The Escape

A green light pulsed, flooding the room with its sickly glow. Toni lay on the ground, her breathing shallow, as blood dripped from her nose. The delicate white and gold of her aristo dress stained down her front thick and black in the green light, grime everywhere else, and shredded around her hips and legs. Pools of black surround her. The wooden chest lay on its side above her head, the luminescent grain glowed through the darkness between pulses of green. Smears of red across its surface illuminated from below.

There were other bodies collapsed around her. They were contorted in unnatural ways. Order initiates in crowd suppression gear. Helmets were askew and scattered around the bodies. Shock batons and guns scattered the floor between them.

Toni coughed and breathed in deeply, her eyes opening to the scene around her. The smell of lush greenery filled the space, gently masking the metallic scent of blood that hovered on the floor. She propped herself up on her elbow, scanning the room for life or movement. There was none beyond the pulsing of the emergency light. Emergency light. What was the emergency? The thought lingered in the caverns of her subconscious as she slowly pulled her awareness from unconsciousness.

She reached out and righted the chest, it was still locked and closed. And just beyond it on the floor lay one body that didn’t match the others. Dressed in tight black leathers with pink luminescent patterns weaving a nest around her body. Chrome arm clutching a small machine pistol, Order issue. She moved over and shifted her head to see her face, vacant and still, staring back at her.

“Lira...”

**

47 cycles earlier

Toni checked her holofeed as she sat at the stand eating a bowl of lukewarm noodles and tofu halfheartedly. The cacophony of background noises blurred into a whitenoise that helped keep Toni’s restless mind at bay. The mind numbing task at hand required every bit of focus aid she could muster.

Another article is about the ongoing investigation into her parent’s murders. A bulletin about shifting access authorizations for the middle tier levels of the h-bloc. A docking schedule for the comings and goings of the day’s ships. A fluff piece about Toni’s time as a temperamental debutante that the world should have expected such atrocities as the murder of her parents, with the subtext that they should have expected even worse. She quickly checked search parameters for her feed to see if she could narrow out any celebrity gossip or tabloid articles. The next piece in her feed was a message sent to her mother’s personal comm channel which she had rigged to forward to her.

Matron Rivington,

It has come to my attention that you may be in possession of a prized artifact of the Lost Ones. A sacred tome found in a fortuitously unmarred ruin by Researcher Sybil Groundshatter during your time at the Ministry of Antiquities. Having been recently made aware of this, our previous agreement appears to have been established on an unfaithful foundation. The notebook you provided is not the entirety of the volume as you had implied. I require the entirety of the volume to perform this great work. Due to the time sensitive nature of our mission, I will be coming directly to Corvus aboard the Vast Meridian to obtain the remaining information you possess. Please avail yourself to me in Forty-eight standard cycles, so that I may obtain what I need. I trust that I will not have to involve the Order.

My highest regards,

Countess Tyriel of the T’shiik Consortium

Toni lets out a deep exhale like she had been holding her breath for months. She has no idea what her mother had been playing at with the Countess, but this is her chance to escape, and to find out more about these notebooks her parents had hidden away. Forty-eight cycles, about two days. She would have to make her way to the upper levels to meet the countess. If the Order got a hold of her now, she would be locked up, and the countess would be on her way with her notebooks. She had to find a way out with what little she could muster from her hole on the base level.

**

Toni leaned against the wall looking at the Entropy gang skating in a cluster, laughing and dancing. Electroluminescence saturated the area, a portable large format holo projector scattered a psychedelic aura around them. It was some sort of party, Lira had invited Toni, but she declined. She looked at her holobrace and pinged Lira. A few moments later a familiar black and pink clad figure rolled out of the group, smiling widely.

“You change your mind? Why you hiding over here?” She shouts across the promenade as she rolls away from the group.

“Nah, sorry hun, I need your help, and it’s a little time-sensitive.”

“What’s up?”

“Getting off this rock, hopefully. Just need to be topside in a couple of days. Think you can help?”

“I can do what I can, what do you need?”

“Your specialty, I’m hoping for a little anarchy. Distract the Order while I make my way up. And maybe a hand from you hauling my chest topside.”

“Go up with you?” Lira looks off to the side and grabs at her neck with her chrome arm, “That’s a lot. One thing to go up if you got a ride off this rock. Whole other thing to get back down again.”

“Maybe you can come with me?”

“I don’t know Toni, I like you, but everything I know is here. What am I going to do offworld? Not sure I could come back if we manage to get out. Who’s your ride?”

“Countess Tyriel, she had some business with my mother.”

“You’re in with that imperial corpo-fascist? I knew you were an Aristo, but that’s a world I have no interest in being a part of. I can help you get topside. Depending what we come up with for a plan, I might be able to help you with your box. But that’s as far as I go.”

“Suit yourself, I’ll be in touch in the morning. I got creds if your crew needs some greasing.”

A quiet rage burned inside of Toni for the rejection of leaving with her. Even if Lira’s reasons had nothing to do with Toni, she was unused to rejection, and it felt personal.

**

Toni and Lira sit at a table with a view of the central lift, wandering eyes checking on the Order guards diligently guarding their posts. There is essentially no traffic from the ground level up the central lift. It is an island in a sea of swarming fish, the shoal parting around the column.

“This is a little heavily guarded, you sure it’s the best way up?” Toni says.

“It’s the only way up that I can get back down. When the lights go out, the guards will be distracted. I have a hacked access key, up and down in no time at all.”

Just then the lights cut out and the emergency green begins pulsing. Lira looks at Toni and grabs one side of the box, Toni grabs the other, and they are on their way through the crowd as it slowly dissolves into chaos around them. The guards get pulled away from their posts, distracted by the unexpected torrent of bodies. And just like Lira had planned, they slink through the cluster of bodies and onto the lift, swiping the key card and beginning their ascent up the tower.

“That went better than I expected,” Toni chirped.

“We’re only halfway there, love, don’t jinx us.”

As the lift hurtled up the shaft, bypassing every stop along the way topside, Toni shrugged off her overcoat, revealing a minimal gossamer dress in white and gold. It was what she had worn the day she left the upper levels and descended into the base level. She wore it to blend in once she was topside. It didn’t feel quite right to be back in such flimsy and impractical clothing, but anything to keep the eyes of the Order elsewhere was a tool worth utilizing.

“Oh you dressed up for me! You shouldn’t have...” Lira teased as she picked at the slight fabric, pulling it tight against Toni’s skin.

Toni just smirked in response, burying her anger at Lira’s rejection after all this time they had spent together. She put her shock knuckles on her right hand and bent down and picked up the box from her side. Lira followed suit, and lift slowed as it reached the topside level. With a gentle chime the door opened, revealing a vast green space full of lush foliage and rich smells. The lights were out except for the pulsing of the emergency green.

In front of them stood five Order guards, undistracted by the empty space, and staring into the lift bay. They levelled their guns and drew their stun batons. Toni looked to Lira, and she back at her with a face of uncertainty. Then Toni’s expression sank into horror. She started pulling at the box, moving out the door. She looked over her shoulder to the Order.

“Guards! Guards! Help me! This dreg is trying to steal my chest!!” Toni shouted into the space.

“Oh you BASTARD!!” Lira said under her breath as she let go of the chest and attempted to step back into the lift.

But a guard was on her in moments, Toni stumbled as the box was freed and stepped on the hem of her dress and tore it. A shattering sound rang out from the lift, and she looked back to see Lira crushing a guard's helmet on the wall with her chrome arm. With her other hand she took his machine pistol, firing it first into his gut and then turning it on the others. Another guard jumped in front of Toni to protect her. Everyone opened fire, the guards on Lira, Lira sprayed wildly from behind the human shield she made for herself. The guard in front of Toni was hit and twisted unnaturally backward, his arm flailed with a shock baton in hand.

Before Toni could tell what was happening, it made contact with her face. And everything went black.

**

“Lira…” she had been shot, probably multiple times, she was unconscious, her human shield guard draped over her body, “Why couldn’t you have just come with me? Such a shame, we could have had a lot of fun.”

It had all come back to Toni and she realized she had no idea how much time had passed. She knew her only chance might be slipping away. She limped to the box. Her ankle was tender, she must have twisted it as she fell. She grabbed one side of the box and began dragging it through the green space towards the docking bay where the Countess waited.

The door to the bay slid open and on the far side stood an elegant woman surrounded by an entourage of aides, including another young woman about her age, styled like countless other gents in the bloc.

“I’m here, let's go,” Toni shouted to the group.

“That isn’t Octavia Rivington, Countess,” the woman in the style of the gents said quietly.

“That’s because she’s dead, I’m her daughter, Antonia, and I have what you are looking for right here, and I know how to unlock it. But I want to come with you.”

“And how do we know you are telling the truth, child?”

“There is a little black book filled with diagrams from the Lost Ones inside this chest. And you can look up that my mother is dead. So I am your best bet either way.”

A look of chagrin melted over the Countess’ face, “Very well, child, come along.”