When the guard turns to scan the other side of the room, I creep through and into the crowd. I message Elix.
I’m here. Where are you?
Big glass.
I find the gigantic martini glass pool out on the floor and snake through the colorful partygoers in costumes of all kinds from light-up attire to skimpy metal and leather bondage straps.
A hand grabs me and spins me around. “Zariah.”
Elix hugs me briefly, then encourages me away. “Your father is up in that glass room. He has cameras everywhere.”
“So we can’t escape. I think this is Planet Eigrah. Surface is not inhabitable. We can’t walk out there. There’s nowhere to go. My brother’s ship doesn’t respond to me,” I tell him, noticing my skin has colorized again.This is weird. Must be because of Elix. A serum side effect? He said he’d never aerated it before.
“You tried to leave?”
“I was trying to find you and see if we could fly that ship out of here. My brother uses gloves to indicate who can touch what. Like form-fit keycards. But it’s not much more secure.”
“There’s a cargo dock,” Elix says as we move through the crowd. “Saw it on the screens in your father’s office. There are more ships.”
He fumbles with a collar around his neck. I stop and wave him closer, check over my shoulder, and then find the trick latch release and break it free. I toss it aside.
“Cazir is likely headed there. I’m sure he wants to take as much as he can get. I’m certain he has no idea my father’s alive. You are sure it’s him, right?”
Elix braces my chin, looks me over, and nods. “No doubt.”
“Did he take any serum from you?”
“No.”
“Good.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “You feeling better?”
“I tried to kill him.”
I keep my eyes on the people around us, watching for approaching guards. “Shield was too strong, wasn’t it?”
“I take it you’ve tried?”
“Yeah. No bullet has ever worked.”
Elix motions me to the edge of the crowd and takes my hand. “Invisibility, huh?”
“I guess. I’ve had some of your algae and a lot of serum. Aura zapped me. Maybe all of it mutated me?”
“Could be. Glowing yet?”
I shake my head as we slip away from the rave into the dark hallways. We exit a spiral staircase cut into the stone and find a long passage with multiple openings into a large hangar.
At the far end, many men move crates of weapons, jewelry, chunks of precious metals, and high-tech parts for suits of the highest military grade armor. My brother paces impatiently between the steps leading up to the vault and the massive transport.
Elix and I weave through the shadows of the rocky walls toward a smaller ship in the distance. “I can rewire or rechip it to get us out of here. Just need to get on board.”
As we near the small fighter at the end, shouts and gunfire erupt at the other end of the hangar. I remember the shields I picked up and clip one of them to him.
Men in different tactical uniforms than my brother’s crews fire upon the guards that load the treasures.
“Come on,” Elix encourages me toward the back of the ship where the security panel is. “Probably needs your touch.”
As I set my hand on the glass, shots rip through our position. Elix grabs me around the waist and pulls me behind the ship with a grunt.
