by Lea Linnett
Their transport touched down on an open platform a few levels up from the desert floor, and Taz felt eyes on her as soon as she disembarked. She glanced around, finding that most of them belonged to sub-species, but for the first time in her life she didn’t feel at home with them.
The stares were open, curious. Some looked like they’d never seen anything like her, or at least not up close, and Taz quickly noticed that there were no humans in the crowd. Only other sub-species and a few levekk, the latter of whom looked over her interestedly before they noticed Kamanek, upon which they continued on, not sparing her a second thought.
Taz would have felt disgusted, she was sure, if the block of ice now churning up her stomach wasn’t taking up all her attention.
Despite their arid surroundings, the chilly feeling spiked when she felt her comm vibrate in her pocket for the eleventh time that day. She ignored it, biting her lip guiltily. She didn’t need to check to know who it was. The calls had started mid-morning, around when Cara was scheduled to get back from her supply run, and they hadn’t stopped since.
She paused, resting her palm against the buzzing object in her pocket, and Kamanek looked down at her curiously. “You all right?”
Waving him off with a shake of her head, she set off. “Everything’s fine.”
They made their way swiftly down to the ground from the city’s middle levels and headed towards the south-eastern sector of the city’s center, where the largest pleasure quarter—the Keerisar—lay. The light dimmed as they descended, turning artificial where the sun couldn’t reach, and the temperature dropped noticeably. Taz found herself wishing for the sun again as that chill of unease rippled through her unabated.
Even the lower levels weren’t what she’d expected.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Kamanek asked again.
Taz jumped, her hand instinctively going for her knife until she recognized the arm brushing gently against hers. “I’m fine.”
“You just seem cagey. Even more so than usual.”
She tried to glare, but it morphed into a discomfited scowl. “There’s just… more levekk here than I had imagined.”
“More levekk in the Continent 2 capital city. Who would have thought?”
“I thought they’d be up there,” she snapped, rounding on the alien. “Not down here with the sub-species.”
Kamanek looked away, surveying the street from where they’d paused beneath an awning. The buildings above reached so far and so wide that they cast the desert floor in shadow, almost fooling Taz into thinking night had fallen. But that wasn’t what made her nervous.
She’d expected the capital to be as segregated as New Chicago, with the levekk up above and the sub-species below. What she hadn’t expected was for levekk to be passing by in numbers that rivaled those of the New Chicago Senekkar. They weren’t the majority, and their clothing might not have been as worn as some of the sub-species streaming by, but their increased numbers still made her feel as exposed as a stripped back electrical wire. Their scarred faces and the telltale bulges of their concealed weapons didn’t help calm her, either. These weren’t sheltered businessmen; they were scrappy thugs, just like her, but with twice the bulk.
“You know, this is kind of what it’s like on the older colonies,” Kamanek murmured to her, drawing her attention. “Not every levekk gets to be a mining magnate or a kerfaan in the military. Some of them have to make ends meet in whatever way they can.”
Taz laughed derisively, the sound coming out choppy. “Excuse me if I don’t believe they’re doing the same kind of work down here as the sub-species are.”
Kamanek shrugged. “They’re probably not. But it’ll make it easier for us to blend in, at least.”
“As much as a human bodyguard can blend in.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, moving past her. “I don’t think anyone will doubt your abilities with that scowl on your face.”
Taz gripped the hilt of her knife with white knuckles, reconsidering whether she could dump him in the dam they’d passed over earlier and get this job done without him, before forcing herself to relax. She needed to hide her fear of this place and the aliens within it. She needed to keep up the facade of a hardened bodyguard, no matter how hard the infuriating levekk at her side tested it.
They walked further into the Keerisar, the crowds thickening around them. Apart from the higher ratio of levekk, the quarter wasn’t so different from the pleasure quarters at home. Beneath the sprawling towers, tucked between the struts that kept them upright, were many smaller buildings, only three to four stories high and built of cheaper materials. Red, blue, and green neon pulsed from their signs, while inky black alleyways crept between them like spiderwebs. Sub-species were everywhere, some loitering under buildings while others raced through the streets as if an invisible levekk were chasing behind them with a whip in hand. In this city, maybe they were.
Maybe these buildings—brothels, bars, smoke shops, and more—were all owned by levekk, rather than well-off sub-species. Despite the vulgarity of the job, Taz found her anger rising at the thought that the levekk may have usurped sub-species from even that slim of an opportunity.
The only thing that curbed her discomfort were the human faces she caught flashes of within the crowd down at this level. Most of them were older, and belonged to rake-thin people trying to go about their business before the nightlife really kicked in, but they were a little slice of familiarity. Taz tried to take solace in the fact that they weren’t all in chains, like she’d feared.
It was only after a couple hours of poking around that Kamanek and Taz admitted they weren’t getting anywhere in their search for ‘Semar.’
“None of these places are named after him.”
“Or the Silver Veil.”
“And I don’t know what kind of name Semar is supposed to be. Doesn’t tell us anything about him.”
“Suppose we were naive to think it’d be that easy,” Taz grumbled.
“I dunno.” Kamanek looked like he was biting back a smile. “I’ve seen plenty of ‘big-time operators’ who think they’re untouchable and get sloppy. And I’ve managed to find people with less information than this before. That cicarian I mentio—”
“If you’re so good at finding people, stop crowing about it and find this guy.”
He chuckled. “I’m just saying, sometimes the obvious place is the right place.”
Taz looked around, growing increasingly frustrated. “Well, in this case it’s obviously not, so would you make yourself useful and try something else?”
Kamanek gazed at her, his smile lingering for long enough that Taz began to squirm, before he abruptly looked away. She opened her mouth, ready to bite out a heated retort, when the levekk’s eyes widened at something over her shoulder.
“There,” he said, pointing to a hub tucked down in a nearby alley that they hadn’t noticed before. It was just shy of the main drag of the Keerisar, and the angle of the street meant it faced away from the crowds, partially hidden from view and only receiving the barest trickle of the river of people that passed by.
“There what?”
Kamanek grinned at her as he moved past her, gaze locked on the quiet building. “That’s where we’ll ask.”
Taz followed his gaze, almost doing a double-take. Above the heavy curtains drawn across the entrance was a single white neon sign that read, ‘Silver Veil.’ She was so blindsided by the discovery that it took her a few moments to register what the levekk had said.
“Wait,” she said, going pale. “Ask?”
Kamanek turned, walking backwards now and somehow managing to avoid the sub-species rushing around him. “Yeah. I’m going to go in there and ask if anyone knows Semar.”
Taz stood, dumbfounded, until the crowd between them began to thicken and she rushed after him. “You can’t just ask!” she hissed once she was in earshot. “We’re trying to lie low.”
“Hardly ever find anybody by lying low, trust me.�
�� He glanced down at her. “You have to make noise. Get noticed.”
“But—”
“Just trust me, Firecracker. I do this all the time.”
They’d reached the hub, and Kamanek didn’t hesitate before pushing through the drapes that covered the entrance. As Taz slipped in behind him, she braced herself for the wave of noise that usually accompanied these places, the rumble of voices and the quake of the music beneath her feet.
But the hub was quiet. Instead of the booming bass, a soft, staccato tune sang out over the crowd—which itself was far smaller than she’d expected. Only half the tables were occupied, the bar towards the back of the room still boasting a number of free seats, which Kamanek immediately strode towards. Taz followed along helplessly, but tensed her hand at her side, ready to grab for the gun concealed beneath her jacket if she needed it. She plastered an intimidating scowl on her face, trying to look threatening to the patrons surrounding them.
From the looks she received, she needn’t have bothered. The eyes now rocketing toward her were too shocked to care whether she meant business or not. As she scanned the faces, she saw mostly cicarians and a few pindar, as well as one single levekk in the corner. Any of them could be ‘Semar,’ and any of them could be a threat.
Her gaze instinctively lingered on the levekk in the corner. He was huge, even compared to Kamanek, and his eyes followed her without a care for whether she noticed or not. That wasn’t so unusual, but something else about him was—she just couldn’t put her finger on it. He sat alone at his table, a datapad sitting between his bone-covered elbows, and he was still staring.
She itched at the raised pattern on the grip of her gun with a fingernail.
At the bar, Kamanek ordered two glasses of something and motioned for her to sit. She did so, sitting sidelong to the bar with her hands near her weapons, not bothering with subtlety. It wasn’t worth trying, what with the gazes still glued to her.
“By the way, I’m looking for someone named Semar,” Kamanek murmured to the bartender when the drinks arrived, making the cicarian pull up short. “I heard he frequents this quarter. Could you point me in his direction?”
The cicarian blinked slowly in a way that Taz didn’t appreciate. Most she’d met tended towards being jumpy, or at the very least cautious, but this guy’s eyes remained steady, staring Kamanek down as he replied, “Don’t know him, sorry.”
Taz glanced between them, turning to her drink as Kamanek downed his. She recognized it by its color—Pindarro Whiskey, middle-grade. Not one of her favorites, but not bad. She took a sip.
“You sure?” Kamanek prodded, wincing at the burn of the whiskey. “I thought he might work here.”
The cicarian looked warily out at the hub, his wings audibly snicking together behind him. “He doesn’t,” he said after a moment’s silence.
Kamanek grinned. “So where can I find him?”
“I wouldn’t know. He moves around.”
“I’m willing to pay,” the levekk added, his hand hovering over the wristlet that he’d gotten off Mila. Taz thought about arguing that he didn’t have the right to use whatever funds remained on the device, but thought better of it. This was for the Lodestars, after all.
Upon the cicarian’s short nod, Kamanek paid him with a flick of his wrist, and the cicarian’s wings stilled. “Try a place called Sand City. It’s a hub three streets over. He’s usually there.”
“Thank you,” said Kamanek, his smile widening. His gaze flicked to Taz, but only briefly enough to convey his look of, I told you so, as he stepped back from the bar. “Come on.”
Taz threw back the rest of her drink and ignored the way Kamanek’s gaze snagged on the movement. She didn’t have time for his antics, so she motioned for him to get moving, keeping a watchful eye on the other patrons as she followed him out of the hub. On the way, she noticed that the large levekk was missing from his spot in the corner. He’d taken his datapad with him as well.
She snaked her hand into her coat, closing it around her gun in case they were jumped in the doorway, but when the drapes fell away on either side of her, the side street was clear.
“I can’t believe that worked,” she said, glancing around, and Kamanek shrugged.
“I’m good at what I do.”
“Uh-huh. Seemed kind of foolhardy to me. That could easily have go—”
Something jerked in Taz’s stomach as she was yanked back, a thin arm wrapping around her throat and a cloth covering her mouth. She breathed in on instinct, thankfully inhaling nothing but the scent of old material, but it muffled her shout of alarm as she pulled at the hands now gripped tight around her arms. When she looked to Kamanek, she found him surrounded by cicarians. Behind him, the main street was frustratingly out of reach and earshot.
For a moment, she wondered why Kamanek wasn’t making short work of their assailants, them being half his size, but then she saw the wicked knife one of them had gotten up under his chin, and the guns the rest of them sported, and her heart sank.
“Semar’s ready to see you,” the one directly behind Taz said snippily, tightening his grip. “You’re gonna come quietly, right?”
“He is who we came all this way to see,” Kamanek said, sounding surprisingly at ease with the sharp-edged blade sitting flush against his scales. His eyes had tightened, however, his pupils contracted to dangerous slits as he watched Taz struggle against her captor.
She heard wings flutter behind her in what must have been approval, as she was abruptly hauled backwards, further from the noise and light of the main street. She struggled against the grip as the cicarian turned her into an even smaller alley, pushing her up a narrow metal staircase attached to the hub they’d just exited. But no matter how she fought, she couldn’t get a hand on any of her weapons, and all she could do as she was dragged inside the building was glare over the cicarian’s shoulder at Kamanek, who walked along sedately behind her, his cocky smirk looking frayed at the edges.
She was going to fucking kill him. And if he didn’t wipe that smile off his face, she’d make sure she hurt him first.
9
Taz immediately went for her gun when the cicarians released her, only to find three more waiting with their guns already drawn. With a huff, she turned to Kamanek, who walked into the room with far less fanfare, his hands raised in surrender. He looked down his plated nose at her, as if to say, Just wait it out.
She bristled, but re-holstered her weapon, nonetheless.
At that moment, a massive figure loomed out of the shadows. It was the levekk from downstairs, his eyes dark with threat and his expression stern. He was so tall that his head almost brushed the ceiling, and so broad that she expected even Kamanek would struggle against him in a close-quarters fight.
Taz glanced at Kamanek sidelong, hoping to finally see him daunted by something, but he looked as unbothered as ever. He stood tall beside her, meeting the much larger alien’s gaze without blinking, and with that small, inexhaustible smile on his face that frustrated her even now.
“So, you’re Semar?” he asked as the levekk came to a stop before them.
The alien’s brow plate dipped ever-so-slightly. “I am when someone’s been threatening my contacts for information,” he said in a rumbling voice.
“Ah.” Kamanek nodded, his eyes narrowing for the briefest of moments before he smoothed the expression away. “So it’s a decoy name. Allows you to get the drop on anyone who’s sniffing around for the wrong reasons.”
Taz looked between the two levekk, dread creeping through her.
“I don’t know if the theatrics were necessary,” Kamanek continued. “We just want some info on one of your operations.”
“You’re not exactly in a position to be—”
“Oh, right, and what do I call you, if not Semar?”
The levekk paused. “…Niro will do.”
“Another code name?” Taz asked, her lip curling, but the levekk just gave her a long look.
“It will d
o.”
Kamanek grinned, as incapable of staying silent as ever. “So, Niro. We’re looking for the humans you’ve been spiriting away from their homes in New Chicago. Any idea where we might find them?”
Taz decided she would strangle the idiot as soon as they got out of this.
Niro’s face didn’t change, his brow plate frozen in that unhappy dip. “Whatever you think you know, I suggest you forget it quickly,” he growled.
“And why’s that?”
“Because the people you’re looking to tangle with have a lot more resources than a couple of…” He looked them over. “What are you?”
Taz’s hackles rose, her shoulder-blades bunching as the urge to snap forward and punch this guy in the face rippled through her. “We’re Lodestars,” she growled out, stepping up closer to the levekk. “And we know you’ve been stealing humans. Tell us where they are, or I’ll bring our entire fucking force down on your head.”
Niro’s eyes widened. “Lodestars? From what I’ve heard, the New Chicago branch of the Lodestars doesn’t have much of a ‘force’ to bring down on anyone right now.”
“There’s plenty of us,” she bluffed. “Enough to destroy your entire operation. Now tell us where they are!”
“Drop it,” the levekk growled, his voice almost rumbling through the floor. “You don’t understand who you’re dealing with.”
Kamanek’s face opened up in surprise, and he looked the much larger levekk up and down. “You’re not the one running this operation, are you?”
Niro said nothing, and Taz looked between them, wondering what Kamanek had seen.
“No, definitely not,” he continued. “You’re the sacrificial Sektum, running interference for the Kerfaan.”
She raised an eyebrow, completely lost, and when she glanced at Niro she found him looking similarly baffled. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
Kamanek blinked. “In Kerfesk? Have you never played it?”
Something flickered across Niro’s expression then, but he tamped it down before Taz could decipher it, his jaw clenching.
