“How do you know this one will be the last one Kee?” Hedyn whined as he trailed after Keeran.

“Because, it will!” Keeran snapped she swung her arms at her side forcefully.

“That’s what you said last time…and the time before that…and the time before that…and….”

“I said it will alright! Gorram what do you want from me Hedyn!” Keeran whipped her neck back and narrowed her emerald green eyes at her sulking companion.

“Said that last time too…” Hedyn huffed.

“Look do you think I like shuffling around sleazy motels, skummy bar’s and sticky merchant outlets!” Keeran grumbled as she moved forward.

“It’s just that everyone keeps selling us the same information. Nobody knows anything. It’s discouraging is all…and these places Kee…they creep me out.” Hedyn took a peek over his shoulder and shuttered as he picked up his pace.

“Somebody has to know something! I can’t believe all these dirty little tweakers are shuffling about and not a one of them knows anything about where they get their hit!” Keeran’s tone suggested exhaustion as well as frustration.

“Maybe they’re telling the truth?” Hedyn suggested shyly.

“Kerg-shit they are, it’s a wild terg-chase is what it is! The nerve of these hopped up bug junkies, leading me around in circles!” Keeran balled her fists and forced her way down the dark poorly lit pathway.

“You know for all the creds you’ve wasted we could have booked passage to Fribbulus Xax and studied the Sand pits of the Bloog.” Hedyn mumbled.

Keeran stopped and tightened her posture, then turned on a dime walking menacingly towards Hedyn. “Look, if I wanted to study stinky old lizard shit I would have! I know where I wanna go, and I know how to get there alright!” Keeran took a calming breath and then adjusted her shirt. “If you want to go to Hive Prime you have to know the right buggies….” Keeran spoke with a snarky tone as she dug through her pocket for her pad.

“Woah…Kee no one said anything about ‘GOING’ to Hive Prime! I thought you just wanted to gather a bit of information for your paper!” Hedyn backed away a few steps and nervously looked about.

“I do, and where better to go than the source itself!” Keeran nodded.

“People don’t GO to Hive Prime Kee!” Hedyn whined, very real fear in his voice.

“Nonsense, they do all the time. You just need the right connections!” Keeran thumbed through her information looking for an address on her pad. “Slimy, green, connections!”

“No Kee, not ok! Hive Prime is outside imperial jurisdiction. What happens there is completely outside the law! People have gone and never came back!” Hedyn lectured as he chewed on his fingers.

“But people have gone and have come back just fine! We are not at war with the Insectoids, travel embargoes have been lifted for over 5 years now. It’s a perfectly legal place to travel….”

“That no shuttle driver in their right mind will go anywhere near! For very good reasons…it’s insane!” Hedyn rose his voice.

“That’s why I need passage on an Insectoid Bio ship…and to do that you need a Mantid.” Keeran gave her head a frustrated shake. “Look if you don’t want to come you don’t have to! Just go scurry back to the hotel and wait for me there! You can run back to Tanhauser tomorrow on the first shuttle!” Keeran hissed and stormed off towards her destination.

Hedyn hesitated, looked back into the dark night, and ran after. “Kee wait up!”

***

Eyrn jogged at a steady pace down the boulevard of the Residential district, rounding the corner as the path turned from loose cobblestone to gravel and stone. There was a bluish green grassy knoll with benches and a strange fountain that depicted some Titan she had no knowledge of.

Eyrn often jogged early morning when nobody else was around. But on Bedra’s advice took a later run this morning to get a better chance to meet and greet some of her neighbor’s. Eyrn was uncomfortable, but didn’t feel nervous or afraid as she had before.

Awoling on earth felt safer, she had never once felt small, weak and helpless there. No matter what she came across, no matter what she encountered, Eyrn always felt she could handle it. Here, she wasn’t so sure.

Most of the residents were Archavian. Dunnermac didn’t often have permanent residence in high rise structures due to their habatational needs, closing ocean dwelling underwater biomes situated all over Archavia. The Lerr sometimes chose to live in the residential district, but it was not all too common. She had met a kindly Avartle family, but hadn’t the courage to approach them for conversation.

Mostly she just enjoyed the run, it was much needed alone time, she could think, observe and clear her thoughts. But mostly observe. Titan culture was strange, but more so because she really didn’t even have firsthand experience living in such a densely crowded area. She knew OF New York, but had never been. She’d heard OF Los Vegas, but had only seen it from a distance. At home everything revolved around her, here everything moved around despite of her, and she was left struggling to keep pace.

She thought of Aisell, of everyone she’d met so far, Aisell seemed the safest. It was a silly feeling, but Eyrn thought of herself as a Human in a Titan body, and Titans who openly and willingly enslaved humans made her nervous, afraid even. A small illogical part of her felt in danger, as if at any moment those sorts would slap a set of handcuffs on her and lock her in a box. She didn’t want to admit this to anyone else.

That was in part why she liked Aisell and even Bedra, but mostly Aisell. She felt safe, free to be herself, to voice her ‘taboo’ opinions without fear. It was hard to look at herself as a Titan, she didn’t at all feel like one, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

But over all, it was hard for Eyrn to deny that something about being on Archavia felt right. Her body felt rejuvenated, even the way the bright bluish white sun shone down on her skin just made her feel different. It was unlike the oppressive heat of the Nevada desert. She didn’t feel like every movement she made was an encumbrance on her body. After she had adjusted to what she was made to understand was her species natural gravity, she actually felt a great deal lighter than she ever had before. Her implants made her adapt to earth gravity, but it always had an artificial feeling to it. It was all she had ever known really, but it still felt odd.

Simple pleasures she had never been privy to before were not common place, and it left her with a strange homey feeling. As she ran in the park, there were no arm SUV’s following her, no perimeter set up for her protection. There was nobody she had to check in with, and she had no real curfew. The day was as long as it felt it should be, and time was as abundant as she could have ever imagined. People around her seemed to move at a pace that felt natural, no longer did she feel rushed to get things done, lost at the pace of those around her. In a way though, things almost seemed to move too slow.

Archavians seemed to have no sense of urgency, not like humans. They lived so long, and as such they didn’t seem to appreciate their own mortality. Eyrn had known more names and faces than she could rightly remember, and every one of them had dreams, desires, a passion to squeeze in as much life as they could out of the cruelly short blink of an eye they had been given.

Humans loved fiercer, they fell harder, they climbed higher and as such they gained more, lost more, and experienced more. Titan’s just seemed to sleepily move about, as if they had all the time in the world. And in a way, they did. It wasn’t as if Eyrn couldn’t relate to both, as she was Titan she did feel more comfortable taking her time she always hated being rushed. But her human upbringing taught her to take every moment for granted, there was no advanced medical care, there was no cure all injection. On earth, even she with her seemingly infinite lifespan was subject to the harsh reigns of morality.

In 1919, shortly after her 94th year, Eyrn had come down with a particularly harsh strain of the Spanish flu. A deadly influenza pandemic had infected over 500 million people world wife and killed nearly 100 million. It was shortly after her adopted mother had passed away, Eyrn had suffered far worse than any illness she had picked up on earth to date. For some reason the particularly harsh flu pandemic hit her alien immune system hard, and the very resilience that normally kept her healthy most of the time seemed to work against her. The flu virus turned her own immune system against her, and had nearly sent her to a very early grave.

Eyrn was no stranger to the cold icy fingers of mortality, everyone around her now however seemed about as far removed from the subject of their own imminent demise as could be, and why not? What had nearly killed her, and 100 million other’s here could be cured with a shot, a pill, or a scanner.

Eyrn came to a stop to catch her breath and let her muscles rest, she was not used to being able to run such long distances without tiring. Training on a high gravity world for all of her life then suddenly finding herself on a world that she was built almost specifically for, left her feeling as if she had boundless energy. But it made her think, just how far could she push herself now, if she really tried? Was the score evened by the use of the bracelets which canceled the effect of her gradational inhibitors? Or were her muscles, tried and tested under conditions she was never mean to survive now better built for life on this world? Had she come out of this ahead, or behind?

It didn’t take much to understand what effect growing up on the alien world had on her growth, as she looked around, everyone within eye distance was much taller than her, even the stubby legged short armed Crocodilian like Lerr were her height or taller. There were a few young children shorter than her, but mostly anyone over the age of 14 was her height or taller. How tall would she have ended up had she had a normal upbringing with proper nutrition and unhindered growth?

Eyrn took a moment to stretch her calf muscles, her arms and twisted her torso around a bit, her eyes narrowed as she took sight of the near endless path before her, it went on, twisting and turning and disappearing between a row of towering tree’s with pale bark and bluish leaves.

There was a family, sitting on a wide blanket watching their child crawl about in the long grass; they had a canine like creature with them that was bounding in and out of the bushes trying to keep up with whatever its nose caught sent of. She moved aside as a few joggers whom she had passed a while ago caught up and moved past her, the taller male nodded to her slightly and smiled, she wasn’t quite sure but she was almost positive she heard him say hello as they jogged on. Eyrn caught herself watching them run off into the distance, biting her lip almost unintentionally. She felt something she didn’t quite know how to describe, something she hadn’t really experience with, and it made her feel hot and fluttery, the tall, strong looking short strawberry blond wearing nothing but a slim under shirt and tight shorts, she followed him with her eyes until he was well out of sight, and actually caught herself dreamily starring off down the path as a set of Titan’s walking a strange looking beast on an electronic leash passed her.

“Hehehehe….” Eyrn giggled bashfully as she quickly picked up her pace once again down the path. This place wasn’t so bad; with a few major social adjustments she could almost call it home.

“Now if only their music didn’t suck.” Eyrn whispered to herself as she ran along.

***

The Titan man sitting in the barstool beside Keeran had greasy brown hair missing in patches, and a sickly pale complexion that had a bit of an ill green tinge to it. He smelt as if he hadn’t seen a shower in days, and his face was full of blotchy spots and scratches. Up the sides of his arms were small open sores that looked as if they had been poked and picked at. He wore an old shirt and torn denim like pants, his shoes looked as if they’d seen better days, but matched the unkempt man’s over all sense of style. Most of all he seemed twitchy as if anxious, like he was waiting for something to happen. The way he looked around over his shoulder and then back forward gave off the distinct expression he thought he was being watched, paranoia was evident in the way he mumbled softly to himself when he wasn’t talking to anyone else, and what he said seemed to make sense, it was fluent as if he was carrying on a conversation with somebody who wasn’t there.

“That should be enough creds.” Keeran felt unsure about this transaction. Unlike the rest, this fellow was hard core. There was absolutely no question about it, he was an addict. The clientele they had been sent to seemed to travel on a downhill spiral. The locations scummier, as well as the people themselves. Still, none of them seemed to know any more than the one that came before, and it was starting to look like this one was no exception.

The ill looking man looked at the transfer chip Keeran held out to him and looked back to the muggy grey drink in his hand; he talked to himself quickly, and in an almost twitching like motion looked back to Keeran, almost amused.

“That’ll plenty…plenty yes that’s what that will by. It will do us nicely; it will do us nicely indeed.” There was a hint of a smile as he reached out to press his thumb on the pad’s flashing green button, before Keeran pulled it away and scowled.

“I don’t want to be sent to another druggie, I don’t want to go to another run down hole in the wall pub! I want answers, and I am sick of running around like a fool to get them!” Keeran took a slow breath and composed herself. “I want to talk to your supplier.” Keeran eyed the man across from her sharply.

The aggravated man seemed to look over his options for a moment as he eyed the firey young girl and her stocky but jittery companion. He could try to take it, but that was risky. Maggot Tweakers were rarely the sort to openly accost when they were not completely sure they could get away afterwords. They were jittery, sickly and sulkily.

“I don’t know!” The man fired back, after he had exhausted all the options in his head and come up with nothing, he resorted to anger. He slammed his glass down and twitched a few times, as if attempting to shake something off his neck.

“How does nobody know anything? All of you dirty maggot junkies and not a single one of you knows where they get them from? Do they just appear on your door step at night? Does the maggot wisp deliver them while you’re sleeping?” Keeran pulled her pad in front of her and scraped her nail across the screen upping the figure; she roughly shoved it towards the man across from her and grunted as she spoke.

“I won’t offer you much more than this, I suggest you quit holding out and tell me what I want to know!” Keeran spoke with an almost unshakable sense of confidence. Meanwhile her companion Hedyn was nearly huddled in his stool preying to see the next sun.

The fifty man eyed the data pad and reached for it, clawing his hands back to him quickly. His finger nails were sickly and most of them missing, the ones he had left had been chewed to nubs. “So much! That will! You must! I beg you! I will do whatever you want! I will tell you everything I know, everything…just transfer the creds!” The man almost hissed as he spoke.

“Information first, then the credits.” Keeran pulled the pad back quickly.

In an eruption of anger the sickly man stood, knocking his barstool back. His eyes flared up viciously as he postured himself, letting out a howl of a scream. “You dirty little Sneet!”

Keeran nearly fell off her chair and backed away as the sickly looking man slithered after her, reaching his arm out for her pad, he was seething with a desperate sort of anger, Keeran had waved a raw steak in front of a starving animal, and the animal had taken the bate.

“Hedyn?!” Keeran muttered as she pulled herself to her feet at his leg and hid behind him. The chunky stocky Titan looked more afraid than Keeran herself, but fortunately didn’t have to act, as before the distraught man could reach them, a fist made contact with his face and sent him crumpling to the ground like a rag doll.

Both Keeran and Hedyn simple watched, neither of them dared to move, let alone breath or talk. After a moment, the man behind the bar reached for a towel and cleaned his hand off, there was a slimy mixture of blood and pus covering his hand now, and a sullen look across his face as he frowned at Keeran and Hedyn.

He had a thick red beard and a head of hair that was as scruffy as the hair on his face, he wore a simple apron and a shirt and a dirty hand towel at his side. When he spoke, his words were slow and purposeful, unlike the slimy man withering on the ground in a growing pile of his own blood, the bar tender looked strong, healthy and full of enrgy.

“I hope you too sops have a damn good reason for stirring up Kreg like that! Gorram mess I’m gonna have to clean up now!” The tender looked down at the mess and groaned before looking back to the two ‘kids’.

“I’m sorry…we were just looking for…”

“Trouble, that’s what you’re looking for! And in all the wrong places too!” The grumbly older man rounded the corner of the bar and with the help of another patron helped the sickly man up, setting him in an armed chair off to the side. While the patron returned to his seat without a word, the bar tender set the unconscious man’s head back and wiped at his bleeding nose with the dirty rag.

“Hedyn tugged at Keeran’s arm and backed away for the door, but Keeran shrugged him off and approached the bar tender, her eyes narrow. “Look, I’ll pay you what I was going to pay him if you can tell me….”

“Keep your creds pup! I don’t need that on my conscious! Get out of here and do yourself well to never come back!” The man spoke gruffly as he stood and moved back behind the bar, heading to get some ice and a wet cloth.

“I’ll double it…600 creds…and if that’s not enough….” Keeran stopped as the older man turned to face her, eyeing her silently and coldly for a long while.

“Cheaper men in town can lead you to your grave…half the creds…you don’t need to pay me a fortune to do it.” He spoke before turning back to his wounded patron.

Keeran slammed her hand down on the bar and shouted in her loudest most confrontational tone. “I’ve been lead in circles, lied to and hit on by smelly dirty bug infested maggot poppers! I’m sore, I smell and I’m at my last nerve! Now tell me what I want to know or my father will have this Sneet hole closed down and bulldozed!” Keeran’s eyes flared and she stood as tall as she could.

There was silence in the establishment as all eyes fell to her for a moment. Hedyn shrink and eyed the door nervously. After not too long business returned to normal, as if she hadn’t said a thing. After throwing some ice wrapped in a cloth on the bleeding man’s nose, the tender ran his hand along his apron and approached Keeran. He took her by the arm roughly and pulled her towards the door, sparing no expense on the tightness of his grip.

“2000 creds!” Keeran spoke up as they neared the door.”

The tender froze, everyone had a price.

“3000….” Keeran smiled.

“Let me see those credits first pup.” The man scowled.

Keeran ran her thumb along her data pad, and then turned the screen to face the man holding her arm. His iron grip slowly released, as if agonizing over what he was about to do, he lowered his head and mumbled. “Come…not here,” before moving off with long strides out of the room towards the back.

The back office room was just about as clean and organized as the rest of the dive, there was junk spewed about, and boxes of various junk littered about. The man cleared a bunch of boxes and such off a chair and then sat down, looking to Keeran with a long hard stern look.

“Yer too young for this pup…too young and pretty to end up like those gorram fools out there. Go home, turn around and go home eh?” He pleaded in one last desperate plan to change her mind.

“Where can I find the overseer…I want a meeting with the overseer of this area’s nest. You can make that happen, now talk.” Keeran leaned forward and eyed the sulking man, she had her business face on, and it was quite an impressive one at that.

There was a long silence, the bar tender broke eye contact when he spoke. “You’re looking in all the wrong places pup; overseers don’t lurk about places like this. Too messy, that’s not there style. See most thing insectoids are dirty and putrid…but that’s a misconception. Specially overseer’s. One thing out of place, one hair in the wrong follicle…one drone not doing what it should and they lose their minds. Mantids can’t stand disorder.”

“Go on.” Keeran encouraged, as she pressed a data record button on her data pad.

“It’s like a dance, them and us. Neither culture as any idea what to do with the other…they don’t as much have different rules so much as they read from a whole different rule book. Try as hard as they can, they’ll never understand us, and we’ll never get them. But that doesn’t stop them from trying.” The man looked up, a spark in his eyes. “That’s where the overseer’s come in…the mantids, there gatherers with a specific function…they oversee the hives progression outside their space. They are patient; they learn the steps…our steps…and mimic them as best they can. You want to get a meeting with the overseer…you need to dance with him…you need to make the first move…you need something he wants, doesn’t have to be something exclusive, doesn’t have to be something rare…just something he wants, something useful. Make him think you have something to offer the Hive…make the overseer want to meet with YOU.” The tender took a breath and looked down.

“How do I make this happen?” Keeran leaned in closer.

There was silence.

“How do I make this happen!?” Keeran shouted.

“Please…you’re no older than my own daughter…I can’t send you there….” The tender quivered, nervously looking around his desk.

“How do I make this happen?” Keeran repeated slowly.

The man behind the desk reached into his desk and pulled out an archaic looking writing implement, he scribbled something down on a piece of parchment and slid it across the table.

Keeran took the musty green parchment and looked it over. “This is an address…in Rutger…in the entertainment district.” Keeran looked shocked. “Are you messing with me? This is a trendy place…I’ve been there a hundred times…there are no oversee….”

“There is a Lerr who works there, Zdrizl…go to him with what I’ve given you…it’s written on something he will recognize, bring him something the overseer wants…bring him something that will get you noticed. You’re credits will do you no good there…you have to be creative Pup…bring him something he can’t get his claws on himself…and you’ll meet the over seer.” The man mumbled.

“That’s not very helpful! Bring him something he likes? What do buggies like?” Keeran sighed.

The man behind the counter looked up, his eyes cold and at the same time full of remorse. “What else? The only thing that matters…the only thing the insectoids are ever after…food pup…food.”