It was getting old.
Morty knew they were in the top ten most wanted people in the entire Accord of Souls, but it would be nice to be able to stay in the same apartment for more than a week before somebody tipped either the cops or his old friends from Zathus, as to where he and Xiomber were staying.
Today, supposedly, it had been the bad guys who got the call.
Fortunately, Xiomber had friends. Or was owed enough favors. Or maybe owed enough other people that they wanted to be able to collect on those debts in the future and couldn’t if he was dead.
Whatever. The phone had rung. A message had been conveyed. And they ran like hell for the door.
Somewhere, there was still a pot of tea cooling on a kitchen table with a fantastic view of that giant bronze statue: “Walking into Discovery.” It was a stupid name for a piece of art, but the Grace were weirdoes to begin with, so he wasn’t going to argue.
And Xiomber had found them a nice dive on the edge of downtown to get breakfast. Not too close to the old place, where someone might see them accidentally, but only three stops away on the first bus that had driven by.
Fortunately, after a month on the run, Morty’s entire life pretty much fit into a single bag. He had a few bolt holes scattered around the Accord, and he and Xiomber had set up a few joint efforts beyond that, but these days it really was possible to grab his comm off the counter, and his bag by the door, and walk out of an apartment forever.
“So who called?” Morty asked as the waiter delivered menus and a fresh pot of tea.
They were seated clear down at the back of the narrow joint, tucked into a tiny table that was invisible from the front door and most of the windows, back around where the counter wrapped and led to the restrooms. The joint had been decorated in white: walls, counter, floor, aprons; but it still had a dinginess that no amount of soap would ever get out. Too many cigarettes and plates of greasy bacon and eggs had passed through here over the years.
And the crowd was just starting to wind themselves up, but Morty could see three tables left for whoever managed to get here next. After that, he was pretty sure the line would be out the door, just from the smells coming from the kitchen.
Seriously, there were what looked like a couple of farmers at the counter, enjoying a break between milking cows and whatever else folks like that did in the morning. Except they had to have come all the way into town to eat here, because the nearest farms were like thirty kilometers away. Above them, a television was showing two pretty talking heads doing morning news and fluff, but the sound was off.
Morty studied the menu while Xiomber ruminated on the question he had posed.
“Nobody you know,” Xiomber finally said. “Old girlfriend I did striped scales for, back when she got married.”
“Ah, her,” Morty said. “She must still like you?”
“Enough,” Xiomber allowed with a vague shrug. “She got a whisper and put two and two together.”
“Do we need to get off this rock?” Morty asked, pouring some tea and letting it warm his mug.
“I don’t think we’re totally screwed yet,” his egg-brother nodded, pouring his own tea. “The old gang didn’t have many fingers here, so finding us requires that they use the locals. People will talk.”
“Yeah, but how soon until you run out of friends, or they get lucky?” Morty asked.
Xiomber shrugged.
“I had hoped that we could drop down the rabbit hole here, Morty,” he said. “Find someone to take us on faith and let us work for them for a while, at least until the heat died down, ya know?”
“The old man’s getting more desperate, not less,” Morty noted. “You saw what he did to Damabiath. I don’t want to know what a scaleless Yuudixtl looks like, m’kay?”
A sudden sound caught them both short, a low moan of surprise and shock rippling through the crowd. Morty and Xiomber both turned, but Morty had to half-stand out of his seat to see over the counter and know what was going on.
All heads had turned to the television screen over the counter, by the front door.
“Turn up the sound,” somebody yelled.
A Warreth waitress fumbled with a remote control for a few seconds before she found the right buttons.
“…repeating our top story, an explosion occurred just a few minutes ago in a downtown apartment tower, blowing out windows across the street, but apparently confined to just one apartment. Fire and police are responding, and we’ve got the first images from our Morning Three Eye In The Sky drone,” the female, a Grace, was saying.
The image was zoomed in on a blackened window, smoke oozing out, before the camera pulled back to show the rest of the tower and part of the street. The operator slowly rotated the hovering camera in place to show windows shattered, but it looked like a pretty clean explosion.
It helped that tower blocks like this were generally self-contained reinforced-concrete shells. All the boom would tend to go outward, and usually a fire would be contained to just one flat. Defensive architecture was a hallmark of the Accord. Keep everybody safe.
Morty blew the air out of his lungs and sat down hard, muttering profanities under his breath.
“Yeah,” Xiomber said. “I saw the same thing. Now I’m really glad we left when we did.”
Morty wasn’t sure exactly how somebody had killed their apartment. Explosive shaped charge on the front door? Missile in through the kitchen window?
Maybe they had kicked in the door, found that Morty and his egg-brother gone, then lost their temper? Morty would have been tempted to stake the place out, on the off-chance that the two fugitives would return, but apparently Maximus and his people already knew they had flown the coop.
That looked like a message. And an unpleasant one.
Morty sighed and picked up the menu.
“We owe your old girlfriend big time,” he muttered.
“That’s exactly what she said,” Xiomber smiled back grimly. “She said it would probably make the morning news, whatever it was, and we should walk out immediately. Thoughts?”
“Omelet with everything,” Morty replied absently. “Gimme lots of carbs and protein this morning because I got a feeling it’s only going to get worse from here.”
“I meant about us,” Xiomber groused.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Morty snapped. “I’m beginning to wonder if we’re out of rope, Xiomber. Like we have to finally do something amazingly stupid if we want to survive all this. Lots of broken eggs in our future.”
Xiomber’s eyes slitted down tight, and his lids dropped halfway.
“How stupid?” he asked.
The waiter interrupted at that moment. Morty went all in, obviously afraid that this might be his last nice meal for a while, and he could always stuff the other half into a to-go box and carry it with him for lunch.
Xiomber started easy, but saw something in Morty’s eyes that appeared to unsettle him. He ordered the ribeye with eggs and hash, instead of a fruit and greens salad. The waiter smiled and departed.
“How stupid?” Xiomber repeated, but his heart wasn’t filled with anger. Morty could see that.
“Let’s find Gareth,” he said quietly.
“You know who has him,” Xiomber snapped, keeping his own voice as low as possible.
“Yeah,” Morty acknowledged. “But I’d rather spend the next forty years complaining that I’ve read the entire prison library than be dead by lunchtime, okay? We can always get ourselves rehabilitated later.”
“You think they’ll let us out of prison in this lifetime, egg-brother?” Xiomber sneered.
“The crazy lizard who started all this has had a significant change of heart, brother,” Morty said. “I screwed up, big time, and nearly brought the entire Accord of Souls down. I own that, yes, but I’ve spent the last two months trying to save civilization from all those crazy bastards. Do you want an immortal super-human ruling the Accord for the rest of time? No. Hell, I’d be happy if anyone ever figured out how to summon back the Chaa and let them fix everything.”
“You’d be in hell, Morty,” his brother said. “And I’d be with you.”
“And the galaxy would survive, Xiomber,” he snapped. “Maximus would be dealt with. Gareth’s people would either be stuffed back into their hole or modified enough to be added to the Accord. People like you and I could go back to whatever petty crime and juvenile shenanigans the Elders left us as crumbs if they didn’t just wipe us from existence. But the galaxy would be safe.”
“Gareth?” Xiomber asked morosely after a moment. “You realize all the cops on this planet are pretty bent, right?”
“Yeah,” Morty said. “I figure either Hurquar or Orgoth Vortai should be our next step. Those two Constables were from Hurquar, but I don’t know if they went back.”
“No, I like Orgoth Vortai,” Xiomber said. “Let’s take it back to where it began. Is Orgoth Vortai going to be safe? That’s the next question.”
Morty nodded.
“No place is safe,” Morty said. “But Omerlon’s got no reason to like Maximus. Less if that’s who did Damabiath.”
But Morty liked the thought of Orgoth Vortai as well.
Knowing the Grace, they would see the whole thing as a giant piece of insane performance art.
But for the bombs going off, Morty would, too.