Lunai sat on the bed with Cromble and Sorebel cuddling both of her sides. Her hands moved mindlessly through their fur as she watched Entropi argue with a little Dr. Crux hologram in the corner. The woman was usually as cool as a cucumber, but now she was pacing back and forth while yelling at the only man who could legally help Bliss.

  “You’re not listening!” Entropi looked like she was ready to throw her CellPulse if it was possible. “One day is too many. He’s not going to jail. I’m not letting them put him in jail.”

  “Agent Bliss is perfectly capable of defending himself. Nothing is going to happen, but he could be stuck for much longer if you try to break him out.”

  “Try? I don’t try things, Crux.”

  “Agent Bliss knows protocol, unlike you. He wouldn’t go with you. Not willingly, at least.”

  “Fine, then I’ll drag him out kicking and screaming. It’s all the same to me.”

  The hologram stood still with the type of paralysis that occurred in response to facing an overwhelming force of nature. This one just happened to talk, but she still couldn’t be argued with.

  “Entropi, please.” He was already reduced to begging. Lunai imagined he had several conversations just like this with the top hero. “Just give me a few days. I’m still working on the chip you gave me, so you don’t have anywhere else to be. My fragment will be landing on Novrun shortly to provide Bliss with legal counsel.”

  “There’s no amount of lawyering you can do that will get him out of there. This is clearly a set-up.”

  “You don’t know-“

  “I don’t know?” she laughed, then stopped abruptly. “You’ve had him put on a smile for every warlord in the galaxy for the last four years. People who bought him before he even turned thirteen. In those four years, he never, not once, harmed a hair on their fucking heads. You think he lost his cool over a worthless tour guide in khakis?”

  Lunai’s hands stopped stroking the cats. Had she heard Entropi correctly? Her mind was brought back to planet Kathous and the familiar grip Podoxec had on Bliss. Her hand went to her mouth as her stomach violently churned. Water escaped from her cells through her skin and she leaned over the bed, trying to get herself together.

  She felt Entropi’s hand back on her shoulder. “Hey kid, are you okay?”

  The hologram was still hovering over Entropi’s wrist. He was also staring at Lunai’s pathetic breakdown. She didn’t even know how to look at the man anymore. Was he actually sending Bliss to see those people knowing what they did? She just couldn’t stomach it. She wanted to ask him, but only one word came out of her mouth.

  “Podoxec?”

  Entropi’s eyes widened, finally understanding Lunai’s distress. A deeply personal detail about Bliss’s golden career was revealed as if everyone in the room knew all along. Lunai did not know. Perhaps Entropi forgot she was even there when she said it.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Podoxec was one of them.”

  “That’s why Armageddon…”

  Entropi’s hand moved from Lunai’s shoulder to her hand and gently squeezed it. Lunai wasn’t sure what she did to make Entropi put her in the basket of things she actually cared about, but she wasn’t complaining.

  “I’m sorry…that was-I shouldn’t be talking about this when he’s not even here.”

  Lunai picked herself up from the bed and let go of Entropi’s hands. “Please don’t try to drag him out. Don’t make this any worse for him…”

  Entropi actually stopped talking for a second, confirming to Lunai that her opinion now mattered more to Entropi than Dr. Crux’s. Maybe Entropi wasn’t that hard to connect with. Dr. Crux was just doing what every sane person in the galaxy knew not to do: mess with Entropi’s boy. Lunai still wanted to give him the benefit of doubt; he probably wasn’t doing it on purpose, right?

  Or at least, Bliss probably told him he would fine. That’s something he’d do…but obviously Dr. Crux shouldn’t listen! Ugh! There’s just no way to justify it. He shouldn’t be sent anywhere near those people, not unless there was something only he could handle.

  “All four years he’s been a hero,” she said, trying to organize her thoughts out loud. “I guess with Podoxec, you needed him in case Armageddon showed up. What about the other times? How many other times were there?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Entropi looked at the hologram with the lowered eyelids of a disappointed mother, waiting for him to reply. It took him a good minute to adjust his tie and clear his throat before speaking.

  “Agent Bliss rotates on every service like every other resident hero. He goes on whatever mission is delivered to that service. He didn’t want to be treated any different based on his past, which we should really stop discussing!”

  Though he was definitely trying to steer the conversation elsewhere, Dr. Crux was right. If Lunai wanted to know more about this, to understand if Dr. Crux was not the benevolent CEO she thought, she’d have to talk to Bliss himself. That would be a little tricky at the moment.

  Even if I could visit him in holding, what am I gonna say? Hey Bliss, sorry you’ve been arrested for murder, can I talk to you about your childhood trauma? Entropi and Dr. Crux were chatting away about it and I just wanted to hear it from the source! Bleh.

  Whatever her next move was, it couldn’t be sitting there and listening to more of their bickering. She had to go get some air. Maybe check some of the local Novrun news sites. It would hurt to read, but she had to find out more about the arrest somehow.

  “I’m gonna talk a walk, but Entropi, please don’t do anything rash without me.”

  She didn’t give her time to reply before slamming the room door behind her. Waiting would’ve given Entropi the chance to say no, and then Lunai would have no right to be shocked and appalled when she did something rash without her. The forced silence was taken as an agreement.

  The warm and salty air of Novrun slammed against her face as she rushed outside of the hotel. The humidity was nice on her skin, but the salt burned her nostrils, going deeper into her throat until her body forced her to try and cough it up. The sea breeze was not as strong the other day.

  Just gotta find somewhere they play the news. Or a news stand. Preferably indoors!

  With her head down, she hurried down the street, looking for any bars or diners she could duck into. The streets were strangely silent. She expected to hear everyone gossiping about the arrest of the strongest human in the galaxy. Instead, the only talk of Bliss still centered around his trip to the planet.

  Lunai ended up checking five different bars playing five different news channels with their own daily reports. Not one of them mentioned Bliss’s arrest, nor the murder at the hotel. It hadn’t been too long since it happened, but it was the juiciest story any reporter would see for a good while. If no one had scooped it up, it had to be because they didn’t know about it.

  Soon enough, she found herself walking towards Novrun’s city hall. Her roots propelled themselves forward running on the energy of Lunai’s remaining loyalty for Bliss and the neurotic panic of someone who had to know what the hell happened the other night. She wished she could say she knew Bliss didn’t do it, but she genuinely wasn’t sure. It was possible the man himself didn’t even know.

  She was welcomed inside by a fast-track path to a weapons detector. Though she never carried any weapons since being on Ya’ar, she patted her sides just to be sure. Hopefully the machine wouldn’t count the technology in her hero suit as a weapon. She stepped inside the scanning circle and was quickly released into a lobby of stressed ministry employees trying to get from one office to another. There were security guards standing in front of the weapons detectors, but none of them so much as shot a glance at Lunai. She chose the smallest, least intimidating looking one to approach.

  “Excuse me, are any new arrests processed here?”

  She hoped they did. She really hoped they did, otherwise she’d have to return to her hotel room and try not to pull the moss off of her head while she waited for more news. Petting Sorebel and Cromble could only do so much for the level of panic in Lunai’s mind.

  The guard was small enough that he had to look up to meet her eyes. His expression did not change, keeping the neutral curve of his mouth. “Ma’am, what is your business here?”

  “Um…I’m from the GSA-“

  The guard pulled his wrist to his mouth and started murmuring into it. Lunai could hardly make out any words, but caught “GSA” and “apprehended hero.” He knew exactly what she was there for.

  “You shouldn’t be here right now,” he said. “We are communicating with your leader. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Is Bliss here?”

  The guard’s face dropped and he grabbed Lunai by the shoulders. He quickly shoved her out of the main lobby and into a side hall with less foot traffic. He was much stronger than his size implied.

  “Your boss is handling it. It wouldn’t be good for either of our organizations if word of this got out prematurely.”

  Lunai’s gritted her teeth. “I’ll be quiet. For his sake. I just want to see him.”

  “Look, I can’t help you with that. The best I can do is tell you to talk to your boss about it.”

  She looked to the floor and then to the ceiling, trying to conjure up some gotcha moment in her mind. Something that would get her in no matter what. It’d have to be brash. It’d have to be stupid.

  “Okay. You can tell your boss that I’m going to march outside and scream about how Bliss got arrested yesterday and Novrun’s covering it up.” She kept her words cold and steady, trying to hide her bluff. “If I can see him, we can work this out quietly like the ministry wants.”

  He squinted at her, showing little fear for her threats. “If you want to disgrace your own, be my guest.”

  Fuck.

  She left the building a failure. City hall had several benches outside for her to rest on and wallow in self-pity. Dr. Crux would be on his way soon, and she could leave the legal stuff to him.

  That wasn’t enough. Not after what Entropi said that morning. She would be getting to Bliss one way or the other. She reached up and plucked her ear from her head. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do for the time being. All she had to do was wait for Dr. Crux to walk by. He’d be taking a piece of her with him to the meeting room whether he wanted to or not. She wasn’t asking for permission anymore. Not this time, not this hero.