Rashelind took care to keep her fingers from the slick railing and iridescent walls as she descended the stairwell. Slender turquoise neon, nestled where the walls met the ceiling, cast a dim light. At the base of the steps, around the corner, was a threshold that marked the end of one life and the beginning of a new one. She passed it without hesitation.
The bar was a mess of smoke-swallowed silhouettes and blinking e-art, lambent purples and blues. Faces vanished in the murk, teeth and eyes and greasepaint glittering in the portraits that crowded the walls. They were pictures of esteri, with whips and chains and digibullions, taming their dracossi slaves. One esteru comprised of red neon tubing extended her leg proudly, looking down at her catch with a grin as wicked as his spiked collar.
Rashelind tugged her shroud tighter around her neck.
Over concealed speakers, electro-ambient tracks heavy on the synth and sprinkled with choral chants played loud enough to drown out conversation. It was old +r@5h, not yet vintage and not new enough to be relevant. There was something to be said for atmosphere. Still, paired with the smoke and neon and crisp, restless foreign tongues, it was distracting enough to allow Rashelind to push past patrons unnoticed. She spotted a depression in the wall beneath a sign flashing the word RESIST in an offensively curly font and burrowed into the shadows there. Doing her best to ignore the pounding in her chest, she surveyed the room.
At the bar, two mono-eyed esteri were garbed in nothing but faux ketreselk straps arranged artfully over their groins and glowing beneath the blacklight. The esteri were draconoid enough, but for their largeness and the warmth of their colouring. The esteru poured incandescent wine for three esteri sitting at the counter, each one ogling her plump carmine breasts, while the esterin beside her—sculpted immaculately, e-tattoos strewn across his back—entertained a masked offworlder nursing her skyrock ale. The offworlder was only conspicuous thanks to her size. Next to the esteri, she looked miniature, distinguishable from a dracossi by her striated horns and the massive furry tail she absently swish-swished across the filthy floor.
Black leather booths lined the walls to Rashelind’s left. Droids and esteri and even some dracossi crowded them, draped over one another, e-cigs dangling from their mouths or neckholes.
Rashelind wrinkled her nose.
There were service droids here too, but they were old-make. Pieces of junk. Kind of like the music, which was now hitting the base so hard Rashelind wished she had a transceiver she could activate to shut the damned player off for good.
Her frustration was cut short when she saw him, approaching the bar from the far corner. He wore an oversized parka—stolen from a shipyard, from the look of it. The serial number ran down the length of the forearm, 3720LW. The LW marking… It belonged to a droid, then. Aunolen cybersecurity. Probably a newer model too.
Here was an esterin who liked to push his luck.
Rashelind pushed off the wall, moving in his general direction. Strangers passed between them like transit bobbers, and she sped up. At the right moment, she accelerated, thrusting up against him and reaching out. Her long fingers grasped his jacket, and she pulled herself up, meeting his eyes.
One chance. She had only one chance.
His eyes were opalescent, with shocks of red, green, and blue, characteristic of the esteri. The colours gleamed like flecks of quartz in stone. They sat in deep sockets on a face of angles and scars, skin like old copper. His jaw was covered in a half dozen moonsets worth of stubble, grey and white, his chin-length silvery hair side swept. His expression was hard, discerning. Troubled, too. As if being disturbed by a stranger in this place had happened before; as if he couldn’t help the world and had, at some point, convinced himself to stop trying.
‘Do I know you?’ His voice was rusted metal, and the effervescence in his gaze told her he thought this was an advance.
Her accent would give her away, but she had come all the way here. Had entered this alien territory to meet this esterin.
‘I need your help,’ Rashelind said, quiet enough that only he could hear her. ‘May we speak in private?’
He raised his bristly brows, and then his face hardened. She stared him down nonetheless, showing him nothing but resolve, begging him soundlessly to listen to her, not to dismiss or to draw attention.
Everything hinged on this moment.
His mouth twisted in disgust, but though he recognized her race, he did not seem to recognize who, or what, she was. The esterin wrapped his calloused fingers around her arm, dragging her back to the forlorn alcove and RESIST.
‘I’ve never heard of a Leet dracossa frequenting the Basal Ward, least of all this cesspool,’ he probed, leaning against the wall.
‘You’re Rorick Varland?’ Rashelind asked.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Might have wanted to make sure of that before you came onto me.’
Rashelind pursed her lips. She might be posh but she could play punk with the best of them.
‘I am looking for a dracossa named Molga, sequestrated by the Theamira three cycles ago.’ She shot whispers at him. ‘I have reason to believe she was taken to Sefos, but I can’t be sure. She’s only twenty-four. I need to find her, and you’re the only person who can help me.’
Rorick’s leather jacket squealed as he crossed his stocky arms. ‘A Leet ventures to the Basal Ward,’ he mused, ‘risking life and reputation, all to find a hacker who’ll help her get her kid sister back from the sacred soldiers.’
‘How’d you know she’s my sister?’
‘I read people for a living.’ Rorick loosed an incredulous puff of air, shaking his head. ‘Look, dracossa, I admire your audacity, but I don’t get on the bad side of the Theamira, and I don’t do business with Leet dracossi. Or their families.’ He jabbed his finger in the air, pointing behind Rashelind, toward the door, the stairwell, the city cloaked in night lying beyond it. ‘You don’t belong here, and you need to leave. Now.’
‘Don’t dracossa me,’ Rashelind snapped, tugging Rorick’s arm down. A slow blink was his only show of surprise. ‘I need you to help me find her, and then get us off the planet. I am not asking you to do it without reward. I’ll leave you anything you want. My properties. A hundred digibullions, if that is what you wish. You’ll be set for life once the job is done. I just want my sister back.’
Rorick’s expression was dour, imposing, ‘What’s your name?’
Instinctively, and before she could think better of it, Rashelind interwove her fingers, keeping them straight, rigid, making the X-greeting that dracossi were accustomed to offer each other.
‘Rashelind,’ she said. ‘Above the Basal Ward, I am Oreli Rashelind, but here, and from now on, you may call me Rashelind.’
Rorick surveyed the gesture warily, chewing on his lip. ‘Rash-elle-lind. I know that name.’
‘Will you help me, Varland?’ she pressed.
His nostrils flared. ‘Exactly how much of a reward are we talking about?’
‘I own two properties in the Lofts. A flat overlooking the Oasys, and a holiday retreat in Aunolen South. I’ve twenty-one hundred digibullions to my name, stored in the Aunolenian depository, and other assets stored elsewhere—a personal bobber left to me by my cousin, kept in a garage in Dos, and a service droid. There are others. Take your pick.’
Rorick retrieved an e-cig from the inside of his jacket. ‘Quite a life you lead,’ he muttered, taking a drag. She could see him trying to work it out, where he had seen her before. A corporate icon, perhaps. Or a socialite. He was mulling it over. ‘And you’d give it all away for your sister?’
Rashelind’s chest tightened, and for the first time tonight, she felt claustrophobic in this place, smothered by the smoke, choked by the citrusy scent of chemicals and sweat. The music had grown heavier, dragging her ever downward with its obstinate pulse, and for an instant, she was nearly overwhelmed by a sense she could not put a name to. She fought to escape that well before she was trapped inside it, and raised her chin.
‘Molga is all that matters to me now.’
Rorick took another drag, his gaze dimming, brightening, and dimming again, in the flickering neon half-light. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘No, wait,’ Rashelind begged as Rorick sidestepped her, heading back into the bar. She remained on his heels as he headed toward the exit, but halfway there, he stopped, and she collided with his back.
‘Friends of yours?’ Rorick growled.
Rashelind peered over his shoulder. There had been a scuffle at the door, and silhouettes were now floating backward, smelly spectres drifting toward the walls. Two droids stood in the entrance of the bar, backlit by the blue-green neon of the stairwell. A D4RK patrol—sent from the Lofts, by the look of their weapons. A varo, with its hefty design useful for making difficult arrests, and a vez, swifter, more deadly, typically posted alongside the varos to capture those who attempted to make a run for it.
The music moved with allegro zeal now, the pulse beating as fast as Rashelind’s heart, synth sweeping away in the background. She gathered herself. Of course the only good song this place played all night would play at this moment of reckoning.
Rashelind yanked on Rorick’s jacket and rose on her toes to plead in his ear, ‘Help me, and I’ll keep you safe.’
He cut a glance over his shoulder. The droids were moving into the bar, their LEDs scanning left to right. The esteri seated there held up their hands, affronted, blathering incoherently. The bartenders set down their bottles of incandescent wine and waited for the droids to do what they needed to do. Rashelind could see the sweat gathering at the base of Rorick’s neck.
‘You must help me,’ Rashelind exhorted.
Rorick was a stony bulwark against her, and Rashelind grew hot and cold all at once—a feeling she recognized as pure terror. She closed her eyes, heart sinking. There was nothing for it.
Rashelind shoved past Rorick, moving toward the droids. She took a shallow breath, and then a deeper one, and then—just as their scanners locked onto her face—she removed her heavy hood, revealing a short, architected head of sleek black hair, shaved and edged at the sides, a face of smooth, midnight blue skin, and burgundy eyes shimmering with e-cobalt. All eyes in the bar were on her as she proceeded to lift the sleeve of her jacket and present the droids with her senatorial brand—a circle of icy blue-white light etched upon her wrist.
‘I assume you were tipped off that I entered this establishment?’ she stated, in a voice she hardly recognized anymore.
It was a commanding and strong voice. But it was also tinged with ever-so-slight distaste, and not a small amount of cruelty. She had learned to lean into her sleek Leet dracossi drawl five rotations ago, after her twenty-third birthday and senate confirmation, when she realized no one would take her seriously without its imposition.
‘Yes, Senator,’ said the varo, a pretty thing with crimson biocomponents falling down her back like the tentacles of a jellyfish.
‘There is no need to be alarmed,’ she asserted, taking her time. The droids LEDs were blinking, the silhouettes of the bar patrons shifting uncomfortably. Rashelind pointed to her wrist and then gestured to Rorick behind her. ‘My business with this esterin is classified. I expect you to respect that and leave this place. Immediately.’
The varo took a second to compute the information, and it was the vez, blue-skinned and triple-eyed, that spoke next. ‘This esterin is in possession of stolen property,’ it noted, uncertain.
‘The jacket, yes,’ Rashelind nodded. ‘I am aware, and I will see to it that he is brought to his magistrate.’ She stifled a mock yawn. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind, it has been a long night.’
The varo replied. ‘Please forgive us the intrusion.’
‘I’m happy to see that you’re doing your job.’ She tipped her chin upward, casting her stiff-lipped gaze around the bar, and raised her voice so all could hear. ‘It is D4RK’s diligence that keeps our streets safe.’
If she had made that statement down here without these droids present, she would have been pummelled. Audacity, indeed.
‘Thank you, Senator,’ lisped the vez.
Rashelind started after the droid, tossing a pursed-lipped, steely-eyed look at Rorick. ‘Come.’
For a moment, it seemed as though he would refuse, but under the weight of all that attention, he cocked his head dangerously, and followed Rashelind out of the gloomy dive and up the narrow stairwell. All the while, Rashelind was aware of the scrape of her boots on the stairs, the thump-thump of her heart in her chest—small things, noticeable only because the larger thing, the thing she did tonight that she would never be able to take back, was too big to think about right now.
As the senator and the criminal broke through the heavy metal door into the gloom of Aunolen beyond, a chill swathed Rashelind. The nights were colder in the shadows of a desert city. They stood in a desolate alcove next to a wide side street. Dirt coated the ground, and laser signs painted verts on the walls of the column holding up the artery above them.
Beyond the verts, and between the clean, architected lines of stone and blackglass buildings, Aunolen’s corporate world and its reverence for the Vashenra mingled like lovers. Nearby, as it was across the city, plumes of violet and cyan mist spiraled toward the sky, dancing with aquamarine sparkles. Across the street, the fat roots of white-petaled holo-flowers, their heads bowing to bobbers in the Hub a level above, expanded across city blocks. Rashelind inhaled the scent of night and looked up as an illuskir, a miniature dragonkin carved of the same photonic energy as the mist and flowers, swept the skies far above, roaring with the same lust for freedom as its ancient, very real counterpart. The difference between the words fairytale and reality in Logistical Thearisian was a matter of phonetics.
Once the varo and the vez took their leave, Rashelind and Rorick were left with the silence of the side street and the city’s dancing colours. There was not a droid or an esteri to be seen, and it was no wonder. Rashelind wagered it was at least an hour past third moonrise. Down here, people either drank or slept or lost themselves to void beads. No one wandered alone this late at night.
Rorick was staring at her, disbelief lining his features. ‘You’re a senator. That senator.’
She met his gaze levelly.
‘Kroshvk,’ he swore, rubbing calloused hands over his face. ‘Kroshvk.’
He glanced at Rashelind, and then at the bobber arteries above, their perpetual hush welcome white noise on this otherwise quiet night. Behind him, blackglass skyscrapers twisted and arced toward a starlit sky, stretching up from the Basal Ward toward the Lofts. Most of them still had their lights on… Evening workers performing their duties in the efficient mechanism that was the Aunolen economy. The RSE would be nothing without this city.
Rashelind waited as Rorick regained his composure and returned his gaze to her. ‘I don’t help dracossi.’ He flicked his gaze to her wrist. ‘I definitely don’t help branded dracossi.’
Rashelind’s jaw tightened as she pulled her sleeve back over her glowing e-tattoo. ‘You’re a hacker, a netdancer—one of the best, if you haven’t been put away yet. Surely you are no stranger to leaving old lives behind you. I’m ready to abandon everything I am, and I need your help.’ She huffed a breath. ‘Now, I helped you out down there. I think I have proven myself trustworthy. Are you really going to turn down everything I’ve offered you?’
He came to stand so close that she once again had to look up at him to meet his eyes. The movement was purposeful, an obvious powerplay echoing the way she had approached him earlier, and she let him enjoy it. He smelled of vetiver and bobber, and his wide shoulders blocked out all sound and light. The intimacy unhinged her, but she did not tremble. Dracossi privilege had taught her to lift her chin, especially around the esteri. Something deeper than that—something more intrinsic—told her that, for the sake of her sister, she must convince this esterin that she was worth the risk.
‘I can get you to Sefos,’ he said, after a long moment. ‘I’ll take your holiday retreat and two hundred digibullions.’ He sucked on a tooth. ‘Not a digimark less.’
Rashelind nodded, unable to keep the sparkle from her eyes. ‘Thank you.’
He considered her. ‘We leave in three days. That’s nine moonsets for you and I to get our kroshvk together.’
She exhaled shakily. ‘Okay.’
They stood for a moment, drinking each other in. ‘You’re not ready for this.’
‘I’m scared of nothing,’ she lied.
He chuckled, licking his lip as he turned from her. She hated the smirk on his face. Hated the way it made her feel like a child. But necessity made her temper her indignation.
He strode with intent toward the street, hands in the pockets of his stolen jacket. Cerebral, enigmatic, arrogant… If she could survive a deal with him, she could do anything, surely.
‘Wait!’ she called. ‘How will I—?’
‘Three days,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’ll find you.’
Rorick rounded the street corner, and Rashelind glanced up. In the clear night sky, teeming with thousands upon thousands of galaxies, were the three moons of Thearis: Metra, Delva, and Seara. They were full tonight, bright and clear, arcing upward, each one an echo of the previous. They looked down upon Aunolen, upon all the wretched places on this planet-in-agony, with wide grins.
As silver stained Rashelind’s cheeks, she grinned right back.