“That’s right,” Cookie agreed. “But I don’t want to shoot no one. Unless they mess with the Healer.”
“And we need gold why?” Quinn asked a bit shrilly.
“We need money,” Albert said. “You can only get so far with barter. We need a system, and the system works better if you have a basis for the currency.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, look, take the fish business, right?” Albert began.
“It hasn’t been much of a business,” Quinn grumbled. “I barely caught enough yesterday to make bait.”
“You’ll have good days and bad days,” Albert said impatiently. “Some days you’ll have a lot of fish. So let’s say you want to trade some fish for oranges.”
“Sounds good, actually. You know someone with oranges?”
“You have enough fish that you want to trade some for oranges, and some for bread, and some for a kid to clean your room for you. That’s three different places you have to go with your fish in your hand to pay someone.”
“Is anyone else really starving right now?” Quinn joked. “I mean, dude: oranges? Bread? Stop.”
Albert ignored him. “What you do if you have money, instead of just trading things, is you can have a market where everyone brings what they have to sell, right? All in one place. And everyone is walking around with pieces of gold, not their fish, or a wheelbarrow full of corn or whatever, trying to make deals.”
Quinn said, “Either way, I’m standing around with my fish. Either I’m walking around selling them at this market of yours, or I’m standing still and people are coming to me to trade, but either way—”
“No, man,” Albert interrupted impatiently. “Because you’re selling your fish to someone who sells it to other people. You need to be out fishing, because that’s what you’re good at. Not selling fish. Catching fish.”
Quinn frowned. “You mean, I’m selling them to you.”
“Could be,” Albert agreed. “Then I sell them to Lana. That way, Quinn, you’re doing what you do and I’m doing what I do, and to make all that work out easy peasy we need money of some kind.”
“Yeah, well, since I’m doing this all night there may not be any fish tomorrow, either,” Quinn grumbled. Then he asked the question Lana expected. “Why are you coming along, Healer?”
The use of her “title” bothered Lana; she wasn’t quite sure why. And the question on top of the title bothered her. She didn’t like the question. She shifted in her seat and stared out of the window.
“She’s coming because I need a guide,” Albert said. “And I’m going to pay her. When I get the gold. Which brings us to a little something called credit.”
Poor Albert, Lana thought as Albert launched into a lecture on the usefulness of credit. Smart kid. He’d probably end up owning the FAYZ some day. But he knew nothing of her reasons for going on this trip.
All the gold in the world wouldn’t be enough to pay her for what she was planning to do. Gold couldn’t touch the cold dread that filled her heart. And gold wouldn’t be any use to her if she failed.
“There’s more than money in the world,” Lana said, thinking she was speaking only to herself.
“Like what?” Albert asked.
“Like freedom,” Lana said.
At which point Albert went on, talking about how money could buy freedom. Lana supposed he was right, in most cases. But not in this one.
Not in this case.
She couldn’t bribe the Darkness. But maybe, maybe…maybe she could kill it.
Caine sat silent, biting his thumb, chewing at the ragged nail.
Panda was driving. Computer Jack was squeezed in the backseat between Diana and Bug. They were the lead car. The second car, an SUV, was behind them, Drake and four of his soldiers. All were armed.
They drove cautiously. Caine insisted on it. Panda had gotten better at driving, more confident, but he was still just thirteen. He still drove scared.
The SUV behind, urged on no doubt by Drake, practically hung on their bumper, impatient.