Death Drop (The D-Evolution)

by Sean Allen

  “NO, PLEASE! It was a misunderstanding—I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “It’s on the house…all of it…just, please—LET ME GO!”

  Dezmara held him in the excruciating position for a moment and considered his offer. She decided she didn’t want to hurt him and risk a fight with that monster of a doorman, or any other lackeys that might be called for back-up, before she had a chance to gather information on the Humans. She needed to make nice so she could recon the tavern.

  “You’re right,” she said as she pulled him closer to distract him and carefully slid the pistol from the counter and slipped it into her jacket. “This has been a terrible misunderstanding. Forgive my overreaction—I’ve been in deep space for too long.” She gently released Buego’s arm, plucked a bar napkin from its holder, and offered it to him. He hesitated for a moment, still staring at Dezmara with a look somewhere between rage and terror; then he reluctantly took the small square of material from her hand. He dabbed at the beads of sweat that had collected at the base of his shiny mane and rolled down his nose and cheeks without taking his eyes off of his assailant.

  She flipped another one hundred toloc piece onto the stone, and it clanked to a stop just a few inches from its twin. “Keep the change,” Dezmara said as she slid back into her seat, pulling her glass with her. Buego eyed the money intently and Dezmara could see the struggle between greed and fear on his face, but it didn’t take long for his lust to win out. He quickly swept the coins from the bar and then wobbled away without a second look.

  Her ruse had worked. If he had noticed the gun was missing, the hefty sum of money jingling in his pocket convinced him it didn’t matter—he could buy ten revolvers for that price. Satisfied that she wasn’t in any immediate danger, Dezmara took an easy breath and lightly touched her covered fingers to the glass in front of her. She very much wanted to taste its contents—she hadn’t had a strong talsey in a long time. But the drink was renowned for clouding judgment in just a few sips, and if that weren’t reason enough, she wasn’t able to drink anything when she was wearing the kranos. She would have to enjoy a nice glass of the hard stuff back on the ship—this one was just for show.

  Dezmara adjusted the controls on the kranos to filter out the background noise as she scanned the characters sitting around her. Space ports were melting pots of the universe. There was always an eclectic mix of individuals to be found crowding the markets and lining the walls and bar stools in their pubs. Luxon, as secure as it was, was the busiest port she could remember visiting, and she hoped the recent buzz about Humans, coupled with the concentration of travelers, would pay off in reliable information.

  Dezmara’s helmet was an excellent tool for spying. The blackened eye ports concealed where she was looking and made it much easier to analyze whatever and whomever she pleased. Of course, with the kranos’ high-tech programming, she could detect conversation quite easily, even in a crowded room, but the fact that she could look covertly at the speakers was essential. She could usually tell how much of a story was complete bullshit by looking at the storyteller—especially their eyes. Very young pilots and old dusters were guilty of the heaviest exaggeration when they told a tale: the rookies hoping to make a name for themselves and the old-timers hoping someone would remember them when the end finally came. There also was the drinking to consider, but Dezmara had overheard her fair share of stories through the years. She had good instincts for what was valuable and what was drunken jabber.

  She turned casually to her left and glanced at the packed dance floor for a moment before fixing her sights on the duster sitting closest to her. He swayed unsteadily on his stone perch, holding tightly with both hands to the large mug in front of him. Bushy, white brows and a scraggly beard curled out from underneath his leathery cap. He winked a dizzy eye at Dezmara and smiled warmly. She nodded politely in return and continued on. The spaces between the stools were full—mostly with people nodding their heads in time with the music and trying desperately to catch the attention of one of the bartenders—but these patrons weren’t there for the conversation. In fact, Dezmara doubted any of them had lived long enough to have heard the legend of Humankind; although, she admitted, it was tricky to assume the ages of so many different species—she didn’t even know her own age.

  The bystanders dabbed the perspiration from their brows with their shirts’ sleeves before grabbing a drink or two and heading back to the floor to work up a sweat again. Dezmara shifted her gaze steadily around the bar as the kranos analyzed the various noises, strange clicks, and foreign words projecting loudly from alien mouths and adding to the clamor of the pub. Most conversations were either about the band—which was getting rave reviews—or shouts for beverages followed by curt responses for payment. Dezmara’s heart sunk as her search closed in on the opposite end of the stone shelf. There was nobody of interest standing or sitting there, just somebody sporting a t-shirt with a picture of the band on it waving his money in the air.

  She felt like all the hope she ever had of finding out who or what she was had been sapped from her body by cruel fate. She was out of time and she couldn’t risk losing her spot as number one runner in the universe—and the opportunity for searching that it afforded—on a rumor, even if it was the best lead she had had in eight long years. “Dammit,” she said as she pushed against the bar and slid backwards from the stool. She felt her feet, heavy with the tingling buzz of loneliness, fall to the floor one after the other like discarded ballast from a star freighter. And then she froze.

  Heldepar. The word hung in glowing orange letters on the right side of the kranos’ display, and Dezmara curled one corner of her mouth in a brief moment of confusion before taking a sharp breath of disbelief. The word flashed three times in its native tongue and then transformed into something that had appeared in the helmet only twice before. Dezmara couldn’t help but feel a growing surge of energy charge through her body as it flashed in its translated form. It was a word that meant so much to her, even though she didn’t truly understand what it meant to be Human…Human…Human.

  Dezmara tapped the helmet controls to amplify the conversation and locate the source. The kranos gave out a tiny hum followed by numerous clicks as shutters fanned out in succession to encircle the eye ports and then telescoped outward several inches. They moved back and forth—making several adjustments—before finally settling into focus. A small stitch of white fabric appeared in her view from behind the elaborate fountain, only to disappear again, but she couldn’t see anyone sitting in the second to last stool on the opposite side of the bar. She guessed the person was balanced on the edge of the square stone and leaning forward as far as he could, rocking with the ebb and flow of banter as he spoke to someone sitting exactly across from Dezmara on the opposite side of the Triniton carving. The kranos was picking up everything they said, but she had to see them or the words just wouldn’t seem real.

  Dezmara quickly moved down the length of the countertop and stopped just short of its apex. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see the figure behind the fountain, but she didn’t want him to spot her and become suspicious either, so this was as far as she dared go. She shouldered her way between two youths waiting for their next round. They scowled at her, each of them ready to fire a caustic challenge at the intruder encroaching on their hard-fought territory. Both turned their bodies toward her to make their respective stands and were simultaneously dumbstruck. They stood as still as Triniton statues, ogling at the oddity of the kranos and the peculiar protrusions extending from its face. At the same time, they decided that another drink wasn’t that important and scurried away with several backward glances before melting into the crowd. Dezmara hadn’t noticed them. She was plugged into a conversation about Humans, and she now had a good view of the character wearing the white shirt.

  His neck and shoulders were thick, which gave him an almost hunchback appearance. But Dezmara could tell this man had lived his life on a ship, and his shape was the result of countless hours of toil before the
mast. His attire gave it away. His white shirt billowed at the sleeves from under a red vest, and his dark pea coat lay on the bar next to him. Billions of planets in the universe had seas and, in a time before the Durax, shipping goods across vast stretches of water had been routine on any number of them. Of course, sailing a ship that was bound to a planet was far more dangerous when creatures with almost limitless power want to destroy you—there are only so many places to go. And that is why so many sailors traded their love of the sea for wings to the heavens, for the infinite ocean of space and a chance to remain free. Most planets fell long ago to Duraxian rule, but sailors were men of tradition—not to mention deep superstition—and no matter how long they flew among the stars, no sailor would ever refer to himself as a pilot, although—technically—that’s what they were.

  Most sailors were unrefined and unruly, but they were honorable down to their bones and Dezmara felt like she was cut from the same cloth. She secretly liked sailors more than pilots—they always seemed more diverse and interesting. This one had a long neck that was lined by a strip of dark, bristly hair that stood on end and ran onto his head, ending just before his brow in a tangled mess. The fur that was visible outside of his shirt—including the rest of his neck, the backs of his hands, and his face—was cream colored with black streaks. The sailor was focused intently on the mystery person across from him as he spoke between gulps of stout.

  Dezmara turned down the background noise another level as the band finished the current song and the crowd cheered excitedly. The only thing that was sounding through the kranos now was exactly what she wanted: news about Humans.

  “Are you sure?” the mystery man asked in a quivering voice.

  “That’s what I heard—Human!” the sailor said. His voice was high and nasally—like a constant whine—and it hurt Dezmara’s ears to listen to him.

  “And it’s here? On Luxon?”

  “At this very moment!”

  In eight tormented years, she had never heard anything so definitive: there was another Human and it was close by! But was it true? Where did these two hear it? Dezmara’s heart was pounding in her ears, and she had to dial up the volume on the travelers until it was almost unbearable.

  “They say it’s a she, a female,” the sailor said as he raised his brow and held out his mug toward his obscured companion for emphasis.

  Dezmara’s heart skipped a beat and a subconscious spark flickered somewhere in the back of her mind that told her something wasn’t right, but it was too weak to overcome her curiosity. She leaned farther over the bar. Streaks of sweat ran down her face beneath the stifling helmet as her heart hammered against her breast like machine gun fire. She grabbed the small revolver she had swiped from Buego and moved it into the outside pocket of her flight jacket.

  “Who would’ve guessed,” the mystery man said in a hushed voice. “The Ghost is Human and a female!”

  Dezmara stumbled backward as the tiny spark of fear in her mind erupted into an inferno that consumed her entire body. “It’s a goddam trap—SHIT!” she cursed. Her arms flailed to her sides as she tried to keep from falling. She crashed into several people behind her and they forcefully shoved her back. She caught her balance and whipped around, reaching under her jacket and gripping the handle of the right blade on her back. But instead of a threat, Dezmara turned to find that she inadvertently set off a chain reaction of common, youthful exuberance. The kids she slammed into were passing the gesture on to their neighbors and bouncing to the rhythm of the music.

  She turned back toward the bar as she reached up and pressed the controls on the kranos to reestablish contact with Simon and the Ghost. “Simon, come in! We’re in trouble—we’ve got incoming!” she shouted into the helmet. “Simon, do you copy? They know who I am! They know I’m Human! Simon, goddamit, COME IN!” She waited for an acknowledgment as she gulped the sickening, humid air beneath her hood in panicked breaths. But all she heard from the other side was the terrifying, empty crackle of static.

  She quickly scanned the room as her survival instincts kicked into overdrive. She had no idea where the multiple passages behind the Triniton statues that lined the walls of the main room went, and she knew taking any one of them was a fool’s gamble. Her best bet was to go back the way she came: past the giant doorman, up The Boulevard, through The Boneyard and the marketplace, through the heavy door, and across the long dock to the Ghost. Now that she thought about the route, it sounded like a fool’s gamble too, but at least she was familiar with the path and knew something about what stood in her way. She glanced up toward the balcony and saw Buego standing between two statues, talking excitedly over his shoulder. He motioned toward the wrist Dezmara had almost snapped like a twig and then pointed directly at her. The big doorman appeared alongside him with kill-crazy eyes and a sour grimace. Buego flashed a slimy grin at Dezmara as the bouncer quickly disappeared behind the sloping wall to the right. “Here he comes,” she said to herself. “He’s coming to collect his bounty, and I doubt he’ll go for the ‘alive’ option.”

  Dezmara took off at a dead run. She cut nimbly through the crowd and locked her sights on the bar where it met the back wall on the right hand side. She sprinted ahead, gaining momentum with each stride of her long legs. She crouched slightly, building power for her escape move, when suddenly the path before her darkened with the wobbly shapes of two drunken sailors. Dezmara lowered her right shoulder and knocked the man closest to her back into the crowd and then gave his friend similar treatment with her left side. The path to the countertop was clear again but she had wasted tremendous energy and a sliver of doubt pierced her thoughts. “C’mon, girl!” she said sternly as she gnashed her teeth and leapt from the floor.

  She sailed over the heads of two patrons, and her boots landed lightly, one after the other, between their half-empty glasses before she was airborne again, gliding toward the left arm of the fountain statue at the back of the bar. She bounced lithely from the arm to the statue’s head and, without a moment’s pause, launched herself up the wall. She stretched out, grabbing the ledge and pulling hard to continue her ascent. As she crested the top of the barrier, she tucked into a ball and somersaulted onto the pathway below. She landed at the foot of the Triniton statue she had hid behind earlier just as the two lovers that had taken her spot were exiting. They fell backward with frightened looks and a few choice words before scampering back into the cave.

  Dezmara didn’t waste any time looking back down the corridor to see where the bouncer might be. She was running all out for the exit. She hoped that he had rounded the end of the wall onto the main level before she had dropped down onto the passage, or that he was too focused on his task to notice the commotion behind him. She took some comfort in knowing that, even if he did notice her not-so-subtle landing, she had a head start, and she doubted he was fast enough to catch up with her. Unfortunately, Dezmara was wrong on all accounts.

  Her sudden appearance on the walkway startled more than just the loving couple. Several other partygoers jumped back with frightened jolts and loud curses as Dezmara dropped between them. The doorman, though brutish, was not entirely stupid. After a while, any bouncer worth his salt developed a keen eye for any movement that didn’t fit naturally into the scene, anything that could mean trouble, and the scattering of people caused by Dezmara’s escape certainly qualified. Something flashed in the corner of his eye, and the doorman stopped at the end of the aisle. He turned suddenly to see his quarry splitting the crowd of people as she headed for the exit, and he roared with contempt. The big ape’s giant fists pounded the ground, and his short legs pumped against the cold stone floor as he charged after Dezmara with ferocious speed. Terrified customers pressed themselves flat against the walls as his huge shoulders brushed past them in a rush of air and angry grunts.

  The small shutters around the oculo—the kranos’s rear ocular port –retracted and Dezmara saw a vision of the doorman rushing at her on the right side of her view. The small numbers tracki
ng his distance didn’t have time to form complete digits and became nothing more than a pulsing, orange warning light. Dezmara crested the lip of the incline as it flattened out into the foyer and wheeled around just as the numbers in the helmet flashed to zero. The tails of her jacket fluttered behind her as she turned in a crouching spin. She began to reach into her pocket for the small revolver when she paused for a split second, caught between her will to survive and her instinct to protect others. She decided that the blades would be perfect for an up-close brawl; there would be less chance of collateral damage. With her mind made up, she changed tacks and reached for her left blade. Unfortunately for Dezmara, the bouncer knew exactly what he was going to do and didn’t hesitate for one instant.

  The behemoth slammed into her with bone shattering force, and she let out a sickly whimper as the air was forced from her lungs. The green display inside the kranos blurred as Dezmara’s head bounced off the floor with a loud crack. The screen cleared itself as she skidded to a stop in the center of the balcony. She rolled to her knees and struggled to fill her lungs, but she couldn’t. Her brutal attacker rushed in again, swinging forward on his oversized arms and bringing the shin on his stumpy right leg to bear on her exposed flank. The powerful impact was accompanied by an audible crunch, and a ghastly howl spilled from the kranos as Dezmara was launched from the ground and turned a complete revolution in the air. She crashed back down to the floor with her chest on fire, but she couldn’t inhale to extinguish the flames. The bouncer had scooped her up from behind in his vise-like arms and was crushing her to death.