Lady Luck

by K. C. Cross

  “Holy shit!” I laugh. “Where do I get one of you? Delphi is so lucky!”

  She ignores me and continues to type in commands.

  “OK, look for something about…” And I’m just about to say Earth. Because that was the whole reason we came down here. But at the last moment, I change my mind. “Look for something about the Pleasure Prison, Flicka. Plans. Blueprints. Anything that will tell me if there’s some secret hidden in there.”

  She hesitates for a moment.

  “What?” I ask. “Luck wants to know what Tray and Valor are up to and believe me, after what just happened between us up in my quarters, I owe him. I have to find this out.”

  Still, she hesitates. Then she gets back to work, but I notice almost immediately that she is not looking for Pleasure Prison plans. She’s looking for Earth.

  And there’s a hit.

  Which is totally interesting and the reason I came in the first place, but not what I asked her to do.

  “Flicka,” I whisper. “Look for the Pleasure Prison stuff first. That’s more important.”

  But again, she isn’t listening. Or she’s deliberately ignoring my request. Which… see? Totally the reason people don’t keep dragonbee bots. They’re just not team players.

  “Flicka,” I say again, a little bit bitchy this time. “I’m not going to ask again. I want to know about—”

  “Can I help you with something, Nyleena?” a female voice purrs.

  I whirl around, stunned that someone was able to sneak up on me so quietly.

  But that mystery dies almost immediately because this isn’t just any old someone.

  It’s the Mighty Minions AI, Succubus.

  All dressed up in demon red and black.

  Looking pret-ty fucking pissed off that I’m down here fucking with her borrowed systems.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - LUCK

  So… feelings.

  Right now I’m conflicted on how I feel.

  Am I angry that Nyleena knocked me out with a burst of light so powerful I slammed against the door and I might have cracked a fucking rib or two?

  Yes. Yes, I am. You might even call me furious. Or irate. Or possibly even enraged.

  But then, when I think back on how I happened to be here, crumpled up on the floor like a pile of old clothes in the doorway of Nyleena’s bedroom, I get sad.

  That scar. What the fuck did they do to her?

  And then I feel guilty for not ever wondering before now. Like… what is my problem? Just because Delphi and Lyra seemed to escape the Cygnians with no permanent damage doesn’t excuse my ignorance when it comes to Nyleena.

  She is as different from them as night is from day.

  You only have to look at her to see that. Forget about what’s inside her. Even if you didn’t know she was a weapon, one glance and you get it.

  She’s silver.

  They’re pink.

  They have totally different jobs so it stands to reason that they had totally different… training? Is that the right word? I’m not sure.

  But that scar, though.

  Son of a god, I’ve never seen that on a living person.

  Once, when I was on a station near the binary stars Iota Apodus I was kind of involved in a murder. Not the actual murder-er. But I was there. And the Iota Apodians have this weird custom where they make all the murder suspects go view the dead body they may or may not be responsible for killing, and this particular dead body was in the middle of the autoautopsy. All sealed up inside a pod as robot arms split it open and scanned it, then closed it back up.

  It’s a really quick process. Like couple minutes tops. So I witnessed the whole thing from start to finish and when it was done that guy’s chest had a scar like the one I just saw on Nyleena.

  Except, of course, he was dead and she isn’t.

  So do I feel angry? Or sad? Or guilty?

  I don’t know.

  My air screen pops open with an alarm and a red screen to match, letting me know there’s an emergency.

  Succubus appears.

  “Uh… hello there,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “Do you know where your princess is?”

  “No…” I’m about to elaborate further, explain that she knocked me out with a beam of hot light, but then decide it’s probably better not to.

  “Well, right now she’s in lockup.”

  “Fuck. What’d she do?”

  “She broke into the Baby ALCOR data core.”

  “What? What was she looking for?”

  “Well, the dragonbee bot she lured into this little scheme tells me she was supposed to be looking for a planet called Earth.” Succubus pauses here.

  For what? I have no clue. But I feel like I’m supposed to say something. So I say, “OK.”

  “Did you know about that?”

  “I mean… everyone seems to be talking about it, but no. I didn’t know she was going to break into the data core.”

  “Is that all you have to say about the subject?”

  “The subject?” I ask. “Are you asking me about Earth? Or about Nyleena’s little impromptu crime spree? Because I get the feeling you’re asking about Earth.”

  She moves on without directly answering my question. “Did you instruct her to look for information about the Pleasure Prison?”

  “What?”

  “Luck,” Succubus says with practiced patience. She isn’t angry. At least she’s not displaying anger. But that could just be how she was trained on Mighty Minions. It’s a family resort, after all. Surely she has been programmed with family-friendly responses. “I do not like to repeat myself,” she continues. “Did you, or did you not, instruct Nyleena to go poking around looking for secrets inside the Pleasure Prison?”

  “Are there secrets in there?”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  And now… yeah. I have settled on an emotion and it’s anger. So I say, “I’m sorry, who the fuck are you again? Because I’m Luck. And I don’t answer to you any more than I answer to Baby ALCOR. And actually, you aren’t even a station partner. So I don’t have to answer shit when you ask. You, on the other hand, do have to answer me. So let me ask my question again, because I don’t mind repeating myself if that’s what it takes to get what I’m after. What the fuck. Is happening. Inside the Pleasure Prison?”

  Another pause.

  And something you need to understand about an AI who pauses like this. They can run simulations in their artificial minds by the trillions in a pause of five whole seconds.

  Her pause isn’t that long, but it’s long enough to know she’s running a lot of them before she answers me.

  “You’ll have to ask Tray. He’s in charge.”

  “Right,” I huff.

  “In the meantime, security would greatly appreciate that you pick up your princess from lockup ASAP. They’re tired of her.”

  And then the screen blinks out.

  Mother of suns. I massage my temple because my head suddenly hurts like hell. I might’ve hit it on the door when Nyleena blasted me.

  I get to my feet, realize my pants are down at my knees because we were in the middle of having sex when everything suddenly went sideways, and pull them up, tucking my cocks away—still hard, which is just fucking wonderful—and zip up.

  What am I going to do with this girl?

  I’m stuck with her for the duration. Like… until one of us dies we are connected.

  Then I try to picture life without her. Not just separated, but her dead. And that triggers the sadness again.

  God, I’m like a teenage girl with all the emotions flowing through me right now.

  I jerk off in her bathroom real quick—because I refuse to bail Nyleena out of jail with two hard-ons—and then head down to lockup to pick up my naughty princess.

  She’s sitting on a bench looking like she’s about to murder everyone in the cell with a hot beam of light when I show up.

  Usually they don’t make you go back to the
lockup area to pick up your criminal friend, but apparently all the old rules have been rewritten when it comes to Nyleena.

  Flicka is there too. Buzzing away busily on Nyleena’s shoulder when I walk up to the laser beams that denote the perimeter of the cell.

  All the other occupants—mostly drunk men of various races, and nannybots—are pushed up against the other side of the cell where there’s an actual wall, and not a fire-hot fence of plasma, keeping their distance from my princess and her new friend.

  “Well, well, well,” I say. “Look who fell in the well.”

  Nyleena shoots me an angry frown. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “It means you got something you deserved.”

  “Did I?”

  I sigh, then look over my shoulder to the security guy shadowing me. “You want me to take the dragonbee bot off your hands too?”

  “I’d really appreciate that, Luck,” the dude says in a very deep voice. He’s a huge Dracoian warrior with dull, gunmetal-gray organic armor covering his whole body. His eyes are white with no color at all and he’s got dozens of white tentacles around his mouth that dance when he speaks.

  I’ve always found that creepy as fuck and every time a Dracoian speaks to me the only thing I see is the mouth, but being creeped out by the way other races look is frowned upon here on Harem, so I try to act natural around the Dracoians I interact with. So I look this guy in the eyes.

  Which are blank, and white, and also creepy as fuck.

  I never said I was a very evolved guy.

  “Can we go now?” Nyleena says, getting to her feet.

  Flicka flies off her shoulder and slips right through lines of hot plasma before the guard turns them off to let Nyleena out.

  “Show-off,” Nyleena grumbles, slipping past me, just in time before the plasma fence is turned back on.

  Flicka doesn’t seem to care. In fact, she just buzzes right ahead of us like she’s got places to go and people to see.

  But another guard at the door is shaking her head as Flicka arrives. She points to me and says, “You’re with him. So I don’t care what you got stuffed up that ass of yours, you’re gonna wait.”

  It’s a short wait, since Nyleena and I arrive a few seconds later. But the guard seems pleased that Flicka is buzzing her complaints for that small interval of time.

  I stop at the guard. “I’m not responsible for this thing, right? I mean… I already got this one to deal with.”

  “What the hell?” Nyleena growls.

  But I shoot her a look that says, Shut your mouth, Princess. And she takes me seriously.

  “Sorry,” the guard says. “But you know the rules, Luck. The dragonbee bot is only here on special directive from the Baby. Someone has to take her to Jimmy.”

  “Fine,” I mumble, then point to Flicka and say, “You better stay close. I’m not in the mood for any more bullshit.” And I shoot Nyleena a similar warning in the form of a glare.

  She has the good sense to not say anything.

  “One more thing,” the door guard says. “The princess here deleted her air screen account. So she can’t leave until it’s reactivated. It’s a condition of bail. Also, she needs to appear in court in ten spins.”

  “Fucking hell, Nyleena!” I say.

  “What?”

  “I’m not paying for your lawyer. Just so you know. So I hope you have a lot of credits saved because I’m getting the impression the Succubus doesn’t like you very much right now. And if you think the Baby will go easy on you because you’re mine, don’t count on it.”

  “I’m not yours,” she hisses.

  But the guard slips a bail bracelet on her that says Luck, and totally contradicts her little declaration.

  I smile at that. And I’m totally ready to get the hell out of here, but it takes another twenty minutes to reactivate her air screen account and fit a teeny-tiny leg bracelet on Flicka which, thankfully, says Jimmy instead of Luck. Because I have no desire to be responsible for her too.

  Once we’re out I ping Jimmy and tell him to pick up his bot at the Station History Museum.

  Because that’s where I’m taking Nyleena now.

  We’re going to sort this shit out.

  We have to. We’re soulmates.

  And I’m going to take the initiative and spill a secret or two.

  Then maybe… just maybe she will learn to trust me.

  We meet Jimmy in front of the museum. He is pissed and Delphi isn’t with him.

  “I didn’t tell her,” Jimmy explains. “She knows that no one is happy about Flicka living here and even though I’m pretty sure I can smooth this whole thing over with the Baby and the Succubus, I don’t need Delphi worrying about it right now.”

  I catch Nyleena smirking. Because if Jimmy gets Flicka off, he’ll get her off too.

  Whatever.

  I grab Nyleena’s hand and lead her into the museum.

  “What are we doing here?” she asks with attitude she has no good reason to have.

  “I’m going to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “Just wait and see, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Aren’t you going to yell at me for knocking you out earlier?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I sigh. “Because… I should’ve respected your privacy. I just didn’t know what you were hiding underneath your shirt.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Good. Because we’re not going to talk about you at all. We’re going to talk about me.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  I just smile. Because you know what? I’m a goddamned interesting dude. And what I’m about to show her might just change her mind about her plans for the future.

  We don’t stop at the first exhibit that asks who you want to be your guide. Whenever I come in here Little Luck automatically appears and starts telling me about his life.

  Which would be dumb, because his life is my life, except for the fact that Little Luck is actually an AI with his own life. So he’s always got a lot to say because he’s me. And I’m cool like that.

  All the Littles are AI copies of us. There’s a Little Jimmy living in here and a Little Crux, though they weren’t really that little when we arrived. And a Little Tray, who I sometimes visit in place of Real Tray because Real Tray creeps me out almost as much as that warrior guard back in the lockup. And a Little Valor, who I actually don’t care for because he’s turned into kind of a dick over the past decade.

  But there’s also a Little Draden and Serpint in here.

  Almost everyone who comes into the museum chooses to be shown around by Little Draden and Little Serpint. They were just too fun as kids.

  So after Draden died, in that in-between time after ALCOR died and before I left on Lady Luck to go back to work without Valor, I came in here a lot to talk to Little Draden.

  Little Serpint was always there too, because they were programmed to be a team forever in the museum. I think that’s why Real Serpint never came in here to visit Little Draden, even though he probably wanted to.

  Too painful to see himself with his best friend as they were as kids.

  So Little Luck says, “Hey, asshole,” as soon as he pops up in front of us. “Where the hell have you been for the last five hundred and seventy spins?”

  “Out,” I say. “Doing man stuff you can only dream about.”

  We bump fists and laugh. I like Little Luck. He’s pretty cool. But as soon as that’s done I say, “Hey, fuck off for a while, will ya? I’ve got things to show my princess here.”

  He waggles his eyebrows at me, then smiles at Nyleena and says, “Have fun, princess. And hey, when you get a chance? Can you ask Tray to make me a Little Nyleena? I could use the company.”

  I roll my eyes but before I can tell him to beat it, he disappears.

  “So what is this about?” Nyleena asks, turning to look at me.

  “I’m gonna show you something. And
I’m even going to explain it a little. Not everything, because I’ve been sworn to secrecy and I’m starting to think the Succubus AI has an ulterior motive for coming to Harem Station. But enough for you to get an idea of what I do for Harem and why it’s not really about scavenging for AI parts in junkyard stations.”

  She blinks at me. “Why, though?”

  “So you will trust me.” She starts to say something but I put up a hand to silence her. “I’m not asking you to spill your secrets today, Nyleena. But one day. If I share with you, then one day… you might share with me.”

  She shrugs. Like… Whatever. You do you.

  “OK,” I say. “Come with me.”

  I lead her into the first hallway. If you come in here with any of the Littles this room appears as the station the way we found it that first day we arrived. And depending on who your guide is, it shows a different part of that day. If you’re with Crux, it shows the upper level where we met ALCOR. If you’re with Jimmy, it highlights Xyla. Stuff like that.

  But since we’re not with a Little, the room stays blank when we pass through it. So does the next room, and the next one, and all the others we walk through.

  “I don’t get it,” Nyleena says. “Where’s all the exhibits? When I was in here before Little Luck took me into a whole bunch of rooms.”

  “Just… be patient. It’s a secret room that only ALCOR—Real ALCOR—and I knew about.”

  “Hmm,” she says.

  “Though from what you’ve told me, I suspect Little Luck knows something about it too. But not the real story. He doesn’t know about this.”

  Finally we get to a locked steel door with an old-fashioned combination lock on it. Real ALCOR once told me that this is an old-time vault. Totally mechanical. Analog, not digital. Meaning it can’t be hacked. You either know the combination of the safe or you don’t.

  And if you do, you just dial up those numbers in the right order and go inside and if you don’t… well, I guess if you have a lot of explosives you can get in. But even then, the initiation sequence inside can’t be activated digitally, either. So it does you no good to get inside unless you know that.