by Huss, JA
So when he speaks next, his voice is calm and low, but also very dangerous. “Let me spell this out for you,” he tells Boss. “That ship is mine. Not as a possession, but as a partner. She has been with me longer than you, or the galaxy you live in, has existed.”
Boss squints his eyes at this. ALCOR gets it. That part makes no sense. But that’s only because Boss is working with incomplete information, and ALCOR is not going to enlighten him on that particular set of facts just yet.
“I take my job very seriously,” ALCOR continues. “So my first priority is to save Harem Station and the secrets held within in order to preserve what’s here. But if that ship is endangered in the process, I will blow the whole thing up.”
“Your station?” Boss asks.
“The Universe,” ALCOR whispers.
Mighty Boss leans back in his chair, staring at him with burning red flames in his eyes.
“I’ve done it before,” ALCOR admits. “And rebuilding everything is always a fuckin’ bitch. But if I lose her, the game is over and we will start again. Because that’s the only reason I’m playing, Boss man.”
Boss is silent for almost a full minute. Which is more than enough time to run all the calculations, and simulations, and extrapolations and realize that ALCOR is telling the truth.
“So the reason this Asshole is a problem,” ALCOR finally continues, “is because he is a true copy of me. And if he hasn’t yet figured out what Booty Hunter is to us, he will soon. And unless I take him out of this equation, he could perceive me as a threat. And me against me…?” ALCOR shakes his head. “Not a very good idea. So I suggest you use your considerable combined processing power to figure out just where the fuck they are. And you had better pray to the sun god of the goddamned universe—AKA ME!—that in the three months you’ve had me locked up inside some dark, empty motherfucking virtual like a common prisoner so you could ‘monitor’ this shit-show situation, things have not gotten out of hand. Because I will kill you first if that’s the case. Do I make myself clear? Boss?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - TRAY
“What do we do?” Valor asks.
My heart is racing inside my chest. I fucked up. I fucked everything up. It’s hard to reconcile the reality hitting me in this moment. Hard to come to terms with what I’ve done. Four days ago I was sure this was the right answer.
I was so sure this was the only answer.
And now…
Valor grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me, yelling, “What the fuck do we do?”
I just look at him and say, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” He’s still shaking me. Trying to make sense of things.
But before I can answer there’s a sharp, clear ping from the medical comms console, followed by the built-in mechanical voice of this ship, saying, “Incoming message on main monitor.”
“Veila,” Valor says. Then to the ship’s onboard systems, “Arm cannons. Activate shields.” He turns to me. “Let’s go. I’ll fly us out of here and you—” But I’m shaking my head so he stops, then says, “What do you mean no? We need to get the fuck out of here and go find Booty and Asshole. We can’t take Veila on our own.”
“No,” I agree. “We can’t. Because that was never in the plan.”
“What plan? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Incoming message on main monitor,” the ship repeats over the constant alarms and pings.
I push Valor off me and walk over to the comms, tap the accept button and say, “This is Tray.”
There’s several seconds of crackling emptiness. Then, “Good. Prepare to be boarded.”
“What the fuck? What the fuck did you do?”
“I don’t know,” I say weakly. But it’s a lie.
I do know.
I betrayed him, ALCOR, everyone.
And I knew this. I just… forgot.
Valor pushes me so hard I crash into the cryopod, hit my mouth, and blood comes spurting out of my lip. “Tell me what you did!” he yells. “Fucking tell me right now!”
I forgot about that too. His hate. His secret hate for Veila. How he wanted to kill her and how right now he probably wants to kill me too.
“I told you,” I say. “I told you there was something wrong with me.”
He throws me down on the ground, kicks me in the stomach, and then disappears up the ladder leading to the bridge.
But it’s too late. The familiar sound of a ship connecting with the airlock thunders through the hull, making everything vibrate.
I get to my feet and rush after him.
I don’t want to stop him. I really don’t. I want us to win. I want to take him back inside the virtual and live in there with Brigit for the rest of my days.
But I can’t help myself. I will stop him. Because something is wrong with me.
When I reach the bridge Valor is sitting at the comms station, frantically sending off a neutrino wave message.
“It won’t work,” I say. “We’re inside a fucking spin node.”
“Something will work,” he says. “Obviously a message got out.” He glares at me. “You sent it. Tell me how you sent it!”
“I didn’t send it,” I say. “Brigit did.”
“What? How?” Valor gets up from the console, rushes towards me, and pushes me backwards with two flat hands to my chest. I crash into the navigation console. Don’t even bother to fight back. Because this was the plan. The whole time, this was the plan.
Valor grabs my shirt collar and shakes me. “How do I send a message? Tell me!”
But it’s too late. And he knows it. Because the airlock buzzes and the light above the door goes green.
Valor reaches for the weapon that should be on his hip. Is always on his hip.
Except for now. Because we took a shower and he didn’t strap it back on when he got dressed.
“I will kill you,” he says, glaring at me. “I will fucking kill you for this.”
The airlocks whoosh open with a hiss and then… then Valor forgets all about me. Just like I knew he would. Because the silver princess Veila walks forward and from this moment on, she will be the only thing he ever cares about again.
They stare at each other for a few moments, her eyes shooting beams of bright white light, his glowing violet.
I’m jealous, I realize. Because this… this soulmates thing? That was never part of the plan for me.
Brigit isn’t my soulmate.
It’s just some code. Some silly code Veila smuggled into the Harem Pleasure Prison.
When?
Which one of them did this to me?
Was it Corla? Or Lyra? Or Nyleena? Or Delphi?
Which one of them corrupted me?
Maybe it was just Brigit?
Maybe I just corrupted myself?
“Hello, Valor,” Veila purrs. “Nice to finally meet you.”
Valor takes a step back. Does not acknowledge her. But she’s brought a small army of borgs with her. They storm past her, grab Valor by the arms, and shake him a little for dramatic effect.
Veila looks at me. “Nicely done, Tray. But we’re not finished with you yet. I still need Booty Hunter and the ALCOR copy. So I’ll take those rendezvous coordinates now.”
“Don’t do it,” Valor says. “Don’t fucking do it, Tray! I’m warning you—”
“Please,” Veila mocks. “You have absolutely no power in this scheme, Valor. So just shut up.” She snaps her fingers and several borgs come at me with a gold contraption made out of a ring. They grab me, jerking me this way and that, and then the ring is forced over my head and when it finally rests on my shoulders, a sharp pain shoots down my spine as something digs into my skin and clamps onto to the base of my brain stem.
“Tray,” Valor yells. “Do not give her those coordinates!”
It’s not like I have a choice. The ring… I know what it is. A halo. A very special, very mythical, ancient device used to restrain AIs.
It renders me powerless. Something is
inside me now. Tickling its way through my brain. Searching, searching, searching… I don’t even need to tell her those coordinates. She pulls them right out of my head.
Veila’s eyes brighten, then dim again. “Thank you,” she says. “Your cooperation is noted and appreciated.”
My jaw seems to be locked and nothing is working right inside me. But I force out the word, “Brigit,” just as Veila turns away.
She pauses. Looks over her shoulder at me. Draws in a deep breath and then nods to one of her borgs. “Give him one last spin with the Akeelian girl before I take her mind.” She smiles at me. “You’ve earned it, Tray. You’ve been a very good little pet.” Then she nods her head at Valor. “But bring this one to my quarters. I’m just getting started with him.”
I don’t look at Valor as we’re shoved into the airlock and onto her massive Cygnian warship. I can’t look at him.
I am a traitor. And even though I didn’t really understand this all the signs were there.
I did this. I fucked everything up. I am turning everyone over to Veila and she will use all my brothers and friends to further her breeding program. She will kill the Asshole, and Booty, and then take Harem Station and all the secrets within.
It’s over.
The war is over before it started and we fucking lost.
And it’s all my fault.
I’m taken to medical, shoved in a pod, strapped in, and left there with the lid open without a single word from Veila’s borgs.
The inhibitor clamped to my neck sends shooting pains down my spine as I lie there, waiting.
A while later Brigit’s pod is brought in and we’re connected to the medical ports.
This will not be our virtual world. The drive that contained that world is still in my pocket.
The borgs close the lid on my pod and then start the entry sequence. Needles pinch my skin, and then my eyes close and I drift away…
… and wake up in pitch blackness all around me. Shiny, black floors beneath my virtual feet. I’m wearing something standard. Something I’d wear on Harem. Black tactical pants, black t-shirt. Boots. No weapon, not that it would do any good in here.
“Hello?” I say.
Nothing.
“Brigit?”
She lied. Veila lied.
Of course Veila lied. She’s the face of the enemy. She is the one person we need to take out and what did I do? Brought her in.
I try to think back to how this happened. The mind-containment ring is still attached to me out in the real, but if it works in here, I can’t feel it. There’s no haze in my head. No jumbled thoughts or missing places.
She corrupted me. I run many calculations as I wait to see if Brigit will appear, trying to pinpoint the moment when I stopped being in control of myself.
I go back to Delphi first. But she and I never had any kind of mental contact. Nyleena was inside the Pleasure Prison, so that’s a possible point of contact for whatever has infected me and turned me traitor. But my plan was already in motion by then.
So not Nyleena.
Lyra. She’s never been in the Pleasure Prison and she’s never had any kind of meaningful contact with me. Both she and Nyleena had time with Booty, but Booty didn’t do this. And they weren’t the ones who corrupted her on Cetus Station.
Draden was.
When he died, he didn’t die. His mind was freed from his body and he latched on to the first thing he could find.
Booty Hunter.
She brought him back to Harem. Where he went and what happened to him after that, I have no idea.
Corla was never woken up and she was never hooked directly into the Harem medical system. I suspect if she had been, none of the other things that have happened to us would’ve been necessary. Because that’s all it would’ve taken to bring us down.
So then when?
When did I stop being Tray and start being someone’s puppet?
Only three more points of entry exist.
Brigit. This is the most obvious. But it doesn’t add up. She and I have been together in the Pleasure Prison for nearly two decades and everything that’s happening to us now is due to more recent developments.
ALCOR. The day I arrived on Harem. But this is not the outcome he’s looking for.
That leaves my father. When he leveled me up when I was thirteen.
But I was fine for so long. None of this makes any sense.
So I guess there’s just one more possibility. One I don’t want to admit.
Maybe no one corrupted me?
Maybe I did all this myself?
“Tray?”
I whirl around and find Brigit standing in the darkness. I don’t know where the light is coming from, but it’s just enough to make out her soft, pretty face.
“Brigit,” I say, walking towards her, taking her face in my hands. I kiss her on the lips.
She pushes me away. Turns her back.
I can’t say I don’t deserve that, but it still hurts.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
She turns back to face me, tears welling up in her eyes. “She tricked me. She… did something to me. I was the spy, Tray. She used me to get to you.”
“No,” I say. “She used me to get to you! To everyone. I’m the traitor, Brigit. Me. Not you.”
“I would love to believe that. But it’s not true.”
“We’re gonna figure this out,” I say, desperate to make her feel better. “We’re gonna figure this out, and…”
She shakes her head. “No. They came to see me before they brought me here.”
“Who?”
“The ship masters. They took my mind before I was born, Tray. I’ve been in containment this whole time. That body in the pod—” She looks off to her left and a pod appears in the dark emptiness. Her pod. “That’s not me. I don’t have a body. It’s just a data core and a holographic projection. Veila has been using me this whole time. Just waiting for you to take me inside that spin node and wake me up so she could have the proper time and place coordinates to enter and take me back.” She sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t exist, Tray. Not the way you think I do.” Her eyes find mine. Sad, and heavy, and resigned to this fate we’re stuck in. “They’re prepping me right now.”
“Prepping you for what?” I feel sick. Because I know. I already know.
“They’re going to put me inside one of the Akeelian warships. So I can fight in the war.” She presses her lips tightly together. “How ironic is that? I’m probably going to attack Harem Station.”
“No,” I say.
“Yes. They already explained it to me. I’m being prepped right now. Then they’re going to wipe my memory, slip me inside the data core of one of their warships and then…” She shrugs with her hands. “That’s it. We’re done. I’m not human, Tray.” And then she yells, “I’m a fucking ship. I’m a fucking warship and I’m going to blow up your station, or your friends, or—”
I reach out, pull her towards me, and wrap my arms around her. Hold her tight. Never wanting to let her go. I would stay here in this dark emptiness for all eternity if I could just hold her like this forever.
She can’t attack Harem Station. The security at the gates will blow her up without question the moment they spot her coming.
She pushes me away again, wiping virtual tears off her virtual face. “And Valor…” She starts to cry. “Valor is…” She’s shaking her head, unable to go on.
“Valor can take care of himself,” I say, not really believing that. But I say it anyway, because we both need something to hold on to right now. “He’ll get out. Somehow. Some way. If anyone can do it, Valor can.”
“He’s her soulmate now, Tray! He will do anything to be with her. I did that! I did this to him, and you, and now we’re all doomed to this very fucked-up future. I will be forced to blow up your friends. All the ships you love. And he will be forced to breed, and you… you will…”
She stops. She stops because
she doesn’t know how I fit in Veila’s future plans.
And neither do I.
Or I guess I do.
I don’t fit at all.
Give him one last spin with the Akeelian girl before I take her mind. Those were Veila’s last words to me.
“It’s over,” Brigit says. “She’s going to kill you now.”
But the next thing I know, I’m waking up in the pod and alarms are sounding. I have no idea what kind of time differential was running inside the virtual. So I have no clue if that conversation with Brigit took one minute or one year.
I don’t know if we’re still inside the spin node, on our way to the Booty-Asshole rendezvous point, or already there.
All I know is that I’ve been pulled from the program, my pod lid is popping open, the gold inhibitor ring is painfully withdrawing from my neck, there’s no one down here in medical with us, and… I have our virtual world in my fucking pocket.
I get up and out of the pod, stumble over to Brigit’s pod, and hook my drive into her systems.
I’m being prepped right now.
That’s what she said. It could be too late. She could already be inside a ship. She could already be on her way to Harem Station. She could already be dead at the hands of Harem Station security beacons on the far side of the gate.
But I have to try.
I have to.
I will not leave here without saving Brigit. It’s the only plan I know for sure was mine.
She’s the only true thing left of me. I don’t care if she’s an AI. I’m an AI. I will be without a body one day, so who cares if she’s just code?
I wait for the download, take out the drive, shove it back in my pocket, and then…
Then something is inside my head. A string of past experiences. Like a montage in a video. Layers upon layers of me. Working things out. Doing calculations. Arriving on Harem with the answer ALCOR was looking for. Building the Pleasure Prison and being in charge of millions of lives for all those years.
Then that plan to escape. Helping Crux set Nyleena up to keep the Succubus and the Baby busy. Getting Luck to walk us through a spin node. Finding Angel fucking Station.