No One Wants to Keep a Renegade
Was she a novelty or a nuisance?
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Terra Nox was the place to be on the night of a full moon simulation.
My friend Ziedra and I danced to the beat-bam-beat of the music filtering through the overhead speakers. If we had closed our eyes and focused, we probably could have floated, our bodies dangling above the wave of motion around us. Zero gravity clothing options were all the rage.
“I’m going to get some dust for later,” I said, but Ziedra just continued to bop her head up and down to the synthetic noise filtering through our senses. I grinned as I fluttered my fingers in front of her face before I ducked out and headed toward the dust-and-drink station.
Neon lights flashed on and off in the peripheral of my vision. I ignored them as best I could. They were probably just space men trying to get a sorry girl’s attention. But I wouldn’t bite. Space men just had their ways with whoever would have them and then shot back out into the galaxy in their handy little white jets.
It was all so very last century.
“A packet of dust, please,” I said, holding out my hand for the man at the station to scan the persona-spec tattoo on my wrist. The man glanced at his scanner.
“Bexy Renegade?” He sounded half-disbelieving, half-amused. “What brings you to a little hovel like this?”
I gritted my teeth, wishing I had brought Ziedra over here to buy the stuff for me. “I’ve heard a lot of great things,” I said, “so I had to stop by — of course.”
The man smiled at me, the tattoos on his face glowing with the pulse of his interest in me. I wanted to run away while I had the chance since I hated the way men lit up — literally — at the sight of me when they found out I was a Renegade.
“Daddy’s little girl is all grown up, hmm?” a voice cut through the noise.
The station manager and I glanced at the newcomer, a woman with tendrils of smoky hair swirling through the air. Her blue-shadowed skin pulsed like a new bruise, and her hand clutched a red dust-concoction that looked like spilled blood from an Earthian.
I frowned at the woman, uncertain where I had seen her before — but she stole away the…
