Sated ✔

2 TO OUR MEMORY

I don't often think about my pa, not when I make good decisions. I think about him now because of the gun put in my hand.

"These are stunners, you don't wanna make a kill," Bailey says, his dark, wiry frame stomping past me.

"Kill?" I whisper. No one would meet my gaze. "Kill? For...for cleaning?" I ask again. "This is a cleaning job."

Clean for Gara, walk away with monetary credits, I recall the ad saying—the same ad Gara promotes for new talent and security for her shows. Cleaning...that's no job for a fighter. Even my pa has never done menial work like that. Still, it sounds easy and I need equipment and instruments to try and get on the stage. I need to train more in acting. I need monetary credits. My father's spent each and every monetary point on my clothes and fee to train with Job. At least in those places I could take a shower regularly. My height and training with Job was probably why I made the cut. But this must be a misunderstanding.

But come to think of it, we're in a tunnel...an uninhabited tunnel. A structure's only this quiet when it's private property. It doesn't look any different from a regular gray-walled Colony one, though. I've never heard of anybody rich enough to own a part of the Colony's tunnels.

"I dunno, Bailey. Word has it, she's temperamental," someone complains.

The man in the center of it all, Bailey, whispers, "We just clean it out fast, but the pay is good."

My hand goes up before I even realize it.

"Sir. This is a gun," I say. Bailey blinks at me so I add, "For cleaning?"

"No. They're stunners. If you can't help, then keep outta trouble. Don't try to steal any diskettes with credits. Private credits are hard to decode. We want jewels, glass especially. We want trinkets, anything not bolted down that'd fetch a good price. And of course, anything private you can pick up like clothes. We only have twenty minutes to make this count."

Second guessing isn't an option now, not with the way everyone eyes me as if they've found the weakest link. It occurs to me, finally, what sort of cleaning they'd been talking about. A heist. The chances of them letting me walk away are slim at best.

You're in it now, Phil. Just shut the fuck up and keep outta the way. Sound an alarm and they'll shoot you right here.

I tuck the gun in the back of my trousers like I see them do at Job's gym after training. Hopefully, it won't go off in my pants.

Three things concern me as of now: my pa, this gun, and Gara. Credits would make it all go away. Besides, these are stunners.

Bailey touches the wall and says, "System, mass transport."

"Command confirmed," the computer sounds.

Everyone takes on a readied stance, so I follow suit. I need credits. Maybe this is luck. All this hard work to smell like hell and die with nothing just isn't cutting it.

Bailey drops his hand, signaling us to move and I run with the crowd. I've never traveled a mass portal before but this one is rough. As if I'm made of rubber, my head is yanked back, and my lower body stretched. I shoot out of the portal on the wall just in time to topple onto my ass.

I'm slow and stupid. Everyone else is already in motion, ripping down trinkets on the walls, turning over furniture.

Me? I'm admiring the view.

The house is fucking amazing; high ceilings, even higher than in the theater; plush rugs, statues everywhere. The marble floors aren't even the usual gray; they're white. This place looks ethereal—especially with the long award banners hanging everywhere. Every second my guilt for stooping so low as to let others rob someone fades. Someone this rich can stand to lose a few monetary credits. But if I'm caught here with them, that's jail for sure.