Criminal Core

by Nick Broad

  I shook her. It was no use. She was dead. Shay was dead...

  Tears poured down my cheeks, landing on her shipsuit. She looked like a little broken doll, like all she needed was a bit of love and some string to wake back up and kiss me. Only that was a lie. She wouldn’t kiss me. Not anymore.

  “Oh fuck, guys,” I sobbed, clutching her tightly. “Shay is gone...”

  There was a crackle of static and a familiar voice jumped onto the comms.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  It was Shay. I was so startled I nearly dropped her body.

  “Shay!?” I held the commlink to my lips, my mind working frantically. “You’re okay!”

  “Of course I am, you...you human. How many times have I told you - neither of us are really here. You’re a Core, and I’m an AI.”

  I felt so stupid. Relief flooded me, and I buried my face against Shay’s destroyed body, sobbing with release.

  “It’s...it’s good to know that you feel so strongly about me,” Shay said, her voice thick with emotion. “I...I didn’t realize you cared that much, Noah.”

  “I love you,” I said, shaking my head. “I’d be lost without you, Shay.”

  There was a pause on the line. “Remember that,” she said, a note of warning in her tone. “Okay?”

  “Huh?” I didn’t understand. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just promise me,” she whispered, her voice crackling with intensity. “Please. Remember that.”

  “I will,” I said, still not comprehending. That wouldn’t come until later - when I learned everything that had been hidden from me. “I will, Shay.”

  “Good. Now get up. You’re lucky I had a spare body lying around, but it turns out it was at the bottom of Beta Spire. It’s gonna take me a few minutes to get over there, which means you need to stop that last Tiger from getting to the escape pods!”

  Turns out? I thought, laughing. Shay, you booted yourself back into one of your sex dungeon clones. I really wonder how much longer you’re going to be able to hide that from the crew...

  But she was right. I had to catch up. None of this meant anything if Eyepatch Man still escaped.

  I glanced down at the unconscious man on the floor. “Shay, just focus on locking things up,” I said, already dropping into a run. “Tiger Girl’s around the corner - she’s pinned under a combat droid.”

  “You used the droid trap? Good thinking.” Shay hummed into the comm. “Meiko, are you there?”

  Still silence.

  “You can’t count on her to stop him,” Shay decided. “Go, Noah. You’ve got to catch him!”

  I did. I raced down the hall, breaking into a sprint faster than anything I’d ever managed back on Earth. Eyepatch Man couldn’t be far away.

  I just hoped I could make it in time.

  Twenty: Red Tiger Showdown

  It was easy to catch up to Eyepatch Man - just follow the trail of blood. It led all the way through the Alpha Loop, thinning out right in front of the launch bay. I jumped through the door, praying I wasn’t too late.

  Eyepatch Man was almost at the escape pods. If he hadn’t been limping, wounded by Shay and I’s ambush, there’s no way I would have caught him. One of his legs dragged behind the other as he made his way through the massive chamber. Blood dripped onto the metal like the trail to the ‘x’ on a treasure map.

  “Stop,” I said, striding forward. “It’s over.”

  He stopped mid-stride and froze, squaring his shoulders. Slowly, he turned around. One glance was all it took to see that he was in bad shape. He’d been wounded several times, his shipsuit hanging off his huge frame in rags. I was more than a little surprised he was still upright.

  “Wow,” I said, surveying the damage. “Shay really did a number on you.”

  “Your AI is more of a scrapper than I would have imagined,” he agreed, sounding reluctant. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”

  “You’re doing no such thing,” I said with a smirk. “It’s over. We’re putting you back in a cell. The days of just walking off the Oubliette are over.”

  A sad little look flickered across the man’s face. With a start, I realized something terrible - he was too close. If he jumped for it, I wouldn’t be able to cross the distance in time. He was really going to make it. He was going to escape.

  “Take care of my crewmates,” he growled, working his way backwards slowly. He seemed to realize the situation as he did - his despondent look was replaced with a smile. “I’ll be back with the rest of the Red Tigers to pick them up later.”

  He turned towards the open escape pod. If I didn’t come up with some way to stop him in the next five seconds, all of this was for nothing.

  “Don’t bother,” I said, putting every dickish impulse I’d ever had into the words. “They’re dead.”

  He paused at the threshold, his back to me.

  “No they’re not,” the man said, smiling at me over his shoulder. “AIs can’t kill prisoners. It’s forbidden. You’re bluffing.”

  “You’re right,” I said, spreading my arms. “AI’s can’t. I’m not an AI, asshole. I’m a Core. And,” I said, an impulse I didn’t understand seizing me, “I’m on the Forbidden List.”

  Now that got to him. Eyepatch Man’s jaw hit the floor. He turned to face me, the escape pod forgotten.

  “You lie,” he snarled, his eyes filling with rage. “Even this station’s AI would never do that-”

  “I killed your friend,” I said, striding forward. Hell, I was actually enjoying the look on his face. Maybe I was a bad guy, after all. “What was his name, Taro? I shot Taro in the face, asshole. He’s never joining you on another adventure again.”

  “Ravarra,” the man growled. It took me a second to realize that had to be Tiger Girl’s name. “She...”

  A flash of insight consumed me. “Aww, did you have feelings for the little kitty? Too bad. Your catgirl is dead, too. I didn’t use a gun, though. I smashed my fist into her pretty little face over and over again until she stopped living. You should have heard the noises she made.”

  Eyepatch Man went incandescent with rage. “You lie!”

  “I didn’t want to burn that sexy little coat of hers,” I said, cocking my head to the side just like Meiko, “because I’m going to mount it on my fucking wall. Like a trophy. I’ll put it right over my fucking bed, so Shay and I can look at it and laugh every time I fuck her brains out...”

  He launched himself at me. The feeling of triumph that surged in my veins lasted only a moment as he started to glow. What the fuck!?

  “You’ve fucked with the wrong man,” Eyepatch Man roared, his body trembling and swelling mid-leap. Something inhuman was happening to him, and I had a brief moment to consider that I might have pushed things a bit too far.

  Then the energy inside of him abruptly pushed outward, and he blazed to life like a fucking bonfire.

  I wasn’t aware of flying through the air - there was just the sudden sensation of the cold hangar floor against my back and the weight of Eyepatch Man on top of me. Something strange was happening to his face - it was changing before my eyes, growing bestial and savage. It reminded me of Tiger Girl, only way, way worse.

  “To think,” he growled, his voice nothing like a man’s anymore, “I was going to let you go. Killing you would be doing the galaxy a favor...”

  I struggled to lift him off me, but it was like moving a planet. Even with every ounce of energy in my body, he didn’t shift an inch.

  “Oh, I’m not an idiot,” he said, chuckling like a demon. “I know I can’t really kill a Core. But I am going to enjoy this.”

  His hands reached for my throat. I tried to fight them off, but he was too strong. They seized me, twisting, and the edges of my vision dimmed to black. Everything around me went cold, the edges blurring, as I started to fade.

  Everything’s lost if I die, I thought, the light inside of me fading. The crew will break apart. The station will still be dead. All of thi
s was for nothing...

  The darkness closed in tighter. And tighter.

  Only it wasn’t coming from inside of me. There was a shadow across Eyepatch Man’s inhuman, transformed face, and it had nothing to do with my imminent demise.

  He glanced up - and the hands around my throat fell away.

  His mouth dropped open. After seeing him go full-on beast mode, the most horrifying thing in the world was how scared he looked. Like all of his childhood fears had somehow been made real and thrust in front him, shaking him to his core.

  “No...no!” He backed away, only now going for the escape pods the way he should have. But it was too late.

  I looked up - and nearly fainted. There was a vast, black shadow spreading across the hanger, and in the center of it was Meiko’s face. Only it wasn’t Meiko’s face anymore. It was the thing inside of her.

  It was free, and in control, and it rode Meiko like a fucking horse. As it passed over me, I realized something that made my entire spine turn to ice.

  She’s not a person who transforms into a monster, I thought, the shadow crawling across my skin.

  She’s a monster who transforms into a person.

  Eyepatch Man was begging now, on his knees before the spreading shadow. He was babbling, practically incoherent. He promised everything, anything in the universe if the thing advancing onto him would only stop...

  It didn’t stop. The shadow swept over him.

  The screaming began.

  I closed my eyes tight and stopped up my ears, but it still went on. It was too loud for me to block out, too horrible for me to fight. It was the most awful fucking thing I’d ever experienced.

  This is what Meiko tried to stop, I thought. She was so desperate to hide this from me - from all of us...

  Eventually, I looked up. The shadow faded, wrapping in on itself, and where it had been, Meiko stood, silhouetted in the escape pod door. She stared down at her hands, tears streaking her cheeks.

  Eyepatch Man was gone. No body, no mess - just gone.

  I suppressed a shiver and got to my feet.

  “Meiko?” I asked, taking a few tentative steps forward. “Are you okay? Are you...you know, you?”

  She gave a little start, as if she’d been in a trance. She met my eyes sadly, her lips a tight little line. As I watched, she lifted one hand, a piece of fabric dangling from it.

  No, not a piece of fabric. Eyepatch Man’s eyepatch - the only thing that was left of him.

  “You did it,” I said, shaking my head in amazement. “You stopped him. We thought we’d lost you...”

  “You did,” she whispered, her face a mask. “Now you know. You know what I am. I...I had to do it...”

  She collapsed to her knees, sobbing. An instant later, I was there. I held her close, letting her sob into my chest - letting her get every last bit of it out. Not just what she’d done to the Red Tigers - but an older, deeper wound. The crime that had led her to this place: instantly I knew. It had been this thing inside of her that did it. She’d lost control.

  She’d been so terrified of doing it again.

  “It’s okay,” I told her, rubbing her back. “It doesn’t matter. You’re one of us, Meiko. We don’t keep secrets.”

  She looked up at me, a rueful expression on her face. “I wish that were true,” she said.

  “We’ll make it true,” I told her.

  Soon after that, both of us ended up on the floor next to the escape pod. Meiko put her head in my lap, still sobbing gently as I stroked her long, dark hair. Other than those noises, there was silence in the hanger. It was peaceful. Almost so peaceful you could forget what had happened there.

  “Warden,” Chirrup said through the commlink, “Ruby and Shay have collected the two Red Tigers. They’re bringing them to Shay’s dungeon now.”

  “I guess the secret’s out,” I said. “We’ll come down when we’re ready, Chirrup. Tell the others to give us a bit, okay?”

  “Will do!” The voice was gone.

  “You still want to hear it?” Meiko asked from my lap. “The whole story?”

  I glanced down at her. “I think I’ve figured out most of it,” I said, still stroking her. “But if you want to tell me - I’d love to listen.”

  “I think I will,” she said, a faint smile playing on her features. “Soon. But you’re about to be interested in something else.”

  My eyebrows furrowed together. “What? There is nothing else, Meiko. We’re back at square one. No reactors, no energy credits - no solar sail. There’s nothing for us to do but talk.”

  Meiko’s eyes flickered. “Not quite.”

  “What? What do you mean, ‘not quite’?”

  She put her hand in mine - and passed me the eyepatch. Only it was heavier than I expected. One side of it was fabric, of course, but the other was something hard and cold. I lifted it to my face.

  “Circuits?” I asked.

  “It’s his stash,” Meiko said, grinning. “He kept it on him at all times, so it seems. Where no one would think to look. Turns out he wasn’t half-blind after all.”

  My hand started to tremble. “Are you telling me,” I asked, daring to hope, “that this thing has energy in it?”

  “It’s turbo-charged,” she said with a shrug. “Whether it’s enough to make the solar sail, I don’t know, but the Red Tigers seemed to guard it pretty close...”

  I sprang to my feet. After a second, I helped Meiko up, too. My voice trembled as I felt for the comms.

  “Ruby, have everyone meet at the command center,” I said, brimming with excitement. “We’ve got an energy source coming in hot - and it might just be enough to put together the solar sail...!”

  I heard shocked cheers on the other end of the line. I let that enthusiasm carry Meiko and I all the way to the command center, where Shay would be waiting to plug the thing in and transfer its energy into credits.

  It had to be enough. It just had to be.

  Twenty-One: Trailer Hitch

  “It’s enough,” Shay said in disbelief as she watched the results from the chip pour in. “With a five credit overage. I can’t believe it.”

  There were cheers all around the command center. After so many setbacks - clearing both reactors only to discover they were broken, the fight with the Xenian Queen, thinking I’d lost Shay - it felt almost crazy for something to be going right for once. Yet there it was, completely inescapable. We had the energy. We could build the solar sail. The station was saved.

  We’d won.

  “Everyone,” Chirrup said, her voice coming from the speaker in the ceiling. “I just wanted to inform you that Mistress Shay’s...er, other copies have locked the Red Tigress in her personal dungeon!”

  “Thanks, Chirrup,” Shay said, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. “I guess all of my secrets are out in the open now, huh?”

  “So you’ve got a couple spares lying around,” I said, drinking the liquor Ruby had whipped up from the replicators. It tasted like nail polish, but the burn as it went down my throat still made me smile. “Big deal. None of us have any secrets anymore, right?”

  Both Shay’s gaze and my own went to Meiko. Among everyone gathered to celebrate, she was the only one who kept herself held back a bit. Transforming into a terrifying monster probably does that to a girl.

  Meiko stared back - then the corner of her mouth curled in a faint smile. “Not anymore,” she agreed, lifting her own cup. “I never thought I would find anyone I could trust to know the real me, Noah. It’s why I never tried to leave the station. What’s waiting for me out there, right? But I was wrong. The family I was looking for was here the whole time.”

  Ruby started to sob. She threw her arms around the obake, holding her tight.

  “Maybe it’s the alcohol,” I said, glancing at my half-full cup, “but I’m starting to feel a little bit emotional.”

  “We love you,” Ruby said, the tears falling freely as she hugged Meiko. “We do. And Noah - none of this would have been possible witho
ut you, Master! Meiko would still be in her cell, I’d still be in a living hell. You brought us all together, and it’s you who ought to get the credit.”

  I was touched. Genuinely touched. But one thing about her speech stood out.

  “Woah,” I said, hiccuping. “You just called me Noah. I think that’s the first time you’ve referred to me as anything but ‘Master’ since I gave you a name.”

  Ruby blushed all the way from her cheeks to her cleavage. “I’m sorry! If you don’t like it, I won’t do it again...”

  I started to laugh. “It’s cool,” I assured her, flashing a big smile. “I’m happy about it, actually. Although there are definitely some contexts where I prefer to be called ‘Master’.”

  Ruby’s face lit up. “Oh yeah. About that. Are we going to celebrate now, or what?”

  I wanted to. God how I wanted to. But there was one thing we needed to do first.

  I shook my head. “Soon. Trust me, I want it just as crazy as you do. But we’ve got to build that solar sail first!”

  “Of course!” Ruby sounded almost ecstatic. “We’re going to get the station back up and running! Oh, I can’t wait, Master!”

  “Chirrup,” I said, glancing up at the ceiling. “Have you got the fabrication order ready yet?”

  The permanently-cheery voice of our AI assistant crackled from the speakers. “Absolutely, Warden! The order to fabricate one solar sail is inked and ready! All it requires now is approval from the station’s AI!”

  “That would be you,” I said, turning to Shay with a grin. “How about it, boss - you want the honors?”

  Shay didn’t look in the slightest the way I thought she would. She had an expression on her face like she was going to throw up. Her cheeks were even paler than usual, her lips a tight little line that was almost invisible.

  “Are we sure about this?” she asked flatly.

  Three pairs of eyes turned to her in disbelief.

  “You’re kidding,” I said, genuinely confused. “This is what we’ve been fighting for forever, Shay. A new era for the station. A rebirth. This is the most important thing we could be doing right now.”