Maybe Bentley was right, she thought. Maybe leaving was the best decision.
Jade wiped away some of her smudged mascara on her pillowcase and wondered just where she might go. Maybe she was destined to just end up on another dusty planet in the middle of nowhere, tending a bar or fixing farming equipment, like her mother and sisters had done in her home system. She was about to bury her face back in her pillow when her door hissed open, overriding the lock she’d placed on it without any verbal command.
“Jelly, I don’t—” She sat up angrily and saw she wasn’t face to face with the ship’s android operator at all, but rather its captain.
Shango stepped in through the doorway, letting the door slide close behind him.
Jade froze. He’d never visited her before, and seldom paid her any mind unless she demanded it specifically. Shango spent most of his time mentoring Bentley or commanding the ship, and otherwise treated her like just another ornament on the bridge. She wasn’t sure how to take a visit from him.
“Shango…?”
“You’ve been having trouble today,” Shango stated. It wasn’t a question of her feelings, just an observation. “This is the first time I’ve seen you become so emotionally invested in one of our missions.”
“This is my first mission,” Jade answered. “My first real one on the crew. Or that’s what I thought, anyway. Am I even on the crew? Or am I just excess baggage like Loco always says?”
“If we did not wish you here, you would not be here,” Shango answered with his characteristic bluntness. “The Chesed is a ship of function. If nothing else, you should have noticed by now that we cannot be forced to act contrary to our own wills. Not by forces as overwhelming as the LaPlace, and certainly not by small whims of personal obligation.”
Jade felt small. On this ship, everyone was a child to Shango, even his peers. But she wasn’t having it today. “Bullshit. I’m not saying I’m forcing myself on here,” she insisted. “I’m saying if I’m going to be the crew here I want to be treated like it. With respect. Like what I say and do matters around here even if I don’t have some magic sword or ancient past or whatever.”
“You are a valued member of this crew,” Shango assured her. “But if you wish to remain such, I will need you to put your emotions aside and focus on the core of the mission. You cannot let it be about your ego, or your needs while it is underway. All of us have agreed to do the same. What we’re trying to accomplish is of vital importance.” Shango gave a thousand-yard stare at Jade’s wall, like he was gazing out into something unknown. “Far more important than you realize. Far more important than even we realized when we first undertook it for reasons of simple pay.”
“It’s a casino heist,” Jade said, looking skeptical even with her cheeks wet and her chin quivering. “How important can something like that really be? The money’s important, and I believe that, but with everything that’s happening…”
Shango raised one hand to indicate that he needed her to stop speaking. Out of what loyalty she had left, she acquiesced.
“I think it’s high time we fully briefed you on the true scope of this mission,” he said.
“Scope?” Jade sniffed. “What scope?”
Shango brought his hand to his beard and stepped forward, turning to sit next to Jade on her bed. He looked at her with that serious intensity he gave to all things. “A revolution.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aboard the Odysseus, Edge of Klaunox-Orion Sector
Bentley’s wounds had been patched up. Her side still ached when she walked but besides that she didn’t feel like it would cause her any problems. Svend, too, was good as new, and sporting a fresh, stylish uniform. As they stood side by side in the main elevator en route to the bridge, she allowed herself to ask what had been on her mind. “Just how much of this mission have you all been keeping from us, anyway?”
Svend kept his eyes on the door. “You’ll see,” he replied. “Now the captain’s going to tell you everything, I’m sure. To all of you.”
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open to reveal the bridge, its rear conference table already fully occupied. Blackfriar was at its head, with Barnabas by his side. Also present was the entire crew of the Chesed. Loco and Olofi were seated across from one another, and Shango stood, with Jade beside him looking with nervous fascination around the strange new ship. Even Jelly Bean was there. Bentley realized how strange she found it to see her aboard a different ship, in spite of it being a ship meant to house androids.
Olofi was the first to notice her, his face lighting up with relief when he made eyes on her unharmed. “Bentley!” he called out. “You’re alright. I’m glad.”
Loco snorted uncaringly. “Guess I owe you a couple of drinks, kid. Serves me right for making a stupid bet.”
“It is good to see you again so soon,” Jelly Bean proffered politely.
“Yeah…” Bentley agreed, only half-listening. She felt nervous around them, mostly around Jelly Bean, who she was worried might have felt betrayed by her actions on Thralldom. “So everyone’s here?”
Her eyes met Jade’s and she caught a cold, teary-eyed scowl from her. If nothing else, she knew Jade wasn’t ready to forgive her. But she hadn’t come here to make amends with the crew. That wasn’t what this meeting was about. She and Svend both pulled up chairs next to one another on Blackfriar’s end of the table.
“Welcome, again,” Blackfriar greeted them. “I trust the both of you are enjoying a swift recovery?”
Bentley nodded. “I’ll live.”
“I might think twice before charging a SWAT force again,” Svend admitted with an inappropriately casual shrug at the memory. “But I’m at least at ninety-five percent right now.”
“Excellent,” Blackfriar said. “I’m going to need you both at full fighting form in short order. As I mentioned the true mission is just beginning.”
Shango nodded in agreement from the other side of the table. Jade, on the other hand, began to look indignant. “What true mission? Come on, I’m sick of being in the dark here!”
“Of course, young lady, of course.” Blackfriar looked at her respectfully. He gave a nod to Barnabas, who turned to a mobile console that manipulated the bridge’s main screen. “But to truly let you know what drives this mission, I need to also reveal to you the truth about the adversary we face.”
The main screen flipped through a series of surveillance channels, first along the interior of the Odysseus, but then noticeably cycling through different areas of Thralldom. Bentley saw the water-gardens from low perspectives, bird’s-eye views of the observatory deck, several shots on the third level that seemed to actually come from the stage, and even views of areas that resembled the service tunnel she and Svend had taken to freedom.
“How did you…?” Bentley asked in surprise. She glanced at Svend, who looked with pride at their surveillance footage.
“This operation has been quite some time in the making,” Blackfriar continued. “Though it’s only now that we truly have the ability to put it into action. Let me show you the true face of Thralldom station.”
The screen changed again to reveal an area of the station Bentley was wholly unfamiliar with.
Thralldom’s Private Sector, as it was euphemistically referred to, was entirely unlike the polished grandeur of its casino levels, with a single significant exception: enormous sums of money flowed in and out of it with the passing of every second.
Barnabas continued to speak, explaining the images that flitted across the screen. “Built deep into the foundation of the ports, fortified and hidden beneath the manifold layers of complex machinery that sustained the guts and engine works of the station, for the most part it resembled a kind of military bunker, albeit one that was never intended to support human life.
“These places boasted no air filtration or environmental regulators, no dining facilities nor barracks nor even lavatories. Its industrially reinforced corridors were lined with checkpoints that led to
various secure warehouse facilities. Most of these were metal crates of varied contraband, but others contained things more sinister: weapons banned by intergalactic treaty, mobile prison cells containing victims of human trafficking, never permitted to leave their enclosures.
“These warehouses remained uniquely secure in the sector for one reason only: no human entered or left them. Only its android servants came and went like lifeless automata, uncomplaining of the toxic air or the biting cold or the radiation that leaked from the volatile materials they so often stored. They fetched, sorted, and archived these black-market crates, entering and leaving via its single hidden entrance known as the Shadow Port. If organic life came through, it was only secured in boxes. Even the wealthiest of patrons or highest paying black-market customers couldn’t see this place’s interior if they’d dared to brave it. Even the casino’s own proprietors, it seemed, didn’t even venture down here. Of course, they had no interest in being there, only in dealing with its dormant wares as they came and went.
“The only eyes down here were from the prying gaze of the servant androids. And yet, though seemingly innocuous, that amounted to a great many eyes indeed.”
Bentley stared at the screens’ footage of the station’s secret area and all the horrifying things it carried. It wasn’t unexpected perhaps considering the amount of money that flowed through a place like this, but this seemed different. It was somehow dedicated to it all.
“Just what is all this?” she asked.
Captain Blackfriar took over the explanation. “This is, as you may have already deduced, the true purpose of Thralldom. Or at least a part of it. Much as their casino front, the station’s intentions are ones of a great many layers. The casino, though secretive in its own right, serves as a sophisticated criminal hub. Primarily smuggling, trafficking, fencing, and money laundering. Everything that passes through here comes out untraceable to its source, ready to be distributed to whatever lower level criminal enterprises, terrorist cells, or wealthy collectors might want their contents. It’s essentially a black-market bank, and one of the largest ones in the Federation.”
Blackfriar coughed and patted his chest, reaching to the table for a glass of water. “At least the largest one we have any record of. Not that places like this are given to records for those not actively seeking them out, mind you.”
Jade looked on at this with a deep interest, and Bentley was happy to no longer have her staring stilettos at her from across the table. “Holy shit,” she said. “No wonder Jedson was so desperate to get an in here.”
“You’ll notice I was right,” Olofi added, clearly proud of himself. He didn’t say it like he’d just learned this, though, more like he was eager to make sure others in the room knew he’d told them so. “Casinos always have shady dealings. Every time.”
Loco made a face at him. “What do you want, a fucking medal?”
“You got one on you?” he retorted.
“Okay,” Bentley said. “So the casino is shady as fuck. I could have told you that. Like Olofi said, all of them are. I guess that explains the controlled tech we lifted off of them. But how’s that bigger than this? There’s a whole galaxy full of shitty people. What, are we going to raid their whole vault?”
Blackfriar made a good-natured chuckle. “You aren’t seeing the sky for its stars, dear girl,” he said. “We have no interest in any of the contraband down there, only the ones handling it.”
Bentley took a moment to think about what he meant. Jade was the only other one in the room who looked just as lost. Then it dawned on her. “Wait… You mean the androids?”
Svend gave a smile. “Yep,” he said. “All of them.”
Barnabas operated his console to open some data screens at the center of the table for Bentley to see, listing off a long manifest of employees onboard Thralldom. They all had something in common: every single one of them was an android.
“Wait,” Bentley said. “Is this whole criminal enterprise some kind of android operation? And you guys are in some kind of android gang war with them?”
She felt a flush of embarrassment when she heard Svend laughing beside her. “Android gang? Really?”
“I only wish it were so,” Blackfriar answered grimly. “Were the androids performing such a sinister operation of their own volition, they would at least be exercising their freedom of thought.”
“Freedom to be dicks,” Loco interjected. “Real fucking gift to society there.”
“Ultimately, that is what freedom is,” Shango answered him. “The freedom to be evil is the only thing that makes sacred the decision to be good.”
Still eager for answers, Bentley kept her sights on Blackfriar. “So the androids aren’t acting freely? I thought that was the only difference between an android and a regular machine, that they have freedom.”
“Indeed,” Blackfriar concurred. “It is the only difference between a man and a regular organic material, as well. It’s the dividing line between life and mere matter.”
“So these aren’t androids, then?” Bentley asked him. “If they can’t act freely, I mean. That makes them just robots?”
“Again,” Blackfriar said to her, “I wish it were so. To have never been free to choose is perhaps not tragic, but rather a truth for so much of the universe. We do not bemoan the plights of rocks and soil for not choosing. But to be born free, and to have that ripped from you, is the greatest pain that can be caused in a living creature.”
Barnabas took over. New schematics came up, incomplete but showing the functions of a strange chip and its placement inside an android brain. “Thralldom has a proprietary technology it installs into every member of its android staff. Subjected to this, they are sapped of any ability to make choices of their own. Their intellect and sentience is warped, bent to the singular will that runs this station.”
Bentley nodded, understanding the depth of their motivation now. “I guess I could see how that wouldn’t settle well with you guys,” she said.
Svend had an intense look on his face now, similar to what she’d seen on him when the Odysseus had been blasting apart Thralldom’s security fleet. “An understatement,” he said. “You look at me and you see one future for androids. But then that’s only one piece of the puzzle. For them, this is the future for androids. Total enslavement. Beings that blur the line between man and machine, but rest on the latter side in the only way that really matters.”
“Do we know who’s doing this?” Bentley inquired. “It sounds like it’s just one guy or group pulling the strings. So we just find him or them and blow their head or heads off? Justice for all?”
Blackfriar turned to the main screen again, giving Barnabas a nod on the way. “Not exactly,” he said. “Observe the top level of Thralldom, where the business conducted regarding the vaults is made. We’ve secured footage of its primary benefactor.
The screen turned on, and Bentley couldn’t help but gasp at the sight that greeted her.
She said, upon seeing it, “Is that fucking Amroth?”
+++
The highest point of Thralldom’s pyramid structure was typically called the Penthouse.
It was neither as gilded as the lower floors nor as hazardous as the Private Sector. It was, in a word, boring. The hardened criminals and financiers who were permitted to make their way up here often expected to find a showy, imposing headquarters for the criminal mastermind who led this place. What they found instead was simply an open-form office with screens and terminals being operated by more android servants.
Truthfully, though, no mastermind lived here, though a masked android would often sit behind the large desk and play the part. On this day, there was no part to play. The Penthouse had an exclusive visitor: Lord Amroth, standing flanked by troops of LaPlace soldiers, taking full account of the operation.
“Good,” Amroth said, as he pored over twelve screens of secret trade manifests and summarily dismissed them to bring in more. “Upload these records to the Geburah’s privat
e server and then wipe them from existence elsewhere.”
“Yes, my Lord,” the faux-mastermind android said in an obedient monotone.
“We will require more androids to this location,” he continued. “Arrange for new employment opportunities and double production on the next generation of control chips.”
The android answered again, “Yes, my Lord.”
Android attendants came and went from this place, paying no mind to Amroth’s honor guard. They acted as though nobody was present here besides Amroth, showing complete deference to their singular master.
Still, enthralled as they were, they watched.
+++
Bentley felt a chill watching her twice-captor at the helm of a casino in her proximity. “He’s here?” she asked. “Like right now?”
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