Red would be passed over to MDEA in the morning. Before that, he would be staying in a place
called the Starscape Hotel & Casino Resort.
It was a glitzy, glamorous, and huge place of business. The pride of Center-City, the Starscape was
the busiest region in all of Desai.
Nalia hadn’t seen anything of that size since her home planet, which had
more than enough room to expand. Desai
seemed so small, but they made excellent use of their resources.
The Starscape was a monster spanning almost 230 floors into
the sky, with forty or so rooms on the average floor starting after floor
31. Floors 20 through 30 were actually
conference rooms, with floors 15-19 encompassing a concert hall. The floors below that were mixed between the
casino, the mall, the literal zoo they had and amusement park. Under construction behind the main building
were two more towers, about half the size of the main one.
The welcome guide, called a Tour Guide by profession, was
a colorful and dark skinned woman with a soft smile and beautiful accent. She educated that there were seven different
restaurants of varying content, some not appropriate for children and some
ridiculously family friendly. There were
a few clubs as well, none family friendly and guarded to keep the wrong eyes
from getting a show. The towers happened
to pique Nalia's interest, and the Tour Guide said that they would be done
within the year to support the increasing influx of visitors and immigrants.
It sat on a massive property that hosted a fifteen-tier
parking garage and private park, lit festively and layered with water features,
that could be used to expand the hotel even further if desired.
"Welcome to the Starscape!" the front desk
associate piped. She spoke cheerfully,
but the newcomers were taken aback with the fact that she was a young woman
with green skin that shimmered with gold, and long white hair pulled back in a
braid. They were as polite as they could
be, though, and it appeared that she was used to the new people gaping because
she didn't bat an eyelash at them.
The floor they would be occupying was 62, and it was
specifically reserved for the delivery party of Red. No one else was staying on that floor with
them, in case the criminal decided to start something. The police escorts took to securing him in a
room equipped with high-end technology to keep him in there.
Meanwhile, Nalia and Frenz went off to a set of joined
rooms that the police felt would be the safest distance... but only after a
rather unsettling encounter the officers had tried to avoid with Red and Nalia
passing each other, with him staring at her with those blank, devoid eyes
glinting with the vaguest sense of interest at the fact that she wouldn't look
away or avoid him as she did on the train.
"Balls of steel," Frenz said with a grin as he
opened the door that connected both their rooms. "Most people would be nervous after
being put into a headlock with someone like him."
Nalia laughed softly as she dropped onto her bed--it was
so soft and plush--and looked at her boss.
He clearly hadn't paid attention to her on the train, but Nalia left it
alone. "Those kinds of people just
thrive on being feared, though," she said.
"It's no different than when you put on your game face during trials
because the defendant is looking at you with utter spite."
"Good point."
Frenz leaned in the doorway that connected their rooms, arms folded
across his expensive suit. "Why
don't you head out and get some time to clear your head? The detectives and I have a dinner arranged
with some bigwig with MDEA, but I don't need you for that. Just remember we'll be meeting tomorrow
morning."
Nalia nodded, but she decided she would just stay in her
room. She had a call to make back
home. Once Frenz went to his room, she
locked up the dividing door on her side and started to work on the wifi internet
that permitted Desai residents to connect to a super network connection that
allowed them to connect to their world's resources. Not even Nalia understood it completely, or
how they did it, but she was thankful.
She owed a friend a call, given new developments.
***
“Sorry for all the noise!”
That wasn’t an unwarranted apology. Everything in the background was horrifically
loud, between shouts and the sounds of construction, to him yelling to be
careful with art pieces as he carried his phone around with him. Nalia sat in front of her laptop camera
patiently, and just waved him off each time, forgiving her flighty peer.
The cheerful young man’s name was Hammond Shuu, a friend
of hers from high school ages ago. They
spoke very rarely those days, but he seemed to be doing quite well during the
gaps of communication that they had. He
moved to Nottinghamshire, England, to set up an art gallery. “They said I should have gone to Hammersmith,
to give them a bit of color!” he said once.
He ignored it, obviously.
Something about the charm in saying he lived in the place of Robin Hood
and Maid Marian was entertaining to him for reasons he never fully explained.
Finally, the video chat they held across the dimensional
rift started to shamble all over as Hammond scaled some metal, modern-looking
stairs. For being cross-dimensional,
there wasn't any lag and the audio was crystal clear. The technology was impressive and likely
driven by the same sorts they used to communicate between planets back home.
A door opened and slammed shut, and the connection was
submerged into beautiful quiet as he moved to sit at a glass desk. “You’re brave for going there,” he remarked.
“It’s part of my job right now,” she replied. Her voice was flat as her eyes trailed off
for a corner of the room.
“Nalia.” The young
man brought the camera close to his slender eyes, looking at her with
golden-brown scrutiny. “You’re the
daughter of Shaman Nanna-Sin the Fiftieth or whatever. I don’t think I’m the only person who has
told you that you’re grossly under reaching, for one. And secondly, Desai is notorious for
cataloging everything. You’re not safe.”
Nalia turned from her laptop, grabbing out her travel
pass from the Travel Agency. “Actually,
someone was kind enough to register me as a class below what I actually
am. Beta class.”
“After you told them you weren’t, sounds like.”
“I wasn’t going to lie.”
Nalia leaned in close to the screen.
Her tone was very final. She had
her reasons for not lying, clearly, and Hammond needed to respect that. “I do need to talk to you about something
that happened at the hub while boarding to leave Artania, though.”
“What?”
Nalia looked at her hotel door, and the locked door that
connected her room to Thomas Frenz. It
was as though she expected one of them to open at any minute, despite how she
locked every lock available on both.
After a few moments of silence, she looked at Hammond. “Red knows who I am.”
“Oh, God.” He
frowned deeply. "What exactly
happened?"
It was a big deal for a number of reasons. Not only did Nalia want to protect her
identities from each other, but Red had been a prominent figure in their lives
since high school, off and on. What else
did he know?
“When we were at the hub, he latched onto me and told me
to not come here, that someone was after me, and spoke my title.”
“Naty?” Nalia
nodded at the question and Hammond let out a low whistle. “Sounds like he wants to expose you.”
“But why here? No
one cares here. There’s a green woman
working the front desk. That would have
been like Osi'Ra deciding to demask Anthony here rather than Artania. I don't think anyone would care here."
"I don't know.
Anthony is pretty good at getting famous."
"Only because he stands out like a sore thumb." Nalia ran a hand through her hair, shifting
around in her chair a bit. "I
guess... I guess I mention this because
if, for some reason, I don't call you every three days... let's assume
something happened." She really was
planning for the worst, and while even Nalia had to admit she was likely
overreacting, years of dealing with Red explained much of it away.
"How long are you there for?" Hammond asked as
he spun around in his chair. "I
thought you were just dropping the jerkhole off and coming back home."
"Tom is leading the prosecution team, and that could
take weeks. I don't know exactly how
trials work here, though I'm going to find out tomorrow. We're going to the Palace of the Watchers
here soon, which is their 'supreme court', in a sense. Big bads go there."
"...that's a horribly unfortunate name," Hammond
remarked after a pause to stare at her.
Nalia had to agree.
In their dimension, the Watchers were insanely powerful, and often
wicked, creatures. They came from a
plane that no one really understood, and at one time were designated to various
areas to protect and watch over the newly born humans with minimal
contact. It was up to the humans to find
their way. But some disagreed--the
stories varied from world to world over how they disagreed and why--but they
separated into two groups. Most, those
who taught and married the humans (anyone would gladly admit that humans were
quite lovely), decided to relocate to Tartoras--Mars. The planet that was torn asunder because that
group of Watchers were kind of stupid.
There was another old friend, mutual to the each of them,
that they often wondered without saying the words about her being connected to
Watchers. Nearly every human was
descended from the Watchers and their experiments (they were far ahead of their
time), but those who were closer in their genes were... special, in the way
that many believed they were close descendants, not several centuries removed
or just products of experimentation.
Chase Laine could have been downright dangerous if she wasn't such a
peacekeeper. There was a reason her fans
nicknamed her Earthgirl.
"Anyway, I don't know how long this will take, so
I'd like it if you'd let me check in every three days or so?"
"I'd love it if you checked in every day, because
being honest, I hate you being there," Hammond replied. His voice shifted after he paced to the door
and locked it up firmly. It changed,
sounding like two voices speaking together, in a language not spoken on
Earth. Its dynamics were awkward for a
human ear, to be sure, with sounds that humans would have thought primal when
hearing them. "//I can come and
visit you.//"
Her own voice changed, lowering a few octaves. However, she didn't develop that dual sound
as he did. That was the species
difference. The execution of the
language was no different, however. It
was the universal language spoken across the planets in negotiation and
treaties.
Really, to them, it was the same as a Scotsman and an
American speaking to each other.
Different accents, but same language.
"//I'll be fine. Red figured
out who I am and probably decided to try shaking me up. Rattling me some.//"
As she spoke, her eyes darkened--literally. They broadened as her irises spread up and
over all other visible parts. It was her
true form. Demonic by Earth standards,
and to some hauntingly beautiful, but the widening of eyes and mouth were
necessary physical attributes to people who lived on Afiramen. Unlike most the other planets, Jupiter was as
hostile under the cloud cover as it looked.
While it produced natural light, it was still comparatively dark and
violent. Their bodies adapted as humans
adapted to the various climates of Earth.
"//I heard the battle was harsh.//" Hammond jostled his camera around as he sat
back down. "//It was all over the
news here, but I didn’t get to see any of the footage yet.//"
"//I'm glad my bones are Afirite. I think even Marauder would have lost that
fight. Red’s gotten ridiculously strong.//"
"//You're built like a damn tank outside of
Afiramen.//"
"//Isn't that sort of funny? I'm really not that strong back home. I have my status and my fighting to rely on,
but I'm not super powered as I am on planets like... everyone else's.//"
"//Well, we all find benefits in being from
different worlds. My light technology
looks far better on planets closer to Helios.
And Marauder improves too with his technology working better. About the only one who stays consistent is
Anthony.//"
"//Such a freak of nature.//" Nalia stared at Hammond in such a blank,
serious way that he started to laugh.
She shrugged, though she felt a small laugh escape her. Anthony, although they very rarely spoke to
each other, was her best friend into eternity.
No matter what she said about him, that never changed.
About then, there was a knock on the door and her face
shifted back to its human shape and she swung up to her feet. She walked over and looked through the
peephole.
Outside, she saw a face she hadn't been expecting to see
again: Agent Dennick Sharpe. He had to have some good clearance, since the
elevator was temporarily keycard locked strictly to authorized personnel. Slowly, Nalia opened the door and offered
Dennick a smile. "I hope you
brought some food with you."
"We need to talk," he said. "Come on. I'll pay for dinner."
That was impromptu, to say the least. "Let me say goodbye to a friend on the
computer and I'll be right out."
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