The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) Read Free

one that might
hold the key to explaining what the letter ‘i’ was all about, the
letter on the piece of paper he had neatly tucked away.
    But could the girls be trusted?
    “ Penny for your thoughts?”
Anya asked him, as if reading his mind.
    Nin tilted his chin up slightly, as he
pointed to the bag in Leticia’s hand. “What’s in there?”
    Anya gave a twisted smirk. It was something
Leticia had bought online from one of their counterculture
friends.
    “ It’s a secret toolbox.”
She felt like she could trust Nin—it was hard keeping her real life
a secret from everyone she knew. Maybe he was into the whole
counterculture scene too. Might he be something of a kindred
spirit, that way? “It’s made of some hi-tech TN.09 thing…whatever
you put in a secret compartment zipped at the side, is literally
invisible. You could pass this through security baggage scanners,
and whatever you hide in it wouldn’t show up on the
screen.”
    Nin nodded, seemingly
impressed. TN.09 was the short form for Titanium-nano —it was the code a group
of cyberpunk elves used to refer to their ongoing experimentations
with a new form of nanotechnology. It was more sophisticated and
less environmentally damaging than what humans had been working on
all along.
    “ Fascinating,” Nin said,
with a convincing smile. “I know some of the people who…made that.”
He stopped himself, before saying anymore.
    Anya and Leticia gasped. “Really? Does that
mean people can be invisible too?”
    Nin thought about it. “I don’t know.” He
knew the substance was safe to touch, and wasn’t lethal if injected
directly into an elf’s bloodstream. But he wasn’t sure about
humans. He presumed it could be worse, since humans were generally
weaker-bodied.
    “ Is it cancerous?” Anya had
lots of unanswered questions about TN.09.
    “ Even the sun is
cancerous.” Nin hoped they wouldn’t be put off by his sense of
humor. “So,” he tried again, determined to have a look at the bag’s
contents. “Tell me what’s inside.”
    Tension hung in the air. Leticia looked
toward Anya. She acquiesced, once Anya gave a slight shrug (which
could have meant anything).
    “ It’s called the ‘King
John’ cup,” Leticia said with pride, bringing out a richly enameled
golden cup. A ray of sunlight streamed in through one of the
stained glass panels, right onto the goblet. “Fashioned in
1340—that’s what the guide said at the museum last
week.”
    No it’s not, Nin thought. If it was the goblet that he thought
it was, it belonged to an Elven family that had been trying to
locate its whereabouts for years.
    Nin went forward, drawn by the artifact, to
take a better look. Leticia even let him hold it.
    “ Very, very nice,” he
uttered, while checking out the design. In each of the five fields
of enamel was a man and a woman, one over the other. Some were
picking flowers, others were dressed as hunters, carrying a bow and
arrow.
    Nin peered into the goblet—there was a
female falconer at the bottom of the cup. It was to be revealed
with the last draught. Elven artisans always took great care and
delight to include divine details, which their human counterparts
often overlooked.
    “ Who’s your buyer for this
one?” Nin would make the purchase himself, if he could persuade the
girls with a higher bid than what they had been offered.
    But Anya shook her head. “This isn’t for
sale. We wanted this one because it looked so pretty. We were both
dreaming of it last night.”
    Nin was pleased at their exquisite taste. He
decided to try his hand at negotiating—he wanted to walk away with
the goblet. After all, the girls were in the business of returning
artifacts “to their rightful owners (their own words).”
    “ May I have this?” he
began. “I could give you something in exchange. Something high
quality, also.” He could easily get an Elven item—a royal circlet,
another goblet, an accessory—which he was sure would fit Anya