Belly full and mouth sated, they sauntered towards Chet’s place. Walker had carefully placed the meteorite deep into his backpack earlier so his hands were free.

“I have a question for you,” Chet asked.

“Hit me,” Walker responded.

“What’s stopping me from just walking up to a booth and just… steal something? Most of them have only one or two people watching them, seems like I could just palm something when their back is turned.”

Walker gave it some thought. “Three reasons… in increasing likelihood.” He held up his pointer finger with his right hand, “One, I think the whole human decency thing is a factor. Most people don’t steal from others.”

His middle finger sprung forward, “Two, people are afraid of getting caught while stealing, and by the sheer number of guns I’ve seen carried, I don’t blame them.”

His ring finger joined the other two to form a threesome, “Three, I think a lot of booths have security dressed in normal clothes just… watching us.”

Chet nodded, “Yeah, makes sense. Especially the last one, they do the same thing at casinos: poker tables and stuff. Though, you’ve inspired me.”

Walker raised his eyebrows, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“The owners probably know all the tricks. Best bet is to just pickpocket fish after they buy from the booths.” Chet tapped on his uninjured temple and grinned.

Walker raised his eyebrows, “Fish? Like us.”

Chet pointed at him, “Hey, speak for yourself. Many an animal envy my reaction speed.”

“Uh huh,” Walker said, “Let’s see.” He motioned for Chet to face him.

He angled himself so that Chet’s head blocked the sunlight behind him. Walker still found it odd someone was taller than him, although he was adapting.

Chet raised his right arm, “So are we doing a hand slap kinda game or-“

Walker slapped him across the face.

“Hey-” Chet attempted to slap Walker, but, even while howling with laughter, Walker dodged it, easily dodged.

“All that mass’ slowing you down,” Walker said as he scooted back to avoid a ball tap.

Chet put his hands on his knees and wheezed, “How are you… fucking monkey.”

“I’m dexterous beyond belief,” he boasted. However, he was a little… confused. Lagging behind Chet’s limbs were visual copies of those same limbs. It reminded him of the antique box PCs that had a glitch where if you dragged a window, mirrors of the same window would trail it. Needles of pain pricked behind his eyes. He blinked repeatedly and the illusion disappeared.

“If I had just a couple more hours of sleep, your cheeks would be so red,” Chet announced. A short man in professional suit attire and a ponytail passed by them at that moment and gave them a frown.

Walker stared at the man as he walked past before he responded, the man teetered and tottered. He shook his head, “Howabout this, you slap me. Even steven.”

“A better man wouldn’t take that opportunity,” Chet said as swung his hand at Walker’s dazed face.

They walked several more streets before Chet led him into an apartment complex, through an elevator, and in front of an unusually reflective door. During the travel, Walker snuck a painkiller in his mouth and swallowed it dry. Chet didn’t notice because the pill bottle didn’t have much of a rattle anymore.

“You live in a penthouse? Didn’t know you were rich.”

Chet’s face soured, “My parents are, I’m not.”

Walker knew how that went. Chet motioned for him to be quiet as he led him to his room. He unlocked it and they walked through. The room was cluttered, it was as if a robot ripped out its parts and throw them around the room until all that remained was metal and wires.

“Before we crack open the meteorites, let me show you something.” Chet slung off his bag and threw it on the chair beside a desk and pulled something from under the desk.

“Look familiar?”

In Chet’s hands held crinkled metal in the shape of… “A log of shit?”

“What?” It’s not…” He stared at what was in his hands, “Okay, maybe. Actually look at it, goddammit.”

Walker raised his hands in surrender, “Alright alright.”

He examined the scraps more closely. Without thinking of whether or not it was okay to touch, Walker caressed the metallic edges until something caught on his fingers. “This the thing that electrocuted me?” he asked incredulously.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Yeah, when I woke up this was at Archipelago’s. Have you talked with Sonya?”

Walker shrugged, “Barely. She just asked if I was alive. Why? You think she had help?”

“Dude, she looks fit but you think a hundred-and-twenty-pound girl is carrying us out of that cavern? I’m pushing two-thirty and you’re probably around one-ninety.”

Walker unzipped his bag and pulled out the box. “I’ve already thought that, and I agree. But so what, she’s connected. Seems like a person that would be useful not to jump to conclusions with.”

“Hmm, I guess. Still weird though, we’ll ask her when we meet up again.”

Chet dropped the squashed metal onto the side of the desk, grabbed his similar cardboard boxes out of his bag, and placed them to the right of the device. Walker followed suit to the free space on his right.

Walker stared at the cardboard box while Chet tore into his. He always found the anticipation to be half the fun. As such, he turned the box over in his hands for any descriptor marks. Nothing. Walker unfolded the top flaps of the box and pulled out the rock beneath.

“You’re killing me dawg,” Chet said.

“Nyuh,” Walker waved him off. He leisurely turned it over, its shape reminded him of an event he thought of every so often when it was dark. When he was a child that hadn’t yet recorded his age in double digits, he visited an aquarium with his father and brother. While exploring the tanks he wandered off from his family and found himself in what he would find out later was a roped-off area. The musk of fish and humidity permeated the room. Dim lights hung from the ceiling and buzzed. Vats, just taller than he, checkered the room. The vats were an opaque faded aquamarine with the letters “Water you doing! Stand back!” branded on each side. He could distinctly remember the froth that jumped out of the vat and landed on his cheeks and the sound of wet spaghetti slapping against each other. He remembered the plastic rust that cut into his hands as he grabbed them. He remembered how his shoes squeaked against wet surfaces to haul his eyes over the crate.

Eels. Thousands of them wreathed. They clamored over each other to the point where he couldn’t see the water. A blanket of squirming black. Enamored, he climbed to his armpits and with one free hand he reached into the maelstrom.

“You good bro?” Chet interrupted he was holding the hammer, looking impatient.

Walker blinked repeatedly, “Huh? Yeah. One second.” He turned the meteorite over again, like those eels, the material was a vortex. Porous too, with barbs that Walker could swear at some points he could even see through it.

“So we just smash them? Seems bittersweet, these things look cool. Prehistoric,” Walker asked.

Chet set his meteorite down near the center of the table, away from the edges. Unlike Walker’s spiky amorphous blob, Chet’s meteorites held a similar theme of being smooth, and as spherical as possible. Though most were egg or pear-shaped.

“Who gives a shit, I want the Stardust,” Chet retorted before he dropped the hammer. Plumes of dust erupted from the meteorite although it held strong. Chet hit it again. Again. Again. On the fifth, it shattered. Though most of the pieces either bounced off the wall or off their bodies.

“Aren’t you afraid you’re going to smash the stardust?” Walker asked.

Chet coughed, “It would take a hell of a lot more than a hammer to break Stardust. They can scratch diamonds.”

He spread the rubble thin on the table, Walker watched with hungry eyes. Chet pushed away the tiny pebbles and pieces that couldn’t possibly hold Stardust and sequestered the leftover chunks that stayed together.

“Hope this one isn’t a bust…” Chet muttered. Out of the few chunks remaining, one of them crumbled easily in his hands, the second had to be smashed, but no dice. The third chunk was the heartiest, but after a few powerful swings that shook the table, the meteorite chunk cracked apart and something glistened out of the remains.

Walker leaned forward to announce “very sexy,” while Chet exploded out of his chair and fist pumped, “Thought that was hundreds of buckaroonies down the drain!”

Walker picked it out and held it in the air so that it caught the light. A crystal, translucent, peaked out of the meteorite like a pig in a blanket.

“Let me see,” Chet exclaimed as he tossed away his chair to kneel next to the table. He held it the light.

“This is so fucking cool,” Walker whispered. He couldn’t deny being envious of Chet at that moment. He peered at his own meteorite, before returning to Chet’s shard.

“I need to…” Chet murmured before setting it back on the table, grabbing the hammer, and smashing the absolute shit out of it over and over until the crystal lay naked on the table. They both sprung from their spots and bounced around the room. If someone were to hear them, they would think two monkeys were engaged in a mating dance. If someone were to see them… they would probably think the same thing.

“There’s still some grit on it but, I’m the first person to ever hold this. First time it may have ever seen the light of day maybe,” Chet ejaculated.

“Are all of them this clear? It looks like glass.” Walker said as he reapproached the table to examine the shard. Like Chet’s earlier estimation, the shard wasn’t much bigger than his pinky nail. However, what Chet didn’t mention was its shape. From his standpoint, Walker could make out four sides to the shard, probably five in total.

“You have to conduct a battery of tests. Each one’s unique.” Chet grabbed the lamp and positioned it so it shined adjacent to the wall in from of them and held the crystal up to it. “But, there are hints.”

Instead of refracting light and casting a rainbow, the shard lit up like a lightbulb.

“How much is it worth?” Walker asked.

They stared at it.

“It depends on what it can do but it looks clear, and it has…” Chet rotated it. “Five sides. Pentagonal. I think the lowest I’ve seen any go is two bags, and that looked pretty shit.”

“Two grand? You quintupled your money,” Walker said, astonished.

Chet wiped the Stardust with his shirt, “Not selling it. If I opened up a hundred, I may only get two or three more. Plus-” Chet winked, “you always keep your first.” After a few more minutes of ogling, Chet pursued the other two meteorite chunks with fervor. However, after at least ten minutes of banging, no dice.

“As expected,” Chet said, though Walker could tell he hoped for another.

He swept most of the rubble to the side and smashed his meteorite onto the center of the table. A tingle, starting from his crotch, scaled his spine and caused his fingers to quiver.

“I have a good feeling, homeslice,” Chet said and slapped his shoulder.

Walker nodded, “Practically guaranteed.”

A few seconds crept by.

“Might as well open it up, ya know. Just to make sure,” Walker continued.

“Of course.”

Walker grabbed the hammer and began to smash the center, right between two spires. One hit. Two hits. Four. Eight. It didn’t break. After Chet commented on Walker’s strength as a man, Walker let loose a monsoon of strikes.

Finally, the stubborn meteorite cracked open.