“Right—why run the risk? I’ll leave Teddy and dad behind—the collective purpose of my life—why risk your family for mine?” she said, staring hard. “You’re one hell of a selfish—” A siren interrupted, sounding from Griswall Station behind them. Gun blasts erupted, the sound of a struggle, a female voice shouting, engines igniting.
“The ship!” Mick said. Sera had already sprinted past him to reach the hangar floor. She paused where the alley met the landing zones. Curled in blue light, and through a thick squall of electric smoke, the Fogstar rose toward the exit hatch above, then disappeared into sky.
“Fuck!” she said. She sat down, defeated.
“All the droids,” Mick said, sitting beside her.
“The taint doesn’t matter after all, does it? It’s not me they’re after—it’s what I’m worth—which is everything on that ship.”
How many times can I beat the odds? From the cold alone of space—lifeless, engineless, trapped—to another spacetime full of the same bad hands. No ship. No prospects. A sadistic voice replied: There is something different this time—there’s a target on your back now.
“I’ve got to get the hell off this rock. Richest planet, and for all the wealth, the most lawless—it used to be the poorest places that were the most cor—”
“Shit!” Sera screamed, digging her fingers into her temples, at once fully grasping the loss.
“Let’s keep moving. Nothing we can do but find another ship and break planetside.”
“We have to find XJ and GR.”
“You’re still worth something aren’t you?—if you have a taint and the UCA wants you, we can’t waste time wandering the streets.”
“UCA’ll come. But I’m not going anywhere without the droids.”
“The ones that mattered were on that ship—they’re as good as sold.”
Sera stood and punched Mick deep in his gut. He balled up, squealing.
“You lay down and wait to die. As far as I’m concerned, we part ways here.”
She kicked him in his ribs, then his jaw. He rolled, drooling a long strand of globular blood that carried a shattered tooth.
“Fuck you,” he muttered as she walked away.
She turned back, cocked her leg, ready to strike down again; before she could stomp, a pathetic gleam in his eyes paused her—his sad face beat into her soul, a vision of the past. Mick lay coughing, trying to slide off his back so he wouldn’t drown in the blood flowing from his mouth. She touched gently on his side with her heel and rolled him so he could breathe.
“This is where things fall apart. Get as far away from here—from me—as you can,” she said, then ran away.
Alone on the wealthiest world in the Messier 82 galaxy. Would the healers here be open to trades? I know where a tainted felon wanders.
48
“Have you seen an XJ model droid?” asked Sera.
The alien merchant laughed at her as the sun fell behind them between two spires of crystal.
“Oh no, you’re serious?”
“I am.”
“No idea lady, but listen, you come back tomorrow. There’ll be a great sale. But the sun’s setting, and I’m going in for the night. And you’d better get off the streets looking like that.”
She looked down at her chest—red splatter adorned her jacket: Mick’s blood.
“Someone might get to thinking you’re up to no good,” the alien said, carrying his rolled awning off. He stopped and looked back at her: “In fact, that man there might think such a thing.”
Sera turned to see she had a pursuer—from a block away, a man in a cloak walked swiftly toward her. She jolted out of sight into a narrow drainway between two skyscraping spires.
“What rough beast…” drifted a voice into the sun-blocked drainway. Sera gripped her pistol and crouched flat against the wall. “It’s hour come round at last.”
“You won’t take me easy. Leave me be, and you might live to see another bounty.”
“You think I’ve come to cash you in?” said the cloaked man, stepping into the drainway. “You think the pleasure of material is what I seek?” A chuckle bounced between the narrow pass.
“I don’t know what the hell you want, and I don’t give a shit. I’ll blast your head off if you take another step.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. But I do not seek to drive out darkness—I intend to make it all the more complete—for humanity has sounded its identity clearly to the universe: it is a note of cancer, ” said the man, stopping.
“Who are you?” Sera said, recognizing his voice.
“You see me plain before you.”
The figure bent into a narrow ray of light, revealing his face. A blank pair of brown eyes stared from a pale, shadowed face. He smiled.
“I am the Force of Darkness.”
“FOD.”
“Where is the plantless man?”
“What?”
“Your uncle told me about such a man who travels with you now—on whom he could not detect a plant.”
“In a gutter, dead. What’s he mean to you?”
“He might mean the end of all things, if I can press my purpose upon him. Lead the way Sera.”
49
Karen?
I see you so clearly, the outline of your cheek. Stay here. Please.
I need your eyes. Soft, blue, mine forever—we agreed on that.
I smell you—do you know that I can? You must, fragrant musk of rose, you wore it for me.
Your warmth. Silk body. Legs forever. Your red lips. Hold me…
Karen?
Why can’t I hear you. I see you. You must see me. The lines of your mouth. Your breast, my pillow.
I can’t remember your voice.
A line of blood ran into a silver grate from Mick’s body. Two forms approached him from behind. One nudged him, then again harder.
“Mick,” Sera said.
He didn’t move.
“Roll him over,” said FOD. Sera kneeled down and turned Mick onto his back.
“You’re back? I knew you’d come back,” Mick smiled through blood-soaked teeth.
“Do you know why?”
“You want me—you still want me, don’t you? You never wanted me to go home.”
He strained to reach up, grab her, pull her close. She recoiled.
“No. Because he’s going to help me get my ship back. And he needs you.”
Mick looked for the first time at the thin figure next to Sera—FOD peered down, his shadowed visage mirroring Mick’s broken smile.
“Get up friend,” FOD said, extending his hand.
“Who are you?” asked Mick, taking it and standing up.
“I’m the one who will get you home.”
“Good. She’s been promising me that forever, and as you see, I’m still here, worse for the wear,” Mick laughed deliriously, looking at Sera as he wiped red drool from his chin and rubbed it into his pants.
“I will need a favor from you.”
“Seems that’s what everyone needs from me.”
“You don’t have a plant. There’s something you will have to do for me.”
“Kill more god damn robots? How about starting with her?” Mick said.
“You want to stay in the gutter?” Sera said, pressing past FOD.
“I’d like to see you put me there.”
“Relax. This situation is bad for both of you. You’ve both love that is missing, I know. That is your anger. The uncertainty of whether you will ever see them again.”
Sera stepped back.
Fight her again, and never make it home—maybe they’d mail my corpse back through the T-jump? Killed by a lover, or an angry cellbot?
“I have a ship. We’ll follow after the thieves, retrieve your droids,” said FOD, eyeing Sera, “then I’ll drop you off at Utopia. You’ll stay with me,” FOD said, looking to Mick.
“You?” Mick said. “Hell, what’s the difference—one nut or the other.”
“Yo
u’ll run an errand on my behalf, and then I’ll personally see you sent to whatever spacetime coordinate you desire. That’s what you want, right?” FOD said.
“That’s what I want, now can we break planetside before we’re swarmed by law?”
“Follow me.”
Mick walked behind Sera in the direction of a nearby hangar.
“What about XJ and GR, we’re leaving them here after all? And Axa, god knows what they’re doing to her,” Mick said.
“The old droids are on my ship already,” FOD said, then looked at Sera coldly. “You didn’t mention another.”
“She’s a whore thief—she should be dead. He’s a sentimental fool and kept her alive.”
“We’ll deal with her once we reclaim your ship.”
FOD led them to his ship. They entered the hangar and boarded a gunmetal light-class vessel with an L-shaped hull.
“What did you do to them?” Sera said, seeing XJ and GR lifeless, strewn on the floor of the bay.
“They’re fine. Keep moving.”
Why does she trust this guy? Nearly breaks my skull when I suggest leaving them, but this guy decommissions them and she yawns? There’s a past here, and she’s playing it close to the chest.
They entered the cockpit and sat down. The ship rotated and blasted off the planet. Mick gazed through a port window, watching the spires of Glisreel fade, their glory diminishing beneath blackening clouds.
“How are you going to track the Fogstar?”
“Glisreel is not a city of wealth—it is a city of death—distinct with many a tower and wall, impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin is there, that from the boundaries of the sky rolls its perpetual stream,” said FOD, his eyes fixed to the beaming stars shining through the cockpit viewscreen. “Their ship escapes not without a trace of that virulent stream—we will follow it.”
A wackjob. Serves me right, ignoring my gut. I shouldn’t have left Melbot’s station. What a mistake. I shouldn’t have gone on the damn smuggling run. A waste. Shouldn’t have entered FRINGE. A desk job—that’s what he’d offered.
What else Mick, you’re on a roll?
Shouldn’t have let it boil into murder.
Shouldn’t haves—no—should haves: should have thought of the kids. Karen. Selby. What’s the priority now? Self-preservation. God, get me back home.
50
“There,” said FOD, reclining in his cockpit chair.
A blip flickered on the cabin radar.
“How the hell did you find it that fast?” Mick asked.
FOD turned to Mick, his face revealed in the green light of the cabin. His taut skin was worn with lines, his eyes luminous glass.
This guy—another god damned robot.
“I am a robot,” FOD said.
Jesus Christ. Did he just read my damn—
“Yes. And the science behind it isn’t very hard to grasp. You see, I inhabit a new expancapicator model. And one of its built-in functions is the scanning of nearby brain waves.”
“Brainwaves translate my thoughts?” Mick asked, astounded.
“Of course they do. A lot of wealthier, or,” FOD eyed Sera, “outlaw types like her, use circ mods to overcome the tech. You, Mr. Compton, do not seem to have any such defense. And so I believe Sera’s premise the more—that you really are from the distant past.”
“And you?” Mick said, watching Sera smile.
“No—I can’t read a damn thought in anyone’s head. If I could, I might have avoided bruising your face so many times.”
“Sit tight. I’m going to pull the ship in.”
“You’ve got a tractor beam? What kind of light-class ship is this?”
“A very expensive one.”
FOD gripped his pilot stick, directing his focus back on the viewscreen. The ship jerked and Mick flattened into his chair. The tiny glow of twin engines appeared: The rear of the Fogstar. A flash of blue light emitted from the front of FOD’s ship. The blip on the radar slowed.
“Got ‘em,” he said.
Watch your thoughts. You don’t want him knowing too much. Logic intervened: If he can read your thoughts, he might have already downloaded your entire memory.
“I’m not interested in your memories,” FOD said quietly. Sera looked to Mick for explanation, but he ignored her.
What the hell is he interested in? A favor, just like everyone else in M82 wants. No one can seem to deliver on their promises here—no one can get me home.
“I will.”
FOD’s light-class drew in the paralyzed Fogstar. The crackle of a transmission sounded, and FOD activated the intership com.
“This is Graice Pulton, UCA Bounty Division. You are advised to release your tractor now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” FOD replied.
“Repeat—this is UCA Bounty Division. We are en route to UCA Starbase Tyne 4. Your interference is punishable by UCA regulations up to—” FOD interrupted:
“Threats will not be necessary. I am taking what is mine. Allow it, or pay with your life.”
That voice—Longjaw.
“You have one minute to release, or I will fire.”
“Fire as I pull you in backwards?” FOD laughed.
“You’ve had your warning,” Longjaw replied, then cut off his transmission.
“Can he fire?” Mick asked.
“There’s hindcannons on it,” Sera warned.
“He can’t fire them. His weapons systems are immobilized.”
A very, very expensive light-class. Maybe this guy can get me home.
The Fogstar moved within boarding distance.
FOD attempted to reopen communication: “You can keep the ship. I’m taking the cargo—the expancapacitor droids, the girl, and the plastic.”
“What the hell have you done to my ship?” cried Longjaw.
“Your ship?” Sera said. “I’ll kill him myself.”
“I’ve signaled an alarm. Military ships will swarm you before you reach the next system,” warned Longjaw.
“You mean this transmission?” FOD asked. He played an audio recording of Longjaw pleading to UCA Starbase Tyne 4 for assistance.
He intercepted the god damn transmission.
FOD turned to his crew and smiled.
Son-of-a-bitch gets high on this.
“You’ve got a taint on board. Intercept my transmissions all you want, it won’t matter. That plant-wasted whore is all the transmission I need.”
“Your cooperation is appreciated,” FOD replied. An airlock at the rear of the ship whooshed. He stood from his pilot chair and walked past Mick and Sera. “Stay here,” he ordered.
“Sera Carner—wanted by the UCA for desertion, and for the murder of an officer. Do you have any idea how fucked you are? You better stand down. You’ll be lucky I don’t do you like I did this whore you left behind.”
So he is her uncle then—old man Carner. And this FOD—what a set of balls—he better have the bite to match, or we’re all screwed.
FOD stepped into the airlock at the back of the loading bay.
“What the hell’s he doing? No suit?”
“Expancapacitors can’t enter space unprotected. He lied—it’s a military model.”
The black of space between the two light-class vessels saw a drifting form float between them. The outer hatch of the Fogstar’s bay opened.
“Do not board—I am directly ordering you to return to your ship,” Longjaw threatened over the com.
“Help! They’re rape—,” Axa screamed.
“That piece of shit,” Sera said, standing up from her chair. “Can you hear me Axa?”
“Yes—someone’s entering the ship. They’re going to kill—” she replied.
“And I’ll rape your corpse too,” came a strange voice.
A metallic bash rang out, a terrified scream, and a body collapsing.
“That monster!” Sera said. She ran to the bay hatch.
“Where the hell are you going?” Mick cal
led.
“Getting a suit on—I’m going to kill him myself,” she said, opening a storage locker by the inner airlock door.
“Stay put,” FOD said through the com. “I’m taking care of it.”
The inner airlock door of the Fogstar opened and FOD walked into the bay. Several bodies were scattered on the floor: dead expancapacitors. Axa and Longjaw were nowhere in sight.
“What the hell’s happening?” Mick said. “FOD? Sera?”
The transmission between ships terminated. Mick ran to the rear airlock to see Sera pulling up her spacesuit, following FOD despite his orders.
“He cut us off—fried the computer to fuck our coordination. He’s buying time for the UCA swarm,” she said.
“Why? FOD said no!” Mick said.
“I know FOD—he won’t kill him. I will.”
She cares about her—leaves her for dead, and now she cares. Alzemangled cellbot emotions.
She pulled the long zipper up the center of her muscular body. The skintight suit gave Mick pause.
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