Just before his pre-dose window, we ran.
Not back through the service tunnels. That would be expected. Instead, we took the main corridor, setting off every single alarm we'd avoided on the way in. Red lights bathed everything in blood. Sirens wailed through the station.
I grabbed Sabine, spun her against the wall as footsteps approached. Her body pressed against mine, her breath coming fast.
“Trust me,” I said, then kissed her.
Hard. Desperate. We were lovers caught in the wrong place, not thieves with stolen property worth killing for. The guards ran past, heading for the vault, not even glancing at the couple making out in an alcove.
When I pulled back, her lips were swollen, her eyes dark with want that had nothing to do with performance.
“Brilliant,” she gasped, but her hands were fisted in my shirt, holding me close.
“You're brilliant,” I said, meaning it. Meaning everything. “Your device.”
The screens around us flickered. Then exploded with data.
Every crime Qeth had committed. Every family he'd betrayed. Account numbers, murder orders, blackmail material. All that time Sabine spent watching, recording, gathering evidence during her “maintenance” shifts. All of it broadcasting on every display in the station.
The reaction was immediate. Shouts of rage from the gaming floors. The crash of breaking glass from the VIP levels. The station's underworld realizing they'd all been played, stolen from, lied to.
“Mutual destruction,” Sabine said, a fierce smile transforming her face. “He wanted to trap us. Now he's trapped by his own crimes.”
I kissed her again, quick and fierce with pride. She made a sound that went straight through me, her body arching into mine despite the chaos around us.
“We need to go,” she said against my mouth.
“Then let's go,” I replied, pulling her with me.
We ran through the collapsing order of the Parallax Casino, the Regalia heavy in my possession, Sabine's hand tight in mine. Behind us, screens continued their relentless display of truth. Qeth's empire was eating itself alive.
We'd turned his trap into our weapon. We made it back to the vault entrance. The Regalia was secure in my jacket, Sabine's device had done its work. Now we just had to survive long enough to use our advantage. That's when we heard footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Coming fast. 'They know we're here,' Sabine breathed. The door to the vault antechamber was our only option. We ducked inside just as?—
SABINE
—the door detonated inward, slamming against the wall with enough force to crack the reinforced polymer. Four guards poured through as a tactical strike team. Two Mondians, their scaled green skin catching the emergency lighting, swept left and right. A Krelaxian with scar tissue where his left ear should have been checked corners with paranoia. The human brought up the rear, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on his weapon's safety.
They were expecting resistance. They were expecting us to run.
We stood exactly where Qeth knew we'd be. In front of his private vault, the Regalia heavy in Varrick's hand, my device still humming with the last echoes of its activation sequence.
Then Qeth entered.
The smell hit me first. Beneath his expensive cologne, something sharp and citrus, lurked the acrid stench of neural enhancers metabolizing badly. Copper pennies dissolved in acid. Meat starting to turn. His bronze skin had taken on a waxy sheen, the way corpses look when they've been prettied up for viewing.
But his copper eyes were terrifyingly clear.
This was the window I'd observed a hundred times from the dealer's floor. That brief, horrible clarity that came just before his first shift dose. When the chemicals wore thin enough for his real intelligence to surface, but not so thin that the paranoia took over. Twenty-seven minutes of the most dangerous version of Qeth. Brilliant, focused, and completely without moral constraints.
His voice still carried that old power. The voice that had negotiated impossible deals, ordered executions with the same tone he'd order lunch, built an empire on stolen code and broken minds. Each word was measured, weighted, released with precision.
He moved into his office with deliberate steps. I catalogued every detail with the hyperawareness of prey recognizing a predator. His six-fingered hands were clasped behind his back, a gesture I'd seen him use to hide tremors. The sensory filaments along his temples, usually writhing, had gone perfectly still. Not natural stillness. The rigid control of someone fighting their own nervous system.
Varrick's body shifted beside me, weight transferring to the balls of his feet. His hand found the small of my back, and through the thin material of my maintenance coveralls, his palm burned like a brand. Five fingers spread wide, each point of contact sending electricity through my nervous system. His thumb moved in a small, deliberate circle. Comfort and claim and promise all at once.
“My dear protégé.” Qeth continued, each step bringing him closer. “Did you really think that I would leak the Regalia's location without expecting you?”
The guards had spread into a perfect tactical formation. The Mondians flanked wide, cutting off any escape to the side exits. The Krelaxian had positioned himself by the main door, scarred face impassive. The human covered the service panel I'd usedto enter. Of course Qeth knew about that route. He'd probably known about all seventeen of my carefully mapped escape paths.
