Sant-Sarnin bites its thumb in the face of God.

Discolored clouds intermingle high above the planet’s geodesic domes. The ensuing lightning storms focus energy through the hundreds of crimson rods that dot the horizon, and in the moments between strikes, the thin spires lurk within the radioactive smog. Waiting.

The storm howls, even through the fifteen-centimeter-thick glass where Ginevra stands, impatiently, waiting for her departure’s all-clear. Then, only donned in her temporary lead-plate suiting, can she brave the elements. She’ll track hoof-prints in the powdery yellow dirt that will immediately be wiped away by forty-knot winds, and will be careful to not stand in place for too long.

For health’s sake.

The cigarette between her lips is waxy. Its composition is dull and synthetic, lacking the refreshing taste of fresh tobacco. Carcinogens burn the long roof of her mouth as the hangar’s temperature self-regulates to simulate a summer’s afternoon descending to night.

The attendant, barcoded, artificially blue eyes, the human’s emotions stapled into a constant hospitality, had no trouble selling her the pack of half-truths. These were from the last carton the attendant had for sale, she claimed. Set aside only for those itching to leave, she’d never admit, for those besmirching the siren’s call of the pleasure planet. Ersatz luxury for those not lingering. A paltry, backhanded Sant-Sarninian hospitality for those with one hoof out the door.

If only Ginevra knew someone—or could mention a name. Or could imply a connection of importance for leverage in the midst of transaction. Because past the universal translators affixed to their necks, that’s the only way to speak with the inhabitants of Sant-Sarnin. Nepotistic jockeying and posturing, even down to the purchase of a few cigarettes.

But, then would come the inevitable.

The invitations to stay, to call upon those mentioned in conversation, those quasi-men hidden in their pleasure hives. In exchange for cigarettes on the landing pad, Camelot-XII would imprison her, politely, for days, extolling upon her the pleasantries of high-context hospitality. A single name-drop becomes quid pro quo, favors in exchange for goodwill and standing, the only currencies that matter on a planet with no natural resources beyond social capital and bragging rights.

After all, Sant-Sarnin is a civilization of subsidies and stipends, of nine-hundred-ninety-nine-year leases and exponentially compounding fiat leverage. Its unnatural existence dictates, rightly so, that a single pack of cigarettes is locked behind byzantine pathways of societal standing, where information brokers and pleasure slaves jostle one another in the high-stake arguments of hyper-wealth. It’s an inconveniencing existence of childish power-plays that only the bourgeoisie can learn to navigate, and only the wealthy bourgeoisie can navigate successfully.

Ginevra snuffs another on the quadrangular glass, feeling it vibrate against the rolling thunder.

The landing station is nearly empty, save for the aforementioned attendant. She’s returned to her desk, its quadrilateral frame of tulip-wood and decorated with molding of alternating francisque axes and laurels, slathered in a white stain to match the clean architecture of Camelot-XII. It sits near the double-doors that lead to the rest of the multi-limbed preplanned community—one of the thousands of architectural wonders, hives hand-crafted by luxury engineers, that dot the planet’s surface.

Camelot-XII is two-hundred domes in all: seventy-five for industry and commerce, five for security, thirty for public use, fifty for communal residences, twenty privately owned, and twenty for infrastructure—including five landing platforms, encompassing the one where the filly flicks ash atop the viewing portal, Camelot-XII Dome LXXVI.

Ginevra’s memorized Camelot-XII’s layout. Asking for directions is too big a request to be completed for free. So, she learned the hard way. Getting lost, doubling back, following the hand-written signs of folksy construction for faux-authenticity, written by inhabitants in purposefully illegible cursive. After all, she’s had years of practice skulking from dome to dome. Calling upon neighbors. Being called upon. Inconvenienced.

And as such, she enjoys this dome the most. It’s usually deserted. Decrepit, some call it, unaware of what the word truly entails. Or outmoded, say the over-educated, as if the platform can’t accept any luxury liner currently out of port. Loud, others complain in turn, the glass too thin to hold back vibration or blot out the cresting light of an odd lightning strike.

But Ginevra likes it the best, for a single reason she’ll never admit.

It’s far from his dome.

Two minutes by monorail. Five by private autocraft. Nearly a fifteen minutes’ walk with the people movers. But he never uses any of these options, so it may take him thirty on foot. Stopping for a drink at a café, pausing with other residents to discuss neighborly nothings, enjoying his journey through the array of nodes that make up the web of pleasure domes, dawdling endlessly, it may take him an hour. Two, even.

Ginevra’s enjoyment of Dome LXXVI is an inconvenience for him, to be sure.

Yet he’s there. Lurking near the disinfected deep-cream double-doors. Making small-talk with the barcoded attendant on the ground floor below.

The calming muzak of stuttering guitars and semi-rhythmic drums drowns out their discussion, another nothing conversation of Sant-Sarnin. No doubt sharing concerns over standard radiation reports, discussing shipments of supplies, remarking their high quality and expediency. Zero new information passed, time mutually wasted on performance and presence.

He purchases a pack of cigarettes. Its matte lavender packaging indicates quality. Real tobacco, imported, preserved, resold for at least forty times its original wholesale price. Additionally, he’s now in debt socially—quid pro quo initiated, his natural extroversion whetted once more.

The man smiles. He knows Ginevra is watching him—he always does. And Ginevra knows he doesn’t smoke.

As he ascends the flat-tiled marble steps towards her, she sees him in the window’s yellowish reflection, refusing to turn and greet him. Even in the opaque reflection, he’s older but energetic. Natural looking, unlike the traditional dome inhabitants. His face has those handful of familiar scars she remembers, like the shrapnel divot atop his right cheek he calls his beauty mark, and the garrote’s track at his esophagus tracing to jawline, a memory of a near-killing he wears proudly. But they’re faded since Ginevra’s last seen him. Reduced with time.

And grayer than usual, his pelt. Might be stress. The slight drooping of the jowls, the puffier cheeks, the apricot fur slowly disappearing from around his muzzle. Must be age. Time pulling at his muscles, shrinking from disuse. Every day, physical body transitioning into the archetypical old man whom he’s always emulated.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But you’d barely notice, the way he’s always smiling, sticking up straight, beanstalk frame liable to blow away in a crisp breeze.

His beige suit isn’t new. Re-tailored, but not new. Ginevra’s seen him wear it before. Once, a couple months ago on Hunter, Prey. He was there alongside Ulysses Montecillo, his cohost. The two old friends, network owners, discussed a string of new bureaucratic regulations regarding galaxy-wide collateral damage repayment procedures. Two avvos were there, too. Grilled on-air, dabbing foreheads with puresilk handkerchiefs, packing tobacco pipes, pushing back bifocal bridges while providing education—not advice—to the untold numbers of bounty hunting professionals tuning in, leaning on their rifles in crowded taverns, scribbling on newspapers with golf pencils, deducing cost-benefit analysis for their ever-changing tactics.

Ginevra begrudgingly included.

Before that, she saw him wear it on Alto Manzanillo. Four years ago, at the ocean’s edge. Just the two of them and Marcello.

It’s a memory she’s ignored—dipping her hoof into the water’s edge, smelling the natural atmosphere filled with coconut wafts and salted barracuda. Freshly trapped conch, nearly raw, bathed in grapefruit, garlic, and lime, its acidic overtones making her thirsty as the young sun burned the skin beneath her fur and accelerated the alcohol through her veins, saltwater lapping up pastern, into the cuts and scratches earned from her recent success. It was a sizeable bounty, spoils evenly shared between two partners.

“Ginevra,” Augo says. As usual, pausing at odd times, saying as much as possible with silence. “You looked good for your on-screen debut. A bit green, sure, but good for a first appearance.” He speaks with his normal voice, no translator, the two of them speaking in their secretive trade language. It’s an abhorrent mixture of clicking lips, Hellenic nouns and Latin verbs, a layer of protection used exclusively in high-stress situations. Now, retired. Used for privacy’s sake, in opposition to nearby attendants who pretend not to listen. I know Ulysses was out, so I’m sorry you had his understudy, as unprofessional as she can be. Ulysses says hello, though. Sick as can be, coughing up a storm. Still smoking too much. Says I should have stepped in for the interview, but as you know, as usual,” he smiles, “I disagreed with him. Professionalism... Did Gabriel handle your prep work?”

“Sure,” Ginevra remembers him, although she stares out into the radioactive clouds, disinterested. Gabriel was short. Silver hair, speaking through the translator at his cufflinks with an accent. An ancient one, Provençal, like the others. Sign of a Sant-Sarninian upbringing, their expensive educations and labyrinthine customs embedded from youth.

Gabriel the producer had spent an hour with her before the interview, sure, running through predetermined questions and answers. He’d grab her shoulders and force them into one direction, then another, then towards that of the fake camera, micromanaging presentation as he does with every interviewee. Then he’d chuff at her mistakes and misspeaking, pursing his lips and assuring her she was doing alright, insulting her through the little translator boxes at his wrists.

An infuriating little man.

“And you’re off so soon?” Augo asks, knowing the answer.

“Sure.”

“Won’t even stay for a drink?”

“Not now, no. Some other time,” she lies through whitened teeth.

She remembers his dome’s wine cellar, filled with imported vintages, the stuffy temperature-controlled stillness making her salivate as he presents the full listing, the evening’s choices organized and hand-picked, each with a story and price tag per milliliter. Expertise he’s failed to pass on to his apprentice. Then his stacks of humidors, a columbarium of sandalwood smells in the artificial Riviera’s summer. Once near the outskirts, Ginevra’s tobacco clouds collide with the dome’s geometric windows, images fizzling, showing pretend clouds on a sunny day, slightly too warm, languidly crossing their randomized paths in a pre-seeded fashion, hazy mountain range in the distance. A digital simulacrum of the perfect day with a hunting partner.

Former partner.

“You know, Marcello’s getting so big. One blink. And you just see his shadow. Running all day, everywhere. He has so much energy,” he muses, lingering parallel to the filly, within grasping distance of her hips. “I’m sure he’d like it if you stopped by, just to say hello.”

She recalls the exchange rate on favors and balks at the suggestion.

“Guilt me some other time, when I’m not busy.”

“I’m not guilting you,” he replies, “there’s no expectations, here.”

“Good, because I don’t have time,” she scoffs, “I’m on the hunt. You should understand that better than anyone.”

“Well, you can’t work at all hours, can you?”

“I don’t decide when I work,” she spits. “The prey does that for me.”

“Maybe,” Augo chides with a paternal familiarity. “But I’ve told you before, you don’t have to do this business. It doesn’t need to control you.”

“Easy to say when you’ve quit. I’ve taken a job, and I catch what I hunt.”

“Don’t give me that,” he scolds with a conciliatory frown, just short of finger-wagging. “I put over twenty years into this business. Twenty successful years. And most importantly I’m alive to say it out loud.”

He lingers, pausing for a deep breath, placing a hand on Ginevra’s lower back. At one point such a pause was gravitas. A mature sort of gesture, his hand on her hip, as if he controlled both the filly and her conversation. But now, to Ginevra at least, apokalypsis. Revelation. He’s simply short of breath. Out of shape. Leaning. No longer the owner or husband she remembers—just an old dog.

“But now you don’t have to make the same mistakes I did. You don’t have to waste the same time. You know, I’d trade away every second on the job for one more moment with Marcello. Don’t you remember? When we were on Alto Manzanillo. And you were holding him by the water’s edge at sunset, before that storm rolled in. And you were in that blue purecotton sundress.”

“But you’re not guilting me?” Ginevra scoffs. “If you wanted me sitting around all day, you shouldn’t have brought me up as an apprentice. If you wanted me to stay, you shouldn’t have granted manumission. It’s easy to quit while you’re ahead, pining about wasted years.” She remembers his suit. Recently tailored. Maliciously reeking of cigar and citrus, synthetic olfactory intrusions designed to attack her subconscious, as he’s always on the attack. “You have some gall pulling this same performance again and again.”

“Offering to let you see your son?” Augo smiles. “I wouldn’t call that a performance.”

“You know what it is. Showing up wearing your suit and—”

“What I’m wearing isn’t the problem. You’re being unreasonable, again. Think back to what we’ve discussed about acting civil.”

“And you’re always the reasonable one, sure. ‘Civil,’” drips from a spiteful maw. “And get your hands away from me. Don’t touch me again.”

“Listen to me, Ginevra. Gabriel told me about your outburst earlier. Wrecking the green room, nearly spacing him in another episode. You’re getting worse, with those visions of yours.”

“Oh, so now you care?”

“I’ve always cared,” he assures. “But in a material sense, now they’re a liability. I saw that loveseat’s shot grouping—pisspoor is what it was.”

“Pisspoor? That’s what you’d call it? Call over that salaud Gabriel, let’s see if I can’t get a better grouping in his fat skull, easy enough target—”

“That’s not the point, the shot grouping. The grouping doesn’t matter. It’s that—”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Ginevra belts.

Her shout reverberates against the muzak. The attendant below pretends not to hear. Poorly. She shuffles behind her white desk, forcing herself into busywork. Ruffling papers collide with handheld terminals, the rearranging creating a polite din to hide further outbursts. This will no doubt be added to Augo’s debt.

“I haven’t seen you shoot like that since you were a filly,” Augo flinches with a hushed tone, conceding. “You know, your outbursts will get in your way until you sit down and fix the issue. Something is wrong with you, and I taught you better than to ignore an issue that puts yourself in danger.”

“The only thing you taught me is to get the job done,” Ginevra spits. “Not to play house, and not to sit inside, worrying all day about viewership and advertisers and paperwork for a channel nobody watches.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. The only thing I’m worried about is what you’ll do next in this state of yours. Or more importantly,” he pauses, irritating as always, “what you’ll get into out there.”

“Oh, yeah?” she mocks, purposefully misunderstanding his subtext, hissing in a hasty, premature departure towards the airlock. “Get in line.”

Her spiteful click-clacking disappears behind the sliding glass. Silently, she stands alone. Waiting, still, for the all-clear. From here, she’s a silhouette to Augo. A sorrel mirage against yellowcake vistas. Hazy and vibrating, the way the heat wafts across the landscape, her whole figure vibrating like her two fists, nails cutting into palm, eyelids crammed shut as if she were, yet again, about to drop to Tiangong’s surface. And there she waits, petulantly still, in perfect silence for another eighteen minutes, until the dome’s all-clear sounds.