PEGASI AUTUMN - Chapter 3
18 Sep 2017Jemine Caesar
“Don’t trust anybody”. I don’t think that I could even if I tried. On the face of it, a system subjugated by Archon Delaine’s Kumo Crew didn’t seem too much different than any other. Business and governments went about their affairs, families shopped at markets, and commerce proceeded like anywhere else. But something- something was just off. Jemine couldn’t place her finger on it, not at first. But the more time she spent among the locals, the more it bothered her.
It was everywhere- in people’s faces, in their voices, in the very way that they carried themselves. It was in the way that a mother with bags under her eyes hid her child away from Jemine when she smiled down at her in a busy terminal. In the way that smiles were forced and frowns swiftly erased. People looked over their shoulders more than usual, and conversations just a little more hushed when a stranger walked by. It was- Jemine sighed, still unaccustomed to it all- an entirely different energy than other places she’d visited.
She was at a bar- she’d been to a lot of bars, even though she hadn’t actually drank much alcohol- surveying the people coming and going around her. She was nursing a glass of cranberry juice- synth, of course, but sweet enough to not matter terribly- when it struck her.
Fear. These people are afraid. All of them. They live in a constant state of fear.
The story continues here...