Deep breath. One of the two guards looked up with alarm at ‘Panzjrah’, and she was given no time to reply as Shay grumbled from her disguise, hopefully convincingly:
“I’ve got a bounty here bound for Entroprison. By request of The Dorns.”
“Panzjrah the stalker-instead?” the guard’s alarm did not disappear as she put down her cards. “First the clocks and now this; what else or next?”
Her opponent at cards meanwhile went into a rage, being now able to see he had been winning all this while.
∞
Serib did as told, thinking if her head were any further down her face would touch the dusty ground. She watched a glistening beetle move carefree over old cobbles. Shay could not resist her intuition and asked the more talkative guard: “You noticed the clocks as well?” she could not see well as she would like to in her goggles.
The guard’s alarm turned more to surprise that Panzjrah The Killer was being chatty:
“I’ve never been late for The Dorns in all my life.” The guard got carried away and asked: “What happened when you noticed?” the table's candle dimmed slightly and she blew very gently to keep it happily burning away.
“I was mid-done with a job.” Shay shrugged truthfully, the goggles keeping her eyes and therefore intent from view. “Threw the whole thing off.”
“Oh, that’s nasty. After, the few of us that noticed, we chose a moment when we all started counting from there. Do you remember that? Counting? I can get as high as eight now and that’s it, I lose my focus. For a while we did well with that, then the numbers got too high and we couldn’t remember how to write them down; just had to remember them. Now we’ve forgotten all over again and had to start again. Now we’re forgetting even quicker. Easier just to sleep here for the while-being, can’t be late, then! So I reckoned, anyway. A Court official came down and said they were sorting it; related to that murder, apparently?”
“Interesting.” Shay did not let on just how interesting it all was. Serib tried to look up, but Shay kept her almost pinned over, a prisoner in transit. She made a subtle scratching sort of motion with her finger, to try and reassure the girl.
∞
The guard kept talking, perhaps out of nervousness:
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“You’ll get an appointment to go see them, but I think the procedure takes ages. None of them have come back yet.”
Shay played on these nerves: “Dorns are waiting. So am I.”
“Quite right, let me get you the station and shuttle number for Entroprison.” This guard seemed almost relieved.
The second guard, annoyed having lost what they were winning, had been stewing to themselves and eyeing Shay suspiciously all this while.
“So, where’s your pistols?” he stood from the desk and approached her with one of his own handguns drawn. Serib quickly hid behind Shay.
“You want to find out?” Shay put on her best voice.
∞
Woid settled his back and shoulders against a wall nearby, leaving sore guts and faces near the job-boards. Fists swinging at nothing. Wanted posters splattered with blood. He was waiting for many things; be it the location of the shuttle so he could get a head start or to get involved in the melee that was building. Serib was behind Shay and staring at the ground too intensely for Woid’s liking - under her hood he could see her lightning eyes glowing brighter. The sky made sounds strange as a storm.
“I wouldn’t… you’re just knackered from your double-shift.” The first guard itched at her colleague.
“And I don’t recognise this one…” The second nodded their pistol casually at Serib. Shay nearly boiled over as the girl was threatened, keeping close her shaken composure. Her head ached instantly from her heart as she replied:
“She was hard to find, you took her poster down since then.”
“Sounds about right-like, give it a rest would you?” The first guard’s hand was dancing around the holster of her own laser pistol, being not fully convinced by either side.
∞
The second guard kept looking Shay up and down, seeing this ‘Panzjrah’ was not losing his nerve, even without a visible weapon. He turned back to his partner. Shay thought she had pulled it off as a pain made itself known in her body, leaking from her heart. She remembered this same, not pain so much as grief, keeping her rotting away in bed when she was younger. On her own ever since. Braver to care and try. In the quickness of instinct and its automation her mind knew there were other ways of resolving this without Serib, ways her heart would not consider further. The second guard turned around with his handgun ready at the hip:
“Here’s the thing, as well - Panzjrah came-by asking not long before you got here for your duties.” He addressed his more nervous colleague. “I know it’s hard to tell how long and short it is nowaways, but I can still tell a big this from a small that. He just had a little jar or pouch to deliver - no flesh, like. Funny for your prisoner to hide behind you like that, too. Could’ve tried running away.”
He fired a laser round from the hip, burning bright against the night.