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

and
Leticia’s idea of good taste.
    The two girls looked at him like he was out
of his mind.
    “ Who are you, anyway?” Anya
was back on the defensive.
    “ I’m a college art
student.” Nin certainly looked, or dressed the part. “I know
someone who would really want this.”
    Anya put a hand up in the air. “Finders,
keepers.”
    Nin’s mind raced to come up
with something plausible. “A friend of mine is producing an
independent film. A rendition of King
Arthur. This would be the perfect plot! I
mean”—he corrected himself—“prop.”
    The girls’ frowns let Nin know that his
efforts weren’t going successfully. He couldn’t afford to get the
girls angry. They were the perfect individuals he needed to help
him execute his break-in plan. But neither could he afford to
reveal his true identity, too soon.
    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