Twiglet ran at breakneck speed, not daring to look back—but she wasn’t under any illusions. Any second now, she expected to feel the werewolves’ fetid breath on her neck… and then she’d die.
Funny, she thought grimly. One hundred and thirty-seven years old, and it would all end here… in a brothel. The first she’d ever stepped into. She took one step, then another… then one more.
Of course, it was ridiculous even to hope, but the fire escape—the emergency staircase—was just at the end of the corridor. She could see the neon sign glowing only a few meters away. But the odds of her actually reaching it? Might as well have been a light-year.
Seconds passed.
Still nothing.
No snarl, no claws, not even the patter of monstrous feet behind her—which was impossible. The beasts had been right there. Unless… unless the frantic pounding of her heart drowned out everything else.
She blew past the spot where, just minutes earlier, Arto Wol and his scummy companions had cornered her.
The exit was almost within reach when a group of palernians suddenly emerged from one of the last doors. They were tall, lanky, and loud—giggling and backslapping one another as they spilled into the hallway. Palernians were notorious pranksters, rarely seen alone. They moved in packs of at least five, their favorite pastime being childish tricks on unsuspecting passersby.
When they spotted her, they squealed in delight and mimicked her rapid, shuffling gait.
“Help! Please, help me!” Twiglet gasped. “They’re trying to kill me!”
The palernians didn’t respond right away. Instead, they waved their long, hairy arms and consulted among themselves in a flurry of exaggerated gestures.
“Who wantz to gheell you?” asked the tallest and hairiest one, likely the leader.
“Them!” Twiglet cried, pointing to the far end of the corridor, bracing for the moment the werewolves would emerge.
Nothing.
Twiglet blinked. Nothing?
“That’s impossible!” she said. “They were right there a second ago!”
The palernian leader gave her a curious look, then exchanged glances with the others. A moment later, the group erupted in raucous laughter, howling and shoving each other like it was the best joke they’d heard all week.
“Wondervul joke, ma’am! I ghuudn’t have done better!” he said, landing a massive slap on her back.
“This ain’t a joke, you idiot!” Twiglet snapped.
She was exhausted, covered in blood, and barely holding herself together—and now these walking circus acts were mocking her? Furious, she turned for one last look behind…
And froze.
A massive ball of blue fire was roaring down the corridor toward them.
But it wasn’t normal fire.
This one moved with purpose.
A sofa and a decorative plant burst into flame and were reduced to ash in seconds.
“Let’s get out of here!” Twiglet screamed, lunging for the fire escape.
Even the palernians stopped laughing. They bolted after her.
Twiglet slammed the emergency button and dove to the side, narrowly avoiding being trampled by their oversized feet. The fireproof door hissed shut just as the inferno struck it with a thunderous boom.
The whole frame shook.
The palernians had already scattered down the stairwell, no longer interested in jokes.
At last, the fire alarm howled to life, echoing through the floor in a deafening, metallic wail.
“Captain Kyle Tokalau?” one of the robocops asked.
“There must be a mistake. My name is Jason T. Da Silva,” Kyle replied calmly.
“No mistake, sir. You were at a crime scene last night. We have your retinal impressions.”
Kyle swore inwardly. The press card… damn it. Of course. That old card still bore his real name. He’d kept it as a memento from the good old days—back when his criminal record was clean.
What kind of idiot uses real credentials on a fake job?
“We need you to answer a few questions. Please accompany us to the Thirty-Eighth District.”
The droid’s voice was courteous and professional, but Kyle knew better—one wrong move and they’d shoot him down without hesitation. Both robocops were armed with stun guns. One direct hit, and he’d wake up in an Imperial jail a day later… assuming he didn’t drown in his own vomit first.
His mind raced.
He could go with them. Maybe he’d convince them he had nothing to do with Aral’s death. But if they started digging into his past, even a little, he was toast. Too many skeletons. Best-case scenario? Ten years inside.
Or… he could make a run for it.
He glanced around.
No one in the club seemed especially interested. Apparently, arrests weren’t unusual in a place like this. Only two very tall women in shimmering jerseys gave him a quick, sympathetic smile, then returned to their drinks.
“Fine. I’ll come with you,” he said. “Just let me tell my friends—”
“If you mean the non-humans Skunks and Siirt, and the human synth without ID, there’s no need,” the cop interrupted. “You’ll meet them again at the district.”
Kyle walked toward the antigrav wells with the robocops at his back. Maybe he could break into a sprint… but no. They were droids, and their targeting systems could fire in less than a microsecond.
Beep.
A soft chime. A pager notification.
He turned—tiny red lights were blinking on both droids’ heads—incoming message from HQ.
Under normal conditions, the billions of nanocomponents in their cybernetic brains could’ve processed the transmission without blinking. But at that precise moment, the fire alarm screamed to life—and across all fourteen floors of the Nine Wonders, chaos erupted.
Droids, synths, humans, and non-humans—screaming, clattering, ticking, trilling—poured out of nightclubs and private rooms in a stampede. The hallway was flooded with bodies trying to reach the exits.
The two robocops exchanged a brief, confused glance—just before the panicked mob swept them away.
Kyle didn’t waste the opportunity.
He lunged for the nearest cop’s stun gun and tried to wrest it from its grip. But the droid’s fingers were clamped like a vice. Cursing, he threw his weight into the cop. They both crashed to the ground.
The second robocop tried to react, but a panicked oolghar latched its tentacles around its limbs, dragging it off balance.
Kyle had seconds.
With a final desperate yank, he tore the weapon free and scrambled upright.
The second cop finally broke free of the oolghar—just in time to take a point-blank hit from Kyle’s stolen stun gun. A burst of white-violet light slammed into its chassis. The droid spun, hit the wall, and crashed to the floor. A sizzling buzz filled the air, followed by a loud crack and the acrid stink of burnt rubber.
Kyle didn’t stick around.
Stun gun in hand, he sprinted into the crowd. He glanced back a few times—but the remaining robocop wasn’t pursuing. Not surprising. Any sane unit would evacuate in a fire.
And Kyle had no time to be sane.
Somewhere in this chaos, Twiglet and the others were in trouble.
Those days when he only looked out for himself? Long gone.
He reached the fire escape. A massive crowd was already pushing down the emergency stairs. But Kyle turned the other way—upward—fighting against the current.
A loudspeaker crackled to life:
“DEAR GUESTS, THIS IS THE NINE WONDERS’ FIRE RESPONSE SYSTEM. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DANGER! THE SITUATION IS PERFECTLY UNDER CONTROL. THE FIRE WILL BE EXTINGUISHED IN A FEW MINUTES. PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE! I REPEAT: NO DANGER AT ALL. PLEASE CONTINUE ENJOYING THE FANTASTIC ATTRACTIONS OF THE NINE WONDERS. THERE IS NO DAN—”
“Kyle! Hey, Kyle!” a voice shouted above the chaos. “Hey! I’m here, just above you!”
It was Twiglet.
He looked up—and there she was, her pale green face peering down from the next landing.
“Twiglet! Don’t move! I’m coming up!”
He forced his way upward, avoiding tails, wings, and ambulatory appendages as best he could.
“We have to get out of here… wait—are you hurt?” he asked, seeing the blood staining her clothes.
“Not mine, thank God!” she said breathlessly. “I’ll tell you later. I barely escaped the werewolves. The fire—they started it…”
She threw a nervous glance behind her.
“We can’t use the main entrance,” Kyle said. “Cops are after us.”
“What? Why?”
“They know we were at Aral’s. They want to interrogate us.”
“Oh, great! Just what we needed…” she muttered. “What about Odie? Did you find him?”
“Almost forgot—yeah. A girl told me he works on the top floor.”
“Finally, some good news!” Twiglet gasped. “So we just have to—”
“Get on,” Kyle cut in. He shifted the stun gun to his back and knelt. “I’m carrying you. We’ll be faster that way.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Come on—quick!”
She hesitated, then wrapped her arms around his neck. He hoisted her like a backpack and resumed the climb.
“We’ve got to get past the fire floor, or we’ll never reach the top!” he said between breaths.
The higher they went, the hotter it got. The stairwell felt like an oven. Kyle’s clothes clung to him, soaked in sweat, and his muscles screamed from the effort. But he couldn’t stop. The flames were gaining ground.
As they passed the sixth-floor landing, a deafening explosion rocked the building.
Two floors below, a heavy door blew off its hinges and flew into the stairwell.
In the S & M bar, Uful’lan peeked out from behind one of his wings.
No chance—Cthulhu didn’t look like it would calm down anytime soon. For over half an hour, the soggy, jelly-like thing he’d befriended had bounced and rolled around at incredible speed, crashing across the floor and ricocheting off the walls. Wherever it went, it left a slimy, whitish trail that clung to everything.
What a mess… all for a couple of beers.
Now roaring drunk, the creature had swollen to nearly three meters in diameter. In its frenzied charge, it had smashed most of the furniture, forcing patrons to take cover under tables or behind the counter.
Then the fire alarm went off—but nobody dared to flee. To reach the exits, they’d have to leave their hiding spots and brave a hailstorm of chairs and debris… or worse, risk being swallowed whole by the nawpaq.
That unfortunate fate had already befallen two reckless guests, whose frozen silhouettes could now be seen suspended inside the translucent mass—like grotesque figurines trapped in amber.
Uful’lan sniffed the air. The acrid scent of smoke was unmistakable. The fire was getting closer. In a few minutes, the bar would become a death trap.
He had to act.
A thought struck him. If beer had such a catastrophic effect on Cthulhu, what would happen if the creature drank Janxx-Cola?
There were plenty of disturbing rumors about Janxx-Cola—probably spread by the company itself to appeal to thrill-seekers and the chronically insane. Some said that if you dissolved a tablet of Alkhaid—a mild over-the-counter drug, even prescribed to children—into a bottle of Janxx, it would transform into a potent hallucinogen. Others claimed that if a stainless muonium bolt accidentally fell into a glass of Janxx, it would completely disintegrate within seconds.
Uful’lan didn’t know if any of that was true. But at this point, he was willing to experiment.
While Cthulhu raged across the room, the k’rell crawled toward an overturned table, aiming for the droid crouching behind it. He was halfway there when a horrible gurgling sound echoed through the bar:
“Haqay orqo qhepanmanta! Allichu! Allichu! Allichu!”
The abomination had just swallowed another unfortunate masochist and was now celebrating—or cursing—in its bizarre language.
With a surprisingly agile leap for his size, Uful’lan dove behind the table, just as a heavy chair crashed nearby.
“Lissthen, mathe—iss thhere a Janxx-Cola ssupply here?” he hissed.
“Of course, sir! It’s the best-selling soft drink in the Galaxy! As the commercial says, ‘Janxx-Cola is—’”
“Sstop ssinging!” Uful’lan barked, disgusted. “Where iss ith?”
“Under the counter, sir. We keep a three-hundred-liter barrel, sir. Just in case…”
“In casse of whath?”
“In case of an emergency, sir. Why are you—”
“Thhiss iss one of thhosse! I thhink I know how thho geth rid of thhiss raving lunathic.”
“Really? But it’s gr—”
A bottle exploded against their shelter, cutting the droid off mid-sentence. Glass rained.
After a few tense seconds, Uful’lan risked a glance over the edge.
“Ith moved away. Now follow me—I need your help…”
So, she’d finally found him—the long-sought Odie Binx.
Although, to be fair, he’d found her first… just in time to save her from the Deputy Manager.
Shirl was lying on a couch in the corner of the playroom. The brutality of Aloysius Bandelbrox had left its mark. Her brand-new jumpsuit was in tatters, and her left eye had swollen so badly she could no longer open it.
She heard footsteps approaching and struggled to sit up.
A burly human—almost as tall as Kyle, but much stockier—appeared in the doorway. A swarm of synthetic children followed him, eyes wide with adoration. Clearly, they worshiped him and had no intention of letting him out of their sight.
“We’re leaving,” Odie said. “Do you feel like walking?”
He knelt beside her and gently examined her eye. Shirl gasped as his massive hand—surprisingly delicate—dressed the bruise.
“Of course!” she replied, trying to sound confident. “It’s nothing serious… I just need a moment to rest…”
“We have to hurry. Soon, even the emergency staircase will be blocked.”
As he helped her to her feet, he handed her a bundle.
“Here. Put this on…”
Odie’s usually placid face showed a flicker of awkwardness.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A jacket. It’s a bit big, I know, but…”
She slipped it on—it reached her knees.
“Thank you, Odie. Really. Not many humans care about a synth’s dignity.”
He opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it. Instead, he turned to the children, who were starting to fidget.
“All right, everyone. A fire broke out—but there’s nothing to worry about. Just stay calm and do as I say…”
Unfortunately, the reassurance had the opposite effect. Up to that point, the children had listened with a mix of curiosity and disinterest. But now, panic broke loose.
“What’s a fire, Odie?”
“Zhora wants you to pick her up, Odie!”
“Oh, Odie, I’m scared!”
“Odie, Odie! I called you first!”
“Odie, Tejat peed his pants!”
“Quiet!” Odie snapped. “Line up—two by two—and follow me. First one who breathes out of turn stays here with Mr. Bandelbrox!”
Some of the kids chuckled. The late Deputy Manager was far more frightening alive than lying cold and dead in the playroom. Still, most of them hurried into the corridor. Soon, a crooked line had formed.
Just then, an explosion rocked the building, knocking everyone off their feet. Cries erupted.
“What was that?” Shirl asked.
“The sprinkler system failed,” Odie said grimly, rising. “Should’ve guessed…”
“Why? What do you mean?”
Shirl saw genuine worry cloud Odie’s face for the first time since meeting him.
“After what happened to Twiglet and Aral, isn’t it strange they haven’t tried to kill me, too?”
“You think they’re trying now? With fire?”
Odie didn’t answer. He moved toward the fire escape. Shirl and the kids followed, passing alcoves hastily abandoned by customers as the alarm sounded.
“Shhh! Did you hear that?” Odie stopped.
Everyone fell silent.
There it was again—a faint moan or groan. Maybe a holo-screen still running… or—
“A child!” Shirl gasped. “We can’t leave him!”
“It came from there!” a little girl shouted.
“No! I heard it first—it came from the other side!” another insisted.
“Stop it!” Odie commanded.
A few seconds later, the sound returned—clearer now. A child crying.
Just a few steps ahead, a door stood ajar. Odie rushed toward it.
“Wait here!” he told Shirl and the children. “Hang on, kid—I’m com—”
His voice abruptly cut off.
Silence. Even the wailing stopped.
“Ahem… Odie? Are you all right?” Shirl called out.
A large, round object rolled into the hallway, trailing dark fluid. At first, it looked like a hairy bundle, but something about it was disturbingly familiar.
The children froze, staring in mute horror.
Shirl approached cautiously, nudged the object with her foot—
“Aw—away… go awa…iiittschhhh!” rasped a metallic, mangled voice.
She screamed. The children scattered.
Odie’s severed head lay in the middle of the hall.
A segment of stainless muonium spine protruded from his neck stump. Burned plastic fumes wafted from his half-open mouth.
Shirl collapsed to her knees, her strength gone.
A furry, brown claw gripped her shoulder.
She covered her face instinctively—
The voice was human… but twisted, ragged.
“Come on. The Big Black Wolf is waiting for you.”
Please return to the novel’s main page to read the first four chapters for free!
