“Enjoy today,” Tracht said in the morning, after Alex had dressed him, “Because you will not enjoy the evening.”
Alex looked up from where he was kneeling. “What?”
“The party. I can almost guarantee that you won’t like it. I have meetings to attend that I can’t take you to, so while I’m out feel free to entertain yourself. I’ll be back in the afternoon—make sure you’re back by then too.”
And he was out the door, leaving Alex feeling irritated.
Well, fine. Alex cleaned up around the room, then got properly dressed and headed out too.
He took a quick peek at the gym, but of course nobody was there. The canteen was similarly empty, and Alex wasn’t stepping anywhere near the bridge without Tracht.
So for the first time since his failed escape attempt, Alex left the ship alone. The guard on duty grunted at him, but Tracht must have said it was okay for Alex to leave because he didn’t try to stop him.
It hadn’t been that long since Alex had been on Atalanta—maybe two years or so. Probably more now, come to think of it, what with how long the trip took, but Alex remembered enough.
He definitely was going to stay near the docks and respectable parts of the station. Wandering around in the shittier areas would risk running into some of the people he and Nick had scammed or otherwise stolen from.
“Hey! Alex! Wait up!”
Alex jerked and turned around. Parsons was jogging towards him, waving like an idiot.
Since Alex had no real idea of what he was going to do on his own, he decided to just wait.
“I caught you. Great.” Parsons held his hand out for a fist bump. Alex considered leaving him hanging, but hanging out with Parsons had to be better than wandering around alone, so he returned the gesture.
“Where’re you going?” Parsons asked as they started walking again.
Alex shrugged. “Dunno. Have some time to kill.”
“We could have drinks—”
“No!”
Parsons startled at his outburst, then scowled. “Right. Probably too early for it anyway.”
You will not enjoy the evening.
If Alex wasn’t going to enjoy the evening anyway, maybe it wouldn’t make a difference what he did. But… he didn’t trust Tracht not to make it even worse if he found out that Alex had been eating and drinking without his permission.
“Um, I was thinking of buying some souvenirs for Meilin? How about we just head to the shops?”
Alex nodded his agreement to that idea. Shopping sounded safe. Alex wouldn’t buy anything, of course, but looking never hurt anyone.
They ended up going to a toy store, Parsons chattering about his daughter and her newest test scores and how amazingly smart and clever and blah blah blah. Alex put up with it only because it meant he didn’t need to say anything.
Even the toys Parsons was looking at were some sort of intellectual BS. Puzzles and board games and trivia cards.
“The trivia cards are good to teach her about the rest of the solar system. But board games and puzzle games teach cognitive skills… Maybe I should just get both?” Parsons held up a complicated puzzle that Alex would have thrown in the trash as a kid. Not that his mom had ever bought toys for him or Nick.
“What if she just wants a doll?” Alex asked. “Those look boring as h—those look boring.”
“There are dolls on Cadmus. Educational toys aren’t as in demand there though, so the selection is a lot more limited.” Parsons looked between the trivia cards and the puzzle game. “The trivia cards might get outdated. And we can probably find something like this on the net. But if she becomes too reliant on the net, she won’t memorize…”
Good god, Alex was glad his mom hadn’t been like this. He felt almost sorry for Parsons’ daughter, being forced to learn when she probably just wanted to play.
“So just get whichever is cheapest,” Alex interrupted. “It really doesn’t matter.”
Naturally, Parsons proceeded to lecture Alex about the importance of ‘nurturing a child’s cognitive skills’ and how education was everything and blah-fucking-blah.
“I didn’t get any of that, and I’m fine,” Alex said when Parsons finally calmed down.
Parsons stared. Then he started walking towards the cash register with both items in hand. “Definitely both. I’ll go pay for this.”
Whatever. It was Parsons’ money, and Alex was glad to be out of the toy store. It was making him anxious, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. Probably all the kids in there whining to their parents about all the toys they wanted.
“My brother and I stole a toy ship once,” Alex told Parsons on their way out of the store. “Some kid at school kept bragging about hers, and Nick got mad about it. Said we needed one that was even better. ‘Course the security on these places makes it impossible to just walk out with a toy, so we like, stalked the place for a while and waited for somebody else to buy one. Followed some rich brat who got like three toys all at once, and when his dad wasn’t looking we snatched it right out of the kid’s hand.” Alex laughed. “Actually, I grabbed the ship, and Nick pretended to be me for the kid and dad to chase for a while. They were convinced he was me, except Nick led them halfway across the station and then sweet talked his way out.”
“Wow. Uh. How old were you?” Parsons started walking a little bit faster.
Must have been one of the first times Nick and Alex had used their identical looks to fool somebody. “Probably like ten?”
“That’s so young…” After some hesitation, Parsons asked, “Was it worth it?”
“Eh. We played with it for a few days, and then mom’s boyfriend found it and sold it.” Alex and Nick couldn’t reliably keep much stuff around the house without the risk of it disappearing.
The next stop was a kids’ clothing store, where Parsons fawned over the little skirts and the little blouses.
“Does she even like this stuff?” Alex asked, holding a tiny skirt up to his waist. It barely went past Alex’s crotch. Parsons quickly snatched it away from him.
“If it’s blue, she’ll like it. That’s her favorite color right now. And thankfully, still is, if her clothes when we vidded were any indication. She dropped green around… around the time her mother passed, so I had to get her a brand new wardrobe.” Parsons put the skirt back on the rack. “That’s way too short for her. What are kids around here wearing these days?”
Seriously, Alex hadn’t figured Parsons to be this controlling. It was almost funny watching him get worked up over the kid stuff, but he really did feel sorry for Parsons’ brat now.
“Hey, I know you… I know you aren’t allowed to eat,” Parsons said once he was done shopping for clothes, “but I’m getting kind of hungry. Is it okay if we stop by the food court? I’ll just get a quick snack.”
“What are you asking me for?” Alex crossed his arms. “You can do whatever you want.”
“Uh, no, I just thought it might be a bit insensitive.” Parsons frowned. “And anyway, I doubt the captain is going to know what we do out here.”
Alex stopped in his walking and glared at him. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Parsons looked around nervously and then pulled on Alex’s arm. “Come on, let’s just go. I’ll get a sandwich and then we can go wherever you want.”
There wasn’t anywhere that Alex particularly wanted to go, not until they passed the movie theater. He spotted a poster for a new installation in an action series he’d watched with Nick. “How about a movie?”
Parsons looked over at the movie listings. “Huh. We could come back tomorrow? If we do a morning showing it’ll be cheaper.”
If Tracht let Alex out tomorrow. “Yeah, maybe.”
Parsons kept talking, telling Alex about his life on Khoina and the brother-in-law who was caring for Meilin in his absence and how he’d started with the whole sailor thing. Kind of boring, but at least Alex didn’t need to contribute to the conversation.
Then Parsons slowed down. “Hey. Khoina doesn’t have a bondservant system. If you went there you’d probably get out from under the captain’s thumb. I could see if my parents would help you get settled, and—”
“I can’t go on planet!” Alex said angrily. “The gravity or the diseases would kill me! And how do I get off once I’m down there?”
“Uh, no, the gravity doesn’t—it would take some adjustment, probably, but Khoina’s gravity isn’t much heavier than the artificial stuff on the stations. And you get vaccines against the diseases,” Parsons explained. “Once you were on planet, you wouldn’t need to leave. You’d be pretty safe.”
Alex had heard enough about planets to not want any part of them. The gravity was heavier than on stations or ships, and Alex already hated the transition from ship to station. He thought of the crushing weight on his bones, keeping him locked in place. Supposedly water and ice fell from the skies sometimes, and it was possible for the sun to burn a layer of your skin off.
And if he got in trouble while on planet—didn’t matter which planet, really—it would be a lot harder to leave than if he was already in space. The costs to get from Atalanta to Pylos or from his home station of Gatineau to Khoina were astronomical. He was pretty sure the reverse was true as well. If he didn’t have Nick with him, there was no way he’d ever be able to leave.
“Forget it. I’m fine with how things are right now,” Alex growled. “I’m on Tracht’s good side, and I’m not gonna do anything to mess that up.”
“But he’s—”
Alex shook his head. “No. Let’s keep going. You wanted to eat.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
The food court was pure torture. All the delicious scents were making Alex’s stomach tighten in protest. Maybe just one small bite of something—No. Alex wrapped his arms around himself.
“I’m gonna go wait… over there.” He motioned in a vague direction. “Where I won’t be tempted.”
Parsons frowned lightly. “Sure. I’ll find you once I’ve bought my food.”
They parted ways. Alex sat down on a small bench outside a pet store, where the smells from the store helped distract Alex from his growing hunger.
He thought about what Parsons had said. It felt too much like Nick’s simple solution of running out on the contract. Their plan had been to go to Cassiopeia for a few months, just enough to find money to skip to another solar system entirely. Then they would have been safe from the Nilsens for sure.
According to Tracht, Parsons was a ‘nice’ person. Did that even mean anything? Nick was plenty nice to Alex. Tracht was nice occasionally, although at least Tracht was pretty clear in what he wanted and didn’t do much pretending.
Alex didn’t want Parsons to be like Nick. But running away from Tracht again... yeah, not happening. Tracht would hold a grudge even if Alex did make it to Khoina somehow. And he was rich and well connected.
Besides, it really wasn’t that bad anymore. He knew what to do on board the ship, he could handle Tracht, Parsons was there, and—
Alex froze mid-thought as his eyes caught on a security official walking by. Not an uncommon occurrence, but something about the guy’s face was familiar.
When their eyes met, Alex’s entire body tensed. Yeah. Yeah, that face was definitely familiar. It was the same guy who’d broken Alex’s nose. From the guy’s expression, he recognized Alex too.
Alex stood up and considered, briefly, starting a fight. Then he clinked his tongue piercing against his teeth, and decided that no fucking way was he risking anything like that again.
He bolted.
He thought he caught a glimpse of Parsons, and he definitely heard the security guy shouting for him, but it didn’t matter. Alex rushed through the streets and towards the docks, his breathing coming in painful pants and his thighs burning. He didn’t know how close to him the other guy was, but Alex had to get to the ship. He had to get to Tracht. He’d be safe with him.
He hoped he’d be safe with him.
Living on ship had made Alex too complacent, too soft. This brief run shouldn’t have been so hard, but—yeah, he was hungry and thirsty too. No way around it.
The guard by the ship’s entrance gave him a funny look when he rushed past, but thankfully didn’t try to stop him. Alex slowed down only marginally inside, walking purposefully to the elevator that would take him to Tracht’s room.
Once there, he collapsed onto the bed. He had just enough energy to take off his clothes. Sweat covered his body, he was panting hard, and all he could think about was that he needed to leave Atalanta immediately. There was a reason that he and Nick never went back to stations they’d visited before. They just weren’t welcome in most places anymore.