“Do you really think Rath K’zar will come for her?”
“I think his human will make him. Humans have that effect on us. There is no korabi as desperate as one who has fallen in love with a human woman.”
Wreck is respectfully silent.
* * *
Jax
I have to get out of here. Nobody ever has to know what happened between the alien king and me. I can escape Megaris another way. The river is too obvious now—or is it? They know about it. They know that I know that they know. Maybe I double bluff the bluffers.
My heart is pounding a mile a minute. I can’t believe I actually managed to escape Krush. Sure, I did it when he was at an emotional low-point and confiding in me, but it still counts.
I move through the streets of Megaris with a huge smile on my face. My augmentation implant still works as well as it ever did, detecting drones and surveillance scans. It feels so damn good to flatten myself up against a wall again and let a roving red beam slip right past me. I have gone from being the consort of a king to human scum, and I could not be happier.
By accident or fate, the bar that Krush took me to was one of the closest elite watering holes to our old den. It is gone now, abandoned after the attack which took place on the previous king. The survivors scattered across Megaris, and I started working on getting us all out. My bolthole has obviously been compromised. The den is the only place I can think of where Lyric might go to look for me.
The streets stink. I inhale the stench, glad for it. That smell is how I know this is real and I am free again. Freedom isn’t easy. You don’t enjoy it. You suffer through it. But it’s worth it. I think it is, anyway. We did our best to burn the den out before we left, but there is a chance that some of the old stashes nearby will have bux in them.
"They're looking for you.”
A scum of another affiliation hisses the words to me as I pass him. He has wild eyes and shaking hands. He’s been on stimulants. A lot of scum resort to drugs. They’re like augs, but for your brain instead of your eyes. They adjust your perception to something more bearable.
“Who is looking for me?”
He jabs his thumb at the sky. “The birds.”
“They're looking for us all, brother.”
I haven't survived the last year alone. I’ve had to rely on the kindness of scum. When someone warns me, I take it seriously.
“There’s been a bird on you this whole time. Super high. See it?”
Now he mentions it, I do see it. It’s not one of the low-scanning drones which I am used to detecting and avoiding. It’s something flying so high you wouldn’t even notice it unless you did. It’s the kind of drone the korabi use when they’re following someone, and they don’t want them to know it. Someone is watching me. But who? If it was Krush, I’d be surrounded already. It must be a hijacked bird being used by Lyric. Instead of being frightened, I feel suddenly safe. They know where I am. They’ll save me if they can. All I have to do is get to the pickup location and I’m free of all of this.
“Thanks,” I say.
“You want to come through our tunnels? We got them shielded. Took down a drone recently. Hooked the components up through our pathways. Been running freight for two weeks, no interruptions.”
“I don’t have any bux. Or anything else.”
He lifts a suggestive brow at me. “You got that ass.”
Men. Fuzkin’ men. They always want that one thing. Doesn't matter who you are, what you think, if you think. Doesn't even matter what species you are. They’re programmed to lust after the hole between your thighs.
I keep walking, knowing that he’d try to follow me if it wasn’t for the drone overhead.
“Stuck up bitch,” he curses at me, his bruised ego turning him into an immediate monster. “Weird fuzkin’ cripple.”
Sounds like I really missed out on a good one there.
“Come back here, bitch, don’t you walk away from m…”
PEW!
I turn around and see nothing but a smoldering pile of carbon where the guy stood. Looking up into the sky, I smile and wave. Whoever that was, I owe them a big thanks.
The streets of Megaris are chaotic today. I wonder if the madness in the palace has somehow trickled down to the human city. Are we all inextricably linked to Krush? Is there any way of breaking free?
I turn a corner to find a group of scum fighting with a netted drone. They have woven the net from dropped components and in doing so created something that the street level machine cannot escape. It is discharging every weapon it has, red bolts turning to electric yellow sparks against the cracked pavements. They’re laughing and shouting to one another with glee. They think they’ve scored the motherload, but they haven’t. All they’ve guaranteed is their demise.