“Thank you for coming with me, Tenuk!” Kayel smiled nervously as they walked down the rather empty street. The Skyan district of Salla was normally full of vok rushng up and down, buying last minute presents for the national holiday of Macromera, but ever since the… incident, a lot of Skyans had just closed up early. Even though the majority of Skyans here were S-Class (mostly in the jobs of retail and distribution), the idea that someone would attack a harmless L-Class-run centre had put a lot of people on edge.
“It’s not a problem,” Tenuk replied, remaining in his Spast form, not bothering to disguise himself. “But I don’t really know how I’m going to be of any help if we get attacked or something.”
“Just having another vok around is good enough. Someone to help with the story should something happen.”
The pair walked past a large shoe shop. Kayel glanced upwards, not entirely sure why, then continued walking. His place was a bit further down, on a right hand turn at the end of the road. As they passed a frozen food shop, Kayel took that right, heading right to the end of this new road, which didn’t lead anywhere in particular. There was a pavement that led back to the main road, but that was it.
“Nice places,” Tenuk mused.
Kayel frowned. “Eh. The bottom places are nice. My place is… well…”
The last building was a basic apartment block, with vehicle parking at the bottom. Looking up, Tenuk noticed various balconies, some of which had vines growing on them. They headed to the centre of the building, where there was a central shaft containing stairs and an elevator. Kayel tapped the button and the elevator doors opened up, revealing a very gloomy lift where only one of the lights in the ceiling worked.
“Has it always been like that?”
“Yeah.”
They stepped in, and Kayel hit the button for the third and highest floor. The doors slid shut, the elevator hummed and they quickly reached their destination.
On the door was some sort of digital lock, which Kayel raised his wristband to. The lock hummed, then clicked, and the door slid open, allowing them into the apartment.
“Well, at least my stuff is all still here…” Kayel breathed a small sigh of relief. “Looks like I haven’t been raided.”
While Kayel headed to the small desk in the corner, Tenuk had a quick look around. There were only four rooms. A main living area with a sofa and a desk, a rather messy bedroom that was more bed than anything else, a weirdly clean kitchen with a tiny dining table and six chairs squeezed around it, and, to the left, a small hall that lead to a bathroom. Weirdly, despite seeing balconies outside, this place didn’t seem to have one.
“Is this it?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s…”
“Cozy.”
“I was going to say horrible.”
“It’s what I can afford. Part of my defection from the K-Class involved a very, very large pay cut…” Kayel was now inspecting the home too, but he was looking for something in particular. Surveillance bugs. He was pretty certain that no one had broken in, but that didn’t mean someone could have slipped a bug in under the door.
Speaking of the door, there was a sudden knock.
“R-Class, open up!”
“You have great timing…” Tenuk muttered. “Should I shapeshift into a Skyavok?”
“No, stay as you are. You don’t have a Skyan wristband, they’d just ask more questions…” Kayel grunted as he headed to the door. “Yes, officer?”
The Skyan standing in the doorway was black with white armour. In one hand, they held a small pistol. In the other, they held out their badge.
“I am officer Teear. The tenant of this property is dead. Who are you?”
“Uh, the tenant…” Kayel took a deep breath, holding out his wristband. “See, my name is here. I can get you my renter’s contract too, if you need it.”
The officer inspected Kayel’s wristband, reading it out loud. “Kayel Theanon, formerly Elkay Theanon. Former K-Class, now working in L-Class… You are the missing body from the Family Planning incident.”
“I wasn’t aware I was missing. I gave my contact details to the Ksithan authorities for… well, fear of this happening.”
“Wait, did you say body?” Tenuk interrupted. “Because as far as I was aware, Kayel was taken to the hospital, not the morgue.”
Teear looked down at the Spast. “Who is this?”
“Uh, my new friend. I’ve been staying at his place because I was… admittedly too scared to come home, in case I ran into an R-Class with a gun.”
“Can you two please accompany me to my car, we need to go to the station.”
“I’d… rather not.”
Teear raised his weapon. “That is an order.”
“I am not going!” Kayel hissed, stepping forward, reaching for Teear’s gun and pulling it downwards.
A bang echoed through the room, and Kayel stumbled back. Behind him, a bullet was embedded in the wall, surrounded by a spray of blood. A bullet that had gone through Kayel’s arm, but had left a wound that was already closing up.
“You shot me!”
“You threatened me!” Teear exclaimed, pointing his gun at Kayel again.
“I’m fucking unarmed!”
This time though, Tenuk intervened. He turned himself into a red and silver Rethavok, putting himself between the two Skyans, removing the gun from Teear’s hand and pinning him to the wall. His now golden eyes pierced into Teear’s dull brown eyes.
“Alright, here’s what’s going to happen. You, my friend, just shot at someone who was recently attacked by some of you weird R-Class people. So what you are going to do is this, you are going to go back to your vehicle, take your gun and throw it into a river or something. You are then going to return to your station, report that nothing happened and ask to be moved to an office job, forgetting that you were ever here. You know why you are going to do this? Because I happen to be friends with a certain Death God, and he’d be very unhappy to find out that you shot at my friend.”
Tenuk let go of Teear. Teear immediately picked up his gun and his badge, then ran down the stairs in sheer terror.
“We’re not friends with-”
“Shush. I’m a Spast, I’m good at lying. Comes with the territory. Are you okay, are you hurt?” Tenuk changed back into his normal, blue self.
Kayel inspected where the wound should have been, but there was nothing there.
“It’s… there’s… no wound… That’s… I think maybe we should head back to Retvik’s place. Tell him what happened. Maybe… I don’t know…”
“Yeah… let’s grab some stuff though, you need some fresh sets of clothes.”
Kayel looked down at the stomach wrap, sash and hood he had been wearing for goodness knows how long. There were still bullet holes in the wrap.
“You’re right. Let me get some things and we can get out of here…”