Our plan was to issue a Wanted alert, indicating that the Fracker, destroyer of Old Itokawa, had been identified at Void's Edge and was last spotted heading toward the Port of Conduit, in the solar northwest docking stations. This just happened to be in the opposite direction of the Port of Alloy.
I was already in the Garden District, which is where we had decided I would be when we triggered my alert. See, I'm smart like that. I conveniently picked the walk in the garden because it was both a good date choice and right where I wanted to be anyway. The ensuing commotion should surround @foxcutter and @zerogstar as they made their way to the ship, hopefully deflecting attention away from them.
I also made sure they would be closer to the ship than I was when everything went down. That way I could try to monitor their progress and plan a route to protect all of us. I didn't want to get to the ship first anyway, because if I did, we'd likely have to get out of there fast, without giving @foxcutter and @zerogstar much of a chance to board.
I signaled @foxcutter, using a frequency that would be less monitored, sending a simple series of eight quick beeps, four long beeps, and three quick beeps. That was the time of day. When a pattern on that frequency matched the time of day, he'd broadcast the alert.
I waited, centering myself, smelling my fingers again where I had touched the flower to get its scent in my nose, solidifying my memory of the moment. Bubble wrap secure. Gravity hammer lost to @horsehead. Mint swallowed. Timer set.
An alarm sounded nearby, with an orange light flashing as a warning. I checked the local broadcast and pulled up the video footage that showed a warrant for my arrest. We had put together a rough view where I would be recognizable, mostly by clothing, taken from outside Earth's Appraisal, along with a snippet of my memory from the accident to lend more truth to it. We started the reward at $1M qcoins, but we knew that it would go up as suitors bid against the "authorities" for capture rights.
I pulled a breathing mask up over my face, one with a cloth that ran down around my neck. It wasn't to hide my face. They had too much surveillance here. My choice of how to escape made it a foregone conclusion that I would forever be recognized as the Fracker.
So be it.
But I had grenades. I giggled as I snapped the breathing mask into place, and then I threw the first sleep bomb toward the busiest hallway, one that ran toward Earth's Appraisal, and I took off in the opposite direction.
Go mode activated.
It was easy at first. No one knew what was going on. Phase 1 was to make sure they knew. I wanted all eyes on me so that @foxcutter and @zerogstar could start making their run. We had scrounged a decent number of grenades from Earth's Appraisal, in the "not for sale" part of the store that Ralph was more than happy to show us. I tossed another, this time in front of me, and kept running.
@zerogstar had been able to provide me with yesterday's map of Itokawa, which we decided was better than nothing, but I knew that I would run into passageways that had changed for the day. Each passage had limited options of where it could be rerouted, but once I was off the map, I would have to trust a lot more in my instinct and the public beacons. I flagged some that I would be more familiar with: the Port of Alloy, the security checkpoints between the districts, the Cosmic Gutter.
To occupy my thoughts and increase my odds of success, I decided to treat this like a piloting exercise. I was a masterful pilot. I just needed to think of this as a Wavepilot exam. I was my ship, the people were other ships or asteroids, and the hallways were charted pathways on a nav chart.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Changing my thought process brought everything into clear focus. Time seemed to slow down as I hit the thrusters, braked, spun, and twirled masterfully down the walkways. Sure, I fired a fake torpedo at someone and then ran into them, forgetting that they would not explode in front of me, but I spun out of it like a ship that was nearly caught in a tractor beam, braced myself, and was quickly back in the fray with engines at full speed.
And so, I zoomed and zipped deftly through the asteroid field of people, counting the time elapsed. I smiled when I saw a blip that indicated @foxcutter and @zerogstar had left Earth's Appraisal. I tossed the occasional grenade to signal my whereabouts. And I ran. I ran from the growing mobs and screams that followed behind me.
"Fracker! Fracker! Fracker!"
Every turn I made led to the same shouts. Someone tried to loop my neck with the strap from their messenger bag, a man in jeans with a fancy sport coat. I discarded him with a shove, sending people to the ground, diving downward and plunging through a cluster of Itokawans, running off again.
My image was being broadcast on the walls, overlaid on the glass in the passages between segments of the city, and fed through the open network VR displays to appear as an alert on anyone's HUD.
In several seconds, I went from @wrench the businessman to the Fracker, the most famous person on Itokawa. No one knew who the Fracker was. They had tried to figure it out. Some people had even claimed to be the Fracker, but it was a mystery that Itokawa seemed to love being a mystery. It gave them the opportunity for exciting moments like this.
"No way that's the Fracker," I heard someone say as I sprinted by.
Their companion spotted me and shouted, "Doesn't matter! Look at that reward!" And the two of them joined the chase.
We were up to $3.2M qcoins. Whether anyone really thought I was the Fracker didn't matter. They would chase me for the money. Classic Itokawa. It didn't disappoint.
But my easy departure was about to get challenging. Just as I expected, Itokawa had shifted overnight. I ran through another corridor, and when I turned to the right at a sharp angle, I realized I was off map. I knew it would happen since my map was a day old, but I had been trying not to think about it.
Time to rely on my futurecasting and excellent sense of direction. Don't believe @auroraloon. I swear, I know where I'm going most of the time.
It wasn't being off map that threw me off. No. It was taking that sharp right, running down the hall, and finding myself in a bedding store called Stellar Dreams.
I knocked over the salesperson in the entrance first, a woman in khaki pants and a gray shirt. Poor woman had no idea what was going on. Mostly, I saw the flash of her black hair in front of me as I pushed her out of my way, sending her to my right, where she fell onto a display that was touting the "finest pillows in Itokawa."
Calm music featuring the sound of oceans piped through the store's speakers, a stark contrast to the orange alarm lights that were flashing through the dim corridors of Itokawa. The combination of the ocean music and orange flashes of light gave the entire store an apocalyptic vibe.
"Everyone deserves a good night's sleep," a sonorous voice said over the speakers. "Get dirty by day, and sleep like royalty on our new auto-adjusting quantum pillows."
I grabbed one of these pillows, acknowledged that it was one of the softest pillows I'd ever picked up, turned, and slammed it into the first person in the crowd behind me.
"Sleep on this!" I shouted, hitting them with all the force I could muster.
But it was a waste of energy. The pillow did just what the advertisement implied it would do. It adjusted. Instead of pummeling one of my pursuers, it bent around their face, making a soft tuft sound.
I grumbled at the result, but at least I had startled them, bogging down the entrance while I ran deeper into the store. I could see an exit on the far side. They could easily plug the entrances and trap me inside. I had to act fast.
There's no shame in screaming, so I did just that. I hollered out. "Mattress sale! Get a free pillow with every purchase!"
I jumped onto a mattress, grabbing one of its pillows. Then I bounced over to another bed as a group of chasers reached for my legs. I didn't miss a beat. I kept bouncing, leaping to a third bed. As I landed, I slammed the pillow into a man with his arms wide open to catch me. To my delight, this was a regular pillow, and I infused my strike with quantum force. The pillow exploded in the man's face, sending feathers and soft bits of composite fluffiness up into the air, toppling the man as if he were a mindless mannequin.
And that's how the biggest pillow fight in the solar system officially began.