Buttercup wasn't sure what to expect exactly when she stepped into the transport room. The walls were bare steel, adorned only with viewscreens that displayed friendly instructional messages indicating how to proceed. On the smooth floors, painted lines created lanes for travelers to follow to the gate itself. Opposite the airlock was a set of ceiling-height circular sliding doors—the gate itself.

Behind Buttercup, the airlock door shut and the attendant Juanito sealed it from within. Apprehension gripped her. Was she doing this right? Were the doors just going to open up for her? She wished there were other travelers there with her. The room looked like it could easily hold a few hundred people, and its size spooked her into feeling small and fragile. She walked to the middle of the room and faced the gigantic sliding doors of the gate.

A red scanning light flashed out of a lens recessed inside the gate's upper frame. The lens winked green in confirmation when it got her eye, then began pulsing once per second, and each time the green light pulsed a rhythmic chime would sound. After ten seconds a louder chime rang out and the doors slid smoothly out of the way. On the other side was a room that looked exactly the same as the one she stood in. Was that it? She just walked through?

Buttercup shifted her pack on her shoulder, a bit nervous. In just a few more steps she would be over two hundred miles above Surface, aboard the orbital station which hung overhead in low planetary orbit. It just all seemed too easy. She was expecting something powerful, something that would rumble and shake. She hadn't heard anything. Was wormhole travel really so simple? Maybe that's why she didn't remember the trips—to a child it would be just like walking through another room on the station, and then you're on Surface. She probably wouldn't have even noticed.

"Miss, you can proceed, please," came a hesitant voice over the intercom. It was Juanito.

His timid words jolted her from her thoughts and she stepped forward.

"Sorry," Buttercup said.

She walked through the archway with her head down, and although she knew it was perfectly safe she felt a distinct chill as she entered the gate. She brought her shoulders in as though she was afraid to brush the sides of the gate despite the size of the entrance. The fear passed as soon as she got into the other room, but she could hear her heart pounding in her ears. It was stupid, she knew. Just irrational panic.

Still, she grabbed the straps of her pack and pulled them tight against her shoulders as she walked to the airlock. The sound of the gate's doors sliding shut behind her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She toed the thick red line that marked the area in which the airlock door would swing open, as far from the gate as she could get.

 As Buttercup stood in front of the airlock the chiming started again, and she counted as it went all the way up to ten. She read the words WAIT BEHIND LINE FOR ATTENDANT in white letters against a red background on the airlock door. She just wanted to be out of the room. The feeling grew in her chest, clawing its way up her throat until she realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled as the louder "all clear" chime rang out, and the attendant on the other side swung open the airlock door. Buttercup drew in a deep breath through her nose. She was not going to enjoy the return trip.

"Welcome aboard," said the female attendant as she carefully opened the door and secured it against the wall. "All by yourself?"

"Yeah," said Buttercup, and walked past the woman into the airlock.

The attendant pulled the shut the door behind Buttercup before moving to the other end of the airlock to open the outer door. At last the woman pushed open the final barrier between Buttercup and freedom and beckoned for her to come out.

"Thanks," Buttercup said.

"Yep," the attendant replied as she shut the door.

And just like that Buttercup found herself standing in another vault-like room of airlocks aboard the orbital station—her old home, not that she remembered much about it. There was something familiar about the air, though. It was scrubbed, filtered. Devoid of any particular odor. It wasn't like the air of the city with its mixture of different, sometimes disgusting, scents mingling together. Up in the station it was sterile. Nostalgia gripped her momentarily as her brain sparked connections within her memories. She shook the feeling as best as she could and headed to the exit hallway.

Buttercup stopped to examine a chart on the wall and found dock B46. It was close. As she walked the hallways a few other people passed her in a hurry—they must have come through one of the other gates in Capitol City. There was a fit young couple walking together, the woman dressed provocatively in sheer garments that left little to the imagination. The man kept looking around like he might catch someone eyeing up his mate. He walked close to her, and kept reaching out to touch her as though she might drift away.

Buttercup turned around a corner the opposite way the couple had gone. The docking bays for Section B were just up ahead. Soon she'd have the other half of her payment, and she could go back to Hargrove and tell him the good news. He probably wouldn't be happy at the circumstances through which she had acquired the money, but her only other option was waiting for a few more years and scraping together whatever she could until she finally had enough to buy a ticket to the outer rim, the settlements beyond the asteroid belt Styx.

Once she was out there she could really start her hunt. Trawling the bounty boards was keeping her mind at ease—it was really the most she could do—but Buttercup knew her best chance of finding him was to actually get out there and look for him. With as much money as she had she might even be able to hire a real bounty hunter to help her.

Buttercup arrived at the docking area, where the hallway ended in a T-junction. The wall in front of her had a series of small round windows at about eye level, with some signs between the windows pointed left for docks 1-25 and right for docks 26-50. She took a right, gazing out the windows as she passed them. Ships were parked outside, attached to the station's airlocks by docking tubes. She watched as several of them retracted their tubes and, synchronized by the orbital station's autopilot program, glided smoothly into a line together and departed the station. They were most likely headed to one of the nearby orbital launching platforms for interplanetary travel.

 Continuing down the hall and around a corner, Buttercup saw the sign for B46 several airlocks ahead on the right. Next to each door was a screen with a built in scanning lens. Buttercup stood in front of the airlock and waited for the scanner to flash her with its red beams. Nothing happened. She wondered briefly if she was supposed to open it manually, like the attendants had before, but then Bill Silver's face popped up on the screen.

"Good," he said. "I'll let you in."

Silver opened the airlock and squeezed off to one side of the entrance, waving her inside. He was taller than Buttercup thought he would be, and without his apron his protruding gut was exposed. Buttercup slipped past him, close enough to walk through the clean, vaguely masculine scent of his body wash or cologne.

The docking tube curved to the right, and she saw the inner airlock had been left open. She boarded the ship as Silver closed the outer door behind her. His metal hand clicked against the wheel as he spun it. The cockpit was to her right, and the body of the ship to the left. It was just a short range shuttle. She stood just inside and waited for Silver, who hurried past her.

"Just wait here, you won't be staying long. I'll get a pad to send your money," he said.

Buttercup nodded and stayed where she was. Just as he disappeared around the corner a buzzer sounded from the screen beside her. She watched as the camera focused on the buzzer-ringer: it was a suave clean-shaven blond man, maybe forty, dressed in a sleek olive green business suit. He seemed agitated, wringing his hands together and glancing around. He was accompanied by a thin-framed teenage boy dressed in a similar style who stood with his back straight and stared ahead with a blank expression.

"Bill!" the man shout-whispered, pounding on the airlock door. "I know you're in there. Come on, you gotta let me in Bill!"

"Hang on, I'll get it," called Bill from down the hall.

Buttercup held the talk button on the screen and said, "Just a minute."

"They could be right behind me, we don't—" The man began, then realized he wasn't talking to Bill. His head cocked in what seemed an involuntary twitch of romantic interest and his eyes darted across her face. Buttercup released the button and the screen out in the hall went dark. The man turned to his companion to whisper something in his ear, and the two held a hushed conversation.

"I told you to leave it alone," Silver said from behind her. "I've sent your money, see?"

Buttercup turned and looked over the information on the pad he was holding, and it seemed to her that he genuinely had followed up with his second five thousand credit payment. Silver gave her the pad and moved to the viewscreen near the airlock to answer the buzzer.

"If you want to double check you can sign in to your own—" He faltered when he saw who was on the other end of the airlock. He tapped the talk button. "You're not supposed to be here yet."

"There's been a change of plans, Bill. We've got to leave."

"What, now?" Silver said.

"Yes, now! Let's go, do we have everything?"

Silver tapped the button again, ending the call, and turned to Buttercup. "The map?"

Then it clicked—the guy's face. Buttercup hadn't recognized him at first, but she couldn't believe she had missed it. She'd seen his cringe-inducing campaign ads.

"Is that... Governor Strump?" Buttercup said as she dug Slack Dog's phone out of her pocket. She handed it to Silver, who snatched it from her with his good hand.

Silver ignored her as he began to open the airlock door. "You're leaving now."

"Wait, what was he saying? That's the Governor, isn't it?" Buttercup's questions came tumbling out of her mouth as she followed Silver through the airlock, but he said nothing as he opened the outer door.

"Took you long enough, Bill," the man said as he and his companion came inside.

"You were supposed to meet me at the launching platform," said Bill. "What happened?"

"Are we ready to go?" he asked, ignoring Bill's question.

"We can be at the platform in twenty minutes."

"Then let's go. Why don't you say goodbye to your friend and we can discuss things while we depart. Come, Gim," he said, and walked inside the ship with the boy Gim in tow.

"We're not friends," growled Bill. He gestured with a hurried wave for Buttercup to exit the airlock so he could close the door.

Silver had what he needed from her, and he was urgent to leave. Buttercup could safely assume there was someone after the map—and maybe after her. What if they knew she had been carrying it? She could have been seen going into Silver's ship.

"You waiting for a tip or something?" Bill said, gesturing again to the door.

"No, I just... do I have anything to worry about?" asked Buttercup, tilting her head in the direction the Governor had just gone. "He said—"

"Not if you keep your mouth shut and your head down. Now beat it."

"Look, if someone's after him they might come for me too. You can't just throw me back out there without telling me anything."

"Oh, don't go all doe-eyed on me. I paid you already—and a damn lot, I'll add—which concludes our business. Just go home and you'll be fine."

Buttercup narrowed her eyes. "Where exactly did that map come from?"

"Nevermind, girl, just get off my damn ship!" He took a step forward to force her back.

Silver was a powerful man, and she saw genuine anger on his face. The metal hand looked like it could do some damage. She flinched and backed away when he came forward, stumbling out of the airlock. Silver wasted no time securing the door.

#

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