25. Obila Part VI Back to the Surface

There hadn't beenany sign they'd been followed to the hospital. Auren led them on a circuitous route, and they doubled back every so often until they believed themselves to be clear of any of the straggling remnants of the race.

A few spectators had approached Auren to congratulate him on his victory, but his uncanny eyes and detached demeanor frightened them away.

"He's just tired," Lupo had explained, even as he'd ushered them along.

But there was more to it than that. Auren had changed. He was still changing. And the dissonance between the fearful youth Lupo had first met on the resurrection ship and the determined killer he was shaping into was something he found increasingly disturbing.

But he had shown mercy to the scarlet rider. And that gesture was enough to give him hope that whatever all this was would sort itself out at some point.

"Fen is going to be pissed we didn't get him out of debt," Auren said glumly.

They had finally reached the hospital, ostensibly the first modern and clean building Lupo had seen in Tartarus. Auren approached the clinic's holo-terminal and hurriedly looked up his brother.

"Room 201," Auren announced, already crossing the lobby and heading down a hallway.

"Sir, you can't go back without signing in," a nurse called after them.

Lupo turned and started to apologize, but Auren yanked him along as the nurse dialed for security.

"No time for that. Those thugs will be here any minute to finish what they started. We need to get Fen and leave. Now," Auren urged.

Lupo tensed as they entered Fengári's room. From the look of it, he was still in poor shape—his eyes blackened and bruised, and his new prosthetic foot heavily bandaged where it connected to the stump of his leg. His hand—the one the mercs had almost taken—was similarly wrapped.

"Hey, guys," Fengári rasped, clearly loopy from exhaustion and pain meds.

"Look, we need to get you back to our ship and get off the world now. I'll explain everything later," Auren said quickly.

He grabbed Fengári's holo from the bedside and ordered a taxi service on his account. Fengári tried to sit up in his cot but struggled because of the wires and various implements plugged into him. Auren began to unplug them from his body, seemingly unconcerned about their role in stabilizing his brother.

"Auren, don't you think we should slow down a tick?" Lupo asked gently, noting the look of blind panic and confusion that had set across Fengári's face.

"No," he said bluntly.

"Okay, it's just that—" Lupo started, watching as the last of the life-support equipment was unplugged.

"Lupo, you're not from here. Trust me. We don't have time. We'll be dead by dawn if we don't leave right this fucking second," Auren interrupted, heaving his brother over his shoulder.

"Okay, okay, I understand, it's just—" Lupo tried, but Auren was moving again.

Lupo threw up his hands and dodged out of Auren's way as he lumbered into the hall with his much larger older brother slung over his shoulder. Fengári looked like he wanted to pass out from the pain of being moved but had remained uncharacteristically quiet, evidently trusting his brother's judgment more than Lupo did.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I can't let you take that patient out of here in his current state." The nurse was trying to bar their exit, a security guard having joined her.

"If you don't get the fuck out of my way, I swear by the stars, you'll regret it," Auren said coldly, not slowing down as he marched toward her.

The nurse and the guard surprised Lupo by standing aside.

"We'll be contacting the authorities," the nurse protested, trailing them toward the hospital entrance.

"You do that," Auren clipped. "See for yourself how useless they are."

Lupo fought the ever-present urge to smooth this over—to apologize, problem-solve, or do anything other than follow Auren out those hospital doors. But there was nothing to do. He was out of his element, as he had been since they'd set down on this world. He merely followed Auren out into the dusky smog of Tartarus, relieved to see that their taxi drone had already landed nearby.

"Thanks for the rescue, bruv," Fengári groaned as Auren gently set him onto one of the drone's little seats.

"I won, by the way," Auren said ruefully.

Fengári's eyes, tired as they were, lit up.

"You didn't…" He grinned.

"I did," Auren affirmed.

Their taxi was lifting off, and Lupo glanced nervously out the window, expecting to see a mercenary unit bearing down on them with anti-ship weapons or worse.

"And here I thought I was going to be the guy riding that bike to victory…" Fengári chuckled, coughing and sputtering at the effort.

The taxi hurtled through the holographic waterfall and back into the silver-blue of Obila's dusk. Even at night, the transition from Tartarus to the surface was glaring. The towering skyscrapers that covered the planet glittered around them like enormous, bejeweled monoliths. It was beautiful, and looking back to the hidden depths of the underworld, Lupo couldn't help but feel bad for the two young men who had been forced to endure such blatant classism so near such opulence.

He wanted to reach out and hold Auren's hand, to comfort him after all he'd endured, but stopped himself. Auren was busy fussing over Fengári anyway, recounting his exploits during the race as he looked his brother's wounds over and made sure he was seated comfortably. Their banter was almost unintelligible, and their fraternity made Lupo happy and lonesome.

He spotted the Fortunato below as the taxi swooped in and set down at their destination. He also spotted mercs—lots of them.

"Oh, look. We've got more trouble," Lupo murmured darkly. One of the mercs was already approaching their craft.

"Fuck," Auren said as the doors slid open, moving to shield Fengári with his body.

"Fuck is right, you little turd," the merc captain growled. "Now get your asses out here," he demanded, his finger far too close to the trigger of his gun for Lupo's liking.

The men in the taxi made uneasy eye contact, unsure what their next move would be. Lupo stared wistfully at the Fortunato, its relative safety only just out of reach beyond the enemy. But then he squinted, trying to determine if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing…

He was! The airlock was opening. And Lupo couldn't help but let a dumb smile spread across his face as a single thought erupted: Ophion.

"Something funny, dumbass? Are you deaf or stupid? Get out of the fucking taxi so we can carve you up and be done with this," the captain grunted, bashing him in the head with the butt of his rifle and sending his consciousness reeling for a moment as he crashed to the ground.

And then Lupo heard the missiles.