...So [Jack] took the cow’s halter in his hand, and off he starts. He hadn’t gone far when he met a funny-looking old man who said to him: “Good morning, Jack… and where are you off to?”…

“I’m going to market to sell our cow here.”

“Oh, you look the proper sort of chap to sell cows…. As you are so sharp,” says he, “I don’t mind doing a swop with you–your cow for these beans.”

“Walker!” says Jack; “wouldn’t you like it?”

“Ah! you don’t know what these beans are,” said the man; “if you plant them over-night, by morning they grow right up to the sky.”

 Jack and the Beanstalk, recorded by Joseph Jacobs (1860)

Jakarta “Jak” Moon double-checked the dagger sheathed at her side as she approached the interior of her once-crowded island city from above. Silently leaping from rooftop to rooftop, climbing drainpipes to balconies, sticking to the shadows, this was her preferred way to travel the night. She made her way to the designated alley two hours before the sunrise would stain the world red. Some neighborhoods had fixed their lights since the Naturalist attack seven years ago when Jak was just fifteen. Some neighborhoods had built walls and hired private security to protect residents from the bands of looters that now roamed the streets at night. This wasn’t one of those neighborhoods.

Jak leaped down to the garbage-strewn alley from her balcony perch when she saw Cook was alone, making the older woman jump and stumble back, one hand to her heart. Jak touched her mask next to one ear to turn off her holo-veil, allowing Cook to see her face.

“Dammit, Jak!” Cook hissed, catching her breath. “Did you bring what I asked?”

In the distance, Infinity Tower stretched gleaming into the stratosphere over the decrepit city, supported by its three, diamond-faceted legs arching into the water on each side of the clover-shaped island. It was by far the tallest structure in the city, indeed the entire, watery planet of Epiphany, looming over their lives and shining a cruel reminder in the darkness of all they had lost.

Jak felt for the rough, woven bag at her side, bulky and stiff. “Did you bring what you promised?”

“Yes, yes. Now let me see them.” The old woman held out scarred, gnarled hands.

Jak hesitated then drew one item from her sac and held it to her chest, a baton-looking weapon, then handed over the bag and the rest of its contents for inspection. Cook grabbed the sac and withdrew Jak’s father’s armor, allowing its weight to fall open with a muted jangle. Made of imitation pangolin scales, it shone brown in the light reflected off Epiphany’s three planetary sisters currently dominating the night sky in blue, red, and pale yellow. The scaled fishing armor was one of the last things Jak had from her father, the other was clasped in her hands.

Cook held the armor up to her short, bulky body and measured the straps against herself that would attach the traditional fishing armor in place. Unlike most people since the attack and the nuclear winter that followed, decimating both crops and people, she hadn’t missed any meals. Jak supposed that was the perk of being the chef for the richest, most powerful woman on the island.

“It swims well, just be careful not to catch any reeds between the scales. You’ll have a hard time getting loose.” Jak knew from experience.

“And the spear?” Cook clumsily folded the armor and Jak winced as she haphazardly shoved it back in the bag, all the while eying the collapsed metal baton in Jak’s hands.

“The keys to the Tower first,” Jak said.

“Oh, all right.” Cook pulled a small drawstring purse from her pocket and tossed it to Jak who caught and opened it.

“What is this?” Jak asked in disgust. “Small pearls, pale ones?” She reached to take the armor back, but Cook stepped away.

“Not just any pearls!” She held up her free hand to stop Jak who had one hand on her dagger. “The Godmother’s pearls.”

Jak paused and took one out of the little bag, holding it up and looking closely at it in the planet-light. It did have the rumored blue sheen.

“Even if they are, what am I supposed to do with them? You said you were bringing keys.”

“All the Tower doors were keyed to her DNA at one time, years ago.”

“So? There’s obviously better security now or anyone could steal some pearls and walk right in.”

Cook snorted. “Do you know what I had to do to get those five? No. She keeps a tight watch. Paranoid, she is. Doesn’t even trust a machine to crush them, but does it herself with an old mortar and pestle.”

“But those doors must have been re-keyed long ago, to something more…” reasonable, impersonal, secure.

“Yes, they have. All but one.”

“Which one? The kitchen?” Until recently, the Tower kitchens had been Cook’s domain. Jak looked again at the blue pearl in the nighttime glow of the Tower kitchens again….

“No. It enters an old storeroom at the base of the elevator. Houses emergency provisions. No one goes there, security’s even forgotten about it.”

“So where is this door?” Jak squinted at her. “How do I know…?” Jak stopped herself before insulting the older woman.

“Don’t trust anyone, do you?” Cook jutted her chin indignantly at her. “Who fed you since your father got sick? Who kept you and that idiot brother of yours from starving? You’d think I could get a little more respect,” she blustered. “Besides, if anyone can find it, you can. Now, the spear.”

Jak squinted at her but didn’t hand the weapon over. It was true. Cook had kept Jak, Cervantes, and Father from starving by leaving the kitchen door cracked ever since Father got sick and lost his job. She’d also taken fifty percent of Jak’s haul, then sixty, then seventy-five after Father had passed. In the end, a few algo-bars and a pocket each of rice and beans had been the only payment Jak had received. She’d cursed Cook’s name to the stars, sure she’d been selling everything on the black market, but what could Jak do? Since the Naturalist attack, everyone was just trying to survive. “Why are you doing this?”

“I think you know.”

“The cancers.” Jak had heard that was why Cook had been replaced, meaning she wasn’t a Pearlie after all. She’d faked it well.

She gave a short nod, anger tightening her face. “She fired me. After all those years.”

“But why would you want—” Jak gestured to the armor in the older woman’s hands.

“Don’t you see?” Her face cleared and lit with a manic glow Jak had never seen on her before. “I’m finally free! I’m not pretending anymore. I didn’t realize how trapped I was until I finally wasn’t tied down. I’ve bought a little boat and I’m going to spend my days free as a bird over the ocean waves, owing nothing to no one. And I’ll fish and test my mettle against sharnosaurs and lamprails and steeth.” She threw her arms out wide and looked up at the planets chasing each other across the sky like she was embarking on a grand adventure. “I’ll feast on their hearts raw and whittle a whistle from a whalecrab’s spiny carapace.”

Jak felt her eyebrows rise. “Cookie, you’ll die out there.”

She scowled. “Don’t call me that. I’m dying anyway, and so are you. Take my advice, Jak: Find the door and break the lock. Take what you can. Don’t get caught. And whatever you do, don’t sell no piece of yourself to the Godmother.”

With that she lunged, taking Jak by surprise and shoving her into the alley wall, grabbing the spear. Before Jak could pull her dagger from its sheath, Cook was sprinting away with both spear and armor, hooting like a madwoman, leaving Jak with nothing but a few blue-toned pearls and a crazy story. Jak swore and took three steps after her when a Guard cruiser hovered by, marked with the Godmother’s winged insignia. The cruiser slowed at the strange sight of tubby Cook huffing and running, waving fishing gear overhead like a victory banner in the cold hours before dawn. Jak made an abrupt turn down another alley, pressing her holo-veil to re-activate, and quickly scaled a wall to a shadowy balcony. The cruiser moved on, but Jak had lost sight of Cook. Whether she liked it or not, the deal was done.