At first, Adamus drifts aimlessly through the anti-gravity field that the fungus has produced.

  His aimlessness gives way to panic. What’s going on? How in the—

  The panic leaves him as he realizes he is floating in pce.

  He smiles.

  He kicks his legs behind him, moving them as if he were swimming. But I never learned to swim…

  Nevertheless, he finds a way to move forward, and soon he finds a way to position himself upright. He spins in the weightlessness. An odd feeling comes over him as he twirls. A strange thing seems to carry its way around his pit of a stomach and tickle him. The beast isn’t stirring, and he isn’t crying or vomiting, so what is it? What is this feeling?

  His smile hasn’t left him.

  The mushroom heads slump back down, slowly but surely, and with their shift, the weightlessness dissipates. Adamus gently descends to the mud.

  He walks away from the field of fungus and returns to the cliffside. Much to his surprise, he finds Marqus running down to greet him. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” He stops to catch his breath.

  Adamus shrugs, “Rex, it’s not like I’ve been gone that long.”

  “Are you crazy?” Marqus’s low, bitter voice cracks, “It’s been over an hour.”

  “Huh…” Adamus scratches his head. He appears confused, but his thoughts paint a different picture. Over an hour! I let myself wander for that long? Did that happen while I was floating around the mushrooms or punching the fungus?

  …

  This pnet’s strange.

  He clears his throat, “Why were you looking for me?”

  “Noticed it when a ship swung down to the spaceport, that one right there.”

  “You’re sure that’s a spaceport?”

  The group turns to Samend at his question. Leo ughs. It is a good, hearty ugh, one that makes Adamus’s skin crawl for a reason he can’t quite expin.

  “Where else would ships be nding besides a spaceport? In the hills like us criminals?” The criminals chuckle. The falsely accused ugh.

  “But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Marqus huffs, telling the group the same thing he told Adamus on their way back up the cliffside, “We are criminals, at least in the Republic’s eyes. And that town down there is soaked in Republic red.”

  Adamus gazes down at the bustling town that Leo had spotted and that Marqus had told him about. Apparently, Leo had wanted to wait until Adamus returned to both announce the discovery of the town and discuss further pns among the group.

  He found that difficult to believe and grumbled about how it was probably Marqus’s idea of being courteous, but the older man hadn’t listened to a word he had said.

  Why would Leo want to have Adamus around for major discussions like this after the shit he just pulled an hour ago? It doesn’t make sense to him, and the little shanty town makes even less sense.

  It has the typical urban trappings. Apartments for homes, libraries for learning. Eateries and butcher shops. Tailors and churches. Warehouses and docks. But a spaceport?

  Why would a town like this have a spaceport? Even that vilge on Zamizer where he met Leo, Marqus, and Jasper didn’t have a spaceport, it took them a few hours to ride to one.

  Add to that the obvious and major Republic presence indicated by the fgs pinned on the walls and dangling from the libraries and churches, and a very concerning picture begins to form in Adamus’s mind.

  Does this have something to do with that fungus I found? Or is something else going on here?

  He steps back from the cliffside and sees that Leo is clearly having simir thoughts, mainly because he soon vocalizes those thoughts. “Going down all at once would be suspicious, and we’re still in our prison uniforms, so even going one by one would be risky, but the fact is, we can’t stay on this hill for the rest of our lives. We’re bound to be discovered at some point or another.”

  “Why not just beat them back like we did at the prison?” Nesson idiotically asks as he pounds a palm into his fist. Much to both Adamus and Leo’s concern, a good portion of the group seems all too eager to go through with that bone-headed strategy, Samend included. “It could work if Adamus is willing to let out that creature again.”

  “Why are you even suggesting that?” Adamus grunts, “You seemed pretty freaked out by it.”

  Samend holds up his hands, defensively, “It was just a suggestion! No need to be weird about it…”

  You’re the one being weird. Adamus chooses to keep the comment to himself as Leo eyes him. “What?”

  “Will you? Unleash that creature, I mean?”

  Despite the gentle, cautious tone of the question, Adamus is still offended by the thought of Leo wanting to weaponize something as horrible as the beast.

  “No!” Adamus shouts. Leo smiles, relieved, “Good. Doing that would be disastrous, both for us and the people down there.”

  “Heh,” Adamus allows himself a chuckle, “I’m gd that you have at least some sense…”

  The rge group of escapees has been quiet throughout the awkward exchange, but their patience is now beginning to wear thin. They want to eat decent food, they want fresh clothing, they want baths, they want warm beds, and all those things are in that little town waiting for them.

  “That’s enough!” One of the few women present raises her voice, “I’m going down there, with or without any of you.”

  She pushes past the crowd and hurries down the cliffside. Few try to catch her, but many split off to follow her. Leo yells above the sound of feet and tails trampling the mud and fungus, “Hang on! We still need a proper pn!”

  He sps a palm to his face upon seeing that nearly half of the group is already gone. “Ridiculous…”

  Marqus nudges Leo and grabs Adamus’s shoulder, “What about you, Adamus? Do you have a pn?”

  Adamus shrugs Marqus off and turns to him and Leo, the pair both look as lost and desperate as they did that night back on Zamizer. He has the same answer that he did back then, but now he’s sure to add something that may finally give him an out, “I don’t know what to do. Leonidas is the one who comes up with these pns. Why don’t you give him time to think?”

  The pair exchange odd gnces, Marqus in particur almost seems to gre at Leo as Adamus looks back down at the town. “In the meantime,” He smiles, muttering, “I’m going to find a fresh set of clothes and get something to eat.”

  By the time Leo and Marqus register what he’s said, Adamus is already making his way down the cliffside and toward the town. Samend chases after him, “I could do with those things myself!”

  Adamus rolls his eyes. “Half the reason I want to go down there is to get away from everyone, including you. Or did you not understand that when I ran off after Nesson beat the shit out of me?”

  Samend sps him across the shoulder. Not hard enough to leave a bruise, but enough to send a message. Adamus grips the point of impact, “Ow. What’s your problem? Back at the prison, that thing inside of me mortified you, and now you want to just be buddy-buddy again?”

  Samend ughs, “Well, we fear what we don’t understand, right? And I’m enough of a freak myself. Besides, I’m hoping that you’ll actually tell me about the thing.”

  Adamus stares bnkly at the halfbreed. His mouth hangs slightly agape, drinking the air as he thinks to himself, the whole beast living inside of me thing seems to have rattled him enough. It’s probably best to leave out the whole wish-granting robot head story and the part where it revived me after I was burned alive. And I definitely shouldn’t mention that the whole fucked-up process created the Rusting. “I don’t know that much about it myself.”

  “Really?” The same bnk, mouth-open, air-drinking look falls across Samend’s face. “Weird. Doesn’t it freak you out at all?”

  One of Adamus’s feet falls on a mushroom, crunching it as he walks and talks with Samend, “Of course, it freaks me out, but I can’t do much about it myself. I used to wear bracers to keep it contained, but now it’s just kinda doing what it wants.”

  Samend scratches his chin. For a moment, he’s silent as he walks with Adamus until he halts his scratching and perks up again. “What if Leo is trying to, like, weaponize you? Or should I say weaponize ‘it’?”

  Adamus considers it for a minute. He hates it, but he does consider it. Leo and Marqus are the closest things he has to friends right now. He would count Samend as well, but he’s been too strange tely.

  However, he may have to ignore Samend’s strangeness if what he just suggested is true. Leo didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with me unleashing the creature back at the prison, and he even considered doing it again just a minute ago before making the excuse about civilian casualties. He wasn’t that bothered about me using it back at the vilge either, and if he was upset, it’s only because Jasper was.

  Also, how much do I actually know about him? Even Jasper didn’t say much about Leo besides telling me that they grew up together.

  Could that story have been made up?

  “No.” Adamus states, “No, that’s ridiculous. Why would he do that to me?”

  “Well…” Samend yawns, “He and Marqus are loyal to the Division cause first, right? They’ll probably do anything to take down the Republic,” his voice becomes grave, “even if it means turning its heir into a monster.”

  “No!” Adamus pushes Samend away at the edge of town. “They wouldn’t—” He stops himself. Can he really say that? Can he really say that Marqus and Leo wouldn’t do something like that? He recalls what Marqus said when he broke down in that box back at the prison. You aren’t the Emperor I wanted…

  Adamus clenches his hand into a fist. I never wanted to be Emperor anyway. But no one sees that, do they? They all just think that I’m a spoiled brat or a monster!

  “Look, Samend. You’re clearly just freaking out about this stupid creature. It’s my problem, not yours. So do yourself a favor and fuck off.”

  The halfbreed gives him that same bnk, wide stare he previously wore and shrugs. “Fine, but just for the record, I am freaked out, and you aren’t nearly freaked out enough.”

  “Probably,” Adamus mumbles under his breath once Samend is deep inside the town, “But I’d go insane if I let any of this shit actually get to me…” He thinks back to this morning and his fleeting memory of… ‘something’… involving Cassandra. He hastily pushes that memory back down and throws it in the pile of all the other things he doesn’t want to dwell on.

  Adamus finds a bath easy enough.

  There’s a ke in the town, and he hops in it along with a few other prisoners. The Squideels seem to enjoy the water in particur. They and a trio of more passive humans are the only ones who don’t hop out when he joins them. However, those left in the ke don’t get much time to enjoy it. Adamus and the others leap out of it when the Republic Officers arrive. The men violently and relentlessly chase them through the streets, their grogrungs' hooves spping at their heels along with sharp sword ends.

  Finding himself in a dark and cramped alley, Adamus watches as an Officer drives a sword into the woman who had first broken off from the group to come down here. She lets out a loud, anguished cry that draws the attention of many passersby, who watch the sight in horror.

  Adamus knows he should feel far more sympathy than he does, but he figures there’s nothing he can do about it, so he climbs over a dumpster, hops onto a roof, and begins the process of finding a new pair of clothes.

  Luckily for him, a family has hung plenty of apparel out to dry. He steals what fits and tosses it on, hearing the family scream and shout as he does so. Their voices are like stones bashing against his ears. He runs from them as fast as he can.

  What morally detestable thing am I going to do next? Unleash that creature and sughter them all? He half-wonders in shame. I did stuff like this plenty of times in the past month, but now…

  Is this really what it takes to survive?

  Cassandra would know. She grew up as a street rat, didn’t she?

  Somehow, he finds himself at a tavern.

  It’s always a tavern…

  Jasper’s family had a tavern…

  Brought plenty of girls to a tavern back in Rome as well…

  His pit of a stomach growls as he stands in front of the decaying wooden door. “Fuck…”

  “Fuck! Fuck!” A voice rattles from down the street and works its way to the door. “Fuck!” The young woman excims as she rummages through her bag.

  Adamus only briefly gnces at her before entering the tavern. “Can you—” He doesn’t hear her.

  She grunts and enters the tavern behind him.

  Adamus takes a seat at the bar.

  “What’ll it be?” The barkeep halfheartedly asks, not even bothering to look at him.

  “Just something strong.”

  “Cheapest ale is two coins,” The barkeep states, holding up two fingers.

  I don’t even have any coins. Adamus dreadfully depreciates himself, on top of all my mounting troubles, I have no coins for a lousy drink.

  The woman behind him sms down four coins. “One for me and one for him.”

  The barkeep huffs and turns to his fgons.

  “You’re an idiot,” Adamus states with his palm on his cheek and his eyes on the pouring fgons. “I’m just some coinless kid who wants to be left alone. I have nothing for you, dy.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” the dy says, “being nice to someone gives me enough joy all on its own.”

  Adamus snickers, “I’m sure that’s what you tell yourself every morning when you wake up, don’t you? I know your type, you’ll say life’s precious until you meet someone that says otherwise. Then you’ll stomp them down without thinking twice about it.”

  The barkeep sms the pints of ale down as the woman barks, “Hey, fuck you! I’m just trying to be nice!”

  “Fuck me?” Adamus raises his voice and turns his head to the woman. “Fuck you!” The pair exchange shouts and point fingers.

  “Fuck you!” “Fuck you!” “Fuck you!” “Fuck you!” “Fuck you!”

  “Someone just hurry up and fuck somebody before I kick out of my tavern!” The barkeep snarls.

  Adamus lifts his hands over his head and sighs, “Gods, it’s just like when I punched the stupid fungus…”

  The woman roars with ughter. Adamus nearly falls off his barstool in surprise.

  “Why were you punching fungus? Ha! Ha!”

  Adamus raises his eyes to the woman at her ughter. It’s great ughter, sincere ughter.

  The woman twirls a strand of her long blonde hair, grinning at him, “You’re funny.”

  She gently touches him, that’s when Adamus notices her caring face, her bright stunning eyes, her gorgeous smile, and at st her slender shoulders and rge breasts.

  He mumbles, red-faced, “What’s your name?”

  “Evelyn,” She states, still smiling that magical smile, “My name is Evelyn. And you are?”