He looked at me, eye narrowing, eyebrow raised. ‘You are a female of your species?’
I scoffed, pulled an overtly unimpressed face at him. ‘Woah, what’s that supposed to mean, mate? Rude.’
In one smooth flick of my left wrist, I whipped out my hidden blade and held it to the Yrggian’s throat.
‘What we gonna do now, then?’ I asked him.
He looked at me, his forehead clenching involuntarily, in that way Yrggians do when they’re thinking too hard.
Eventually, he released me, and I tumbled clumsily to the floor, landing on my arse.
As I scrambled backwards for the door, the broad Yrggian called after me. ‘We have your name, Syl Raynor!’
I fled the scene, trying to suppress the guilt that was blossoming in the pit of my stomach. It maybe hadn’t been my finest hour.
I entered my shuttle and activated the pre-programmed route back to my hotel. I watched my rear keenly for the next few minutes, and only once I was confident that nobody was following me did I send off the images to the client.
Soon, I got a reply from him, telling me that my contract was fulfilled and that the payment would be sent to my employers.
No tip, then. Damn. What was it with these posh types and not tipping?
It didn’t matter, at least the job was complete. I could now head to a local bar, relax, try out the Yrggian brandy which I’d heard so much about. I freshened up and was about to head out – when my Console beeped.
There was a new message… from the agency. My heart dropped; this wasn’t expected, and so the likelihood was that it wouldn’t be good.
‘What the hell is this?’ the message began. I skimmed the remainder of it, getting the general point: they were annoyed with me. At the bottom, I found an attachment.
Beneath a security image of me, taken in the basement where the meeting had been held, was a message in bold, red letters:
Wanted for questioning: Syl Raynor.
It was time to get off this planet for a while.