Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  “How long will you be staying?” the intake girl asked.

  “I don’t know. Depends on if I like the gig. It certainly hasn’t started well but I thank you for your help all the same.”

  “Do you want any money on the card for gambling?” she smiled, feeling better about the exchange simply for the small expression of appreciation for her efforts.

  “No, but you can load half of this onto it for my expenses and daily room payments. Give me back the rest in cash Ruds, please,” Tyler said, handing over the two thousand Rud chip.

  Taken without a fuss, she received a key card and forty 25-Rud paper bills in return. No. Not quite paper. More like fabric, with a higher fabric content than US Money. Interesting.

  “You can use the lifts or the teleport devices with the card.”

  “Is there a porter to bring my bag?”

  “You are better off taking it yourself, Ma’am.”

  Said in a quiet tone and with a head angle that told Tyler the porters would as soon steal you blind.

  “Thank you.”

  She reached for the pull handle and went to a lift, preferring not to get into a teleport system that could be manipulated to put her anywhere on the station someone wanted to put her.

  On the floor, she saw signs on the ends of each corridor indicating what room numbers were where. Hers was the second row in, first corner room. So she’d get noise from the elevators and pretty much everyone going by her wall. Bed on left, small sofa with chair on the right in the far corner. At the foot of the bed were the sink and fridge. The door next to that the bathroom. It would do.

  She spent a few minutes at the control panel, asking for extra towels and telling the maid service she wanted a weekly cleaning. She would put in the service request when she wanted the room cleaned. Looking around, seeing a small safe in the wall, she decided none of her money would go there. Except for the rings on her fingers and the hundred dollars in cash she’d keep under her left breast, all the rest of her money went into her psionic vault. She would not take the chance on being robbed and at the mercy of the Speenar to pay her bill. She knew that scam all too well.

  “The new agent is named Tyler.You are to kill her as quickly and quietly as you can.”

  Solomon listened to the message once more and looked at the image sent with it. Pretty little blonde thing. He scanned the image into the computer’s facial recognition software and was immediately alerted that she was already on the station. She’d arrived in a stolen Landers ship and a pair of Landers were about to arrive to get her back.

  Landers did not go along with such ruses, which meant she had actually stolen the ship. She had rented a room, 2305, but was not using the name Tyler. She had rather a lot of money of her own. Odd. The AASTT never gave an agent that much money.

  He played the security footage from the shuttle bay, and laughed aloud to see she’d sold that stolen Landers craft within a minute of arriving. This one was no ordinary girl.

  Performing a path trace, he saw she had walked by the gaming tables and was browsing among the vendor carts. Computer off, he teleported to the Middle Emporium to follow her and take the opportunity to meet her. Then he would decide how quickly he would kill her. If he would kill her.

  Outfits hanging, changed into a bustier dress with shawl and a pair of heeled boots, she went up to one of the main casino floors. She wasn’t going to gamble – there were rules against telepaths at the gaming tables – but she could walk along the perimeter. One such walk was all she needed and she went to the Middle Emporium to browse the vendor carts.

  Along the way, pretending not to notice the presence following her, she found a pawn shop and the currency exchange. The pawn shop attendant tried to say it was inferior gold cut with some metal she’d never heard of, which was, of course, complete rubbish. The attendant would give her five Ruds for the ring. She laughed in his face and walked out.

  The currency exchange was legitimate and graded the gold fairly. It would give her twenty Ruds per ring. Twenty times nine rings per bar was one hundred and eighty Ruds per ounce, or near enough. She’d paid…well, Thomas had paid…three hundred and five per ounce. One Rud was equal to almost one and three quarters American dollars. That would be helpful to know. She’d just round up and double prices in her head. If it was one Rud, it was two dollars. Five Ruds, ten dollars. That would be her guide as to whether or not she thought she was being ripped off.

  “You are new to the station,” she heard to her left while at a rack of scarves on a cart, and looked to see the man named Solomon.

  He was tall, several inches over six feet, with hair more blond on top and darker nearer his neck and ears. Not that it was dyed. She sensed more a sun-bleaching. Thin, almost lanky. Certainly he had had an awkward youth. She could see in his eyes that he’d made up for his physical inferiority—he was several inches shorter and almost half the build of the average man from Deek’Trai IV— through simple and unreserved cruelty. He was a very dangerous man.

  “I imagine many hundreds of people are new to the station every day,” she replied. “One more is not that significant.”

  He smiled.

  “You are sent by Earnol to catch Speenar in the act of buying females stolen from other time eras.”

  “Let’s pretend I’m not,” she said. “I’m going to be on vacation for a while. While we’re at it, we can pretend you’ve not gone native and are not happy to help him run this place. Quite the lucrative gig, I’m sure.”

  “Work as a Rolcha for me and I won’t tell him.”

  She sneered at him sideways. “Please don’t insult me. No one here could afford me. I’m the new singer.”

  Grinning with the challenges she presented, he followed her to the teleporter. She slid her card and went to the strip club level. He was twenty seconds behind her, long enough that she was through the room and taking the stage. She tossed something to the music man.

  “Track thirty,” she told him. “Then track 95.”

  The music began to play. Benatar’s version of Helter Skelter, which rocked so hard that her foot stomping on the stage stopped conversation. She grabbed the hanging microphone and yanked down several feet of slack. She sang the words in the Language of the Landers as effortlessly as if she’d sung them all her life.

  Applause and whistling continued through the opening of the second song. Whitesnake’s Slow and Easy. Flashes of leg as she hooked a foot around the pole and slid down and up, teases of skirt pulling up, holding the pole in one hand and bouncing down lower and lower with the beat at the height of the song and one would have thought she was performing a complete striptease for them.

  Song ended, she thanked their exuberant applause and told them she’d be back at the top of the hour to do two more. She took her memory card back and pushed it under her right breast for safekeeping as she stepped down from stage to table to chair.

  “So you’re the new singer,” Solomon said, offering his hand to help her down to the floor.

  She put her hand on his shoulder instead and took the short jump.

  “I will sing two songs five times a night in this room. You will pay for my room and pay for my food and pay me fifty Ruds per set of two songs.”

  He laughed at her.

  “Yeah, you laugh now. By the third set, this room will be as packed as packed can be. By the time I’m done singing that set, every one of them will be dying to fuck something. You’ll have every available Rolcha on her back within ten minutes of me walking off that stage. Look. It’s already happening,” she nodded. “Someone give me a drink.”

  One man after another was heading down the Rolcha stairwell.

  A customer at a table poured her a glass of punch-like stuff. One sip and she decided she liked it.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Sistarian Gin punch,” he replied. “Care to share a pitcher with me in my room?”

  She smiled. “Not tonight, but thank you for the drink,” she said, and turned
back to Solomon. “They would have stayed up here gawking for free for another two hours before going home drunk to hump their wives or jack off. Now the station is making another twenty bucks per man and then will make what he’ll spend on drinks afterward. At least another two drinks. By then, I’ll be back on stage for another two songs. You’ll get another twenty buck hump out of them, plus another set of two drinks after that.”

  “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  “After the next set. It’ll be late enough then that the station will be winding down. I prefer to eat when it’s not so busy. I’ll do my full five sets tomorrow.”

  “Every day, if you want your room paid for every day,” he said rather pointedly, blocking her path.

  “Suits me fine. The station is on a twenty four hour clock, isn’t it? I’ll do the first at the eighteenth hour. That will finish me up at the twenty third hour and give you two hours to milk the patrons one last time before kicking them out or making them get a room. At some point you need to figure out how to save face with the assholes at the AASTT and bring this to a conclusion.”

  He laughed again. “You’re not one for polite transitions, are you?”

  “Is there some reason I should be? If you want to have this discussion in private, let me go on my way. We’ll talk later.”

  He stepped aside. She walked through and to the lift unhurriedly. The lift opened as she reached it. He stood there staring at the closed door for several minutes, thinking many things he would enjoy doing to her. He returned to his seat at the near end of the bar.

  “Who is that?” Speenar asked from his place on the other side of the counter.

  “The AASTT has sent her from the future to find out how you are getting women through time.”

  “So kill her.”

  “Not nearly so soon. There’s something about her I find infinitely intriguing. I’d rather have her as my personal whoreslave—and have that be her idea.”

  Speenar laughed through the smoke of his cigar. “You met her five minutes ago and think you can accomplish this?”

  “All the others from her planet are as weak-minded as rdi meadow sheep. They go where they are pointed and do what they are told. This one is more spirited I will own her soon enough.”

  “Why? Because she would not have supper with you? Would not fall onto your cock when you said hello?”

  “Because she did not try to pretend she was something other than an agent of the AASTT. Not to me, at least. Did the K’Tran get rid of the Landers?”

  “Easily enough. They are on the trail of the ship rather than her,” Speenar said. “They want the expensive machine back, not the little girl who took it and embarrassed them.”

  “Which is something else I find very interesting. Why steal the Landers ship at all?”

  “To get someone’s attention, of course. Mine or yours.”

  “She knew she was coming to find me. She didn’t have to do anything to get my attention,” Solomon denied.

  “Maybe she wants to pretend she is a double agent and wants to make more money working for me. Like you do.”

  “Or maybe she’s young and hated having to wait and do things like the fat old men behind desks told her to,” said the mostly naked woman straddling Speenar’s thigh.

  Solomon stared at her. Hard. “I think you’re right.”

  He extinguished his Sistarian cigar roll in a deliberate back and forth rolling motion that would preserve the tip for later. Putting it away in his metal case, he went to the teleport pad. Accessing the control panel first, he found her alone in one of the alcoves in the Emporium. The machine put him close enough and he crossed the floor to knock on the door to the alcove. To his surprise, she let it open and allowed him into the small, quiet room.

  “I want to apologize,” he said, closing the door behind himself. “If you’ve been dealing with the men on the Congress station, then you have been told what to do and when to do it ever since you got there. And I tried to do the same thing to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever,” she replied, looking out into that vast blackness of space.

  “Can you not even accept an apology without conflict?”

  “I could if I thought it was a sincere apology. You are working for both sides. I cannot trust anything you say or anything you do and we both know it.”

  “You are not much like the other Earth telepaths.”

  “How did you know I’m from Earth?” she asked. “You’ve already been told who I am and where I come from. Your contact has already told you to be on the watch for me. If I die five hundred years before I was supposed to be born, all the more convenient for my enemies.”

  “You have enemies? How is that?” he asked, leaning against the opposite wall from her seat.

  “You know I have enemies. They’ve told you to kill me.”

  “Maybe they have, but I will not. We both need to preserve the fiction we are playing. Speenar needs to think I work only for him. He does not want you dead even though he knows who you are. The fact that someone on the other end wants you dead is not reason enough for me to do it. Quite the opposite. It’s all the more reason to send you back whole and healthy just to piss them off.”

  “What do you propose?” she asked, turning to look at him for the first time.

  Her eyes in the light of the stars, deep blue that flashed green whenever the near green light flashed. She was a confounding sort of beauty. There was something inside her soul. Something buried deep that he knew was there but was hidden behind a veil of iron.

  “I propose that you sing two songs an hour five times a night, starting at the eighteenth hour. Work your way into the inner circle around Speenar. If you should happen to accidentally uncover exactly how the girls are getting here, send your information as you’re supposed to. When they come for him, I will be conveniently out of reach until the round up team has left. Then I will run this station myself.”

  “I will not have to worry about middle of the night intruders?” she asked.

  “Not at all. If you want a larger room, I will have you moved,” he offered.

  “No, the room is fine. Will there be an overhanging threat of blackmail between us?”

  He chuckled under his breath. “You are a seriously hard negotiator, Tyler.”

  “Rose.”

  “I like Tyler.”

  “When I am singing, I am Rose.”

  “You’re not singing right now,” he said.

  “Doesn’t matter. Here, I am Rose. My card says Rose. My room registration says Rose.”

  He stopped, head tilting to regard her from a slightly different angle. “You know absolutely nothing about this era, do you.”

  “Why? What should I know?”

  “Women here generally do what they’re told. Even as a receptionist. You are going to be exceptionally obvious for being so contrary about everything.”

  She smiled. “That’s entirely the point. Tell them I am from a planet called Stubborn 10 and suffer from hardheaditis. I need a watch or for someone to page me ten minutes before it’s time to go on.”

  “Come with me,” he smiled at her joke and pushed off from the wall.

  Into the vendor carts, he went to the one with all sorts of watches. Selecting one that looked like a little purple flower, he handed it over to the seller.

  “Can you set this to chime at ten minutes before the hour from the 18th to the 23rd hour?”

  “I can, sir,” the vendor said, and popped open the back.

  Two minutes of poking with a miniscule tool, he closed it. Solomon paid with cash and put the watch into her hand.

  “You can pin it on yourself, I’m sure.”

  She put it on the inside of her bust line so as not to appear marked or taken in any manner. It began to tweet within half a minute. A press of the face turned the alarm off. She went with him into the lift and up to the strip club. Going into the venue, Solomon did a double take to see how many more men were there. Not quite to capacity but certain
ly full enough.

  Following her past table after table were whispers of “is that her?” Rising applause grew so loud the girl on stage couldn’t finish her act. No one was looking at her anymore. Angry not to make extra money around the edge of the stage, she walked off. Tyler went onstage and tossed the music man the memory card out of her cleavage.

  “Number two hundred and number four hundred.”

  Two hundred being Stevie Nicks’ Wild Heart and four hundred being Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears.

  An easy, sweeping vocal, with gentle words that made the men shut up and watch with that same mesmerization. She ended in a passionate and intricate vocal over vocal. Twenty seconds of applause and then a hard beat with loud stringed something came over the speakers. She was as deadly a viper as he’d ever seen.

  Watching her, the room faded away. All there was… was her. Something in her voice, her energy. Something hit Solomon in a place he’d not been hit before. Ever. He prided himself on his self-control when it came to emotions and females. This time he could feel himself losing that control. Something about her. He was in love. Absolutely, adamantly in love. He did not want to kill her. Not ever. He wanted to possess her. He had to possess her…utterly.

  Music ended, cheers rose and would not stop. This time, the area around the stage was so packed that she couldn’t come down but had to turn around and go into the dressing room instead. She sat there for some minutes, waiting for the crowd to stop shouting and disperse.

  “You said after this set. Let us have supper now.”

  She looked up to see him in the mirror. “Wait a few more minutes. There are some men waiting for me. They get a little crazy sometimes.”

  “Arran, clear a path from the dressing room door to the lift for me,” he said into his watch.

  A moment later, came an All Clear.

  “Now there are not,” Solomon smiled.

  The same K’Tran who had been in the shuttle bay oversaw their exit, and pushed back an overzealous (and very drunk) man who tried to grab at her. Solomon had such a flash of jealousy that he laid the man flat with a single punch. She didn’t see it, rushing forward past the rest calling after her.