The Gay Space Adventure

Chapter 2: Arkovf

 As soon as we came to a stop before the apartment building, Rania tore off, her heels kicking up the dirty slush that lined Hiem's lower city streets. She half-slid into the building, gone in half a second. I waited diligently in the speeder until she got back. Picking at my sleeves. Twisting the rings around my fingers. I reapplied my lipstick twice. Eventually, there was nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs.

My thumbs could not twiddle fast enough.

Nio help us, this was all our fault. What were we thinking, taking the bus when we should have taken the speeder? What were we thinking, hiring children to smuggle our illegal ship fuel? Now Zyren was missing, gone—What could possibly have happened to him? Perhaps another deal had gone wrong? Or maybe he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if that was the case, it was certainly Thvr's and my fault for putting him there.

No, no, I couldn't blame myself, and I certainly couldn't blame Thvr. It was just a bad situation. It was no one's fault. Unless someone had kidnapped him, in which case it was someone's fault, and we would get to the bottom of it. We would find him. It would all turn out in the end.

The pleasant chime of an incoming digital letter startled me. I jolted, my shoulders tensing, and the ache in my lower back increased. I slid my tablet out of my messenger bag, the old plastic-backed one I used for most things, and checked the "Messages" application. Thvr had sent a message:

Are you alright?

I sighed and poked at the virtual keys to type back: I'm fine. Something went down at the market. Zyren's not there, so Rania's checking their apartment. I should be home soon. I pressed the virtual send button—nowhere near as satisfying as a stamp in wax, though I suppose it was faster. Three little dots bobbed up and down as Thvr wrote their reply.

The door flew open. Rania ran in with a rush of frigid air.

"He's not there."

I stared at her, her freckled face red from cold and exertion, her eyes wide, strands of curly brown hair sticking out in worried wisps. Before Thvr could finish typing, I wrote and sent: Zyren's gone missing. We're going to look for him. Slammed my foot on the gas.

The engine revved in park, and Rania shouted over it, "Hey! Hey! Stop!"

I stopped. We each pulled in a shaky breath. Rania's came out ragged.

"We're going to find him, okay? We'll find him."

"How?"

We just... We had to.

"We'll... go back to the market. Investigate it. Maybe there's some clue as to where he went."

Rania pulled in another shaking breath. "Alright. Okay. Alright."

I pulled out of the parking spot—nearly forgot to reverse, but we didn't hit the wall of the apartment complex, thank Nio—and drove us back to the deserted marketplace. Not even the old Aolian woman remained. The sun had set entirely by now, and broken lamps left parts of the street completely shrouded in shadow. Luckily, my tablet had this handy-dandy light attached to it. A bit bright and fluorescent for my tastes, but it certainly illuminated things the shoddy infrastructure kept hidden. Seriously, what was Alexei doing that he couldn't keep his capital city properly lit?

I shone the flashlight in an arc over the wreckage, spotlighting broken stalls and strewn debris in turn. "Where did you see him last?"

"He went to buy some sperries, and then Greezle intercepted him. They walked that way." Rania pointed eastward.

"Is this the sperry stand?" I peered over a splintered counter, into the insulated tent characteristic of most Hiemyxian outdoor market stalls. The heater still glowed orange and hummed in the back corner. Crates of round red fruits had been completely abandoned. One was stomped to juice, but the others remained intact. I ran a finger through the dust on the counter, brought it to my nose, and sniffed.

"Yeah—Don't do that!"

"It's frostwood."

"No shit."

"And... something else." Strange. It was uncommon to cut frostwood this heavily. On its own, the drug imparted a pleasant relaxing feeling, with hallucinogenic effects just for fun. If you wanted something stronger, you bought something stronger. Perhaps mixing it with something else was cheaper, but... my nose shouldn't've buzzed like that when I sniffed it. It was cold, and tingly... almost like really strong mint, but if mint was drugs....

I sniffed it again.

"Don't do it again!"

"Well, how else am I supposed to know what's in it?"

"Why would you huff something if you don't know what it is?"

"Well, because..." I looked up at Rania. Faint bubbles of colored light now circled her face, illuminating nothing. "Touche." I wiped the powder off on my skirt, wrinkled my nose only to find that I couldn't feel it. Poked it just to make sure. Nothing. "I can't feel my nose."

"Great."

Rania had already moved on, taking my tablet and its flashlight to parse through the wreckage. I stumbled after her, not quite avoiding tripping over a torn tent flap. "That means there's some sort of sedative in there, probably... or a numbing agent—not really sure what the difference is."

"A numbing agent numbs. A sedative sedates."

"There might be overlap. But there's definitely a numbing agent." A shining white—or was it silver?—peryton crossed the way, majestic crown of antlers hanging with colored lights. When I blinked, it disappeared. I shook my head. I used to have a much greater tolerance for this sort of thing.

"...Right."

"Is his lizard around here?" I thought I saw a spot of color at the corner of my vision, but on closer inspection it was just a series of dancing lights that disappeared as soon as I looked that way. I peered over Rania's shoulder as she crouched in front of a metal bench, knocked askew.

"No, but—" She hesitated, then shook her head. "That thing's endlessly loyal. It'd probably have followed him, wherever he went." She glanced back at me. "You are standing way too close."
"Oh. Sorry." I stepped back, put my hands in my pockets. That was the nice thing about skirts: you could have pockets as big as you please.

"He went this way." Rania pointed down the street, past our original rendezvous point.

"I suppose we should follow that, then." Rania gave me a withering look, as if to say, yes, that was obvious. Reminded me, painfully, of one Alexei Wingwillow.

Ruthless backstabbing opportunist.

Cunning imperial puppetmaster.

Rat bastard.

"You know," I said, as I followed Rania unsteadily through the ransacked alleyway. The words came slowly—and not only from the mysterious frostwood concoction, which I was becoming increasingly convinced was only 40% frostwood at most. I didn't want to see that asshole's face again, if I could help it. But... "The palace has access to all of the CCTV footage in the city. I happen to know the emperor's great great great"—I counted all twenty-seven greats on my fingers, and may have added a couple in my inebriation—"great grandfather."
"Of course you do."

I gave Rania a withering look of my own, though I couldn't hold it for long. "We're not on good terms, but... I think I can get us in."

Rania looked hesitant.

"We don't have to tell him anything, except that your brother's missing. With luck, we can just get into the castle and sneak to the security sector ourselves."

Rania looked up and down the street, at the debris-strewn ground all around us. She sighed. "Fine. We'll... try that."