by K. C. Cross
“I know,” I assure her. “And I think you’re right. I think these flowers might be the answer everyone is looking for.”
“And we have it,” she says. And do I detect a hint of sneaky in that statement? “We have the secret!” She cups my face with her hands and kiss my lips. I kiss her back but she pulls away. “OK, so this is…” Then she deflates a little. “Wait. Am I bumming you out right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Am I killing your cocky buzz? Because we just had… like, the most amazing sexual experience I might ever have in my entire life but my mind is going crazy right now fitting these puzzle pieces together and I need to get it out.”
God, I love her. So much. I love all her secrets and her psycho mind, and her light within, and her power to make a forest bloom like it’s never bloomed before.
So I say, “Go for it. I want to hear all your crazy plans and theories.”
She smiles at me. “OK, listen. This is what I think. I think Corla knows this secret too. And somehow she found these flowers before she came to Wayward Station for that creepy breeding ceremony. But I bet she didn’t tell anyone about it. So whenever they caught her and brought her back to Cygnian System after Tycho and Delphi were born, they thought they did this. The Cygnians thought that they were the ones who had the secret. But they didn’t. Only she did. So someone on the inside was helping her before she got to Wayward Station.”
“Or,” I say, “maybe someone on Wayward Station?”
“Oh, Luck! That’s true. I bet that’s right. Because if someone in Cygnian System had the secret flowers then there would be no need for Veila’s evil breeding station. But who? Who helped her on Wayward Station?”
“I don’t know, Nyleena. I have no clue who that could’ve been. I was fucking young. My life revolved around school. I knew a few other boys in the fighting arts classes. Because that’s mostly what I did. My father ran security. But I didn’t hang out with the higher-ups like Jimmy and Crux. Jimmy’s father was a diplomat and Crux’s father was the governor.”
“Do you think Crux’s father would’ve been the helper?”
“No fucking way,” I say. “No. Definitely not him.”
“Well, it had to be someone powerful. So Jimmy’s father?”
I shrug. “I didn’t know the guy.”
“Hmm,” Nyleena says. “Well, it would be nice to know that. It would be awesome, actually. Because then we’d have someone else on our side. And we can’t ask Corla who it was until she wakes up. So that sucks. But I guess it doesn’t matter. Somehow Corla got a hold of whatever essence is in these flowers and it got her pregnant that night she was with Crux. But they were never able to repeat that because they didn’t know.”
“And now we know,” I say. “It’s kind of a dangerous secret to have.”
“It is,” she agrees. “It is.” She pauses. Thinking. “What time is it? How far back did we go?”
“I don’t know,” I say. "No air screens in here.”
“We need to go. I need to get up in the Pleasure Prison. We need to pretend we don’t know anything, Luck. Baby ALCOR isn’t on our side. And neither is that Succubus. So I’m just gonna play along with this crazy scavenger hunt they sent me on and go tell Valor about Veila, then make him keep his promise about getting me in the Pleasure Prison. Then…” She looks at me. “I need your help.”
“You do?” I smile. I bow my head to her in deference. “This prince is at your service.”
She inhales deep and smiles. “That feels pretty good.”
“It really does,” I agree. Because this is real.
We’re a team now.
“You have to keep that Succubus occupied while I have a conversation with ALCOR,” Nyleena says. “He’s trapped, right?"
“Yup, locked up tight.”
“So no one can get to him? Or spy on him?”
“I don’t think so. Tray made sure that room they’re holding him in has every possible security measure. I saw it when I was in there last. We all had to agree to lock ALCOR up so I saw the layout. There’s a door that’s locked with virtual biometrics. I can open that for you. Then there’s another door you have to pass through before you get to the actual cell. That one you don’t need me for. So if I can keep the Succubus outside that first door with me while you go inside, no one will be able to hear what you say.”
She nods. “You’re good at this sneaky stuff.”
“That might be the highest compliment I can get from a true-blood silver schemer.”
She leans down and kisses me. “What about… ‘I love you?’”
I kiss her back and whisper, “I stand corrected.”
We get dressed and get back on the lift bot.
“How are we gonna get up?” Nyleena asks.
I follow her gaze to the canopy above me and see her point. “Shit.”
“There’s so many flowers.” She laughs.
“Well,” I say. “We’ll just have to force our way up. I have no idea where we’re even at in this forest. It could take us hours to find an exit without a lift bot.”
She hunches up her shoulders and grins. And suddenly I see her the way she probably was.
Before she was nine.
Before they cut her open and told her she held the power of destruction inside her body.
“Come on,” I say, extending her my hand.
She takes it and we step onto the lift bot together. Then we both look up and laugh. “Do it,” she says.
“Here goes nothin’,” I say, then ask the bot to take us up.
We hit a barrier of enormous flower petals immediately. And all sorts of glittery dust begins to rain down on our shoulders, and hair, and everywhere. So that by the time we push our way up through the top of the canopy we are covered in it.
Pink-purple prince and princess.
“I love this day,” Nyleena says, twirling around to take in the view below us.
The trees on the edge of the ring perimeter didn’t grow. But the ones in the middle sure did. They are the same height now. Just one flat rooftop of flowers.
Massive flowers. So many it’s like a carpet and for a moment I dream about walking across it. Barefoot, holding Nyleena’s hand.
And I laugh.
I laugh.
Because it’s a sweet kind of fantasy. Something teenage Luck and Nyleena would try. And succeed. Somehow, we’d scheme up a way to walk across a carpet of space orchids.
We would.
We’d do it.
We’d break all the laws of artificial gravity and live our dream for real.
It takes us a while to find the terrace where we entered. The only way I can find it in this new overgrown forest is because there’s a pipe that controls the watering system that acts as a landmark.
But when I open the door and we walk back into the unit on seventy-one, something happens. Something truly weird.
We blink and then we’re standing outside the Pleasure Prison control room like all this never happened.
“What the hell?” Nyleena says, twirling around.
I open my air screen and check the time. “Holy shit,” I say.
“What?”
“We lost time all right. We’re back in this morning, Nyleena. We lost a whole day.”
“What?” she says, opening up her air screen.
“Look,” I say, pulling up my tracking app. “This records everywhere I go during the day. According to this we haven’t even gone into the spin node yet. We lost the whole day.”
Nyleena frowns. Then cocks her head. Then looks at me. Then smiles.
“What?” I say.
“If we didn’t go into the spin node then… I never had a conversation with Booty. Or Jimmy and Delphi. Or Baby ALCOR.”
“Fuckin’ A. And I never went to see Crux. And we never got in any fights, either.”
“I like that part,” she whispers.
“Me too.” I smile at her. “Hey, and there’s no purple and pink glitter d
ust on us.”
“I guess we never had naked sex either.”
“I guess we’ll have to do it again.”
She giggles. “OK, but this is good. Because while I did prove that Baby ALCOR was lying about shit and he can’t be trusted, he doesn’t know it. Only we know it. The whole day is different now.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Apocalypse averted?”
She nods. “I think so. At very least… we slowed it down, Luck.”
“Best-case scenario.”
“Now what?” she asks.
“We go in,” I say. “Valor will probably be there, so that’s good. And… you work your scheming magic, Valor delivers on his promise to get Tray to let you inside the Pleasure Prison, but I have to go with you. So we need to stand firm on that if he puts up a fight. Because honestly, this whole thing with you needing to find info for everyone is very suspicious if you ask me. It could be that they have some kind of Nyleena plan going that we don’t understand, ya know?”
“Oh, I know,” she says. “I’ve felt the same way these past few days. It’s weird.”
“OK, so that’s it. You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
We nod. Then I lead her over to the entrance to the control room and go inside. The hallways are quiet, and when we get to the actual control room for the first time I am relieved to see that Valor and Tray are both in there.
I palm my hand across the biometric lock and the doors open.
Valor and Tray both turn around to look at us. And they both also have weird looks on their faces.
“What?” I ask.
They look at each other. Then back at me. Then at each other again. And then, at the same time, they both say, “Nothing.”
I look at Nyleena. She looks at me. And we both smile.
They felt it. They felt that time shift. I’m sure of it. But they don’t know what happened.
“I have that information you requested,” Nyleena says.
“You do?” Valor says, once more looking at Tray.
“I do. Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?”
“Hit me,” Valor says, then leans back in his chair and folds his arms.
“OK,” Nyleena says. She glances at me real fast, but catches her doubts and returns her gaze to Valor. “Jimmy isn’t Veila’s one. She made some kind of DNA signature scrambler to match the one he’s been taking for years to fool him into thinking they were fated. But it was a lie.”
Tray and Valor exchange another quick look.
“You are her one, Valor,” I say. And then I tell him about the conversation I had with Veila in the hallway back on Lair just before I shot her.
He’s not surprised. So maybe he knew and this whole act of making Nyleena hunt down this information was bullshit. Or maybe he just suspected and this was the final proof he was looking for.
Either way, there’s not much in the way of reaction from my brother, Valor.
“So…” Nyleena says, breaking the silence. “You owe me a trip inside the Pleasure Prison. And Luck too.”
Tray and Valor both glare at me. But I put up a hand. “I’m not letting her go in there alone. Are you fucking crazy? She doesn’t know her way around. Plus, I need to open the door so she can see Asshole.”
“I could open the door,” Tray says.
“Yeah. So can I. It’s not a big deal.” I pause. “Unless it is?” I ask. “And there’s something you two would like to tell me.”
“No,” Valor says. “It’s cool.” He glances at Nyleena. “Thanks, princess. I appreciate you figuring that all out for me. Not quite sure how you got it done so fast. But… whatever. Congrats. You’re a class-A schemer.”
Nyleena blows on her fingernails and pretends to polish them on her t-shirt. And it occurs to me that she’s not quite the fashionable, super-put-together, color-coordinated princess she was a few days ago.
It feels like we’ve matured lifetimes in that short span of time.
“So we need two pods,” I say. “Where do you want us?”
Tray looks at his pod. Like… if it ever came down to this he was gonna put Nyleena in there. I shudder at that thought. It just feels… dangerous. And I’m very glad that things worked out the way they did so that never came to pass.
“Follow me,” Tray says.
We do. And we end up in another small room with several empty pods. I can practically feel Nyleena’s heat building inside her when she realizes that Tray had extra empty pods this whole time.
What is he up to?
I don’t know. But this chance right here might be the only one I get to figure it out.
Tray starts fucking with a control panel and two of the pod lids open up with a hiss.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Not joining us, brother?”
“Not this time,” Tray says.
And maybe, for the first time in decades, I see the old Tray. The one I used to know back on Wayward Station. The person he used to be before they did whatever it was they did that changed him.
“You sure?” I ask him. “I could use the help.”
If he understands what that means, he doesn’t show it. Just shoots me one of those classic sideways grins of his and smiles. Then nods and says, “You got this, Luck. I’ll see you on the other side.”
I nod back, then turn to Nyleena and say, “Your chariot, Princess.”
She climbs in. I climb in.
And then the lids cover us and needles puncture my skin. One in my arm, one in my neck, and a prickly cap that fits over my head.
All of it hurts.
I didn’t warn Nyleena about this and should’ve. But it’s too late now.
The pod beeps and the thin screen film that covers the inside of the pod lid lights up with options and vital signs.
And then the countdown begins.
And once it gets to zero there’s a whooshing sound. Like wind. But not wind. It’s the sound of my consciousness—the essence that is me—being sucked into another realm.
And then we are there.
“Holy shit,” Nyleena says, holding her head in her hands. “That fucking hurt!”
“Sorry,” I say. “I should’ve warned you. I just forgot, I guess.”
“I feel like my brain was just sucked out of my skull.”
“You’re not far off.” I chuckle. Then I reach for her hand and tug her along with me as I move down a dark hallway. “Come on. Let’s do this. I don’t like this place. We should not stay long.”
“Where is everyone?”
“This is a private room. The game and all those realms are somewhere else.”
We turn a corner and I’m expecting the door to where Asshole is being held, but we bump right into Succubus instead.
“Can I help you?” she asks. She’s a proper fucking demon. Can I just say that up front? This bitch is red and black from head to fucking toe. Spiral horns coming out the side of her head. A tail swishes out behind her. It’s tipped with an arrow. Not something that has the shape of an arrow, either. An actual arrow. Silver. Sharp. And I know that hidden inside that devil body is a superpower concerning that tail.
“Yeah,” I say. “Nyleena has an appointment with Asshole. So if you could… you know, get the fuck out of our way, I’d appreciate that.”
She pauses. And we all know what that means. She’s running options in her AI brain. Scenarios that probably include the probability of her winning this little argument and how badly she could hurt me without getting her ass deleted from the station core database.
I raise one eyebrow at her and say, “Don’t even think about it. Maybe you know this, maybe you don’t. But if I’m the only Harem Station brother in this virtual at the moment, and I am, then I am the motherfucking boss, bitch. And I will not hesitate if you cross me.”
“Well, you’re spunky,” she quips. “And, I might add, a little bit overreactive.”
“This station is mine. You’re here with my permission. You got that?”
“Calm down,�
�� she says, moving out of the way of the door.
I walk forward quickly, palm the biometrics, and the door hisses open. “Go,” I tell Nyleena. “And make it quick.”
I say this without ever taking my eyes off Succubus.
Nyleena says nothing. Just slips through the open door and I pull it shut behind her.
“Why are you acting this way?” Succubus asks.
I lean my back against the door and fold my arms over my chest too, indicating this is a standoff.
“Because I don’t think I like you,” I say. “I don’t think we need you.”
“You need him to cooperate, don’t you?”
“He’s still in there, isn’t he? So why are you here again?”
“I can’t force him to cooperate. He’s got some kind of anchor program running that cannot be overridden.”
“Hmmm,” I say. But inside I’m thinking, Thank fuck. Because if this demon girl ever got control of the Asshole we’d be good and fucked right now.
“You know he’s hiding things, right?”
I laugh at that. Like… loud. “When hasn’t been ALCOR hiding things?”
“They’re dangerous things.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“OK,” she says. She uncrosses her arms and saunters a few steps towards me. Her tail—that dangerous tail that is surely hiding a nefarious purpose—swishes around her ass as she stares me in the eyes. “I will.”
“Let’s hear it,” I say.
Her pupils dilate until her eyes are all black, then pull back, contracting into something almost normal. “You have no idea what he is, do you?”
“Is this a Q&A? I thought you were gonna enlighten me?”
“He’s a monster, Luck.”
“So am I, Succubus. And so are you.”
“Acknowledged,” she says. “I want him,” she says. “You don’t need him. Give him to me.”
I want to laugh. Very badly. But I hold it in. “Well, there’s a problem with that.”
“What problem?”
“I want him too. He’s more real than that Baby. Why don’t you take the Baby?”
“I don’t want the Baby.”
“Hmm. Well, sorry. I’m not giving up ALCOR.”
“That’s not your ALCOR.”