Bo Grizzleback's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

Two days out from trader night, Bo sat at his bar counting pods when Aiden banged through the front door. "Bro. Some dude in a gray coat was at the Cantina asking what's in your blue stuff. Offered a bartender fifty credits for a swab of the mash bucket." Bo set down the pods. One recipe was all he had. If the formula walked before the traders landed, the skull on his shelf was just glass. They moved fast. Bo locked the pod drawer and hauled the pressure rig into the back room. Aiden taped paper over the fermenter window. Bo scrubbed the mash bucket in the alley and dumped the rinse water two blocks away. He wiped the copper coil with vinegar and stored it inside a crate marked as cleaning supplies. Aiden posted himself at the front, phone up, snapping pictures of anyone who lingered by the window. By noon they had three faces logged and a gray coat that passed twice. Bo called Fiora. She showed up in ten minutes with two regulars and a clipboard. "Grizzleback. You don't wait for the punch. You pick the ground." She set one regular on the alley door and one on the roof. She told Bo to keep brewing like normal and let the gray coat come to him. "If he wants a taste, we serve him a taste. Our taste." Bo poured a decoy jar: cactus fruit, food coloring, a splash of the real batch on top for the smell. He set it behind the bar where any snoop could see. An hour later the front door opened. Not the gray coat. Fiora, back already, dragging a woman in a dust jacket by the elbow. "Caught her behind the gym paying my newest member to run her mouth about your recipe." The woman shook loose and held up both hands. Fiora kept talking. "She's not a buyer. She's a plant. Whole thing's a setup. Somebody hired her and the coat to spook you into moving the real recipe somewhere they could grab it. The questions were bait, Grizzleback. They wanted you running." Bo looked at the decoy jar, then at the taped fermenter, then at Aiden, who was already laughing. Bo let the woman go with a warning and a photo for Fiora's file. He pulled the tape off the fermenter and set the copper coil back on its hook. The recipe was safe. It had never been in reach. But the hoax told him something worse: someone with money knew his batch was worth stealing, and they were patient enough to try again. He had one filled decanter, eight pods, and two days. Whoever hired the coat would come at trader night, and this time not for the recipe.