The Eros Expansion

by Prax Venter

  “What the fuck was that?” Mark asked anyone who was listening.

  The smooth metal naga answered, “We are in one of the prime energy relays.”

  “We should be fine,” Ahnix added. “Just don’t jump- and Vale, keep your head down.”

  As if to illustrate her point, a vibrant burst of raw energy flashed overhead causing Mark to flinch again.

  “This cannot be the best way to transmit power,” he said, eyeing the dormant metal sphere.

  “Maybe, but it looks awesome,” Roo said, her mouth hanging open as she looked up, waiting for the next strike.

  Vale bent over slightly and nodded down the tube. “How far?”

  “To the end,” Ahnix answered, flicking a finger ahead. “There’s a vertical shaft that goes straight to our destination.”

  As they moved along the bottom of the energy relay, the thick bolts of power continued to zap over their heads at regular intervals, and Mark started to get used to the distraction. He numbly put one foot in front of the other as he watched Vale’s round, armored backside sway back and forth with her weaving moments. She really did have a fine ass. His mind replayed his recent anal adventure with Roo, and he wondered if the giant naga would ever be game.

  He felt Vale tense up with alarm in front of him, and his first thought was that she knew he was thinking about putting it in her snake butt. Instead, she pulled her shield and her shotgun and called out the situation.

  “Small robots in the tunnel!”

  Mark sprinted up next to her and saw dozens of black, hockey puck-shaped robots with arcs of electricity running around the outside of their body. Erica slid behind Vale as Ahnix and Roo came up to join them.

  The station’s virtual assistant gasped. “Oh no, the cleaners!”

  Vale leveled her shotgun at the horde of sparking taser bots gliding across the tunnel toward them. “Stay behind me,” the giant naga said- but Erica darted out in front of her.

  “I got this, watch!” she said with glee as her metal snake half became a blur of motion. Vale lowered her shotgun and yelled, “Wait!”

  But Erica didn’t even look back. Mark’s mouth began to hang open as he watched the metal naga destroy cleaner after cleaner with quick blasts from her green eye-lasers.

  A violent burst of pure energy crackled overhead for an instant, causing a freeze-frame of destruction on Mark’s retina, and he started to realize just how fast she was. She slid up the curved side of the tunnel, blasting a perfectly precise beam directly through the hopeless robots as she hit the apex of her height, and then shot down the other side to take four more out from the back.

  Movement from Mark’s right pulled his attention, and he saw Roo hold out her hand to launch a needle into the fray. She skewered one of the small robots, and it became instantly motionless. He could tell she felt much better after getting to destroy one of them at least.

  Erica swiftly took out the last of the cleaners with a few blasts from her bright, green eyes and then slid back to the group, avoiding the dead, smoking husks. The proud smile on her smooth metal face went from ear to elfish ear.

  “Don’t do that again,” Vale said sternly, and Erica’s smile faltered.

  “But I got them all…”

  Mark stepped in to try and soften the message. “She means you moved right in front of her shotgun. We’ve learned too many times that rushing in, or not working as a team can cause problems. Great job wiping them all out. You are definitely a badass, and we’re all glad you’re on our team. But in the future, we need to work as a team.”

  Roo clasped her soft hands behind her back and stretched out her chest. “I’d just like to say that I helped take one out and that makes it a team effort.”

  Vale smiled and moved forward to put her hand on Erica’s smaller metallic shoulder.

  “He’s right. You definitely are a badass.”

  Mark could feel a collective weight lifted as the tension was broken. Pink lightning followed by a clap of thunder boomed over his head, and he had to sigh.

  “Okay, let’s get out of this annoying place.”

  They all quietly agreed and resumed their pace through the energy relay. Not long after, they reached the end of the tunnel, and Mark saw the matching iron ball at this end. They were treated to one last blast of energy as Ahnix hacked open their exit door. The iron ball filled with its own internal light as a loud hum began to oscillate upwards in volume. When the node was glowing brightly, and the humming was intolerably loud, a bolt of energy discharged down the tube in the blink of an eye. Although he was faced with another ladder to climb, Mark was happy to leave the light show behind.

  He let Roo go ahead of him and enjoyed the view for three more floors until they came out directly in the middle of a large, dome-roofed room.

  Erica slid right up to a central console and placed her hand on the reflective, glassy surface. The console beeped a few times before the whole room flashed white.

  “Correcting for misalignment,” Erica said, concentrating on interfacing with the station’s systems. Mark looked around the room while she worked and saw there was not much in the small chamber other than the one terminal. He was watching Ahnix secure the door when the walls and ceiling were replaced with colorful clouds of distant nebulae.

  “Calibrations complete,” Erica said.

  “So beautiful…” Roo said gazing up into the stars.

  “What is it we need to do here?” Vale asked.

  Erica kept her eyes unfocused as she explored the mountains of data at her fingertips.

  “Saving a snapshot of the current station orientation then applying a real-time drift correction algorithm that takes into account our current speed and rotation.”

  “Sounds intense,” Mark said.

  “She’s making a copy of a map,” Ahnix clarified, sensing Vale’s confusion.

  The room-filling screen changed and about twenty slowly-spinning planets encircled them. Mark spun around and saw a red one with orange clouds, a dark one that looked to be mostly covered by one large city and then he saw the white-swirled, blue marble that just had to be Earth. A pleasant bloop sound echoed around the room, and Mark looked forward again to see a verdant, green world filling most of the screen.

  Erica spoke again. “This is the targeted recipient of our distress call, Vermeil Seven.”

  “Looks like a big green ball,” Roo said frowning.

  “This is a planet,” Mark said. “I mentioned them when we first got here. Space is filled with them. But Earth is the only one with people- that I know of.”

  Erica looked back over her shoulder. “There are trillions of people on millions of planets throughout the galaxy.”

  Mark really didn’t want to have this discussion again and just nodded. “Yeah, I must have been thinking of something else.”

  Erica turned her attention back to the console and brought Earth front and center. The view zoomed in and centered on what appeared to be a futuristic version of Los Angeles. There weren’t that many flying cars in Mark’s world. Here they seemed to be everywhere.

  “Is this what your world is like?” Ahnix asked. He felt her warmth as she stepped up close to him.

  “It’s the closest yet, but there wasn’t this much fantasy technology. Though my world is wherever you girls are.” At that, Mark felt her furry fingers lace through his. He looked down into her exotic eyes and lightly squeezed her hand. Ahnix could feel every thought he had, and she knew he was dead serious. They all knew they couldn’t live without each other.

  Erica swiveled to look at the giant naga behind her. “Where is your home planet, Vale? Where the ones that look like you and me come from. I’d love to go there someday.”

  Mark could feel the unease wash over him like an ice bucket dumped on his head. Vale and Mark exchanged glances, there was still a lot of emotion behind the possible erasure of Vale’s home, and she didn’t know how to answer. Mark knew exactly how it felt trying to describe to an artificial intelligence
in a virtual world that you aren’t from anywhere they would understand, and they could never come to visit.

  “It’s complicated,” Ahnix said finally.

  “It is?” Erica said, turning back to the console. “I’ll just run a deep search for corresponding matches for bone structure and- wait…”

  She tilted her smooth, metal head and Mark could feel mild confusion and surprise radiate out from the station’s artificial assistant.

  “What is it?” he said, peering over her shoulder. On the screen in front of her was a picture of a little girl. She had red hair and freckles. It looked like a school photo.

  “This is… odd.” Erica said, confused.

  Vale approached the terminal. “Who is this?”

  Erica shook her smooth head as if dismissing something impossible. Then looked up into Vale’s violet eyes.

  “This is Monica Kya Nilla. While I was looking through the station’s databanks, I kept running across her name- or data that pointed back to her. Once a few connections were made, I activated a data mining subroutine and found… a lot more.”

  Vale crossed her arms. “Data mining? I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means what it sounds like,” Ahnix said. “Who is Monica and why is she important?”

  The main screen in front of them changed to display an image. Large bold words that spelled “TRAGEDY” floated above the strewn wreckage of mangled transportation pods. The screen changed again and showed a pretty woman behind a desk. She sat in front of a bland blue background, and Mark recognized this as a local news broadcast. She looked up into the camera and began to speak.

  “One hundred and seven lives were cut short this morning when a maglev transport from Hanover Park to Port Bellow collided with a malfunctioning repair drone.” The scene shifted to show an official-looking man standing behind a cluster of microphones and tall podium.

  “We know the global positioning system on the repair pod was malfunctioning, and the shuttle leaving from Hanover Park at 8:08 this morning did not receive telemetry or know of its existence on the track before leaving the station. All maglev repair drones will be taken offline, and a new redundant safety process will be implemented. I-”

  The sound cut out when the screen started flipping through more pictures of Monica, slowly at first and then with increasing speed- until it was just a blur.

  “I know her. I know her parents…” Erica started mumbling to herself and took her hand off the panel, but the display continued cycling through a flurry of data. “Her mother died with her- they were going to the zoo. Her father was away with work. He is away a lot. His name is Harold. Harold Nilla.”

  Vale put her large hand over Erica’s shoulder, and the smaller naga turned her green eyes up.

  “Her… data. It’s what’s corrupting the station. Her DNA, her medical records, brain scans… everything. I- I think she’s in me.” Erica looked down at the panel again, and Monica’s school picture was everywhere, filling every display. Then an audio file began to play, and Mark felt chills down his spine when Erica’s tinkling voice filled the room.

  “Daddy! Stop it! I’m just drawing. You don’t need to record everything.”

  “Come on my little sock puppet,” a deep-sounding male replied. “I’m leaving tonight, and I need to record every bit of you to play back later.”

  There was a short stretch of silence, then, “Please take me with you.”

  The man sighed, and the sorrow in that one exhalation echoed around the domed chamber that was Stellar Cartography.

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Then goodbye, daddy.”

  The audio cut out and the screens faded to black. Mark felt some of the terror and confusion from Erica that she had first felt when waking up. Vale tapped the gem on her legendary circlet, pulled the metal naga close to her skin and just held her.

  Whoever Erica really was, she calmed down and began to take back control of her reeling mechanical mind. Mark took a moment to remember his Enthralled all technically had mechanical minds, too. He had never connected emotionally with any real, human individual as closely as he had with his girls- no one ever even came remotely close to how he felt about them. What he felt from them.

  “Those were my- her, last recorded words,” Erica finally whispered. “I don’t actually remember being Monica, but I know she is a part of me… she sounds just like me.” Erica pulled back and looked around at the group. “The station is slowly trying to- I don’t know. Turn into her? I can’t tell you why. Nothing makes much sense anymore.”

  “When has anything ever made any sense?” Ahnix said.

  “Ahnix is right,” Mark said. “Shake it off, Erica. You don’t know how to stop this… transformation. Correct?”

  “Correct.” She nodded. “The data is- pure chaos. I…”

  “It’s okay.” Mark cut her off. “Nothing changes, then. We get you to Coms and send the call for backup. Whatever this space station is doing, it doesn’t sound like somewhere we want to be while it’s happening.”

  “Right,” Vale said, stepping away from Erica and deploying her black scale armor. “The only way is forward.”

  Mark could feel Erica get inspired by the positivity. If there was one thing he and his girls were good at, it was moving forward. Ahnix activated her 3D holographic map and called out their route. Mark knew it was primarily for Vale’s sake; she had the best memory. But it never hurt to know the plan. Ahnix’s sleek fur was glowing softly in the light of her holographic projection, and Mark couldn’t help but zone out as she talked.

  “It’s not bad,” the triangle-eared, exotic beauty said. “But there are some sections on fire or just reported missing. We go down two floors, through this hallway, back up to the edge and move a quarter rotation.”

  With the corrected star charts locked away in Erica’s robot brain, they all moved back down the access tube. Mark wondered how or why a space station would try to transform into a human girl, but it seemed like they had some answers. He sighed as he stepped down the rungs of the ladder. Every answer just raised five more questions.

  - 21 -

  Mark exited the vertical shaft and joined the two naga in a sleek, black and white corridor that looked like a hundred others around the station. Roo and Ahnix came shortly after, and the cat-girl moved past everyone to take the lead. Not three seconds later, the sound of rubber squealing on space station floor reverberated off the walls ahead of them. It had been a while since Mark had seen the one-eyed, bowling pin robots, and he felt confident they could take the four that came charging down the corridor.

  That was, until five more appeared behind them from a side hallway.

  “Hit me!” Roo shouted as Vale used Perfect Cover to block a beam aimed at Ahnix’s head. Mark had a moment to notice that her shield completely absorbed the cold, blue attack before he closed his eyes, shot a hand out to Roo’s back and filled her with a potent burst of power.

  The lithe fabric-girl began to sigh from the erotic energy filling her with potential. He was just about finished with the transfer when a frigid, blue laser struck Mark’s left arm, and his connection to Roo was instantly severed.

  His hand darted to cover his wound, but he yanked it back the moment he touched his solid, frozen flesh. Excruciating numbness spread through his bicep, but he pushed the pain aside. No one else seemed hurt, and his wound wasn’t life-threatening, so he reached for his crossbow with his good hand instead.

  Roo extended both arms and started to scream as an enormous, smooth iron ball began to grow in front of her palm. Mark took advantage of the extra cover and ducked behind the massive sphere to avoid another blue blast.

  Mark heard a concussive shotgun blast, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed Vale catching every eye-laser attack with her upgraded shield- but Ahnix was nowhere in sight. An instant later he heard the cat-girl yell “Doom Kick,” from down the hall and then Retract back behind their giant naga tank. It looked like they had things cov
ered on that side, so Mark turned back to help Roo, wincing as his frozen arm throbbed.

  The iron ball practically filled the hallway by now, and he changed position to stand behind his velvet-skinned metal mage. He was ready for what came next and caught Roo in his arms after she flew backward. Whenever she launched a massive iron object, she was always knocked off her feet.

  The pain in his frozen arm forced him to grit his teeth, but the smile on Roo’s puffy lips when he was there for her was all worth it. The iron ball thundered down the hallway at a decent speed, and Mark felt a small amount of essence enter his body as it smashed into their attackers on the other side.

  Vale’s Judge 559 destroyed two more from the front, and Mark turned to see how they were doing. After her shotgun hissed from the expelled heat, she looked down at the smaller, metal naga.

  “Erica, get the last one!”

  The shiny, mysterious AI darted under her shield and zapped the final bot right in its eye with her own lasers.

  The security bot’s top half exploded, and they had a clear path forward.

  Vale spun around to check their rear, saw the giant ball blocking the hallway. She then turned to Mark.

  “Heal, then we move.”

  He nodded, targeted his arm and unleashed his healing powers. A transparent, white flame engulfed his arm, and a pleasant warmth melted the frozen stinging numbness.

  “Go scout ahead,” Vale commanded, turning to Ahnix. “Hack the next door. We’ll be right behind.”

  The cat-girl turned and started stalking forward before she faded from sight.

  Mark slapped his arm to indicate that he was fully healed, and Vale moved forward after the invisible cat-girl. Mark watched Vale’s large armored body push aside bits of security robot wreckage like a plow as they advanced down the hallway. The rest followed right behind her, avoiding the twisted metal. They had made a horrible mess.