by Dave Austin
"We'll catch that later." Jessy said, "I wouldn't be surprised if one more of them falls. She's always carrying multiple guns stashed in her clothes."
We kept carrying her. All that was odd to me. Multiple ships, diverse people, weapons falling from places I had never once seen as dangerous, and, above all, serial killers that lured me. I had always had a crush on danger, but this was more than that, this could be deadly. Jessy climbed the stairs and pulled Amelia up while I shoved her up her ass. No matter how good it was, the only thing that crossed my mind was how grateful I was that she was passed out, or most likely she would gouge out my arm or my eye just for having touched her.
Jessy went ahead. I wrapped my arm around Amelia's hip and carried her to the infirmary where Jessy was already cooking up a sticky bluish mixture. She also had, besides her, some bandages, scissors, and equipment that, to me, looked like it was for knitting.
"Go fetch the man. I'll take it from here."
"Is she going to be okay?"
"Yeah. Even the soldiers I knew weren't as tough as she was. She'll be as good as new in a few days. Plus, she loves scars. She says they're the mark of a warrior. Don't ask me where the hell she got that idea."
"Don't you know what her childhood was like?"
"We have no idea. She doesn't talk about those things." Jessy answered me as she laid a wet cloth on Amelia's forehead, "Go get the man. The sooner we get him on our ship, the sooner you go pick those boxes and we get out of here."
"What's going to happen to him?" I asked, standing at the infirmary's door.
"To the man or the killer?"
"Both, while we're at it."
"Well, we'll drop him off at the nearest spaceport, where you'll be staying too. She'll be more complicated. Depends on what Matilda finds out about her. We'll probably have to take her to some high-risk prison."
"I've heard so much about it. They're the ones that roam through space so no one can know where they are, right?"
"Yes, kind of. There are ways to discover such things." She said, spreading the goo on Amelia's superficial wounds...
"How do you know that? I'm very curious. I have to learn as much as I can while I'm around here." I told her and I'm sure if I had a mirror in front of me it would be possible to see a sparkle behind my eyes.
"A few months ago, we had a rescue mission. It took Matilda just over 10 minutes to set up an algorithm that would follow the prison. She's a genius, you know?"
"I noticed that. Good thing I'm in good company." I said, "I'll get the man. I'll be right back."
Chapter X
I went back to the medical ship, but the man was gone. The blood snaking trail was still on the ground, as were the instruments used as weapons. I called him but didn't get an answer in return. Yeah, just what I needed. Most likely he was so high that he didn't feel any pain and decided to go for a walk. Maybe his brain blocked out what had happened so he wouldn't have to deal with the trauma. I knew that it could happen, I had read it in one of the dusty old books that my father would bring from his journeys. He had the tradition of bringing one from every place he traveled, and I would devour them, two or three times if I had to until he had brought a new one. Truth be told, that was the hardest thing I ever had to leave behind. By now, my mother must have burnt them all while beseeching me with plagues that I don't even know the name of.
I ended up touring around the ship, looking for him as if he were some child that I had lost during a walk. After many minutes, footsteps traversed across the thick walls until they reached me.
"Are you here?" I yelled and waited for an answer, but it didn't arrive.
I followed the sound until I saw an automatic blue double door that opened as soon as I was within feet of it. My heart began pounding faster. The steps got louder as well as the buzz that the man was doing as he wandered.
"Will you take long?" Matilda asked in the earphone and I almost had a heart attack when I first heard her out of nowhere.
"Yeah. You scared me" I told her and smiled with relief, also taking a deep breath, "we're coming upstairs. Just give us a few minutes"
She said she'd wait for me before telling us what she had discovered, and the talk ended there. I peeked before I went into what I thought was the kitchen. Nothing could prepare me for what was waiting for me once I got there. There were six round tables, each with five chairs around it, and there was blood everywhere. The bodies piled up on the floor, maybe 10 or 15, and the floor was covered with a dry red layer on it. The blood had dried up, but the putrid stench was still lurking. My vision became hazy and my throat shut. The man wandered around, his eyes red and swollen, repeating to himself that he should not have gone back there. I was doing just fine until I tried to get close to him and stomped on a puddle of thick blood. Drops sprinkled over the hem of my pants and blended with the black color. I couldn't handle it. A disgusting volcano grew in me and jumped out of my mouth in a yellow-brown jet that hit one of the few parts of the ground that was clean. I wiped my mouth with my shirt sleeve and leaned against the wall, still half wobbly.
"We must eliminate her." The man said, "Look what she did. She deserves to die."
"She'll get the punishment she deserves. Now let's get to the ship. They'll take us to the nearest spaceport and then you can get a ride home. Come on, they're waiting for us."
"And we will leave the bodies here? What about their family?"
"They will all be contacted. Don't worry about it. They know what they're doing." I answered him and went back to the lobby.
He looked at everyone one last time before he strolled up to me. His eyes empty, lifeless, and, for a moment, I knew that we were both thinking the same thing; how that image would never leave our heads again.
He was zig-zagging, crashing against the walls, and one time he even collapsed on his knees to the ground. I had to carry him to the hatch, climb up first, and pull him up. My arms were devastated. I only felt a tingling sensation that had spread from my fingers to my shoulders.
"Finally! Take him to the room next to yours and then meet me in the control room. Jessy's just cleaning up what she used in the infirmary and then she's going there as well." Matilda said on the intercom.
The man walked the whole way in silence. I left him in his room, and he thanked me before he went to bed.
Chapter XI
My brain blacked out for a moment, and before I realized it, I was at the cell entrance. I knew I had to go back and meet Matilda; it was the right thing to do and yet I didn't step out of there. Something compelled me to go in there. The image of the bloody bodies and the torn raw flesh flowed through my mind. I opened the door and walked in. The serial killer was in the center of the cell, seated with her knees bent and eyes closed. I inhaled deeply and walked to the metal bars. I called her, tapped my fingers on the steel, but she never opened her eyes. She appeared to be in a state of trance, beyond this world, and no doubt that awakening her would not go well for me. I wasn't exactly afraid of her, but I was afraid of dying before I ever saw any more worlds. Nothing happened. I gave up and turned around. I hadn't even taken a step when I found myself deprived of breath. Her hands were wrapped around my neck like a snake squeezing her prey.
"Never turn your back. Lesson number one," she said, sighing in my ear, her breath smelling like fries.
"How can anyone kill so many people with no remorse?" I asked her, and every word I said hurt my Adam's apple.
"You know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I did what had to be done. If it wasn't for now, they'd be dead in 40 years. Does it make that much difference?"
"You can't take that time away from other people just because you think it's best for them!" I answered her and she tightened my neck even harder. I felt the blood flowing through my veins, less and less climbing into my brain, my strength fading.
She flung me forward by my collar and pulled me back towards her now with me facing her. I banged my forehead on one of the bars and when I opened my eyes she was as clos
e to me as she could get. The arms slipped between the red rays and the face, tagged with an X by the lights, was within centimeters of them. I noticed now that she had blue eyes like dashes on a pond under a full moon, rosy cheeks, and well-groomed eyebrows for a prisoner. There was something about her story that didn't smell right to me, an unfinished excerpt before we knew everything, and I didn't think I could just ask her.
"Look me in the eyes." She said, "You're handsome, it'd be a shame to take your scalp off."
"Isn't this a bad time for compliments?" I asked her, the clothes clinging to my body.
"It's time for anything. I'm not gonna kill you." She said, "I have nothing against you."
"And what did you have against those men on the other ship?"
"They all deserved to die. None of them helped me! You don't know what it's like to be in a room, locked, clamped until your wrists are in living flesh, do you?"
"They didn't know!" I told her. She still had both her hands around my neck, but she wasn't squeezing very tightly.
"No? Maybe they should have asked what was behind that door."
"Why would they ask? They just wanted to do their job, earn their money and go back to their families,"
"Well, at least now they don't need to worry about that, do they?" She said and curled her lip, "Why are you so worried about people you didn't even know?"
"It's called having compassion. Clearly, you don't have that."
"Compassion is a weakness."
"A serial killer cliché?" I replied. Her hands slipped out of my neck and we both stepped forward. We didn't take our eyes off each other.
"You're funny. When I get out of here, I'll spare you."
"I don't think you're getting out of here," I answered her. I was sweating through every pore of my body. Her thick, red lips were getting hotter and sweeter.
"Do you know how I got out of the other prison?" She asked me, " Of course not. I'll tell you. I like you to know how impossible it is to arrest me. I convinced the poor man that if he freed me, we'd have a long night of hot sex. And he believed it!" She said it and laughed like it was the year's best joke.
"What?! Are you serious?"
She laughed harder, that typical anarchist fan-squeaky sound, "You're naive. Obviously not. I broke one of the plastic fork sticks and used it to open the lock. I hid the fork under the pasta that was on the plate and they didn't even suspect it. Amateurs. I hate them."
"That's... Smart. I mean, you killed people. You shouldn't even be here. I'm leaving before I do something I'll regret."
"Why is that? Is there anything you want to do?" She asked. She grabbed me by the collar and yanked me back to the bars, "Press the button."
"So, you can try to escape?"
"It's not like I can go too far with these bars here, is it?" She said and pouted until her eyes moistened and strands of her ginger hair adhered to her fluffy lips.
"I hope I don't regret this," I told her before I disabled the lasers.
I wasn't used to women like her. Cute to die for and literally deadly. Our bodies, as magnets after they drew near, were beckoning to each other. We kissed each other amidst the bars, the bars cooling our faces, my hands on her wide hips. Her lips tasted like vanilla. I obviously knew I shouldn't be doing that, but I couldn't shut it down. Damn it. I had to stop. I stopped and pushed her away.
"Do you regret it?" She asked and giggled.
"Not really, but this can't happen again." I told her, and enabled the lasers, "Forget this ever happened."
"Yeah, hopefully, the words won't slip out of my mouth right in front of others."
"Are you blackmailing me?" I asked her, on my way to the door.
"Me? I wouldn't. You're not afraid that your pretty little friend might find out, are you? She didn't do well. Too bad, such a beautiful face now stamped with my hand bones."
"That's enough. You're crazy. This was just a slip." I told her.
I found it hard to admit that going there had been a weakness, but I had no trouble recognizing that the kiss had been a mistake. What was I thinking? I ran away from home to have adventures, not to end up in a ship, with a crew running away from a war general and kissing a serial killer who could probably slit my throat with a fork.
“Wait, come back.” She said, “I want to tell you a secret. Turn off the lasers once more. I promise I’ll spare your friends if you do it.”
“You’re not the most trustworthy person.” I replied, and walked up to her, “If I trust you, you’re going to have to tell me something about yourself.”
“Urgh. Deal.” She said, “Now, turn off the lasers.”
For a brief second, I thought that I could just leave her there. There was nothing she could. However, I needed to know more. I was intrigued. The lasers faded in a matter of seconds. I got closer to the metal bars and she, once again, grabbed me by the collar. She looked me fiercely in the eyes before dropping to her knees and unbuttoning my pants.
“What…” I was about to say when she interrupted.
“Don’t talk.” She said and lowered my pants and boxers.
She grabbed my half-erect cock and shoved it in her mouth. There was no wasting time. Not with her. It was like she had learned to do everything as if she could die in the next moment. Her head bobbed back and forth as she fondled my balls. I breathed deeply and tilted my head back while grabbing the bars. My hands were shaking, and my knees were trembling. She was amazing at it. It wouldn’t surprise if she had freed herself from several prisons by doing that to others. There was something animalistic in her eyes, something that made me feel good for being there. She never stopped. Saliva slid down the corners of her mouth and dripped from the tip of my cock to the floor. Fuck. What was I doing? I shouldn’t be there. I couldn’t be there! I looked down and there they were again; her green eyes staring at me. She laid her hands on my back and pulled me to her, my cock destroying her tiny mouth until she couldn’t hold it anymore and had to stop.
“I’m not done.” She said and began jerking me off.
I was close to cumming. It felt way too good despite knowing she could run away at any second. She opened her mouth and made sure I was deep down inside her before I spurt out all my fluids down her throat.
I watched as she swallowed everything and finished by softly licking her lips.
“About me? You can call me Vix.” She said and winked at me.
I pulled my pants up, turned on the lasers, and got the hell out of there. A few more days and I would be fine. No one would find out.
I could do it, I thought to myself.
Chapter XII
As I walked down the corridors, I could have sworn that her megalomaniac laughter was traveling across the fans and following me along the way.
"I've been looking for you." Jessy told me as soon as I turned around the corner, "Matilda must be chewing her nails by now."
"Does she do that a lot?" I asked her, making small talk as we drew closer to the control room. In the distance, the hallway came to an end and the walls widened giving way to the huge room whose magnum opus was the glass through which space could be observed. Less scary than I thought. It was just a never-ending black lake except for a few bright spots. Matilda was in the captain's swivel chair and had her feet on one of the machines. She was biting her nails compulsively.
"Finally!" She said, as soon as she saw us, hiding her fingernails behind her back, "How's Amelia?"
"The captain's fine. Or she will be. I've seen her in worse conditions." Jessy answered her and sat on one of the three chairs next to hers, "What did you find?"
"It's weird, I know, but nothing. I've searched all the databases, even the ones that I shouldn't and there's no record of her. Of some crime, of being born, nothing. She's a ghost."
"That's weird, yeah. What do we do with her then?" Jessy asked.
"I have no idea. I've already done my job. The best thing now is for us to hope that Amelia gets better. She'll know what to do, she always does."
Matilda replied, "I've already set the course for Dembi's spaceport. It's the closest to us. Three days and we will be there."
"What do we do these three days?" I asked. The most I'd ever spent on a ship was a few hours and, truth be told, it sounded boring. There was nothing to do but look through the glass or sleep.
"You are now going to fetch the boxes from the other ship, which is why we hired you," Jessy said, "then we'll see. I usually do experiments; Matilda builds objects and Amelia spends her days doing exercices and showering."
"There's plenty of places on this ship where we can have fun," Matilda said and giggled.
I was going to answer but Jessy slightly elbowed her on the shoulder.
"Matilda! Someday you're going to burn yourself to the ground with the joke. Amelia already warned you." Jessy told her.
"You're such a buzzkill," Matilda answered her, and without Jessy noticing, she winked at me.
The conversation died there. They kept talking and I went to pick up the boxes. Some had fragile equipment, the glass wobbling around against the boxes' sides, and others contained metal jars with two red lines around them and a few numbers at the top. I didn't open any of them even if they sparked my interest. I probably didn't even know what they were and didn't want to risk releasing any viruses. I transported two at a time if they were fragile, and three when they were boxes similar to urns. On the corner of the small room that had the ladder, there was a machine that transported the boxes automatically, one by one, to the ship above. It must have taken me two hours to finish it up. Finally, I warned Matilda, and, at the press of a button, the ship decoupled from the other and we went back to wandering through space.
"I already told the company that hired us. We should get paid soon. I can already imagine all the good shrimp we'll eat when we land. I can't wait."
"Shrimp?"
"Haven't you ever had any?" She asked me.
"One time only. When I was younger. My father brought one for me and my two brothers. Since I'm the youngest, they ended up eating most of it." I replied, "I always heard it was one of the best things to eat in the four corners of space."