“Yes sir,” said the pilot. Rhylie could sense the tension that hung heavy in the air. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable, as though she were intruding on a personal and private moment.
“It was an honor serving with you all,” her rescuer said. This was confusing to her. “I regret the way it ended, but we all knew the risks we were taking.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Rhylie.
“We’re setting a trajectory for the nearest singularity,” he responded sadly.
“Why are we going anywhere near a black hole?!?” she barely managed to squeak out. Humans still knew very little about them, only about their destructive qualities. She was beginning to freak out.
“The Masters have implanted a cyberbionic chip in your spine, at the base of your skull. The fibers have probably extend themselves the entire length of your nervous system. They can monitor your location, your thoughts, everything you see, hear, say, smell, and touch.” Rhylie’s mouth dropped open. She felt violated again. Even once she was beyond the Chamber’s reach, it was still inside of her. She was never going to escape it. “Unfortunately we don’t have the technology to remove it without killing you,” he finished sadly.
“You rescued me just to kill me?” she shrieked. “Why didn’t you just kill me in the Chamber?” She began to struggle against her bonds. None of this made sense.
“It was just a chance I had to take. Vorcia cannot be allowed to use you to start an extinction event,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Rhylie questioned, beginning to struggle against her restraints. She couldn’t figure out how to open them. She began feeling confined again, just as she had so many times before, bound to all of those various tables. She broke out into a cold sweat. Maybe she hadn’t escaped the Chamber at all. Maybe this was just another one of Vorcia’s tests.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” he said. “But none of that matters now.” He reached over and grabbed Rhylie’s wrist. She tried to stop him, but he was stronger than her, and she was still weak and sickly. He placed a small drop of silvery liquid on the back of her hand. It was absorbed instantly, and the effects followed within seconds. The last thing she heard before she blacked out was:
“What’s the ETA on that singularity?”
“Approximately 1.2 nanocycles.”
Ashes of Asylum
Vorcia
Rhylie’s signal had vanished into the singularity, utterly consumed by it, before Siirocian ships could intercept the craft she had been taken away with. Vorcia regretted the decision to not send ships after them sooner, but only a little. She had hoped they would be incompetent enough to lead her directly to their base of operations.
She highly doubted Isaar, Reskle, and whatever motley crew of simpletons and castoffs they had assembled would have actually killed themselves along with Rhylie. That wasn’t Isaar’s modus operandi. He would never sacrifice what he perceived to be innocents in order to achieve the objectives of his endeavors, a weakness of his race. The Siirocians should have eliminated his kind from their arm of the galaxy long ago, even though they had their uses. Some of their greatest inventions had come from Fetullian science; they had an affinity for both form and function that she could easily appreciate.
She would also miss playing with Rhylie, but at least now she knew who the new face of the Siirocian Opposition Movement was, two of them anyway. They were the weakest they’d been for several millicycles, a steady decline brought about by her relentless pursuit. To even allow one of them to exist was a blight on her authority.
She had given up her favorite toy for the opportunity to wipe out that nest of vermin once and for all, but it was a small price to pay. She was genuinely surprised that Isaar hadn’t walked away from it all after his former lover had been killed when they had been caught stealing the Chamber’s tech and secrets. This time she would make sure he couldn’t walk away from anything ever again. The rumors she had heard about what had been done with the tech he had stolen was unnerving, to say the least.
She lifted herself up from the egg-shaped seat she was lounging in and drifted over the floor using her gravity well. She dressed herself in loose, flowing robes with a simple cinch around the waist. She wasn’t concerned with her nudity. Shame and dignity were notions that were archaic and meaningless to the Siirocian; they generally only dressed for pomp and decorum. The other races seemed impressed by it, and were even uncomfortable around nude Siirocians, despite how androgynous their bodies were.
She crossed the room to the oval crib in the corner, and reached in, gingerly lifting out her favorite pet. He cooed softly in her arms, and she was very careful not to scratch him with her scaly skin. She nestled him in the soft folds of her robe, cradling him to her breast. She offered him her nipple to nurse, and he took it hungrily. Once he’d began developing teeth he became rougher with her when he was feeding. He was more demanding. She could see that their aggression began at an early age. They seemed to want to fight and feed whenever they could, as opposed to needing to be threatened or hungry. Her nipples were supple and soft after the genetic alteration that she’d undergone to provide him with her own milk, and he would sometimes bite down harder than she would expect he could be capable of. His strength could sometimes be surprising. More often than not her nipples were tender and sore, something wearing clothing only exacerbated. Still, he was weak and vulnerable, with his soft pink flesh and tuft of downy black hair. He was going to look just like his mother one day with his little button nose and dark eyes.
She’d never had children of her own; successors were dangerous in her line of work, and taking another mate would mean she would have to share her authority over the Siirocian Empire. She had a long life yet to live, perhaps even another few centicycles. There was no reason to shorten it by creating heirs to her title. But this little one would never threaten her life. Humans didn’t live long enough to pose any credible threat to her or her people. And soon there wouldn’t be any humans remaining, save for this tiny, precious one, a thought that greatly pleased her. One of the few things that still made her happy was her collection of unique and exotic things.
Even though they were no threat to her or her empire, she still could not allow humans to take their small offshoot away from the Siirocian arm of the galaxy. It would be a stain on her legacy, and the buffer zone between her empire and the Siddish Commonwealth, which was strategically important. If humans chose to side with the Siddish in political matters, it would be demeaning, an embarrassment.
Soon she would remove two threats to the dignity of her people and the credibility of her rule. And after that, she would be able to focus on undermining and weakening the Siddish again.
She slowly drifted away from the crib as the child continued to nourish himself on her breast, whilst she rocked him gently in her arms. He was getting heavier quickly now; he seemed to grow larger every few microcycles. She positioned herself in the middle of the room and held him, watching him nurse intently. He was so precious and innocent, so vulnerable and in need of nurturing. He stirred feelings in her that she hadn’t known she was capable of.
“Chamber, fabricate Moos’san’dai,” Vorcia said as she rocked the child gently in her arms.
“Yes, Empress,” came the disembodied reply. It was a masculine voice, confident and reassuring. It was no coincidence that it sounded like the former Emperor, with whom she had shared the throne. That had been a short lived partnership, she had seen to it.
The room around her changed, altering itself to the ancient nursery for highborn Siirocian nobility. The walls were curved and shiny, carved from dark red marble deep beneath the ground of her homeworld. There was a soft and subdued light cast over the room, giving it a comforting feel. The temperature was a bit cooler and less humid than it would have been in the real nursery, for the child’s sake, but around her were dozens of eggs nestled in swaddling.
Siirocian nobility had very little to do with their children until after t
hey had learned to speak. She herself had spent two millicycles there with her siblings until she was old enough to be allowed to participate in aristocratic society. Some of her brothers and sisters had never even made it out of the nest, so to speak. Accidents had a way of happening. The rest she’d taken care of on her ascension to the throne.
Still, it was one of the few places that still brought her peace of mind. She’d had a good childhood, spending long hours basking alone in the sun once she’d been allowed to venture to the surface. Siirocian preferred being alone; they were not an overly sociable culture for the most part, although aberrations did exist. There was nothing more embarrassing than an emotionally needy Siirocian, in her mind.
She settled herself down on a feeding lounge as the child continued to suckle from her. It felt surprisingly good when he was gentle, but when he was irritable or bad tempered it could be very painful. The genetic alteration itself to provide for him in such a way had been drastic, but painless.
She was still unsure of how she felt about having breasts, they got in the way a lot and bounced about in a very undignified manner, but Siirocian aristocracy had done much stranger things before. Nobody even seemed to notice really, other than the few compliments she’d gotten from her attendants, but they were paid to say such things. At least half of them were probably spies anyway, always trying to massage her ego for favor. That was why she did not trust any of them to have the procedure done so they could nurse the child instead of her. Besides, it might cause confusion in the mind of the boy. Siirocian children began feeding on living creatures soon after they hatched, and never truly developed a strong emotional bond with their parents because of this. It had made it that much easier to conspire with her husband to eliminate her parents and siblings that had a claim to the throne, and then done away with him after he’d served his purpose.
But this was an entirely new experience for her, although not unheard of amongst the Siirocian ruling class. Transgender modification was actually the most common genetic alteration procedure for her peers and social circle. The strange things we do out of boredom, she thought idly. She wondered how long it would be before he could talk; she looked forward to the day when she could communicate with him. Then, perhaps she could train him and civilize him and parade him about like a little trophy, the last and only human in the galaxy.
And if not, she would enjoy making him suffer just as she’d done with his mother.
16
Rhylie could vaguely hear voices, distantly, but she didn’t recognize the language being spoken. Her vision was blurred and her head ached, throbs of pain mitigated by lulls of semi-consciousness.
The voices began to grow louder as the conversation quickly became heated, but everything was muffled and distorted, as though she were listening to it through a series of tubes. Rhylie struggled to ask for water and they ceased speaking immediately. All that came out her mouth were unformed grunts and groans.
“You’re awake,” one of the voices said, through the crumbling fog that swaddled her. She recognized it. It was her rescuer. The assassin that had attempted to kill her in the Chamber.
“I yah thirsssss,” was all she managed to hiss out. Why did her tongue feel so thick and wooden? It clove to the roof of her mouth, and hurt when she peeled it away. It felt like her gums were being pricked with tiny needles.
“Just relax,” said another voice. It sounded feminine, matronly. “The worst is over.”
“That’s what you think. She is not going to be happy,” said a third voice. It was whiny and shrill. Panicked.
“Shut up, Drasce,” said her rescuer. “This is a very delicate situation.” He sounded frustrated, aggravated.
“You saw for yourself what she’s capable of,” Drasce said, sounding fearful. “She’s a murderer! You saw how she killed all of those-”
“Those are nothing but Vorcia’s lies,” said her rescuer, cutting him off. He sounded uncertain himself.
“If you say so, Isaar,” said Drasce. “I saw the feeds!”
“All of us saw those feeds. What you did not see was her in the Chamber, begging for death. Vorcia has been using her,” Isaar replied angrily.
“Then why not just kill her if that’s what she wants?” Drasce asked.
“Because that is not who I am,” said Isaar. “I will not kill the innocent needlessly.”
Rhylie was having trouble following the conversation through the fog. Her vision wavered, flashes of the scene playing out before her, flickering through the muted gray. Shadows began to form and shift where the voices were coming from, dark blobs undulating and fading as she blinked her eyes. Her eyelids seemed to be sticking together.
“Water, please, water,” she murmured. She tried to raise a hand to wipe the sweat from her face, but something wasn’t right. The weight of it was different. It felt cold and metallic on her face.
“She’s going to scratch herself, Isaar,” a third voice said. “I told you we should have restrained her.” It came from the dark blur on her left. He sounded like the stooped, eyeless alien with bat-like ears that had scanned her in the cockpit. Or was that a dream she had? She couldn’t remember. Her fucking head was hurting so badly.
“She has been restrained enough, Reskle,” said Isaar. He was the blur on her right. “She was so Chamber sick that she could not walk.” She felt something pulling her hand away from her face. She was too weak to resist.
“The neural interface hasn’t finished its scan yet. She’s still weak and feverish,” Reskle said. He leaned over her, but his features were formless. “She’s 35% blind at the moment, but everything should be online soon.” He sounded worried.
“She’s going to be even more dangerous. She’s going to kill us,” Drasce said in the background, his voice rising hysterically.
“We had to do it to save her life, and ours,” said Isaar. “It was the only solution.”
“What life? We can never go home now,” Drasce wailed.
“I told you not to come along, Drasce, but you insisted. You wanted to prove yourself, and you got to,” Isaar said. “You knew the risks. Now accept them.” He sounded defensive. “Besides, you can go home any time you want. She didn’t see your face. Only Reskle and I have been exposed.” What were they talking about? Were they talking about her? Everything seemed to be happening so far away from her.
“Things are moving faster than we anticipated,” Reskle said nervously. “We were not fully prepared to perform this procedure.”
“We had no other choice,” said Isaar impatiently, as though he were through discussing it. “Can we dial back the signal intensity any? Is there anyway to slow the process down?”
“I’ve never done this with a human,” Reskle said. “They’re different, and she’s recovering faster than I anticipated. I don’t have the proper equipment to slow down or speed up the process, just what I needed for the procedure itself. Now that it’s begun, the only way to stop it would be to terminate her.”
Isaar leaned in, hovering over her. He was just another dark shape.
“What is your name?” he asked, his voice tense.
“G-Gota,” she said, fumbling with the word. Was that really her name? She couldn’t remember, and even that name was fuzzy. It had been so long since anyone had called her anything else. Maybe in another life, she’d had another name. But not anymore.
“No,” Isaar said. “Your real name.” Rhylie twisted her face into a sick grimace that mocked a smile. All of it suddenly made sense to her.
“No, no, no, no-no-no it’s a trick. It’s just another trick…but I’m smarter than you!” she half-cackled madly. “Chamber, respond!” She reached towards the figure. It barely evaded her grasp.
“She’s crazy!” Drasce shrieked. “She’s going to kill us all!” There was a commotion, somewhere beyond the fog. She laid her hand back down at her side and closed her eyes for a moment. She wished her head would stop hurting.
“You are not in the Chamber anymore,” Isa
ar stressed, his voice rising with frustration. He moved back over her and grabbed her by her wrists. It was odd. She could tell she was being restrained, but she couldn’t feel his touch.
She opened her eyes to confirm it, and saw a long shadow extending down. Where her arm should be, something shimmered through the fog, but she couldn’t make out any details. “Please,” he implored. “You have to listen to me.” His voice carried a heightened sense of urgency.
“We have to terminate her!” Drasce shrieked behind him. The commotion grew louder.
“What are you doing, Drasce? PUT THAT DOWN! Noura, Mersi, get him out of here!” Isaar yelled. “He is going to be the one that gets us all killed.” Rhylie could hear the sounds of a struggle somewhere beyond her clouded vision. Isaar’s dark shadow disappeared from above her.
“She’ll be online and full strength soon, Isaar,” Reskle said uneasily. “She’s 55% online already.” Isaar’s shadow reappeared, leaning closely. She could feel his gentle touch on her forehead, his fingers soft and soothing.
“Please tell me your real name,” he begged her. Rhylie’s vision began to swim into view. Colors bloomed in the vague gray mist that separated her from reality. Her headache was beginning to subside.
“Gota,” she said, laying back and relaxing her arms. It was the only thing that made sense. It was safe.
“No,” said Isaar. “Your real name. Not the one the Masters gave you.” Wasn’t Gota her real name? What was he talking about? The Chamber was her mother, and Gota had been her name since birth it seemed.
“I have always been Gota,” she whimpered. “Chamber, respond, please. Please respond.” What was wrong with the Chamber? She needed its help right now. Isaar sighed.
“I told you that you are not in the Chamber anymore. Your name is not Gota,” he implored. “This is not fabricated,” he stressed.
“She’s insane,” Reskle said. “She’s been in the Chamber for too long. This is beginning to go from bad to worse, Isaar. We may need to begin considering drastic measures.”
Nascent Decay (The Goddess of Decay Book 1) Page 10