeaking as they turned. Craze spied a cube swinging above
him. Light leaking in from the lamps outside weakly glinted off the large hook
and chains. Gyrating like a pendulum, a pallet of crates groaned toward the
floor, landing with a solid thunk .
    As commanded by the smugglers,
Craze kept his hands visible and his mouth shut. He stretched his fingers wide
apart, knowing the aviarmen watched for his signals, subtle motions they’d
worked out earlier.
    Excitement trembled through Craze’s
knees as he approached the pallet. His fingers shook unhooking it from the line
that had lowered it. The symbols on the crates were strange, not anything Craze
had seen before. A white circle with four thick red lines. He’d heard about it
though. It marked the Foreworlds.
    Shit. The worse situation he’d
imagined could be possible. Like chocolate, frizzers only came from the
Foreworlds. Backworlders wouldn’t touch the cruel weapons that burned the skin
and calcified bone. Horrid, horrid things. It bothered him that some
Backworlders wanted those guns, and would stoop to using them. That went beyond
dastardly to traitorous.
    He wanted to signal the aviarmen
now, his first two fingers snuggled tight against his thumbs, to call in the
authorities, but it was too soon. The smugglers hadn’t sent the codes. He
hadn’t gotten his hands on the chocolate. He desperately needed a return on his
investments in this venture. Just one sack full of chocolate would help him and
the aviars establish a great life out on the Edge.
    Codes flashed in light on the
floor. Craze punched the icons and numbers into the keypad on the first crate.
The carton slid open with a soft whoosh. He placed the gum from his mouth over
the latching mechanism to prevent it from resealing. The door opened and shut
in a loop as it hit the sticky obstruction. Craze wiggled his left index and
middle fingers for the aviarmen. The response came almost instantly.
    Eptus streamed in from above, where they’d been hiding on the fourth floor. Square
torsos with powerful limbs, they moved more agilely than their frames
suggested. Enormous ears pivoted on their heads, which were canine in nature.
So were their noses. Barking and shooting flash guns, they descended into Mr.
Slade’s Emporium.
    Craze covered his eyes against the
blinding weapon fire. Stumbling, he grabbed onto the crate for balance. He
missed. His hand sank into the chocolates, coming up with a frizzer. Craze
yelped. The Eptus shot all around him, too close to
be trusted. He dropped the forbidden gun and ran toward the shelf with the
rice, slashing at the sacks with his fingernails.
    The grains spilled out, falling to
the floor as they depleted the sacks of their ballast in a rush. The bags
lightened, and the jar of pickled snoink pulled them
up off the shelf. The jar sank until the heavy glass hit the magnet switch and
broke with a crack then a tinkle. Blackened shards, feet and tails, and pickle
juice rained down, inciting the Eptus into a rage.
They fought each other to snap up the brined morsels, grabbing, shoving,
biting, swallowing without chewing.
    The chocolates flew up, their metal
foil wrappings attracted to the magnetic field. The layer of chocolate bars was
thinner than Craze would have liked, but as few as thirty bars would allow him
to recover the money he had spent and make a decent profit to share with Talos
and Lepsi.
    While the Eptus busied themselves vying for pickled feet and tails, Craze scrambled for the
stairs. Two people draped in black stood