Predator: Cityhunter

Chapter 5

Tamara felt as if she was dead on her feet. Last night after it left, she just broke down crying. All the throat constricting, panicked fear that she had compartmentalized away for her own safety while the creature was in her apartment came flooding back at once. She cried for what felt like hours leaving her an exhausted wreck. But how could she sleep?! How could she sleep in a place where some sort of seven-foot monster just stood at the edge of her bed making no uncertain sexual demands? No, it was impossible. She had stayed up the rest of the night just staring at her window half leaning, half crouched against her headboard trying to vigilant and aware in case it returned. Then what, she had thought the whole time, what was she going to do if he did return because she knew deep down it would. Scouring the forums one last time she found a small ship and crew willing to take people off the books to a nearby space station a few galaxies away. The post made no attempt to sugar coat the possible dangers of the trip, it was one of the reasons that made her believe this one out of all the others just might not be a slaver ship looking at Nova Hermes's sudden exodus of its population as a way to get free "supplies." It said that the trip would be long, cramped, and food rations would be sparse. It sounded awful, but did she really have a choice?

Packing up her things, Tamara glanced around her tiny apartment with blurred watery eyes. Dozens of thoughts of doubt swarmed around in her mind as she thought of how she was going to start a new and safe life in a new galaxy. Would there be any jobs left after so many people flooded over? Probably not, she glared at the ceiling as dark negative thoughts infiltrated in between the cracks of her doubt like sand. No, there would probably be only more sex work, and this time there most likely wouldn't be any safe position like she had at the Red Lamp Tower. But what choice did she have? If she stayed...that creature would come back and tear her apart.

With two small bags packed and dressed in her usual black jeans, tank top, and oversized hoodie, Tamara made her way to the east space port. There were to shipping ports on Nova Hermes, one for goods and one for people. The east port, which was for importing and exporting goods, was much larger than the west location but it was far less regulated in terms of safety. Dock three hundred and forty six, looking down at her ancient handheld comm device, her only form of replacement for her broken wrist unit, she looked back up at the confusing signs along the wall. Where was dock three hundred and forty-six? Nothing was user friendly on this port, everything was designed for unmanned loaders to scan the codes along the base of the wall and automatically go to the destination for unloading and loading. There were only a few spots, few and far between the long black metal halls and grated metal suspended bridges that had posted numbered signs meant for the few humans that did work at the port and even those were near impossible to decipher. Beneath her, auto-loaders and hydraulic-lifts systematically went through their pre-programmed jobs zipping down the long corridors at high speeds barely missing other bots doing the same job, all dutifully carrying their cargo. While above were remote piloted drones doing the same job for the ships at upper levels, easily navigating through the heavy steam clouds that the ships produced. Only on the middle level, where she was currently, were the human and synthetic operated levels.