KHALL
Khall flung open the door of his rented hover car while it was still moving, tipping the droid from his comms even as it scolded him.
He leapt onto the moving walkway and into the bright amber sunset.
The walkway darkened suddenly, as if a storm were coming. But when he glanced up, he saw it was only an unmarked airship, hovering near the building.
He shook his head at the extravagance of his neighbors. Booking a private airship was over the top, even for them.
Leaping off the walkway, he headed under the awning of The Celestial. Oddly, Deerborne didn’t throw open the doors for him.
He pushed them open himself, a shiver of foreboding running down his spine.
Khall tasted blood in the air the moment he stepped into the lobby. As his eyes adjusted to the dim space, his heart quickened at the coppery scent.
Crumpled on the floor by the front desk was Deerborne’s prone form, a nasty gash on his forehead as if he had been hit with a blunt object. Khall knelt and grabbed the doorman’s wrist. He was relieved to feel a pulse.
He swiped his comms as he scanned the lobby for signs of trouble.
“Emergency services, how may I help you?” The woman’s voice sounded very far away.
Khall noticed the light blinking on the elevator, showing that it was trapped at the penthouse level.
“Hello?” the voice said.
“A man has been attacked at The Celestial in Ancient Gardens,” he told her, staring at that insidious blinking light. “He’s been hit in the head and he’s unconscious. And something bad is happening on the one hundredth floor. But the elevator is stuck.”
“Stay on the line with me,” she said. “Help is on the way.”
One of the first-floor doors opened up and tiny Mrs. Astyr Gingerooox-Toxfylt ventured out.
Hell’s bells. He had screamed at her nephew, and now he needed her help. She probably wouldn’t come near him.
“It’s Deerborne,” he called to her. “I need someone to sit with him until the ambulance gets here.”
Her eyes widened.
“I didn’t do this,” he said. “Obviously. I just got back from work. But I have to get to the girls. Whoever did this went to the penthouse, and jammed the elevator.”
He pointed at the indicator in desperation, and she looked, her face going tight with worry as soon as she saw it.
She scurried over and lowered herself carefully to the ground beside Deerborne.
“Go on, son,” she said urgently. “Help them.”
He scrambled up, forgetting to thank her until he reached the lobby doors.
“I appreciate this,” he told her.
“Go, go, go,” she yelled.
He took off for the building next door. There was no way he could climb one hundred flights of stairs in time to save his girls, but maybe if he could get up to the top floor of the building next door, he could at least see what was going on.
When he arrived at the doors, he nearly collided with the droid doorman of The Barnes.
“How may I help you, sir?” the droid asked in an affected elite accent that was no less annoying for being programmed.
“I need to get to the top floor, right away,” he gasped. “There’s an emergency.”