by K. T. Flores
Polaris ran sharp, polished black nails down one of the walls. “The quieter you want the room, the more it costs.” Her smile was secretive. “But it’s worth every unit.”
“Empyrean sent us,” Tauri blurted.
Her bright red eyes narrowed. “I haven’t seen you in some time, Taur. You have a job for me?”
Tauri raised her chin a notch in Cyril’s direction. “He’ll give you two million units for your silence and quick work to break a password on a memory stick. No one else has been able to do it.”
“Two million—” Cyril began, but Tauri elbowed him. His protests morphed into gasps of air, and she cringed. She had managed to jab a little too hard into his solar plexus.
Polaris took a drink from her glass. “Make it two and a half, and we can go work on whatever you need right now.”
Cyril still hadn’t regained his composure, so Tauri answered cheekily, “Actually, I think three million sounds like a wonderful number. Three million and twenty-three units.”
It was the exact amount in her bank account after Kira had paid for her ancient bike. Tauri found it amusing, but Cyril didn’t look thrilled by her declaration.
Polaris raised a brow. “That’s a very specific number.”
“Take it or leave it.” Tauri shrugged, trying to feign disinterest. If they couldn’t get help on Navar, she wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to access the memory stick.
Polaris pushed her hair behind her ear. Tauri could see the resemblance to Empyrean, but she lacked his openness and laziness. Where he was relaxed, she was poised and coiled with tension, yet elegant and slender.
“We have a deal. I’ll send you the coordinates for my place. And don’t worry about the guardians. They’re here trying to do a major money laundering bust.” She uncrossed her legs and stood, taller than Cyril in her thin heels.
But Tauri shook her head. “They’re looking for us, too. We’re wanted.”
She studied their faces intensely before saying, “If you’re wanted, they’re not talking about it over guardian radios, nor is it in their database.”
Cyril rubbed his neck, and Tauri shifted from foot to foot. She mulled over the words, exchanging a look with him. "Yeah, we know."
“If you’re really wanted by the guardians, then someone in the department is going through great lengths to ensure it’s a secret."
“Our profiles have been completely wiped from the public database, Polaris. Something isn’t right."
“I guess that’s what we’re going to find out.” Polaris strode passed them and pressed a holocomm into Tauri’s palm. “Use this. You don’t want anyone to track our messages. I’ll send the coordinates here.”
She disappeared from the room, and Tauri clenched her jaw. “Okay, see you in a bit,” she muttered to the closed door.
“You trust her,” Cyril said, but he seemed unsure.
She snorted. “As much as I trusted you when I made that first call for help.”
“Then she must be one of your closest confidants.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she mumbled. “What I mean is that we don’t really have a choice. It’s her or keep waiting on one of your people to figure it out.”
Neither was ideal. But she knew Empyrean. They’d helped each other plenty of times. His information was always right, and he valued secrets like she did. If Empyrean sent her to Polaris, she was willing to take a chance.
∆∆∆
Tauri drove Cyril’s hovercar with great care. Bunny was too big to take to the club and to Polaris’ home. And it was too flashy for fugitives. Not that the hovercar was any better.
She wondered how much he had paid for it at one of the Navarian dealerships. He had arrived that morning in the white vehicle, presenting it with a stone-faced flourish. Tauri’s mouth had dropped as she searched for words. It was a brand-new model with barely any mileage.
She was hesitant to drive it at first, but she quickly fell in love with how easily it picked up speed and how smoothly it came to a stop.
Tauri constantly shifted in her seat, checking the rearview mirrors as Cyril sat through various holocomm meetings. She lowered the music, finding she enjoyed listening to him. Sometimes, he spoke rapidly in a language she didn’t understand, but it was easy to deduce from his tone when he was pleased or frustrated.
She smoothly pulled into Polaris’ driveway. The sound of Tauri’s boots echoed as they walked to the front door. Cyril moved silently a few steps ahead of her. How was he always so quiet? It was frustrating, especially when she was engrossed in something, and he randomly appeared at her elbow. He often tried to make sounds as he moved around for her benefit, she had come to realize. But sometimes he would forget. Other times, the twinkle in his eye as she yelped indicated he’d teleported and done it on purpose.
The door swung open before they had a chance to knock, Polaris standing on the other side.
“Took you long enough,” she commented, waving them in. “Take off your shoes. You can leave them here or put them on the shoe rack a little further down the hall.”
“It only took us two hours to get here,” Tauri grumbled. “I didn’t even have time to change.”
Cyril frowned, messing with the collar of her shirt. “That’s a lie. You stole my shirt. Again.”
“For the last time,” she huffed impatiently, “it is my shirt. Besides, it’s not like I carry backup clothes in the hovercar!”
“So it’s my fault that I’m prepared and you aren’t?”
“Exactly.”
“You could’ve brought an extra change of clothes if you wanted to—”
“Polaris,” Tauri interrupted loudly, turning. “Have you figured out anything?”
“Follow me,” the vampire said, going down another hall.
Her house was in one of the rural areas of the overworld, hidden within a forest. It was the furtherst from home Tauri had ever been. The hovercar shortened the trip considerably. In her old hoverbike, the drive would’ve taken at least five hours.
Polaris’ mauve robe trailed against the white tile, rustling softly as she wound through the halls. Eventually, they came to a wall decorated with abstract art. She placed her hand over one piece, and it fell in to reveal a staircase.
“This is where I take you down into my dungeon, lock you up, and make you my dinner,” she deadpanned with a flourish of her arms.
Tauri laughed nervously, pushing Cyril to go in before her. “Oh, he’d love to be your dinner,” she said quickly as they began to descend.
Polaris called over her shoulder, “Dagrians are delicious.”
Cyril snorted.
At the foot of the stairs, Tauri stopped short, jaw dropping. Monitors of varying sizes filled the room from floor to ceiling. Another wall was partially covered, but the screens relayed information from city cameras. Tauri recognized some of the places. Then the feed changed, and she struggled to identify the new scene. At the other wall, five monitors sat above a large desk. Several white and navy couches and a large blue carpet made it feel like a living room.
Tauri’s toes scrunched against the fluffy fibers. She wanted to plop on the floor and roll around. Underworlders couldn’t often afford carpet and when they did, it was used and flattened.
“You live here?” she asked hesitantly, feeling silly the moment the question left her mouth. Of course she lived here.
“Not permanently. I have houses all over the galaxy. Although, this is one of my nicer ones. Plots near forests are usually cheap. People think scary things lurk at night.” She opened her mouth slightly, pointed canine pressing lightly into her lower lip.
“Scary things like bloodsuckers,” Cyril guessed.
“Yes. Those damn bloodsuckers ruin everything,” she said, but amusement lightened her eyes. Then, she plopped into the chair at the desk and became serious.
“So, I haven’t been able to crack the password. There are several layers of security and a lot of technical stuff I’d rather not bother
explaining. However,” she emphasized, “I managed to bypass some of the protective measures. I have a few files that weren’t locked like the others.”
One of the walls became a full screen. Tauri walked over, eyes scanning the document.
“Stars above,” she breathed in horror as her body stiffened. “There’s a group of Vice guardians doing candy runs?”
Cyril’s jaw tightened as he moved to her side, lightly tapping one of the screens with Helden’s signature. “And Helden knew.”
Tauri kept reading, dread filling her stomach. “Why weren’t these documents locked?”
Polaris pulled up another file. It was a short video of guardians exchanging suspicious packages in the underworld.
“I don’t think this is an ordinary memory stick. I’m almost certain it’s some sort of connector stick. I managed to figure out how to get into the normal guardian database, and I’ve looked for these same files. They’re either gone or blank.”
Tauri leaned in, spotting Fili’s name in yet another file Polaris displayed. “So, it’s where all the deleted files go?”
Cyril shook his head, eyes narrowed. “Not all deleted files. Probably just the ones related to candy.”
“This likely has the complete Vice database and files from other Navarian government departments,” Polaris said. “So, any hidden, deleted, or altered files that have to do with Fili and Helden’s candy activity are sent to this stick. If this works the way most connectors do, then files that are sent don’t become protected until powered on. Before they got locked, I managed to pull some.”
Tauri squatted down, trying to note all the random names she came across. Fili and Helden were the ones mostly signing off on the papers.
“We know Fili killed Helden and is trying to pin it on Kira,” Cyril sighed, running a hand through his hair roughly. “And he thinks Tauri and Kira were somehow involved. This helps, but I’m not sure how. Normally, I’d say we go to the planetary guardians, but it seems they’re the ones causing the problems on Navar.”
Tauri said, “If any of those corrupt guardians find out we have access to this information, we’re dead.”
Cyril barked a laugh, and she tilted her head back to glare at him. “We’re dead already, whether they know we have this or not.”
“Is this where I ask for another million units?” Polaris questioned dryly.
“You received the partial payment I sent,” Cyril muttered distractedly.
“Yeah, thanks for that.” A ping filled the room, and she rubbed her forehead. “Something just got deleted and sent to the stick,” Polaris said tersely, nails clacking away at her keyboard.
A short report filled the screen detailing a candy run that had gone south. Another guardian had caught those orchestrating the exchange, and they had made it look like a drug bust.
Wait a second… I know that name, Tauri thought, squinting. Where was it from? Had she seen him on the news for something?
In one of the pictures, a black and white Canis with amber eyes held a gun at one of the underworlders. Tauri perked up immediately, turning to Cyril.
“I know that guardian! Modey is an underworlder,” she told him excitedly, shaking his shoulders. “We can go talk to him. He works shifts in one of the junkyards!”
Polaris jerked her head toward the holocomm hooked on Tauri’s waist. “I just sent you his shift schedule from the database. I’ll keep working here on cracking the connector.”
“Thank you,” Tauri said, placing the taminite and diamond earrings Cyril had given her to wear onto the desk. “I don’t know how much these are worth, but the risk you’re taking to help us is more than I anticipated. Besides, we have several pairs on his ship. I don’t think he’ll miss small hoops.”
Polaris laughed, holding them up to the light and looking over at Cyril. “Is that true? You won’t miss hoops worth a third of what I was promised?”
He shrugged, beginning to trudge up the steps. “I don’t know how I’ll ever recover,” he said, sarcasm dripping.
Tauri hurried after him, offering Polaris a smile as she passed. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Of course,” she responded absently, voice fading the higher they ascended. “Be careful.”
“People keep saying that,” Tauri grumbled.
Cyril laughed. “I wonder why.”
Chapter Nine
Another two weeks without new leads dragged on.
She’d finally accepted that Bunny would be her new home until she left Navar. To her surprise, Cyril had recently insisted on giving her the master bedroom, and he had moved into the guest room.
The size of the ship still blew her mind. What was even more disconcerting was how easily the space was optimized for living.
Whenever sleep eluded her, she would trudge outside onto the couches. Oftentimes, Cyril was already there, or he would appear a few minutes after her. They laid down on their respective couches and watched movies or shows. Sometimes they would talk, and other times they remained in comfortable silence.
She strode into the main area, trying not to feel weighed down by the nervousness clutching at her lungs. The door to Cyril’s room was closed, warning her not to disturb him. But she didn’t care. The sound of her knock filled the ship. The door slid open, and he appeared. Wet hair clung to his face and neck. Beads of water trailed across his shirtless chest. Her eyes followed a droplet across the planes of his muscles until it vanished into his navy sweats.
He raised a brow, leaning against the doorframe. “Hello, Tauri.”
She shivered and tugged the hem of her sleeping shorts down, glad for her long sleeves. “We need to talk about Kira. I didn’t forget about our agreement.”
He crossed his arms, head bobbing slowly. “Neither did I.”
“Alright,” she mumbled, her voice sounding strange to her ears.
“Alright,” he parroted.
They continued to stare at each other. When it was clear he wasn’t going to speak, she shifted uneasily.
“That’s all you have to say?” She tried to sound reprimanding. She was in charge, and she wouldn’t be moved by him.
“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to say something else.”
She despised when he talked like that. Like he was above the world. So confident, and untouchable. His gaze was arrogant, pupils dilated even as his eyes were narrowed.
“I hate your dimple,” she blurted suddenly. “It makes me want to punch you.”
His smile widened. “Really?”
“Yes,” she gritted out, hands balling into fists. “Really.”
“Is that all you want to do to me? Punch me? Or is there,” his voice dipped dangerously, “something else?”
She shoved his shoulder, encouraging a deep laugh. “Piss off,” she said.
“You little bully,” he said, the word full of dark warmth as he leaned into her face. “You knocked on my door.”
She snipped, “Oh, I am quite aware of that, thank you.” She refused to move back, though she wanted to. Space helped her think, but she fought to hide her discomfort.
“You looked a little lost. I just wanted to make sure you knew where you were,” he said soothingly.
But she wasn’t fooled. She pointed behind her and spoke with forced patience. “We’re going to sit down and have a nice, long talk, you and I.”
He pushed her forearm back until their chests nearly touched, readjusting the direction she was pointing at. “Are we, now.”
It wasn’t a question.
She had noticed he didn’t often ask things. Rather, he spoke in absolutes. Always so sure of himself, even when he wasn’t.
A part of her envied that. Another part of her thought it must’ve been exhausting.
“You better not get me wet,” she hissed, noticing the wetness on her sleeve where he had grabbed her.
“No?” He shook his head in her direction.
“Cyril!” she snapped, throwing her hands up to fend off the droplets from his hair.
>
“Sorry,” he said, anything but. “Trying to dry off.”
“Well, you can dry off in the living room.”
She gripped his upper arm, trying not to think about how soft and slippery he felt beneath her fingers. He allowed her to tug him into the main ship area with ease. Bunny had long since converted it from a cockpit into a living room with several silver couches and a coffee table.
She pushed him down onto the closest seat, then plopped down diagonally opposite him. She crossed her legs, straightened her back, and took a deep breath.
“I’m jeopardizing everything I have for your sister,” she began lowly, “and for you. I could still walk away. Maybe try and get smuggled out. Instead, I am sort of a fugitive, playing detective with a”—she waved her hands, unsure of what to call him—“a bajillionaire. So I have to ask myself: what is this all for?”
He placed his chin on his hand, watching her carefully. “If you’re going to hop on the next freighter you find, I won’t stop you.”
She set her jaw. “The more I look at you, the more tempting the thought is.”
He gestured to the door. “Then go—”
“I’m not going anywhere!” she said, leaping to her feet.
“I don’t understand why,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. An unmistakable tension in his shoulders. Cracks in the perfect aloofness he’d presented.
She would tear down that façade, she vowed. She would tear it apart with her teeth if she had to. Until nothing was left but Cyril.
She swallowed thickly. “I know what it’s like to be trapped,” she said softly. “I know what it’s like to dream about something more. Something beyond the life you live. Beyond the shackles of monotony and misery and helplessness. I miss the stars, and I’ve never even been in space! Never even been beyond my sector in Navar.” Her laugh was too high, too loud. “You didn’t see Kira that night, but I did. I saw her eyes, her panic. I miss a freedom I never had. I can’t fathom how much worse it is for someone who has.”
“You’d risk everything for a stranger.” He scanned her whole form, searching. Whatever he did—or didn’t—find made his eyes darken.