We must go,” he says, his hand on my shoulder.

I look up and smile. “Is there anywhere in this city with a bed? I know you don’t need one, but–”

“I will build you a bed,” he says. “Once we have a house. But we must hurry. Come!”

He lifts me to my feet, and I pull the tight teal suit back onto my skin. I wrap the mantle around my body, and I follow Proximus through the winding corridors that eventually take us out of the colosseum and back onto the streets of Therassus.

I usually have a good sense of direction, but it feels that no matter how long I might stay in this city, I’d never be familiar with its seemingly infinite number of winding roads and narrow alleys.

I hold Proximus by the hand as we walk this time, and I stroke the sinewy back of his palm with my thumb as we make our way toward wherever we are going. Each time I move my skin across his, it feels electric. I keep thinking of how good he felt inside me, and then the feeling of his protective arms wrapped around me as the warm afterglow overtook me.

“Where are we going now?” I ask.

“To the company storehouse,” he says. “I will liquefy all the company asses as fast as possible, then we will leave the city rich.”

“Do you mean liquidate assets?” I ask.

He furrows his brow. “I do not know.”

I remember his explanation of how he learned English. An Emperor Clan member hooked him up to some type of machine, he felt a shock, and suddenly he could speak English. Either the original program built into that machine had errors in it, or maybe the connection between machine and brain had some kind of error transferring the information across to Proximus’ brain.

“So you’re going to just raid the vault,” I say. “Fire all the employees?”

He nods.

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to keep it going?” I ask. “Make long-term profit? What do they do anyway?”

“You do not know the ways of this world, Alice,” he says. “And I am not a businessman.”

I look at him, wondering if he realizes the super obvious contradiction he just made.

“You know,” I say. “I am a businesswoman, back on Earth. I run–well, ran–a photography studio. I mostly did baby photos, but the point is I knew how to turn my skills into money. To run the business effectively and make money doing it.”

“You like babies?” he asks.

I shrug, suddenly very aware of just how much of his cum was pumped into me. Could I get pregnant? From an alien?

He looks away from me. “Women cannot run businesses here, so I will ignore your advice, Alice.”

Is he forgetting the innkeeper? Or was she not really in charge?

I dig my nails into my hand and pull on his arm. “Proximus.”

He stops and turns to face me. People are jostling and shoving, but Proximus’ wide frame keeps most of the people off me.

“What do you know of dream leaves?” He asks me, seemingly impatient and annoyed.

“You know I don’t know,” I snap, “But–”

“Exactly,” he grunts, “Yet you think you should advise me on how to sell them?”

“Why don’t you teach me?” I ask. “And before you burn down this whole profitable business you’ve just been handed on a whim, we should take some time to figure out if you–if we–can live off of it long-term?”

Someone shoves him hard, and he stiff arms them away. They growl at each other, and he looks back at me even more angry than before. I clutch the mantle tight. There’s an icy wind blowing in from between the buildings, and sleet is beginning to fall from the sky.

He takes hold of me by the shoulders and looks me seriously in the eyes. “Because of our bond, and because I cannot forget the feel of your soaking wet and tight embrace of my spear, which I hope to feel again soon, I will take your suggestion under consideration. I will not completely ignore you. Is this sufficient?”

I think of slapping him, but I know it won’t hurt him at all. Instead I just shove his hands off me, make an annoyed grunt, and hiss to him that we should be on our way.

He talks to me as we walk, in a fairly upbeat voice, meaning he’s completely oblivious to how annoyed he made me, and how upset I am with him.

“Dream leaves are valuable, but it’s forbidden among our clan to eat them. Though we have been known to barter with them, should they come into our possession. Still, we must never chew them or brew them into a tea. Scipius must have realized the potential profit in selling them after seeing how valuable they were to trade with.”

I ignore him. I assume he’s not going to listen to any of my suggestions anyway, and if he’s just going to sell everything off and fire everyone, then I no longer need to know anything about dream leaves.

“You said I was just handed this company,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, my voice sounding much more bitter than I expect. “So you actually listened to something I said?”

“Yes, and you are wrong.” He pulls me into an alley, and I think at first he’s pulled me there to talk. Maybe to apologize, but instead he keeps pulling me along through the alley. He talks as we walk. “I was handed nothing. I had to kill my clan brother in a duel to the death.”

“Fair point,” I mutter, quiet enough that I don’t even know if he hears me.

“Here,” he says, pulling me out of the alley.

We approach a large stone building with no windows. The doors are huge and made of some kind of metal. It looks old, but not rusted or worn at all.

Proximus pulls out his spear, and he knocks on the door by slamming the butt of his spear into the door over and over, until the door finally rumbles open.

“Kannakus,” Proximus says.

Kannakus bows. He’s a tall man, but I’ve seen enough of Proximus’ race now to know his horns are medium length at best. By the way Proximus shoves past him and enters without waiting to be invited or given any real sign, I get the feeling Proximus thinks he is far superior to Kannakus–or maybe he just thinks he owns the place. To be fair, he does own the place.

We step into a large space the size of a hotel lobby, but with only minimalistic wooden desks with no chairs. The desks are manned by horned aliens scrawling onto paper with huge purple feathers.

“Shall I give you a tour?” Kannakus asks.

Proximus grunts. “How much money do you have on hand?”

Kannakus bites his lip and frowns. I want to hit Proximus, to yell at him. To tell him he’s an idiot, but I worry I could make his position even weaker by causing any kind of scene.

“I can give you a full breakdown during a tour…” Kannakus says, trailing off.

“Money. How much?” Proximus barks.

“Well,” Kannakus says, “The answer to that is somewhat complicated…”

Proximus grabs Kannakus by the neck and shoves his back into the inside of the big metal door. The people with the purple feathers all stop writing and stare. I hold my breath, afraid of what Proximus might do.

“How. Much.” Proximus growls.

“Almost nothing,” Kannakus says. “Scipius just re-invested everything into a huge expedition, new infrastructure–”

Proximus squeezes his throat, and he gasps for air.

I pull on Proximus’ arm. “Please, let him finish.”

Proximus’ bicep bulges, and the veins on his forearm pop out, but he finally lets go.

Kannakus gasps for air. “It will pay off ten times over, but for now there are no liquid asses.”

I sigh. It seems my earpiece is translating using the same flawed software that Proximus’ implant used.

“How long until we make money again?” Proximus asks. He’s let go of Kannakus’ neck, but he’s still just inches from the man, blocking him from moving his back off the door.

Kannakus shakes his head. “A month or two? We’ve hired a team of mercenaries–the best from the inner regions–to eradicate the Clan Who Dreams. Once they are gone, we will control the leaves.”

Proximus shoves him into the door.

“I mean you,” Kannakus says. “You will control the leaves, my lord!”

Proximus stares him down, but before either man can speak or make another move, there’s a loud thumping at the door.

“Who is that?” Proximus asks.

Kannakus shakes his head. “We were expecting no one but yourself, lord Proximus.”

I look around and see the men with purple feathers have all pulled out long, curved knives. If the company’s scribes all need knives, I’m not so sure this is the most stable or safe business to invest into. Maybe it is better if Proximus just sells everything off. Or maybe everyone on this planet has a weapon of some kind.

Proximus pulls Kannakus away from the door and raises his spear. He grabs me by the arm and hisses to Kannakus. “Hide us!”

Kannakus motions toward one of the scribes, who leads us through a side door. We’re taken into a hallway, and then into the first room, which is full of curled up scrolls stacked on chaotically organized shelf. The scribe slides open a window on the wall, and he points to show us that the window is covered in a lattice of metal bars, like the window of a prison cell. It gives us a view into the main lobby.

“Good,” Proximus grunts, leaning in and pressing his face just inches from the metal grating.

The scribe stands near the door with his knife in hand, and I lean in toward Proximus to take a look. “Who do you think it is?”

“I fear the worst,” he says.

Kannakus opens the door, and men in shiny armor storm inside, with guns drawn.

“Weapons down!” One of them shouts.

The scribes eye each other and clutch their knives. Not one lowers his knife.

“We’ve paid you our protection fee for this cycle,” Kannakus says, holding his empty palms up and smiling wide.

“Where is your lord?” a guard barks, and his gun whines in a flash of bright violet.

“He’s…” Kannakus says, not looking in our direction. “He’s due to arrive any minute now. He was delayed at the colosseum.”

“Then we’ll wait here for him,” one of the guards says.

He gestures with his horns, and the second guard moves around the lobby, searching.

“Give him a tour,” the first guard barks to Kannakus.

Proximus turns back toward me and the scribe. “There are only two of them,” Proximus says. “We kill the one who comes in here, take his gun, and kill the second.”

The plan has a bit too much “kill” for my tastes, but I don’t see any other way out. It seems that the guards either received orders from the broadcasting tower, or that some part of the Emperor Clan is in Therassus and looking for us. If killing two more men is what it takes to get us out, I’ll take it.

Proximus stands near the door and extends his spear. He gestures underneath the shelf of scrolls, signaling me to get down.

I crouch down and hide behind one of the thick wooden legs.

“Stand in front of her,” Proximus says to the scribe. “If she is hurt, I will rip out your throat.”

The scribe nods and crouches in front of me, like a tiger ready to strike, his knife a long and vicious tooth. I can barely see the door with the scribe’s muscular frame in front of me, but the moment the door opens, Proximus leaps like a lion.

His spear finds the opening between the guard’s breastplate and helmet, and there’s only a wheezing sound as the guard goes down. His armor striking the stone floor is louder than his gurgling death cry.

Then a purple light blinds me, and I squint as I see Proximus shoving the barrel of the gun through the metal grate. I hear the whine of the gun going off–much louder indoors than it was in the open air of the colosseum–and then there’s a brief silence followed by loud shouts.

Proximus grabs me and hoists me over his shoulder. He pushes Kannakus–who led the first guard into the room to die–forward toward the lobby, and the scribe trails behind us, knife still in hand.

When we enter the lobby, it smells like someone is cooking barbeque, but then I realize it’s the smell of the guard Proximus shot. There’s a scent of burning plastic or metal on top of the other awful smell, and I figure that must be his burned armor letting out some foul chemical into the air.

“We don’t have much time,” Proximus barks, not bothering to put me back onto my feet. “I need some dried leaves, a horse and wagon, and all the liquefied asses you have on hand.”