Lady Luck

by K. C. Cross

  “To be her champion?” I ask.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Ladybug says. “Support her.”

  “That’s it? Then she’ll want to stay with me?”

  “I don’t know. Who can predict a feral savage like Nyleena?”

  “Hmm,” I hum. “Could work.”

  “Trust me,” Ladybug says. “Girls love this shit. When they know their man is on their side, they swoon, Luck.”

  “Swoon, huh?”

  “Swoon,” she purrs back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - NYLEENA

  Inside the museum it’s actually pretty peaceful and quiet. Not too many people here right now and it only takes a few minutes to get to the first exhibit, which is a holographic image of the station as viewed from space. It asks one question in a deep voice that is just a little bit different than Baby ALCOR’s.

  “Who would you like to guide you through the exhibits?” Simulated ALCOR asks.

  Other holograms pop up and I can’t help but smile.

  Crux, Jimmy, Tray, Valor, Luck, Serpint, and Draden.

  All younger versions of themselves.

  “Oh, this is too cute,” I mumble under my breath.

  I’m very tempted to choose Draden and Serpint, who apparently guide as a team and come with servo-bot minions, because they spend the whole time playing shoot-’em-up with makeshift weapons as I decide.

  But I’m here to learn more about Luck. So of course, I say, “Luck, please."

  “Good choice,” teenage-hologram Luck says, shooting me with his finger. “I’m gonna show you a real good time, Princess. Follow me,” he says, then walks off. But I hesitate and he looks over his shoulder and says, “Keep up now. It’s very easy to get lost on ALCOR Station. And you never know what’s hiding in the dark hallways.”

  I don’t know where everyone else disappeared to, because when I follow Luck into the next room, there’s no one here but us.

  “This is what the station looked like when we arrived.” He throws his arms out wide and the room morphs into a full hologram.

  “Wow,” I say out loud. It’s very dark. Almost no lights at all. The black, shiny obsidian floors that appear very glam and high-end today looked like an endless sea of smooth, danger-filled water back then.

  Luck points out landmarks, then and now. And if there wasn’t a holographic overlay to illustrate that these levels really are the same, I’d never be able to picture it.

  There’s nothing here. No stores, no shooting galleries, no arcades, no screen houses. Nothing.

  Little Serpint and Draden make several appearances as we go through the levels and Luck describes how they spent their early days. They are so small and young, I can’t help but laugh when I think about big, strong, broad-shouldered Serpint my sister fell in love with.

  We go into a training room next and I see how each of the boys leaned to build bots and ships, and program autocooks, and fly. They were also taught how to fight and we stop in the gym to watch Crux and Valor spar.

  It’s pretty brutal stuff. Neither of them pulls punches. It’s a fight-your-hardest-and-worry-about-medical-attention-later kind of bout.

  “I know how to fight too,” I say to Luck. Because I feel like he’s trying to convince me not to leave the station.

  “Can you take me?” he asks.

  “What?”

  He snaps his fingers and a holographic figure of me appears in the center of the mat. Crouching in a fight-ready stance as I circle him, ready to pounce.

  Luck turns away from me to face… other me. And I walk a few steps to the side so I can see his face.

  He smiles at other me, then says, “I’d rather kiss you.”

  Other me responds by leaping into the air and attacking him. We both fall to the ground and there’s some shuffling and grunting… but in the end, Holographic Luck finds his way on top of other me.

  And then he does kiss me.

  “OK,” I say, putting up a hand. “I think we’ve gone off track here. I want to know more about you.”

  Other me disappears and Luck turns to face me. “Like what?”

  “You know. What you do.”

  “Ah.” He winks. “You want to see my junkyards?” He grabs himself and gives his cocks a shake.

  “For fuck’s sake.” I laugh. “Stop being a perv.”

  He pretends to blush and averts his eyes. But then he turns again and says, “Come on. Junkyards are this way.”

  I follow him through several more exhibits. Mostly other holographic images of him and Valor doing things. Meeting Beauty. Who, I have to admit, is a very pretty bot. She’s a brilliant gold sphere. Sorta like Lyra’s new nanny-bot, Prince. Except you can tell Beauty is no nanny-bot. She’s got hidden panels that produce grabby hands holding weapons. And there’s a screen playing as we pass through another exhibit that shows a video of her kicking ass against some gruesome alien-looking things on some dark and creepy station.

  There’s a text crawler on the lower third of the screen declaring it to be “actual footage”.

  “Hmm,” I say. But Luck doesn’t stop. Just keeps going until we finally end up in another room. A huge room that isn’t a hologram. I know this because my fingers dart out to sweep through the image and scrape bare, ragged rock.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  Luck peeks over his shoulder and shoots me that charming smile of his. “My first junkyard.”

  I squint my eyes as I take it all in.

  “But… it’s a cave.” I say. Not that I’ve ever been in a real cave. But I’ve seen images and footage of them.

  “Not just any cave,” Luck says. “This is where ALCOR was born.”

  “What?” I ask, looking around me.

  It is a cave. I’m not wrong. But there’s writing on the walls. Picture writing surrounded by weird slashes and chips in the stone. Like it’s very ancient.

  And there’s ice on one side. A whole wall of ice that appears to be melting, because water is dripping down the side. But at the bottom of the ice wall there’s a collection grate of some sort. And when I walk over there it’s at least twenty degrees cooler than the other side of the room.

  “There were lots of caves,” Luck explains.

  “Where?” I ask. “Where was this? It wasn’t a station.”

  “No, it was a planet,” he says. Then he winks. “A very special planet.”

  “Where’s Valor?” I ask. Because I can see another Luck on the far side of the rock-walled cave. He’s messing with a technology console, fingers busily typing on an old-fashioned keyboard as he gazes up at green code spilling down a dark screen. Like he’s giving commands.

  “I went alone this one time.”

  “Why?” I ask, moving closer to other Luck so I can see what he’s so fixated on.

  “Because it was a secret,” Luck says.

  “Hmm,” I hum. None of the code makes any sense to me, so I turn back to him and say, “I thought you fought aliens on abandoned space stations?”

  “We do that too. Now. But ALCOR sent me on a secret mission once. Back before Valor and I teamed up. And this is what I found.”

  “But what is it?” I ask, turning back to look at the ice wall.

  “Everything,” he whispers. “It’s everything.”

  And then suddenly the lights come on and the room—which I was so sure was real—disappears and there’s nothing left but blank, slate-gray walls.

  “Wait,” I say. “Where’d it go?”

  Luck points to the ceiling. “He was about to catch me. I had to shut it down. I’m sorry, Princess. But the tour is over now.”

  And then, before I can even get another question out, holographic-guide Luck disappears.

  “What the fuck?” I whisper.

  “Nyleena?” a disembodied voice says above me.

  “What?” I say, unsure who or what this voice belongs to. Because it’s not the Baby and it’s not the simulated ALCOR either. It’s faked, I realize. A mechanical voice. Like it’s wearing a disguise.
>
  “You have a message. Please exit the museum to access it.”

  “Weird,” I say, so annoyed again. All my wonderment at seeing the old station and the young brothers disappears as my reality comes rushing back.

  I am the silver princess Nyleena. And I am on Harem Station.

  I need to get the fuck out of here. These people have too many secrets for me.

  And sure, I have a bunch of those too, but I’m trying to get away from them. Not run headlong into new ones.

  It takes me a while to find my way back outside to the main concourse. I have to go through dozens of other rooms, all of which are empty slate-gray walls. Not a hologram in sight. And the moment I step outside my air screen pops up with a message from Lyra.

  Her face is bright and happy when she says, “The screen’s over. You missed a good one. Come meet Delphi and I at Crusty’s and we’ll grab dinner.”

  I’m jealous of her, I realize.

  Because somehow, some way, Lyra has found peace with who and what she is.

  And I had hope that I too would find that peace.

  But that hope is fading fast these days.

  I need to get the fuck off this station.

  When I make it up to Crusty’s on the level just below the Pleasure Prison I find Delphi and Lyra already snacking on appetizers in the back of the very crowded restaurant.

  I slip in one of the empty chairs, exhausted. “God, I need a drink.”

  Delphi raises her hand at a passing server who is green from head to toe, hairless, and has the longest fangs I’ve ever seen on a human. “We need two bottles of wine, please. Something made of tushberry fruit, if you have it. Otherwise we’ll settle for passion lime.”

  “You got it,” the server says in a deep, throaty voice that sounds a lot like a growl.

  “You missed a great movie,” Lyra says, sipping from her half-empty wine glass. “It was fab.”

  I just stare at her, still very annoyed. “How do you do it?” I ask.

  “Do what?” Lyra asks.

  “Be so… goddamned happy all the time?”

  “I dunno.” She shrugs. “I guess I am just happy.”

  “Here?” I say, then nod my head at the green server. “These aren’t our people.”

  “We’re all the same people here,” Lyra counters.

  “Yeah, I get that,” I say. “We’re all people here. But… we have people, Lyra.”

  “Like who?” Delphi asks. “Veila?” She snorts. “You know, I’ve had enough of our people. If I don’t see another Cygnian princess as long as I live, I’ll die happy.” Then she smiles at me. “Present company excluded of course.”

  “Speaking of her,” I say. “When’s that mission start? I’m about to get my own sentient ship and I’m totally down for kicking some fake-silver Veila ass.”

  Delphi and Lyra look at each other. It’s one of those looks. Again. The kind that say, OK. We have something to tell her, but not now, right? We don’t want to rock the boat and it can wait.

  “What the fuck?” I snap. I’m feeling very much like the savage, feral princess I’ve become infamous for being right now.

  “We’re not going on the Veila mission,” Delphi says.

  “But… your brother,” I say.

  “Tycho,” she says. “Yes. I’m worried about him but Lyra and I have been talking and since she can’t go, I’m going to stay here with her. Jimmy and the boys will find Tycho. I’m just… better off here.”

  “Here?” I say. Then my head swivels to Lyra. “You too? What the fuck, Lyra? You used to be so badass and now you’re all meek and soft.”

  Lyra sighs. But Delphi is the one who speaks. “Don’t you get it, Nyleena?”

  “Get what?”

  “She can’t leave. What if they catch her?”

  “How are they gonna catch her? There are all these alpha men going with us.”

  “Us?” Delphi says.

  “Not now, Delphi,” Lyra says. “We should just drink our wine.”

  “If not now, when?” Delphi says, looking at Lyra. “She thinks she’s getting a ship and leaving here. Leaving you here. Like what the fuck, Nyleena?”

  “I am getting a ship,” I snarl. “It’s practically a done deal.”

  “Is it?” Delphi counters. “You don’t seem to be making much progress in that department.”

  “I got sidetracked today, that’s all. Baby ALCOR is playing hard to get but I’ve got an idea. Speaking of which, where’s that bot of yours?”

  “Why?” Delphi says, her face scrunching up into wrinkles.

  “Because I have a task for her. One I think she’ll enjoy.”

  “You stay away from my bot,” Delphi says. “I’m dead serious about that. She’s doing really well here. I don’t need you fucking up her progress with your psycho schemes.”

  I let it go and turn back to Lyra. Because I don’t need Delphi’s permission to talk to Flicka. Isn’t that the greatest thing about Harem Station?

  Everyone has free will. Even enslaved dragonbee bots.

  “But there’s more like us out there,” I say. Then look around nervously and lean in to whisper, “Angel Station, remember? We should be heading there.”

  “No,” Delphi says.

  “Would you just shut up already,” I snap. “I’m not even talking to you. I’m talking to my sister.”

  “You can’t leave Harem Station, Nyleena,” Delphi says. “It’s impossible.”

  “It’s possible,” I counter. “As soon as I get a ship.”

  “Nyleena,” Lyra says calmly. “Crux isn’t giving you a ship. I was on board with this—”

  “Crazy scheme of yours,” Delphi interrupts. And man, I’m really getting sick of her. “But… the truth is, Nyleena, you can’t leave because you could be caught. And then someone could detonate you and Lyra and hurt a lot of people.”

  I sit back in my chair.

  They’re right, of course. And I knew this. “But Angel Station,” I say.

  Lyra just shakes her head.

  “It’s all a lie?” I ask. “This promise Crux made me?”

  She and Delphi trade another look. Then Lyra turns back to me and says, “It’s not really a lie if you get the ship.”

  “I just can’t leave.” I say.

  “You can’t leave, Nyleena. And neither can I.”

  I get up and walk out.

  Because I’m free.

  For the first time in my life, I’m free.

  And yet… it appears that I’m not.

  I go home.

  Is it home? Is this place my ‘home’ now? Is that how ‘home’ works?

  You end up somewhere by mistake and stay long enough for it become ‘home’?

  Everything about that seems wrong to me. I should be able to choose where home is.

  But what was I really thinking these past few days? That I would… what? Just take off and leave Lyra behind? I knew that wasn’t an option and yet… I somehow find myself in the middle of this strange scheme to get a ship.

  I didn’t even want a ship four days ago. Four days ago I was just gonna go on the Veila hunt with everyone else. It was never supposed to be me alone.

  So why do I want a ship so bad right now?

  I’m not sure. But the thought of not getting that ship from Crux ignites a fury inside me. I want it. That’s all I know. Nothing else makes sense. And all the possible futures I ever imagined for myself up to that moment in time when I asked Crux for a ship are gone now. They just floated away and left this one path forward.

  My door alarm chimes.

  “Who the fuck…”

  I get up from the couch and walk over to the door, then tab on the screen to show me who is outside.

  An eyeball.

  Specifically, a violet eyeball that’s crackling with pink tendrils of light.

  “Leeeeeeeeeeena,” Luck drawls. Then he backs up so I can see his whole face. “Open the door. I have something for you.”

  I roll my eyes
and shut off the screen. “Go away.”

  He chimes the door alarm again.

  “What?” I hiss, opening the screen again.

  He’s leaning against the wall opposite my door. Arms folded across his chest. Huge, charming smirk on his face. Eyes squinting down into little slits. “I have a present for you,” he says.

  “Let me guess. Is the present hidden inside your pants?”

  He laughs too loud and shakes his head.

  “Oh, my God, are you drunk?”

  He gets serious. Or tries to. Then he holds up one finger and says, “I only had one mug of sexbot juice.”

  I crinkle my nose. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Open the door,” he says. “I need to swoon you with my present.”

  “Luck, just go home. I’m not in the mood to deal with this shit right now. I’m in the middle of an existential crisis.”

  “That’s my favorite kind,” he slurs. “Let me in.”

  I consider this. We probably should have sex. I can feel my luminous flux building inside me. It’s not at critical levels yet, but by morning, it could be.

  So I open the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - LUCK

  I didn’t feel drunk on the way up to Nyleena’s place but that sexbot juice really hit me hard when I got out of the elevator.

  I’m ninety percent certain she’s going to slap my face and send me packing but…

  The door opens and she says, “Fine. But this gift of yours had better be good.”

  “You’re using me,” I slur, then hurry past her and head right for her autocook and try to remember the code I need. “I love that about you.”

  Then I laugh. Because I didn’t actually mean to say that out loud.

  “What are you doing? For fuck’s sake, Luck. You’re really not helping me tonight.”

  “Cure,” I mumble. Then stab the screen and do a search for the right code for sexbot juice inhibitor. “There,” I say, pressing enter. Then turn around to lean back on the autocook before I fall over.

  “Why are you drunk?”

  The autocook dings and I hold up a finger, indicating she should give me a moment. Then I down the thick, green disgusting drink and hold my stomach as I blink my eyes and grimace.