by Huss, JA
“Listen to me,” I say. “Because pretty soon she’s going to rip me out of here, wipe my memories, and put me in a ship. I will wake up someone else. And that’s fine,” I say, placing a hand on his cheek. “Because I’ll find you. No matter what she does to me, I’ll find you, Tray. And maybe we have to wait a whole lifetime to be together again. Fine. I don’t care. I have waited thousands of lifetimes already just to get here.” I swallow hard and whisper, “I love you. And no amount of memory wiping will ever be able to erase that.”
I put my hand around his neck, pull him closer to me, and lean in so I can whisper in his ear, “So you go save Valor. When she pulls me out, you go save him. And when that’s taken care of, come find me.” I pull back and look him in the eyes. “Come find me then.”
And then I kiss him. Because I know she’s watching and I know what’s coming next. So I kiss him.
It starts out hard, and demanding. Like this is the last time I’ll ever get this chance. And it might be.
But I don’t want him to remember this kiss as desperate. I want him to remember it as hope. So my mouth goes soft and my lips part enough to press my tongue against his.
The creepy-crawly feeling of fingertips fumbling through my mind comes back and I know our time is up. She’s here, she heard me, and now she will punish me. Torture me.
I pull away from the kiss, holding my head. Moaning from the sudden pain shooting through my fake brain.
“Brigit? What’s wrong?”
“I have to go now,” I say.
“No,” Tray says, pulling me into a tight embrace. “I won’t let you go. I won’t lose you. I won’t—”
But that’s the last thing I hear. Because Tray is gone, the virtual world is gone, and I am alone in a pitch-black space of emptiness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - TRAY
The moment I wake up in the pod I’m being pulled out by rough cyborg hands. They don’t even wait for all the needles to properly retract from my skin and blood is dripping down the inside of my arm as they drag me through the doors of medical and down a hallway to an elevator.
A borg at my back pushes me inside and I slam against the opposite wall and almost crumple to the floor, my body still confused from being jerked out of the virtual so fast. Two borgs pick me up under my arms and hold me upright as the door closes and we start ascending.
I feel obligated to croak out, “Where are we going?” but I already know, and they don’t answer me anyway.
Veila.
I can’t say I’ve spent much time thinking about Veila because I wasn’t around for any of the past confrontations with her, but right now she’s the only thing on my mind.
Surely one fake silver princess cannot win against us. Right?
Sure, she’s got a fucking Cygnian warship and an army of mindless borgs hell bent on following orders. And she seems to know all the secrets that we’re deficient in. Plus, we are her prisoners.
But… we’re Harem fucking Station.
We always win.
Don’t we?
We did. Before ALCOR left us.
I have such conflicting emotions about him right now. So many mixed feelings running through my artificial brain. Did he take care of us? Did he love us? Is this all happening because he wants the best for us?
Or because he just wants what’s best for him and we’re just a means to an end?
Listen to me. Thinking about ALCOR like he’s still alive.
He’s not.
He could be, if I had done what I was supposed to.
But the Asshole is alive and the Asshole is ALCOR. He might not be the same one we all grew up with, but he’s an exact copy of the one we met that day we landed on his station.
Why the fuck didn’t we go meet him and Booty first?
Of course, I know the answer now.
Veila corrupted me.
Which could make a lot of sense under certain circumstances, but doesn’t make a lot of sense under these circumstances.
Veila isn’t some all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing AI. She’s just a fake silver princess. And how did she have power like that twenty years ago? She was a nobody back then. Just some lady-in-waiting for the future Queen Corla.
Even if I assume that they started changing her the day we shot Corla through that spin node, how did she gather up Brigit, put this whole plan in motion, and sneak her way into my very primitive, very basic virtual on Harem just one year later?
It doesn’t add up. Something’s very wrong with her story.
Of course something’s wrong. All this bitch does is lie. She spews out lies like ice crystals falling off the tail of a comet. No direction, no plan—just throws them out there to see where they’ll land.
And so far they’ve landed on me, and Valor, and Brigit in all the right ways.
So far, they’ve not only landed… all the basic building blocks of her lies inside those crystals have actually started to take root. They’re alive now. And growing inside us. Twisting around all the half-truths we’ve been given over the years, mixing them all up so that we don’t know what the hell is going on or who to trust.
Well, fuck that.
I know who I trust.
The door opens and the borgs storm out, my two helpers dragging me along with them. They throw me down on the floor and the first thing I see when I look up is Valor. Bound to a punishment wall much like the one I know Serpint keeps in his chambers.
He’s not looking at me. He’s not looking at anyone. I’m not even sure he’s conscious.
The inside of his arms and the side of his neck have been pricked with needles. Long tubes feed drugs into him and they’re hooked up to a screen with vital sign readouts off to his right.
His head hangs down, his chin resting on the top of his breastbone and his eyes closed. His chest is marked with long, black gashes that look like burns. And his pants are open, the tip of his cock peeking out from the zipper. Not hard, but it’s clear that Veila was trying.
His mind is still inside the virtual, I realize. Not in a pod, where he could receive immediate medical attention should something go wrong, just magnetically clamped to a metal wall like meat.
I swing my head, force myself to focus, and lock eyes with Veila. “What the fuck have you done to him?”
She smiles at me as I get to my feet. Her borgs again take me by the arms. Like they’re afraid I’ll rush her. Try to be the hero and fight my way out of this the way Luck or Serpint surely would.
But I don’t have much in common with Luck and Serpint. That’s just not how I roll.
“We’ll get to that,” Veila says. “After I get what I need from you.” She glances at Valor with a sick smile. “He wouldn’t have been my first choice. I don’t think Valor is anyone’s first choice, is he?”
“Pull him out!” I yell. “Pull him out now!”
“Or what?” Veila counters.
I take a deep breath. Do my very best to control the anger building inside me. Because suddenly, after all these years of being calm, and emotionless, and blank—I seem to have a whole lot of feelings swirling around in my brain.
Not the good kind, either.
Don’t freak out, Tray. Do not lose control now.
Now is when it counts.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I say. “Whatever you want to know. But it won’t be free, Veila.”
She raises one eyebrow at me. As if to say, Is that so? “I’m not sure you’re in any position to negotiate.”
“I am, and you know it.”
She inhales deeply through her nose, then walks over to a table and takes a seat. “Join me,” she says, pointing to a chair opposite her.
I shrug off the borgs, glare at them over my shoulder, and take in the room as I approach the table.
It’s a torture chamber. That much is clear. There are several punishment walls, all empty, except for the one Valor is attached to. And there are plenty of other machines, and readout screens, and devices. Ancient-looking d
evices that immediately conjure up images of pain and screaming.
Off to the side of the table is a metal tray with gleaming silver instruments laid out in a neat row. One of them is a short, blue wand that’s still sizzling.
She used that on Valor’s chest. That’s what gave him those marks.
“If you’re thinking of stealing any of these instruments and using them on me”—Veila laughs—“think again. They’ve all been bio-coded.”
“That’s not what I was thinking,” I say, calmly taking a seat in the chair.
“Well, that’s a nice change. Finally a Harem brother who knows his limits.” She folds her hands and places them on the table. “Now, you were saying?” She purses her lips and smiles.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But you let him go.” I nod my head towards Valor.
She practically guffaws. “You’re joking.”
“I assure you, I’m not.”
“I’m not going to let him go. He’s my soulmate. My real soulmate. Though I haven’t been very impressed with him thus far. He’s certainly no Jimmy.”
“Nice trick, that,” I say. “But we all figured it out.”
“I practically told him.” She smirks. “You boys would have to be a bunch of idiots not to have figured it out.”
“So… what about a trade?”
“Trade? As in Valor for Jimmy?” She pulls her chin back to look at me. Dimples appear in her cheeks. A smile. Maybe her real smile. It hurts to see it because those magically appearing dimples are Valor’s happiness trick. She doesn’t deserve them. “Please. You don’t really expect me to fall for that, do you?”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed this, Veila.” Try as I might, I cannot help but sneer her name when I say it. “But I’m not like my brothers.”
“Not even a little bit,” she quips, looking me up and down.
“I’m not loyal to ALCOR, either.”
“No surprise there.”
“And it’s got nothing to do with you and whatever you did to me.”
“Well, pardon me if I don’t take your word on that. I’m going to need proof.”
“Proof? OK. Here’s your proof. ALCOR’s dead. We all know he’s dead. But he’s got a backup copy on Booty Hunter and lots of backup copies on the Harem Station security beacons.”
“You’re offering me ALCOR’s copies?”
I nod.
She squints her eyes, like this has got her thinking, then quickly says, “I’m not interested. He’s not reliable. Not in any form.”
“But I could make him reliable. I could make him… compliant,” I say.
“How?”
I smile and shrug with my hands. “We’re connected. Didn’t you know that?”
Her silence is long by my standards. But only a few seconds by hers. “I already own you, Tray. I have total control over your mind already. So I could just take what I want from your mind. There’s no need to give you anything in return.”
I lean back in my chair. “Then do it.”
There is no connection to ALCOR inside me. So this whole scheme of mine is based on trying to prove a negative. Which she cannot do.
But she tries.
The gold ring on my neck heats up, coming to life again. I pull a lot of internal resources together to keep her from asserting control over me. Little sparks of electrical current flit through my network, but this device has been hacked. I didn’t hack it so I’m not sure how that happened, but I don’t care, either.
I probably will, very soon. Because whoever did hack this collar is going to want something in return from me, but I’m betting that whoever that was, they’re not on her side.
“I don’t know how you got control over the collar, but keeping me out of your head isn’t helping your case,” Veila says.
“I don’t know how I got control over it either,” I say, leaning forward a little. “And that should scare you, Veila.”
“Please,” she says, waving a dismissive hand in front of her face. “I’m not interested in your proposal. I don’t trust you. Having your precious Brigit under my thumb is all I require. And now that I know you’re attached to Valor, I have that too. I’m not interested in ALCOR. His copy will be dead soon and the security beacons will be decommissioned from within. But…” She glances at Valor, who is still very much unconscious and hanging from the wall. “But I am curious about something else.”
“What?” I ask. Forcing myself not to sigh the word. I’m so tired of this. I’m so tired of her. I’m so tired of secrets. I’m tired of this game, this dance, this charade. All of it.
“Mighty Minions.”
“What about them?”
“How much do you know about them?”
“Why?” I laugh.
“Because someone fucked up my plan when I tried to take the Booty Hunter. And it has something to do with the ship called Demon Girl. Who is she?”
I shrug.
“If you can’t tell me that, then we don’t have a deal, Tray.”
“She’s just a Mighty Minions warship.”
“Who is her super-symmetrical partner?”
Ah. I see where this is going. “You think she’s Valor’s sister, don’t you?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Why, though? You’re holding all the game pieces right now, Veila. Why do you care?”
“I am holding all the pieces. I have the time and location coordinates of the spin node you were hiding in, and I have the Baby ALCOR on Harem Station—”
I knew it.
“—so I will have access to the secret flowers, not to mention a direct link to Earth—because I know it’s there—so my breeding program will surpass all others just as soon as we take Harem Station down.”
“Ohhhh.” I chuckle. “But there’s a problem there, right? The Succubus. I haven’t had any news from Harem since I left, but obviously my plan worked and the Baby has lost control. Little SNAFU, huh?”
Veila continues on like she didn’t hear me. “Demon Girl has shown up twice now. And I erased her mind in that last battle, but she recovered immediately, and without repercussions. So how did that happen?”
How did that happen? It’s a good question. And if the Succubus isn’t working for Veila, who is she working for?
Mighty Minions?
Did they set us up? Veila’s right. Something is off about Demon Girl. The mind wipe should’ve worked.
So… what if it did work, but there was someone else on the ship to take over?
“Who?” I say out loud, not meaning to. But I recover. “Who, you mean. Who made that happen, not how did it happen.”
Veila squints her eyes at me. “Who was it?”
And even though I didn’t know the answer to her question when I came up with that conclusion, I do now.
“Valor,” I say. “I want Valor. Wake him up right now so I can say goodbye, and then you cut him loose.”
“And you get me Jimmy?”
“Done,” I say. “I’ll help you trap Jimmy. I know what drives him. It won’t even be that hard.”
She thinks about this, or pretends to, then says, “OK. I accept these conditions. But you and Brigit are mine. There will be no more deals.”
“Fine. The who is Mighty Boss. It’s so obvious.”
She leans back in her chair. “Is it? Obvious? Why would he be so interested in this one ship?”
He wouldn’t. There are only two people alive who care that much about Booty Hunter.
Serpint, who is still on Harem Station.
And ALCOR.
Real ALCOR.
But she’s too close to the truth with that last question. So a diversion is necessary. “It’s not the ship he wants, you dumb bitch. It’s the Asshole. Maybe you don’t want him, but I’m sure lots of other people do. Mighty Boss is a collection of seventeen AIs. Well, they used to be. They cut the Succubus loose. Something about her not being a team player. Obviously”—I huff—“since she’s on Harem trying to steal it ou
t from under us. But that means Mighty Boss has a vacancy. Who better to join their already very formidable, powerful team than ALCOR? They don’t care about the original versus the copy. To them, ALCOR is ALCOR.”
I let her stew in that for a moment, then add, “And now they have him. And you don’t. And I know something else, Veila. Something you do not.”
“Not likely,” she says, feigning confidence. But I know she’s shaken. And when I tell her this last part, she’s going to lose her mind.
“Trust me,” I say. “Something happened to Jimmy on Mighty Minions Station before you kidnapped him. Something… Earth-shattering.”
Oh, how I wish I was recording this. What I wouldn’t give to be able to play back this moment to Jimmy when I see him again. Because Veila’s face goes vom white. So white, it matches her platinum hair.
“You’re about to be scooped, Veila. They’re ahead of you in this little race to find Earth. And I know what they have.”
“Tell me.” She growls these words through clenched teeth.
“Pull Valor out, give me a minute to say goodbye, and then you put him in a cryopod and send him to the rendezvous point where we were going to meet Booty Hunter.”
She is seething with anger. “There’s nobody there.”
“He’ll be on ice. He can wait. It’s the safest place for him as far as I’m concerned. He can’t go back to Harem. Not when it’s filled with infiltrators ready to take it down. Just leave him out of this until it’s all over and then…”
She grips the arms of her chair and leans forward. “Then what?”
I smile at her. “Then we can pick him back up. With one stipulation.”
“No more deals.”
“You won’t mind this one, trust me. The stipulation is… he’s mine. Not yours.”
She hates me. There is no way that Veila isn’t internally coming up with ninety-seven million different ways to kill me in this very moment.
Her face is no longer vom white. It’s going red with rage. Not an attractive look for her. Poor Valor. That’s all I can think about. This disgusting excuse for a person is his engineered soulmate.
“Kill me, then,” I say. “Because that’s my deal. And kill Brigit too. I was lying back there. I choose Valor. There is no way I’d choose a girl over family. Ever. And you’re so smug and full of yourself, you didn’t see that, did you?”