“Worlds like this, anyone can make anything of themselves if they put their minds to it. Only idiots get sidetracked, and those are the stories everyone hears about. That’s not going to happen to me. I’m going to make it.”

—Author Unknown; excerpt recovered from journals that were personal effects on an unidentifiable homicide victim on Otmonzas

The hover-shuttle pulled to a stop with a sharp hiss. Zaina rushed off once the door retracted. The platform was enormous compared to the previous station—and much more crowded. People of all shapes and sizes clustered together around bright neon signs while holograms hovered overhead, their pitches coalescing into word soup.

Something slammed into her back and she stumbled forward. Upon turning, a Jovelian, standing twelve feet tall and wearing what looked to be battle armor, loosed a snort from its extended nostrils. “Watch it, tiny.”

The tusked Jovelian then turned and tucked into one of the train cars. Another person bumped into her—this time it was a Vadekarian, barely reaching up to Zaina’s waist. Its scaled face soured into a grimace.

“Move it, moron! What the fuck’s wrong with people these days?” With that, the Valdekarian walked off.

“I’m sorry,” she said. People were staring at her as they walked by—some were bewildered, others were disgusted, and a few were curious or pitying. She took a deep breath and started toward the station’s exit—wherever that was. With little experience navigating crowds, she accidentally shoulder-checked her fair share of passersby, each time eliciting a new insult.

The station was divided by dozens of segmented railways separated by platforms. Raised walkways were interspersed as needed to navigate over the active segments of track. Trains came and went every second, with people piling on and off every time one stopped.

The walkways gave her a better vantage point—the exit was only a few platforms away. Relieved, she continued on, trudging to match the pace of the people around her.

Outside was even more crowded. An impossibly bad stench—like wet hair and burnt metal—wafted into her nostrils. She wrinkled her nose and covered her mouth.

Loud, bass-heavy music blasted from a nearby rooftop; multicolored lasers moved in rhythm with the song. The only other noise was chatter—whether of the denizens of Otmonzas or the countless holograms dotting the sky. The massive buildings, appearing as titans from above, were impossibly tall from below, their peaks far out of sight. Engine glows from atmospheric ships faded in and out of the foggy night air.

She gulped. What is this place?

“Hey, move it!” a human shouted, startling her. Zaina moved with the crowd’s flow, not knowing where she wanted to go. The people around her were from all walks of life—most wore simple clothing—work uniforms, slacks, button-up shirts; others wore little more than rags. A few wore extravagant robes or silk-woven business suits, always accompanied by an armored companion—sometimes an android, sometimes a team of decked-out security forces.

Her stomach rumbled—its growl wasn’t audible over the idle chatter and blaring music. Apparently multiple concerts were on tonight. First thing’s first, I need to find some food.

Zaina went along with the crowd until it thinned out a little. A few feet of breathing room was better than none. She scanned the nearby buildings. One of them had a sign that said Daz Markis’s The Pratehouse.

Maybe they have some leftovers or something.

She stepped in front of the door, but there was no handle. It opened by itself, retracting into the wall. A male Jovelian awaited on the other side, his elongated tusks carved with intricate symbols; a scar ran down his left eye, and he wore tight-fitting black clothing.

The Jovelian raised a hand. “Uh-uh. Nope. Your kind’s not welcome.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” he said. “Go on, get out of here. Find somewhere else.”

“I’m not from here, I need hel—”

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He reached for a radio. “Don’t make me call for backup.”

Zaina was so shocked she almost cried, but she held it in. A defeated sigh was all she gave him. There was no point in arguing. She walked back outside.

Time to try something else.

She walked to stand beside a small alcove beside another store. From there, she waved at passersby.

“Excuse me!”

No response—the person glanced in her direction before hurrying on.

Another walked by, so she called out, “Can I ask for your help with some—”

Ignored.

“Please, I need to know—”

The person shot her a dirty look and scurried away.

Zaina’s shoulders sank. How were these people wired? Where she came from, people took care of each other if they needed help.

After wandering the streets, darkness fell and Zaina passed a sleepless night tucked into a corner at the back of a tall building. The next day she had just as poor luck getting anyone to speak to her as the day before. Her stomach cramped, begging for food. Hours crawled by with Zaina feeling dirtier and more hopeless with each rejection, each rude remark, and each stranger ignoring her. Finally, as she was about to inspect some pallets behind what looked like a restaurant for any scraps, the first friendly voice she’d heard since arriving called out from behind.

“Hey.” She turned—a Keldovaran draped in a tattered trench-coat was peeking out from a side alley. His bulbous, circular face was covered in unkempt, ushaven white fur; even hunched over, he stood six feet tall. “You lost?”

Zaina nodded, unsure of what to make of the visitor. His odor was worse than hers.

“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” he said. “Visiting from another world?”

“Temporarily,” she said. “As soon as I get my friend’s ship fixed, I—”

“Right—your friend’s ship. So you’re in need of a hot meal and a place to stay in the meantime, I’m guessing?”

Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” the Keldovaran said. “I’ve seen it before, I’m afraid. Too many times. This world eats people and spits out husks.”

“Yeah,” she said, “it seems rough.”

“It is. Now—about that place to stay. As it so happens, I run a little community of people like us pretty close to here.”

“People like us?”

The Keldovaran nodded. “People with nowhere else to go.”

Zaina winced. Here she was panicking about her first night homeless—this man looked like he’d been doing it for a while. “How long have you been here?”

“Oh, I was born in an alley not too far from here. Come along, now. Nights are especially unforgiving around here.”

Zaina stared at the ground. It wasn’t like she had any ideas on where to go—what was the worst that could happen? She shrugged and followed the Keldovaran into the alley. It was much less crowded—a handful of kuvasi smokers outside a bar, a group of young kids playing a dice-betting game, and several people huddled around a barrel filled with burning strips of cloth.

The Keldovaran was fleet of foot, moving quicker than his frame and age would indicate. She kept pace right behind him, not allowing herself to be distracted by the neon billboards glowing on the alley walls.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The camp is near here,” he replied. “We’ll get you everything you need.”

“Thank you for doing this, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it. We have to do what we have to do. Things may get a bit—eh, let’s say hairy. They don’t exactly want us getting comfortable.”

She sidestepped a gaggle of glaring, blue-furred Cytomoids. “Huh? Who doesn’t want you—”

“You know,” he said. “The government. The PDFs. Goris ‘The Butcher’ Bilvane. All of it’s connected, you know? And the pirates—”

“You know about the pirates?”

“Of course! Weren’t you listening? It’s all connected!” He came to a sudden stop and surveyed around a street corner.

Zaina had lost his train of thought. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Me? I’m Jveldaq Iinas. I was the youngest ever Head of the PNU—the Planetary Nursing Union—and did that for thirty years. I got tired of it, so now I’ve been doing this for thirty years.” He walked out into the street. Zaina stayed close behind.

She leaned forward and asked, “Thirty years?”

He ducked into another alleyway. “Long time to be scraping and scrounging, I know. But we’ve made ourselves a little home for people who need it. You’d be surprised the types that come through here. We get all kinds. There’s a bed and a plate for all of ’em.”

For the first time in days, she smiled. “That’s really nice of you.”

He turned a corner and froze—she stepped in an odd-smelling puddle and slid to a stop.

“Ew! Ew!” she said. “What’s going on?”

Jveldaq’s eyebrows contorted, and his lips twisted into a sharp frown. His sights were focused on the end of the alley, a clearing tucked between three large buildings; tents of every color and every type of fabric were all over, and the entire space was flooded with yellow light.

The color drained from his face. “It’s well past lights out time—what, are they trying to get caught?”

He sprinted down the alley, and Zaina followed. Then a team of gray androids with red stripes and yellow-and-black cross-patterned crests stepped into view, their movements fluid but mechanically precise. The yellow light emanated from floodlights on their birifles. Zaina nearly crashed into Jveldaq, who had come to a screeching halt.

“They’re taking them,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “They’re taking them to the PDF death camps—we’re too late!”

The lights turned their way—a few deep robotic hums and whirs went back and forth between the androids before they moved toward Zaina and Jveldaq. She took a step backward, wishing she had her cipher, her father’s scrapshot—anything.

Jveldaq pulled a single-barrel scrapshot from his coat. “Go on, get out of here before they get you too, Zaina. You can’t trust them—you can’t trust any of them!”

He ran toward them. For two seconds, Zaina was completely stunned. She flinched as a few loud pops pierced the city’s noise—a piece of Jveldaq’s head flew off. After a few more holes were punched in him, he fell forward in a puddle of gray blood.