In Case Of Emergency Break Fourth Wall (The Messenger Archive Book 3)

by DC Bastien

  Sleep. Deprivation.

  Also probably when I went for 'five days before' I should have realised it was Independence Day. And you're meeting your British girlfriend. The irony is not lost on me.

  I edited everything. I even re-read our last two scenes so I'm ready for when we resume. I also tried to write a short thing, but my focus is so far gone today.

  So. Excited.

  Do they lynch British people on Independence Day? Or just aliens?

  I mean, extra-terrestrial aliens.

  When we get there I want a chocolate milk. I seem to remember how great they tasted when I was there last, but that could be the cloudy nostalgia memory combined with hunger and also how hot it was.

  They call the gate in fifteen minutes. I'm going to do one last walk through the newsagents and maybe get a magazine in case I end up sitting somewhere with no power sockets or space for my laptop.

  See you soon!

  Sent from my comms-device.

  ----------------

  from: Mandy Douglas

  to: Kay

  date: 4 July 2015 09:22

  subject: re: WAKE UP

  Oh boy, I don't think I've seen you this incoherent ever. It is adorable. Dad is driving me to the airport soon. Just having breakfast.

  I don't think anyone will try to lynch you today. Dad is threatening violence because you picked a terrible day for him to drive me around, but he understands you're provincial and foreign.

  I can't... even process stuff today. It's just too much! Okay. I'm going before they kill me for ignoring them.

  Kisses!

  ~ Mandy

  Don't mistake my kindness for weakness

  ----------------

  from: Kay

  to: Mandy Douglas

  date: 4 July 2015 17:10

  subject: re: re: WAKE UP

  So I am here. And you are not. Because your flight gets in in half an hour. So like a sensible person I am emailing you. Even though you will get this after we meet up, probably. And it will be like a weird episode of anachronistic story-telling. Like the pre-trailer thing you flashback from to tell how you got to somewhere.

  I'm in the coffee shop by the giant moving poster thing. If you do get this first, I mean. If not, we're likely sitting side by side in a taxi, maybe.

  I love how my machines all say it's five. Like, no. It's ten. I have been up all the hours. And it's five. No... no. That's your timezone. Oh my god. It's one in the morning. Oh my god I'm going to die.

  Oh I think I see you...

  Sent from my comms-device.

  ----------------

  ***

  They did unfasten the chains linking his wrists to his ankles, then removed the ankle restraints. His hands were still cuffed in front of him, but baby steps, right? They'd been parted just long enough to dress him, but they were connected together again, now. His captors also didn't chain him to anything in the room.

  It was a small room, but... reasonably well provisioned. A couch to one side, one that might well open up as a bed. Some non-species specific chairs, a table. There was a door off to what he assumed was a mini en suite bathroom. One wall had a large view screen which was currently displaying a soothing, slow-moving starscape. Whether or not it was the actual view outside, he had no clue.

  Everything was done in pale, slate and tan colours. The ubiquity of boringness, he thought. Ithon sat down on the couch-bed-thing and looked for obvious cameras. Just because he didn't see any didn't mean there were none dotted around, of course.

  Nothing resembling a tool. Nothing... at all.

  "Greetings," came a calming voice from everywhere and nowhere.

  "Jeez, would you... warn me next time?"

  "I apologise. Would you appreciate a soft noise to alert you of my imminent speech? I can play you a series, and you can—"

  "No, that's fine. Now I know you're there, there's no need."

  "Very well."

  Definitely an AI. They had a kind of... quality to them that was difficult to describe, but impossible to miss. Their tones would lift and fall like a Human's (or a Hleen, or anyone else's voice, really), but there was something not-quite right to them. Mes was maybe the closest he'd come to being unsure.

  "Where am I?"

  "I am not at liberty to divulge this information, Ithon."

  Wow, with the presumption of using his name, much?

  "You know my name, then. What do I call you?"

  "You may address me as Pax."

  "Pax?"

  "That is correct."

  Kind of weird name to give to a prison AI. "Alright, Pax. So you know who I am, and I know nothing about you but your name. You can't tell me where I am, but can you tell me where I'm going? Or how long before I get there?"

  "I am not at liberty to—"

  "...to divulge. Right. Okay. And I'm guessing you won't tell me who sent your folks to grab me?"

  "I am not at—"

  "Okay! How about you tell me what you can tell me?"

  There was a pause in which he could almost hear the cogs whirring internally. Pax hadn't learned how to process complicated things in the background whilst emulating normal conversation to cover over the gaps. Either she'd – or it, maybe it was a better pronoun – it had never needed to, or it wasn't capable of it.

  "The list of things which I am permitted to divulge to you is lengthy. It would take too long to enumerate or expand upon this."

  "Well, as I don't know how long I'm stuck in here with you, you could always try me."

  Another long, long silence. "The amount of information which is not classified which I could provide you with, if given at maximum speech replication, would exceed your life expectancy by a factor of—"

  "Augh! Fine. Shut yourself off, then. You're no use to me."

  "Very well," Pax said, and then didn't speak again.

  Had they given him an idiot for an AI as company to further wear him down? Or was it just that he was used to a higher calibre of conversation? He lasted for maybe ten minutes before he caved. "Can you tell me how long I've been out?"

  "I am n—"

  "Can you shorten that down to 'no' in future?"

  "Yes."

  "Alright. Can you at least play me music? Or... a vid or something? Anything to take my mind off the fact that I'm being held hostage by some lunatic whose AI needs a significant push in the 'I' category?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, finally. What can you play me?"

  "I am authorised to play any of the ship's library of copyright-owned material."

  "Can I have a list?"

  "Displaying now."

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Mission: Friction

  [Ashroe: You feeling relaxed over there?]

  [Sianor: Dude, I am like, two feet away.]

  [Sianor: Okay I asked for that – COLD FEET.]

  [Ashroe: Hehehe.]

  [Sianor: I can actually hear you really laughing and you still feel the need to type it?]

  [Sianor: Oh my god you have the cutest laugh ever.]

  [Ashroe: I am not cute. I am a minion of darkness.]

  [Sianor: And your pout...]

  [Ashroe: Here come the cold feet again.]

  [Sianor: MONSTER!]

  [Ashroe: I thought it would be weird like this but it's actually kinda funny.]

  [Sianor: Yeah. I'm not saying give up the spoken word entirely, but this works.]

  [Ashroe: You bop your head when you type. Did you know?]

  [Sianor: What?]

  [Ashroe: When you type, but not when you're reading. You do this little... headbop thing.]

  [Sianor: *stays perfectly still*]

  [Ashroe: Just wait. You'll do it again before long.]

  [Sianor: Is my back supposed to still tingle?]

  [Ashroe: That's the toxins leaving the body, or some shit. I dunno. I like the tingle.]

  [Sian
or: Me too, but it's weird. And I'm sure I'm going to smell of ginger and napalm for weeks.]

  [Ashroe: Napalm?]

  [Sianor: Or whatever it was they used.]

  [Ashroe: Uhm... neroli?]

  [Sianor: Maybe. And the sneezy one.]

  [Ashroe: Sn... oh! Patchouli!]

  [Sianor: See, you speak... squishy smelly stuff. I go: mmm, mint.]

  [Ashroe: I will teach you, young padawan.]

  [Sianor: If it's like today, then yes please, master.]

  [Ashroe: Heh. Shall we get some writing done before the room service man (or woman) comes to judge us for sitting here in fluffy robes on our laptops?]

  [Sianor: Yes!]

  ***

  There was only so long you could watch dull vids and then sleep. Admittedly, the tension of not knowing where he was, or what was coming next meant he couldn't actually appreciate the telenovela. Plus, he was certain that half of their melodramatic problems could be solved by getting a bigger bed and admitting they all wanted to do one another. Not one of the main cast was monogamous... well. Except maybe the dashing Sianar prince. He wasn't called a prince, but that was the general gist of it. He was very obviously a Kre-expy, and that made him laugh.

  Well, it had done. Now he was just bored. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, wondering if they'd let him shave. There was obviously no razor in the bathroom, just soaps and towels and a toothbrush and toothpaste. He could likely combine something in here into a weapon, if he wanted to enough. But what would the point be? He couldn't take everyone on the ship down, and he'd be recaptured before he got to an airlock or a small craft. And when he was recaptured, even if there was no brutality there was every chance his pathetic amenities would be reduced down to nothing.

  The lights were recessed into the ceiling and walls. That was an annoying touch, though he had to assume it was interior design and not malice aforethought. Ithon lay on his stomach, propped on pillows, fussing over the cuffs. He had nothing to pick the lock with, so he amused himself by feeling for the mechanism with just fingertips on the outside and an ear close to the lock. Ur cuffs were deliberately randomised to prevent an easy break out, but he was sure if he could just get something sharp and narrow, he'd be able to jimmy it...

  "You have a visitor," Pax announced.

  "Oh? Who... ah."

  The door opened and someone he knew all too well walked in. Baudeline DiGattio had barely changed in the ten years they'd been apart, and Ithon would have known him from his profile alone. Where Ithon was tall and lithely built, Baudeline was easily half a head taller still. His shoulders were broad, his hair whisping grey at the temples the only indication that any time had passed. It was just like him to let that happen naturally, to not dye his hair back uniform in colour.

  Seeing him was like a punch to the gut. No hint of Ur clothing now, fully civilian. That was strange, too; worse than seeing him wander in nude. It was a transgression, an aberration. Ithon was glad he was lying down, even though it meant he had to crane his neck to meet his gaze, even at this distance. He wasn't sure how well he'd hold up if he was on his feet right now.

  "Ithon."

  That soft, soft voice that sounded like the third drink of the night, the drink that left you on that borderline between buzzed and smashed. When you had to decide what kind of a drunk you were going to be; the happy, smiling kind professing love to all and sundry; the tears watering down your liquor and ache in your stomach; or the kind where no matter how much you drank, the cold, sober feeling of lead lined your gut and kept your head clear. It went to his core and it – okay. It was... it was hard. It was hard to hear that voice and not remember how it had once made him feel.

  "Baudeline." His own voice was not as smooth. His sounded more like the cracking icecubes the alcohol swirled around. The frosty, flat faces trying not to let the liquor seep into the fault lines in their masks.

  "It's been a while."

  "Has it? I didn't notice." The snark was automatic. He didn't really have an 'off' button when it came to sassing people, but he definitely had a volume slider. Some people – like Kip, like Baudeline... even Saidhe, to an extent – got it dialled up to eleven. "You know, you could just have sent me a card if you wanted to catch up."

  "A card? A physical card?"

  "I'm led to believe that printed materials still exist, but I meant a metaphorical card."

  "Because you'd need a residence for me to deliver a real card," Baudeline pointed out. "Unless you wanted me to send it to the Coriolis, that is."

  Feeling somewhat intimidated by the fact he was lying down on his belly, Ithon wondered what the most suave and smooth way to change his position would be. It wasn't as if he could really defend himself if there was an attack, but it was the animal principle of the thing.

  "Are we really going to pretend that our last conversation never happened?" Ithon asked, deciding that the better part of valour was moving his backside. His legs swung over the edge of the bed, and he sat up with a hand to his hair to cover over his discomfort, forgetting that his other hand would be dragged up, too. Real smooth, Ith. The sudden rush of blood into his stomach made him feel a little nauseous, though that could also be the fact he wanted to punch him.

  "I suppose it would be too much to ask for that. Can we talk?"

  Ithon held out his cuffed wrists, head to one side.

  "Ah. Yes. I forgot they had you in those."

  "Unlikely."

  Baudeline didn't refute that, coming closer to open them up. He had the key in his pocket, further cementing Ithon's belief that it was all one deliberate power-play. He held his wrists out as far as possible to keep the personal space bubble as unpopped as possible. Of course the man ignored that, holding one wrist still as he flicked open the lock, moving to the other. Baudeline took the cuffs and Ithon stood back, rubbing his hands and trying not to feel irritated by how damn warm the man's hands were.

  "What do you want to talk about? I thought I was pretty clear about my decision the last time we spoke," he said, barging right into it. There was no need for niceties. He set his jaw as firmly as he could, biting down on his tongue to keep his focus sharp.

  "I'm not what you think I am, Ithon."

  "Oh? Because I think you're a criminal. I think you work very much outside the law that we both swore to uphold. And I think you do it for... you know what? I don't even know why you do it. Not now. Your inner justifications have become so convoluted to me that I suspect I'd need a pivot table to scratch the surface."

  "And you're not going to give me the benefit of any doubt?"

  "You just mowed through my prison escort to bring me here, stripped me, searched every last inch of my hide, kept me in a room with only a talking calculator for company... and that's not even touching on the things before today. I'm sorry, how much benefit do you need? Because I think I need to start a charitable f—"

  Ithon didn't get to finish that tirade because all of a sudden there was one hand on his tunic, the other behind his head. He was too shocked by the sudden contact that his hands barely made it up between them. He grabbed hold of fine, silk shirt and for a moment (a moment too, too long) there was kissing. Kissing. Lips to lips. A hand in his hair, and a flicker of tongue against his mouth and muscle-memory kicked in, parting his mouth for...

  No!

  He shoved him back, both hands on his chest, and took a step away. His legs bumped into the bed behind him, making him wobble. His mouth burned from the touch, but it was... it was wrong. Even aside from the whole murderous, selfish villain thing was the fact that he had a boyfriend. A boyfriend who he would much rather be kissing, because the worst he did was stick cold feet on him and occasionally act like an asshole, but secretly save the world in between all the complaining.

  "I'm sorry," Baudeline said, actually dipping his head. His cheeks were pink with something Ithon didn't want to think about, his voice a little creaky.

  "Don't."

  "I missed you."

  "I said don't.
"

  Baudeline nodded. "I understand. I hope you'll change your mind, given time."

  "I left you, you ass. And I just testified to all our wrongdoing! Well, all mine. And some of yours. The rest will just come out in the wash."

  "And do you think it would matter, even if they did find these crimes you're so certain I've committed?"

  "...matter?!"

  "I'm perfectly safe here, Ithon. I have been for many years. Even if the Ur decided to come after me for the very paltry crime of a hidden relationship – one I can claim I resigned to perpetuate – the worst they'll do is strip the title of Judge from me. There's nothing else they could find. If they could even find me."

  "You left a trail!"