First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 418: Small Stop

"Or..." Xavier said, reaching up and starting to peel the bandages off his face, fingers working at the edge. "They’re also after the treasure."

The strip came loose slowly. Dried adhesive tugged at his skin, and he didn’t bother hiding the discomfort. The vehicle kept moving, suspension whining beneath them as the desert slid past outside.

"That’s possible," Klatos said. "But the timing doesn’t line up."

Xavier tossed the bandage aside. "The prison was built fifteen years ago. Bull hid information about his stash long before that. Whatever’s happening down there didn’t start because of the prison."

Klatos nodded. "What’s happening to my people didn’t start recently either. This has been building for generations. Each wave just gets uglier."

"Still," Xavier said, pulling the rest of the bandages free, "they’re moving faster now. More aggressive. Less patience. That usually means someone’s rushing for something."

Rin glanced at Arlen. "You’re law enforcement. Or close enough. Shouldn’t you be siding with the people getting crushed instead of watching this happen."

Arlen didn’t look offended. She didn’t even look surprised. "That idea works great in speeches."

She leaned back in her seat. "Law bodies don’t answer to governments out here. They answer to charters, funding boards, and whoever signs the maintenance contracts. Different agencies don’t share authority unless it benefits them, and none of that pays for food, housing, or keeping my people alive."

"So you just let it happen," Rin said.

"I pick which disasters I can afford to touch," Arlen replied. "Heroism doesn’t cover expenses, and systems don’t run on ideals."

Xavier let out a quiet breath and rubbed his jaw where the bandages had been. He looked at Rin. "You grew up off Earth. How are you this clueless about how space actually works?"

Rin stared at him. "How are you not?"

Xavier blinked. "What."

Rin pointed at him. "You’re asking questions like someone who just arrived yesterday. Everyone who isn’t Earth-born knows this stuff. Corporate zones, jurisdiction walls, population culling dressed up as redevelopment. This is basic. Just like how you don’t know, I don’t know either."

Klatos tilted his head. "He’s not wrong."

Arlen added, "You’re asking things people usually learn before their first off-world job."

Xavier went quiet.

He leaned back and stared at the ceiling of the vehicle, brow furrowing. "That doesn’t make sense. I should know this."

Rin smirked. "Maybe Jupiter’s lowering your IQ."

"Or you finally ran out of brain cells," Klatos said. "Happens with age."

Arlen glanced at Xavier’s face, now fully uncovered. "Could be the missile. Head trauma does wonders."

Xavier clicked his tongue. "Fuck all of you."

He shook his head once, then added, "Maybe it’s your combined influence. Three idiots in close proximity dragging me down with them."

Rin laughed. "Says the guy who didn’t know how space politics work."

Xavier snorted. "I need better companions. Ones who don’t actively make me dumber."

Arlen glanced at Xavier through the mirror while keeping one hand on the controls. "So where exactly do you want to go?"

Xavier shrugged slightly, still adjusting to the feel of his face without bandages. "Anywhere that isn’t a cell. A local village, a cheap motel, something with a bed and food. I need to rest, eat properly, and get in touch with my people."

Arlen brought up the map, layers unfolding over the windshield display as the vehicle cut through traffic. She scanned it for a few seconds, then tapped a point farther out. "There’s a district about thirty kilometers from here. Old transit hub. It has a motel, some shops, nothing fancy."

She paused, then added, "It’s got a reputation. Crime, gangs, enforcement doesn’t patrol much, especially at night. People who go there usually know what they’re getting into."

Xavier didn’t hesitate. "That’s fine."

Arlen looked at him again. "I’m serious. This isn’t a rough neighborhood. This is the kind of place where people disappear and nobody files reports."

"That still doesn’t matter," Xavier replied. "If something happens, I’ll deal with it."

Rin snorted quietly. "That’s reassuring."

Klatos watched the map zoom in on the district, eyes narrowing. "That area sits close to the lower boundary," he said. "A lot of displaced natives end up there."

"Even better," Xavier said. "Less eyes."

Arlen shook her head slightly and confirmed the destination. The route recalculated, shifting their trajectory away from the cleaner, brighter corridors of the upper city and toward darker lanes that didn’t bother hiding what they were.

As the vehicle picked up speed, Arlen reached over and turned on the radio.

Music filled the cabin immediately. It wasn’t anything Xavier recognized. The rhythm was uneven, layered with tones that didn’t follow human scales cleanly. Some of the vocals sounded mechanical, others organic, woven together with phrases in a language he didn’t understand, then abruptly switching to something closer to standard trade dialect.

Rin grimaced. "What the fuck is this."

"Local broadcast," Arlen said. "Jupiter-native mix. Old stuff, new stuff, mashed together."

Xavier leaned back and listened, letting the unfamiliar sounds wash over him. "It’s not bad," he said. "Weird as hell, but not bad."

Klatos tilted his head, wings shifting slightly. "That song’s older than the prison," he said. "They still play it in the lower districts."

The district announced itself before the map did.

Lights grew sparse and uneven, strips flickering between buildings that leaned too close together. The road surface changed from smooth composite to patched plates welded on top of older damage. Traffic thinned, but the kind that remained didn’t move predictably. Vehicles slowed to look. People stood where they shouldn’t have, watching instead of minding their own business.

Arlen eased off the throttle and let the vehicle roll in steady. "This is it," she said. "No clean borders. No real zoning. You cross into it and everyone knows."

Xavier looked out the window, eyes moving across faces, doorways, balconies with broken rails. "Yeah," he said. "Feels like it."

They didn’t miss the motel.

It sat near the end of a side street, a squat concrete structure with a vertical sign that had lost half its letters. Only three of the lights still worked, blinking out of sync. The place looked old, not abandoned, which somehow made it worse. People used it. People stayed there because they had nowhere else to go.

Arlen pulled in slowly and parked. The engine cut, and the sudden quiet made the attention more obvious.

Someone across the street stopped talking mid-sentence. A pair of men near a vendor stall turned fully toward the vehicle. A woman on a balcony leaned forward, eyes narrowing as she took in who had arrived and how they carried themselves.

Rin shifted in his seat. "We’re being sized up already."

"Of course we are," Arlen said. "You don’t roll in from the upper lanes at this hour without everyone wondering why."

Xavier opened the door and stepped out first.

That did it.

A few heads tilted. Someone muttered something that didn’t sound friendly. The way people looked at him wasn’t curiosity. It was calculation. They were deciding whether he was prey, trouble, or something that paid better if left alone.

Klatos followed, wings tight against his back, posture controlled but alert. The reaction to him was different. Recognition mixed in with suspicion. A few people looked away quickly, like they didn’t want to be seen staring.

Rin got out last, already irritated. "This place feels like it wants to start something."

Xavier glanced back at him. "Then let it."

They moved toward the motel entrance together. The front desk was visible through a dirty glass panel, a single figure inside watching them approach without pretending otherwise. Somewhere down the street, a laugh cut off too abruptly. A door closed. Another opened just enough for someone to look out.

Arlen stopped at the entrance and lowered her voice. "We’ve announced ourselves," she said. "From here on, nothing that happens is accidental."

Xavier reached for the door handle. "Good."

As they stepped inside, the street didn’t relax. If anything, it leaned in closer, waiting to see whether these newcomers would last the night or become another story people told quietly later.