“Heh, heh, heh.”The critter chuckled.
“What seems to be the problem here?” the conductor asked lemon lips.
“She’s traveling with a critter,” citrus eater said, pointing a neatly manicured finger my way. “It’s against the law to bring one of those things onto public transport.”
The conductor glanced at my trap which chose that moment to shuffle forward again. I scooped it into my lap and held it tightly.
“I smell your blood.”
It was that time of the month, but ick.
The conductor’s pencil mustache twitched. “Miss, is there a critter in the trap?”
“No.”
“Liar, you said there was a critter in there,” the woman said.
I smiled sweetly at her. “And I bet your hairstylist told you that bangs suited you.”
“Why, you insolent little?—”
“I can show you if you’d like?” I reached for the latch on the trap.
“No!” the conductor and woman cried in unison.
I bit back a smile. “In that case, I’d like to enjoy the rest of my journey in peace.”
The conductor and the woman exchanged glances. “There are seats further up in the tram,” he said. “I’ll escort you.”
The woman slid off her bench with an agitated huff, giving me a wide berth. She threw a wary glance at my trap before following the conductor down the aisle.
“I’m hungry.”
I didn’t bother responding.
“I have a nest. Children. They’re waiting for me to bring back food.”
This was not my problem.
“I never hurt a human. Only rodents and pests.”
It didn’t matter how innocent this critter was—I needed what the sale would bring me.
Needing a distraction from its pleading, I pulled my notepad and pencil out of my pocket and set to work sketching theObsidian VenenumI’d spotted by chance earlier. A fleeting glimpse on the way to pick up my trap, but enough to capture it in graphite. I’d ink it in later. The elusive critters, commonly known as jet stingers, were highly sought after for the paralytic effects of the venom they secreted. I’d only ever come across an abandoned nest before, the eggs dull because the larvae inside were dead. Killed by another jet stinger’s venom. They were a strange species, hellbent on wiping each other out… Wait, come to think of it, wasn’t that exactly what humans did?
I added shading to the segmented body. The creature was a cross between a millipede and a scorpion. It’s hard shell a gleaming black, with two pinpricks of red for eyes. The perfect addition to my cryptozoology codex, a leather-bound collection of sketches and information on all the critters I’d come across so far. One day I might even get it professionally printed at one of the presses in Hartwood City, or better yet, published. Maybe.
“What will happen to me? Will it hurt?”
The quiver in the critter’s voice made my stomach twist. I rubbed the bandage on my hand. The psybond toxin the thing had injected into me would wear off soon enough, and it would no longer be able to speak to me. Until then, I’d ignore it.
“Please…please, I don’t want to die.”
It began to sob softly, and I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. I couldn’t afford to feel sorry for it.
Critters was the collective name given to all the mutated creatures that lived beneath the cities and towns of Nova Terra. The history of critter origins was somewhat murky, but the consensus was that they’d begun to evolve after The Overshadowing nearly three hundred years ago.
Some critters were dangerous, exterminated by the critter control company I worked for to cull the population, but most were harmless. Sourced and trapped so their body parts could be used in medicines, tinctures, and potions. Like theFloramus ArachmusI’d picked up today. They were difficult to catch, due to their nests being in the hardest to reach spots of the sewer system. Like their name suggested, they looked like a cross between a flower and a spider—eight legs and petal-like appendages sticking up from their backs, which picked up sound waves so they could see in the dark, much like bats. Fascinating little creature.
