by L H Whitlock
The Kaidillan’s cold tone broke through Brock’s thoughts. “Now, now. This next stage is very fragile. All must go as planned, but enough of this. Let us applaud our heroes; those who gave themselves to the plan; those who made all this possible.” Spotlights illuminated around the room, each shinning on a different person, all in varying stages of perfection. Brock squinted as a light cast over him. His throat dried up. How do they know where I am?
Choreographed applause sounded through the room, coming to an abrupt stop the moment the Kaidillan held up his hand.
“Now, followers, we will be to Vladillan soon. Once we arrive I’ll release your instructions.”
The eerie chant echoed through the room once more and Brock found himself mimicking their words. He glanced at Alyssa, who mumbled along, stumbling over a word every now and then. Thankfully, the Developers around them didn’t seem to notice; their gazes remained fixed on the Kaidillan.
Brock’s body seemed stiff and unwilling to listen to his own commands. His entire conscious only noticed one thing: the Kaidillan.
Just as quickly as the metal deity had appeared, he was gone, though Brock couldn’t remember seeing him leave. All at once, the Developers began filing out of the room wordlessly. Brock followed their lead, an unexplained chill finding its way to his skin despite the clinging jumpsuit.
8
How did the Developers know that Lily and the team were in the Avier nebula? He had to warn them. Brock sucked in a deep breath and wiped his palms on his thighs as he followed Alyssa down the hallway.
He needed to get rid of her for a bit and see what he could find. There must be a way to work the RAB that came with the slender suit and reach out to Lily and make sure they were okay. He scratched his beard, more in thought than necessity.
“Hey… I—” Brock began, but Alyssa turned on her heel and interrupted him.
“I have a meeting I need to attend. Can you find your way back to your room from here?”
Fuck no. “Yeah, no problem.”
“Great, I’ll see you tonight. A mentor needs to be available at all times.” Her grin didn’t seem to reach her eyes.
Brock nodded. Alyssa activated the Lift pull and a tube sucked her into the ceiling.
Brock stared at it for several seconds before breaking out of his trance and hurrying down the hallway. He wasn’t about to question his one moment of luck; he didn’t know when he would get another.
He dropped in and out of hallways until he became completely, utterly lost. For such a large ship the place appeared to be a ghost town. He only ran into a few Developers and none seemed eager to converse, which was fine by him. He certainly didn’t want to talk to any of those sons of bitches.
How many lissdrops had he used? He couldn’t remember. He learned that he could use them on any of the tiles with a silver outline. Some didn’t work—he assumed he didn’t have clearance or it was locked.
Whereas the hallways on previous levels didn’t have doorways or any distinguishing features, the hallways on his current level were lined with doors, most of them open. He peered inside as he walked past. There were many mechanic rooms where machines designed advancements ranging from eyes to torsos. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but this wasn’t it. He activated the lissdrop and went down another level.
He landed easily on his feet—he had a lot of practice by now. This level appeared to be designated for weapon control and design. Unlike most levels, this one was bustling with Developers, so Brock quickly activated the lissdrop and fell to the next level.
He walked down the hallway, stepping lightly and taking small breaths to ease the wild beat of his heart. He peeked inside the doorways as he walked past several rooms full of large computers. Cyborgs with countless arms balanced on a wheel and punched away on multiple computers at the same time, working at lightning speed. Others were plugged into the systems, like flash drives. None seemed to notice him.
A few doors down he found an empty computer room. He slipped inside, glanced over his shoulder, and then shut the door with a press of a button. A holo-tablet hung from the wall. Brock grabbed it and scrolled through several screens until he came to a drop down menu that read: Schedule, Recycle, Renegade, Hilians, Oratio.
Brock tapped on the ‘Schedule’ option and a red beam shot out from the computer into his eyes.
“Shit!” He staggered backward and stumbled into a monitor. Blinking rapidly, he rubbed his burning eyes and slowly opened them again. ‘Access denied’ flashed across the holo-tablet.
He set the tablet down and moved to the monitor attached to the computer tower with a tangle of wires. He swiped across the screen and came to the same menu. A light emitted from below the monitor and a message prompting him for his data chip flashed across the screen.
Data chip… he studied his right arm and held it under the light. His cyborg arm shifted and a chip popped out of his wrist. He removed it and entered it into the computer.
‘Downloading data’ flashed across the screen, then his chip popped out and the screen read ‘complete.’ He was about to enter it into the tablet when the door slid open. He shoved the chip back into his arm and stepped away from the computer just before a Developer entered the room.
The cyborg stared at him with gleaming, red eyes and a mouth that was twisted with pointed teeth. A single large gear sat in the middle of his chest, right above an abdomen consisting of roped metals. His two arms looked very similar to Brock’s—the same model? The cyborg took another step forward and the door slid shut, basking the two in privacy.
“Warrior, what is your name? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
Brock’s eyes shifted from left to right, desperate to find some sort of clue. “Er… I’m sorry. I just got back from being undercover. I… I’m still a bit out of sorts.” Brock tried to keep his voice monotone to mimic the cyborgs, but it sounded odd to his ears.
The machine studied Brock for several moments. “Ah, I see.” In one fluid motion the cyborg stepped forward and pressed one of his fingers to Brock’s right forearm. Then the cyborg paused, the only movement a flickering across his eyes.
“Aldridge?” The machine questioned.
Brock swallowed hard and gave a slight nod. “Er… At your service.” He hoped that was something they said.
“Hmm, Aldridge, seems time has done you well. Very well.”
Shit, that’s not a good sign.
“And you seem to be far beyond your jurisdiction. You’re only permitted to be on levels eighteen to eighty-four. How is it that you got down here?”
“Uh… I think there is something wrong with my lissdrop.”
Brock met the cyborg’s gaze and held. Silence passed between them, so thick and heavy it seemed to become an entity of its own. Thankfully, the door slid open revealing a panicked Alyssa.
“Oh! Aldridge, there you are! What are you doing all the way down here?”
The cyborg looked Alyssa up and down. “Ah, well, this explains a lot. I believe you would benefit from a new mentor, Aldridge. She comes from a faulty gene pool.”
“I have not been determined faulty.”
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“Mentoring Aldridge is one of the responsibilities assigned to me and me alone. It is in my rights to fulfill my obligations.”
“As it is. Now, neither of you have access down here, so I suggest you leave.”
“We were just on our way out.” With that, Alyssa motioned for Brock to follow and it was all he could do not to run after her. The cyborg’s gaze never left him as he walked past, a flickering light running through his eye the entire time.
9
Alyssa’s heart pounded to the rhythm of her feet as she hurried Brock out of the computer room. Once outside, she immediately activated on her lisspull and grabbed onto Brock’s arm, pulling the two of them back to the hallways attached to their sleeping quarters. Her stomach dropped with the sudden, dramatic motion.
�
�Alyssa…”
She shushed him with a wave of her hand and briskly walked down the hallway to the designated panel that would take the two to Brock’s sleeping quarters and pressed the button. She grabbed onto his arm, forcing him to follow.
Only when the two were alone in the room did Alyssa’s fear turn to anger. She turned to face Brock and glared at him, her hands balled into fists. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed. “Why were you down there?”
“I was, er... just trying to figure out why I don’t remember anything. I was seeing if maybe someone could upload the information I seem to be missing.”
Heat rushed up her neck. She was risking everything and he was trying to ruin it. Moron! “You’re not missing the information because you need an upload. Your attachment should have linked to your brain by now and pulled the memories. There must be something wrong with the upgrades.” More like this man never had the information to begin with. If it were in his mind, even if it was buried, he would have remembered by now.
“Well… maybe you should fix my upgrade.”
Alyssa’s nails dug into her palms. “It’s not my doing. I don’t install the mind chips. What’s funny is other functions seem to be working just fine, but not your memory. It’s almost like you never knew to begin with.”
Brock’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he forced a swallow. “Maybe it just needs more time? I was assigned to a top team, maybe my memories were suppressed more than others.”
Liar, I should just out him now! The Developers hadn’t even assigned troops to infiltrate the Renegades’ ranks. “Sure,” she bit out. “That must be it.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
Alyssa punched a few buttons on her RAB, then tilted the device so he could see the map with the blinking dots on it: one for her and one for him. “Everyone is tracked. See, there’s you and me.”
Brock looked at the screen for a moment before scratching his beard. “Oh…”
“And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Everyone can see you. You can’t attract attention to yourself. Especially when—especially when you don’t remember things yet.”
Brock nodded. “Right… I didn’t remember. Why Aldridge?”
“Aldridge was one of the options for the missing Developers. When I went to put in your arm, there was no identity linked to you.”
“I must have been lost in the records or something. Maybe that’s linked to my memory problem.”
“Maybe.”
“Just give it a few days, okay? I’m sure it will straighten out.”
Alyssa stared at him for a moment. She didn’t know why she was bothering. The Developers already knew he wasn’t one of them, so why did she risk everything protecting him? Was it his playfulness? His stature? The hope that there was someplace out there filled with people like him and she would finally belong? Really she believed it was probably due to the fact that he was so similar to her, and she couldn’t stomach the thought of what would happen if his team were caught. She couldn’t put anyone through that, even her worst enemy.
“Well,” she said, eager to switch topics. “It’s lights out soon.” She wasn’t in the mood to talk with him again, so she pressed the button to activate the sleeping pad and hopped into bed, not bothering to change into her sleeping attire.
She rolled so her back was facing Brock and she heard him shift uncomfortably. “Er…where do I sleep?”
“There’s only one bed in the room, and it’s not appropriate for a mentor to leave their student when they can’t remember anything. There’s enough room for the both of us.” Really she didn’t want him getting another chance to potentially ruin things.
The lights faded and the bed shifted as Brock got on. His body brushed briefly against hers and she jerked away, pressing herself up against the wall. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but her interrogation from just hours before kept circling in her head.
***
“Please! You must understand! It was a small violation. I have been without incident for months!” Alyssa pleaded as she looked up at her interrogator.
The form hovering above floated closer to her, its head coming into view. The machine was designed with an assortment of gears, all fitted together to resemble a somewhat humanoid shape. Hundreds of wires hung around its neck. A few reached out, latching onto her temples and chest. She cried out in fear as an electric shock coursed through her body.
The machine’s metallic voice filled every corner of the dark, cold room. “Public tears. That brings your violations to a staggering amount.”
“Please, I just need another chance.”
“You’ve had many.”
“Please, just one more. If I was allotted an advancement, my emotions would be under control. I’m too old to not have a buffering system.”
“You will be entrusted a task, if you succeed another hearing will be set up.”
“Anything.”
“You must find out from your mentee where Ulrick is.”
“Why would my mentee know where Ulrick is?”
Electricity coursed through her, scrambling her brain and jolting her body. “He is with the Hilians or Renegade. It doesn’t matter which. He knows where the team is. When he reaches out we will track him.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Another shock radiated through her, threatening to empty her stomach.
“He will reach out. If you don’t succeed we will terminate the both of you in one solar day.”
“Bu-but he doesn’t have the proper clearance to use the RAB.”
“We will handle that.”
Guilt clutched her chest. What was she going to do? She stifled a groan. She would be killed if she didn’t complete this task, but if she did, she would be given a chance to be normal, like the Developers. But could she kill a bunch of people just to save herself?
10
Brock tried figuring out the RAB all night, but Alyssa kept stirring beside him and he didn’t want to risk the chance of getting caught. Each time he tried to activate the Comm in his RAB; he was asked for a code and shocked when he either didn’t provide it or entered the wrong digits.
As hard as Brock tried, it seemed impossible to ignore the heat of the woman next to him and he found himself balancing on the edge of the bed for fear he would touch her and potentially have a physical display or emotional violation. He forced the thoughts of said violations—as enticing as they may be—from his mind.
Alyssa shifted again and gave a soft groan. Despite his attempts, his groin tightened at the sound. He could listen to her little groans forever.
“How’d ya sleep?” He asked, attempting to diffuse his one-sided arousal.
“Okay,” she responded groggily. “I forgot to change into my night outfit and was tossing and turning all night.”
Damn, so he didn’t have to sleep in this thing. He had spent most of the night sweating and trying to find a comfortable position. He was about to say something when his stomach growled.
“When’s it feeding time?” he asked with a pat of his abdomen.
“Oh, gee, sorry. I forgot about food, we should have eaten last night.” Hopping off the end of the bed, she pressed another button and a hole appeared in the wall filled with nutrition bars and water. Brock grabbed one, sat on the stool at the table, and tore open the package. He took a large bite and nearly gagged. “What the hell is this shit? Tastes like dried krump eggs.”
Alyssa’s lips twisted. “It doesn’t taste like anything. It’s just protein and vitamins.”
“Well, do you have any sauce or something? What else is there to eat?”
“There is nothing else.” Alyssa yawned. “That’s what we eat every day. It has the perfect balance of nutrients to stimulate the body. Nothing excessive that would cause weight gain, blood sugar spikes, or lethargy.”
“Well… I’m a lot bigger than you. Don’t I get some protein or something?”
“You’re allotted more bars than I am, so if you’re still hun
gry help yourself. I can only have three a day.”
Grumbling, Brock took a bite of the stale bar. “Don’t you like to have a real meal every now and then? Like grunza worms or flat cake?”
Alyssa raked her fingers through her hair. Although she had just woken up, her long blue-black hair was still sleek and straight, like she had just done it. “I haven’t heard of those. Do you mean like indulgence foods?” She whispered the word as though it were a sin.
“Oh, I suppose you’re right. Just got used to being undercover and all,” Brock quickly supplied.
After a moment of pause, Alyssa gave a brief nod. “That’s understandable. Too long eating excessively can become addicting. You’ll get used to the bars again and it gets easier the closer you are to perfection.”
Brock shrugged and quickly swallowed the remaining bites, more thankful it was over than he was for actually eating.
“So… I wanted to talk about this last night… the Kaidillan, I didn’t remember how… remarkable he was.”
“Oh yes, quite remarkable.”
“He said we would be given a task once we get to Vladillan. What will that be?”
“Only his graciousness knows.” She swung her legs beneath her as she answered. “My task will be to make sure you’re adapting to life around here.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today?”
“Well, we’re not permitted to do too much, especially after finding us out of our zone. So I’m thinking we should go to the gym and you can try out your new advancement.”
“We have a gym? I thought we weren’t supposed to spend too much time on our flesh forms.”
“We’re not but it’s easier to make advancements on a fit form, and it helps build up organ capacities so it’s easier to undergo surgery.”
“Right.”
Alyssa grinned, then jumped to her feet. “Are you done eating?”
“Yeah, maybe forever…” Brock grumbled.