Their landing had not been easy. Not the act of doing so, the autopilot handled all of that, but because Lili had to mentally prepare herself for the epic highs and lows that come from greeting the authorities. When the ship does land, it’s on a strip of sandy grass near what she hopes is Melbourne’s CBD, though with how generic the shattered city looks she supposes that they could be anywhere. There’s one thing that she’s sure of; the iconic dinner plates are nowhere to be seen, meaning that they’re not in Sydney, and certainly not within range of the Afflatus.
“You seem to have experience with breaking laws,” Lili mumbles to Avett on their way to the door. “What do you suggest?”
“Don't assume I’m someone who likes breaking the law,” he says, and he says this with enough force to knock out a small dragon. “Just because I know my way around the enforcers doesn’t mean I’ve gotten caught. I’m just well studied on what happens when you get caught.”
“Should we walk out with our hands on our heads?”
“We’re not fucking playing a schoolyard game.” Avett’s ear flicks. He looks to the side and out the navigation’s windshield. When Lili goes to follow his line of sight, she sees a singular IRC vehicle hovering above the sand, not having landed yet.
Avett pulls Lili into him by the arm not a moment later. “A little secret for you, princess.”
“Hm?”
“That ship’s the only one out there—I can’t hear any others. They lied about the convoy.”
She regards the ship with uncertainty. The voice that played over the radio had seemed wiry and unsure of herself, as if she was reading off a script rather than reciting her speil from memory. Something doesn't quite fit in here properly, but Lili's not sure why. Maybe the rest of the convoy's watching from a distance, ready to strike from the air at a moment's notice should they prove themselves to be more than a handful.
This sentiment isn't lost on Avett, who notices it on Lili without her having to say a single word. "There's only one ship, Lilith. I would've heard them if there were more. And if there are more, then they're clearly way too far from us to be a threat." He grits his teeth when he stares out the window again. "It doesn't make sense. We probably could've beelined it if you hadn't landed."
Lili is about to apologise when the radio crackles back to life, interrupting her. The woman on the other side only manages to get halfway through her slog of a recitation before Avett storms over to the counter and slams his fist into one of the panels, shattering it into millions of virtual shards. It works. The voice cuts off with a mechanical screech.
Avett stands in front of the counter, his fist still submerged in the sea of digital dials. The morning sunlight streams through the windshield and directly into his eyes; he shuts them, but goes no further than that. Something's churning behind those eyelids, and it seems to be some wild jungle juice concoction of wrath, realisation, and shame. When he snaps open his eyes, he's already made up his mind about what he's going to do next, and Lili's sure that it's not going to be anything constructive.
Lili winces as she regards the shattered radio interface. "They might add years onto our sentence for that."
"They won't." With purpose in his step, he strides up to the door and pounds against the emergency release button. "I've got a pretty good feeling about who's in that other ship, Lilith, and I'm about to give him a piece of my mind."
There's no way it's Alexei, she thinks.
She watches Avett pass her and stomp down the stairs. The other ship is parked a bit further away; everytime the shore rushes in, it meets the bottom of the roll-out stairs and leaves a wet trail of kisses on the metal. Avett pushes his way through the puffs of toetoe and stands on the sand, alone, waiting.
Then he starts screaming. “Is this fucking funny to you?”
For a moment, all Lili hears is the gentle hush of the tide, the ploying cry of gulls in the distance, and Avett’s laboured breathing. The other ship’s doors remain shut, but that doesn’t stop Avett from lacing his fingers around a stray clam shell and hurling it at the windshield. It doesn’t crack the glass, thank god, but it does springboard off and splash into the ocean.
“Fuck you! We flew out here because we thought we were fucking criminals!” He kneels and picks up a sea-smoothed rock. "Is that all we are? A fucking joke to you?"
Avett's aim is especially impeccable today—Lili expects no less from a Kattish arms specialist. He hits the frame of the door this time. The rock bounces and tumbles back into the wet sand with a thud, sending a splatter of seawater and mud into the air.
Lili wonders if she should stop him. She only manages to make it to the second-last step when she feels the presence of someone else behind her.
"He's rather snappy, isn't he?"
She whirls on her heel, expecting Alexei to be standing at the top of the staircase. She finds no such miracle. He's actually on the ground next to the stairs. His smile is gentle, and he's got his arms folded across his chest like he's a proud coach watching his players score.
Lili says, "I don't blame him."
"For a Kattish, he's not very spatially aware of his surroundings, is he? Quite prone to tunnel visioning."
Avett's insults have devolved into mindless profanities. He’s shaking his fists in the air, having run out of ammunition from the beach a long time ago. The water laps at his shoes, the wind splashes his hair into his eyes, but he doesn't give a damn about any of it. He won't let himself give a damn until Alexei's in front of him and grovelling.
Lili calls out to him. "He's here, next to me."
With gritted teeth, her partner whips around on his heels hard enough to leave hollows in the sand. He’s an approaching storm incarnate, and when he stops in front of Alexei, he’s seething with such tension that he looks like he might start throwing punches again. He’s got his fists clenched to the point where his gloves have tightened around the knuckles like a second skin.
Alexei doesn’t move. “Do you want to hit me again?”
“Fuck you.”
He shifts back, satisfied with Avett’s response. “Good. You’ve gotten it out of your system—”
“Like hell it is. Fuck you.”
“—And now we can engage in civil conversation, as most mature adults do.”
Avett watches Alexei, his breathing coming in both loud inhales and deep exhales. Then he pins Lili down with that same glare. “Don’t tell me you’re with him now.”
Even though he’s on the sand and Lili is on the second to last step, Avett overpowers her to the point where she feels like an ant that’s chosen to look up at a mountain. She’s new to this whole thing, this whole deal about getting what she wants by forcing her way through other people. It scares her. In the same way that it has scared Humankind from the allure of space, it scares her.
Thankfully, Alexei lets out a noisy sigh, ridding Lili of all and any responsibility. “Cold, Mr. Ironsturm. Very cold. Lili here has the right idea—you would be better off listening to what I have to say.”
“You’ve gotta be at least thirty-five.” Avett lunges for Lili’s wrist and tugs at her gently when he says this. She doesn’t budge. “You chip a nail while you were filing your taxes? I don’t fucking care. You set us up and you lied about it. What makes you think we’re interested in what you’ve got to say?”
Lili echoes him. “You set us up."
Alexei nods. "Indeed I did."
Avett groans, slaps a hand over his eyes, and runs it down to his mouth. She continues. "Why?"
"Because I was interested in you."
She blinks. In the distance, she catches a familiar aircraft in the corner of her eye; when she breaks eye contact with Alexei, she realises that it's the Winnow. Auren and Ysh'vanna are safe.
Lili turns back to Alexei. Steps off the stairs to stand with the two men on the sand. "What does that mean?"
"I'm not a normal Human, Lili." He holds her gaze for a bit before pacing forward with his arms behind his back. "I can see into other people's memories. I can block punches without lifting a single finger. There is not an Eldrakian alive that could rival nor replicate this technique to the same amount of aptitude."
The Winnow whirrs as it floats down onto a patch of fenced-off grass. It's kicking up puffs of dry sand everywhere, and Lili has to squint to defend herself from tearing up on the spot. They've been tricked, she realises. She wonders if Auren and Ysh'vanna are in on it too.
Despite all of this, her voice still manages to drop into a low grit. "You looked into my memories."
“To say that I looked into your memories wouldn’t quite cut it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Your surface memories, they filter in unintentionally. I’m acutely aware of the people around me… and how they might react to certain actions.”
Avett jabs a finger up into the taller man’s face. “You knew how badly we’d take your bullshit, and you did it anyway. You’re the best kind of person, aren’t you?”
“My sudden onset of telesthesia would have you to believe that I am more sympathetic to others.” His eyes, though still ringed with that decadent gold, darken to the shade of deep umber. “But the opposite is true. There is too much to give a shit about these days, and I don’t need a sob story to know when to hold back.”
His words hang like frigid icicles above their heads. Avett is to Alexei as a cat is to a tigress. Only God knows which corresponding animalistic comparison would be appropriate for Lili.
Avett doesn't care about where he stands on the animal kingdom food chain, it seems, because he's up and at Alexei again. "You lashed out at us, end of story. Go back to filing your sanctuary taxes or whatever and leave us alone."
"Ah, about that. I did have a motive, of which I was about to explain before…" Alexei eyes Avett; his gaze isn't harsh, but it isn't welcoming either. "I riled you up, Lili, didn't I? I wanted to."
He glides past her partner towards his ship, and for a moment, Lili thinks that he might actually leave. The sea soaks into his cloak at the hem, but the fabric doesn't darken at all.
"Lili, you shattered my shield. No mere mammalian is capable of this. I have reason to believe that you and I are one and the same.”
And in that same moment, Lili doesn’t know what to say.
Alexei continues, “I could sense it from you the second you came into my view. I just had to prove it. I apologise for the nerves that I’ve inadvertently tripped.”
Before Lili can ask what exactly 'being like him' entails, the door to Alexei's ship gives off a mechanical whirr. The entrance slides open a second later, revealing a Draconian woman who Lili assumes is Alexei's “IRC representative.” As she makes her way down the steps, her floor-length white coat lingers on the steps behind her—Lili can't help but notice the way the ends of her coat have discoloured into a sickly yellow from wear. When she reaches the bottom, she makes her way over to Alexei with several shuffling steps. She can't be any taller than Lili's shoulders.
"Alexei," she calls. He leans his head over to the side, and the woman has to stand on her tip-toes to even whisper into his ear. He nods to her once she pulls back.
“Right. I’m getting sick of the Melbourne shoreline, and it’s rather gusty out here, so why don’t we all take a break inside my aircraft while Kata’lana here, my acting assistant, pours us a spot of Earth endemic tea, hm?”
Kata’lana raises a hand in greeting, though she hardly acknowledges Avett outside of a droll side-glance. Her attention is entirely on Lili, and she’s watching her like she’s a guinea pig who might just scamper out of her rat cage once she’s left unattended.
Lili swallows. She hopes all of this attention will ease up and off her soon.
“You seem to have experience with breaking laws,” Lili mumbles to Avett on their way to the door. “What do you suggest?”
“Don't assume I’m someone who likes breaking the law,” he says, and he says this with enough force to knock out a small dragon. “Just because I know my way around the enforcers doesn’t mean I’ve gotten caught. I’m just well studied on what happens when you get caught.”
“Should we walk out with our hands on our heads?”
“We’re not fucking playing a schoolyard game.” Avett’s ear flicks. He looks to the side and out the navigation’s windshield. When Lili goes to follow his line of sight, she sees a singular IRC vehicle hovering above the sand, not having landed yet.
Avett pulls Lili into him by the arm not a moment later. “A little secret for you, princess.”
“Hm?”
“That ship’s the only one out there—I can’t hear any others. They lied about the convoy.”
She regards the ship with uncertainty. The voice that played over the radio had seemed wiry and unsure of herself, as if she was reading off a script rather than reciting her speil from memory. Something doesn't quite fit in here properly, but Lili's not sure why. Maybe the rest of the convoy's watching from a distance, ready to strike from the air at a moment's notice should they prove themselves to be more than a handful.
This sentiment isn't lost on Avett, who notices it on Lili without her having to say a single word. "There's only one ship, Lilith. I would've heard them if there were more. And if there are more, then they're clearly way too far from us to be a threat." He grits his teeth when he stares out the window again. "It doesn't make sense. We probably could've beelined it if you hadn't landed."
Lili is about to apologise when the radio crackles back to life, interrupting her. The woman on the other side only manages to get halfway through her slog of a recitation before Avett storms over to the counter and slams his fist into one of the panels, shattering it into millions of virtual shards. It works. The voice cuts off with a mechanical screech.
Avett stands in front of the counter, his fist still submerged in the sea of digital dials. The morning sunlight streams through the windshield and directly into his eyes; he shuts them, but goes no further than that. Something's churning behind those eyelids, and it seems to be some wild jungle juice concoction of wrath, realisation, and shame. When he snaps open his eyes, he's already made up his mind about what he's going to do next, and Lili's sure that it's not going to be anything constructive.
Lili winces as she regards the shattered radio interface. "They might add years onto our sentence for that."
"They won't." With purpose in his step, he strides up to the door and pounds against the emergency release button. "I've got a pretty good feeling about who's in that other ship, Lilith, and I'm about to give him a piece of my mind."
There's no way it's Alexei, she thinks.
She watches Avett pass her and stomp down the stairs. The other ship is parked a bit further away; everytime the shore rushes in, it meets the bottom of the roll-out stairs and leaves a wet trail of kisses on the metal. Avett pushes his way through the puffs of toetoe and stands on the sand, alone, waiting.
Then he starts screaming. “Is this fucking funny to you?”
For a moment, all Lili hears is the gentle hush of the tide, the ploying cry of gulls in the distance, and Avett’s laboured breathing. The other ship’s doors remain shut, but that doesn’t stop Avett from lacing his fingers around a stray clam shell and hurling it at the windshield. It doesn’t crack the glass, thank god, but it does springboard off and splash into the ocean.
“Fuck you! We flew out here because we thought we were fucking criminals!” He kneels and picks up a sea-smoothed rock. "Is that all we are? A fucking joke to you?"
Avett's aim is especially impeccable today—Lili expects no less from a Kattish arms specialist. He hits the frame of the door this time. The rock bounces and tumbles back into the wet sand with a thud, sending a splatter of seawater and mud into the air.
Lili wonders if she should stop him. She only manages to make it to the second-last step when she feels the presence of someone else behind her.
"He's rather snappy, isn't he?"
She whirls on her heel, expecting Alexei to be standing at the top of the staircase. She finds no such miracle. He's actually on the ground next to the stairs. His smile is gentle, and he's got his arms folded across his chest like he's a proud coach watching his players score.
Lili says, "I don't blame him."
"For a Kattish, he's not very spatially aware of his surroundings, is he? Quite prone to tunnel visioning."
Avett's insults have devolved into mindless profanities. He’s shaking his fists in the air, having run out of ammunition from the beach a long time ago. The water laps at his shoes, the wind splashes his hair into his eyes, but he doesn't give a damn about any of it. He won't let himself give a damn until Alexei's in front of him and grovelling.
Lili calls out to him. "He's here, next to me."
With gritted teeth, her partner whips around on his heels hard enough to leave hollows in the sand. He’s an approaching storm incarnate, and when he stops in front of Alexei, he’s seething with such tension that he looks like he might start throwing punches again. He’s got his fists clenched to the point where his gloves have tightened around the knuckles like a second skin.
Alexei doesn’t move. “Do you want to hit me again?”
“Fuck you.”
He shifts back, satisfied with Avett’s response. “Good. You’ve gotten it out of your system—”
“Like hell it is. Fuck you.”
“—And now we can engage in civil conversation, as most mature adults do.”
Avett watches Alexei, his breathing coming in both loud inhales and deep exhales. Then he pins Lili down with that same glare. “Don’t tell me you’re with him now.”
Even though he’s on the sand and Lili is on the second to last step, Avett overpowers her to the point where she feels like an ant that’s chosen to look up at a mountain. She’s new to this whole thing, this whole deal about getting what she wants by forcing her way through other people. It scares her. In the same way that it has scared Humankind from the allure of space, it scares her.
Thankfully, Alexei lets out a noisy sigh, ridding Lili of all and any responsibility. “Cold, Mr. Ironsturm. Very cold. Lili here has the right idea—you would be better off listening to what I have to say.”
“You’ve gotta be at least thirty-five.” Avett lunges for Lili’s wrist and tugs at her gently when he says this. She doesn’t budge. “You chip a nail while you were filing your taxes? I don’t fucking care. You set us up and you lied about it. What makes you think we’re interested in what you’ve got to say?”
Lili echoes him. “You set us up."
Alexei nods. "Indeed I did."
Avett groans, slaps a hand over his eyes, and runs it down to his mouth. She continues. "Why?"
"Because I was interested in you."
She blinks. In the distance, she catches a familiar aircraft in the corner of her eye; when she breaks eye contact with Alexei, she realises that it's the Winnow. Auren and Ysh'vanna are safe.
Lili turns back to Alexei. Steps off the stairs to stand with the two men on the sand. "What does that mean?"
"I'm not a normal Human, Lili." He holds her gaze for a bit before pacing forward with his arms behind his back. "I can see into other people's memories. I can block punches without lifting a single finger. There is not an Eldrakian alive that could rival nor replicate this technique to the same amount of aptitude."
The Winnow whirrs as it floats down onto a patch of fenced-off grass. It's kicking up puffs of dry sand everywhere, and Lili has to squint to defend herself from tearing up on the spot. They've been tricked, she realises. She wonders if Auren and Ysh'vanna are in on it too.
Despite all of this, her voice still manages to drop into a low grit. "You looked into my memories."
“To say that I looked into your memories wouldn’t quite cut it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Your surface memories, they filter in unintentionally. I’m acutely aware of the people around me… and how they might react to certain actions.”
Avett jabs a finger up into the taller man’s face. “You knew how badly we’d take your bullshit, and you did it anyway. You’re the best kind of person, aren’t you?”
“My sudden onset of telesthesia would have you to believe that I am more sympathetic to others.” His eyes, though still ringed with that decadent gold, darken to the shade of deep umber. “But the opposite is true. There is too much to give a shit about these days, and I don’t need a sob story to know when to hold back.”
His words hang like frigid icicles above their heads. Avett is to Alexei as a cat is to a tigress. Only God knows which corresponding animalistic comparison would be appropriate for Lili.
Avett doesn't care about where he stands on the animal kingdom food chain, it seems, because he's up and at Alexei again. "You lashed out at us, end of story. Go back to filing your sanctuary taxes or whatever and leave us alone."
"Ah, about that. I did have a motive, of which I was about to explain before…" Alexei eyes Avett; his gaze isn't harsh, but it isn't welcoming either. "I riled you up, Lili, didn't I? I wanted to."
He glides past her partner towards his ship, and for a moment, Lili thinks that he might actually leave. The sea soaks into his cloak at the hem, but the fabric doesn't darken at all.
"Lili, you shattered my shield. No mere mammalian is capable of this. I have reason to believe that you and I are one and the same.”
And in that same moment, Lili doesn’t know what to say.
Alexei continues, “I could sense it from you the second you came into my view. I just had to prove it. I apologise for the nerves that I’ve inadvertently tripped.”
Before Lili can ask what exactly 'being like him' entails, the door to Alexei's ship gives off a mechanical whirr. The entrance slides open a second later, revealing a Draconian woman who Lili assumes is Alexei's “IRC representative.” As she makes her way down the steps, her floor-length white coat lingers on the steps behind her—Lili can't help but notice the way the ends of her coat have discoloured into a sickly yellow from wear. When she reaches the bottom, she makes her way over to Alexei with several shuffling steps. She can't be any taller than Lili's shoulders.
"Alexei," she calls. He leans his head over to the side, and the woman has to stand on her tip-toes to even whisper into his ear. He nods to her once she pulls back.
“Right. I’m getting sick of the Melbourne shoreline, and it’s rather gusty out here, so why don’t we all take a break inside my aircraft while Kata’lana here, my acting assistant, pours us a spot of Earth endemic tea, hm?”
Kata’lana raises a hand in greeting, though she hardly acknowledges Avett outside of a droll side-glance. Her attention is entirely on Lili, and she’s watching her like she’s a guinea pig who might just scamper out of her rat cage once she’s left unattended.
Lili swallows. She hopes all of this attention will ease up and off her soon.
—
Kata’lana’s eyes, Lili realises, are like dinner plates. They’re wide, very wide—they dominate her face, they’re at least a third of her overall visage, Lili swears on it. It doesn’t help that they’re a dazzling orange, and it certainly doesn’t help that she’s still staring at her from across the table. There’s a whole two teapots and an over-the-top display of satin flowers in between them, and she’s still somehow observing her. She’s not like a hawk; she’s the fucking panopticon. The moment Lili tears her gaze away from her is the moment her paranoia sets in.
Avett. Right, Lili should watch Avett instead. He’s sitting just one seat over, and instead of sipping his tea he’s slumped over the table and around his cookies. Now that he's had time to calm down, he's started mumbling to himself; Lili isn’t sure about what. It could be about a pay raise, or it could be about how he hates Human tea, or it could be that he’s just expressing how he hates tea in general now that he’s come to associate it with haughty overseers and two-day long conflicts.
There’s not much else to do while they’re waiting for Ysh’vanna and Auren to board the ship. Lili pats the back of Avett’s hand in an attempt to grab his attention.
It happens far too quickly for Lili to react in time. He whips his hand back, leaving Lili’s to hover in the air for a brief, helpless second—then he slams his hand on top of hers, trapping her against the table.
She looks at Avett. He flexes his fingers against her in response.
“Yeah?” he asks. “You wanted my attention?”
Lili drags her eyes back to the Draconian scientist. It actually hurts to look at her again. Avett follows her line of sight, winces, sucks in a breath and shoots Lili an apologetic glance.
“Guess it comes with being special,” he whispers.
“She looks like she wants to kill me,” she hisses back.
“No way. I’m so much more handsome than her.”
She slides her hand back—or tries to, at least, because Avett doubles down and presses his palm into her fingers at the last second. He grins at her, even waggles his ears at her. Her features scrunch up in annoyance.
“Since you're so special, I'd like to see you practice throwing me off,” he says.
Ah, right, of course. That’s all there is to this. There’s no way anyone, not even a chronic romantic such as Avett, would try to flirt with her in the presence of a glorified panopticon. And if she’s being honest with herself, he probably doesn’t even need the ever-looming threat of someone like Kata’lana to dissuade him from flirting with Lili.
Calling ether into her veins, she remembers how it had felt to hoist Avett away from the navigation panels: pretty damn satisfying. Yet no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t seem to shake him off because it’s one thing to summon a deluge of ether through her entire body, but it’s another to pin-point it directly into a single appendage. This is getting pretty damn old.
To rub it in, Avett quirks his head and asks, “You sure you’re trying?”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder?”
“This is my harder.”
“Bet you're terrible in bed.”
She gives him one last squirm before giving up entirely. "I wouldn't know."
At that moment, the doors slide open and Ysh'vanna comes barreling into the room. She gives the two frontliners a weird look, like she can't decide on whether she's supposed to scream at them or kiss their foreheads silly. She opts for a neck-crushing hug instead. "I'm so glad my frontliners finally decided to elope and do unspeakable things without me!" she says as she smothers Lili's neck in the crook of her elbow. Avett isn't any better off.
Auren and Alexei come inside much, much later, and from the way Auren slots himself between them to sit next to Lili, she wonders if they just so happened to have a conversation regarding herself.
Once they’re all seated and three biscuits into their tea, Alexei claps his hands and says, “As you are all aware, I am a serious pathological liar.”
In a rare moment of genuinity, Auren chuckles.
Alexei continues, “I'll cut to the chase. In lieu of my previous statements, I would like to propose to you a deal. I told you all that you would be decommissioned; this was a lie. The truth is that the IRC hasn't caught wind of your current situation—yet. Though from here I assume that it will only be a matter of time."
He lets his words hover in the air as an open invitation of sorts. He dumps spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his tea during the silence. Avett pulls a face at this.
Finally, Ysh'vanna decides to speak up. "And being a sanctuary overseer, you've got a deal for us."
“It's more of a zero-sum gain. I would kill for the opportunity to dismiss an entire mercenary ship. Alas, you have something that I want, and so here we are.”
He’s not wrong. Lili would kill for the opportunity to fire an entire battlement of ships if it ever came to that. Who wouldn’t? Administrative power is probably one of those things she’ll admonish until she’s gotten ahold of it.
“And what is it that you want?” Auren asks.
“Money, power, fame.” Alexei isn’t drinking from his cup anymore. Lili isn’t sure if he’d even taken a sip in the first place. “But most importantly, the artifact that they’ve hidden away in the depths of New Therius.”
She watches Avett's ears sag to his head—concentrating hard on something, she guesses. He's dribbled a fair amount of milk into his tea, and now he's watching the way the white marbles into the browns. The silence smothers them wholly. Kata'lana's stare drills right through Lili's soul.
Ysh'vanna clears her throat. "Like a dragon's artifact?"
"Something like that." Alexei shrugs. "Do my bidding, and I suppose that I'll just have to keep you around, hm? And if you don't, I'll have my deepest darkest fantasies to look forward to."
His threat of blackmail hangs over their heads like a tunnel spider's web.
“That’s not legal,” says Avett.
“Neither is smuggling an unverified Human around and committing tax fraud, but I digress.”
Avett slumps back into his chair. He makes a big show out of letting go of Lili’s hand by propelling his arm into the air and letting it swing by his side like a pendulum.
For a moment, no one else says anything. Ysh’vanna and Auren share an administrative glance as they weigh out the odds with the evens. Eventually Ysh’vanna asks, “Isn’t this something you could do yourself?”
“I’m a busy man."
Avett's hands clench under the table. "Busy enough to chase us out to the Afflatus area overnight? Bullshit."
"And a Human, technically.” He taps his ears for emphasis. "I've heard that they've stored the artifact inside a safe room only accessible through a ramp on the mechant deck. I wouldn't dare step foot in there."
Everyone seems pleased with that response; Avett relaxes his hands and sinks further into his seat, Ysh'vanna bobs her head in agreement, and Auren's gaze softens enough to suggest that his stone cold exterior is just a front.
Lili shivers in her seat. She remembers the way the shopkeepers back in the Afflatus had treated her when she'd failed to prove herself as a mercenary. "Are Humans not welcome in New Therius?"
"Oh, far from it.” Alexei continues to stir his tea. “They'll kill you on the spot."
Her cheeks chill to the point where she's not quite sure of what the temperature of the ship is anymore. Then she recalls how a certain arms specialist had wanted to take her there, and how that same arms specialist probably wants her dead on his good days and brutally maimed on his worst.
Lili turns, lunges for the collar on Avett's jacket, and pulls his torso down.
"If I wanted you dead then, I would've killed you myself,” he manages to say. Then he hastily adds, “Please don't hurt me."
He can plead his mercies in hell, Lili thinks, because at least making a deal with the devil would get him somewhere. Her sympathy well's all dried up, and she's feeling more parched than the entire state of Nevada right now. Fuck Avett.
In the background, Ysh'vanna asks, "Surely you've tried a disguise?"
"Racial insensitivity aside, my height and build would not allow me to pass as a Kattish male, nor a Draconian for that matter." Alexei lifts his cloak to reveal a bulky, scarred bicep. "A Palerian, perhaps, though my facade would quickly fall apart in the wake of an Eldrak Gallian's ethereal detection. Or in the presence of New Therius' own overseer."
"No sensible Eldrakian would enter New Therius," Auren says.
"Suppose I'm just lazy then. Besides, it would be uncouth for me to leave my sanctuary for so long. I have my dedicated menagerie of rabid Human alt-right facists to attend to, and I'm certain that they're simply up to no good without my goodwill presence." Alexei turns his attention towards Lili, then shifts his gaze over to Avett. She’s still throttling him when he does this.
She feels herself shrink. “...What?”
“You could pass,” he says. “You’re androgynous enough, and barring personality quirks, racial traits and general dispositions, you’re nigh-indistinguishable from him… it’s almost impressive. ”
“He noticed,” Ysh’vanna hisses under her breath.
Avett takes this moment to pluck Lili’s hands from his shirt. Even he’s puzzled about what Alexei’s just said, and he’s not the kind of person who despises how he looks; Lili’s caught him admiring his visage in a front-facing selfie camera more than once on their breaks. He’s checking himself right now, only he’s no longer doing it for the sake of admiration. She can tell by the way he’s grooming his fingers through his bangs and picking at the bags under his eyes that he's delightfully aware of his shortcomings—which leads to her briefly touching her own eye bags. They’re not that bad, are they?
She shakes herself out of her stupor. “I don’t have to go down there myself, right?” she asks.
“Oh no. You should. I have no doubt that the bunker will be armed to the teeth, and that conflict will be unavoidable.” He says this all with a smile.
“Unavoidable?” she parrots.
He nods. “So unavoidable, so confrontational that I doubt your backline caster and your specialist could endure it all on their lonesomes.”
Before either of the men can voice their disapproval, Ysh’vanna catches on immediately. “What else can you tell us about your mission?”
“They’ve hidden the access ramp in plain sight, if I remember correctly. Good luck discovering which of the many ramps it is, not to mention the excess of ramps behind locked doors. It’s also been a while since my assistant's last romp through the merchant deck, and I’m not entirely sure of its current layout.”
“So we’re going in blind,” Ysh’vanna says.
“Yes, but you’re off-landers and a half. You’ll have all the time in the world to scout out the immediate areas. Not so bad, is it? No enforcers, no law troubles, you’ll be free to do as you please.”
She narrows her eyes. “Why in the stars would they want to protect an artifact? And—armed to the teeth?”
He shrugs. "I haven't a clue."
Ysh'vanna's stare remains hard.
He continues hastily, "There is no elaborate ruse, no games to play, no traps to avoid. New Therius lies outside of the IRC jurisdiction, partially because it’s not an officially recognised sanctuary, partially because it’s a monetary hotspot by day due to its nature as a slaughterhouse by night. And why fix what’s not broken?” Alexei’s eyes darken once more, and he starts to drum his fingers against the table. “Whatever they’re doing down there, away from the public eye… I want to make sure that whatever they’ve got planned never comes to fruition. If the IRC won't get their hands dirty, then I will. Tangentially."
Ysh'vanna watches Alexei as he says this. Her gaze is piercing—not in the way an arrow might shoot through skin, but in the way a sunbeam falls through foliage. She doesn't need violence to see the truth and passion behind Alexei's eyes. It's not a lie.
She stands and pushes away from the table. "Alright then. We head for New Therius tomorrow morning."
Kata'lana stands from her seat, and Alexei himself is about to leave when Avett perks right back up. He slams his hands onto the table as well while he's at it.
Ysh'vanna sighs. She has to tilt her head up to even look her frontliner in the eye, but for some reason it gives her the impression of royalty rather than of weakness. “Is there a problem with that, Ironsturm?"
"We're putting a lot more on the line than just our jobs—this is a heist. A fucking heist! Since when are heists ever legal?"
"Escaping arrest isn't legal either, Avett."
He rolls his eyes and blows his hair out of his face. Defeated in word, but not in mind.
Ysh’vanna turns to Lili. “And our other frontliner’s on board with us, right?”
She nods, though it’s only to relieve herself of the stress her captain’s pinning her down with. It’s that same royalty-laced stare that’s doing this to her, she swears. Ysh’vanna is scarily competent at times, enough to make Auren follow in her plans suit without complaint nor question. Lili isn’t sure about any heist. She can’t fight people, let alone fight at all, period.
And yet Ysh’vanna takes her answer well. “Good.” Then she yawns, stretches, and pivots on a heel. “Let’s take the rest of the day off. Landing on terrain really took it out of me, and I could eat like a whole sanctuary’s stock of food.”
“Understood,” Auren says. They filter out of Alexei’s ship a bit later. Avett lingers behind them, and for a moment, Lili thinks he might be sulking, or at the very least, displeased with their current plans to rob New Therius of whatever it is that Alexei needs.
Lili is about to follow them down when Alexei stops her by the shoulder.
“You don’t seem all that certain about yourself,” he says.
She lets out a small, breathy exhale. “I guess. Never thought I'd be robbing a vault so soon at the age of twenty-three."
"Allow me to sweeten the deal, Lili." He motions at Kata'lana with a flapping hand, and she starts to pile the plates and cups on each other. "Do you recall our conversation on the beach?"
"A little," she mumbles.
He continues, "If you succeed, I'll tell you what we are. A hint: we aren't Humans."
Lili’s heart won’t stop pounding. She remembers the extent of Alexei’s power, the way he’d flicked Avett across the room with nothing but his forefinger and thumb. He’s not Human, and he’s not an off-lander either. He’s strong, he’s built out of not only flesh and bone but more—and so is Lili. Weak, meek, tender little Lili.
“I’ll try to come back alive then,” she says.
Alexei pats her on the back with a laugh as she leaves his ship. Her skin stings of ether and ash where he’d touched her.
—
The following morning, they congregate in the navigation room. Though Avett seems far more open today—he’d prodded at his root stew with a spoon during dinner last night and left without a word—he’s still keeping his distance in the corner. His arms are folded. The rest of the crew are sitting around the table. Every so often, Ysh’vanna checks the navigation display and announces where they are. At about a quarter to ten, she says, “We’re here.”
Lili takes her sweet time taking in the sights. New Therius’ structure reminds her of a windowed high-rise building that’s been exaggerated to the heavens—literally, because even though they’re hovering in the sky she still can’t see the top. It’s taller than the Sky Tower. There’s a dirty plume of smoke wafting around the upper stories, and when they round the corner towards the hangar, she sees that it’s from a small furnace.
Then she realises that she’s still totally Human. She passes a nervous glance at Ysh’vanna, then to Auren. They don’t seem like the type of people to have a pair of cat—Kattish ears at their beck and call.
“Um.” She motions to her ears.
Ysh’vanna’s expression brightens up immediately. "Don't worry. I've got just the thing."
There's a smarmy grin on her face as she says this, and truthfully it scares Lili to no end. Even Auren is grinning to himself with his eyes cast downwards—that's how she knows that what's about to happen to her won't be good.
For once in her life, Lili has to look at Avett for support, but when she does she finds that he has nothing to offer her. He's diverting all of his attention onto Ysh'vanna instead.
"It's a little tasteless, sure," he says, flicking at a speck of dust on his glove, "but whatever'll get the job done, I guess."
"You should have gotten rid of those a long time ago," Auren mutters.
Lili is pleading now. She's looking up at her superiors, and she's giving them her best impression of an abandoned, starving puppy that's been thrown to the pound, but they're staring her down like she's just wronged their patron deities and they've got just the thousand-year long punishment for her. This feels morally wrong. This is morally and racially wrong, but no one’s bothering to correct anyone, not even Avett himself.
At last, Ysh'vanna decides to throw her a bone, though it’s painfully obvious where this is all leading to. "I’ve always wondered what you would look like if you were Kattish. Strip down, Lili."