AT YOUR SERVICE

  “Who is he kidding?” Tyler scoffed, noticing the banner at the same time. “Seriously? This has to be another one of his stupid jokes.”

  “At least we have proof that he holds real status in this galaxy,” Ben said. “Or at the very least, on Cacitrum.”

  We passed beneath the banner, picking up speed to fall in close behind the robots. The corridor seemed to stretch on forever, running the full length from the terminal to the farthest spot in the spaceport. It remained curiously vacant, the intersecting corridors showing little to no activity as well. “You’d think they would have hover trams,” Tyler said as we hoofed our way along the corridor. We had to be a mile out from the terminal, probably a little more. “Or a golf cart. Or a robotic rickshaw or horse or something.”

  “I’d guess they only want serious visitors, especially anyone wanting to see Levain,” Ben replied.

  “Maybe that’s why the corridor’s so empty. None of the other visitors were serious enough. They left their ships, stepped inside, looked down the length of the passageway and tapped out.”

  “There was so much activity in and out of the place during the descent, the surrounding emptiness has to be intentional,” I said.

  “What would be the point of that?”

  “I have no idea. I’m sure the Warden does, though.”

  “Or Levain,” Ben said. “Seeing how everyone knows the name, he might be powerful enough to clear a path for us.”

  “Good point,” Tyler agreed.

  As we continued down the long, empty corridor, following our robotic guides, the silence and emptiness were starting to feel ominous, putting me on edge. There had to be something untoward waiting for us, some twist or turn we wouldn't be expecting. Things had gone smoothly up to this point, almost too smoothly. Each junction we crossed left me on high-alert, anticipating that the next would reveal the true surprise. Another ambush? I could imagine the Warden’s face on the banner, the grin morphing into uproarious laughter as we were unceremoniously gunned down without warning.

  Despite my worries, the trek remained uneventful as the end of the passageway came into view, where a pair of huge, weathered blast doors marked the entrance to the main terminal.

  “Finally,” Tyler remarked. “Do you think they have any food kiosks inside?”

  “Didn’t you eat just before we dropped out of hyperspace?” I replied.

  “Yeah, but I want to sample some local cuisine. Real alien food. I don’t care what it is. I’ll try it.”

  “Even if it’s a stinky green fungus?”

  “Tryin’ it.”

  “Fried spider?”

  “Tryin’ it.”

  “What?” Ben asked. “How could you, knowing Ixy?”

  “Sorry, Captain. Tryin’ it.”

  “Live parasitic alien worm?” I offered.

  “Totally tryin’ it.”

  “You’re full of crap.”

  “If there are food kiosks through those doors, you’ll find out.”

  “Except for one thing,” Ben said. “We don’t have any local currency.”

  Tyler slumped. “Maybe Levain can give us a loan or something. Or maybe they’ll take American dollars. You did.”

  The robots reached the blast doors, which rumbled and creaked softly as they parted, allowing the machines to walk through without slowing. We hurried to close the distance we had kept behind them, scooting through the doors close on their heels.

  “Now this is more like it!” Tyler commented, his shock and awe gaze joining mine.

  For as dank and foreboding as the walk-in had been, the explosion of color, light, and activity that followed drove a stake through the heart of my earlier ambush fears. In a single step, we’d gone from a dark alley at two in the morning to the middle of Central Park at midday. Overhead, thousands of panels cast a calming light on an unexpected throng. The light constantly shifted colors in a dizzying kaleidoscope in sync with strange music that reminded me of whale song.

  The humanoid bots remained present in large numbers and appeared to be in charge of every job within the spaceport, including managing the storefronts lining the back half of the terminal’s ground floor and upper mezzanine. They handled baggage, ticketing, and information. Armed white and red models similar to the black bots leading us to Levain also patrolled the space. The alien lettering emblazoned across their chests impossibly translated to security in my mind, though I shouldn’t have been able to read it at all.

  The guards maneuvered smoothly around hundreds of arriving passengers hurrying to get wherever they needed to go and departing travelers waiting for transportation... The diversity of humanoid species all but overwhelmed me. Unfamiliar with all of them, the best I could do was categorize them in more familiar terms.

  The mingled scents of multi-species body odor, ozone, and grease burned the inside of my nose as diminutive gnomes swerved around towering rock-skinned behemoths. Slim, graceful elves waited in a queue marked for processing while a gruff goblin family tried to push past. A marble-skinned woman in rainbow-colored robes strode regally through the masses, a werewolf entourage clearing a path for her. Further away on my left, a cluster of trolls in fatigues waited in line to apply for hire.

  Automated, hovering, holographic billboards drifted through the crowds, flashing advertisements for local attractions alongside the Warden's ever-present grinning visage. Messages like TO PROTECT AND SERVE scrolled beneath his face in multiple alien languages.

  "Whoa," Tyler breathed at my shoulder, head swiveling to absorb the chaotic spectacle. "So much for empty corridors. I feel like I just stepped onto the set of Shrek: A Space Odyssey.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from laughing at that one. Even Ben failed to hide a small grin. “And we were wondering if there were any organic life forms here.”

  “As far as I can tell, it’s only the visitors,” Ben said. “But maybe that’ll change when we get out into the city.”

  The robots guided us through the masses, who quickly moved aside to let our armed escort through. When a small elven child failed to move quickly enough, one of the bots grabbed him roughly by the arm and shoved him away, sending him sprawling.

  “Hey!” Ben shouted, voicing his displeasure. “What the hell?”

  When the bot ignored him, he raised his hand in a way I had come to recognize meant he intended to channel chaos energy.

  “Ben, wait,” I said. “Not that I don’t think these bots are assholes, but we might need that later.”

  He glanced at me, fury in his eyes. It faded quickly as reason had a chance to take hold. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  Distracted by the bot’s action, we nearly collided with the back of our escort, which had come to an abrupt stop. Looking past them, I saw the marble-skinned woman and her group blocking their path. Or depending on perspective, we were blocking hers.

  “Move aside,” the woman snapped. “Or my grithyak will shred you to scrap.”

  “You will move aside,” the lead bot replied.

  “I do not take orders from machines,” she hissed. “You have five seconds to step out of my way.”

  The werewolves, grithyak, didn’t just extend their claws. They reached to their belts first, grabbing metal extensions and sliding them onto their already sharp fingernails.

  “You will move aside,” the lead bot repeated. It and the other bots shifted their rifles toward the woman and her escort. The grithyak tensed, ready to spring at them.

  One of the security bots put itself between the two sides. “Halt. Violence in the terminal is unauthorized. You will be detained and prosecuted.”

  “You can’t prosecute a machine,” the woman growled. “And you can’t prosecute me. Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes. You are Princess Goloran. You have diplomatic immunity. Do you know who these bots belong to?”

  “No,” Princess Goloran sneered. “Nor do I care.”

  “We are registered to Levain,” the lead bot said.

  Princess Goloran’s mouth closed tight. She stared at the bots briefly before finally stepping aside without another word. The bots continued through the terminal as if nothing had happened. I did my best not to look at the princess as we passed, but I couldn’t help myself. I glanced over, only to find her already staring at me.

  “Is there a problem?” she huffed, even though she had been looking at me first.

  “What? N…no,” I replied, looking away as my cheeks heated. “Sorry.”

  Tyler laughed, draping an arm on my shoulder. “Nice one, Katzuo. Smooth.”

  I grimaced at him, lowering my head in embarrassment. That didn’t stop me from looking back at her one last time before we reached the other end of the terminal. I expected her to be lost in the crowd. Instead, she had yet to make a move, her gaze still cast in our direction. My direction. I didn’t get the sense she was into me. It was more like a cat eying her next meal.

  The look and the way she had instantly deferred to mention of Levain left me thoroughly terrified. What the hell had we gotten ourselves into?

  CHAPTER 43

  The robots led us to an elevator at the far end of the terminal, which descended into a garage. The walls and ceiling were rough concrete, and the air smelled strongly of oil and metal, but there wasn’t a single car to be seen. Nor was there any other mode of transportation present that bore any resemblance to anything I might have expected.

  Instead, our guides led us to Cacitrum’s version of an ornately carved, horse-drawn carriage, with a posh interior of red velvet behind tinted glass. The vehicle rode on a set of wide tires that, by their looks, were airless and shock-absorbing, and the "horse" was clearly a robot. With six legs and four red eyes, it was made of glossy steel that mimicked something larger and thicker than a live horse. Though it had both a mane and tail, each individual strand was an illuminated fiber in a mix of colors. It flicked its tail as its head swiveled our way, its voltaic eyes brightening at our approach.

  My quick look around revealed more of the strange steampunk steeds, tied to a row of hitching posts along the outer wall of the building. Some were hooked up to carriages like the one sitting in front of us. Most were saddled to accommodate one or two riders,

  “This is crazy weird,” Tyler commented.

  “And kind of cool,” I added.

  “That, too,” he agreed.

  “You will get in the carriage,” the lead robot announced, its door swinging open as he gestured toward it.

  After we took turns looking at each other, silently questioning whether we should or shouldn’t, Tyler shrugged and climbed in first, plopping down on the plush seat. I slipped in after him, still marveling at the overall unlikelihood of the entire spectacle.

  “Do you think they have robot cowboys, too?” Tyler asked me as Ben climbed in, settling on the seat beside me, opposite Tee. “You know, wrangling robot steers, drinking grease sarsaparilla at the saloon, getting into gunfights at the corral.”

  “I’m open to anything at this point,” I replied.

  “You will remain seated for the duration of transit to your destination," our escort added.

  The other bots fell into step behind the carriage, marching along in rank and file as the horse cantered forward, pulling us through an abbreviated tunnel that dipped down in front of us. Mechanical torches came on as we moved forward and then went off again behind us. What had to be a main thoroughfare leading out of the installation ran above us. We could hear the clomping of hooves, louder than the quiet whir of wheels.

  The tunnel swung around to the left, dumping us out onto the thoroughfare. Our carriage merged with other multi-legged traffic nowhere near as nice as ours. The robot guards began to run to keep up as our horse broke into a trot. Faces of all shapes, sizes, and colors, some as robotic as the guards, turned to look at us from inside simple carriages, the hard seats of basic wagons, and the cramped quarters of horse-drawn rickshaws.

  “So, if Goloran is a Princess, and the Warden is in charge, does that mean she’s the Warden’s daughter?” Tyler mused out loud.

  “I don’t think the Warden fancies himself a king,” Ben replied. “Warexia is so large, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of different governments and class systems in use, none of them directly related to him.”

  “But she could be his daughter,” Tyler said.

  “It’s possible,” Ben agreed. “Why?”

  “I just think it’s weird if he has a daughter. I wonder what she thinks about him making so many copies of himself. I wonder if she has copies, too.”

  “I’m more curious about all the aliens,” I said. “I didn’t expect there to be so many different humanoid species in one place.”

  “It’s not that strange for most ILFs to share similar traits,” Ben said. “Walking upright and opposable thumbs, for example. Based on our experience in the Spiral, evolution tends to steer toward the same end result, skewed primarily by the environmental variables surrounding that evolution. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions like Shaq and Ixy, but it’s true for the majority there and apparently here as well. And if it looks even somewhat human, we’ve probably already envisioned something similar in our minds and given it a name, like an elf, or an orc, or an ogre.”

  “Or a werewolf,” I said, referencing the grithyak.

  “Bingo.”

  “Well, then, what are the odds we’ll run into a dragon at some point?” Tyler asked. “Or a beholder like in Dungeons and Dragons?”

  “They’re not humanoid, so probably pretty low. But we can’t rule it out.”

  “Awesome. I’ve always wanted to behold a beholder.”

  “Pretty sure you don’t,” Ben said.

  “You mean they have beholders in the Spiral?”

  “No, I mean I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be petrified or disintegrated.”

  All discussion ended as our carriage took us into Portus City, the thoroughfare evolving to a wide central avenue that split the center of the city. I’d never seen a place with so many buildings look so pristine. The tall skyscrapers lining the avenue didn’t have a speck of dirt or grime on them, nor did the high glass arches that hooked from one side of the avenue to the other. The patches of greenery along the roadway were beautifully manicured, the flowers in full bloom and the light gray pavement so free of litter it suggested you could eat off it.

  I didn’t need to guess how the city stayed so clean. Out here, as in the spaceport, robots handled everything, from gardening to washing windows and scrubbing walls. At one point we crossed a wide boulevard of upscale boutiques and posh market stalls teeming with thousands of nonhuman ILFs. I leaned over Ben to gawk out of his window, mouth agape at the activity before realizing that even the storefronts and restaurants were manned by machines catering to visitors.

  “We should stop and try one of the food joints,” Tyler remarked as we passed through. The bots behind the carriage ran ahead, wailing like sirens to clear slower-moving tourists out of the way.

  “I don’t think these bots are going to stop so we can sample the local cuisine,” Ben replied.

  “Why not? I thought we still had like a week to meet with Levain. We have plenty of time, and look over there.” He pointed to a table at an outdoor restaurant, where a group of pixie-like humanoids with tiny noses and sharp ears shared a massive plate of something with a gooey white sauce over it. “That looks soooo good.”

  “Levain is expecting us. Maybe after.”

  Tyler sat back in his seat. “I’m holding you to that, Captain. You owe us some foreign food after getting us stuck here.”

  “I’ll make sure you get to try something exotic,” Ben promised.

  We turned onto progressively less crowded avenues, eventually entering a district where no living thing could be readily seen. No vendors called to passing prospects. No maintenance or custodial staff made rounds over empty sidewalks. Even the worker bots had thinned considerably. Only the rhythmic footfalls of our escort interrupted the pervasive silence, their formation tightening as the horse-bot veered onto a narrow, tertiary cross-street.

  Apprehension started churning in my gut. “I feel like we’re being led somewhere we don’t want to go,” I said.

  “It’s definitely getting creepy out there,” Tyler replied.

  Ben didn’t reply, but I could tell by his worried look that he had already come to the same conclusion. His hands fisted in his lap, and his brow crinkled slightly as he worked to slowly draw in chaos energy.

  Two of the bots split from our convoy, stopping mid-street without warning. The rest of the escort reacted in kind, shouldering their rifles. Our carriage rolled to a halt behind them.

  Tyler turned in his seat and rapped on the carriage above him. "What's wrong?" he shouted at the driver. "Why did we stop?"

  “Rerouting to our final destination,” the lead bot announced, avoiding Tee’s question. The robo-horse resumed its aggressive trot, our escort moving in closer to the carriage than before.

  “Something’s up,” I said. “Something our escort didn’t expect.” Judging by everyone else’s tense expressions, they had already reached a similar conclusion.

  We made it three more blocks before the carriage made an abrupt left turn, pausing again as we entered a dirty alley, the cracked and pitted asphalt covered in strewn debris. Two rows of double-hung awning windows were set into the high gray walls on each side of the narrow passageway.

  All the way to its ominous dead end.

  The lead bot climbed down from the driver’s box and swiveled his head toward us. “You will remain inside the transport.” The glass muffled his voice, but we could hear him well enough. “You will not attempt to exit until cleared," he advised us.

  “What’s going on out there?” Ben asked. “If there’s trouble⁠—“

  “You will remain inside the transport,” the robot repeated. “We will handle this intrusion.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Ben muttered as the bots fanned out in both directions. His wary eyes connected with mine. “I have a suspicion this is about to get ugly.”