Standing up before finishing the remaining ale in the glass, Nina quickly trailed after the pair that had already hit the staircase and disappeared past the landing below. As the afternoon had been replaced by the evening, the number of patrons in the tavern began to noticeably increase, laughter tinged with a hint of tipsiness beginning to emerge from every floor as she passed. Ignorant of the intrigued gazes from the people on the staircase, she bounced down the stairs and weaved through the traffic that was making their way up before pushing her way out on to the street.

Waiting outside the door stood Hala and Cross, the smiles on their faces evidence enough that they had enjoyed making Nina give chase. Without a word, they turned again and melted into the procession of people that moved up and down the now busy street.

“Wait up,” Nina exclaimed as she pushed her way past a rather fat man before stretching her arms out to squeeze through the middle of a pair of rough looking men in leather. Unlike Nina, Hala and Cross weaved through the throng of people before them like fish in a stream, occasionally turning to see that they hadn’t lost her. Despite the chaotic nature of the procession of people, Nina noted that nobody seemed to be stressed or in a hurry.

“You will get used to it!” Cross laughed as she turned off from the main street and into an alley. Although there were not as many people in the alley, the fact that it was narrow in comparison ensured that Nina’s pursuit didn’t become any easier.

The second leg of the brief pursuit came to an end as Nina found that the pair had stopped in front of a building. At four stories high, the exterior of the building was covered in orange sandstone, thick arches protruding at regular intervals as though they had been chiseled out. With a sleek modern building on each side, and a thick concrete wall above, Nina thought that the building looked as though someone had pasted an ancient tomb into a city of the future.

“The first of your many trips to The Sandbell,” Hala smiled as she beckoned for Nina to follow before disappearing behind Cross into the dim space beyond. Following them through the door, Nina found herself in an interior that matched what she had seen outside, an assortment of earthy stones and clay which sat upon a sandy floor. As the oil lamps which hung from the ceiling tried their hardest to illuminate the dim and deserted interior, she watched as Hala and Cross walked across to the unattended bar before Hala slapped the countertop.

“Dex, we’re back again!”

After a moment, a curtain behind the bar parted to reveal a short and burly figure. With curled black hair that looked as though it had been dipped in oil, Dex raised an eyebrow at the pair that stood before him.

“You’re a bit early.”

“We brought someone new today,” Cross said as she pointed a thumb back over her shoulder towards Nina.

Dex looked over Cross’ shoulder with a murmur of interest as he sized her up, his eyes flicking across her armband and dress without a trace of emotion. “Alright then, how much am I bringing out?”

“Hehe,” Hala smiled before putting her arms behind her back, spinning on her heel to face Nina. “How many credits do you have on you?”

“Two,” Nina replied without hesitation. After Sem had given her fifteen, she had nine credits left. She remembered that she would have to pay Sem back, and she also had a good feeling that anything she declared now would never be seen again.

“Aww, really?” A tinge of disappointment flashed across Hala’s face as she sauntered over, swaying from side to side while her hands remained clasped behind her back. “Sem isn’t that stingy these days, is she?”

Busted, she thought as she saw Cross grin from the counter. Looking at the puppy dog eyes that were approaching, she fished four credits from her pocket with a sigh. Before she could blink, Hala had appeared right beside her, the previous expression replaced with a smile.

“It’s a start,” she laughed as she took the coins before placing them on the counter after adding some of her own. “Dex! Usual for three!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed. Nina thought she saw a flash of resignation appear in his expression but it disappeared as he turned and passed back behind the curtain.

“Up we go!” said Cross. Since Nina had pulled the coins from her pocket, the mood of the two had become even better than before. Wondering just how much the pair had already had to drink today, she followed them up a set of stairs until they reached the top floor.

On the way up, she glanced out across each floor. Small wooden tables dotted the floors, with booths seemingly cut into the earth within the walls. It seemed as though they were in another tavern, but besides an amount of people that she could count with one hand, the place was empty.

Unlike the bottom three floors, the top floor was light and airy. The early evening breeze stirred Nina’s hair as she followed the pair across the dusty floor. Nestled amongst the sandstone arches that Nina had seen from the front, a balcony ran along the side which faced the street. Picking a table in the very corner on the balcony, the pair sat down and smiled as Nina followed.

“This place is very quiet,” Nina said as she sat down. As she looked across the void above the street to the old stone styled building which sat there, the contrast to the ancient-feeling tavern they sat in left her in contemplation.

“It doesn’t get busy until later here, dear.” A voice came from behind them as a tanned woman with charcoal hair appeared with a plate of ale mugs. Ignoring Nina’s gaze at her revealing white dress that seemed to hang off her curves, she smiled at the pair. “Dex told me not to bring it all out at once.”

“Oh, Naztra, you’re back,” Cross smiled as she grabbed a glass before the plate could be set on the table. “How was 27?”

“Not so chaotic. SuTSU presence is much more apparent so people tend to keep quieter.”

Hala grabbed a glass with each hand before taking a tentative sip. “Are you back for good then?”

Naztra sighed as she finished placing what Nina would have considered too many glasses of ale on the table. “Thankfully, Dex welcomed me back in, so I’ll be here whenever the two of you want to stir up trouble here again. Or… the three of you?”

“Ah, this is Nina. She’s in with Reina.”

Nina didn’t say anything as she took her own glass of ale. It seemed that everyone was already grouping her together with Reina as though her decision to stay had already been made. She had initially met these two because she wanted to know more, but it seemed that the answers she received just opened the door for more questions.

“Enjoy your time at The Sandbell, Nina,” Naztra said with a smile as she withdrew. “Don’t try to keep up with them.”

Watching the pair of them finish their first glasses of ale, she didn’t need to ask what ‘keeping up’ was in regards to. Sipping her own glass, she decided to continue with questions.

“So, Reina saved me?”

“Yep.”

“Saved me from what?”

“Being a SuTSU slave,” Hala sighed as she looked down from the table towards the street below, Nina detecting the bitterness in her tone. It felt like the general mood at the table had dropped at the mention of a slave, almost as though the ale at the table was there to counterbalance the nature of the conversation.

“A SuTSU slave?”

As if her own turn was over, Hala turned to her glass after glancing at Cross. With a wry smile, Cross looked over to Nina.

“Nina… You didn’t have any friends on Caecus, right?”

“Wha…”

“You didn’t see any family either, if you had one. You just kept to yourself and did your job, right?”

“How…?”

“Because that is the kind of person that SuTSU targets when they take people from above. They think that perfect candidate is a person who is good at a job, but is also easy to erase from the system.”

Listening to Cross, Nina’s mind was just as blank as her face. The room was silent as the pair across the table studied her expression as though she were a creature behind a piece of glass. Understanding that she needed a minute to process the information, they sighed as they picked up new glasses from the pile that Naztra had left in the centre of the table.

As though she could taste the irony, a grim chuckle escaped from Nina’s lips as she flopped back in her chair, her eyes glued to the featureless sandy ceiling above her.

“The fact that you didn’t stand out at all, to SuTSU, what made you stand out the most. Fewer questions about your disappearance result in less of a mess to clean up.”

Nina had thought that by blending into society, she had been staying away from change. Little had she known that by hiding from the big fish in front of her, she had backpedaled into an even bigger fish that was hiding behind.

Naztra appeared again with a tray of plates, setting them down around the table. Casting a blank glance across the dishes, Nina felt that they looked essentially the same from what she would have expected from her home above. With a smile that seemed to read the mood, Naztra left them in silence.

“Well, after all that, maybe it’s time to get drunk,” Cross sighed as she took one of the plates. Hala pushed a plate of what seemed like pasta in front of Nina before also pushing a second glass of ale towards her.

“You paid for it, might as well eat it.”

For one of the first times today, Nina was inclined to agree as she grabbed the glass of ale and began to drink with a newly found conviction.