Arachne's Web

by Elizabeth Corrigan

  “They’re not all dead.” Will got down on his knees in front of her and used his most soothing tone. “We’re not all dead. I’m still alive, and so are you. Detrick’s fine. Cuttlefish is—”

  “Cuttlefish is the one that killed them!” The pitch of Lexi’s voice rose with every word. “And she’s going to come after us next!”

  “Relax. Deep breaths.” Will reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder, but she slapped it away. “I have contacts. I can make us secret identities deeper than Tegan can find. We can slowly and secretly research what she’s up to.”

  “I don’t want to slowly and secretly research what she’s up to!” Lexi screamed. “I want my life. My. Life. I want to be the famous singer I deserve to be, and if I can’t have that, I want to at least be alive!”

  Will took the deep breath he knew would better serve Lexi. “You’re overreacting. They’re going to be fine. They’ll be reborn before you know it, and soon, you’ll be telling me to stop talking to my sister via vid so I can come hear you sing.”

  “Are you listening to yourself? Your sister is dead, and you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s fine. I’ll talk to her in twenty years.’”

  He closed his eyes and let himself feel the pain for a moment. He would miss Roslyn, but he needed to take care of himself and Lexi. But she was right about one thing… until they knew what Tegan was up to, they had to operate under the assumption that she would come for them next.

  Will sat back, the tops of his feet sinking into the super-soft carpet. “We should call Bliss.”

  Lexi reached out and shoved him. “How can you think of her when I’m in distress?”

  Ow. Will rubbed the spot on his chest Lexi had hit, probably harder than she had intended. “Someone should tell her what happened, Lex. She doesn’t have all my resources to hear about these kinds of things.”

  Lexi stuck out her lower lip. “Oh, and I suppose you’ll want her to go on the run with us too. I’ll have to see her annoying face every day.”

  “Lexi.” Will never knew what to do with her when she was like that—angry and scared and jealous all at the same time. Being anything but confident in all things was so un-Lexi. She was acting the worst he had ever seen her, though, and he suspected she was focusing on the familiar sensation of needless jealousy of Bliss because she couldn’t face the fact that Tegan had killed Roslyn and the others.

  “Fine, call Bliss,” Lexi said. “Forget me. I’ll be fine.”

  Will wanted to stay and reassure her, but he needed to call Bliss and get cover identities for all of them before Tegan found them. “You will be fine, Lexi. I’ll take care of you.”

  After picking up his datapad, he carried it into the bedroom then sank down on the mattress, or tried to, anyway. He had sat on Lexi’s side of the bed, which she liked to keep rock-hard.

  Like her heart, Roslyn said in his mind.

  “Call Bliss,” Will instructed his datapad.

  A few seconds later, Bliss’s face appeared on the screen, her round eyes brimming with tears.

  “You heard,” he said.

  “Tegan called me,” Bliss said. “She wanted me to know she wasn’t one of us anymore, and she had a bloody machete as proof.”

  “What? Did she say what her plans were?”

  Bliss shook her head, and strands of her long black hair stuck to her wet cheeks. “She couldn’t talk long. Something about Phedre overhearing.”

  “Dear, darling Mother. I might have known this was one of her plans.” Will tapped his finger on the side of the datapad. “Roslyn told me some stuff about what they found there. I might have known Mother would get wind of it and involve herself. Didn’t think she would kill anyone over it.”

  Sometimes Will liked talking to Bliss better than talking to Lexi. Bliss listened to things rather than ignoring them to maintain her blithe ignorance, or hysterical sadness, in this case.

  “What are you going to do?” Bliss asked.

  He summed up his plan for going into hiding. “You can come, too, if you like.”

  “Go into hiding. With you and Lexi.” Her tone was very dry.

  “She’ll be a pain at first, but she’ll get over it. I think it’s safest for all of us.”

  “No, Will, you know what’s safest for all of us?” A haggard voice Will barely recognized as Lexi’s came from the doorway.

  He looked up and could only see the shadowed outline of his girlfriend in the bright light pouring in behind her. But he recognized the red glow of his laser pistol in her hand.

  Will dropped the datapad. “Lexi, what are you doing?”

  Lexi waved the pistol around, aiming it at his midsection. “The only way we’re safe is if we’re dead. Rebirth is the deepest hiding we know.”

  “Okay, I know you’re upset, but—”

  “No buts! I’m done with this Transient thing. Being part of the group apparently gets you killed! I’m going to die, and when I come back, I’m not going to remember any of this, and I’m going to keep it that way. I’m going to be famous, and no one is going to stop me!”

  “Lexi, don’t—”

  She moved the pistol toward her mouth. “Good-bye, Will. Don’t try to find me.” She put the gun between her lips and pulled the trigger.

  Will dove across the room but not fast enough to stop her. The stench of burning flesh assaulted his nose as he watched a red laser beam emerge from the back of Lexi’s neck, burning a hole in the ceiling as she fell.

  As he clutched her body to his chest, the tears that hadn’t come for Roslyn and the others streamed down his face. He didn’t know how long he sat there—long enough for Lexi to go cold—but eventually, he realized someone was calling his name.

  “Will! What’s going on? Will!”

  He stumbled to his feet and picked up his abandoned datapad. “Bliss.”

  “I thought I heard… Is Lexi okay?”

  “No.” He swallowed. “No, she’s not okay. She decided she was safest if she was dead. Or I dunno, maybe not even safest, just something. I don’t know. She’s dead. She shot herself right in front of me.”

  Bliss stared at him for several moments then gave him a sad smile. “I’ll go find her for you.”

  Will’s eyebrows scrunched together, then he realized what she had said. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t leave me too.”

  “You know I’m always drawn to the other Transients in new lives, even before we have memories. I’ll be born near one of them. It might even be Lexi. I’ll find her, and you can find us.”

  “If Tegan is after us, we are not safer reborn. We won’t have our memories. We’ll be vulnerable.”

  “I know.” Bliss somehow didn’t look sad anymore. She looked resolved. “But we remember things more quickly when we’re with each other, and I can help with that.”

  “Bliss—”

  “I’ve made up my mind. Good-bye, Will. Find me on the other side.” She pressed a button on her datapad, and her image disappeared.

  And just like that, he was alone.

  Present Day

  Lexi had said not to find her before she died, and he had ignored her. He told himself she wouldn’t mind when she remembered, because she knew he would come after her no matter what. Sometimes, though, Lexi could be oblivious to other people’s feelings and intentions, particularly when they contradicted hers. But he also knew from experience that someone was going to tell Lexi she couldn’t be famous, and she took it a lot better from him than from Demitrius.

  He knew he should look for his fellow Transients. They were old enough to regain their memories, which meant they would be easier to find, and Tegan and Phedre would be searching for them too. He wished he knew more about what they wanted on Arachne, but all he knew after twenty years of research was they hadn’t found it the first time around, which meant his fellow Transients were still in danger.
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br />   Will hated to miss the time with innocent, carefree Lexi, though. He told himself he would start looking for the others soon, and he hoped they would forgive him if he was too late.

  Chapter 15

  Present Day

  “You gave Jack Zhao a datapad while he was locked in your electronic cell?” Tegan didn’t have much in the way of height, but Polanski’s guards had shrunk in on themselves so much that she felt as though she were looming over them.

  Their boss, though, stood straight and tall. “Agent O’Leary, the datapad was not connected to the datasphere. We had no reason to believe he could use it to escape.”

  Tegan wasn’t surprised to get to Ariadne and discover Jack and Cobalt had escaped. She was angry about it, though, and she planned to take her anger out on anyone who crossed her path between now and the time she found them again. “So how did he escape, then?” She made her voice as sickly sweet as she could.

  “Um.” One of the guards swallowed. “It seems the prisoner took the network chip out of his handcuffs and connected it to the datapad. He then used it to hack into the prison’s system.”

  “Idiots!” Tegan wanted to kick something, but everything in the room was cold steel, and she didn’t want to damage her toes. Or look unprofessional. “Did it occur to you that these prisoners had committed a train heist that required technological genius to pull off without getting caught? Why would you give them anything?”

  The guard stood up a little straighter. “Well, ma’am, he couldn’t have been that much of a genius. He did get caught. Besides…” He coughed. “The prisoner kept saying he was bored. He was really annoying.”

  Tegan gritted her teeth. Jack could be very irritating when he put his mind to it. He was certainly irritating her at the moment. She knew she should have apprehended them herself instead of reporting them to the local authorities, but she couldn’t have made it to Ariadne on time. They would have disappeared into the woodwork as quickly as they surely had now.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Polanski said. “We’ll have their picture plastered on every vid screen across the system. Someone will turn them in before you can blink.”

  “You will do no such thing.” Tegan did not need Demitrius getting involved because Jack and Cobalt had become the most wanted criminals in the system. “I will make quiet inquiries, and I will handle this.”

  Polanski opened his mouth, but Tegan silenced him with a glare. “You’ve made it clear you have no idea how to handle these kinds of situations. We have no way to hack into their datapads to see where they were going, because we don’t even have their datapads. They made it out with their gear. I don’t know how you plan to explain your actions to ZimmerCorp, but I suspect they’ll want your badges.”

  “We’ll just refer them to you, I’m sure.”

  Tegan snorted. “Good luck with that.” They’ll call OBI, and they’ll have no record of a Tegan O’Leary. She could appreciate the irony of her being forced into the role of a con artist to catch con artists, but she had a higher purpose, which Jack rarely did. And Cobalt went along for the ride, which made him guilty by association. She still hoped she wouldn’t have to kill them again, though at least three Transients needed to die, and Phedre would never be the one to get her hands dirty.

  When she got back to the Spirit, she was about to call Detrick when she received an incoming call. A tremor passed through her when she saw the brown-haired woman on the screen. She was not looking forward to reporting her failure.

  She pressed the button on her datapad and said, “Phedre.”

  The perfectly put-together woman who appeared on the screen looked enough like her daughter, Roslyn, that Tegan could see the family resemblance. “Tell me you have something,” Phedre said.

  “I had Jack and Cobalt in custody on Ariadne, but some idiotic detective let them escape before I could retrieve them.” Tegan spoke through clenched teeth, and only someone who knew her well would notice the tremor in her hands that meant she was more frightened than annoyed.

  “Really? That’s disappointing. That’s the only lead you have?” Phedre’s voice was light, but it belied the aura of menace Tegan knew lay underneath.

  “Gavin’s on Bellerophon. You can see him yourself if you turn on your vidscreen. He’s in the games.”

  “If he’s in the games, you can bet Demitrius will get involved any moment now.” Phedre’s tone said it was somehow all Tegan’s fault.

  Tegan swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Phedre looked straight at Tegan, seeming to peer deep enough to see what was left of her soul. “You’re working on a limited schedule. You need to capture the Zhaos and the Ibori boy before I get the information I need. If you don’t, well, I only need blood from three Transients, and you and Detrick will work as well as anyone.”

  Tegan’s fists clenched until her knuckles went white. “I’ve got Detrick researching Bliss and Lexi. Maybe—”

  “I know exactly where Bliss Bhanushali is,” Phedre said. “She’s attending university at Chora, and I have reason to believe she is accompanied by the Ibori girl. You will leave them alone.”

  Tegan sighed. “Because if Lexi and Bliss are together, Will has undoubtedly found them.”

  Phedre nodded. “My son has never understood our purpose, and unlike the rest of them, he has memory enough to be wary.”

  “I’ll get you Jack and Cobalt,” Tegan said. “And I’ll find a way to get Gavin off Bellerophon. You can count on me.”

  “Just remember… I need your obedience or your blood, and I’m not particular as to which. And don’t try running to your fellows for help. They hate you more than they hate me.”

  She knew the others would never forgive her for what she had done, but the reminder still stung. But she wasn’t the one who had made them enemies. They were the ones who had kept her heritage from her, not realizing she was willing to fight for it.

  “I’ll get them,” she said again.

  Phedre raised an eyebrow then hung up.

  Tegan called Detrick. “I need you to keep a track on every train or spaceship that leaves Ariadne. I want to know if Jack and Cobalt leave the moon.”

  Detrick blinked at her several times. With anyone else, she would assume they were upset over her rudeness, but with Detrick, she knew he was processing what she was saying.

  “You want me to track every ship?” he asked. “But some ships leave illegally and don’t leave flight plans. And some private vessels move from one place to another on the planet. Do you want them? What about orbiting vessels? I don’t think you’ve fully considered what you’re asking me, Tegan.”

  Tegan took a deep breath. She could tell Detrick was on the verge of getting overexcited. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, the fallout could be unfortunate. Last time, she hadn’t been able to get in touch with him for four days, and when she finally did, he had tripled his gun order.

  With this particular stimulus, he was more likely to refuse to find anything for her for several days, but she needed him on point.

  She put on her most calming tone. “No, Detrick. You don’t need to find all those ships. Just the major ones with passenger manifests. Though no one has skills like you do, so if you wanted to try to hack into any of those illegal vessels and get a passenger manifest, I’m sure it would be a great demonstration of your skills.”

  Tegan held her breath, waiting for Detrick to either agree or refuse. She hated that she used him that way. He was on the autism spectrum and couldn’t function well in the world, and she wanted to protect him, which was why she needed him to work hard on finding Jack and Cobalt. Phedre would not hesitate to kill them both and make the rest of their incarnations miserable if they couldn’t find her other Transients to sacrifice in their place.

  “I could do that,” Detrick said slowly. Slowly was good. Slowly was not overexcited.

  “Than
ks, Detrick.” Tegan gave him a wide smile. “You’re the best.”

  She hung up and rested her forehead against the cool steel of her ship. Things were not going according to plan, and part of her wondered if she didn’t deserve exactly what she was getting.

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  Present Day

  Roslyn had not had a dream in two weeks.

  She didn’t know what to make of that or how to handle it. She had thought that if she had a past life in which she was some amazing woman who went on interstellar adventures and had two attractive men competing for her attention, her current life would change. But it didn’t. She was still a server who would spend the rest of her life walking her best friend’s latest vanity mixed breed, and she would never go to Orpheus, much less the heavily guarded research station of Arachne. Roslyn had wanted to visit the black moon even before the dreams had started, and she wondered if Past Roslyn had made it there. Maybe the fool girl’s ship had exploded before she made it. After all, she must have died somehow, or Server Roslyn would never have been born.

  Though they couldn’t change her life, she wanted the dreams back. They were an escape from her dreary existence, but she had no idea how to make them return. She pondered changing her diet to increase dreams as she walked Snookems home from the dog park. He’d had a doggie play date with a cockapoo that had consisted of the dogs ignoring each other in favor of barking at the passersby while Roslyn listened to the cockapoo’s caregiver drone on about her relationship woes.

  Roslyn almost wanted to get into a relationship of her own so she could return the favor. She had never been very interested in dating other boys of her station, and boys above her station were strictly off limits. Though she’d always assumed she didn’t want to lock herself into her life as a server by marrying one, she realized she was in love with a boy from either her dreams or her past life. Either way, she was crazy, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would never love anyone except Jack.