by Greg Dragon
“Why don’t you take that hood off, sister? You’re supposed to be relaxed in here,” she said.
Marika carefully removed the hood and patted down the long, black hair of her wig. She watched the girl’s eyes to read for discovery and hoped that she wouldn’t be forced to take her head and slam it down into her upturned knife. But the girl only beamed and glanced around, so Marika relaxed and kept her knife at bay.
“Relaxed, eh? You should be taking your own advice.” Marika said, the Tyheran language flowing naturally from her tongue. It came out quickly, like a native born to speak the language, and Marika almost covered her mouth when she realized that she was talking.
“Relax in here and some shota’s hand would be up my…” The girl smiled and cleared her throat to stop herself from finishing the thought. “You’re cute. I like you. What can I call you, and what can I get you to drink?” she asked.
“Call me Rika, short for Marika. I’ll take a…you know what? Why don’t you surprise me?”
“Your eyes are interesting,” the Carian said with a look of innocent curiosity on her face. “You an outsider? Like, not an outsider – bad choice of words, but are you visiting? Veece, I mean. Maker, I can’t talk today. Are you visiting here on some business, Rika?”
“ARLA!” A gruff Ranalos shouted at her from the bar and with a motion so smooth it was like an assassin, the girl hopped to her feet, balanced the tray on her palm, and winked at Marika.
“I’ll be back with your drink and hopefully some more conversation,” she said as she left, and Marika watched her go with a new curiosity. The girl was a Carian, a beautiful race. They looked human but had hair that lightly covered their bodies. Carians had horns like the rams on the planet Vestalia, and this girl, Arla, had tiny horns that curled neatly over her hair and hooked back to the front beneath her ears.
Marika had thoughts of what she could do with those horns, but she refocused on her objective when she saw a trooper looking at her. She watched a pair of Carians kick over some chairs, then climb atop the tables to begin dancing. For all the bad that was going on in Luca, Marika realized that for the citizens of Veece, life was pretty sweet. They all seemed to either love their emperor or weren’t interested enough to care about his politics.
There seemed to be nothing but beauty in the world of Luca, at least to a blood-drenched Casanian orphan turned assassin, turned Phaser. The men and the women were pretty—like Marian, their world was beautiful, and their troubles all stemmed from one power-hungry man and his enemies.
The door kicked open all of a sudden, and a team of troopers marched in. One of them walked over to the deejay, who was an older Daltak. The trooper threw his equipment to the side and grabbed him by the neck.
“This man is a dangerous member of the Tyheran rebels,” one of the troopers announced and then dragged him out by his throat. After they left, another man—a Tyheran this time—picked up the music box and placed it back on the table. The dancing and drinking resumed as if nothing had happened.
Marika watched all this happen while the pretty Carian, Arla, placed a wine glass in front of her. The glass was filled to the brim with a yellow liquid, and there were tiny creatures jumping around on the surface of it. Marika looked up at her to see if it was meant to be a joke.
“Poor Orion,” Arla muttered as she placed the glass down. She turned to walk away.
“How much do I owe you?” Marika asked.
“Nothing. It’s on me, pretty lady,” Arla said, her once happy face saddened by what had just transpired.
“You knew that rebel?” Marika asked under her breath, and Arla stared at her as if trying to work out if she would admit more or shut her mouth. “Oh, come on, Arla, I am not a Felitian, so don’t worry about being honest with me.”
Arla reached across the table, lifted Marika’s drink and took a sip, then wiped her mouth and said, “Who cares, anyway? I was his friend. I mean, I’ve been his friend for about three months now. He taught me how to blow a horn the proper way, and he was just a very nice person.” She looked as if she wanted to cry. “I don’t think it’s true, this whole rebel thing, but even if it isn’t, they will just kill him to keep the rest of us in check. I’m so sick of this, Rika. You don’t understand. Enjoy the Swamp Sour, it’s our specialty, and my favorite drink here at Riyor’s.”
She spun and rushed back to the bar, and Marika knew that she had gone off to cry. She looked at the glass and its moving surface and then threw caution to the wind and took a sip. It was a cold, sweet joy to her lips, tongue, throat, and then her insides. She stared at the glass as if it would give up its secrets as she lifted it again and drank the rest.
“Veece is both terrible and amazing,” she muttered to herself in Tyheran, and then decided that it was a good time to leave the premises. She deposited a token card into the table and left Arla an extremely generous tip. She then stepped out to begin the long walk home, and when the cold air hit her, she pulled up the hood to cover her ears. About ten minutes in, she felt the effects of the drink and the night was no longer cold, but hot and exciting. Walking became floating and she let her hair flow, not even noticing the many stares she received as she slipped past the partygoers of the night.
“Let it flow sister, yeah!!” A human woman screamed drunkenly at Marika and let her own hair out from the complex bun that held it in place. A man who looked to be her husband caught up with her, then spun her around and slapped her in the face. Marika went for her knife but caught herself, then looked around, noticing for the first time that everyone was staring at her.
“Why are you staring at me when it’s this piece of crap that just slapped an innocent woman?” she screamed at them, her words slurred.
“Disgusting creature, control your hair!” a woman yelled and as she looked around she realized that none of the other Tyheran women wore their hair down like she did.
Marika stumbled away and pulled up her hood, disappointed that a crowd of women were okay with a large man slapping a tiny woman. She made special effort to commit the man’s face to memory. He better be on a transport out of here in the morning, she thought, or tomorrow when I’m on my rifle, I will find him in the crowd and blow his thyping head off.
Memory 9
When Marian first jumped to Luca, she thought that the snowy moon was freezing cold. But that was a sauna compared to the temperature on the side of the mountain. She was adding the finishing touches to an elaborate lean-to when the cold sent daggers through her fingers and made them numb. She was still wet and the night air was freezing, but she was determined to finish the hut that would keep her dry and hidden from any patrols.
Marian secured the logs and adjusted the branches, blocking any hole that she could see. She wondered if she had enough bushes to conceal the shelter from the Fels. When she trained as a Phaser, part of the survival course had been to build a lean-to out of fallen branches. It was very much like the one she had to build now, a rushed shelter, which was undetectable by the enemy. She felt unsure and out of practice, and though the shelter was imperfect, she hoped it would be enough to keep her alive.
After torturing herself with doubts and suppositions, she decided that what she’d built would have to do. She needed warmth, so she went inside and gathered some of the stones she had collected earlier. She powered down the rifle’s laser blade and turned on the torch to heat the rocks. These were “Tyheran coals,” a strange phenomenon that was exclusive to her planet. They were often used for the worst kind of torture, but tonight she intended to use them for survival.
She pointed the torch towards the ground and burned a semicircle near her toes. It felt good, having that warmth, but she caught herself immediately. What if you burned your toes off, you silly girl? she scolded herself. You can’t clone here or heal it away. Think, Marian, think!
She heated the stones and piled on more until she made a pyramid of intense heat. Her plan worked, but it grew too hot and before long she was tempted to remove her cl
othes. She took out her water bottle and splashed the stones but this made things much worse. Steam rose from the rocks and burned her skin and she punched the ground in frustration.
“I am so terrible at this outdoorsy stuff,” she said, and then lay on a bed of leaves and mounted her rifle. She kept the barrel pointed at the entrance in case anything decided to follow her in. She rustled around, trying to get comfortable, and then pulled more leaves in to form a pillow to rest her head.
Marian closed her eyes and tried to summon sleep, but the only thing she could focus on was the heat. The night grew dark, then light again, then the bright moon of Talula illuminated the forest. She gripped her knife and held it to her chest and allowed her hood to fall away from her head. She thought of Blu and the other rebels, and wondered if they had warmth within their cells.
Then there were those innocents in Rosa's village. Would Rafian, if it were he and not she in that situation, have left them there to suffer like she did? The fire had been intense, so much so that the line of smoke was still visible in the air when she was miles away on her escape. "We're supposed to be the good guys," she mumbled, "but I just reacted angrily and left them to burn."
She could hear Rafian's voice inside her head. "You didn't owe those people a thing." That would have been his way of consoling her, and it wouldn't have helped to remove her guilt. She imagined her impassioned and screaming at him, crying. “Shut up, Rafian!” she was saying, but was fast asleep before she could complete the scene.
~ * ~
Marika Tsuno walked towards the police station with such a presence that to an onlooker it would seem as if she owned Veece, and was lowering herself to walk amongst the “lower” people. She pushed her way past several Tyherans and didn’t even bat an eye at their objections as she climbed the steps to gain the dusty entryway. On her slender, muscular form was a brown jumpsuit, the pants tucked into long black boots. She had left the tan paint on from the night before, and her wig was wrapped up and adorned in jewels.
She stepped inside the building and looked around. There were troopers in shiny black suits milling about, and a number of rusty androids performed their mundane duties with little care for anything else.
Marika walked in and pushed open a pair of large black doors to reveal an interior that was a direct contrast to the dusty entrance room. The black stone floors were polished to perfection and seemed to reflect just about everything. Hologram messages were popping out of the screens in the walls, and the technology reminded her a little of Anstractor. A number of vid screens displayed troopers in action, and the only furniture was a desk and a set of black, stone benches that seemed to be built out of the wall.
“May I help you?” a young man asked from behind the rather tall desk.
Marika smiled as she took in the layout of the place. There were numerous doors, most unmarked, and the ceiling, even though translucent, was stingy in letting the sunlight in. She was awed by the architecture and—
“May I help you?” the trooper asked again.
“Sorry, patrolman, I’m here on business. I came to see if you have my servant in one of your cells,” she said in the best version of elitist, Veece-borne dialect that she could muster.
“We might,” the trooper said impatiently. He lifted a panel to step out and regarded her with some interest. “Your servant. When was she arrested?” he asked.
“He,” Marika corrected him and then lifted her handkerchief to smell its perfume in an odd gesture that women of Veece often used. “He’s a Deij, a terrible but delicate brute. His skin is like the sky and his eyes a deeper blue. He’s been missing since the night before last, if I can recall.”
“If you can recall?” the trooper asked, cocking an eyebrow at her as if suspicious.
“I don’t know, he’s my husband’s pet—I mean, assistant, so I’m not positive,” Marika said.
The trooper was used to people looking in on their loved ones when they got arrested, but this lady was a paradox that was making him crazy. First, she had crystals in her hair that women wore when seeking a suitor, and second, she came to the station by herself. Women of the elite class, particularly married women, did not adorn their hair, and they did not step into dirty police stations unless their servants were carrying them.
“Who are you, really, Sha’an? What are you doing? How do I know you’re not a rebel, come to bust your comrades out?”
Marika realized she had done something wrong. “Excuse you?” she replied angrily, slipping the handkerchief back into her belt and touching the hilt of her hidden blade. “Answer my question, you filthy wage earner, before I really get upset. It’s bad enough that I had to step foot in this dirty cesspool, let alone explain myself to you. Let me ask you this, do you all ever sweep up the entrance to this thing?”
The trooper let the sting of the “wage earner” slur dissipate as he stood with his eyes closed. The woman may have been a paradox to his eyes, but the words that assaulted his ears were the genuine insults of a Tyheran Sha’an.
“Ma’am, forgive me. Allow me to look into our files and I will let you know if we have a Deijen matching that description.”
The trooper cut his eyes as he turned away from her and returned to his desk to look through the files. He pulled up the pictures of all the Deijen prisoners and then slid one of them up towards the top of the screen. A number of lights danced on the top of the desk and then a live, hologram display showed Blu pacing restlessly in his cell.
“That him?” he asked, and Marika stared.
“Not sure. I would have to see up close to be certain,” she said.
“That cannot happen without a signed permit from the Red Lord himself, sha’an. This holo is the best I can give you for now.”
Marika watched the trooper to see if he was lying, but didn’t read anything within his face or mannerisms to suggest it. She nodded at him and forced a smile, then walked up to the hologram and looked at Blu. The image was so vivid in its three-dimensional rendering that she felt as if she could reach in and grab him to make a run for it. She saw a number of troopers open one of the unmarked doors and what she saw behind them was a staircase leading down.
“Excuse me, officers, were you just down in the cells?” she asked, and a tall dark-skinned Tyheran nodded and walked over to her.
“What if we were?” he asked, his eyes suggesting that he was up to a bit of mischief.
“Never mind, I’m not in the mood,” she replied and then turned to the original officer, smiling again. “You know these beasts from Deij are not very cheap,” she said with a sigh, and then mouthed the words for, “Thank you.”
The trooper bowed his head and touched his forehead like a gentleman, and Marika turned and walked out of the tall exit doors. She crossed the street to find a lift station and then took a taxi back to her hotel. She walked into the café that was in the hotel lobby, took a seat near the bar, and thought about what she had seen. The police headquarters was a circular structure—like most in Veece—but it had underground chambers as was evidenced by the stairs leading down.
She wondered just how deep the network of rooms and hallways went beyond the stairs. Was it a complicated hive of activity, like an ant’s nest, or was it simply a few rooms carved out of the soft, subterranean rock?
When a nervous, young Pirian waiter came over to her, she looked up at him and batted her eyes. Pirians favored humans but had taller, knife-like ears. They would reveal a lot of their emotions through those ears, and this one’s fluttered like butterfly wings when he saw Marika.
“Why hello, handsome,” Marika remarked and the boy’s smile widened, revealing a neat set of teeth. She reached up and touched his freckled face and he looked around nervously. It wasn’t every day that a Tyheran noblewoman flirted with him, and he didn’t know how to take it.
“H-hi,” he stammered and then swallowed hard. “Is-is there anything I can get you?”
“Swamp Sour, cutie-pie, and go light on the bugs. But before
you go I need to ask you a question,” Marika said.
“A-anything!” the boy almost shouted, then covered his mouth with embarrassment. “I mean, sure, how may I serve you, Sha’an?”
“I am in need of a bodyguard, someone who knows his way around the city. Do you know of any tough guys, preferably a former trooper that knows how the law works in this city?” she asked, and then sat back coolly to watch his face.
He didn’t seem to react as someone would if they were suspicious of her, but more like someone who would do anything to help. “There’s Grei, old sergeant Grei; he could probably help. He comes here once a week, to…” His voice trailed off as his pale pink face turned red.
“Does Grei bring prostitutes here, young man?” Marika asked, knowing the answer before he could nod affirmatively.
“What day of the week does he come in here?” she asked, keeping her voice even to continue the hypnosis that it had on the boy.
“Should be here tomorrow, if his pattern stays true. He gets one of the lower rooms of the hotel – doesn’t like them to stick around too long after he’s finished,” he said, smiling bashfully.
When Marika didn’t return the smile, he stood up straight. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to … I’ll get your drink now, Sha’an,” he said and then scurried off.
~ * ~
Marian woke up to a ticklish sensation on her nose and she sat up suddenly with her knife in front of her. There was a pink mountain bunny sitting back on its haunches, staring at her, and she sighed with relief when she saw it. Mountain bunnies were extremely friendly in the wilder areas of Tyhera, and this one had wormed its way into the shelter, spent the night, and then woke her up.
The Phaser stretched her aching limbs and rubbed her eyes. The sun was up and the cold had subsided. She stood up and walked outside with her rifle at the ready, and was quite surprised that the bunny hopped beside her. “Hop away, you cute little adventurer, or I may end up keeping you,” Marian teased.
