Lace Ravine

Chap. 4: Lace Meets Her Match - pt. 2

Lace stepped off the ship into the Fortan atmosphere, and immediately threw her head back in anguish. "Christ, I forgot how fucking humid it was here." Straightening up, for once she appreciated that no one cared to look her way. The passengers in front of her dispersed, prompting Lace to stride deeper into the metropolis. Even though it had been over a decade since her school years, she still remembered the basic layout. Passing Fortans in fancy clothes speaking pleasantly, she decided it wasn't half bad in the center. Sadly, where she had to go now would not be the same.

Silas had instructed Lace to buy a hotel room for the night. The only place she could possibly afford would be toward the outskirts of Baimok. Even the most perfect city in the universe had its shady section, and that was where she must go. There the mood around humans was sour at best, and she dreaded what contact she would meet.

Lace watched the buildings to her sides as she walked, waiting for them to lose their luster. Soon, the tone changed, dinge creeped in, and she noticed three young Fortan men leaning on a wall outside a closed-down shop. She knew what they were going to say as soon as she caught on to their stares, and could only wait in silence.

The one in the middle called out to her in Fortas dialect. "Ra, one-moon!" Lace forced herself to keep her gaze straight ahead, but the lanky Fortan on the left kept shouting.

"Ra! Ra, idiot!"

The first one smiled, the other two following suit, and he yelled confidently. "Go back to the Hub, one-moon!"

The short one on the right added excitedly. "Or better yet, go back to Earth!"

The tall one beamed, speaking to the other two, but intending for Lace to hear. "She can't, they blew themselves up!"

Lace, who had been walking forward with unflinching determination, couldn't stop herself from visibly tensing up. The men saw, and laughed gutturally before switching to ancient Fortan to add onto their shared joke. The middle one was the loudest. "Khakhakha... parakki!"

The stout one happily screamed his idea of what next to label their victim. "Parakki- parakki gomo!"

This made them realize something, and all at once they cried together in glee. "GOMO!" Lace had nearly passed out of their sight, and as she escaped all she could hear was their riotous cackles from behind. "Khakhakha!"

She shook away her tension and growled to herself. "'More advanced civilization' my ass." Pushing away memories from her old life on Fortas that were kicking the inside of her skull, Lace pressed on. As soon as she had begun contemplating begging for a room in the center, she spied a cubicle hotel.

The human was surprised that there were any hotels of this design still open, having been under the impression that the last one had closed half a decade ago. It wasn't unexpected that they died out- they catered to only the most desperate. A room here was paid for through automation, and there was no staff. There were only cube rooms, that were more like a jail cell than anything else. A toilet and a bed without a blanket or a pillow, all in the same space. Those staying there would have to provide everything else. Cleaned entirely by robots after each stay, every hotel felt ghostly. Each building being privately owned, if you could pay for the upkeep and the turnover was enough, it was a low-maintenance way of earning some cash.

A cubicle hotel was never anyone's first choice, but it was a godsend for someone with next to no money. The building itself was in the shape of a tall rectangle, with a long balcony and stairs on each floor, and each room opening to the outside. She selected one room for the night from the old touchscreen interface, paid with her pod, and let it scan her eyes, as that would be her key. It assigned her the first one on the first floor, causing Lace to wonder if she was the only one staying in the massive complex.