That made his death some two years after their market visit all the more shocking. Attacked while on business, Sasha couldn’t imagine who would have wanted him dead. The loss was devastating.
Silas leaned over, interrupting her thoughts. "You should cover up more. What soap did you use?"
"I used Lanny’s good soap. Everything will be fine. Stop worrying."
He tugged at the hood on Sasha's coat, covering her tightly braided hair. Lilla had done it for her in the style a drone mother might do for her daughter. "I don't like this, girl. This is a fool's errand. And I'm the fool for letting you go."
"I'll be fine. But I can't cover up. If I do that, someone will want to know why."
She tugged at the black collar on her neck. Silas had found it somewhere and put it on her after leaving the compound. Patrick and Lilla, riding with them, said nothing, but their eyes had gotten big at the sight of it.
"You keep that credit hidden, yeah? Two in the hand and the rest hidden. Don't flash it where someone can see and rob you. The enforcers here won’t help a drone child."
"I know, Silas."
"Don't go anywhere alone. Stay in a group. Can you do that? How are you going to do that?"
"I'll find a drone herd on their way to work. It will be fine, Silas."
He seemed ready to give her instructions all day, but Sasha kissed him on the forehead, stopping his lectures. "I will see you soon."
It didn’t take her long to find the stop for the bus that would take her to the sector crossing. Transport came once every hour, with only a limited number of seats available. It was always packed tighter than a box of crackers with people.
Sasha had to wait two hours to get a seat. Finally climbing aboard, she pretended she knew what she was doing, and where she was going, mimicking the other drones. Luckily, there were some other young girls to sit with.
As they traveled, Sasha asked the girls about transports, maps, and crossing sectors. Though none of them had ever gone as far as Sector 7, they assured her that public transports were much better once you were out of the slums. Everything was much better outside the industrial sector.
They also talked about food, clothing, their parents, and the boys they liked. Drone relations were one of the most fascinating things Sasha had ever listened to. Not even Lilla and Lanny could explain to her about what made a human male “cute” and how a word meant for babies could apply to boys in the first place.
These girls talked about males—who had kissed who, who had disappeared into the pantry for twenty minutes—as if they were as interchangeable as clothing. The bus ride took two hours, but Sasha barely noticed, lost in their stories.
Her life, she decided, would be so much easier as a human. There would be no estrous with its urgent, overwhelming need to be conquered by the strongest alpha. No bond with its potential to shatter and break a mind.
She mused on those thoughts, daydreaming of a simple human existence. When the bus stopped and everyone exited, reality intruded again. Although the separation between the two sectors was only a short wall, it was still monitored. Wearing gray king’s army uniforms and carrying batons, breed Administration enforcers controlled all the incoming and outgoing traffic.
Talkative and outgoing among themselves on the transport, the girls tightened up with fear at the sight of the alpha and beta officials. No amount of exposure could make a drone easy among men like this. They were too potent, too unpredictable.
"Avoid the big one. Keep your eyes on the ground. You look at him and he'll take you for questioning. And you don't want that one questioning you about anything," one of the girls from the bus told Sasha, tipping her chin in the direction of an alpha.
No, Sasha did not want that.
Bearded, his heavy eyebrows lowered as he watched the foot traffic, the male gave off an air of humorless impatience. Clearly, he was not one to cross. Helping her would be the last thing on his mind if he caught her.
Though she was drenched in the scent of the surrounding drones, the possibility of capture by one of the breed guards was still high.One could never underestimate the male ability to pick out suspicious persons from the crowd. Their heightened senses made subterfuge difficult.
As if separated by an invisible wand, drone and breed moved into their species groups. Sasha kept her head down and stayed as close to the human girls as she could, all her focus on getting through this checkpoint to the next transport.
Anything unusual could attract the enforcers. No one would stop them if they decided to pull a person from the crowd for random questioning. They had all the power of the king and the Administration on their side, and they relished using it.
One of the betas had a short staff with a rounded ball at the end. He poked and prodded at the steady stream of people as if he were managing sheep. The round end found Sasha's bottom as she walked past him with her group. It was all she could do not to turn and snap at him. She forced herself to think of the next stage of the plan, centering her focus all on the future and not on the menace of bored men with too much power at their disposal.
Head down, Sasha watched feet and the sidewalk instead of her surroundings. When the surrounding crowd loosened, their tension melting away, she realized she’d made it through her first test. She’d left Sector 10 behind her, without incident.
Taking a deep breath, her first taste of independence, she tried to soak it all in. The moment felt glorious. Spinning in a little circle, unable to hide her glee, her small victory washed over her. She’d done it.
The next sector was much better, just as the girls said it would be. Here, drones were free. She took off the ugly collar, stashing it in her bag of meager supplies. A different world than the one she’d left behind opened before her. The relief of the place settle over her shoulders, a completely different atmosphere. There was no sign of decay in the buildings. All the structures were well maintained. Unified in design, as if they’d been built at the same time with the same plans.
Even the people were different—cleaner, shinier. The drones walked with their shoulders back and their eyes forward instead of hunched in, afraid to be noticed.
