by Naomi Lucas
He was waiting for those he worked for to safely contain his creatures, lest he needed to hunt them across the metropolis. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Dommik’s fingers tapped the worn black leather stretched over his knee. He wanted to get back to his ship before the EPED found him an assistant.
A goddamn spy. His eyes narrowed as the time ticked by. The grey suit and his young assistant were busy corresponding with the transporters. No one talked to him unless they had to.
He preferred the quiet. It made him a better predator.
Dommik eyed his patrons. It would take me three shots to down four of them. But they weren’t warriors like him. Just normal people going about their normal jobs, trying to make it through another normal day.
They overlooked the reinforced facility, up high behind thick glass. His creatures were now being handled by xenobiologists and botanists. His fingers stilled on his leg.
“We’re having you take the Molucs back. They began to breed and the scientists chose to tag them and have them released back into the wild. The weather here isn’t cold enough to sustain them without them going into heat,” the grey suit turned to him just as the truck arrived. Dommik could smell the furry animals from where he sat.
“I told you that before I delivered them.”
“The division needed to check them out–”
“Because they breed like rabbits?”
“Because poachers were stealing them off the planet and now they’ve been found on several other worlds.”
He watched as the Molucs passed through quarantine and moved out to board his vessel. They looked like baby dragons, if dragons existed, down to a fuzzy set of wings and a long tail that curled up into a cotton-like ball. He found the peaceful creatures endearing even if they had a tendency to infest.
Dommik stood up, the worn leather of his armor pulled comfortably taut around his large frame.
“Everything looks fine here. I’ll make sure the Molucs are checked out by my androids and boarded.” He turned toward the exit. His fists clenched at his sides.
“Dommik,” the suit called after him, stopping him in his tracks. “You won’t be cleared for takeoff until we have a live body on that ship of yours. The EPED can’t afford to break protocol for you anymore without eyes on the inside. If you get attacked again…”
Dommik felt the hard edges of his knives hidden under his armor. He felt the leather restrict his palms as his hands released. He heard the man behind him but wouldn’t acknowledge the Suit’s comment. It could hurt a man’s pride. A lesser man’s pride.
How can an opponent who was significantly weaker than you do anything but try? He felt a small smile twitch at the corner of his lips. It was a hard smile to keep hidden.
There was a reason he liked being out in the wilds alone.
“I get attacked every day. If you don’t need me anymore to bring in the beasts, then, by all means, send down a spy. I’m sure you could find someone to replace me,” Dommik warned.
His fist hit the button at the door and he strode out of the room. He didn’t make it three feet when the clatter of heels sounded behind him. He sighed and kept walking.
Mia.
“Dommik, wait, please. It’s not what you think.” A slender hand clutched his forearm. The man’s assistant rattled to a long, awkward stride next to him. His arm was her crutch. “We’re not trying to spy on you.”
He looked down at the cleaned up and tight blond. He towered over her slight, put-together frame that wore a pencil skirt and white blouse as accessories. Eyelashes thick with black mascara and cherry red lips parted as she met his eyes.
“I work alone.”
“You don’t have to be alone. Hire me. I’ll stay out of your way, I’ll stay quiet. I’m sure we could come to a mutual agreement.”
“I work alone, Mia,” he repeated. “I don’t have time to babysit.” Her bust strained against her shirt as she inhaled. Dommik looked away and kept walking.
“Don’t be like that, Cyborg, I’m the best bet you can have. I know the job, I know the people, and I know you,” Mia continued. Her argument was sound but the idea of having her smell up his ship with heavy perfume hurt any chance she might have had. He imagined how it would stick to him as he went out on hunts. The smell would give him away.
Beasts from nearby planets would know of his presence.
“You don’t know me, Mia, and you’re not getting on my ship.” He peeled her fingers off his arm. “I’m not your free ticket to see the universe or a way to sleep yourself into a better position. All you would be is bait up there. You’re pretty enough, find someone else to throw yourself at.”
“Fuck you, Dommik, I actually liked you. I would have been good by your side. Good luck with whoever they send you, you sure as hell will regret it.” She stopped following him.
“I’ll make sure to send you a missive when I do.”
“Dommik, wait!” Mia called after him, her tone changed. He sighed and turned around.
“What?”
“Please be safe out there.” She waved her hand at him and without a second glance, walked back toward the quarantine facility.
Dommik could only think of her rancid perfume as she vanished around a corner. Mia may have been his best bet as a co-worker but he had an even better bet in mind, no one.
He passed back through the gates that led to the last working terminal at the port. If he made it fast enough, if he left without being fully restocked, he may escape with the Molucs without another creature in tow.
Another human that would stare at him like an oddity. The denizens of the port stopped and gaped at him, moving out of his path and whispering behind cupped hands.
He wasn’t just a Cyborg in their eyes. He was a miscreation. Dommik knew all the names that people called him behind his back. It was easy to hear whispers, even those from across a room, with the technology built into his ears. His work required the best in perception enhancements and he took it seriously.
The money that he didn’t funnel back into the ship went straight into his head as newer waves of cybernetic enhancements rolled out. Scope sight, hearing, a keen sense of smell. It made him the hunter he was today.
He wouldn’t call himself the best. There were other Cyborgs that hunted, other Cyborgs he would even call friends, that did what he did. Sometimes he was called in on a special project or asked to help out on another hunt. Sometimes teamwork was a necessary evil. One he took better than other Cyborgs.
Dommik wasn’t afraid of cutting the throat of a corrupt politician. Or even taking a side job every once in a while to take out a person he thought deserved it.
Even humans were monsters. They just hid it behind a suit of flesh and honeyed words. He owned up to his crap.
The sticky smell of human musk, potent lotion, and processed food made him hurry his steps. Even as his tech reconfigured for the increased speed; silence was always on his mind. Dommik left the semi-busy terminal behind, seeing his gate at the end of the hall.
He also saw a girl sitting on a drab suitcase next to his exit to the field.
How? It’s been three minutes since I turned down Mia.
As Dommik got closer he recognized the female from earlier. The brief eye contact they made as she became one of the many gaping bystanders. She didn’t breath when she looked at him. He hadn’t understood why. The girl was quiet.
She tapped her cheeks and sighed. She isn’t quiet now.
Dommik stood over her. His shadow blocked out the light. Her delayed reflexes annoyed him.
Death comes so easy to the weak.
The girl looked away from her hands and slowly up at him. Green eyes met his, wide and startled. He walked past her to his gate.
The picture of her was solidified in his mind. Short copper curly hair that framed rounded cheeks with a splattering of freckles. Her hair was pushed back behind her ears but small tendrils rebelled and fell forward. If he ever had a missive to hunt down and kill
a sprite, he knew what to look for, who to look for.
“I’m here for the job,” she said.
“There is no job.” Dommik opened the door and walked through. A thump sounded behind him, a gasp and a bang. The girl forced her way through the doors and followed him. He repeated without turning, “It’s already been filled.”
She huffed, keeping pace. “I don’t see anyone else here.”
They walked out into the open airfield. Dommik took a deep breath of almost fresh air, filled with the smell of dust and engine exhaust. And the subtle smell of the girl behind him that he couldn’t place.
“I don’t need you and if you keep following me, you’ll have security on you within seconds. You’re not authorized to be out here.”
“You haven’t even given me a minute. Look,” she breathed heavily, stumbling behind him, “I heard what you do. You’re not a monster!”
Dommik stopped.
He turned around.
His ship loomed over them like a wave about to crash.
She continued with a gulp, “I heard what the others were saying. You’re not a monster.” Emerald green eyes met his again.
“And you’re an idiot.”
The girl dropped her bag and crossed her arms. “I’m not.”
“I’m a Cyborg. I hunt for fun. I kill for fun. I am the fiend everyone says I am. If you’re looking for an adventure,” she flinched at the word. “or trying to prove something, find someone else. If you’re looking for a Cyborg to fuck, join the breeding facility. You’ll be dead within a week of working for me.” Dommik turned toward his ship’s hatch and watched as the Molucs were led into his high-tech menagerie. “I told the EPED, I work alone.”
“So you don’t have an assistant.” Her eyes narrowed at him.
Dommik warned, “Dead within a week.”
“That would be my problem, not yours.”
He tensed as she followed him into his ship, breathing heavily and pulling her bag behind her. It screeched over the concrete. He moved toward his androids who were settling the Molucs into their temporary home. He heard the girl gasp as long, white fuzzy wings extended out behind their bullet-proof habitat. His robots programmed the interior to mimic the Moluc’s planet’s icy ecosystem.
Their fuzzy fur extended out, threatening, like a spooked cat. The pair of dragon-like creatures hopped around the home they knew from many moons before. He couldn’t be sure if they were upset for being moved again or reluctant to be back on familiar ground.
The girl moved up to the glass as the creatures buried themselves into the quickly accumulating snow until they disappeared under the drifts.
“Get off my ship,” he growled. Seeing the girl, so unlikely and wrong on his ship, and in his space unnerved him. He had half a mind to throw her into a cell like one of the other countless animals he transported.
The girl clutched her bag, her hand clenched on the handle of the suitcase as he stepped forward and invaded her personal space. She was tall but still a head shorter than him. He could hear her heart race, could sense the tension wrack her body, he could even smell the desperation and courage come from her.
They stood there, staring at each other, neither one backing down and slowly, strangely, something shifted between them. It was muted and weak but it was there.
Her soft, round face gave her the appearance of a pixie. The tiny curling tendrils of her hair stood to attention and didn’t move as they should have. It was a disservice to her features. They were meant to move in a breeze.
I’ve never had a fairy before. Dommik broke the moment and looked around at all of his empty cages.
“Let me explain,” she said, pulling his eyes back to her. She set the bag down. Bright green eyes stabbed him. A soft stab, but a stab nevertheless. “I need this job.”
Dommik hardened. “There is no job.” He grabbed the back of her shirt, tore the bag out of her hand and threw them both off his ship.
Chapter Three:
---
Kat stumbled out onto the airfield in shock. She glanced back at the Cyborg but he had already turned around and disappeared into his ship. The strange off-world animals in the snow-filled glass cube shuffled and hopped around. Three androids moved throughout, preparing the strange menagerie, importing and exporting materials.
She was determined to be hired as his assistant. Something in her gut, in her boring lifelong existence as a middle-class land-dweller, wanted to be on the spider-ship. She was curious about the Cyborg, the monster-man, and why fate would taunt her with overhearing this job opening, on this day, at that moment, where she had been standing?
Kat was a home-nurse, a hospice care provider before her grandmother got sick. She had been around death her entire life, first with her parents, then with her patients, only to end up closing the eyes of her nana.
Her parents had died from the same illness.
The one she was afraid of flowing through her very veins as she stood there gawking.
She knew what this man did for a living, and if she could be on his ship, be a part of the research of the specimens he provided. She might just find a way to save herself, where she could not save her family. Why else would the opportunity present itself?
Why else would I be here?
Kat picked up her bag and walked back up the ramp. I’m doing this. The Cyborg was nowhere in sight.
One of the androids stopped what it was doing and approached her.
“Please state your business.”
“I’m the new hire.”
The robot cocked it’s head while its face flickered. “There is no new hire. There are only resumes. Please state your business.”
Kat dropped her bag and opened it, pulling out her console, she projected the screen and pulled up her resume. “Here is my resume.” The android pulled it from her projection and into its own system. “I was just hired. I might not be in your system yet.”
“Very well, Katalina Jones. Your file has been added to the list. Our master has not authorized additional personnel but we are not cleared for takeoff until we have a new unit. It is possible.”
The android appeared to be thinking.
She had never dealt with an android before, not of this caliber at least. In the medical field, she had seen many operate and work med-slats and cryo-pods from a distance. She had been a lowly care provider with a certification to run the instruments and provide psychological relief. It had allowed her to take care of the sickly at homes and hospices but no more. Some people still preferred a human over a machine.
“I was hired by voice contract, minutes ago,” she lied, watching the bot. “Why else would I have clearance to be on the airfield or on this spacecraft? Or why I have my luggage next to me?”
The android blinked with a series of numbers.
Kat rubbed the tiny key-chip in her pocket. She looked at the other two androids that were ignoring them.
“The ship is readying for takeoff. The probability is higher.” The machine stood there unmoving, undeciding.
A voice called out behind her, the man and the woman from before were at the end of the ramp. “Who are you?” the blonde with the tablet called out.
“The new hire,” Kat answered, beginning to sweat. Oh shit. I’m going to get arrested.
Her bag was yanked out of her hand for the second time that afternoon. The android walked further into the ship with her belongings. “Come this way, Katalina Jones. Takeoff is in commence.”
“He hired you!?” the blonde guffawed. Kat looked at her and then back at the android. The ship came to life with a buzz.
“He picked my resume out of the list,” she turned to the humans and answered. The man narrowed his eyes.
He spoke up, “You’re not an EPED employee. Your resume isn’t on that list. Who are you?”
The gate began to close.
“What the fuck, Mason? I’m supposed to be his assistant.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
&nb
sp; The gate slowly made the sky disappear as it fell from the top of the ship. Kat had seconds to decide. Seconds.
Sweat soaked her shirt as she realized what she had done, as she watched the hatch tick away her choice, solidifying her actions. Find a cure. Go on an adventure. Get arrested. Deal with a monster of a man. One thought stood out amongst the rest. I’ve never left Earth before. The importance of her thoughts did not come in any order. Kat could hear the robots shuffle behind her.
The man yelled out, “You’ll be tried as a stowaway, a spy, if your resume isn’t on that list, you’ll never fly again!”
“Katalina Jones, you must follow me.”
She watched as the two people yelled and argued, only for a moment in time as the slit grew smaller. Her heart raced as she glanced at the glass overlook of the port.
No tea.
“I’m on the list!” Kat yelled at the last second. Goodbye chamomile.
Her fate sealed shut.
The ship hummed to life as the android with her bag led her out of the giant facility and into the tunnels of her new home.
After several turns through dark metal corridors, lights burned low to resemble an old, gloomy warehouse. The robot stopped at a door. A door amongst doors. Kat’s hand slapped the wall as the ship quaked under her feet.
The inconspicuous door slid open to reveal a room. So small it only fit a single cot, lifted high off the ground so a desk-like slat sat beneath it. There was an uncomfortable looking metal stool anchored to the wall. The other side was a blank steel-grey wall with several hooks lined across it and a small, circular fixture was on the low ceiling that cast a bright white, penetrating light across the space.
The android placed her bag on the metal slat.
“These are your quarters, Katalina Jones.”
“Call me Kat,” she mumbled, stepping into her new home.
“Registered.” The door zipped closed behind her, the android gone. She turned back toward it but it didn’t reopen. Her fingers slipped across the lukewarm panel and plastic material.