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That’s the sort of wish that turns a stranger into a friend, which means I get a bored smirk from the agent who will forget they ever saw me within the next few minutes, because I have told them the kind of story that makes one aggressively forgettable.
I am now past external security and have access to the docks themselves. Once again, I blend in with the crowd and let it sweep me along through the vast facility. Finally, we end up on the docks proper, the place where ships of all kinds are loading stock and trade and passengers. This represents my last barrier to escape. All I need to do is get aboard one of these ships and let its great engines transfer me off the planet.
The fun thing about complex systems requiring a great deal of security is that once you break them down piece by piece, they become much less complex and much less secure. I know whoever is running this place would insist that it is impenetrable. Hell, Thorn probably thinks his place is escape-proof. He’ll know better soon enough.
I look at the various ships, trying to decide which of them is the best target. I want something with a lot of passengers. I want to blend in with others, and I want the opportunity to help myself to a few of their supplies, communally speaking.
The attitude I have now is a workmanlike one. I’ll do what I need to do, and I’ll freak out later as time permits. This is not a time to lose my nerve. I am very, very close to one of my most daring escapes yet, and I will not allow the fact that the implant in my head no longer shields me from thoughts of the consequences of my actions to stop me.
So why aren’t my feet moving?
I can see the perfect ship up ahead. It even has other human passengers. I can see them on the decks. I don’t think they ever got off the ship. They won’t have clearance to set foot on this world. And they’re probably too smart to push their luck and do any sightseeing. Interstellar cruises can take an entire lifetime, and the people who go on them become such seasoned travelers they no longer become space-sick, or risk things like unauthorized departures on primal alien planets. The people up on those decks will almost all have contented themselves with footage taken by drones for their viewing pleasure.
I make a beeline for the ship, which is loading new passengers of other species. There’s a few Euphorians, and I suspect there might even be a Scythkin hiding among our number. Scythkin wear the skins of other species as suits, but I find there’s a slightly metallic, deathly kind of scent at play when you are near one.
The vessel is bright pink, which I like because there’s no chance that anybody would think I’d go for the boldest, brashest vessel. They’re going to assume I’m sneaking off on some super quick skimmer. I can see a few ships here that would quite easily outrun law enforcement of almost any world, but they’re the ones Thorn will have stopped and searched. And I don’t have time to build the kind of relationship with a smuggler that doesn’t get you turned in for more than you agreed to pay them. I have to take a different approach. I have to hide not in plain sight, but in very, very fancy sight.
The HMS Mandalay towers above other ships in dock with a simultaneous brilliant elegance and gaudy appeal that you get with a childfree aunt the day after a big night out. It has been designed to look like old ocean-going cruise ships, with multiple decks for passengers to walk around on. Of course, the entire thing is covered in a transparent shield, which once the vessel is underway, will keep the outer space out.
It’s the sort of vessel you could spend hours, if not days looking at, noticing new details with each and every new glance. I don’t have time to fully appreciate it now, but I hope I will soon. First, I need to get aboard.
The gate agent might be my toughest opponent yet. She’s a human woman in her late fifties, and she has the energy of someone who has seen it all and was not impressed by any of it. She is wearing a very chic uniform suit, blazer and skirt, both in pink that matches the ship, edged with gold trim.
“Ticket?” She snaps the word at me and I feel it pass by my face just inches from my nose, like a physical bullet I just barely dodged.
“I’m sorry, you’re not going to believe this, but I slept-walk off the ship! I’ve been doing so much of that lately. I think it’s the increased magnetic rays from space, you know? I can feel them moving things about inside my head. Anyway, I went to sleep in my cabin, and I woke up somewhere in the city with this big, green, scaled alien yelling at me!”
She looks me up and down, finding me wanting.
“Can’t let you on without a ticket.”
“Can you leave me here, on a saurian planet with no money, or ID, or any way to support myself? This is either going to be a funny anecdote I tell my family in a few months, or it’s going to be the beginning of an ordeal from which I may never recover.”
I appeal to her better nature and to her sense of mercy. I know how I look, I am a curvy woman who looks like the type to be taken advantage of. It’s something about the set of my eyes, how wide they are, and how my hair is always trying to curl into them. I look chaotic and messy and relatable. I have to hope that somewhere inside this woman, a younger version of herself going out and getting into trouble still exists. Or, hell, a future version. I just need her to relate to me enough that she puts herself in my shoes and is compelled to help me.
The look on her face tells me I might just have encountered the one kind of person who is utterly immovable and unshakable in their job, someone who has a small amount of power and will use it to an obsessive level. I just told her she can ruin my life, and I think she likes the sound of that.
“I’m sorry,” she says, in a tone that suggests she is practically on the verge of orgasm. “I can’t let you back on the ship without either a ticket or some proof of your identity.”
“Alright, well, when the ship docks and they ask where the magistrate potentate of the Mars colony’s daughter is, and who left her stranded on a hostile alien planet, I’ll tell them it was…” I glance at her badge. “Clara Have A Nice Day.”
She glances over my head. I see her lips tighten for a moment, then spread in a smile. “You are a wanted fugitive,” she says.
“Am not!”
“Are too.” She points over my head. I turn around and see my face displayed on the screen. There must have been security footage at that dive bar I accidentally destroyed on purpose because they deserved it. My face is very clearly displayed while I’m sitting on the counter, going through pack after pack of bar snacks. And, sure enough, underneath my face are the words, WANTED FUGITIVE.
“That’s obviously not me,” I laugh. “I’m flattered that you think it is. That’s a much younger woman with an incredible suit and an even greater tolerance for commercial amounts of sodium and preservatives in her diet. If I tried to eat even one of those things, I’d be on the toilet for a week.”
“What is that about?” Clara Have A Nice Day suddenly shifts gears with me. “I used to be able to eat anything, and now if it has so much of a hint of dairy or wheat or soy or egg or any number of what should be innocuous substances in it, it’s like I took some kind of dietary explosive device.”
“I know. I don’t know what it is. All they say is that you have to modify your diet, but surely there’s something else going on. It feels like a conspiracy, but not a fun one. I do have some supplements that help, from time to time, but they’re in my cabin. I guess you’ve got to hold me for the authorities, though, and I’ll miss the ship’s departure. My mother-in-law is going to be so smug about this. I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll probably think I did it on purpose. I swear to god she’s trying to force a divorce between my husband and me…”
Clara Have A Nice Day’s interest has been piqued in multiple different ways now, and I am almost certain she is going to let me board the ship. I’m no longer just a tedious three-dimensional pawn she can push around. I’m potential gossip, drama, and commiseration. We’re practically best friends right now.
“Go up quickly,” she says, standing to the side. “I won’t say you were here.”
“Thank you!” I don’t wait for her to change her mind. I rush up the gangway and do my best to once more blend into the heavy crowds thronging the many decks of the ships as they attempt to find their cabins, or relocate friends and family, while also being awed by all the entertainment options surrounding them. This place is one big flying casino, essentially. There are gambling machines on every corner, and in the middle of the main deck there is a gaming floor with what has to be more than a hundred attendants in sleek black and white suits ready to take your money in the most charming and entertaining of ways.
