Silverrim hummed like an exposed wire. In the day, it sat quieter, but at night it became live and dangerous, sparking wildly, thrashing and unpredictable. In that way, Silverrim was no different from the majority of supercities in the galaxy. The difference was in the twisting nature of its maps and its idea of justice, its trade and traditions. A labyrinth of streets and high-rises masked a thick, dark underbelly. Even late, lights shone from select windows, watching, waiting. A sentry bot, round and bumbling, shone a searchlight from its chassis as it swung further down towards the street, its giant green eye looking for something or someone.

It saw, mostly, empty streets. No pedestrians roamed except those with business, and that business was unsavoury and best conducted away from the emerald eye of the sentry.

But there was business to conduct. That night’s business was more urgent than most.

The sentry bot chugged over a group of twelve well-dressed men. They shattered through the puddles and grime on the pavement, feet pounding, hands on weapons hidden in breast pockets and waistbands. Two at the front aimed down the street with their laser guns, heaving with breath, eyes scanning every shadow and reflection.

“Where’d he go?”

“Shut up and keep looking!”

On their left, in an alleyway, a peeling poster sat on the wall. Its flapping corner was distracting enough – just enough – that the thugs missed the slender form of a young man, standing, peering out at them. Cut by the line of the wall, his one staring eye watched them rush past, out and into the darkness. It was easy to miss him even if he was not hiding. There was much about him that made people want to look away. The man was made of sharp lines and curious features. A slash of hair, right across his brow. Bony shoulders.

Silent, pupilless, silver eyes.

His grim expression did not change as he left the alley wall and ran in the opposite direction to the men who hunted him. It hardly ever did.

In the quieter shadows on the other side of the street, he paused next to a dumpster, peered around the corner – nobody there.

A sentry bot, bright and blinding, zoomed overhead.

The man considered it, frowned, and hurried to the safety of the next alleyway. Running was easy; choosing his moment was hard. At the end of the alley, the silhouettes of the searching group loomed larger than he thought they should.

“I can’t find the little bastard!”

“Well we gotta.”

But the thugs, tired, were sweating, panic in their eyes. Eventually, one lost his cool. He put a hand to his mouth and glared around the street.

“Hey Blake!” he yelled.

In the alley, Blake narrowed his eyes.

“HEY BLAKE!”

The thug’s friend punched his shoulder, eyes blazing.

“Stop!”

“Come out, ya little bastard! Where you hidin’?”

“He ain’t gonna answer, idiot!”

He clubbed the yeller around the back of the head and received a scowl for his trouble. The group shifted uncomfortably.

“We’d better split up,” said the puncher, looking at his gang. “Someone get a head’s up with the bots. We’ll find the sonuvabitch.” He paused, glared into the night, and raised his voice. “You hear that, Blake? We’re gonna find ya, and we’re gonna kill ya!”

Blake did nothing. He had heard enough threats, both idle and genuine, to not care that much about this one.

He waited until the sounds of the men and the bots were gone and the street resumed its natural suspicious silence, and sprinted away. But he knew he was not safe yet. He might not ever be safe again, after the stupid stunt he had pulled tonight. He checked over his shoulder more than he needed to, jerked away at the sign of any green glows or rotor noises, and quickly he lost track of why he was even running or where he was running to. The only point was to keep going. All he had to do was not get caught.

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It wasn’t fear, so much as necessity. He could not be scared of something he had always known.

Finally, Blake stopped to take a breath. In the doorway of CoreTech Robotics, it was just dark enough that he might be able to rest his legs. The window showed posters for household robots with friendly smiles and eyes, delivering drinks and vacuuming, designed to attract the eye, but Blake was not interested in those petty things. Everything around him was petty. Silverrim was not his home, not anymore. It never really was.

Scowling, he kicked the doorframe, ran a hand through his hair, and exhaled.

What am I going to do?

Then, his eye was caught by the lamppost and the sign stuck on it.

THE DOCKS    ------>

Blake did not smile. He was not accustomed to smiling. But his frown did fade. He checked, then ran in the direction of the arrow.

The docks were usually busy at every time of the day and night, which was one of the main reasons why Silverrim was such a good spot for illicit business. Tonight, they lay ghostlike, almost as if they were assisting in Blake’s capture. Crates sat stacked, waiting for the truck to load them onto; old pieces of newspapers and flight tickets curled on the floor. The stars and space spread vast and open above them, beyond the entry ramp, a tall and wide building with several tunnels attached for the craft to access their docking bays.

There were not a lot of options, there, but Blake had to take one. If he did not even attempt it, he was trapped in a place where he had burned all of his bridges. Finding a way out of here was the only way he would be free.

Three mobsters are already there by the time he slid down behind a shipment. They prowled, eyes trained on the darkness, knowing what he knew. A variety of ships were waiting but they were dark and seemingly empty – huge freighters, small holiday skiffs, merchant ships with shutters and shop-fronts closed for the night.

Blake’s eyes scanned each ship. If it was not running, he could not fly it. Each unlit window was a bar on his cage.

Of course tonight, of all nights.

At the end of the row, though, out of reach of the lights, was a long vessel that was remarkably ferocious for its size. From his vantage, Blake saw the hot haze of running engines obscuring the name on the side and the paintwork.

That will do.

It was becoming a long and fraught night for the thugs, too. The docks were too still and it was beginning to look like a wasted journey. Blake was bad news, they all knew that, but worse would be what happened to them if they did not return with him, trussed up and cowed.

And yet, to his utter delight, one thug was sure he saw Blake’s hair, behind a stack of crates.

It was almost too good to be true – almost – but he did not like his odds if it was not Blake. Elated, he ran to the spot, certain he had the little shit. His friend, behind, lifted his gun towards the crates, trained his sights, ready to shoot.

“Gotcha!” yelled the thug, grabbing at the hair -

But it was not hair. It was a flap of a cloth, fluttering in mockery.

Blake was gone.

He ran. He started running when the gun glinted in his direction. Quiet and quick and bizarrely elusive, he sprinted on, begging his feet to go faster. By the time the thugs realised, they were already too late. Every shot pinged off crate edges and ship hulls, as if they were trying to shoot a mirage.

It was not as easy as Blake made it look. Nothing ever was. His heart raced. The whole thing hinged on a whim, on a chance. One wrong step and he was back where he started – worse off than where he started – dead, most likely -

He shoved the owner of the ship, a thin man smoking a cigarette who did not expect to be robbed, and leapt in through the open door.

The cigarette fell from the owner’s mouth.

“That’s my ship!” he cried in indignation as the ship’s hatch slammed shut. “Someone stop him! Someo-”

When the mobsters approached, guns raised, he fell silent, paled, and pressed himself into the wall. It was not his night, either.

The mobsters’ fists pounded on the closed hatch, and Blake did not feel relief, not yet.

“Blake! Get out!”

He took a deep breath. Maybe this is foolish. Maybe -

The ship lurched. He stumbled, caught his footing.

How -?

On the LCD beside him, the message shifted. He saw it only momentarily before the rumbling of the engines thundered through him.

INITIATE EMERGENCY TAKE-OFF: hostile environment detected

And the whirring and thumping increased.

Blake was thrown off balance. The ship hurtled onwards, seemingly with nobody at the controls and with no set course. He hit the wall palms-first, eyes on the screen like it might tell him what to do.

It only said,

Blockage detected.

And,

Engage.

Outside, the ship’s two small front guns began to fire. The craft hurtled towards a docking bay door and there was a large chance that the evening was about to end in a fireball and oblivion. Whatever was controlling the ship, however, seemed to know what it was doing. The guns fired continuously, pulses of hot laser right into the metal, and, just as it seemed like disaster was going to strike, the door exploded into shards.

Blake did not know this, of course. All he understood was that the ship was moving and he was not yet dead, and both of those things were bonuses. But the thugs on the ground watched the whole thing with a mounting dread in their hearts and no way to stop it.

The ship scraped through the opening it had made, slammed its port side on the exit tunnel wall, spiked the ceiling, sent sparks and splinters of paint through the air in a flash of red. It clattered like a marble in a pipe until, at last, it hit the open air, the engines blazed, and it winked out into the darkness.

The mobsters and the ship’s previous owner stood, watching the craft flicker and flare into the night sky, and waited until it was silent.

“That your ship?” one of them asked the owner. He nodded frantically. “What kind of ship is that? You got documents?”

He nodded again, patted his jacket. He hoped they were not left on the ship.

As soon as he pulled them from his pocket, the mobster snatched the papers and shook them out.

‘Zephyr Scout Ships Ltd.    Reg. No: Y6-77KRZ    Name: Wyvern’