Page 11 of Last Chance to Save the World

Somehow, this action—pulling his hood up—feels more intimate than when we were both half-naked a moment before. Alarm bells ring in my head.

I step back.

And I note the disappointed look on Rian’s face.

As much as I wished we’d spent our days and nights in the portal with more enjoyable activities, it’s game time now. I might have gotten a good romp out of him if we’d been able to stay onGlory, but now?

Now it’s time to visit my mother.

Fuckthis timing.

I take another step back and reach into my bag. “Also these,” I say, plucking two pills from a bottle in the side pocket.

“Radiation preventative?” Rian asks, swallowing the tablet when I nod. A few minutes on the dock with Bruna isn’t much, but if we’re traipsing around the island, we’ll need more.

Rian smacks his mouth against the metallic taste of the pills. I know he’s not used to this. Cruisers and tours minimize the effects of radiation and other by-products of a polluted world.

I think it makes it easier for the other worlds to pretend that Earth’s not as bad off as it is, when only the locals have to take pills and precautions just to live.

We head out, straight to the end of the dock. A few people are already on the transfer ferry—a heavy-duty boat with a trash-breaker spike up front to slice through the murky water.

I catch Rian scowling at the sea.

“We’re going to fix it,” I tell him gently. It won’t be immediately, but once we have the nanobots out in the world’s water cycle—with the right code—Earth is going to get better.

I hope.

Rian nods, his mouth a grim line as he finds a place to sit on the benches under the protection shields. The local ferry isn’t like the cruiser transport; it doesn’t try to hide reality. I scoot closer to him as the ferry waits for more people, resting my head on his shoulder as if we were lovers, my mouth close enough to his ear that no one can eavesdrop.

“What are the chances of you being spotted and stopped?” I ask. “Your friends gonna arrest me on sight?”

“You? The paragon of innocence?” Rian chuckles.

“Well, you know I’m harmless,” I say, “but what about your team?”

“Relax.” Rian nudges me, which does not at all make me relax. “They all saw us together at the gala. They probably assume...well...”

Phoebe does not assume that. She’s on Rian’s team, but she’s on my side. Or, at least, my client’s side. She knows the nanobots aren’t coded well, and she won’t stand in my way. But any of Rian’s people who even suspect he didn’t come on my ship willingly will cause some trouble.

And I desperately don’t want any eyes on me.

My only saving grace is that no one from Rian’s team will actually be in Fetor’s offices for the launch of the nanobots. That’s the whole reason why my client needed me to acquire Rian; he has the clearance. But they could cause trouble on the outside.

“We’ll get in,” Rian says.

“Why are you so confident about that?” I ask.

“Because that’s the part of the plan I came up with.”

And that’s the very reason I’m concerned.

4

Both my cuff and Rian’s have a little clock flashing in the corner of the display. As soon as we’re in the region of my mother’s home—which is linked toGlory’s residency code—our cuffs will ping the geo-tracker that we satisfied the rules for landing, and we’re good.

The timer still displays a solid hour and a half by the time the ferry reaches the northern dock in Xlendi Bay. Technically, Malta used to have two main islands—Malta itself, as well as the northern provincial Gozo. The development of the bridge city, New Venice, connected the two islands and covered up the smaller ones between them. Most tourist stops and wealthy residences are on the larger island. Most of the workers and poorer residents live on Gozo.

As Rian and I get off the ferry, we step into a crowd of locals, some of whom may recognize me or at least link me to my mother. I set a fast pace, keeping my head down and my sun shield hood up as I steer Rian away from the people offering ride services. “We can walk,” I tell him. Getting a transport will be more time and hassle than it’s worth; plus, it’ll draw attention.

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