A shot from down below stroked Brennsla’s leg on its way up into the stairs above. The Kapadian woman opened her mouth in silent shock as she pitched forward. Gaylen knew she wore a thin armour layer, but ‘thin’ just meant the limb stayed on. It didn’t mean she wasn’t terribly burned.

She tried to move, but the leg just wouldn’t obey. Gaylen gripped her empty hand with both of his and pulled, but it did little to aid her second attempt.

“I’m done,” she groaned. “Gaylen, I’m done.” xx

“No, come on,” he insisted, and pulled again. But it was no use. She outweighed him by a large margin.

Brennsla moved her uninjured leg, but again her other one just didn’t work.

“COME ON!” he shouted.

“No.”

She looked up, and he saw death in her eyes. The certainty of it.

“Go, man.”

She gave him a weak wave-off with her empty hand.

“Go. Go.”

He did go. With the shots still coming from down below, switching angles as the Slashers apparently made it over the obstruction he’d created, he left her behind and continued on up. He didn’t look back. He didn’t have the heart for it. He couldn’t tell which of the shots he heard were hers. His mind was sliding into that place where it knew very little at all. The fear, the exhaustion, the everything… it reduced him to basic urges, basic instincts. He just kept on climbing, through the pain and the terror. He climbed.

A shot hit one of the lights, triggering a shower of electric sparks, followed by a dimness. It felt somewhat symbolic. Like he was heading into death itself.

Battered as his mind was, it did still recognize the number 29 when he finally saw it. It came with no extra burst of energy, saved for this moment. He was already drawing on his last reserves. So it was with heavy, stiff steps that he ascended the final steps. Down below, the shooting had stopped. They were probably out of plasma. But they had their damn blades.

He saw the door up above; his salvation. The road to it felt so agonisingly slow, like a nightmare. But the distance did close. It closed, and it closed, and with five steps remaining the plasma-pocked metal collapsed beneath his feet.

His hands moved on their own, and caught the surviving steps in front of him. The lower half of his body swung for a moment, and he really believed the momentum would cost him his grip. But somehow, somehow he held on. After a few seconds, he even started pulling himself up. It felt even slower than the climb; he could not understand why the Slashers hadn’t killed him already. But he made it. He got his knees back onto something solid, and with that he rose.

The door to the roof was unlocked, and he threw it open with. Before him was the dull grey concrete of a roof that had no purpose other than keeping out the rain. Above it was the black, starlit sky, and all around it were the endless lights of a metropolis.

There was no evac. He was alone.

“Damn you assholes,” Gaylen mumbled through a stiff jaw.

Gaylen closed the door, for the extra second of life it would buy him, he supposed. He staggered a few steps further out, but there was nowhere to hide, and no way off. The nearest roof was too high up, even if he were the galaxy’s greatest long jumper.

The Slashers were coming, on his heels and up the other stairwell, on the other side of the roof. And all he had to fight them with was an empty gun.

After abandoning his identity, after two years of hell in the Deep Streets, after scratching and clawing for a piloting course, after making it out and starting some semblance of a life again, it would all end here, on an empty, grey roof. ‘Gaylen Qin’, dead at age twenty-two.

He turned, and gave the skyline another look. He tried to appreciate it, to find some beauty in it. But he just felt dumb and sappy for making the attempt. There was no beauty in his life. His own choices had seen to that.

Gaylen turned back around, facing the doorway, and prepared for the end. Then came the whoosh, and the whine of small repulsors.

He turned again, and reflex almost made him raise the empty gun. It wasn’t a ship or a car; it was an airbike, illegally modified to go above the maximum height set by the manufacturers. And on it sat a long-limbed man with a reddish face and long, messy brown hair.

“Mardus!” Gaylen shouted.

“Hop on!” the Jumper told him, and didn’t need to repeat himself.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The Slashers were out on the roof now, coming out through both of the doors. At the sight of the bike the further group drew their very much not spent guns. Mardus lowered his bike just enough for Gaylen to swing a leg over it, then gunned the engine. There was no passenger seat, just a small luggage platform behind the driver, and Gaylen almost went flying off. But he caught hold of Mardus’s jacket, and after a moment he managed to lock his legs around the body of the bike.

Mardus took them over the roof’s edge, then brought the repulsors to a near-stop and just let them drop. Gaylen didn’t complain, but his stomach sure did. This immediately brought them out of the firing line, and halfway down to the street Mardus fired the repulsors up again.

Gaylen looked back at the building, as it rapidly vanished from sight. He didn’t really know what he was thinking. Perhaps later he would.

“Ah, was it just you?” Mardus suddenly thought to ask.

“Brennsla didn’t make it,” Gaylen told him.

“Ah.”

The man exhaled.

“What a mess.”

“What a mess,” Gaylen agreed, but didn’t want to dwell on it. Perhaps later he would. “I didn’t know you were in the city. Did the boss send you to get us?”

Mardus peeked back at him, with an awkwardness on his face.

“No. No such thing.”

Gaylen wasn’t surprised. He’d seen too much of this world for that. But he was angry.

“I think…” he said through his teeth, “I’ll look for a different outfit.”

“I can’t blame you,” Mardus said. “This mess hasn’t been inspiring. Maybe I’ll look into going offworld. See what’s out there for a wonderful specimen like myself.”

“Well, don’t bring the law down on us. We can afford legal height and speed at this point.”

Mardus didn’t argue, even though Gaylen knew the man loved speed. The slow-down helped Gaylen himself relax, and that horrible brush with death started to gradually seep out of his system.

“But why are you here, then?” Gaylen asked.

Mardus turned again, and gave him a grin.

“Ah. I was just in the neighbourhood.”

# # #

“You are brooding on the past again,” Kiris told him, chiding mildly.

It brought him out of the memories and back into the hotel room. It was a fairly humble one; one of thousands that surrounded the local starport. But it was luxurious compared to a starship bunk, clean, warm and, of course, private. And the company was very special.

The Chanei sat on the bed, wearing nothing but her own loose-hanging hair, while Gaylen had relaxed into an armchair by the window.

“Yeah, I am,” he admitted. There was no point in trying to hide anything from her, after all. She’d long since learned every single one of his little tells. “It happens. You know that.”

“How far back were you this time?”

“You tell me.”

She tilted her head slightly.

“I only pick up the emotions. Not the thoughts behind them. As you well know.”

“And I am messing with you a little, as you well know.”

“I know,” she said, irritated, but in an amused way. “As you well know. Now spit it out.”

“Fifteen years,” he told her.

“Shortly after you got out of the Deep Streets.”

“Yeah. And the first time I was certain I was going to die.”

“Is that what I inspire? Thoughts of death?”

“No, it was the bikes,” he told her, and gestured at the window. Airbikes were a popular local travel method, and were allowed to go higher than in most cities.

“Then don’t focus on the bikes,” she said. “Focus… on… me.”

She said in a slow, hissing whisper that hit his ears just the right way to cause a pleasant shiver. She knew all his tells and triggers, after all.

Kiris insisted that Chanei couldn’t consciously pour pheromones out of their bodies. But that just made Gaylen wonder if they did it unconsciously, when they wanted someone’s attention. Or just the someone. Because yes, even after hours of fun in this room, she suddenly became his total focus again.

But more than all that, cutting deeper, was a feeling that Kiris, naturally, picked up on. After meeting his gaze for a few seconds her curiosity triggered a question.

“No jokes now,” she said gently. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He searched his feelings for a couple of moments, for the sake of a proper answer. Then he told her.

“That I’m… grateful. Privileged. That I get to see you like this. The full you. Bared. And you know I’m not talking about your clothes being on the floor.”

“Mm.”

She smiled, pleased.

“You’ve said this stuff before, in various ways.”

“It bears repeating.”

“Indeed.”

Her golden eyes held his for a bit.

“We are good for each other,” Kiris then said.

She lay down on her side, tilted her head, and propped one leg up. Just as with her voice, she could accomplish surprisingly much just with subtle use of her body. In the back of his mind Gaylen always remained aware that she had learned those skills under orders from her slave masters. But he didn’t mind. Not when she was happily putting them to work for their mutual pleasure.

“And I’m not just talking about our feelingsss…”

There was that little hiss again. Yes, he had completely lost interest in the window.

“There is an hour left of the schedule,” he said. “Factor in travel, and showering, we have… half an hour?”

“More than enough,” Kiris said.

“Yes.”

They spent their half hour productively, ending with simply leaning into one another contentedly. Then they took advantage of a shower that was a thousand times superior to a small shipside one, and left the room. It was time to see a familiar face again.