“I have to go find her,” I said. “If she bought a ticket off-world, the spaceport will have a record of it.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until later?” Azz’lx protested. “After all, the Sweepers will be out soon. Why don’t you let me call for a Blood Bride to pass the hour until they’re gone andthenyou can go to the spaceport. Or better yet, just wait until tomorrow.”
“She could be gone by tomorrow!” I snapped. “Hell, she might be gone right now. I don’t have any time to spare!”
Azz’lx shrugged.
“As you wish, Baron. I’m sorry I couldn’t persuade her to stay, but she seemed very set on going. Said she didn’t want to spend one more minute on this ‘frozen hellhole of a planet’ whateverthatmeans.”
I didn’t answer as I brushed past him. I had to get to the spaceport before it was too late and Natalie was lost to me forever.
SEVENTEEN
NATALIE
The super-speed tunnel crawler went much faster than any of the public transportation I had ridden so far on O’nagga Nine. In fact, it was so fast it made me feel sick to my stomach to watch it drive—especially since most of the time it was flying along at super-sonic speedsupside down.
Tunnel crawlers are vehicles that are built to drive on the sides and ceilings of the ubiquitous underground tunnels that connect most of the Naggian cities. That’s because the floors of the tunnels are especially reserved for foot traffic because of some arcane law no one seems able to change.
The seats in a tunnel-crawler can be reversed, depending on if the vehicle is driving right-side-up or upside down. The ones in the public transport I had ridden on once or twice were old and creaky and you had to practically kick them to get them to reverse. However, the sleek yellow machine Ass-licks had bundled me into had seats that reversed smoothly, so that they hung from the ceiling and allowed you to see straight ahead as the vehicle traversed the top of the tunnel.
Or the driver’s side seat did, anyway. The passenger’s seat—myseat—hadn’t been activated. So I was stuck there, strapped in upside down with all the blood rushing to my head as the tunnel-crawler zipped through the ceiling traffic at suicidal speeds, barely missing the big, lumbering bus-type vehicles which served as public transportation and the less flashy crawlers owned by the middle-class of Naggian society.
There is no speed limit on O’nagga Nine—everyone goes as fast as their vehicle will allow and the yellow beast Ass-licks had strapped me into was faster than anything I had ever been in. It was faster than a racecar back on Earth—faster than anairplane. Which meant everything was a blur, though I could still see all the near-misses as the Autopilot guided the vehicle I was strapped into recklessly through the traffic.
Every minute I got more and more sure I was about to throw up. But I couldn’t let that happen—at these speeds and hanging upside down as I was, I was afraid I might choke on my own vomit. So I held onto my gorge grimly and tried to take deep breaths through my nose while I wished I hadn’t eaten so much at breakfast.
But despite my determination not to puke, I’m not sure how much longer I could have held onto the contents of my stomach, if the tunnel-crawler hadn’t taken a hard left and abruptly righted itself. It drove a few hundred more feet and then came to a stop. Then all the tight black straps which had been holding me in place released all at once.
“Sweet Jesus…” I groaned, slumping in the expensiveperthaleather seat. I felt like someone had shoved me in a washing machine on the spin cycle. I was so dizzy I could barely see straight and I still wasn’t quite sure if I was going to vomit or not.
Then a mechanical voice spoke up, buzzing like a bee in my ear.
“Your destination has been reached. Please take your belongings and exit the vehicle,” it said.
“What?” I looked around for the source of the voice and then realized there was a small speaker in the head rest of the seat I was sitting in. “Where…where are we?”
“You have reached your final destination. Please exit the vehicle,” the mechanical voice said again.
“But whereisthe final destination?” I demanded. “Is this Gaz’snx? Is this the way to the Central Hub?” Every Naggian city had a Central Hub like the one I lived in, which connected all the buildings together. But all I could see outside my window was darkness.
“You have reached your final destination,” the tunnel-crawler informed me for the third time, sounding impatient—if it was possible for a machine to be impatient. “Please exit the vehicle or you will be forcibly ejected.”
“What?” I exclaimed, looking around. “What do you mean forcibly—”
But before I could finish my question, the passenger door flew open and the seat I was sitting on began to tilt sideways, tipping me out into the blackness beyond.
“Hey!” I exclaimed as I was ejected into the freezing cold, landing with athumpon my ass. “Hey, you can’t just—”
But the tunnel-crawler didn’t listen. I didn’t even have time to grab my bundle of old clothes before the door slammed shut behind me and the sleek yellow vehicle turned itself around to head back the way it had come.
“Hey, wait—stop!” I shouted, jumping to my feet and running after it. “You can’t just leave me here—take me back!”
But Ass-licks’ car was as big an asshole as he was. As I watched, it drove itself up the wall and from there onto the ceiling where it clung like a big yellow bat for a moment before finding the main tunnel and darting back into traffic.
In a flash, it was gone and I was left all alone in the dark in the bitter cold with nothing but the clothes on my back.
EIGHTEEN