by Loki Renard
The gate hummed and crackled behind him, making him frown. Small messages could be passed through the gate without issue, but the passing of people made its energy levels spike dangerously. The gate was growing old and unstable, but the king refused to allow him permission to have it maintained. The king was afraid that it if anyone touched it, it might break entirely—a reasonable fear given the unnatural nature of the gate. From what Maxim had learned over time, the gate was a temporal anomaly that had become stable by some strange quirk of nature. That did not mean it would stay stable—and it did not mean that it was safe.
He looked around the apartment and found it similarly empty. It was not difficult to come to the conclusion that she must have wandered into the city. Moving swiftly, Maxim exited the apartment and made his way down the stairs. The elevator would have been quicker, but he was fairly certain she would not have understood how to use it. He was trying to follow in her steps as much as possible, in case she had become stuck somewhere along the way.
There was no sign of her in the lobby, but he checked with the security guard tucked away in a corner.
“Hello, Mr. Monterey,” the guard said with a warm smile.
“Hi, Theo. I’ve had a guest up in my apartment. She’s a young woman, blonde, about five foot two. Have you seen her?”
“Yes, sir, she left a little while ago,” Theo grinned.
“Did you see which way she went? She’s not used to the city and she left her phone behind.” Maxim snorted. “She’d forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
The guard laughed at his joke and tapped through the security footage. The entire building had cameras, including external ones so of course Sabine’s image had been captured.
“Looks like she headed toward Times Square, sir.”
“Thanks.” Maxim tapped the counter. “Appreciate it.”
It had taken him a while to cultivate an accent that blended in, but now he was pretty much indistinguishable from the general melting pot of subtle twangs that made up the vocal tableau of the city.
He headed out toward Times Square, cursing inwardly. His best hope had been that she would be paralyzed with fear somewhere near the apartment. New York was home to millions. A princess could very quickly become lost among the teeming citizenry.
Maxim walked as quickly as he could, restraining himself from breaking into a run. That would have been suspicious. Following the path of least resistance through the crowds, he hoped he was on her tail. Not ten minutes later, his instincts proved as honed as ever.
The princess was standing on a corner. She had not even bothered to change out of her palace attire. To say that she was conspicuous by merit of having a million dollars of jewelry dripping from her was to make an understatement.
She had attracted a small crowd of young people about her. Funny that in a space that contained dozens of people in various costumes and suits, she had managed to draw a crowd. Even in a city like New New York, people still noticed true oddities. A man in an eight foot mech suit barely drew a glance, but a gorgeous young woman wearing a dress that was far too sheer for modesty’s sake, festooned in diamonds and emeralds, was out of place enough to draw attention.
He pushed his way through the crowd and stood in front of her.
“Hello, Sabine,” he said. “I’m Maxim. I’m a friend of your father’s. He asked me to come look for you, remind you it’s time to get home.”
She was beautiful. The women of Ere had a delicacy to them that was quite charming and Sabine was a prime example of their beauty. Her eyes were large and blue, emphasized with dark lashes that curled naturally. Her face was round and soft, her skin blemish free and radiant. Her crimson-pink lips were set in a sweet smile and her hair fell in a shimmering curtain almost all the way to her waist. She looked every inch a princess.
He half expected her to run, or at least look somewhat ashamed at being caught in the act of escaping Ere but instead she looked at him as if he were a bug, her upper lip curling with disdain as her pale gaze excoriated him silently.
“I don’t know you,” she said, her dulcet tones tinged with rebellion.
“Well, I know you,” he said. “You need to come with me. Now.”
One of her new found friends piped up. “Leave her alone, man. She says she doesn’t know you.”
“Sabine…” he growled her name.
She remained unrepentant.
“I don’t know you,” she repeated. “Leave me alone.”
Maxim considered his options. He would not be able to take her now without causing a scene and already there were no fewer than three surveillance drones panning the immediate area. If the police were called, there would be real issues. He had the proper documentation, but she did not. And if they ran an iris scan and worked out she wasn’t in the system… it wouldn’t be good.
“Sabine…”
“Quit it, man!”
The little crowd was starting to boil with agitation. Maxim growled inwardly and shot a harsh glower at the spoiled princess. She deserved to be turned over his knee and spanked right there and then, but that would draw attention and that was the last thing he could risk. She had no idea how much danger she was in, or how much surveillance was taking place at any given moment. The young people gathered around her had hawkish, desperate looks in their eyes. They didn’t care about her so much as they cared about her careless display of wealth.
With no choice in the moment but to comply, he moved away just a little, far enough that he wasn’t in her eye line any more. She forgot about him almost instantly, and returned to the conversation she’d been having. Maxim really wasn’t sure what was happening between her and the crowd. They seemed to be taking things off her. But if she was being mugged, it was the most amicable mugging he had ever seen.
He watched as she started trading away her jewelry for their clothing.
“There’s no way this shit is real,” one of the guys said.
“It’s real. I’ve got lots of it,” she said. “You can have it—I’ll swap you.”
“Swap me for what?”
“Your jacket.”
Maxim gritted his teeth. Before his very eyes, a princess of Ere was getting changed on the street, slipping a pair of tight jeans on under her dress, then peeling that off to give to one of the girls. Her upper body was totally naked for a moment before she pulled a grimy shirt on over her head, apparently thrilled by the clothing. A cheer went up as her breasts came into public view.
He groaned to himself. She had no understanding whatsoever of what was appropriate and what wasn’t, the confused smile and little blush on her cheeks indicated she was surprised by their reaction. Surprised, but not really ashamed.
He rubbed his palms together. They were itching to land across the generous rear of the little royal brat who was putting them both at risk with this display. He was still shocked at her brazen refusal to acknowledge him. True, they didn’t know one another, but she knew well enough who he represented and she should have respected the king enough to do as she was told.
There was no way to catch her until she was alone for a moment. Judging by the way her newfound friends were still clustering around her, that was going to be a little while.
Very much unhappy with the situation, and very well aware of how much potential danger she was in if even one of her admirers became aggressive, Maxim kept out of sight but followed them as they began to move, sweeping her along with them out of Times Square and toward quieter streets.
* * *
Sabine was thrilled with the way her first foray into the other world was going. She had already gathered a small court of subjects who seemed thrilled with shiny baubles. They were chattering with one another with all the glee of peasants receiving a fresh tub of lard for their cooking pots. She didn’t understand a lot of what they said. The language was common between them, but many of the words were foreign to her and much of the context was also lost on Sabine.
They walked for a time, movi
ng away from the main square and into more interesting areas where the lights were a lot less bright and fewer people crowded the pavements. Suddenly, they stopped.
“Hey, we’re just going to, uh, see about some stuff,” the girl who had pulled her from the road said. “Wait here. Don’t move. And don’t come in. It’s, uh, locals only.”
“Okay,” Sabine smiled. She watched them go into a nearby store, and wondered what was in there, and how long it would take to become a local herself.
Suddenly, strong hands wrapped around her waist and hauled her into an alley. A large hand was clapped over her mouth, preventing her scream of fear from being heard. She thrashed about for a terrifying couple of seconds before she was turned about and found herself looking into the angry glower of the man she had told to go away earlier. He had been doing a good job of blending in with the human population, but she had known the moment he laid eyes on her what he was. One of her father’s lap dogs. A handsome one, perhaps, but still a servant.
He was very tall and obviously quite muscular. His dark hair was cut in a sweeping style that fell more to the right side of his head than the left, though as she looked at him he pushed it back with one hand and it formed a slick crown of sorts. His eyes were like emeralds. His jaw was quite prominent, but that could have been because it was clenched with annoyance at her. There was a little bit of dark stubble marking the hard slabs of his cheeks, as if it had been a day or two since he’d last shaved. His nose was strong and long, but had obviously been broken at least once given the slight crook toward the tip, and she saw a scar almost hidden, but not quite running from under his ear down his neck. It looked thick and old. One of her father’s soldiers then. Or, no. Maybe not a soldier. No mere soldier would be allowed to go to the other world. He had an air of rugged independence about him, and obviously he was accustomed to this world.
She took every little bit of him in, while simultaneously appearing to dismiss him entirely. Handsome and powerful or not, he had no right to lay even a finger on her, and yet both his large hands were wrapped around her wrists, holding her in place. She would have liked to have pulled her hands away, but twist as she might, he held her easily.
“What are you doing? Get your hands off me!”
“You know what I’m doing, Princess. I’m taking you home.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “You can go back to my father and tell him I’m not coming back. I like it here. People are really nice. They like me. I’ve made friends.”
“You have not made friends. You’ve made leeches,” he said. “You gave them thousands of credits worth of jewels, you know that?”
She screwed up her face and shrugged. His words were meaningless to her. “What’s a credit?”
He snorted at her ignorance. “You don’t know anything about this world.”
“No, but I’m going to find out. You can tag along if you like, but I’m not going back to Ere. It’s so boring compared to this place!”
“You’re going back now,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Come on. Don’t make a scene.”
“I will make a scene,” she threatened. “If you try to force me to go back I’ll scream until my friends hear me. They’re nearby.”
“They’re selling what you gave them for capital credits,” he said, as if that was supposed to make sense to her. “They’re not going to come back for you.”
“Of course they will. They’re just…”
“Leaving you behind with their old rags and making off with your riches.”
“They aren’t! They’re just over there. Come see!”
He had loosened his grip a little and that was all Sabine needed. She pulled away and ran into the store where her new friends had gone. When she got inside, there was no sign of them. The store was empty aside from a man in fancy black clothing who looked at her with a sneer.
“What happened to the people who came in here?”
“You’re an accomplice, are you?”
“What? To what?”
“Stay there. I’m calling the police. Your friends might have gotten away, but you won’t.”
“What? Police?” She had no idea what he was talking about, but it was pretty obvious that it was bad news.
“Don’t run. I have the evidence right here.”
She looked at the counter and saw that some of her jewels were there, dumped, apparently.
“Those are mine!”
“So you admit it.”
The guardian entered behind her. For the first time, she was actually glad he was there. Something confusing and frightening was going on.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“I’ll attend to you in a moment, sir. I’m sorry, but this young lady is part of a group trying to sell stolen jewels.”
“What makes you think they’re stolen?”
“These diamonds have perfect clarity, sir. They do not belong to the trash that came in here, of that I’m certain.”
“They do not belong to the trash, no. They belong to Princess Sabine. This young woman standing before you.”
The jeweler’s skepticism was insulting. “I hardly think her a princess, sir.”
“It amuses her to dress like a street rat,” the Ere warrior said. “But I assure you, she is of royal blood.”
“And who are you?”
“I am her handler,” the man said, casting a significant look at Sabine. “Unfortunately the princess likes to explore on her own. It leads her into trouble.”
“Whatever your story, I will not turn these over to you,” the jeweler said, his hand curling protectively around the stones.
“Keep them. They are trinkets. We are sorry for the trouble. Come, Sabine. We have little time to waste.”
Sabine let him take her by the hand and draw her out of the store, hastily putting as much distance between themselves and it as possible.
“Wow, he was going to report me to the authorities!” Sabine let out a little giggle. “I’ve never been reported to authorities before. What fun it is being common!”
* * *
Maxim looked down at the pale-haired princess and once again, restrained himself from making a rather large scene in disciplining her deserving rear. She was so impossibly naive. Worse than that, she was ignorant. The world she found herself in was nothing like Ere, not in any sense. It was a world in constant flux and change. Times Square and the immediate region were owned entirely by the Nile Corporation. The jeweler was a shady small-time independent operator who had likely never seen a haul akin to the one that had just been handed to him thanks to the pack of juvenile offenders.
“Thanks for helping me,” Sabine said, finally showing a small amount of gratitude. “That man was very rude.”
Rude was the least of her worries, but she didn’t know enough to know that.
“We are going back to the apartment. Now.”
“Fine,” she pouted. “But I’m not going back to Ere.”
Maxim didn’t waste his breath arguing with her. The sooner this blonde brat was sent back where she came from, the better. He walked swiftly, clasping her hand and forcing her to practically trot alongside him. Her legs were not nearly as long as his and she was not in anywhere near as good shape. He could hear her panting a little in the effort to keep up, but he did not slow his pace one bit.
Two blocks out from the apartment, he stopped. A crowd had formed at the end of the block leading to his building, staring at smoke pouring out of one set of windows.
“There was some kind of explosion,” someone was saying. “Boom!”
Maxim set his jaw. He knew what must have happened. He and Sabine going through the gate one after the other must have set up a destabilizing resonance that had only increased in their absence. A skilled technician might have been able to save the gate, but in the absence of such a person, it had likely imploded on itself, destroying the apartment and the floors above and below. Fortunately, they were all empty and owned by E
re.
The destruction of the gate was one thing, but before he could even begin to consider that problem, there was a more pressing one. Ahead of the crowd the block was lined with black cruisers bearing the markers of the Nile Corporation’s security and safety team, NSAS. The air around his building was thick with nano-drones, a dark cloud of tiny independently controllable drones capable of feeding video and sound through to the operators miles away.
His stomach sank as he realized they had walked up just in time for highly targeted surveillance deployment. Like a swarm of locusts the drones rose up into the air, split in two, then headed in separate directions. They would comb the streets, checking everyone’s irises, noting signs of suspicious activity. Most of the people on the streets ignored them completely. NSAS was a commonplace sight and sweeps took place regularly.
“This way,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand tighter. “Quickly. Now.”
She must have understood the urgency in his voice, because for the first time she actually did as she was told. He rushed down the street at a quick stride.
“Keep your head down,” he said, as the buzz of the drones grew louder. They were almost overhead. Dammit.
He pulled her into a building and dragged her down an open stairwell into a basement. She screeched in protest and he covered her mouth with his hand, no time to tell her to be quiet. He carried her to the furthest corner, where by some divine chance there was a little office built in. He entered the office, shut the door, closed the blinds, and kept his hand over the princess’ mouth.
Bzzzzzzzzzz
At least one of the drones had made it down after them.
Bzzzzzzzzzz
It was circling the basement. He didn’t know if it was looking for them, or if it had simply been caught in a stream of air created by their entrance and drawn down.