“I should have let that Commando kill me.”
“Ted, stop.”
“Anything would be better. Anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Do you? Do you know what happens when someone is Reprogrammed?”
We were back in space, aboard the U.S.S. Star Seer. After having been found guilty of emotional misconduct in the line of duty, Admiral Bradson was ready to be done with me, ready to send me to prison. He was under pressure by the Unity government to make an example out of me, largely due to the newly formed alliance between Unity and the mysterious aliens who attacked my squadron and took the life of my friend Beazly Elfin. They were called the Gix, Celeste had told me; they were an advanced race capable of warp function technology as I had surmised. Unity wanted an alliance with this civilization to advance itself technologically, and was willing to use my punishment as a political show of good faith. In a final twist of my trial, however, Admiral Bradson made a surprising decision during sentencing.
He had looked at me hard for a very long time, no doubt weighing his options all the way until the moment he uttered his decision. “Ted Derringer, you are a piece of work,” he told me. “I don’t know what to do with you. You are an amazingly gifted individual—that much is clear to me. You’re also worth more than my ship. Your squadmates lives, though, as well as the equipment placed in your charge, are of no lesser value to Unity. On the one hand, I have my superiors telling me that I should throw you in prison for nearly starting an intergalactic war with a very powerful alien civilization; on the other hand, I’ve had my own personal liaison, Commander Zenithan, vouch on your behalf—on numerous occasions—during this unfortunate case, telling me that you’re an officer in possession of the utmost discipline, capability, and team ability. You’re record speaks for itself, Lieutenant, there’s no doubt about that. Your own squadmates have testified to your great skill as a neural link enabled pilot. Because of these testimonies, I am hesitant to throw you away for good. Yet the testimonies and the physical evidence also have shed light on a troubling past that you seemingly have not come to terms with. That Cantus 9 nonsense is concerning, but not nearly as concerning to me as the events surrounding your removal from the World-Genius program. Your mother’s mental instability could very well be genetic in nature, and Unity takes great strides to identify and treat individuals such as her. I believe that her crimes affected you deeply, and that despite your best efforts, the emotional trauma that you endured has continued to resurface in your life—this time, in a real combat situation. Derringer, the bottom line is that I need my Phantom pilots to think beyond their emotions, I need them to understand that they must put their emotions aside to serve the greater Unity purpose. That is why I’ve decided to sentence you with Reprogramming. It is my hope that after you undergo this process, you will have the correct outlook and will have truly left the past behind so that you might apply that brilliant mind of yours to the Unity vision, and not to your own ambitions. I would like for you to return to SpaceWing and gain your Tier 1 status, but you must be treated in a Reprogramming facility before you return to service. This is my final judgement.”
Admiral Bradson rose to his feet, followed by everyone else in the courtroom. Then he left to continue his work elsewhere, and I was escorted off of Isolation 11.
Apparently the move was well received by the Gix, and communications were developing with them. Now, I was being transported to be Reprogrammed just as my mother had been when she was taken years ago…
I had spent the better part of my late adolescence and early adulthood erasing any trace of my past. My mother had been touched in the head. Her illness began to manifest in my very early years, then it spiralled out of control during my screening for World-Genius. She began talking about strange things, and started acting defiantly in public spaces until she devolved into full-blown psychosis. She set fire to a Unity education center, declaring that the government could never destroy the spirit, and that her own son would one day be the catalyst in her imaginary spiritual revolution. I had been weeks away from acceptance into World-Genius when she reached her breaking point, and once she had been arrested and identified, I was immediately removed from contention. I was young and I had a head full of great dreams… so when my own mother destroyed those dreams, I promised myself to never forgive her. To never be like her. To completely forget about her. Once the government took her away to be Reprogrammed, I never saw my mother again.
Now, after all the years of discipline, hard work, sacrifice and dedication, my life had been undone by my mother for the second time… and now, I was doomed as her son to endure her same fate. Celeste looked at me from across her desk with pity, the stars of deep space twinkling gently behind her. “I’m so sorry, Max. I did everything I could.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know much more about Reprogramming than anyone else… but look at it this way: once you’ve completed it, you will still have your skills, and you’ll get your life back! And…” her voice trailed a moment; he brown cheeks swelled red, “and then we can finally be together.”
My heart took off on wings. We both glanced nervously at Celeste’s Privacy Sphere—a tiny machine that allowed us to converse openly, without fear of being heard. We used it whenever we could. To activate the Privacy Sphere, its users must touch the sphere with two fingers and then touch the same two fingers to the temple… so, when we were in public, we made the activation motion into our sign, so we knew that there was always our own private world where we could be together as we wanted.
“What if…” I began, my voice scared like a boy, “what if I’m not the same person, after?”
She considered it, and then answered: “I don’t think you will be. I think you’ll be better. I think you’ll be stronger. I think... it might actually be good.”
It was the first time I had ever heard someone suggest that Reprogramming could be a ‘good’ thing in my entire life. “...really?”
“Yes!” she wanted to convince me, I could tell. “Yes, Max! That’s what you’ve got to believe, going into it. You have to be positive about it, otherwise it might not be successful. You have to willingly change.”
I didn’t doubt that was true. From my experience with the neural link implant, I learned that resisting mind-influencing technology could have disastrous consequences. The only question was… what exactly would I be changed into? “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“No,” Celeste stated honestly, “No, you don’t. You’ve been sentenced, and I am under orders to deliver you without delay. I wish this didn’t happen, Max, but I believe we can make this into just another step in our journey together.”
She left her seat, strode smoothly around her desk, and then came very close to me... without thinking, I took her by the hips and drew her all the way in between my legs, and she took my face into the palms of her hands…
“My love…” she whispered so sweetly… then she lowered her lips to mine, and let me taste her beauty… we kissed deeply, the long guarded passion we held for each other now passing between us with the freedom it deserved. Then the moment passed, and we had to confront the reality of our two very different lives. “We can make it through this,” her voice trembled. “Nothing can come between us. Will you tell me that you will allow yourself to change? That you will change for me?”
My inner nature blazed within me, defiant. In an unexpected epiphany, I realized that I would change anything for her… except myself. I didn’t believe that I could change; this is who I was. What’s more is that I truly didn’t believe I needed to change… I still believed that I was right. I loved her, though… and I understood why she wanted me to say it.
“I will,” I lied.
It was a long, contemplative journey to the Reprogramming site. When the time came, a representative from the facility shuttled aboard the Star Seer and I was released into his custody. He was not a normal looking man. He was hunched and seethin
g in his facility uniform, looking as if he had been long and deeply altered by the very mind-bending technology which was said be the only cure for me. As he creeped off of his strange custom space vessel... onto the hangar bay deck, and toward Celeste and myself, the U.S.S. Star Seer upper chain of command and our escort of marines… well, that’s when I started losing it.
“Fuck no.” I spat. “Fucking kill me.”
“Lieutenant! —” Celeste had to address me by rank in public, with no hint of intimacy in her voice.
“Neeeeyaaah….” a freak, nasally precursor to the Reprogrammer’s voice echoed in the whole space of the hanger, then he spoke: “... is this the subject to be... Reprogrammed?”
The bent man eyed me from his skewed perspective.
“FUCK you! STAY AWAY FROM ME!”
Marines restrained me.
“YES, Doctor!” Celeste greeted him, “this is your patient, Lieutenant Derringer, —”
“WHERE IS FUJIRA!? WHERE ARE YOU?! HELP ME!!! —”
I was silenced and completely immobilized. As I lay on the deck unable to move, unable to speak but fully aware, the Reprogrammer examined me. His long fingers probed my body; he sniffed at me. “Neeeeyaahhs, and where is his Unity representative? The one who will be accompanying the… lieutenant…”
“HERE! —”
A voice from my dreams became real…somehow…
“I’M HERE!”
I saw a pair of boots emerge from the shadows of the formation…
Harley. Seven-Suns.
“Lieutenant Stone! Thank you so much for doing this!” Celeste embraced Stone sincerely.
“Yes, ma’am, he will be safe with me, I promise.” I couldn’t believe it was really her.
And as they dragged my dead weight over the hangar bay non-skid, even as Harley—in her signature skin-tight blue Special Forces uniform—accompanied me aboard the Reprogrammer’s space shuttle… I questioned whether or not Harley was really there...
...or if I was hallucinating her all over again.
“Is this real?”
“Yes, Derringer. I’m not imaginary this time.”
“Then get me the fuck out of here, Harley!”
She sat across from me in the yellow-lit hull of the Reprogrammer’s custom space vessel; the universe flashed around us outside its huge windows as we travelled at near-light-speed. The Reprogrammer was elsewhere, presumably piloting his ship from another compartment. Stone looked at me without any of the flirty bullshit in her eyes. “This is above me, Max.”
“Harley, if you have ever cared about me you will fucking kill that man! You can’t be seri—”
“—stop it, Max.”
“STOP?! You’re telling me to STOP? Have you seen that fucking freak?!? — have you —”
“TED.”
Something in her voice gave me pause this time.
“Please. You need to relax. You’re not thinking logically. What do you think the engineers who designed your Phantom look like, Max? Or your neural implant? Do you think they all look like you?! Just because he isn’t physically gifted as you are doesn’t mean he is evil. Everything is fine, okay?”
“Something is wrong. This is not right.”
“Yes, Max. Something is wrong. That is why you are here.”
“What did you learn in class today, my Max?”
My mother closed the hatch to our apartment; I dropped my belongings and ran over to the holo-play, an artificial gaming system designed to optimize childhood mental development. The blue light of the hologram reflected off of my boyhood face in intricate patterns.
“Teddy.” My mother would often chide me for fixating on the game device.
“Something called ‘The Religious Wars,’” I answered her.
“Oh? And what did you learn about them?”
“Not much,” I wanted to focus on the game.
“Teddy.”
It was a no-win scenario. My mother wanted a conversation. Even at such a young age I understood; I paused my game and ran over to her in the living room. I hopped up on the sofa next to her and she put her arm around me. She smelled of lilac perfume.
“Now, that’s better,” she smiled, “so tell me all about ‘The Religious Wars’, my Max.”
“Well Mr. Kurt said that they were when people believed in different gods, and they all thought that they were right, and so they had a war.”
“I see. Anything else?”
“Um, well—”
“No ‘Um’s’”
“UM.” I tested her.
She stared me down as only a mother could. “You were saying?”
“After the war they outlawed all the religions, because they just make people fight.”
“Ah, very interesting. Did everyone stop fighting, then?”
“No!” I answered giggling.
“What did you think about the things that Mr. Kurt taught you today?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“Oh, no reason. I was just wondering if you thought it was a good idea, you know, that they outlaw all religion?”
“Yes, mom.”
“Yes? Why yes?”
“Because Moooom!!! Can I go play now?”
“We’re having a nice conversation, aren’t we Max?”
I frowned. “Yes.”
My mom laughed and ran her fingers through my hair. “Oh my son.”
“I thought that it was good they outlawed religion.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because mom. There is no proof of any of that. People got smarter, and now we know that god doesn’t exist because we have science. We evolved.”
“Hmmm… Max. Do you like secrets?”
“Yes!”
“Oh? Will you tell?”
“NO! I won’t!”
“You promi—”
“—yesIpromiseplease!”
“Okay, okay,” my mother pulled me into her and touched my ear with her lips. “God does exist.”
I gasped; she would never lie to me. “Really??”
“Yes, Max! But shhhh!!! God is hiding right now.”
“Hiding where?”
Then my mother placed her open palm on my chest, wiggling her fingers, tickling me. “In here, my special Max! In your spirit.”
“What is my spirit?”
As she held me then in her arms, she spoke to me about her spirituality for the first time. She told me to never tell anyone, because it was a special secret. I never did.
“Your spirit, Max, is invisible. It is pure energy! It is what guides you to make good choices, to love, to make others happy. Always remember this, my son: your spirit is yours. You must guard it, keep it, and let it fly.”
“Will you change for me?” Celeste whispered to me from her knees as I stood over her, erect. Those huge brown eyes didn’t blink once as she gently kissed the base of my cock, licked slowly up my shaft, and then swallowed me whole, swirling her tongue around me and taking me all the way into her throat. I pulled her hair and started fucking her mouth.
I pushed her down onto her back and opened her legs, diving into her tongue first. She tasted perfect.
“Teddy! Oh, fuck! Yes! Yes, baby I want this! I want you in my pussy!”
I plunged myself into her; she wrapped her legs around me.
“Fuck my pussy baby, it's yours it’s always been yours, fuck me until you come inside my tight pussy, please baby, I want it—”
I felt my orgasm build as I drilled her harder. I wanted the cli Max. I wanted her.
“Yes don’t stop, don’t stop—”
We were covered in sweat, my heart was on fire, —
“In here, my special Max. In your spirit!”
“Change for me Max. Change for me.” Celeste begged me… I slowed... my mind slipped. I was throbbing on top of her, so close, but —
“CHANGE FOR ME!!!”
Her scream morphed into an alien sound, her sweat became slime, her skin faded from brown to green and her limbs all dis
appeared into a single slug-like form; I tore myself out of her:
“GAHHHH!!!”
“I could definitely go for some alien strange.”
A voice behind me; I flinched again. Savoy stood there with his arms crossed, watching me with Lenix.
“Remember when you got so drunk after our raid at Asno Prime that you fucked that Gleesian female?”
“Shit, you know I don’t remember most of that deployment. Those were the fucking days—rape and pillage like the old gods!”
“They don’t tell you, Clockwork.”
There was nothing left of Golden Boy’s face as he called to me from the burning cockpit of his fallen Phantom on the ruined surface of Isolation 11.
“They don’t tell you how much it hurts. It burns, Clock. Oh, it hurts!”
I could only watch as his crisped lips parted in agony, releasing a horrible wail. “Ughhhhh, IT BURNS!!!”
“What are you?”
The universe spoke to me. She was female. Her skin was deep, ultraviolet purple. Her eyes were galaxies. “What is Clockwork?” she asked me. “What is time… to the eternal now?”
I reached out to touch her…
“You changed after Cantus 9.” Knight looked at me from across the way. “You regressed.”
“You fucking let them do this to me, I promise you are fucking dead!” Nothing came out of my mouth.
“You still don’t understand. Why won’t you just FUCK ME?!”
Harley rode my dick, her perfect tits bouncing in my face. “This is real, Max.”
I didn’t care what was real anymore. I pulled her to my lips, kissed her, and said: “Thank you for being here.”
Alpha Wing Page 7
