by Jake Bible
“Hold on,” Hessa said.
Roak braced himself against the wall as the bottom of his stomach dropped. He squeezed his eyes together and waited for the sensation to pass.
“Transitioning into trans-space doesn’t agree with you,” Zxixwell said with a smirk. “That must be rough considering your existence is traveling around the galaxy hunting for beings.”
“I’m fine,” Roak said. “Wrenn?”
“Wrenn. Wrenn, Wrenn, Wrenn,” Zxixwell said. “Alright, this is what I know. And I’m telling you this is all I know, got me? You can try the slaps all over again, but you won’t get more than what I’m about to say.”
“Then say it,” Roak snapped.
“Mr. Wrenn was forced upon my predecessor,” Zxixwell began. “Not like he was forced upon me. No. More like someone with a lot of power and influence made it very clear to Ha’taka that he work with Mr. Wrenn or Tanji Corporation was done.”
“GF influence?” Roak asked.
“Maybe,” Zxixwell said and shrugged. “The Galactic Fleet is one reason I didn’t sever ties with Wrenn. The project had a GF contact ID in there, as well as several corporate IDs and some syndicates too. I’m not lying when I say the threads were expensive and extensive.”
“Were,” Roak said, catching the word. “Not anymore?”
Zxixwell grinned. “Alright, alright, I know Wrenn is dead. I received the comm as soon as the remainder of that asteroid in the Sabulos System was destroyed. Did you do that?”
“Maybe,” Roak replied. “Who commed you?”
“What?”
“Who commed you that the asteroid was destroyed? Who told you that Wrenn was dead?” Roak asked.
“Um, I don’t know her name,” Zxixwell said and waved Roak off before he could push her. “Some assistant. Nothing nefarious. It was her job to tell me. It was no different than any other business comm call. She was relaying information. She could have commed me to say our stock price had plummeted and it would be exactly the same.”
“Except it wasn’t the same,” Roak said. “A crime boss, that should have been dead to begin with, and his operation was destroyed. You were commed because it was wrapped up in Tanji business. Who did you comm when you got the news?”
Zxixwell’s face went blank.
“Back to the slaps?” Roak asked.
Zxixwell’s face remained impassive.
“I also have some bots that do good work,” Roak said. “They mainly are used to clean up the messes I make.”
“So true,” Hessa said.
“But they can be tweaked to consider you a mess,” Roak continued, ignoring Hessa’s jab. “Who did you comm, Zxixwell? When you found out that Wrenn was dead, you commed someone. Don’t deny it. This business doesn’t stop with you. Tanji is only a part of the whole. So, who did you comm?”
Zxixwell didn’t reply. A bit of drool began to dribble from the corner of her mouth.
“Zxixwell?” Roak asked. “Hessa!”
“I’m scanning now,” Hessa replied. “Physically, she is healthy. All vitals are in the green and I am not seeing any signs of distress.”
“She’s gone catatonic and is drooling, Hessa,” Roak snapped. “I call that some fucking distress.”
“Be patient, Roak,” Hessa snapped back. “The galaxy doesn’t always move as fast as you want it to.”
Cautiously, in case it was a trick, Roak crouched before Zxixwell. He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes and they did not blink. He put his fingers to her throat and felt her pulse. Then he slapped her hard. No reaction other than her head turning to the side and staying in that position.
“Her brain waves are flatlining,” Hessa said. “It’s like mental switches are being turned off one by one. I’m watching her go brain dead as I speak, Roak.”
“Shit,” Roak said and scooped Zxixwell up in his arms.
The brig doors slid open and Roak rushed out into the corridor and threw Zxixwell over his shoulder as he ran as fast as he could to the lift.
“I have a med pod ready,” Hessa stated as Roak rode the lift up to the med bay level.
He barely cleared the doors as they slid open. Roak sprinted to the med bay and threw Zxixwell into the first open med pod. The lid closed quickly and filled with red mist.
“I am going to try to put her in stasis,” Hessa said. “That should stop the progression of mental decay. Once I know she is stabilized then I will attempt to rebuild what is left of her brain.”
“Hurry,” Roak said.
“I will move at the appropriate speed for the task at hand, Roak,” Hessa said.
“Hessa…”
“Roak…”
“Just get her talking again,” Roak said.
“I will try,” Hessa said. “In the meantime, go rest. Get cleaned up and get some sleep.”
“Where’s Yellow Eyes?” Roak asked.
“He is eating in the mess,” Hessa replied. “I have told him to rest as well, but he is not one that rests easy.”
“Join the damn club,” Roak said. He stared at the red mist that occluded Zxixwell’s body in the med pod. “Can you jack into her?”
“One task at a time, Roak,” Hessa said in the voice that told him he was done asking her to do things. “Go rest.”
Roak looked down at the torn and plasma-scorched suit he wore. There was blood splatter all over it. Some of the blood was his, some was Gwreq.
“I’m going to clean up and rest,” Roak said like it was his idea.
“I’ll wake you if her situation changes, Roak,” Hessa said.
“Good.”
Roak left the med bay and made his way to his quarters. After a short steam and a couple of shots of whiskey, he crawled into his bed and tried to rest.
21.
Roak’s sleep was far from restful.
Dreams assaulted his psyche and kept him from ever going too deep. His conscious mind hovered within the dreams, semi-aware that nothing was real yet fully aware that there was significance in the dreams themselves.
Or not. Dreams had a way of meaning nothing while also meaning everything.
Roak suffered through the psychological labyrinth that was his subconscious. All the barely veiled symbols and double meanings. All the past memories and future guesses. All the buried pain and repressed episodes in Roak’s life.
“Hello, Roak,” Bishop said as he sat on the ledge of an impossibly tall building.
The building reminded Roak of Shava Stemn Shava’s headquarters back on Jafla. Roak wondered if the building was still there and occupied by someone new after Roak had killed Shava Stemn Shava. Or did the Jafla authorities raze it to get rid of the symbol of corruption that it had stood for.
“Different building,” Bishop said, reading Roak’s mind since Bishop was a part of Roak’s mind.
Except it wasn’t Bishop. It was Roak that Roak was speaking to. But still Bishop. Dream logic.
“Where are you?” Roak demanded.
“You know,” Bishop replied. “You know exactly where I am. I haven’t been hiding.”
“That’s exactly what you’ve been doing,” Roak said. “Or I would have found you by now.”
“You should have found me by now,” Bishop said. “I’m pretty easy to find.”
“Why betray me, Bishop? What’d I do to deserve that?”
“Do you want a list? I can make you a list.”
“I’ve always been straight with you.”
“But you’ve never been straight with yourself.”
“Knock off the psychobabble shit, Bishop! I know you are a figment of my dream. I know you aren’t real. But here you fucking are, so I’m going to talk to you like it’s you and not a piece of me.”
“Gonna mine your own mind, is that it?” Bishop laughed. “Do you even hear yourself, Roak? Even in your dreams, even in your very own mind, you hunt. You are, right this second, interrogating yourself for intel. That is messed up, man.”
Bishop became Yellow Eyes.
/> “So messed up, man,” Yellow Eyes said.
“What do you have to do with all this?” Roak asked.
“Unlucky passenger on the Roak train wreck, man. I got all swept up in your net of violent chaos and couldn’t get free in time. Like that Zxixwell woman. She doesn’t know anything, man. You can feel that she doesn’t know anything. But now she’s in a damn med pod because her brain is on the fritz.”
“I didn’t do that,” Roak replied.
“Technically, no,” Yellow Eyes said. “But you triggered it. That woman was so bio-teched out that even she didn’t know she had a protocol in place that would wipe her clean if she got too close to sharing information she wasn’t supposed to share.”
“Triggered,” Roak said. “Yeah. I triggered the mind wipe.”
Roak nodded for a few seconds then started shaking his head.
“Knowing that doesn’t help me at all,” he said. “It only confirms that she is part of something larger than just the Tanji Corporation.”
“Duh, man! Ya think?” Yellow Eyes laughed then became Bishop again.
“You should drop all this and disappear, Roak,” Bishop said. “It’s a trap. You know it’s a trap. I know it’s a trap. Hessa knows it’s a trap. Even that yellow freak knows it’s a trap. The only thing at the end of this hunt is you in a cell, you in a specimen jar, or you in a grave.”
“Specimen jar?” Roak asked. “Why in all the Hells would I end up in a specimen jar?”
“Because you’re as much of a genetic freak as the yellow guy is!” Bishop snapped. “Shit, buddy, pay attention! You have the CEO of one of the largest biotech companies in the galaxy in a med pod on your ship! You think that’s coincidence? It’s not. I’m telling you, Roak, go and hide somewhere no one will find you. Ever. Hide and stay hidden.”
“I’ve never been one to lay low, Bishop,” Roak said.
Bishop sighed. “No shit. Look at where that’s gotten you?”
“You stole my chits. I want my chits back.”
“And Ally?” Bishop asked. “What about her? Do you want her back? Why aren’t you looking for her?”
“I will after this business with you is done.”
“Oh, will you? Is that the lie you’re telling yourself? You and I, since I am you, both know that Ally is better off without you in her life. Wherever she disappeared to, she is way safer than if you track her down. You know that. So, when you do find me, the Bishop me, you’ll do what you do then you’ll go back to being Roak the galactic bounty hunter that only gets hired because all the smart hunters decided the job was too crazypants to take. You’ll go back to your sad, pathetic life, alone on your ship talking to an AI that barely tolerates you.”
“Hessa and I get along fine.”
“But she’s not real! Or not flesh and blood real. You’re sad, Roak. You’re an empty shell of a being. You carved out whatever humanity you had in that genetic cocktail of yours years ago and now you’re playing at being a person. Give it up, Roak. Find a cave or a hole or rock to hide under on some distant planet and stay there. You’d be not only doing yourself a favor, you’d be doing the galaxy a favor.”
“After I find you and get my chits back. No one steals chits from me, Bishop.”
“Yet, I did steal chits from you and the odds of you getting even a fraction of that fortune back are pretty fucking slim.”
“I’ll get them back.”
“Whatever you say.”
Bishop hung his head and sighed.
“I’m so tired, Roak. This life we lead is exhausting. Maybe ending up in a lab to be tested forever isn’t such a bad thing. The hunt would finally be over.”
“No labs,” Roak snarled.
“Roak?”
“I said no labs!” Roak yelled, but Bishop was gone.
The building was gone. Everything was gone.
“Roak?”
“What?” Roak yelled as he found himself suddenly awake and coated in a thin sheen of sweat. “What, Hessa?”
“She’s awake,” Hessa said with considerable hesitation.
“But…?”
“But I don’t think it’s her,” Hessa said. “You should get to the med bay now.”
Roak got up, threw on some clothes, and hurried from his quarters. He raced down to the med bay and found Yellow Eyes standing just outside, all of his hands tied in knots. Then they untied and retied.
“Stop that,” Roak said as he pushed past the being and walked to Zxixwell’s med pod.
The red mist was gone and Zxixwell was staring up at Roak. With bright red eyes. Not silver and not gray, but bright red.
“Who in the Hells are you?” Roak asked, not even bothering to pretend he was addressing Zxixwell.
“I am what is left,” Zxixwell said in a flat voice.
“Great. You got a name, what is left?” Roak asked. He snapped his fingers. “Grab me that stool, will you?”
“What? Me?” Yellow Eyes asked from the med bay’s doorway.
“Yes, you,” Roak said. “Over there. Grab me that stool.”
“No, don’t think I will, man,” Yellow Eyes said. “Gonna stay out of its line of sight.”
“You’re gonna do what?” Roak glanced over his shoulder, but Yellow Eyes was gone. “Hessa? What was that about?”
“It appears there is a trans-space signal emanating from within Ms. Zxixwell’s body,” Hessa said. “I am trying to jam it, but the signal will not be stopped.”
“We’re being tracked?” Roak asked.
“We may be. I cannot tell,” Hessa said, distressed.
“Keep trying,” Roak said and opened the med pod, his muscles tense and ready for a fight.
But Zxixwell didn’t fight. She nodded and those red eyes stayed locked onto Roak’s face.
“I know what must happen,” she said. She raised her arms. “You must jettison this body.”
“I do if all that’s left of you is a big, squishy tracking device,” Roak said.
He pulled her out of the med pod and threw her over his shoulder once again. Then he left the med bay and walked to the lift, entering the code for the cargo hold.
“Any ships on our tail, Hessa?” Roak asked.
“Nothing on the scanners,” Hessa said. “But we’re in trans-space, so they could be waiting for us at the next wormhole portal or the one after that if they can figure out our destination.”
The lift doors opened and Roak walked out to the cargo hold.
“What is our destination, Hessa?” Roak asked. “Where are you taking us?”
“We are going to regroup,” Hessa said.
“That doesn’t tell me shit, Hessa.”
“I’d rather not say where we’re going while she is still onboard.”
“So, you’re cool with me tossing her off the ship as soon as we’re out of trans-space?” Roak asked.
“I see only threats with her aboard,” Hessa admitted. “I do not believe she deserves to be murdered, but from all the scans and tests I did, she died back in the brig. We did not kill her, Roak. Whoever hacked her body has killed her.”
“Fair enough,” Roak said then set Zxixwell down in the middle of the cargo hold’s floor.
“You may ask me three questions, Roak, but they must be the right questions or you will not receive answers,” Zxixwell said.
“Where’s Bishop?” Roak asked.
“Stefbon,” Zxixwell replied. “A good question to ask.”
“Stefbon? In the Gorf System? What’s he doing there?”
“Wrong question,” Zxixwell replied. “One more question. I did not count your clarifiers since that would not be fair and I like to be fair, Roak. I have always liked to be fair.”
A chill ran down Roak’s spine. That phrase was one he was familiar with. He’d heard it so many times just before the complete and total opposite of fair was handed down to him.
“No,” Roak said. “Not you. You’re dead. I made sure of that.”
“You did, you did,” Zxixwell s
aid. “But what is death, Roak? What is mortality to beings like us?”
“How are you in her?” Roak asked.
“Another good question,” Zxixwell said. Her face scrunched up into what should have been a smile, but only if nightmares smiled. “Because I want to be.”
“That’s a crap answer and you know it!” Roak shouted.
He almost punched Zxixwell in the face, but restrained himself since he knew it would accomplish nothing.
“It is the answer you get,” Zxixwell said. “No more questions, Roak.”
“Good.”
22.
As soon as the ship dropped out of trans-space, Roak opened the cargo ramp and let the expulsion of atmosphere carry Zxixwell’s body out into open space while he stayed strapped to the cargo hold wall. It quickly became hard to breathe.
“I’ll shut that now, if you don’t mind,” Hessa said, closing the cargo ramp. As soon as it was sealed, the cargo hold filled with air once again. “Better?”
“Yeah,” Roak said, his voice a dull echo in his ears.
“Roak?” Yellow Eyes asked from a catwalk above the cargo hold. “You good, man? You don’t seem good.”
“I’m fine,” Roak said, undoing the straps and walking towards the lift. “How much did you hear?”
“I heard it all,” Yellow Eyes replied. “I thought the cargo hold would be a safe space. It was not a safe space because then you showed up with that hijacked body thing and it all got really weird. Your life is weird, man.”
“Yeah. It is,” Roak said as he punched buttons, waited for the lift doors to open, stepped onto the lift once they did open, and didn’t even twitch as Yellow Eyes appeared next to him. “Where do you want us to drop you off?”
“What? Drop me off?” Yellow Eyes asked. He put a nub to Roak’s forehead. “No fever.”
“Knock it off,” Roak said and slapped the nub away. “I’m not kidding. No need for you to be here with me. Best if we drop you somewhere and you can go live your life in the free and clear.”
“You left that sample back at the villa,” Yellow Eyes said.
“Yeah,” Roak replied as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry.”
“Someone will find that sample and start looking for me,” Yellow Eyes said.