Tristan gathered his strength and
started rummaging through the debris in a steadily growing panic. He
managed to find three mythril ingots still embedded in the helm where
Akaila's blast launched them. He collapsed to the ground, holding
them, sobbing.
“No, no, no, I can't, no, no, this
isn't...no.”
Sapien sighed and rolled her eyes,
“It's just money. I lost a ship I built with my own paws, you don't
see me crying over it.”
“You just don't get it, do you!?”
He threw one of the ingots at her in
a rage before collapsing again, “Those belonged to the syndicate!
When they find out...I'm dead...I'm already dead, and not just me,
no!”
He got to his feet and ran towards
her, “You're dead too! You let it happen! All of you! They'll hang
our corpses up in a town square as an example!”
Sapien just smirked and poked his
nose, “Boop!” and walked away, ears and tail both up, humming a
tune to herself.
All four of them were left staring in
confusion until Akaila probed at Sapien's thoughts, then she started
laughing uncontrollably before following behind. She took up step
next to her and said quiet enough for the others not to hear, “I
won't tell them if you won't.”
“Aw, you spoiled the surprise! I'll
have to wear a tinfoil hat next time.”
“You know those actually amplify
brainwave transmission, not block it, right?”
“Exactly! I'd wear a foil hat and
think about nothing but porn as loud as I can.”
“...You never take anything
seriously, do you?”
“You've clearly never spent time
around Vulprens.”
Jagra, Kessler, and Tristain caught
up after gathering their things and they continued walking along the
beach towards Nikolskoye, the town they were originally headed to.
The silence was growing steadily more
uncomfortable until Kessler broke it, “So what are we going to do?
I've dealt with those syndicate types before, they don't fuck
around.”
Sapien glanced up at him with a
chuckle, “Trust me, it'll be fine. So since we're apparently all
waist-deep in this, we might as well get to know each other. You
already know I'm a courier and Tristain's a smuggler, so what brings
a dwarf, a drakkani, and a wolf to this corner of hell?”
Jagra spoke first, “Mining! What
else would call a dwarf? I've mined in everything from limestone to
obsidian, and I've never had an ore that bested me. I came here to
try my pickaxe against Radeite crystal, and maybe gather some coin
and women in the process!”
Kessler commented next, “While I
don't share the midget's enthusiasm, I also came here for profit.
Everyone else in my bloodline made it big in one industry or another
by time they hit my age. Psionic ores are the only way I could profit
fast enough to make up for lost time, and if I die trying, I still
uphold the family honor, because I risked my life to make my
fortune.”
Sapien glanced over at Akaila, “And
you?”
“Well...”
She whimpered lightly under her
breath, ears back, and rubbed at the amplifier on her head.
“I came here for a cure.”
All four of the others stopped
mid-step. She sighed and continued with more strength in her voice,
“I came here to find a cure for psyching. Lets just leave it at
that.”
She continued walking and Sapien
hastily caught up, pressing for more, “Okay now you should know how
those words are gonna hit a vixen. What do you mean cure? Since when
is telepathy a disease?”
She snarled and started walking
faster, but Sapien kept up with her, “I'm not gonna just drop this,
I've never heard of a psycher referring to their abilities like
they're a disea-”
She stopped and whipped around, her
teeth snapping shut inches from Sapien's snout before growling at
her, “You saw me on that deck, you saw the pain, what, you think
that's the first time that's happened!? I never asked for this, I
never wanted any of it, these abilities were forced on me!”
She turned and continued walking,
leaving Sapien standing there as the others caught up again. Kessler
smirked as they all started walking and commented to her, “If I
were you, I'd drop the topic before she eats you.”
“Oh please, like anybody would eat
me.”
“I would.”
She glared up at him and he suffixed
the comment, “I do love my junk food, after all.”
There was another period of
uncomfortable silence before they spotted a group of small airships,
painted bright orange, leaving the town and heading towards the wreck
in the distance. Tristan fired a flare and one changed course, making
a landing nearby them.
A human man climbed down, heading
over to them, and Sapien greeted him, “I take it you're the rescue
team?”
“If you're from that ship that just
went down, yeah, we are.”
“I'm the captain. It was just the
five of us on board. The cause of the crash was our fuel running out,
so you don't need to worry about explosion risks.”
“Were you hauling anything
hazardous?”
“There was unshielded mythril on
board, but as soon as I discovered it, I had all of it we could find
tossed overboard, we might have missed a few ingots though.”
“Unshielded mythril? Did you find
out what dumb smuggler was sneaking it onboard your ship?”
Sapien glanced at Tristan, “He got
confrontational, we had to throw him overboard too.”
The man noticed her glance and looked
at Tristan, “Right...we can give you transport into town. If the
ship or cargo was insured, I can drop you at the skydock so you can
file the claim.”
“That's exactly where I need to
go.”
She smirked and looked towards
Tristan, “I had the ship insured for a sizable amount, it's an
irreplaceable prototype, after all.”
He furled his brow at her, but
remained silent even as they boarded the rescue vessel. It wasn't
until they were stepping from the ship onto the skydock that he
spoke, “You knew the whole damn time and you were going to leave me
thinking I'm good as dead.”
“I'm a vulpren, it's kinda what we
do. I am going to need you to keep quiet for now though.”
“And why's that?”
“If the insurance company hears I'm
handing over part of the settlement to a third party right away,
they'll believe it was insurance fraud.”
“Fair point.”
After several silent moments, he gave
a sly remark, “So how much is my silence worth to you?”
Jagra reached up and slapped him hard
on the back of the head, “If they think it's fraud, she never sees
a penny, and neither does your strawboss, so we're all dead. That
includes you, ya greedy bastard.”
They arrived at the shipping office
to find several people already waiting. Two vulprens, one a fox and
one a vixen, both advanced in years greeted Sapien with a worried hug
and dozen questions, but as they all stood in the corridors outside
the insurance office, Akaila's eyes kept twitching, and she couldn't
seem to keep one ear from folding back. She kept trying to figure out
the cause, and turned to ask Tristan if he brought any of the mythril
with him, but when she did, he was gone, as was her twitch.
Kessler and Jagra gave their
testimonies and answered questions before being allowed to head off
their own ways with Sapien's assurances she'd handle any Syndicate
issues that may try to follow them. Akaila on the other hand stayed
there, not giving an explanation as to why until after Sapien stepped
back out of the insurance office, pulling her aside quickly,
“They're coming for you.”
She looked up at the wolf
quizzically, “Come again?”
“The Syndicate, they grabbed
Tristan while we weren't looking, another psycher must have clouded
our perceptions or something, he told them everything, and they
decided it's easier to just eliminate witnesses than risk you going
to the authorities.”
“That would mean Jagra and Kessler
are in danger too.”
“Maybe, my clairvoyance is limited,
I didn't get any foreboding from them.”
“Well thanks, regardless. Did your
crystal ball happen to say when or how they'd come after me?”
“Not how, but it happens the second
you leave this building, your life ends there if something doesn't
change the course of events.”
She looked around the building for a
way out. It was a sizable complex, a large central room with several
branching halls and offices, and a guard at every corner. High-end
recording devices scanned over every passageway, and glints and
glimmers of hidden amplifiers gave away that several of the guards
were also psychers, nobody in their right mind would perform an
assassination there. As she pondered an escape route, she questioned
Akaila,
“Isn't clairvoyance usually
restricted to people the psycher has a close relationship to?”
“Usually.”
“So is that your way of saying
we're friends now?”
“Don't read too much into it,
there's a reason I want to get rid of this...it's...unpredictable.”
“I know you're the psychic here,
but I can't help but get the impression there's something very
important about those abilities you keep trying your damnedest to
hide.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“More noticable than the wings on
your back...bingo!”
“What?”
“How much weight can you carry in
the air?”
She blinked in confusion, ears back
and head tilted. Sapien just giggled and pointed straight up at an
open skylight.
Before she had a chance to say
anything, Akaila grabbed her by the brass backpack and lifted her
into the air, flying up towards the skylight rapidly. She tossed the
vixen through, then grabbed the frame and climbed through herself,
getting the attention of several guards in the process. Akaila could
feel the eyes of other psychers on her, their minds prying at hers,
so she just broadcast a beacon back to them with two words, “Danger.
Outside.”
She grabbed Sapien and moved her
behind a cooling unit, both of them seeking cover, and she waited,
probing the situation around them. She growled in frustration as her
senses couldn't reach out far enough, but was suddenly snapped out of
it by her own thoughts reverberating off a nearby source. She looked
down to see a small mythril ingot being shoved into her hands.
Sapien just grinned, “I kept one
for evidence, just in case we had to go to the police.”
“But how...”
“Brass backpack. It insulated it.”
She smirked back, glancing sideways
at her, then focused on it, using it as an antenna. The foggy area
around them was suddenly much clearer and more vibrant. She was able
to pick up the thoughts of everyone nearby with ease.
She patiently and silently listened.
Several guards were sent outside, and a twinge of alarm came from
several spots outside, positioned at all the exits, hired guns. One
stepped away to make a phone call to his boss, there was her window.
She grabbed Sapien again and both of them took to the air, sailing
right over his head as he was looking down to dial. By time his gaze
went back to the skydock station, they were already gone.
Sapien called above the wind to
Akaila, “We need to head for the Eastgate mining office, that's
where they said they'd be if I needed them, and odds are there's
already somebody on their way to arrange an accident.”
“Right!”
Akaila banked sharply and took off
towards the mining office as fast as her wings would carry her.
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