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This article, Softpetal, contains the following:
Drug Use. Reader discretion is advised. |
It was in the summer of Age 777 when Harusame and Hiyamugi took him to Lipanto. Being a good two years younger than them, he did whatever they asked. He never thought twice about it, for to do so would be to open himself to ridicule and ostracization. One night, being sure not to wake his father, he snuck out to meet them. They had not told him why they had chosen that world, and he had not pressed them about it. Inside an abandoned mill on the edge of town, Somen took hold of Hiyamugi’s arm, and they were gone.
Now that he had made the jump, he would be able to make his way back. The feeling of knowing was like a cask of sand spilling out from his skull.
Evening was creeping into what appeared to be a bustling street market. Merchants and patrons hailing from dozens of worlds had gathered by the thousands to sell and buy fresh foods and wares. It was sweltering; his eyes rising to the viridian skies, he gulped, steadying himself as a muttering reptilian shopper shoved his way past. A pungently smoky flavor permeated the air, making his throat itch. Simultaneously, the diluted scents of disparate restaurants were making his mouth water. Sensory overload paralyzed him. His schoolmates hardly seemed affected.
This was one of the few planets brimming with life following the devastation of Bahkaar’s Plague. That universal pandemic, and the war that had afterwards ensued between the Planet Trade Organization and the Corvos League (which, as far as he knew, was still unresolved), had left a majority of the universe uninhabited. There were fewer than a tenth as many people alive today as there had been fifteen years ago. Somen felt, above all else, overwhelmed by their volume.
“Alright Mugi, go on. Grab me some tamon if they have it.”
“I got you.”
The upperclassman lost himself comfortably in a sea of people. Harusame whispered in Somen’s ear, “Make sure you jump before they get you. I’m serious. You’re dead if they do. Alright? Can you make the jump?”
“I… think so. How fast are the guards?”
“As long as you don’t dawdle, you’ll be fine. But you have to be quick about it.”
He shut his eyes and soon became embarrassed with how long it was taking. Harusame remained patient. At last he could feel home pulling him back at the corner of his eyelids, that old comforting feeling. Yardrat was much farther away than he had hoped. “Got it.”
Harusame’s face was drawn tight. “Three blocks south of here, the Namekian’s got serrokin stashed in his ajisa plants. Every fifth one from the left. Knick one of those for us before returning home. We’ll make it worth your while. Take anything else on the way if you want, but we better get our serrokin.”
He came to a stop, blinking rapidly. A blue man in purple robes shoved him out of the way, and he nearly lost his balance. “What’s a Namekian?”
“Green guys with little antennae coming out of their heads. You’ll notice them. Him and his son. Only ones around. Remember, it’s every fifth ajisa from the left.”
“What’s ajisa?”
“Bundled plants with pink flowers. You can’t miss ‘em.”
Before he could speak again, he was shoved into the crowd, and Harusame was gone. Not a single Yardrat was walking the streets amongst the merchants and buyers. It felt like their glances were oddly lingering upon him.
It was a lonely feeling, this. Somen was not one for people–not this many this close to each other. Forcing himself to do it was perhaps for the better, for he soon found the so-called Namekians at their stand, aliens to all those around them. Both the man (and he was a wrinkly old guy at that) and his son (who looked no older than Somen himself) were attending to customers. They were hopelessly outmatched in the awareness department, dealing with a horde of patrons. Apparently half the planet was addicted to serrokin. It was too easy to swipe an ajisa plant of his choosing. They were stacked fifteen rows high. He didn’t need to resort to Instant Transmission.
Throwing himself into the street-lurching horde, he was almost dragged over to the corner of the nearest road, where he caught his breath, focused on another stand farther off (what it was selling, he could not read), and teleported to it. The stand-owner, a fat Jolean, grunted, having been startled by Somen’s sudden appearance.
“Get out of here, Yardrat. Your kind ain’t welcome here. This is imperial space, you lawless cretin.”
“How much for one of those?”
“I wouldn’t sell you one of my abevho were you the last customer in the universe. Security! Security!!”
Somen looked around with a sardonic grin. When he noticed that no one was coming for him, that none of them cared, his cheeks grew hot, he drew himself up, and spat on the ground in front of the Jolean’s stand.
His neck twisting in exasperation like a malfunctioning crane, the merchant waved a stubby finger in the air, shouting, “Soldier! Soldier! Yes, Soldier! Here! Soldier, to me! To me, soldier! That’s right, soldier. Here! To me! I’m here, soldier! There’s a thief! Thief! Get the thief, soldier! Here, soldier!”
It was impossible to tell if there was a soldier or not. It was true that this was imperial space insomuch as Lipanto lay in the heart of the Planet Trade Organization (and one could even say it was the capital of the empire), and it was also a fact that Yardrat was a free world that existed at odds with the Planet Trade. He had known the risk before coming. He wasn’t going to prison over a vegetable.
Without wasting another second, he swiped one of the wrinkly blue peppers, closed his eyes, pressed his fingers to his forehead, and returned home. He half-expected to feel swollen fingers wrapped around his ankle when he landed.
A second later, he beheld the familiar landscape of Yardrat in the dead of night. It was more beautiful from the outskirts of town than in its heart, where light pollution prevented one from viewing the dimmer stars. Hiyamugi was munching on what looked like dried meat, while Harusame was looking over a golden necklace.
“Got the stuff?”
“Here.”
“Nice, you’re quicker than you look, Somen. C’mon, let’s get high.”
He held up his second stolen prize. “Look at this. I took it. Do you know what it is? Is it safe to eat?”
“No idea. Go ahead and try it. I don’t care. We’re going to get high.”
That had been his chance. Instead of doing serrokin with them that night, Somen took a bite out of his abevho pepper. Suffice to say, but in his thirteen years of life up until that point, that had been, unquestionably, his worst decision yet.
For weeks, the three of them snuck to Lipanto in the dead of night and stole whatever they were craving at that particular moment in time. They always took an ajisa plant, for it held the best of treats. After nearly killing himself from eating so much of the abevho pepper, a mistake he had sworn thereafter to never make again, Somen had been allowed to try serrokin after their second trip. From then on, he had been hooked. He would sometimes steal galin jerky, although he was not nearly as adventurous as the upperclassmen.
There was little in the way of describing it, or rather, that which transpired in the days following. The only thing he was certain of was that he wanted more bliss, more focus, his brain feeling right and good like he was flying through a wind tunnel and never hitting the edges.
The great thing about robbing a drug dealer was that they could have no recourse from the law (the ephemeral guards) over lost product.
Some two months later, the three of them returned to Lipanto for the twenty-sixth time to try their luck in the streets. They were thirsting for serrokin bad. It was Harusame’s turn. The other two watched from a nearby alley, their fingers twitching, their minds dull and restless. Somen no longer cared about how many people were around.
It was only after he had taken the ajisa plant that a soldier in full Planet Trade Organization armor sprung at him from across the street (appearing so swiftly that they could say nothing) and tackled him to the ground. The schoolboy let out a cry as the soldier beat him. Shouting, Hiyamugi ran over to the man in a futile attempt to make him stop, but he slapped the Yardrat to the ground and continued shaking Harusame by the shoulders, his head smacking against the stone road, leaving wet streaks behind.
Somen backed up, running deeper into the alley. Hiyamugi let out a cry of horror. The boy closed his eyes, humming to himself. He didn’t want to hear what was about to happen. Pressing his fingers to his temple, he inhaled and made the jump.
Only when he reappeared on the outskirts of Yardrat did he realize someone had grabbed his ankle.
“Gotcha, thief!” The Namekian darted away, hunkering down into some kind of fighting stance once he had gained enough distance between them. He bounced on the balls of his feet, as if daring the Yardrat to attack.
“What in the name of Ramen was that? That guy was killing Harusame!”
“He killed them both, I’d bet. Father requested it. We’re tired of your kind stealing our ajisa. We sell those to survive. People like you deserve what you get.”
Somen shrugged; he couldn’t care less. The Namekian frowned, shooting his fist out with an elastic arm attack. Falling back from the force of it, the Yardrat gasped, his face exploding in pain. The Namekian hit him again, and again, and soon he tasted blood.
“I’m going to put a stop to you!”
The idea came to him late–only when the green fool tried it again. Spitting blood, he parried the incoming fist, as much as it hurt, and held on desperately, pressing his fingers to his forehead and leaping across space in one motion. So what if the upperclassmen had died? They had forced him to go with them to Lipanto. This had been their fault. He wouldn’t mourn them.
Instead of leaving his foe in a busy street, Somen transported him halfway across the planet, to a desolate part of Lipanto, where snowy mountains rose over a bleak wilderness. Maybe he would be able to survive that, maybe not. The Namekian swore the entire time, threatened that soldiers would be coming soon, and even tried to shoot a few energy beams at him at the end, yet the boy, with his Yardratian dexterity, had plenty of time to make the jump back home before getting hit, sore as his jaw was.