The group striding across the room is headed for my father, who drops his glass. Fiona shrieks. My father puts a hand out to her to quiet her. “It’s fine, Fiona.”
He steps forward, his business face set to ‘high schmooze.’
“General Kirigok,” my father says. He sounds, actually, pretty confident, given the situation. “What is the meaning of this—”
“Silence, human scum.” The general says this calmly, but it does something I rarely see: it shuts my father down.
I see movement in my peripheral vision, off to the right of where I’m standing. It’s a security officer, pulling a gun from his clothing. The Kerz next to me barely seems to move, and the plate seems to depart from his hand of its own volition, sailing with frightening speed in a clear and direct line straight to the man’s forehead.
It’s moving so fast that it embeds itself into his skull. Blood pours from the wound, rapidly, as the man freezes, then staggers slightly, eyes open and dead to the world, jaw slack. He falls face forward onto the stone, and his face crunches with the impact.
The Kerz’s other hand is still on my chest. He doesn’t look at me, but I know that when he speaks it is for me. His voice is low, commanding, calm. Terrifying. “Do not move.”
Fiona is staring at the scene, and starts shrieking.
“Fiona Mann,” the same voice from the cluster of Kerz booms.
This shuts Fiona up. She is quivering, but silent, as she looks over at the Kerz who is speaking. I notice that her hair, finally, has been dislodged from its perfection, and a strand of it is stuck to her face. She is sweating.
Well, I think. Nice life while it lasted. If Fiona’s hair is running amok, this is definitely the end.
I glance at the exit: piles of bodies and a dozen Kerz are in my way, and anyway, this plate-flinging psychopath still has a sword and gods know what else in his robes.
I’m strangely unconcerned about my family. I don’t want them to die, but I’m so cold with fear inside that I’ve gone into self-preservation mode.
Mainly, I just don’t want to be tortured. Anything else seems like a good deal.
I consider this. Maybe a run for it isn’t the worst idea. Knife in the back, lights out.
“What is the meaning of this, Kirigok,” my father says. His face is getting red, and his carefully cultivated business demeanor is gone. Does he look… nervous?
All jokes about Fiona’s hair aside, this is a very bad sign. It’s a sign that, whatever these Kerz are here for, my father knows what it is and he also, possibly, knows that he screwed up.
I look at the Kerz who steps away from the group, sword in hand. My stomach knots into a painful ache as he steps toward my father, raising the blade to point it at his throat. The tip stops, right at his jugular. My father is shaking now. Fiona sobs. My mother is high, so she’s having trouble focusing and a strange smile remains plastered to her lips even though her eyes are wild with fear. Assorted squeals and muffled shrieks are emitted from the motionless huddle of guests who remain standing in the room, but no one moves.
Me? For some reason I just stand there, mouth open, and really, I feel remarkably calm.
“Mr. Mann, such a silly question from a silly man. Your debts have come due, as you are aware. And I am here to collect them.”
My father sputters. “My, my… the payments… this is… the payment is due—”
“The paymentwasdue,” the Kerz says calmly, “at ten-two-oh-three-six hours, system time.”
For whatever reason, everyone seems capable of moving to consult a time device at the end of this sentence. I lift the fingers of my left hand, without raising it, so I can see my embedded timepiece, on my left pointer fingernail.
10236:05, System Time.
Horror takes over the faces of the guests.
Itdoesseem like a bit of an overreaction.
“I can amend this,” my father says jovially. But his voice is shaking. He raises his arms and moves his hands, palms down, to request calm. “I have… I simply forgot to transfer… if you please allow me to—”
“I will slaughter you like a pig if you continue speaking, Mr. Mann,” the alien says. His voice is quiet, his tone deadly. “The deadline is passed.”
My mother steps forward. “General,” she says, in her rich woman voice, “certainly there is—”
The blade of the Kerz’s sword shifts from my father’s throat to hers in an instant. It requires the Kerz to step toward her, almost ten feet, and he does so with a speed that is terrifying. A thin red line of blood appears on my father’s neck and begins to spill—a nick, it seems—down his skin, and he slaps a hand to it.
