Awakening

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  +++

  Max’s Office, Aldis Space Station, Klaunox Sector

  Max didn’t hate his job, strictly speaking, but sometimes he wondered why he continued to do it after years and years of frustration. It wasn’t like that wasn’t to be expected; he was a high-grade problem solver, ergo his livelihood depended on encountering high-grade problems. But sometimes it was just too much to take.

  “Just once,” Max said, sitting in his dark, spartan office room. He was surrounded by tall stacks of paper, organized haphazardly in a way only he and his assistant could generally make rhyme or reason of. He often described his job as involving a great deal of paperwork, but some people failed to understand how literal it was.

  Screens almost always left some kind of signature or vulnerability. You could never know if you were being watched, or tracked, or otherwise logged in some way. He snatched a handful of sheets scrivened with names and volt receipts on Imperial letterhead and crumpled them up in frustration before tossing them into the ionic incinerator to the far right of his desk. It reduced the sheets to nothing instantaneously.

  Savino, his assistant appeared beside him. “Um, aren’t you going to need those?”

  “What’s it fucking matter now, Sav?” Max began to pull additional sheets from the top of the stack and ripped them in half. “This job is fucked. This client is fucked. Our entire careers are fucked, you know that?” He threw some of the file confetti he’d produced into the incinerator and Savino quickly moved to the side to manually shut the machine down.

  “Turn it back on,” Max demanded. “Turn that shit back on right now!” Sometimes he wished his machinery was voice or corteX operated, but that came with too many risks of its own, so analogue it was.

  “But sir, if we lose those documents-”

  “Fuck the documents!” Max shouted as he smacked the entire piled into a cascading mess through the office, and his assistant immediately began to gather them up.

  Max leaned back in his chair, shut his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “Okay… Just relax…” He took a deep breath and kept his corteX channels open. Nothing, still. Jedson should have called him in a panic a half hour ago, but he was getting nothing. “Mother. Fucker.”

  “It’s just one job, sir…” Savino insisted, kneeling as he picked up papers from the ground. “We have others.”

  “It’s the fucking Imperial Quester’s Office, Sav.” Max said as he opened his eyes. “Do you understand how hard they could screw us if we come back empty handed? They could shut us out of Imperial contracts for life. They could demand we reimburse them for Jedson’s debts. They could launch a full goddamn inquiry that goes so far up this operation’s ass that they could grab it by the small intestine and pull it inside out. We. Can. Not. Fuck. This. Up.”

  Savino started gathering the remaining papers and shuffled them on the table. “Do you really think they’d do that?” he asked nervously.

  “Think?” Max felt his temples pulsing again at the question. “It’s not about think. Dorian is a petty, vindictive son of a bitch. Why do you think he’s going to us instead of the proper Imperial channels? Always has to get his pound of flesh.”

  Savino gave a muffled sigh while he organized the papers back into their original order.

  “Fuck it,” Max said, more just to himself at this point. “I’m calling them.”

  His corteX signal only buzzed twice before Olofi popped up on the screen.

  “Max!” Olofi gave him that usual friendly smile, as though nothing were wrong. It made Max’s teeth grind. “I was wondering when you were going to call.”

  “I bet you were,” Max replied, trying in vain to suppress the clear frustration in his tone. “Nothing from Jedson on your end, still?”

  “He’s completely gone, Max,” Olofi answered. “The guy’s a ghost. A chickenshit ghost.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I gathered, too.” Max pursed his lips for a moment. “So, change of plans. We have to show him that we mean business.”

  “That was always the plan, I thought. I mean, bagging his girlfriend is about as business as it gets.” Olofi said in a way that Max could only take as being evasive.

  Max decided to get straight to the point: “No, I mean it’s time we show him who he’s fucking with. Got to cut off a few fingers or toes and send them to his office.” The words felt foul in his mouth, but it wasn’t like it was the first time he’d had to order this kind of thing. People didn’t go to him for clean operations, after all.

  Olofi clearly didn’t agree from the way that semi-genuine smile dropped right off his face. “Not going to happen,” he said. “We won’t get involved in that kind of shit, you know that.”

  “You said you wouldn’t fuck me again, Olo,” Max felt himself getting short of breath while he saw his plan falling apart. “You said you’d get this job done.”

  Olofi held much firmer than he had during their last conversation: “And you said this was a simple bag-and-tag. Now you’re turning it into some psycho chop job.”

  “Okay, fine!” Max snatched another piece of paper from his desk and, to Savino’s chagrin, began ripping small pieces off of it and tossing them to the floor. “I’ll up the price for the changed parameters. Just get it done!”

  “It’s not about the volts, Max,” Olofi said with an uncharacteristic seriousness that Max did not like. “Look, we’re just going to drop her off somewhere safe, okay?”

  “No!” Max slammed a fist on his desk, making the newly organized stacks of files shake. “No, it’s not okay, Olo! That screws the whole mission. You can’t do that!”

  “We can and will,” Olofi said with a quiet defiance. “If these are the only options you’re giving us.”

  “This is going to get you blackballed for life. I’ll never hire you again. I’ll tell my whole network never to give you work again!” Max threatened him, trying to sound as severe as he possibly could.

  “You know what? Fine,” Olofi said, calling his bluff. “Go ahead. But we both know you don’t have other high-risk operatives like us who will work for your kind of pay. And even if you did, you’d never find ones with our success rate, even taking this job and the last into account.”

  “Ugh!” Max practically snarled. Olofi was right. He shut his eyes and counted to three. He didn’t have time to count to ten. “Okay,” he finally said, pushing the venom he had built up in his chest back down. “Just… Hang onto the girl for a little bit longer, okay? I’ll figure something else out.”

  “Can do, boss,” Olofi made a satisfied smirk at this.

  “Fuck you, Olo,” Max replied as he shut off the corteX call.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bridge, Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  Olofi stood in the center of the bridge with his two companions, having relayed the content of his conversation with Max to them. Shango looked concerned now, while Loco had pulled up a chair and was calibrating one of his heavy blasters he’d been so disappointed he couldn’t use earlier.

  “He asked you to cut off her fingers?” Shango asked pensively.

  “And toes,” Olofi added. “Can you believe that? Even tried offering more money for it. Like, who does he think we are?”

  “Mercenaries,” Loco sniffed, still staring down the barrel of his gun while he did. “He thinks we’re mercenaries. And you can’t say it wouldn’t get the message across, that’s for sure.”

  “What message?” Olofi glared at his friend. “That we’re a bunch of lady-butchering psychopaths?”

  “Well, that’s the kind of person I’d pay up to if they had my girl,” Loco flippantly replied while opening the ammo port to his weapon. “Well, not me personally. I’d just fuck him up. But if I was this guy?”

  “In any case, Max isn’t thinking rationally,” Shango stated. “The target is obviously unaware the girl is missing at all, or if he is it’s beyond his concern. What condition she’s in is unlikely to change that.”

  “So what, you’d do it if you thought it
would work?” Olofi snapped, still feeling latent anger at being asked to do something like this at all.

  “Of course not,” Shango answered. “We can’t be responsible for hurting an innocent girl. And unfortunately that now means we can’t in good conscience deliver her to Max, either.”

  Loco locked the parts of his weapon back into place with a loud click. “How’s that figure?”

  “Max wouldn’t have any trouble getting ahold of some people willing to do dirty work like this once she’s in his custody,” Olofi said. “Honestly, with how pissed he was when we talked, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just did it himself.”

  “Don’t see how that’s our problem,” Loco said with a shrug. “He gets what he wants, we get paid, we don’t have to do any wetwork. Everyone gets what they want.”

  “I’m pretty sure that girl wants to keep her fingers!” Olofi yelled back. At this point he wasn’t sure whether Loco was serious or just trying to get a rise out of him. He suspected it could be some combination of both.

  “If we give her to Max, we may as well be personally harming her,” Shango said. “It’s a nonstarter.”

  “Right,” Olofi said, looking gratefully at Shango. “So what’s the plan, then? Just drop her off at the next station we pass?”

  “Fuck that,” Loco said, finally looking up from his weapon. “Then we did all that work for nothing!”

  “Open to suggestions, Loco,” Olofi countered. “Ones that don’t involve dismemberment.”

  “Sure, sure,” Loco said. The look on his face already made Olofi regret asking. “I’ve got some contacts on the fringe systems. We could sell her. Bet she’d fetch a pretty nice price.”

  “Why, Loco?” Olofi said, exasperated. “Just why?”

  “I’m serious. We could probably make more than this job would, too.”

  “We’re not selling her!” Olofi shouted, his voice echoing in the bridge this time. “Fuck, Loco. Why do I even need to make that clear?”

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Loco shrugged, polishing the butt of his gun. “How’s it any different from what we’re already doing? We were just going to sell her back to her shitty debt-dodging boyfriend anyway, right?”

  “That’s different,” Olofi ground out through gritted teeth, trying not to yell this time. “We were using her as leverage to get back money he already owes to someone else. We weren’t just handing her off for cash to some pirates.”

  “I’m having trouble seeing the difference here,” Loco replied.

  “You would…” Olofi groaned.

  “Don’t get all fucking high and mighty on me!” Loco stood up now, letting his blaster clatter onto the ground when it slid off his lap. “Last I checked you’re not the boss of this outfit. So why is it we’ve got to live by your shitty code of chivalry? When’s the last time it’s done anything but make our lives harder?”

  “Oh, you want to talk about making our lives harder?” Olofi took a few steps towards him, and Loco matched them until the two of them were practically butting heads. “Maybe if your solutions to everything didn’t involve shooting or stabbing something we’d let you take the lead for a change! But that never happens, does it?”

  “I just made a fucking suggestion for a nonviolent solution!” Loco shouted back, snarling.

  “Oh, right! Slavery. Way to go, Loco! Somehow you found the one solution that’s somehow worse than violence!”

  “I never said they’d be slavers!” Loco dubiously retorted. “I can’t help it if that’s the first place your mind goes!”

  “Oh yeah? What connections do you have that are interested in buying a young girl who aren’t slavers? Oh, let me guess… Organ harvesting, right?”

  “What the fuck?” Loco said indignantly. “Do you really think I’d keep organ merchants in my cortical logs?”

  “Honestly? At this point? Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Fuck you, Olo!”

  “No, fuck you! Olofi shoved him with one arm, and Loco brought up a fist like he was about to come at him with a haymaker. He stopped short when Shango assertively stepped between them, looking over each shoulder as though in challenge.

  “Enough of this, both of you,” Shango chastised them. “Obviously we can’t just let her go, and we certainly aren’t selling her. But we do need to get paid. We’ll be in trouble if we find ourselves without any volts for much longer.”

  “You have anything in mind?” Olofi said, forcing himself to calm down from the exchange.

  “Call Max again. Try to organize a face-to-face meeting. We might be able to make some kind of arrangement that satisfies everyone.”

  “Worth another shot, I guess,” Olofi grumbled. He noticed the bridge exit doors closing. He hadn’t realized they’d been open at all in the heat of their argument. And just as they shut, he was almost certain he’d seen Bentley there.

  +++

  Cargo Bay, Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  Bentley had run as quickly as she could from the bridge after hearing the heated exchange between Olofi and Loco. While she hadn’t been deliberately eavesdropping, she’d heard more than enough to know that the girl wasn’t going to be safe with them.

  She stood at the large, shut and reinforced metal doors leading into the hold, and found the flaw in her sudden decision when they didn’t open.

  “Shit…” Bentley struck the door with the flat of her hand twice before searching around for a more effective way to open it.

  “You left in a hurry,” Jelly Bean’s voice came from directly behind her. Bentley turned around quickly in a panic. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the android was unaccompanied.

  “Fuck, Jelly… You scared me for a second,” she said. “Were you following me this whole time?”

  “I was asked to accompany you,” Jelly Bean replied. “I can match the walking or running speed of any human on board.”

  “I hadn’t really thought of that,” Bentley admitted. She had been in such a rush that she hadn’t even remembered that Jelly Bean had been by her side almost invariably since they’d met. Now that she did, though, she realized her solution.

  “Shit, Jelly! You can help me!” she said with a hopeful voice. “You’ve gotta open these doors for me.”

  “You want to access the cargo hold? Are you planning on freeing the prisoner?”

  “No…?” Bentley began, but when she tried to think of an alternative reason for entering the cargo hold, she came up empty. She was also becoming increasingly uncomfortable lying to Jelly Bean, who had been surprisingly helpful to her so far. “Okay, yes. Sorry.”

  “I do not think I can assist you in this,” Jelly Bean said, almost apologetically.

  “What, is it against your programming? Or have they locked you out of this part of the ship?”

  “Negative. I have full access to all basic functions of the Chesed. And, as we’ve discussed, I am not bound by my programming.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “It is my own opinion that this would be ill-advised.”

  “So… You’re saying you don’t want to?”

  “That is an appropriate summary, yes.”

  “Oh, come on, Jelly!” Bentley threw up her hands. “You must have heard them too. All that talk about cutting off fingers and selling her into slavery. She’s not going to be safe here like this!”

  “I am confident that they won’t hurt her,” Jelly Bean answered. “It would be extremely uncharacteristic of them.”

  “But it’s not just them, right?” Bentley argued. “There’s the shady guys that hired them. They definitely won’t keep her safe. Come on, Jelly… Can’t you just do this as a favor to me?”

  “A favor?” Jelly Bean’s facial display tilted slightly to the left. She sounded almost intrigued by the concept. “I have not been asked for a favor before.”

  “You know, like… You help me out, maybe you need something from me later. Or just to be cool?”

  “I am familiar with the
concept. It has just been generally inapplicable to me,” Jelly Bean replied. She paused momentarily. “Very well, I will do you this favor.”

  Jelly Bean’s display turned into the image of an archaic padlock that clicked open, making a beeping noise that was immediately followed by the cargo bay doors rumbling and sliding open to reveal their interior.

  “Thanks, Jelly.” Bentley gave the android an awkward hug. “I’m sorry if I don’t see you again.”

  She turned away to run through the doors without hearing Jelly Bean’s answer.

  The cargo bay was rather barren, which didn’t surprise Bentley. It was a wide room that was empty save for a pair of large red metal crates that were bolted to the ground in the right-hand corner. Propped up against them was the girl she was looking for. She was seated, with her back to the crate, her ankles now tied along with her hands behind her back.