“They used to.” Aksu swallowed. “Not so much anymore. Now it’s just a bunch of Crown agents rounding them up into pens. The kind they don’t come out of again.”
“Got it.” Cheyenne pulled the keyless fob out of her pocket and unlocked the Panamera. A quiet chirp greeted them, the headlights flashing in the mid-morning sun. She stopped right in front of her car and turned to meet the girl’s yellow-eyed gaze. “Here’s the thing, though. You came back out again. You’re not a radan. You’re a smart kid who’s making the most of a pretty sticky situation on more than one level. Honestly, that should’ve gotten you a standing ovation when we walked through there, but I’m starting to get the feeling that outside active field operations, those agents are a bunch of slackers.”
The orc girl snorted and shook her head, turning her attention to the half-drow’s shiny new black car.
I saw those tears. She’ll be okay.
Aksa looked at Rhynehart’s Jeep just on the other side of the Panamera, then leaned sideways to peer past it at Sir’s Kia Rio. “Who were you trying to piss off?’
Cheyenne laughed and slipped between the Jeep and her car to open the driver’s side door. “You know, I don’t have to try that hard anymore.”
With another slow shake of her head, the orc girl opened her door and slid into the passenger seat. “Woah. I didn’t know something like this even existed.”
“It sure does. Hey, you’ve picked up on things pretty quickly for only being Earthside a short time.”
Aksu shrugged. “Yeah, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.”
“Really? I have some troll friends who’ve been here for over a year, and their kid still had to remind them what a car is.”
“Probably easier for the younger generations.” The orc girl wrinkled her nose and hastily buckled her seatbelt once she saw Cheyenne doing the same.
“That makes sense, actually. It’s like that over here too with technology, or so I’ve heard from the older generations.” The halfling started the car, grinning when the engine purred and rumbled smoothly beneath her seat.
“Like smartphones and computers and stuff?”
Cheyenne snorted. “And stuff. Yeah. You got a handle on all that too?”
“That was like the first thing.” Aksu peered briefly out the window as the Panamera pulled away from the FRoE compound. “You know, most of the O’gúleesh making the crossing come from way outside the capitol, right? Farmers and traders and…I don’t know. Fishermen, I think. Not a lot of people leave the cities, even after everything—” The words stuck in the girl’s throat.
The halfling spared her a quick glance, but the orc girl just shook her head again, still gazing out the window. Something’s happening over there, and nobody wants to talk about it. “How come?”
Aksu said, “It’s more convenient. I totally get wanting to leave a ranch or a village with a bunch of shacks to come Earthside and try to make things a little better. Nobody wants to give up city life and all the things that come with it to move backward by coming across the Border.”
“Backward with what?”
The girl shot the halfling a sidelong glance and smirked. “Technology. And stuff.”
“What?” Laughing, Cheyenne did a double-take as she drove down the frontage road toward the gate towers. “Technology over here is a step down?”
“More like jumping off a cliff.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” The girl scratched her arm and dropped her head back against the headrest. “I started school here. Junior year. It kind of feels like I walked back into the nursery, only everyone’s, you know, my age.”
Little Goth teen just called humans babies. Okay.
“Oddly enough, I know exactly what that’s like.” Cheyenne slowed the Panamera to a stop outside the gate towers and turned to look at her passenger. “Before we get outta here, I need you to promise me something.”
Frowning, Aksu glanced at the booth in the gate tower with room enough for one person—despite being empty—then met the halfling’s gaze. “Depends on what it is.”
The halfling snorted. “You’re startin’ to sound a lot like someone I know.” She sounds like me. “That’s a good thing. And here’s the deal. Normally, anybody coming on and off this base who isn’t technically supposed to be here either takes a sleeping pill or gets a bag thrown over their face. Or a sleeping mask. They don’t want people figuring out how to get back here, for obvious reasons.”
“Yeah, super obvious. Trust me, I don’t plan on ever coming back.”
“I believe you, and I don’t blame you. But I gotta tell you, okay?” Cheyenne glanced in her rearview mirror and saw nothing but a straight, empty stretch of road behind her. Bet they’re waiting to see if I remembered, too. “I don’t have any sleeping pills or face bags, so I’m not gonna try to blindfold you. You don’t need it. I just need your word that you won’t tell anyone where this place is.”
Aksu studied the halfling’s raised eyebrow, then pursed her lips. “You’re putting a lot of trust in an orc girl whose uncle pissed you off enough to do whatever you did to him.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Well, you’ve been a lot easier to talk to.”
That made the girl laugh again, and she stared into her lap. “All right. How ‘bout this? I won’t tell anybody anything about this place if you don’t tell anyone how I got Earthside.”
“Huh.” The halfling blinked and mulled over the deal. Now I’m the one tightening the drawstring. Awesome. “I can promise you I won’t say anything about your uncle sending for you or the magicals who got you across under the FRoE’s radar. But if things get dicey with that secret Border portal, I might have things to say to various people about that part.”
Aksu shrugged. “As long as my name stays out of it, sounds like
