While Bud and Barbarossa tracked the elusive Mayor in the dark hours of the night, Basil ran about calling the town's handful of other notables to attention.
An odd trio heeded the call and sidled up to the Prospector's Paradise just before the sun began to dye the eastern horizon a deep indigo. Actually, they came from Ellis' office next door. They shut the office door behind them, confining the interior's wan green light. The door's cut glass panes mottled the glow with tones of dark amber.
Walking the short distance to the Prospector's Paradise ahead of his companions, Ellis scuffed through the dirt, peering curiously into the quiet desert night. No one was about except for the three of them.
He climbed the three steps to the saloon's doorway, illuminated by a small lantern's yellow glow. As Ellis pulled the weathered wood door open and stepped in from the dim lantern light, the solitary robot sitting at the bar took note of him. To Byeju's visual processors, Ellis, the town banker, was a nondescript man, but for his sharp gaze that assessed the room, its usual late night drinkers, and now a robot pulled from the pages of history.
Byeju noted Ellis' shirt and slacks, muted earth tones, but with a glamorous sheen. A timepiece inlaid with dark wood adorned his left wrist. The robot concluded that Ellis was just the sort of man he might have been assigned to guard.
A woman with a shaved head and pitch black robes followed Ellis through the door. She eyed the robot with a keen glance of appraisal before following Ellis to a table. She looked to Byeju like a monk or priest, but he really couldn't tell. Something about her set off alarm bells—somewhere in his counterintelligence module, she fit the profile of a troublemaker. An odd match to the understated banker with his suave demeanor.
If the monk seemed weird, Ellis' second companion really set Byeju on edge, and he quietly set his electronics jamming unit and microwave weapon to standby.
The man had a prosthetic monocle affixed to his right eye, a shell of filigree green metal with a heavy lens, tinted the slightest ice blue, all fused into the flesh of his face. He looked straight at Byeju as he clambered through the door behind the robed woman. He was a bulky man, but Byeju could see the outlines of more machinery embedded across his body.
A cyborg? A bio-hacker? Byeju really couldn't place the green metal eye piece inlaid into the man's face. His memory circuits shuffled reference images like a deck of cards, but didn't turn up anything resembling this man's implants.
For his part, the man paused, looking closely at Byeju, his eye magnified to unnatural proportions through the lens of his monocle. As the robot turned to get a better look, the man absently scratched his shoulder, breaking the moment. He looked over to Ellis' table and sat with a sigh.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Tyra still sat at the bar, nursing another tea that steamed slowly in the dim light and thoroughly ignoring the dramatic entrance. She seemed lost in thought and didn't immediately react when Ellis and his entourage sat down.
Ellis returned the favor and ignored her too. Once he realized that Bud and Basil were absent, he gave up on being served and sauntered up to the bar to grab a drink. Ellis rooted around in a cabinet before finally pulling out a crystal decanter. Byeju saw a dozen paper cranes floating in the vivid pink liquid. His confusion must have registered because Tyra rustled, set her cup down, and turned to her new deputy like a tour guide.
"It's the Thousand-Rose Draught," she explained, "Each crane is a folded up bill, a 100-rose note."
"Nah," Ellis corrected her, "Special occasion. Ten-Thousand Rose Draught."
He swirled the cranes about in the decanter, tossing the origami bills through a maelstrom of pink liquor.
Tyra looked impressed, but then she shot the banker a worries look.
Ellis pauses, but understood her concern after a moment, "No, no, it's not Bud's don't worry. I just loaned it to him. Personal collection."
"What's the vintage?" a hoarse voice inquired. Ara had finally extricated herself from her gag order, but note before spattering one of Bud's tables in black ink. It would stain, but for now she sidled up to the banker, hoping to ride his coattails into a free sip of his infamous Ten-Thousand Rose Draught.
Ellis chuckled wryly, shrugging off the inky shadow mage. "There's no vintage," he grunted, "it's just paper money steeped in cheap liquor "
Ara couldn't hide her disappointment and frowned at the man.
He smile brightly at her, "Have a splash, it might help wash the ink off." He held out the decanter, offering to splash its contents on her hands.
"But what makes it special?" Ara griped, looking suspiciously over at Tyra who hid a smug smile in her teacup.
"The values not in the liquor. All the character's in the money. It's got 10,000 roses worth of bills in there, each passed between countless hands, each with its own story and flavor," Ellis tapped on the sparkling glass.
Ara looked at him blankly.
Ellis offered more details seeming to draw on Ara's befuddlement, "This is middling. I'd never trust Bud with my top shelf flavors."
Tyra looked more interested now, glancing over at the banker while Ara deflated and shrank back from the banker as she realized she'd bitten off more than she could chew.
"My personal favorites are bitters, the flavors of money taken from the needy and squandered by the rich. Or smoke, like money spent to blacken the day with soot and death," Ellis opined, taking a tiny shot glass and pouring a finger of shocking pink liquor.
Tyra arched her eyebrows at the banker's soliloquy. Ara sat back awkwardly at her table, her mastery of shadow small and outclassed before the banker's callousness.
Ellis smiled thinly, but his eyes sparkled now. His melodrama had finally caught his audience's attention. "But that's my private collection. This is middling. I know Bud skims a drink here and there, refills it. It's why the color gone pale, but it'll do. This–" He paused, raising his glass for emphasis "is the Prospector's Purse, a toast to opportunities and canny investments..."
The banker fixed Byeju with his best slick grin before knocking back his shot and growling at what must have been a high proof. Or maybe it was just the pink dyes leeched from so many bank notes that burned his throat.