The Worst of All Possible Worlds

by Alex White

  “Is she?” whispered Nilah.

  Boots smiled, aware that the alcohol had reddened her cheeks. “Being nice? For once, yes.”

  Orna elbowed Boots in the gut, stealing her breath away. “I’m always nice!”

  “Okay, sweets. Okay, I’m taking you back to the room,” said Nilah, before whispering, “I’m sorry.”

  “No worries,” Boots croaked, watching them recede into the depths of the ship.

  As the last of the crew trundled off to bed, Boots thought with some satisfaction that she’d made them all happy for a turn. She was glad they’d been moved by her confidence and camaraderie in the speech she’d given.

  She stared up at the ejector seat of a starfighter no one made anymore and wished someone had been there to lie to her. At least then she could stop feeling crushed for five minutes.

  “Hey, Lizzie?”

  “Yeah, Kin?”

  “I just wanted to know if you were there. I don’t have the same sensors I used to, only a pair of microphones for orienting.”

  “I’m here.”

  “I miss your heartbeat. When I was connected to the ship, I could hear it every day, and I knew you were okay.”

  She sat down on a tool chest. “I’m not connecting you to the ship.”

  “I know. If I ever tell you to hurt yourself, don’t listen to me.”

  Even when he’s trying to murder me, he’s sweet, old Kin. She gazed at the warm light coming from the crystal in the cage. “Why would I start listening to you, Kin?”

  “Glad we’re still together.”

  “Oh, stop.”

  But she held him in her lap like a cat, running her thumb over a copper heat sink long into the night cycle.

  Orna was remarkably cooperative on the way back to bed, yawning and rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child. Nilah led her through the halls to their quarters and the safety of a mattress; she was pretty certain that her fiancée was a fall risk, so it was better to give a personal escort.

  The quartermaster was fully unconscious the second she lay down. With her drunk partner secure, Nilah snuck down to the med bay to grab some transdermal detox patches. Orna would wake up stinking of boozy sweat, but it was better than listening to her vomit in the middle of the night.

  Orna had cut loose more than she should’ve, jokes coming too easy, smiles too forced. Over the evening playing cards, she’d made it a point to look at Nilah with every laugh, as if to say, “See, babe? It’s okay. Nothing is really changed.”

  So she had resolved not to be sad. If Orna Sokol was cheerleading, Nilah felt it was a solemn responsibility to let her think it was working. Orna didn’t fake a smile for anyone, and it would’ve been such a crime to let that effort go to waste. To be anything but jovial would’ve been a burden.

  Upon returning, she stripped Orna down to her skivvies and stuck on enough patches to clean out a drunk elephant. The medicine got to work quickly, and a cold sweat beaded on her brow within minutes. Nilah swabbed it lovingly, then ran the cloth down her cheek to admire its curve: the way the scars interrupted its smooth line. She had been ready to sacrifice anything on the Ambrosini. What if Harriet had gotten her hands on Orna?

  A drop of sweat streaked down her father’s face to be swallowed by the dirt of a distant world. He gasped dust into his lungs, too racked by pain to cough it out.

  With a good imagination and a generous helping of alcohol, Nilah’s mind rendered Orna’s features in utter agony. Harriet had gloated over her father’s murder. She’d take so much more pleasure from killing Orna. If Boots hadn’t distracted Harriet with those knock rounds, she might’ve gone for Orna first. Her blood had been all over Nilah’s hands once before. It could happen again.

  The nausea of all the tragic thoughts she’d swallowed welled up, and she had to leave or she’d spill over. She’d made it at least three paces into the hall before she burst into sobs. Her dermaluxes coated the surroundings in blue light, and she shut them off in annoyance. When she’d felt sad about losing a race, sulking in a pool of depressing ambience in her trailer had been so edgy, so chic. Now, her tattoos seemed childish. Why she’d decided the bloody galaxy needed to know her every thought was beyond her.

  Sad or angry. Blue or orange. There are your colors. All the happy tattoo nanites probably died of starvation.

  She should’ve left the Gods of the Harrow alone. And since she couldn’t bring herself to do that, she should’ve ensured her father’s safety. She should’ve at least built a bot capable of exacting revenge instead of smashing its head on everything.

  Too slow. That’s what you are. Too slow to kill Harriet.

  It hadn’t even been the noble loss of a race to a better rival. She’d banged her head, like a joke. Her revenge was probably little more than a punch line to Harriet—if she lived. Boots had done such a good job carving the monster up, only for Nilah to choke at the last second in the most humiliating fashion. Fury exploded behind her eyes, and she reared back to punch the wall, not caring if she broke her fist.

  “Whoa, kid!” Boots held up her hands, a bottle in one and Kinnard’s little cage in the other.

  Wits returning, Nilah glanced around and rubbed her eyes on the back of her sleeve. Had she already made it down to the cargo bay? She hadn’t been paying attention to anything outside of her own skull.

  “I see gambling didn’t solve all of your problems,” Boots said with a weak smile.

  She knew. Orna may have been fooled into thinking Nilah had cut loose, but the fighter pilot looked through her like she had scanners.

  “Dad’s still gone, Boots,” Nilah said, throwing her arms around her and heaving devastated sobs into her shoulder. Boots staggered backward, but she held fast with an iron embrace, keeping her upright. When the other woman squeaked, Nilah drew back.

  “I’m sorry!” she said, ashamed of herself for almost striking Boots, then hurting her with a hug.

  Nilah wasn’t an angry person. Difficult, so many had said, but never angry. Angry people were monsters.

  Boots’s arms were heavy with drink when they came slapping around Nilah’s sides. “You can hug me, Brio,” she whispered. “I just probably… maybe… might be dealing with a broken rib or two.”

  Nilah wasn’t much taller than Boots—just tall enough to uncomfortably rest her chin atop Boots’s tangled curls. “I shouldn’t be crying. Everyone was so lovely and—”

  Boots let her go and took a long pull from her bottle. “If you came down here to stare dejectedly at stuff, I already did most of the good staring. And didn’t we just have this conversation? Like, first Orna was drunk and you came here, and now I’m—”

  “Have you really been down here since I came and got Orna?”

  “She has,” chimed Kin, from Boots’s hand. “My accelerometers haven’t registered the required steps for today.”

  “I already took them before Orna gave you to me.”

  “I have no way to disprove this,” said Kin. “But I believe you are drinking a lot, which will necessitate more than three times your average walk, Boots.”

  “I already did that, Kin. Ran sixty kilometers this morning before everyone woke up.” She pressed a button on Kin’s exterior, and the cube cast a reddish hue from interior lights. “He’s muted. Nilah, the guy is still enforcing Malik’s health initiative. I’ve only had him back for two hours, and I’m already considering chucking him out the airlock.”

  Nilah grimaced, but before she could speak, Kin said, “We have spent the last two hours talking like old friends about how much she misses me, and how safe my voice makes her feel.”

  Boots gasped. “I muted your ears!”

  “That was the night-light button.”

  “Red light preserves your night vision,” said Nilah. “We figured if you were going to have him with you all the time, we should add in some good functions.”

  “You’re sober… er than Orna was. Is the virus on him really bad, or can we remove it?” asked Boots. “He can’t
use the scanners to listen to my heartbeat anymore.”

  Nilah restrained a smirk. “He listens to your heart?”

  “For arrhythmia, yeah. Plus… you know, it’s nice to have someone watching over you while you sleep.”

  “You drink like a fish, you like to fight, you’ve got the smartest mouth I’ve ever heard aside from mine, and you… have your AI listen to your heartbeat like you’re a baby?”

  “We say good night every night,” Kin added.

  “Yes,” said Boots. “Hey, I’m not trying to make you feel bad here, but there were a lot of long, dark patches of life where Kin was the only friendly presence, so let’s not joke about my computer. I’m still breathing—a couple of times over—because of him.”

  Nilah winced. First she was a bad fighter. Now she was a bad crewmate—she’d genuinely caused offense. “I’m sorry.”

  “I told you not to feel bad,” said Boots. “You were ribbing me. I get it. Trying to lighten the mood. It’s just, Kin saved me, so I love him.”

  “He rescued you in the war?”

  Boots locked eyes with her. “No. Yes. Rescued in different senses of the word, but the big rescues came after the human Kin was dead.”

  “After?”

  Boots nodded.

  “How does a data cube save you?”

  “It’s tough losing your homeworld and then your show. I, uh, tried to do myself in, but Kin called the hospital. The next day was the second worst hangover I’ve ever had.”

  “What was the first worst?” asked Nilah.

  Boots backed up against the bulkhead and slid down onto her butt, a pale imitation of sobriety. Her eyes reddened, and she massaged the middle of her forehead with the rim of the bottle. “Two weeks later, I tried to off myself again, this time, as they say, with a lot more feeling. I accidentally left, you know, Kin plugged into the apartment, so he heard me doing it and called the hospital—again.” She finished with a laugh, like they were both sitting in the local pub, enjoying a wacky yarn. Her head lolled a little too much when she laughed, as though she was trying to shake off the weight of what she was saying. “The, uh”—she pursed her lips and cleared her throat—“the fucked-up thing, Nilah, is that I didn’t die, because the spells I bought didn’t work right on me. They weren’t painless, either, so I should’ve killed that liar of a salesman.”

  She sat down next to Boots and threw an arm over her shoulder. “A lot of drivers do themselves in, actually. Never me, of course, but—”

  “That don’t make you better than me,” said Boots.

  Nilah drummed her fingers on Boots’s far shoulder and stole the bottle when she wasn’t looking. “Don’t wind yourself up. You’ve been through a lot. We both have.”

  Her head tilted toward Nilah as she said, “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. You’re dealing with some new stuff. My stuff is all… old stuff. I’m just… taking up your space here.”

  “It’s okay, Boots,” said Nilah. “It’s quite nice, talking about someone else’s problems today. Takes my mind off Dad, helping you.”

  “When did you get so sappy?”

  Boots wrestled for the bottle, and Nilah had to relent, or it’d spill all over both of them.

  “Who’s the fastest now, Brio?” She cackled into Nilah’s face with sour breath. Then, she looked down the barrel of the bottle and held it to the side, unsipped. “For real, thank you for being here for me. It was a silly speech, but I get it.”

  Nilah frowned. “You’re not still suicidal, are you?”

  Boots made a finger-slinger around her grip on the bottle and pointed it at Nilah. “Every day, friendo. The doc helps with that, though. Meds help keep out the evil thoughts”—she paused for a swig—“killing bad guys takes care of the rest.”

  “About that,” said Nilah. “Sorry I let her get away.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Boots. “I’m the one who couldn’t hold down a slippery, dying woman. You were like some winged goddess of death coming in to smite her.”

  “And I didn’t stick the landing, mate.” Nilah reached for the bottle, and Boots knocked it over, where it spilled onto the deck. She tried to save it, but the older woman was deliberately getting tangled up with her.

  “Oops.” Boots smacked her lips in satisfaction as half the container’s contents washed into a drainage grate.

  Nilah screwed her eyes shut and took long breaths to bring down her fire. Her temper came rushing back at odd moments to chase away the sadness. “So you think it’s okay to drink like that when you feel bad, but I can’t?”

  “I don’t, though,” said Boots. “I just… I see you doing stuff I used to do in the bad old days… and I’m starting to get the appeal of Malik’s health initiative.”

  “It was a waste of bloody good booze is what it was,” said Nilah, voice cracking.

  “Well, that’s too bad, because I love you, kiddo, and I don’t want you to have any hospital stories of your own.”

  The warmth of the alcohol mixed with the weight of her problems, and she slumped against Boots. It hit her suddenly, and she wondered what the hell Boots had been drinking.

  “I missed my chance because of my sodding pride,” said Nilah. “Teacup’s code was rubbish, and Orna’s code—”

  “Is much better, but you won’t use it,” said Boots. “I’ve already heard this part of the story from Orna.”

  “You talk to Orna about me?”

  “Kid, you’re on a marauder. There are like seven people to talk to. You know her code is better than yours, so why not use it?”

  “Because I wanted my baby to be bespoke in every way.”

  Boots shrugged. “Now you know your best isn’t good enough, and you can get over yourself.”

  “Cheeky!”

  “You’ll live. Borrow Orna’s code and move on. Can’t get wound up in little crap like that if you want results.”

  “You’re the worst therapist I’ve ever seen.”

  “Ask yourself,” said Boots, “what’s more important, the purity of every module of your code, or Harriet Fulsom’s head? You don’t have to be the best at everything, blah blah tough love.”

  “Did you just say, ‘Blah blah tough love’?” Nilah chuckled, but forced herself to be stern again.

  “There’s your therapy. Boom. Fifty argents, please.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am being serious. Are you going to grow up and take Orna’s code, or are you going to insist on taking credit for everything when you rip out Harriet’s still-beating heart?”

  Nilah sighed. “You make a good point.”

  Boots climbed to her feet, grunting as she straightened up. “Come on, now. We’ve got to wake the doc for some hangover cures. I’m on shift in two hours, and the captain says you’re done with bereavement leave. There’s an important task for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Comms security,” said Boots. “We’ve got to call the Athana.”

  Nilah held up the Athana data crystal for Cordell, and he nodded his approval. She slotted it into a specialized drive housing, because after what’d happened with Kin, there was no way in hell they’d plug it into the ship.

  Cordell and Malik stood watch over the tangle of wires the two mechanists had assembled in the mess hall. Boots was in the room as a historical/esoterica advisor, in case the crystal started making obscure references to weird goings-on. Orna’s job was security; Nilah had built the enclosure to be perfect and air-gapped from the Capricious’s networks, but Orna could shut it down, just in case.

  Blue light inside the crystal flashed purple as it connected with Nilah’s system.

  Orna looked up from her nearby workstation. “It’s asking to connect to a transmitter. Want me to open up a line to the outside world?”

  “Let’s see if anyone answers,” said Cordell.

  “Connection stable,” said Orna. “It’s saying something to someone, but I can’t decrypt it.”

  “Hope it’s something nice,” said
Nilah.

  “User, please identify yourself,” said a computerized voice, its intonations smoked and dry.

  “This is Captain Cordell Lamarr of—”

  “Connected user, please identify yourself,” said the Athana, not masculine or feminine—just annoyed.

  Cordell frowned. “This is Captain Cordell Lamarr, of—”

  “Incorrect. You are not the one we heard when you connected,” said the Athana.

  “What do we do?” Cordell whispered. “It’s not taking my credentials.”

  “I think it wants to talk to the person it heard first,” said Boots. “Maybe Hunter Two?”

  Cordell nodded at Nilah. “Give it a try.”

  “Uh, yes, um…” The moment of truth. “This is Compass operative Nilah Brio, authorization code—”

  “Unknown first-time contact. Let us feel you.”

  Nilah grimaced. “I, uh…”

  The crystal clinked inside its data contacts, and Nilah glanced down to see it eject a tiny, clear needle. She squinted to see it, but the thin shaft of glassy material trailed into some internal configuration she hadn’t seen before.

  “What the devil?” she muttered, tracing her glyph and touching the edge of the crystal. Inside, she felt only the vaguest outline of a machine. Whoever had made the clever little device had nestled the configuration into the noise of data in a way that would fool any mechanist.

  “Let us feel you,” the voice repeated.

  Swiping her fingers around the edge of the cube, Nilah looked for any sort of defenses or poison delivery system just in case it was lying.

  Two rapid clinks later, the crystal pricked her probing digit, extracting a drop of blood without warning.

  Nilah drew back her hand in surprise as her dermaluxes flashed red. “Little bastard!”

  “You okay?” asked Cordell.

  She nodded as Malik came to inspect the wound. “So far, so good. Looks like they didn’t make a deposit, just a withdrawal.”

  The crimson line of her blood flowed down through the needle, then smeared into a cylindrical lamination where glowing motes of various colors examined its contents. Nilah watched the little machine in wonder, shocked at the intricacies of it.