by Lea Linnett
“Whatever.”
“Now would you play your fucking card?”
There was a slapping sound as the plastic card fell to the floor, and Ellie looked around, searching for a new way to escape.
But at that moment, the door on the opposite side of the hallway opened with a groan, and the large pindar who had helped herd her to the storeroom froze in his tracks, his small eyes going wide as he noticed Anna and Ellie crouching before him.
“What the fu—!”
There was a flurry of motion from behind them, the sound of carpet ripping under ragged claws, and the huge form of the kerfaan rocketed into view, his fist connecting with the pindar’s face and sending him crashing to the floor. The two women shot to their feet to avoid being squashed, and Ellie pulled Anna to her as Deeno appeared in the doorway of the living room, his mouth agape.
“Run!” snarled the levekk, pushing the cicarian back into the other Lodestars. Anna and Ellie sprang into action, hurtling towards the stairs and taking them two at a time.
There was a scuffle above them as the levekk kept the others busy, until someone yelled, “Don’t fucking shoot him! You’ll bring the enforcers down on all of us!”
Ellie reached the front door first, wrenching it open and charging out into the corridor and towards the emergency staircase. She could hear someone pursuing them, but didn’t stop to see whether it was the rebels or the levekk or both. She leaped down the stairs, holding onto the railing for dear life and trying not to trip, Anna hot on her heels.
It was only three floors down to the bottom, but as they neared it there was a scream from above, and an armored body plummeted down the open area which the staircases curled around. The two women jumped back towards the wall, screaming in unison as the body crashed to the ground.
“Holy shit!” Anna squealed, her face white, but the fallen human rebel had managed to grab a railing on his way down, breaking his fall slightly, and now he lay groaning on the concrete floor, in pain, but intact.
“Keep fucking running!” came a bellow from just above them, and Ellie turned to see the huge levekk bearing down on them, a trail of Lodestars behind him.
Ellie lunged for the exit, pushing the door mechanism open and spilling out into the atrium. She made a beeline for the door to the street, a crowd of footsteps behind her, and burst out into the dry atmosphere of the Senekkar.
She kept running, not caring which direction she went in, listening only for the sound of Anna and their pursuers behind her.
But soon, she realized she couldn’t hear them, and she skidded to a stop. She turned to find Anna jogging towards her, her breaths ragged as she came to a stop at Ellie’s side.
“W-where’s the levekk?” Ellie gasped. They’d turned a corner, the apartment building hidden behind countless others now, and there was no sign of the rebels. She couldn’t see their partner-in-rescue either. This street was dark apart from the glowing blue streetlights, devoted to residences rather than nightlife.
“Duh—dunno…” Anna breathed, her hands on her knees.
Ellie spun on the spot, checking each streetlight, but the street was bare.
“We can’t go back,” she wheezed, imagining the angry rebels milling around the apartment building.
“Also, if Mr. Kaan’s getting a ship together, we don’t have much time,” Anna agreed. She grabbed Ellie’s arm. “We did what we could—you saw that guy fight! He’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” She pulled in a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Anna kept a grip on her arm as they set out into the darkness. It was difficult to see the stars through the domes high above them, but Ellie knew where she was, and she knew where she was going.
She just hoped they would make it in time.
36
“Open commlink: Roia Xikpel.”
Helik held his breath as he waited for the call to connect, his eyes on the datapad that sat beside him, where a livelink of the crowd milling around their building was being broadcast. Journalists of all species flooded the concrete square at the front of the tower, and every so often the cameras would catch sight of a dark transport—probably full of enforcers—sitting in the corner of the frame.
“Helik?”
“Yeah, Roia, it’s me.”
“Have you seen any sign of Ellie yet?”
Helik’s stomach churned, and he fought down the lump of panic that had been fighting to consume him for the last few days. “No. No sign of her.”
There was a beat of silence. “…She’ll come, Helik.”
“And we’re staying until she does,” he said, but his tone wasn’t harsh. Doubt plagued him, but he needed to believe that she would come back. That wasn’t even the worst of what had kept him up the night before, staring at the ceiling of Devis’ guest bedroom while he ground his teeth together.
No, he feared that he’d made a mistake. What if she went back to his apartment? What if it was his plea for her to come home that got her caught by enforcers? Or nabbed by some low-life? He couldn’t go out and find her. The sharks were circling outside, and he knew it would be foolhardy to risk sneaking past them.
“How’s the changeover going?” he made himself ask, eliciting a beleaguered sigh from his assistant.
“It’s… going. There are still a couple of donors willing to support the program if someone else is running it. I mean, there’s plenty who won’t, and those are the ones who like to call up and yell a lot.”
“I’m sorry you have to deal with this,” he said, and he meant it. “Remember that there’s a place for you on the ship if you want it.”
“Want it? I’m going to need it, Helik.” She laughed wryly. “My career’s going down the disposal right alongside yours, I hope you know.”
“Fuck, I’m really—”
“Don’t apologize,” the xylidian cut in. “You’ve done the right thing. People are talking about it, and that’s important. I’m happy to have helped.”
“Thank you.” He drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “And the ship? Is everything in order?”
“It is. The last few flight-ready checks are being done. It’ll be ready to fly tonight. And we have enough transports to get us to the harbor when the time comes.”
“Good.”
Behind him, Scott entered the room, and Helik wouldn’t have thought much of it if he hadn’t suddenly yelped: “What the fuck?”
Helik whirled around to find the human gaping over the back of the sofa at the datapad, which was now showing enforcers breaking down the door to an apartment building. For one panic-stricken moment, Helik thought it was their building, but he soon noticed the differences.
“Hold on a second, Roia,” he said, before unmuting the datapad.
The volume increased slowly, catching the broadcaster mid-sentence. “—raided the apartment earlier today, following a report from the apartment’s owner that members of the Lodestars, a sub-species terrorist organization, had been squatting inside it.”
The view changed, the cameras now pointing into the atrium’s windows as a levekk was being questioned by enforcers. “Holy shit,” said Devis, who had entered the room and come to stand beside Scott. “Is that Kerfaan Celesk?”
“Who?” asked Scott, blinking.
“He’s military,” Helik answered absently. “He was a member of the program.”
“Kerfaan Celesk, a decorated officer in CL-32’s military currently enjoying medical leave, has reportedly alleged that the rebels held him captive for two weeks, locking him in a storage closet with no care for his injuries,” said the voiceover. “There were no rebels in the apartment when the enforcers completed their raid, and sources have been unable to confirm whether evidence left behind may provide a lead on the rebels’ current whereabouts.”
The story switched over to something else, and Helik looked around at the others with wide eyes.
“Roia,” he said into his wristlet, thankful that she was still on the line. “Can you check who
the human was that worked with Kerfaan Celesk?”
“Sure thing, I’ve got the database right here,” she replied. After a few seconds searching, she said, “Cara Andover.”
“Fuck.”
The two levekk turned to Scott, whose expression had turned worried. “She’s friends with Ellie. We never got on, but…” he glanced at Helik. “Ellie could have gone to her for help.”
Helik hissed out a curse in Levekk Sar, not caring that Scott and Roia could hear. “She could be with the fucking Lodestars?” he said, standing to glare at the human as if it were his fault. “How would—do they take kindly to this kind of thing?” he asked, gesturing at Scott and Devis wildly, his wristlet forgotten.
“I don’t know!” Scott snapped, moving in front of Devis. “But… Cara didn’t sound all that accepting of it the last time I spoke to her.” He sighed, sinking into a sofa and ignoring Helik’s glaring. “Fuck. I knew there was something fishy going on. Cara’s sister was there at her place. Said her levekk was on vacation.”
Devis looked to Helik, her expression worried. “I didn’t see Celesk that night. Which matches with what we just heard.”
“So you’re telling me either enforcers have Ellie, or fucking Lodestars have Ellie?” Helik hissed, his panic rising again.
“They said they didn’t find anyone,” argued Devis.
“You believe that? You’ve met my mother and you believe that?”
“Helik!” snapped Roia’s voice from the wristlet, and Helik jumped so much that he almost shed his scales. “Ellie could be fine. Your message was vague enough that the rebels probably didn’t bat an eye.”
“I dunno,” said Scott. “Cara’s pretty paranoid.”
“That still doesn’t mean anything. Ellie might not have even gone to them.”
“But—”
“The point is, Helik, that we don’t know,” Roia insisted. “So don’t move. And don’t call your mother. I’ll put out some feelers to try and find out what happened at the Kerfaan’s.”
Helik nodded, more to calm himself down than to communicate. “Fine.”
With that, Roia killed the connection, leaving the house-bound levekk to stew.
He’d never felt this powerless in his life. When he was an adolescent, he was used to doing what he was told, no matter how much he regretted not fighting for Calli while he had the chance. Now, he was of an age where he could make decisions for himself, and still he couldn’t help the one he loved. He placed his head in his hands.
Was this how Ellie had felt? Trapped in one place and constantly being told that outside lay only danger? His stomach turned. He’d done that to her. He’d told her those things. If he ever got to see her again, he promised himself that he would never stoop to that level again. What right did he have to clip her wings like some songbird?
He sighed and forced himself not to count the seconds as they ticked away. They only had a few hours until his mother’s influence well and truly ran out. The enforcers were already stationed outside, waiting.
Please, Ellie, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. Please be on your way.
37
It was sunset again by the time Ellie and Anna finally made it to Devis’ place. Ellie led the way as they rounded the corner of a nearby building, but the sight that met her made her gasp, and she hurriedly pulled Anna down behind a bush beside them. The two women shared a look.
“There’s so many of them,” Anna croaked as Ellie peeked over the bushes.
The front of Devis’ apartment building was still drowning in reporters—of all species, except for humans. Some were packing up their cameras and equipment for the night, but plenty seemed to have settled in, their lenses trained on the front doors and the windows of the building high above.
She slumped back down again. “There’s no way we’re going in that way,” she whispered, and Anna grimaced.
“Do you know any other way in?”
Ellie licked her lips, her mind racing. When they’d come to visit Devis a few days earlier, they had gone in another way. They’d been in a transport, and the sleek, black vehicle had sailed straight into the underground parking lot without question.
“Let’s go around to the back,” she said, grabbing Anna’s arm. “There’s a parking lot with an elevator.”
They sneaked out of their bush, giving the collection of reporters on Devis’ doorstep a wide berth. Ellie peered at them as they circled the mob, but she couldn’t see Remmie, the cicarian that had stalked her and Scott. She breathed a sigh of relief; he was the last alien she wanted to see right now.
Anna followed a couple of paces behind as they crept beneath the shadow of the skyscraper, keeping an eye out for any reporters who may have broken away from the group.
Finally, Ellie spotted it. The entrance was large—it could probably fit two transports side-by-side—and it angled down, the bottom of the slope shrouded in darkness. The two humans made a quick dash for it, and as the darkness swallowed them up, Ellie gave a sigh of relief at the fact that the security gate was up, hovering somewhere above their heads. She wouldn’t have even known where to start in trying to get it open, and without her wristlet, she couldn’t call anyone to let them in.
It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the low lights of the parking lot. The space was wide, the ceilings high enough that neither Ellie nor Anna could reach them. The entire place looked like a concrete bunker, and Ellie felt strange walking through it on foot. There was nothing like this out in Manufacturing, and the lack of sunlight—even the blue-tinted sunlight that filtered through the domes—was disconcerting.
But she located the elevator with little trouble, weaving through the transports already parked nearby—some that were low and sleek and barely came up to her chest, and others that towered over her, almost touching the ceiling.
“Do you know what floor they’re on?” asked Anna, coming to a stop beside her in front of the great metal doors.
“Thirty… three? I think.” Ellie bit her lip as she punched in the numbers, hoping she’d remembered correctly.
Bzzst. The elevator buzzed loudly, and a red ‘X’-mark appeared in the window where the floor number should be. “Error,” said a computerized voice. “Proof of residence required.”
Ellie’s stomach dropped. “Shit.”
“I’m guessing you don’t have one of those,” Anna surmised, her voice shaking only slightly.
“Nope.”
“Is there a comm or anything?”
Ellie looked around but came up with nothing. “They probably have one at the front entrance, but…”
“There’s no going that way,” Anna agreed.
“Crap,” Ellie breathed. There was nothing they could do. Maybe if they waited until the sun went down they could sneak in the front without being noticed? But what if those reporters stayed all night? “We might have to stay here until the coast clears,” she said, turning to Anna. “I don’t know what else—”
“Well, well, well. Don’t you look familiar?”
Ellie’s blood ran cold at the voice, and she whirled around to find a purple cicarian stepping out from behind one of the tall transports, his bug-like eyes crinkling with the force of his smile. Behind him was a pindar, who was a few inches taller and carrying a heavy-looking camera over his shoulder.
“I don’t think I know you,” Ellie tried, but Remmie scoffed.
“Oh, I think you do,” he said. “And I’m certainly not going to forget the face of the chatty little human Kaan picked for the face of his campaign.” He stepped forward. “Who’s your friend?”
Beside her, Anna backed up, her lips shut tight.
Remmie snickered. “That’s all right. Shows me for trying to generalize. Can’t expect all humans to have such loud mouths like Ellie here.”
“We don’t have anything to say,” Ellie mumbled, moving closer to Anna until their elbows touched and eyeballing the pindar’s camera lens that now whirred in their direction. “So we’d p
refer not to be filmed.”
“What are you doing over here at Devis Sidana’s residence?” the cicarian asked, ignoring her. “Shouldn’t you be back at Kaan’s place, cleaning his floors or something?”
“I…”
“She’s running an errand,” Anna squeaked. “We both are.”
“Oh, really?” Remmie looked them up and down. “What was the errand? A delivery?” When the two women remained silent, he grinned snidely. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Kaan’s big announcement the other day, would it?”
Ellie frowned, backing away as the cicarian continued to advance. He and the pindar were blocking the way to the parking lot entrance, but if she could just make it to one of the transports, she and Anna might be able to dash around it and get away. Remmie could probably catch up, but the pindar wouldn’t have a chance with the equipment he was carrying. Besides, she thought the two of them could take Remmie. Maybe. He wasn’t that much bigger than them.
“He was pretty cryptic about it,” the cicarian went on, and behind him his folded wings snicked together excitedly. “But I know politicians. You always gotta read between the lines. And to me, it sounded a whole lot like him and Sidana had something in common.” He grinned, his bug-like eyes narrowing. “And if he were to shack up with a human, which would he choose? Some random girl, or the one he let into his home—the one he gave special privileges to…?”
Ellie said nothing, only sidled closer to the transports, and the cicarian chuckled.
“Not much to say now, huh? Come on, this can only help y—”
“Excuse me, but what the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”
All four of them spun around, and Ellie gave a sob of relief when she found Roia standing a few feet away, her clawed hands on her hips and her red teeth bared in a snarl.
For the first time, Remmie’s hairless brows dipped into a frown. “Just interviewing some passersby,” he said, waving a hand innocently.
“Looks like they don’t want to be interviewed,” said Roia, her red eyes narrowing. “You might want to move along.”