“She's one of them.” The woman pointed at the screen. “One of the Earth women.”
Lucy turned and suddenly realized the crowd had moved back. She was standing alone.
She pushed her hood all the way off, pulled down her scarf, and faced them.
“Yes. I am one of them. And I want to understand what I'm doing here. What is going on?”
“Where did you come from?” someone called out.
“I was being kept at that facility that blew up last night. One of the scientists there said the military was trying to clean up their mess.”
There were audible gasps.
“Please, tell me what is going on.”
She looked around at the alien faces surrounding her, and felt a deep, desperate wish to go home.
The sense of isolation, of otherness, that she'd felt in the first weeks she'd woken up in the facility came crashing back down on her.
She hadn't felt it the last few months, she realized, not because she was suddenly one of them, but because her gaolers had started talking to her, joking with her, even playing with her, and even that small amount of acceptance had made her feel less different.
These Tecran were looking at her with the horror and condescension she'd seen in Farnn and the others' eyes when she'd first interacted with them.
“You are the reason those UC people are coming to take over our military and government.“ The man who spoke was the same one who'd claimed it was a coup.
“How am I the reason?” she asked.
That shut him up, and he looked down, mumbled something.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“He doesn't have a good answer, because you aren't the reason. The person who took you from your home is the reason.” The woman standing next to him spoke with what sounded very much like contempt. “How long have you been here?”
“Three months, I'm told. I wasn't conscious for all of it.”
Again, there was silence.
“This is just pure trouble.” One of the men in the crowd started moving backward. “No good can come of it, and if the military are cleaning up their mess, I don't want to be in their way.”
“That makes you a coward, and the reason they were able to put us in this situation to begin with,” the woman who spoke earlier told him.
Everyone shifted uncomfortably, and Lucy realized they were put on the spot with the coward accusation. No one wanted to look like a coward, but some were already looking around to see if there was a military clean up crew on the way.
That thought jolted her.
Someone would be recording this, surely. It was enough of a spectacle, after all.
And she didn't think, even if they wanted to, anyone here could help her if the military came for her.
“Just, please, tell me what I need to know.” She caught the woman's eye.
“You aren't the only one they took,” the woman said, waving up at the screen. “And they were caught out, and now--”
Someone at the back screamed.
The sound of the cry started a panicked movement by the crowd. People began to edge away, and then to run.
Lucy didn't bother trying to see what had caused the panic. She dove into the crowd, letting it sweep her along and then she slipped down a narrow alleyway.
She crouched down in the shadows, pulling her cloak over her head, and peered around the corner to see what had caused the fuss.
Two hovers were moving across the square, and while a lot of the crowd had dispersed, some of the people were still standing there, watching the hovers approach. Some were holding their wrists in a way that made her think they were recording.
“Who are you? What is your business?” The woman who had at least shared some information with her called out, a challenge in her voice.
“Are you here to 'clean up your mess'?” A man who stood near the woman shouted. “Show your faces. Are you with the military?”
His demand drew some people back, and as they converged on the square, cutting the hovers off, the drivers lifted them higher.
They hung, suspended for a moment, and then something hit Lucy's ears, a pulse of some kind.
It hurt.
She curled over her knees, hands to ears, just barely hearing the screams from the square.
The pain disappeared as fast as it had come, and she raised her head cautiously.
People were picking themselves off the floor, and the screen on the side of the building was blank.
The hovers were gone.
They had killed all the electronic devices with some sort of electro-magnetic pulse, she guessed.
Whoever was hunting her couldn't afford for any comms of her to surface, and they couldn't answer the questions that had been thrown at them, either. They'd run when challenged.
That was good to know.
But if they caught her on the street without the benefit of a crowd around her, they wouldn't hesitate to grab her.
She had no doubt about that.
What she needed was more information. Some way to understand everything that was going on.
The Tecran here were conflicted, that much was certain. It would be difficult to work out enemies from allies, but at least not everyone was an enemy.
She rose to her feet, pressing back against the wall. The military knew she was here now.
They could just as easily have left someone in the square to wait for her to show herself again. In fact, they'd have been stupid not to.
She didn't know what to do next.
Where to go or how to find out what she needed to know.
But standing here wasn't going to help her. She needed to move.
The square was almost empty now. Most people had picked themselves up, but they were standing in small groups, talking, and she didn't think they'd be shrugging off the incident and pretending nothing had happened.
More than one of the uniformed officers she'd noticed earlier were now visible, and it looked like they were questioning witnesses.
As she watched them approach a group, she saw a woman step back and walk slowly away. It reminded her of herself earlier, of the nonchalance she'd affected, and so she was still watching when the woman glanced casually down the first narrow alleyway she passed.
Her heart sped up as she waited for the woman to pass another. The woman glanced down that one, too.
Looking for someone.
Looking for me.
Lucy turned, and jogged down the alleyway as fast as she could.
Chapter 8
Bane was interested that Dray Helvan hadn't shared the details of his plan to stay out of sight of Tecra with the UC ambassador, or even his own Grihan colleagues.
He'd expected Dray to simply repeat what Bane had murmured into his earpiece, but the Grihan officer had editorialized, giving no specifics whatsoever.
Pretending Bane hadn't given him anything more.
It had surprised him so much, Bane had started following him around almost constantly.
His choice of Dray had been random, he'd thought. Any one of the three Grih would have done.
But Dray's parting shot to the ambassador, that Bane was probably more comfortable with a military officer than someone else, rang true, and for the first time, he realized he wasn't as self-aware as he thought he was.
He still had things to learn about himself.
That in itself was mind-altering.