Bentley had long since lost the attentions of Harkness, who in spite of his initial enthusiasm had quickly grown jealous of her close rapport with Svend. She’d noticed Svend had been laying it on thick a few times, playing the rich gem-toothed man like a simple instrument. That wasn’t a problem, though. Harkness remained on the second floor, testing his luck at a roulette table, while she and Svend had quickly advanced to the third.
The third floor wasn’t nearly as busy as the first or hedonistically uproarious as the second. It resembled a fine lounge with a stage and live music, with large amounts of empty space for booths and tables to accommodate every patron. The point here, Svend had pointed out, was to emphasize the exclusivity of those who got this far. They’d sat themselves at the finished wooden bar, ready to celebrate as they looked on at the stage entertainment. There was an android woman singing with perfect pitch, but it still managed to somehow sound soulful and human.
Svend ordered a pair of tall shot glasses that the bartender filled from a bottle of tequila that, even just from the glassware and label, she could tell would be better than what she was used to consuming on the Chesed.
Svend raised his glass up, looking at her expectantly. “To a job well done.”
Bentley clinked her glass to his and took a small sip from the drink. It was smooth and floral in a way she didn’t know tequila could be. “We’re not done yet,” Bentley answered him, placing her only partially sipped drink back on the bar. “Arguably we’re just getting started, aren’t we?”
Svend downed the contents of his glass in one go. He didn’t wince or cough or even exhale after drinking the strong alcohol. It was as though it could have just as easily been a cup of warm milk. “No, the hard part is pretty much over,” he said. “And as my partner in that, you’ve exceeded all of my expectations.”
“Oh?” Bentley smiled wryly at him. “And what exactly were you expecting? That I’d pick a fight with security and get thrown out in the first five minutes?” She couldn’t help but giggle at the memory of Ivor getting the exact treatment she’d felt she deserved.
Svend didn’t share her laughter, but the corners of his mouth twitched just a little on either side of his broad smile. “Oh, nothing like that,” he said. “I just have found in the past that, when it comes to humans, sometimes it’s best not to hope for too much.” His smile slowly faded to a more serious expression that somehow made no impact on the sense of peace Bentley got from looking at that flawless face. “I’ve found they often let you down, one way or the other,” he finished.
“Hey, give us a break,” Bentley replied. “We can’t all measure up to perfection.”
“Nobody can,” Svend replied while hailing down the bartender for two more drinks. “Trust me on that one.”
Bentley examined Svend’s face when he talked about this, and considered how uncomfortable it must be to be the only human on the ship filled with androids. She could relate to being the odd one out on her ship’s crew as well, albeit in a very different way. But the way he’d spoken of humans disappointing him made her think that maybe he preferred it that way. The more she spoke with Svend, the more she wanted to know about him.
Two new shots came to the bar, and she looked at them curiously. “Easy there, I haven’t even finished my first one yet.” For all her indulgence in the food and views and recreations here, Bentley had taken care not to drink too much.
“You can relax already, you know,” Svend assured her. “I won’t get drunk, but you should. You’ve worked hard, you deserve to actually have some fun now.”
“Oh, there’s definitely no risk of me having no fun. That ship has long since gone FTL,” Bentley replied. “But I’ve still got to stay sharp. In my experience these things go south as soon as you stop expecting them to.”
Svend winked at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll protect you.”
Bentley took another small sip from her glass. “As much as I appreciate the thought, I’ve had enough of letting knights in shining armor coming gallantly to my rescue. Would much rather take care of myself.”
Svend nursed his own drink, considering her words. “I can respect that,” he said. “Still, I’m going to need you to get drunk for the job to go down right.”
Bentley eyed him suspiciously now. “Wait, what? Since when? That wasn’t anywhere in the briefing,” she frowned. “At all.”
“We didn’t think your companions will go for it,” he confessed. “They’re too emotionally invested in you.”
“Well, I’m pretty fucking emotionally invested in me too, now that you mention it!” Bentley retorted defensively.
Svend nodded along in what looked like a casual agreement with her. “Of course you are,” he said. “But they’re different. If they thought you were at significant risk they probably wouldn’t have let you go on this mission at all.”
Bentley considered the way she’d been treated like another piece of valuable cargo once her connection to the sword was confirmed, and she knew Svend wasn’t far off. Still, she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of suddenly getting drunk on the job. “Why would I need to get drunk for this to go right? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“They need to think you’re not a threat,” Svend explained. “They won’t let someone up to level four if they think there’s any chance of a hustle.”
“Level four? The target’s on this level, isn’t it?”
“Not quite,” Svend told her. “We had to misrepresent the mission parameters a bit in that way, too.”
Jade’s angered voice rang in on Bentley’s earpiece. “Bentley, if you trust this guy at this point, you’re dumber than I ever thought you were.”
Bentley tried to ignore the complaint, but still somewhat agreed in spirit. “I could just pretend I’m drunk,” she suggested. “I’ve been wasted enough times that I can be convincing.”
Svend shook his head. “Not to these guys,” he said. “They do sweat-scans to test blood alcohol. There’s all kinds of things like that going on here you don’t even see.”
“Huh.” Bentley looked around the lounge area and wondered just how many people might be watching her with suspicion. “Well, why’s it got to be just me? What about you?”
“I can’t get drunk,” Svend said. “It’s, well… a weird little genetic quirk.”
Bentley looked into his pretty blue eyes and thought about his words. Was he genetically modified? It would explain a great deal. And, in spite of Jelly Bean’s assurances that she wasn’t modified in that way, it made her feel oddly like she could relate to him.
“All right,” Bentley conceded and downed the rest of her shot. “For the good of the mission.”
Svend looked pleased and waved down the bartender again. “That’s the spirit!” he said. Then his smile dropped a little and his voice took a rather serious tone. “Also, you’re going to need to ditch that earpiece.”
“Don’t you dare!” Jade’s voice bellowed into Bentley’s head.
Bentley became aware of the bit-tool in her ear and, in spite of the aggressive tone the voice in it was taking, she felt that same initial discomfort returning from this request. “That’s… it shouldn’t be detectable.”
“It is beyond detection,” Jelly Bean assured her. “We would not be using it if this were not the case.”
“Security tightens up a lot more down the line,” Svend told her. “It may have been good enough to fool them up until now, but they’ll be looking deeper. Trust me.”
Bentley continued to look at Svend as he slipped a fresh drink into her hand. The last two words stuck in her mind. In spite of his previous deceptions, and her misgivings about his requests, she found that she did trust him. Somehow, at this moment, she trusted him more than she did even herself.
She took another sip from her drink and decided to just enjoy this moment.
CHAPTER NINE
Mess Hall, Aboard the Chesed, Edge of Klaunox-Orion Sector
Jelly Bean had been preoccupied
with the handling of Bentley’s communications up until now, but with Jade continually taking more of a direct hand in speaking for the rest of the crew, albeit rather aggressively, it left some time to pay attention to general ship’s functions. To her surprise, she found that the Chesed was being boarded via that same airlock tunnel that kept it connected to the Odysseus.
She hadn’t been looped in on any communications regarding a visit of this kind, but that wasn’t surprising; she’d been rather preoccupied maintaining a proper lock on Bentley through the casino’s subspace firewall systems, which had proven exceedingly sophisticated. The handling of communications was supposed to be delegated to Jade, but in the last few hours she’d mostly been shirking those duties in favor of shouting into the direct-audio microphone that this system necessitated, urged by her increasingly hostile attitude.
Jelly Bean had her own concerns about Bentley’s actions, especially given what she had heard just moments ago when Svend admit that the mission’s parameters were subject to such sudden changes. That was proving par for the course on this job, and as frustrating as that had been for the crew, this was the first time Jelly Bean actually felt concerned. Now it was leaving a member of the crew isolated and at risk. And so, when she witnessed the two people boarding as the captain of the Odysseus, Blackfriar, and his first officer, she found herself unsure of whether to take this as something to be relieved in, or further cause for concern.
The two of them walked across the bridge without ceremony, as though it were just another continuation of the path set by their airlock tunnel. She noticed Blackfriar turning to look at her with a determined, yet oddly kind stare. He gave her a knowing nod that she could only take as acknowledgement, or respect. Perhaps he’d been trying to pay some mind to her humanity as an artificial life form?
Jelly Bean followed behind them as they headed towards the crew’s quarters. The doors were open, and Loco stood waiting in the threshold like a common guard. When he laid eyes on Barnabas and Blackfriar, his eyes narrowed with naked contempt.
“All right, you’re here,” Loco said, his actively repressed tone showing that he was at the very limits of his hospitality.
Blackfriar, on the other hand, showed the fullest extent of his courtesy, giving a forty-five degree bow. “Well met. We thank you for welcoming us onto your ship. We have much to discuss.”
Loco half turned towards the interior of Shango’s quarters. “Right,” he sighed. “Not out here. Inside.”
“Of course,” Blackfriar replied to Loco’s back.
Barnabas seemed more offended than his superior, though the look on his face was more of surprise than indignation. “Oh,” he said, seemingly the greatest complaint he was willing to level. The two androids entered Shango’s quarters, and the doors slid shut behind them.
Right as Jelly Bean approached the doorway, the light on it turned red, indicating the room had become secured. On Jelly Bean’s scan, she saw that it was also secured against admin overrides. She might have taken exception to this under normal circumstances, but considering Jade’s earlier behavior with this function she couldn’t argue with the immediate justification of it.
Jelly Bean stood outside the door for a few seconds, wondering what they might be talking about. She heard Jade’s voice from the bridge, screaming loudly.
“Bentley, I swear to fucking god!” she shouted. “If you take another shot just because of a pair of pretty eyes…!”
Jelly Bean hurried back to her duties on the bridge, as much to attend to Jade as to Bentley.
+++
Third Floor, Thralldom Space Station, Edge of Klaunox-Orion Sector
“If you take another shot just because of a pair of pretty eyes…!” Bentley endured Jade’s constant berating while both downing the aforementioned shot and looking straight into Svend’s blue eyes. Her cheeks flushed and she wasn’t sure which of the two factors was the cause.
Bentley had been no stranger to drink since her first few nights on the Chesed. In fact, it had been one of her most common coping mechanisms. But, in this unlikely vacation she was now enjoying to its fullest, even the all-too-common experience of getting drunk was liberating in a way she hadn’t known possible. She wasn’t doing this to dull her pain or ease her fears, but just to further enjoy the company of this fascinating man who shared in every shot and tumbler. Though, just as he’d acknowledged, no amount of this admittedly very strong liquor seemed to be touching him. His fair cheeks of his didn’t even have a hint of red.
In the midst of her drunken giggles, she continued the story she was telling him. “So I started talking like he was a dentist!” she said loudly. “This guy’s actively threatening to torture me and I just keep talking to him like he’s getting ready to give me a root canal!”
Svend winked at her, seeming fully entertained in her story. “Same thing, right?” he said waving down the bartender with his increasingly familiar signal for another round.
“Oh, please!” Bentley reached forward to playfully swat him on the shoulder. “Like you’ve ever had to get a root canal. If there’s a single fucking spot on you that doesn’t sparkle, I can’t find it.” She squeezed his arm in a flirtatious instinct.
Svend let the compliment glide over him as though it were something he heard daily. “You’ve got me there,” he admitted. “But from what I’ve heard they’re a terrible experience, especially if you’re far out and need to go low tech on them.” His hand moved to hers on his shoulder and he clasped it gently.
Bentley let their fingers intertwine and pulled both their hands gently to the bar. “I actually wouldn’t know, either,” she told him. “I can’t remember anything about my life. Nothing except a couple of weeks on that goddamn ship. Like there’s bits and pieces here and there, just enough so that words make sense and I can piece together my skills. But nothing specific. No real memories. It’s like my whole life’s just a bunch of puzzle pieces scattered on a table. And not a fucking one of them looks like a coherent picture. I’d kill for something as simple as the memory of a root canal.”
“You’re not alone in going through life not knowing who you are,” Svend said. “Memories or no, most people go through their lives that way.”
Jade’s voice erupted in her ear again. “Are you done spilling every bit of your life story to this guy?” she yelled, loudly enough this time that it was starting to give her a headache. “Couldn’t this have been covered in the fucking psychiatrist’s office!?”
“Still,” Svend continued his thought. “It sounds as though you went through so much. A situation like that is more than should be expected of anyone, let alone with the bravery you showed in the midst of it. And when it’s one of the only memories you have… That must be so hard.”
“That’s…” Bentley felt a warmth in her chest that she was decidedly sure wasn’t from the alcohol. “You know, that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that. Sure, they risked their lives to save me both times, and I’m grateful for that, but…”
“Oh, are you now?” Jade shouted into her ear. “Maybe show some of that fucking gratitude right about now!”
“But,” Bentley spoke sternly here, more at Jade than at Svend at this particular point. “They all just kind of dropped me off after and acted like it was no big deal. Like after all I’d been through, all I needed to get back to a hundred percent is some sword fighting lessons and a bottle of tequila. They’re all seasoned warriors, so maybe that’s how it works for them, but for me…”
Svend finished her sentence as easily as if he’d plucked it from her lips. “It’s not that simple. It stays with you even when you don’t think about it directly. And when you try pushing it down it just makes it all the more surprising when it jumps out at you in the middle of the night.”
Bentley felt breathless at his understanding. There was something so genuine in his words, as though he not only empathized with her, but somehow understood her feelings in his own, personal level, in a way nobody else could.
>
“Exactly,” she finally breathed out. “And the worst part is, this last time they all seemed to somehow care even less. Like, hey, Bentley’s back again. But the sword, that’s what really matters. That’s the big fucking deal.”
“Sword?” Svend’s eyes shone with renewed intrigue. “What sword?”
Bentley let the bartender hand a fresh glass to her and she prepared to down it. “Oh, that’s the best part,” she said. “It’s the reason the LaPlace are chasing us all over the fucking galaxy in the first place.” She didn’t care if Svend knew this. Maybe he could use the information to sell her out to Amroth, but she just knew that wasn’t the case. She knew that she trusted him, in many ways more than the Chesed’s crew, who she already had entrusted with her life on several occasions.
Jade’s voice bellowed out again. “For fuck’s sake, Bentley! Shut up already! This is going way beyond trying to get in his pants!”
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