A large, half-circle white leather sofa with black piping accented the center of the Sweetboys’ tour yacht “temple.” The massive room near the ship’s forward hull looked more like a gaming room than a house of the most holy. The room seemed almost sterile with white polycarbonate walls, black Dinclinsin granite surfaces, and light gray, nearly white, plush carpet. A long buffet table of blackrock warmed exotic snacks. The refrigerated bar behind it displayed a sampling of the co-orbit planets’ best sodas, juices, coffees, and teas. Hinder’s Orbs and Pattelbol gaming tables stood across the room from the buffet. Framed promotional posters and record sales awards peppered the walls and framed the large window looking out at the stadium and Ogun beyond it.

The dampened mechanical hum of the ship white-noised the space between the low-volume sound of previously recorded Sweetboys’ concerts and interviews that played from three large screens embedded in the wall in front of the central sofa as the boys, freshly showered, stationed themselves between the food, drinks, and games. Jim’s sports shorts and tank top, David’s loose-fitting shirt, buttoned down to expose his toned and hairless chest, and Shoko’s short robe over soft, baggy pants betrayed the hard work they put into dressing like they didn’t care.

When the room’s double doors whooshed open, Allie Mae, Thelma, Myrtle, and Ethel led the five selected young fans in. The fangirls had similar builds: thin, shorter than the Sweetboys, who were, themselves, no taller than Allie Mae, and fair-skinned enough to look like they traveled farther than from Ogun to the concert.

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The concert was everything they expected.

The two openers devoured almost an hour and a half before gracing Allie Mae with their silence. The first band, comprised of a lead singer, bassist, guitarist, drummer, and DJ who barely looked post-pubescent, screamed bad sun-worship poetry over hip-hop beats to more applause than either Ida or Thelma thought they had any right to. The second group was a mid-tier rap trio from Dinclinsin that went viral by re-imagining ancient hymns and epics. Ethel struggled to cover the grimace that distorted her face. Myrtle failed.

Before the first act took the stage, Thelma suggested they find their stations. The entire point of the gig was to make this mega group feel safe from their ravenous fans, and she thought they should take the time to ensure full stadium visibility. The stage itself had been assembled against one end of the field, leaving two-thirds of the stadium seats and most of the field open for attendees. Despite the large crowd, the top tier remained completely empty. The five of them took inventory of Jolie’s regular staff, who were positioned throughout the mostly teenage crowd.

Allie Mae pinched her silver ear stud and spoke. “Enjoying the show?” The laughter that answered her was unanimous. “This is their last song. We’d better get back.” She slipped backstage and took the lift down when the other four joined her.

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The Sweetboys’ yacht had been so large that standard docking in Planetary Station Five’s largest diplomatic parking decks hadn’t been logistically feasible. While it wasn’t pure luxury, the ship and concert crews lived and worked in comfort alongside the opening bands and their families and crews. Shoko’s, David’s, and Jim’s section of the ship was an elegant mansion compared to anywhere any of the Girlz had ever seen.

The thing with four massive clamps hugging it to the side of the tour yacht was easily half again as large. The Cubist statue that functioned as a mobile fortress for a gang of pirates. What it lacked in design and technological advancement, it made up for with brute force and a patchwork hull colored with various ship corpses. A cylinder expanded across the eighty-five-meter space between the Metalist’s and the Sweetboys’ ship.

The outer hull wall inside the yacht’s second floor forward starboard corridor drowned in a monsoon of golden sparks as the Metalist crew cut a hole large enough to step through. The thick plate fell in, thudding heavily on the carpeted floor. A man two-handing a massive cutting torch stood in the new opening. He was short and thick with a matted beard that stretched over his sagging man boobs, stopping at the top of his beach ball belly. His arms were thick and hairy, and his canvas pants were stained with grease and dirt.

Twelve more bulky men and women of varying heights, thicknesses, and amounts of body and facial hair crowded behind him. They each wore a blend of cheap fabric, blended leathers from several different animals, and body armor plates made from repurposed plastics, metals, and stones. The tallest one was a woman with filthy reddish-brown hair that parted around the massive chest, covered in a threadbare T-shirt and boosted by a plate metal corset, fell to the top of her chainmail chaps. She wore a horned helm that covered the bridge of her nose, exposing the unflatteringly thick mustache decorating her thin, chapped lips.

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The five women stepped from the locker room dressed in black coveralls, zipped to the high, snapped collar. Stadium security patches, like the one Jolie wore, were sewn to each arm, and the word SECURITY had been embroidered on the back. A can of pepper spray hung in snapped holsters hooked to woven canvas belts with complicated clamp buckles that clung to their waists. The laces of their shit-kicker, high-top black boots with steel toes and thick rubber soles were secured with ratcheted canvas straps.

Ida and Allie Mae chose to wear the black security ball caps provided. The other three didn’t bother.

“I really hate this,” Thelma said after inspecting herself in the mirror. The coveralls creased in all the wrong spots, accenting her large breasts, stomach, and thighs, and the belt didn’t fit right.

“You?” Myrtle said. She’d gotten the largest one she could find, but the itchy fabric clung to her bulging muscles and broad shoulders. She wondered if Ironblaze would have gone with the lowest bidder for their uniforms, hoping they hadn’t each time the fabric moaned against the pull of her moving arms and legs.

Ida, with her small frame draped like abandoned furniture in a small uniform easily two sizes too large, said, “I don’t think any of us look good in this mess.” The collar hung loose around her neck, casting shadows where they weren’t welcome.

“Speak for yourself,” Ethel said, standing next to Allie Mae. Between her regular coveralls and overalls, Ethel seemed to look good in anything. Her prematurely whitened crown of hair with constellations of its original black made her look almost regal in the monochrome uniform. And Allie Mae… well… there wasn’t an outfit in the system that wasn’t designed for her body.

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“Home sweet home,” Myrtle groaned as she stepped onto the bridge and sneered at the forward monitors.

Thelma regarded her with a slight smile, focusing mostly on the way the overhead lights reflected off her smooth scalp. The stubble must have gotten to her. Thelma knew it had been coming. For the last week, Myrtle reflexively rubbed her fingertips across her head. They all heard the soft scratch of the slowly growing hair scratching against the pads of her fingers. At some point over the last few hours, she gave in, fished through her belongings to find her straight razor and cream, and cleared away the growth.

Myrtle didn’t notice Thelma watching as she passed the empty captain’s chair and drew close to the screens that displayed the dark planet with the swirling gray atmosphere. Pockets of orange fire blisters and the red ringworm mining footprint became visible as the heavy, toxic clouds moved and broke, exposing the planet’s surface. Thousands of satellite residential satellites littered the space around the planet.

“You good?” Thelma asked.

Myrtle yanked her attention away from the dead planet and turned to Thelma, who hyper-focused on the nav controls as she manipulated the ship into an arc around one of Ogun’s small moons.

“Yeah,” she responded. She stepped toward the passenger’s bench behind Thelma, placing a hand lightly on Thelma’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze as she passed. Thelma smiled.

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Ida sat on the large, padded bench against the far wall of the rocket’s dining room, tapping the touch screen of her tablet lying on the table in front of her with one hand while lifting an apple to her lips with the other. The fruit would crunch with each bite. As she pulled it away, she’d have to wipe juice from her chin with the back of her hand. Dinclinsin apples were juicy as fuck. They’d been crossbred for generations to where the deep red skin matched the deep red meat. The result was one of the sweetest, rarest fruits in the system.

The kitchen was stocked with plenty of them. In fact, the kitchen had more food than Ida had ever seen in one place.

The ship was definitely built with rich people in mind. Crew quarters were three-by-three shared lower bunks and a shared restroom area next to the cargo hold. They’d double as escape pods after the main passengers ejected in case of an emergency. The master suite was nearly twice the size of the other four primary cabins, but each had its own restroom, a large king bed with a memory foam mattress, storage compartments, and a reading chez. The master had a hosting area with a sofa and three chairs. It even had fake windows that delivered LED displays of stars whisking by, synced with the engines as if space looked like some sort of science fiction movie. Bougie shit. The first thing she did when she claimed her room was to turn her window monitor off and close the curtains. She did this with a head shake and a laugh.

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The lift doors hissed open, and Allie Mae stepped out onto diplomatic parking deck two. Overhead panels washed it in so much white light that the only shadow cast was the one she threw onto the lift’s back wall. Once the door slid closed behind her, even that one disintegrated.

A grid of walkways between rows of luxury ships was coated in kinetic rubber, making every step feel like walking on air. Never too much pampering for parasites. The ships themselves were the things of movie legend. Giant liners that looked like casino heist targets were parked next to angry fliers with sharp edges secret agents drove in spy noirs. The swirling lines of luxury ships hinted that the owners spent their space time in atmospheric spas, wrapped in clouds while their Ogunite servants fed them grapes and rubbed their feet. Those hedonistic temples sat beside bureaucratic transports decorated with every planetary, system, and corporate seal. Allie Mae knew Ethel would cream her pants the second she saw these glorious machines.

The lift chute stood near the center of the large platform. A soft blue hue bordered the openings along each side, betraying the atmospheric energy shields. The deck’s light evaporated into darkness as it passed the station’s ledge. To her left, the perfect black was marred by the flickering lights of ships on approach and departure routes. To her right, the red and yellow light of the system’s two stars reflected off the nearby oceanic planet. The competing colors of light flickered off the mostly watery surface, mesmerizing her.

Her memories dragged her below the waves to the overpopulated submerged cities floating above the dark abyss. She remembered skateboarding through crowded streets, open lots, and tight alleys, often running from police trying to enforce those No Loitering signs placed to target anyone struggling to find joy on that miserable planet.

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Prentice Ragg’s perfectly manicured index finger twitched as Allie Mae stepped over his prone body. Drool leaked from his lips as they puckered into the two-inch-thick plush burgundy carpet, textured with a grid of nested circles and wavy gold lines, that decorated his bedroom. The air circulation system hummed, making the suite’s air feel denser than the rest of the station.

Allie Mae grabbed her fuchsia satin blouse from the corner where the pawing prick tossed it and slid it over her head. She tucked the front into the waist of her wide-legged black slacks and looked for her boots.

She found the first one beside the bed. Sitting on the professionally smoothed blanket, she made the first wrinkles in it since Ragg’s servants made it earlier in the day. She pulled up her pants leg, exposing an array of shin bruises that was quickly covered with her black pleather thigh-high. Allie Mae searched the floor for the other boot. Still sitting, she stretched her naked foot to the crumpled man’s ass and shoved him to the side, but the boot wasn’t there. The dull safety lighting built into the room’s plastic walls barely lit the floor. They were fine for late-night stumbles to the kitchen, but not bright enough to be useful.

“Station. Lights on,” Allie Mae said to the room. The polycarbonate ceiling lit white.

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The black shape on the floor across the bed caught her eye. She rolled back on the mattress until her head hung over the edge and she could reach the boot. After sliding it on and zipping the back, Allie Mae stood. She pulled a band from her wrist and tied as much of her shoulder-length pink hair into a tail as would stay, leaving strands hanging randomly, bracketing her face and tickling her ears. She swatted the worst offender away from her right ear and bent over Prentice’s body.

He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, in the classic, douchebag sense. Square jaw. Pink cheeks. Blue eyes. Buzzed hair that left only a wave of blonde perfectly flipped over the top of his head. The synthetic burgundy cloth of his Dinclinsin military uniform perfectly accented his immaculately trained body when she’d first spotted him socializing in the roped off section of the ballroom that looked out over the commoners on the dance floor. Allie Mae assumed his palace days were filled with a perfect mix of working out and lounging by the pool. He was a functional dancer; the type of guy who learned every formal step while missing the point. Allie Mae pulled the emptied plunger’s needle from the back of his neck and thought about how he marionetted her body around the ballroom’s dance floor earlier that night.

Ballroom socials, fancy accommodations, and injected narcotics weren’t part of her daily life, but she and the crew found themselves stranded for more than sixteen hours after the Beast’s engines sputtered and sizzled into silence about fifty million kilometers from the Mum side of Dinclinsin. It took the ship’s scrubbers more than three hours to clear the ozone stink of burning electronics from the cabin and four hours for Ida and Thelma to reroute coms through the backup generators to get a distress signal out. The tow to Planetary Council Station Four orbiting the blue planet wiped out their reserve funds, and their boxy ship sat, beyond repair, on one of the station’s many parking levels. The industrial gray hulk was about as tall as the triple-decker buses that passed for public transit in a few of Clermeil’s cities and was about two of them long. Ethel tinkered and toiled in the engine room for hours, but the Beast wasn’t moving again without a full rebuild.

“Jolie’s going to flip,” Allie Mae whined. She sat on the step leading up to the bland gray ship’s sliding side door with her feet planted wider than her shoulders. Her elbows balanced on her thin knees as she cradled her pouting face in her hands.

“Man, fuck Jolie,” Myrtle barked from where she stood with her arms wrapped around Ethel, leaning against the back of the now-dead gas guzzler.

Wilbur’s deep bellow from just behind her startled Allie Mae, causing her to sit upright. “Girl, you’re lucky he offered us the gig after last time.”

“That bitch had it coming.” Myrtle pulled her hands from Ethel’s soft waist and rubbed her knuckles.

Wilbur stretched his long, hairy arms to the top of the doorway, bending his pelvis forward and releasing his stiff back with a series of cracks. His light brown fur, streaked with fluorescent green, flowed freely down his arms and legs and carpeted his shirtless chest and back. The tight bulge in the front of his banana-hammock jorts pressed against the back of Allie Mae’s head. Her right eye closed and spasmed with annoyance.

“Dude. Your balls stink.” She swatted the imagined stink from her nose with a wink and stood, moving away from the Xeviosan’s manhood.

“You’re just jealous,” he tsked and stepped from the ship.

“Guys,” Ethel spoke in a deep, Kaifu drawl, “We’re screwed here. I told you we needed an upfit last year. It’s going to cost us danks to keep the Beast parked here, and we don’t know anyone here. Finding work on a Council Station takes the kind of papers we need connections to forge. Screw Jolie’s job. We’re nearly eight days from Ogun and no money to catch passage on a transport shuttle.”

“We need a ship,” Thelma’s high-pitched voice chirped as she and Ida emerged from the dead ship.

“No shit,” Myrtle mumbled more as a reaction than a response. Ethel nudged her, feeling the tight abdomen ripple hidden beneath her orange, moisture-wicking tank top. The two women exchanged an imperceptible glance that communicated the spark of heat they both felt before turning back to Thelma.

Thelma’s black hair puffed larger than her round face, dwarfing the sly smile parting her dark lips and exposing bright white teeth. The parking deck’s bright overhead lights sparkled in the nineteen-year-old’s dark eyes and reflected warm and bronze off her thick legs. “Four’s a diplomatic hub. Right?” Allie Mae wilted from the reminder that Dinclinsin used to be home before nodding in agreement. “Diplomat levels aren’t subject to regular security patrols like everywhere else is.”

Wilbur broke in. “You just want to waltz onto a diplomatic parking deck and, what? Steal a ship?”

“Volume, sir,” Ida seemed to sing in her rapid, Clermeil accent. Her rolling orange-red curls blossomed around her bronze face and fell to the center of her back, covering the argyle pattern of her brown and white sweater vest. The pointed green of her glasses framed her golden eyes and long, dark lashes. She lifted a handheld screen, first for Ethel and Myrtle to see, then for Allie Mae. “Politicians do love their socials.” She and Thelma unfurled a plan that involved a birthday celebration for a visiting dignitary in the station’s Governor’s ballroom.

Ethel chortled, arching her back, as they finished their story and smacked her thick palm on her knee, cascading dust from the filthy denim of her mechanic’s overalls. “Allie Mae’s gonna use that pancake ass for some good tonight.” Allie Mae’s snarl barely masked a smile.

“Oh, I’m dusting off some of my own cobwebs,” the two-meter high Xeviosan purred with a sultry eyeroll. Myrtle and Ethel cackled with him. Thelma twisted her lips and fought against her own uncontrolled outburst while Ida, seemingly oblivious to her friends’ laughter, rattled her tiny fingertips against the tablet screen.

“The wine and dine isn’t a bad plan, but you’re talking about an exclusive event with plenty of security. Tickets alone have to be…”

Ida interrupted Allie Mae’s reality check. “Twelve million, five hundred and sixty-five thousand danks.”

“Twelve million? Are they insane?” Allie Mae stood gap-jawed. “I can just hit up a bar on the lowers. We don’t need a fast ship to get us to Ogun.”

“We need a fast ship to escape this station,” Thelma corrected.

“And don’t worry about the money,” Ida added. “Two tickets secured.”

“Aren’t you the little techno goddess?” Wilbur snorted. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Four’s the primary financial hub of the system. Every major corporation has a presence here, and every one of them secured a block of tickets. I simply repurposed two unused ones from an Iron Blaze subsidiary.”

“Fine,” Allie Mae conceded. “I’ll do it. Just be ready when I have something.”

“I’m coming, too, ho,” Wilbur added. And of course he would. As much muscle as Myrtle would be, as a lookout, no one could beat Wilbur. It’s easy to keep an eye on a room of Co-Orbit humans when every one of them would side-eye and sneer at the flamboyant foreigner. Plus, Myrtle was strong, but she couldn’t wrap a ten-centimeter iron bar around her wrist with three fingers and call it a bracelet. If there was trouble, Wilbur had the violent streak of a drag queen with a broken heel.

“The rest of us will unload,” Myrtle offered.

“Not just unload,” Ethel added. Extra water sparkled on the rim of her eyelid. “Sissy’s plan needs a big distraction, and I think I know what that is.” Thelma mirrored her older sister’s sorrow.

The group spent the next two hours packing and getting ready for the night. Allie Mae showered, found her most comfortable uncomfortable outfit, and tied her hair into pixie pigtails. She smoothed away every blemish in her twenty-three-year-old skin with the expensive makeup she picked up using her five-finger discount for occasions like this. Her blouse cut low, exposing the flat space between her small breasts. Combined with her form-fitting pants and seductive stiletto boots, she donned the infantile babydoll appearance for which the wealthy hungered.

Wilbur darkened the green streaks in his hair and formed it into luxurious waves atop his head. He cut his facial fur into rigid points that accented his dominant jaw and oiled it stiff. His sleeveless green vest with the high ruffled collar shimmered in the Beast’s overhead light, and the swirling orange and brown pattern of his velour bellbottoms cradled the twin bowling balls he called an ass. He rubbed a half bottle of lotion into the thick pads on the bottom of his bare feet and painted the nails on his hands and feet to match the green of his hair and top.

“Could you hurry it up, queen?” Allie Mae called from the Beast’s lower level. Wilbur ignored her and slid the mascara brush through his long lashes.

Myrtle and Ethel stacked filled trunks and duffel bags just inside the Beast’s door while Allie Mae paced.

“Damn girl,” Myrtle said as she carried a heavy box past Allie Mae. “You smell good. You should wash that cooch more often.” She bent over and set the box with the others. Once the box was securely on the pile, Allie Mae delivered a soft kick to her ass. “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Myrtle laughed.

“Wilbur!” Allie Mae yelled again. “The damned party started an hour ago.”

“Quit yelling,” he responded, ducking to descend the stairs. “You Dinclinsin girls are all the same. Gotta be on time for everything.” The group slung compliments at each other and exchanged hugs before Wilbur and Allie Mae stepped from the Beast.

Myrtle grabbed Allie Mae’s shoulder and turned her back before she could walk away. “Risk, but no risks, you get me?”

Allie Mae nodded, smiled, and ran to join Wilbur next to the lift that would take them from the parking levels into the heart of the space station and to the diplomatic levels where Ida’s ill-gotten tickets parted the guards and allowed them access to the regal ballroom. They drank. They danced. They scouted. Allie Mae noted a couple of potentials, older men with glassy eyes, yellowing teeth, and enough jewelry to house ten families, but none of them seemed right. Seemed desperate enough.

Wilbur spotted him and pointed with a nod of his chin after getting Allie Mae’s attention. Past the stunning low-born boy wearing leather chaps and suspenders over perfectly oiled ripples of prime beef that Wilbur eyed for his next sizzling entrée, stood a young moron wearing a tailored military uniform. Clearly wearing the burden of not being his father’s proudest moment, Prentice Ragg evoked uncomfortable laughs from the cluster of sycophants around him.

Her play was a simple one. Between awkward sips of some fruity cocktail through a too-thin drinking straw, she fired three perfectly aimed glances at him. With each, she increased how long she held his gaze, and by the third, she punctuated it with a shy but intentional smile. Then she disappeared onto the dance floor with a random guest. She stayed strategically behind other dancers so that, even after craning his head from one side to another, he’d not get another good look until she’d moved across the polished light wooden planks and danced at the foot of the stairs leading up to the V.I.P. section. When she finally met his eyes again, she had him.

He descended and swooped her into a more formal dance routine. With the changing of each song, she allowed him to invade her personal space, grimacing internally as she feigned enjoyment as he pawed at her hips and ass. She reeled him closer. Her body pressed against his. Her exhales strategically tickled the side of his neck.

And now, she stood on carpet far more expensive than any home she ever had, capping a syringe that once held a triple dose of one of Myrtle’s narcotic numbing agents over the body of a rich prick who willingly abandoned logic for tighter underwear. He’d been more aggressive than she’d have liked after they folded into his apartment door, but he was extremely dumb. That counted for a lot. As he clumsily peeled clothes from both of their bodies, she slid the hidden injection out of her left pigtail and plunged it into the meaty part of his shoulder just at the base of his neck. He hit the ground before feeling it.

Judging by the posh accommodations, the fishing expedition would be a success. Allie Mae capped the needle and wedged it back into the elastic band holding up the tuft of pink hair leaning to the right side of her head. She pressed the palms of both hands to the room’s light gray plastic walls and slid them along its surface, pressing against it with each step. She covered two walls before a thought occurred to her. Prentice snorted as she stepped over him again and returned to the side of the bed closest to the door. A bedside shelf held one of the room’s three globe lamps and the minimal contents of her sleeping beast. She pushed aside a pocket blade and a canister of mint breath spray, stopping only to look more closely at the C-shaped yellow gold ear cuff. She’d knocked it from its perch behind his ear in their fiery make-out session sometime after they tumbled into the bedroom. She’d been going for his hair, hoping to tussle it out of its perfect formation. Instead, he tilted away as if a heretic had been about to soil the holy host.

Burgundy jewels decorated the cuff in the shape of a radiating red sun, the Fire of Mum holy symbol. Allie Mae’s eyes rolled like loose marbles. She stifled a laugh and flicked it aside. Her blood chilled when she saw the governor’s seal on the cuff’s backside. Ragg. He said his last name was Ragg.

“Fuck,” she moaned, wishing she wasn’t sitting alone in the bedroom of the son of the planet’s hereditary ruler. Conspiratorial rumors of Governor Ragg’s brutal corporate regime became cautionary tales for children as far away as Xevioso. She looked at the drooling idiot in disbelief. He snorted again.

She leaned forward and began sweeping her hands over the top and sides of the bedside shelf, knocking the breath spray to the floor. Her fingers flitted along the table’s underside until she hit a button near the wall. The wall past the foot of the bed slid open, revealing racks of hanging clothes and stacks of drawers of deep mahogany. Smiling, she hopped across the room and pulled each drawer open. Socks. Underwear.

Ew.

Toys.

A gunmetal gray steel box filled the bottom drawer. The textured surface reminded her of cast iron. A thought struck Allie Mae. If this station fell from space, disintegrating the planet below, the box would be found, without a scratch, floating in the debris. She inspected the safe, looking for a combination lock or any way to get it open. She found only a smooth, curved recess in the side that looked like black glass. At first, she thought it was a fingerprint scanner, but her fingertip didn’t fit in. Ragg’s would have been far too thick.

The ear cuff.

She darted to the table, snagged the gold cuff, and returned to the drawer, pressing the Governor’s seal into the opening. The safe’s top slid open with a hydraulic hiss. Seven digital fobs plastic white tags dangling from attached rings, a few trinkets, and a small stack of data cards lined the safe’s felt, crimson lining.

“Hel ja!” she celebrated and tucked the cards into her elastic waistband. She assumed some of the cards were polluted with pictures of torture victims or other depravities, but at least one should have access to the little prince’s slush fund. With the loot tucked away, she shuffled through the collection of handheld buttons. Settling on the bright blue one, she grabbed it, pushed the drawers shut, and returned to the bedside table to press the button again and close the wall. She returned the ear clip to the tabletop and ordered the computer to turn off the lights.

Allie Mae left the bedroom and stumbled through the main living area. She caught her image in the mirror beside the apartment’s main door and stopped. A streak of fluorescent pink marred her cheek. Ragg was a terrible kisser. The fact that he’d smeared her lipstick made her want to run back in there and drive her stiletto boot into his taint. Instead, she wiped the back of her hand against the side of her face, wiping most of the color away. She’d had her share of walk-of-shame mornings, but at least she’d enjoyed the shame. All she had to show for this was a film from a slobbery kisser and some uncomfortable chafing.

She tapped the tip of her pinky to her tongue, then wiped away smeared mascara before opening the front door. Allie Mae winced and brought a hand up to cover her eyes as she stumbled into the corridor beyond. She’d forgotten how dark he kept the apartment. Setting the mood, is what he said. Other than the milky globe lamps on either side of the bed, only dim blue safety lighting built into the walls illuminated the apartment. As her eyes worked to regulate themselves for the brighter hallways, it dawned on her how comfortable the room had been. Her entire childhood was spent beneath the overflowing oceans and behind the atmospheric shielding of a wealthy planet that destroyed its own atmosphere long ago.

“Goodness gracious!” She heard the gasp before her eyes cleared enough to see the older woman who spoke the words. The woman’s white-haired husband, dressed in equally tailored event fashion, wrapped his crusty arm around his wife as if to shield her from infection. They averted their eyes from the plague rat that found its way onto the diplomatic housing levels. Allie Mae offered her emptiest smile as they passed before turning to go the opposite direction.

Carpets identical to the ones in Ragg’s apartment lined the corridor. Artwork depicting iconic battles and monarchs from Dinclinsin’s history decorated the corridor’s walls alongside the red sun iconography of The Church of the Fire of Mum; testaments to the great golden creator and the fiery red messenger who guided her chosen people by her will.

“Mkpọkọrọ nkwenkwe ụgha,” she muttered to herself as she hurried to the golden lift doors. She pressed one of the five silver studs pierced into her right earlobe. “You guys awake?”

Ethel’s startled voice chirped back after thirty seconds of silence. “Bumbo! Of course we’re here, hooker. You get those cobwebs knocked out of your stank ass batty hole?”

“Can’t really plug a leak with a toothpick,” she chuckled as she pressed the button for the lift.

“That’s way more than a leak you got, girl.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Allie Mae held the blue fob in one hand and turned the tag ring until she could see the laser-printed copy. “Bay five. Deck two.”

She heard the poorly masked wonder in Ethel’s voice. “Fancy.”

“Wilbur with you guys?”

“Yeah. His nasty ass showed up about a half hour ago. We’ll see you in five.”

The lift doors hissed open; Allie Mae stepped in. The inside of the cart was spotless, brushed gold decorated with symmetrical rectangles and triangles made from deep burgundy and violet glass embedded in the walls. To the right of the door, an array of forty pearlescent buttons greeted her. Below them was an etched sign that read:

Diplomatic Elevators to Level 112.

Lift Bank B to Common Levels.

Lift Bank C to Parking.

“Better make that ten,” she said, tapping the stud silent before pressing the bottom left button numbered 112. It glowed a soft blue, and the doors closed.

Been Caught Stealing will release a chapter a month until the story is done. At that point, it’ll release as a paperback with an exclusive hardcover for subscribers. I’m excited to begin this journey with you and with the Girlz, and I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoy telling it.

With the promo stuff behind us, check out the first image from the cover of

Punk Girlz in Space: Been Caught Stealing

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