In all the nausea, I forgot that Mhinto would inspect the boat.
And they're coming down here.
The black boots take another step down. I snatch my bag and spin around, pushing open the trap door.
Footsteps pound on the stairs behind me.
I jump inside and close the trap door. Light leaks through the cracks between two slabs of wood. I hold my breath and lean forward to look.
The helmet of a Mhinto police officer comes into view as he steps down into the storage room. A black, armored uniform covers every centimeter of skin. His head slowly turns, scanning the room.
A second pair of boots appear on the staircase followed by two bare feet.
"Anything to declare?" The first officer asks, static scrambling his voice.
The second officer passes the first and begins walking the perimeter of the room. The barefoot man remains at the base of the stairs, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. He wipes his hands on a towel and stares straight at the trap door. At me.
The light vanishes, the second officer stopping in front of the trap door. His back blocks my view, and now I can't see the other officer or the barefoot man.
"Well?" The first officer prompts again.
Silence.
My stomach twists into knots as I wait in darkness.
The second officer shifts. The world changes as his body turns, his torso faces me and he leans down. His face stares straight at the trap door.
I freeze.
"No. Nothing," the barefoot man coughs.
The second officer reaches out, his fingers touching the wooden slab.
He sees me. I'm trapped.
Light suddenly appears. A chunk of fish guts is smeared on his fingers. He leans back and shakes his fingers, groaning in disgust.
The three men come into full view. The barefoot man stares at his feet as the second officer nods at the first.
The two of them move away and begin ascending the stairs. The barefoot man follows behind, stopping only for a moment to glance my way.
Thank you.
All three disappear from the room, and instantly a chorus of heavy footsteps appear on the deck above.
I release my breath in a quiet sigh, but I don't move. Staying still in my hiding place, I wait for the boat to keep moving before letting my guard down.
After a moment, the boat roars to life and lurches forward, making the walls shake. I open the trap door, slowly and carefully, peeking my head out to double check the empty space.
No one in sight.
I collapse back on the stool and bite my fingernails, staring at the stairs.
The ride is smooth, absent of choppy, rough waters.
Ten quiet minutes pass.
The boat slows to a full stop and the engine cuts off. My eyes are glued to the steps, waiting for more black boots to appear, to find me and turn me in to the Mhinto Empress as a Cronus spy.
Two bare feet appear.
I scramble to my feet as the barefoot man enters the storage room.
"We're here. 10,000 units." He pulls up his communicator in anticipation of a unit transfer. He looks at me, raising his brows.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
Digging into my pocket, the units feel cool against my sweaty palms. I drop them into his hand and pull my bag straps tighter.
"This is all I have."
Everything gone. And I'm 8,000 short.
His eyes widen as he counts every last coin.
"Cô gái ngu ngốc!" He growls and points a finger at me. "You owe me!"
"It's all I have," I try to explain as I eye the stairs. He takes a step forward and I dash around him.
He screams after me as I fly up the stairs. A wave of heat and moisture hits me, the humid air splashing into my skin like a bucket of water. I nearly slip as I run across the deck and jump onto the dock.
Shipping containers pile high into the sky in every direction. Puddles of water across the wet concrete splash under my boots.
I glance over my shoulder.
The barefoot man yells curses at me from his boat, but he doesn't chase.
Sorry.
I bolt around a container and press my back against the cool, metal surface. Hot air fills my lungs as I pant. The sticky heat clings to me, making sweat drip down my back and under my pits.
Keep going.
My next headache will kill me. There's no more time.
I push off the container and march between the two piles of containers, my splashing footsteps echoing against the metal walls. Passing through the piles, the ocean appears on my right again. Black waves crash against the walkways and ships. The ocean, lurking and menacing, swallows every bit of light. The smell of sea salt fills the air.
The city is in the distance straight ahead just beyond several containers, glowing against the dark backdrop of the night sky. Dark clouds threatening to pour floods conceal the stars from view.
Rain begins to drop from the sky. Hot, sticky rain.
Bright lights illuminate the pier as I pass container after container. A handful of people, dressed in light jackets, hide under hoods and ignore the rain as they work in the late evening.
Reaching the edge of the port, I stop and stare at the glowing lights of the city. Straight ahead.
I'm out of Cronus's grasp, but my identity could still be blown.
I suck in a deep breath and force one foot after the other.
I'm in The Mhinto Empire now.
***
The very first skyscraper makes me freeze, losing my breath at the sight. The gargantuan building pierces through the dark blanket of clouds, disappearing in the darkness above. A deep and cold dread spreads through my body, constricting my lungs. Absolutely nothing in the Elite compares to this one building.
Someone knocks into me. I catch myself and flinch, half expecting him to unleash his own personal snake army on me. Instead, he scowls under his cap as he and the rest of the crowd flood around me.
I force my feet to keep walking.
In less than a minute, impossibly huge skyscrapers surround me in every direction. Each building shoots into the sky, coated in dark metal. Bridges and walkways that I've only ever seen in Limon connect each building at different levels, like criss-crossing webs.
Skywalks.
A black forest of metal trees and webs extend in every direction.
In both the Sectors and the Elite, people walk on the street everywhere or drive a hover vehicle if they can afford it. But here? Endless crowds bustle into the late night, along the sidewalks and skywalks like a million ants. There must be thousands just on this block.
No curfew, no lights out?
Neon ads flash in every direction, blinding me with popping color and lights. Across every building and on every street corner, a three-dimensional image bursts and shifts. Waving men, winking women, bowls of soup, new communicator tech, pop stars and more entice and violate the senses all at once.
A chaotic chorus of sight, sound, and smell envelops and paralyzes me in unending overstimulation. Warm rain rhythmically taps against my face as I take it all in.
Every shade and color of skin navigates around me, like a river of flesh. The diversity takes me by surprise, like I'm back in the Capital City or in Limon. Garments I've never seen before hang on people like Elite fashion. They wear it for looks.
People converse as they flood past me, a dozen languages mixing together. My ears perk up. I recognize several phrases. People code switch, speak in primary languages I don't recognize, and casually mix together phrases from half a dozen languages in the single moment it takes for them to pass by.
Surprisingly, not unlike Cronus.
Suddenly, a holographic image of a jumping fish bursts above my head, just as the smell of fish fills my nostrils. My stomach twists as I turn and look through the window of the food shop. Saliva pools in my mouth. I lick my lips, staring at a dozen fish rotating under a heat lamp. I hate fish, but my body is begging for food and this...does not look like any fish I've ever seen.
No way these are government rations.
I'd do almost anything for a single bite. I force my eyes away and clutch my stomach, feeling the pain of starvation radiate through my entire being.
I keep walking, but freeze again. My eyes widen.
A train track, floating several stories high and connecting to skywalks, hovers above the heads of countless people supported only by the hover tech. I gasp. A train suddenly shoots down the track at an impossible speed deep into the city beyond my line of sight. The track breaks off in different directions, turning up and down several streets.
I know I must be dreaming, as I stare at the impossible. No man, no country can do this.
Little moving stars dot the sky between the highest points of the skyscrapers. I instantly recognize them from my trip to Limon: skycars.
Even Mhinto has them.
A roar howls at me from the street. I scream and jump away, pressing my back against the building and colliding into two people. A woman curses at me, her vein bulging in her neck, but I'm not paying attention to anything but the street. Hover vehicles, dozens of them, zoom past just meters away. My heartbeat pounds in my ears as the hover vehicles race by like beams of lightning. Any second one of them will steer too close, jump the curb and kill us all.
The crowd walks past, no one noticing the danger.
A terrible feeling creeps inside me, mixing with the fear as the sights and sounds bombard my senses with every passing second. No snakes, no twisted smiles waiting to devour my insides, no deadly gas. Something much worse roars with every sight and sound from every corner of this city: power.
Real, raw power.
So much more than I ever dreamed of.
If they can do all this, what could they do with this tech inside me?
As I gaze into the labyrinth of metal giants and webs, somewhere deep inside this terrible place, a faceless, evil beast waits for me. It's going to strip me bare, expose my secret and destroy everything I've worked for.
Truth hits me all at once, making a chill go down my spine.
Coming here was a mistake.
Thanks for reading!