Ben had no idea which of the three was more surprised: the kitsune in the silver suit, the flesh-bot draped over him, or the huge bear-faced brute with flat ears. Probably the bot, judging by the way her face went from bored to oh fuck. The bear man, to its credit, only flinched a little.

  “Um… sorry?” he tried, giving a sheepish wave, and then he bolted.

  “Well?” he thought he heard the fox say. “Aren't you going after him?”

  The thug quickly followed.

  The club was engineered to inconvenience as many people as possible. His next obstacle was a waiter—a tangle of arms and glassware—who shrieked and failed to sidestep. Glasses hit the dance floor and exploded into chaos. He didn’t look back. His next step was onto a sticky patch of floor, and his shoe made a sound like a wet kiss as he yanked it free.

  His earpiece crackled. “LEFT,” Thimble barked, and Ben veered left, nearly bowling over a table of what he could only describe as buff plant men, with flowers for heads. One gasped and retracted into a bud.

  Ben juked around a pillar. He could hear the bear-thing on the floor behind him, getting closer, which was great, because he definitely needed more reasons to panic.

  “Jump the bar!” Thimble ordered.

  Ben did, planting a hand on the counter and swinging his legs over. He landed in a crouch, surprising the bartender—a cylinder of gelatin with a face suspended inside. The bartender tried to hand him a drink, but Ben was already moving.

  “Through the kitchen!” Thimble snapped. “Don’t stop, don’t argue, just MOVE.”

  The kitchen was pure chaos. Smoke, shouting, at least three sets of flames. Ben dodged a chef with a boiling cauldron for a head, ducked under a rack of knives, and nearly ate it over a cart full of bundled morays.

  They screamed as he passed.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Fair.

  “Under the prep table, then hard left,” Thimble said.

  Ben slid, baseball style, and banged his elbow on the metal leg. The bear behind him was less graceful; he heard a snarl, then a crash, and then a whole rack of baking sheets hit the floor in a sonic boom of aluminum. A man in a white apron fell into a stove. His sleeve ignited. The moron spun in circles until the wall caught. Ben popped up, ducked left, and ran through a door marked “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

  He’d never been less authorized in his life.

  The next room was cold and reeked of ammonia. The lights were harsh, flickering. Ben’s breath fogged in front of him. At the far end, a door with a red-lit keypad. No obvious exit.

  “Shit,” Ben panted, “shit, shit, shit—Thimble, I’m trapped!” He looked back. The bear was already hammering the door, bending the metal inward.

  “Sorry about this,” Ben heard Thimble say.

  “Where am I?”

  Thimble’s voice was calm, almost smug. “Put Thorn on your head and hold the box to your throat.”

  Ben fumbled for the box, nearly dropping it. “What? Why?”

  Ben’s hands shook as he pressed the box to his throat. “What do I—”

  “Press all three buttons. Three times. Now.”

  Ben’s thumb and fingers found the buttons, and he mashed them. The box vibrated, hissed, then split open and wrapped itself around his neck like a collar. A blue shimmer sprang up around his head, and Ben realized he could breathe. He could taste real air again—not the recycled metallic garbage from the club.

  The door behind him buckled, and the bear man's head poked through, eyes wild.

  Ben’s brain caught up to the situation.

  “NO, NO, NO—”

  “Bye!” Thimble chirped, and then the floor dropped out from under him.

  The world went white, then black, then a kaleidoscope of colors as Ben and Thorn were shot into the void. Ben screamed. He screamed until his throat hurt. Then he screamed out of principle.

  Thorn, clinging to his hair, yelled into his ear, “STOP SCREAMING! YOU ARE ONLY MAKING IT WORSE!”

  Ben tried to stop, but the stars were moving, and he was spinning, and he could see the whole station shrinking behind him, and this was bad, this was really bad, and he was going to die, and—

  And then, with a bone-rattling crunch, he smacked face-first into a viewport.

  He dangled there, stuck to the glass like a bug. On the other side, Ironbelly stared, slack jawed, while strapping into his gyro-rig.

  Ben peeled himself off, and floated, dazed, as a hatch opened. A long metal arm with a clamp unfolded and grabbed him, yanked him inside, and then he was sprawled on the floor of an airlock, gasping and shivering.

  Thimble stood over him, grinning. “You fucked up the landing,” she said. “But not bad for a rookie.”

  Ben glared up at her, still wheezing, and tried to think of something clever to say. Instead, he just rolled over and threw up.