“You’re leaving with me,” comes his calm reply.
“Yeah,” I say with a fake laugh, “that’s not happening.”
“I wasn’t asking for your permission.”
“Good, because I’m not giving it. I have to warn everyone—”
“You’re not in charge,” he says with a snide twist of his lip.
“I’m not leaving!”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re irritating?”
“No. Everybody likes me,” I counter.
The communicator on Giffen’s uniform makes a static noise. “Gif, there’s a problem,” the com-link voice relates in a stressed tone.
“What is it?” Giffen asks.
“They detected our trift.”
“Are they moving on you?” he asks.
“Affirmative. We need to move the ship.”
“Leave us here. I’ll find a way off Skye.”
“But, Gif—”
“Go! Now!” Giffen orders.
“Happy landings, Gif,” his com-link partner reluctantly says.
“To you, as well,” Giffen replies.
“Aww, your ride’s leaving. Looks like you’re toast,” I smirk. “So, let me go and you can save yourself.”
“You are very strange. I don’t know what bread has to do with this,” Giffen says in confusion.
“You’re moving things with your mind and I’m strange?” I counter.
“Shh,” he hushes me as he sizes up the mess he’s in—we’re in. It’s a colossal debacle. The overup jerks abruptly. Giffen rises to his feet with me in his arms. The elevatorlike car begins to descend once more.
“I think they just noticed us,” Giffen mutters. “This is going to sting a little.”
My eyes narrow in suspicion. “What’s going to sting a little?”
He closes his eyes, and his brow creases. I cringe as a shock charges through me the equivalent of touching an electrified fence. The overup trajectory shifts with a jerk and starts moving sideways, and then slantways.
“Owah! That hurt!” I whine. “What was that?”
“I redirected the overup.” He frowns at me, adding, “It didn’t hurt that bad.”
“Yes it did! Put me down!” I demand.
“You can hardly stand.”
“I’m fine.” I wiggle in his arms. It’s feeble; I’m weak.
With a heavy sigh, he sets me on my feet. I pull away from him.
He reaches for my neck. I shy away from him. “What’re you doing?”
“Hold still,” he orders, reaching for me again.
I shy away again. “No!” I give him my severest scowl.
“I’m going to take off your collar! Don’t move,” he says in frustration.
“Oh.” I hold still. “Do you know the code?”
“I don’t need the code,” he grumbles.
I mock him silently, mouthing: I don’t need the code.
A click of the metal latch sounds; the collar around my neck slips off me to fall to the floor. The sound of the hardened foam cracking is next. I glance over my shoulder at Giffen; he has his eyes focused on my wrists. Pieces of the foam shed off. The increased circulation in my hands causes my numb fingers to sting as I wiggle them, breaking the foam.
I turn to face him. “What are you?” I demand as I rub my wrist with my free hand.
He raises one eyebrow. “What are you?”
I shake my head, glancing up at the ceiling for a second with a humorless laugh, before I look him in his eye again. “I’m not human, I’m not enough Rafe, and I’m too much Alameeda,” I reply.
For a moment, he just stares at me, and then he says, “I’m too much Alameeda and not enough Wurthem.” The overup lurches again, making me hold the wall for support. We begin to plummet downward once more. Giffen grinds his teeth in frustration. “There’s too much going on; I can’t control it all. We have to get out.” Giffen puts his harbinger back into his shoulder holster. He summons a soldier’s harbinger by holding up one hand in the air; it flies to his palm.
“You’re a bit of a oddball,” I observe.
Giffen frowns. “No more so than you.”
He lifts his hands again to the doors in front of us. They slide open, but the compartment keeps dropping. Floor after floor streaks by in a blur. I look at him and say, “I’m not going with you.” The overup slows, and then it comes to a stop in front of ten or so Brigadets who appear to be waiting for the lift. They look stunned when they see us. “Not our floor,” Giffen growls.
The doors snap shut forcefully before they can react. “You don’t know what you’re doing!” I accuse him. “You don’t even know where we are!”
“Quiet!” he orders, pointing at me belligerently.
I ignore his suggestion. “You’re going to get us killed! They see me with you and they’ll think, hmm—I don’t know—conspiracy! If I didn’t appear guilty enough before, you’ve pushed me over the edge.”
“I’ll push you over the edge,” he says as the overup slows down again. He opens the doors and literally pushes me out of it as he jumps. I land hard on my side, bruising my hip. I roll a little, trying to catch my breath that was forced from my lungs. We’re beneath the ship’s main platform, within the half-sphere base. Giffen raises his hands to the lift; closing the door, it activates again, and the overup car leaves.
I sit up, glaring at Giffen as he gets to his feet and looks around. The corridor is illuminated with sky-blue track lights in the floor and ceiling. It’s utilitarian—unadorned—and by all appearances, utilized only by the drone-bots that carry supplies from storage bays to restock the area up top. I watch the robotic carts move past us with shiny, chrome-plated shells. “Come on,” Giffen says, holding out his hand for me to take. “Let’s go.”
Another resupply-bot passes us carrying stacks of enticing beverages in colorful bottles. It’s a barback-bot, I think. I remember working at Lumin, the nightclub in Chicago. It’s where I first met Kyon. He’s going to destroy this place and everyone in it.
“We have to warn them,” I say as I look at Giffen’s outstretched palm in front of me. My eyes travel up him. He’s really tall, like most Etharians. He has the form of someone who scales mountains: all muscle without a trace of body fat. “We have to make them listen.”