The Churn: An Expanse Novella (Expanse 3.5)

“You’re shipping out to Luna on the noon launch from Bogotá station, Mr. Burton. These apprenticeship programs are tough to get into, and last I heard, they take it mighty poorly if you miss your berth. Might wind up waiting another decade to get back on the list.”

“Huh,” the big man said.

“Look, there’s a high-speed line about nine blocks north of here. We can take you there if you want.”

“Erich, you sonofabitch,” the big man said. Instead of looking north, he turned to the east, toward the sea and rising sun. “I’m not Mr. Burton.”

“Sorry?”

“I’m not Mr. Burton,” the man said again. “You can call me Amos.”

“Whatever you want. But I think you’d better haul ass out of town if you don’t want to get in some serious shit, Amos.”

“You ain’t the only one that thinks that. But I’m good. I know where the high-speed lines are. I won’t miss my ride.”

“All right then,” the team lead said with a crisp nod. “Have a better one.”

The security team moved on, flowing around the big man like river water around a stone. Amos watched them go, then went to the tea-and-coffee stand, bought a cup of black coffee and a corn muffin. He stood on the corner for a long minute, eating and drinking and breathing the air of the only city he’d ever known. When he was done, he dropped the cup and the muffin wrapper into the recycling bin and turned north toward the high-speed line and Bogotá station and Luna. And, who knew, maybe the vastness beyond the moon. The sweep of planets and moons and asteroids that humanity had spread to, and where the chances of running into anybody from Baltimore were vanishingly small. A needle in a haystack all of humanity wide.

Amos Burton was a tall, stocky, pale-skinned man with an amiable smile, an unpleasant past, and a talent for cheerful violence. He left Baltimore to its dynamic balance of crime and law, exotics and mundanity, love and emptiness. The number of people who knew him and loved him could be counted on one hand and leave most of the fingers spare, and when he was gone, the city went on without him as if he had never been.