The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) (3 page)

He tried another tactic. He made a call,
using a tiny earpiece that was attached to his N-Gage device.

“
Tavia, I need your dream
catcher…yes, I’m all right…no, I’m not alone…I’ll explain
later…okay, I’ll see you.”

Nin looked smug, as he beamed back at Anya
and Leticia. “Let’s see if we can reach a mutual agreement.”

“
Who’s Tavia?” Leticia
asked. Her hands had folded across her chest again.

“
My girlfriend.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. Nin did that
whenever he wasn’t comfortable. Lie after lie was coming out of
Nin’s mouth. The more he lied, the more he’d have to remember.

Not the best way to start off a possible
alliance—Nin was fully aware of that.

Chapter 2:

Nin checked the incoming text message on his
silver wrist gadget:

Outside, train tracks.

“
Tavia…” Nin muttered
absent-mindedly, before getting to his feet. “Let’s go outside,” he
announced to Anya and Leticia, in a louder voice.

“
Where, exactly?” Anya
demanded, her impulsive, self-defensive side kicking into gear
again.

“
Just behind,” Nin replied
nonchalantly. “The dream catcher looks better in the
sun.”

That wasn’t an untruth, but Nin deduced that
Tavia felt better in wide open spaces. It reminded her of
home—other places she wasn’t familiar with sometimes led to an
unreasoned bout of claustrophobia.

He’d continue his social experiment, bring
Tavia and Dresan into the picture, and see how all of them got
along together. Elves had been told for centuries that “humans were
bad” and “humans were evil”—Nin was tired of dogma and doctrines.
Then again, if humans weren’t dangerous, his Elven trio wouldn’t
need to spend a quarter of their time regularly “maintaining” and
debugging hidden cameras and mobile mini-sentinels around the
vicinity. They were quick with the task, however—their N-Gage
devices alerted them whenever any new cameras were set up.

Anya, Leticia, and Nin made their way out of
the stone church, an almost-forgotten relic which was surrounded by
dry, sandy ground, buried in waste land. Some trees at the back led
to a route which eventually connected to one of the inner city
parks in Zouk.

Nin looked up to the blue sky above when he
stepped out, enjoying the sunshine on his fair face. Anya saw there
was a remarkable grace in his movements, though he didn’t seem to
be aware or conscious of it. It was evident even in the smallest of
gestures, such as when he placed a hand into his pocket.

“
So, any plans for later in
the day?” Nin asked the girls. His tone belied his enjoyment with
subtly manipulating situations to his advantage. If the girls
really proved to be too much trouble, he knew he could just knock
them unconscious with his concealed plasma pistol, and take the
golden cup. It belonged to the elves, after all.

“
Not really.” Anya didn’t
want to divulge any more information unnecessarily, until she was
more certain of Nin. “You?”

“
I like it out here,” Nin
said, observing the uninhabited surroundings. “The trees here are
still real.”

“
We did oppose ‘Project
Enviro’,” Leticia quipped sarcastically, drawing quotation marks in
the air, “by voting online.”

“
The votes were probably
rigged.” Nin spoke the exact words that formed in Anya’s mind,
before she had a chance to vocalize them. “Fancy name for a project
lacking in substance. Trees are holograms in the heart of the city
now—Zouk lives and breathes a world of make-belief.”

Nin stopped in his tracks when he saw a
couple of motorcycles parked (haphazardly—one looked almost ready
to keel over) to the side. The bikes needed a good clean and
polish.

“
That would be ours,” Anya
informed Nin.

“
Cool. I ride one
too.”

Nin immediately regretted what he had just
told them. He knew how to ride a motorcycle, though he didn’t
exactly own one.

Anya’s next question confirmed his
sentiment. “Where’s your bike?”

Nin casually waved a hand to the left,
towards a slight curve of a road which was half-blocked by a clump
of trees. “Somewhere over there.”

The girls seemed to buy it. Or maybe they
were quiet because of the two figures that greeted them at the
unused, rusty train tracks behind the church.

“
Tavia!” Nin went up to a
slender, sassy female who had curves in all the right places. He
planted a kiss on the side of her check. She patted the back of his
shoulder twice, in response. Ink markings on a section of her inner
wrist showed—a tattoo design of some sort.

“
Are they models?” Leticia
whispered to Anya, enviously eyeballing Tavia, who sported a chic
crop which featured various shades of blue.

“
You’d need money or
connections, to get away with
that,
” Anya whispered back to
Leticia, referring to Tavia’s sense of style. If Tavia was like
Anya and Leticia (of “the common people” variety), she could be
prosecuted for being too trendy. Zouk City considered it a
violation of the commoners’ code of uniform conformity.

“
Why haven’t we seen them
before?” Anya whispered back. Nin and his friends looked like
interesting personalities. Had they been living under a rock all
this while? What were they doing, out here in the outback of a
derelict building?

Tavia had a darker-skinned companion, who
introduced himself as “Dresan” followed by a “pleased to meet you,”
after Anya and Leticia said hello. Leticia wondered if he was some
kind of bodyguard, judging from his strong, silent stance. Dresan
quickly brought some strands of his long hair forward, to cover the
sides of his head and face, when Leticia seemed to be spending a
second too long staring at one of his ears.

“
I brought the dream
catcher.” Tavia’s tone said what she didn’t: that she wanted Nin to
explain what this was really all about. It wasn’t often that he
requested them to do things—or bring forth cherished items—without
telling them why first.

She handed it to Nin. The dream catcher was
a stunningly intricate glass ornament, embellished with silver and
little gemstones.

“
A sophisticated piece of
artwork, featuring symbolic geometry,” Nin described with panache,
to Anya and Leticia. “The centerpiece represents an
imago mundi
…uh”—he
fumbled for a moment, for words Anya and Leticia would
understand—“a systematic creation, in the form of the four
elements, the life cycle of the moon, and the signs of the
Zodiac.”

He looked at Anya for a moment, tilting his
head to one side slightly. He liked playing games, and playful mind
games were no exception. “You’re an Aries, aren’t you?”

She was about to cross her arms, but
attempted to look unfazed, despite his accuracy. “How did you
know?”

“
I can always tell…” Nin
conveniently didn’t mention the help he got from his N-Gage. He’d
keep up the image of being a séance. “Do you believe in
astrology?”

Leticia did. She turned her face towards
Anya, lips curving up in a thin smile.

“
Are you a Libra?” Leticia
asked Nin, wanting to see if she had gotten better at guessing
people’s sun signs.

His smile matched Leticia’s. “Very
good.”

“
A Libra is about charm,
beauty, and social graces,” Leticia whispered into Anya’s ear. “99%
of it is true, I told you so!”

“
Gimme the crash course
later,” Anya whispered back. The glint and glimmer of the dream
catcher had caught her attention.

Upon closer inspection, what Nin said did
seem to make sense. The circle right in the center was divided into
twelve—one for each sign of the zodiac. Four spheres surrounded the
circle—a full moon, lunar eclipse, and two crescents facing
opposite directions.

“
Wow.” Anya was clearly
mesmerized. So was Leticia, who gazed at the dream catcher in
silent awe. Of the valuable artifacts they’d raided so far, few
seemed to be as enchanting as the ornament Nin held gently in the
palms of his hands.

“
Would you accept this…”
Nin offered, exuding with natural confidence, “in exchange for,
King John’s cup?”

Tavia positively glowered at Nin. “Do you
know how many hours that took to make, by hand?” she blurted out.
She wanted to know why one of her favorite items was being used as
barter. While she hadn’t made it herself, she knew the amount of
work and careful attention that went into its construction. Her
expression changed once Leticia produced the golden goblet from the
bag she was carrying.

“
Elena—” Dresan uttered,
his green eyes wide open, before cutting himself short.

“
The film producer?”
Leticia thought “Elena” was somehow related to
King Arthur.

Dresan nodded, when he saw Nin do so. Nin
knew Dresan and Tavia would understand, especially since they
enjoyed keeping their Elven identity hidden.

Anya, however, seemed to have a change of
heart. “You’re comparing glass and gold—apples with oranges.”
Economics was one of her favorite subjects at school, after all.
“This is pretty, but what we have is more…valuable.”

“
Not all that glitters is
gold,” Nin replied without missing a beat, sure of his own
self.

Neither was going to back down.

Tavia shifted on her feet, before moving
into the shade that some trees provided, to the side of the train
tracks. Her body language didn’t reflect amiability. She wanted to
know who Anya and Leticia were—and if they knew, in turn, that they
were dealing with elves. She looked up to Nin, but would stand her
ground if she felt like it. But anyone who messed with Nin—or
Dresan—would have to deal with Tavia too.

“
Let’s go, Leticia,” Anya
began. “We can get a better deal elsewhere.” The two girls turned
to leave, with Leticia walking in front, clutching the vinyl bag to
her chest. They had more than enough to handle on a daily
basis—covering their tracks, making sure they blended in with the
rest of society, in plain sight—no need for more trouble with a
bunch of random strangers.

Luckily for Nin, challenges were something
he thrived on. He wasn’t about to just let the two girls walk off,
after all his hard work at making their acquaintance. He swiftly
went forward and swiped at Anya’s wrist from the back. He didn’t
know how much she valued her bracelet, but it was one more trick he
had up his sleeve. Besides, it allowed him to flaunt some of his
skills as a snatch thief.

Anya turned around. Nin held up her elegant
charm bracelet, which had little star, heart, and key charms.

Despite the room for improvement—a true
expert of a thief would be able to pickpocket, without the victim
noticing a thing—Nin’s plan worked. Anya looked livid, then bit on
her lower lip.

“
Give it back,” Anya said,
in a way that was more of an imploration than a command.

Nin simply waved it in the air, tauntingly,
then tossed it over to Dresan, who caught the pendant with one
swipe.

“
Sentinels!
” Leticia suddenly screamed
at the top of her lungs.

Nin, Tavia, and Dresan spun around to where
Leticia was pointing. They whipped out small pistols which were
hidden in one of their boots—the design embellished onto Tavia’s
gun matched up perfectly with the ink marks on her hand. Anya
seized the moment to snatch at the piece of cord that was hanging
around Nin’s neck.

“
I thought you said you
weren’t armed…” Anya said mockingly to Nin, who had quietly slipped
the gun away, after realizing there were no sentinel
guards.

“
I had no need to be,” Nin
answered curtly, burning with embarrassment that the elves had just
been duped. That wouldn’t bode well with his elders, who
ceaselessly maintained that elves were “wiser and better” than the
average human.

“
Nice work, Lei,” Anya said
to Leticia, her partner in crime. Anya dangled the piece of cord a
few inches in front of her. “Look what we have here…”

Nin raised a hand to his collarbone, then
looked up at Anya in disbelief. He had only just realized he was
missing his neckband.

“
That’s…” he started, with
a hesitancy in his tone, like he was just about to say where he got
his pendant from, but had second thoughts. “One of a
kind.”

Tavia couldn’t help but give a slight
snigger, now that Nin was in the very same spot that he had put her
just moments ago.

The small pendant in Anya’s hand looked like
a miniature version of the diamond orb she had in her possession.
Nin’s pendant, however, had a touch of mystique and refinement that
the orb lacked. When Anya gave the pendant a little shake, the
pieces inside swirled too, giving the whole pendant an icy shimmer
that glinted in the midday sun.

“
What’s going on here?”
Tavia interrupted, one hand on her hip. Her sky blue eyes were
ablaze, with a glint of a killer’s rage. She looked ready to draw
her pistol again. At Anya and Leticia, this time.

Does Tavia have some
blades or knives hidden away somewhere too?
Anya thought. Then Anya saw it, when Tavia dug one of her
heels into the ground, and angled her outer sole toward Anya. Anya
spotted the outline of a blade, situated in a camouflaged
compartment in Tavia’s boot.

“
Is this some kind of
competition?” Dresan added, stepping in like a mediator.
Confrontations were something to be avoided, to him at least. “To
determine who’s…the better thief?”