by Elle E. Ire
We hit the open space at the center of the dome, empty curved park benches marking a favorite spot for residents and tourists alike. Nobody here now, though scuttling and scratching around the perimeter indicate survivors feeling their way out of the area. Lyle’s voice stops me before we tackle the second half of our journey. “Wouldn’t a flashlight have been easier?”
I cock my head at him, knowing he’ll follow the path of my eye lights even if he can’t see the exact motion. “You have a flashlight on you? Or were you just responding from dinner like I was?” A failed dinner. And an upset girlfriend. And… fuck. VC1, raise my suppressors to midrange.
No response from my symbiotic live-in brainmate, but a cold calm settles over me like new-fallen snow, the worry and guilt buried beneath my emotion suppressors.
Lyle’s noncommittal grunt tells me all I need to know about his flashlight preparedness. Still, I reach into a snapped pocket on my uniform pants, remove a small handlamp, and pass it over to him. I can just make out his raised eyebrows in the gloom.
“Paranoid, remember?” I’m known for it. Always ready for a variety of emergencies. I shrug, gesturing at my face. “This is easier for me. I can make adjustments faster with a thought than with my hands. Keep your beam low and switch over to comms,” I order, matching actions to words. “We’re going in.”
“They’ll be more prepared than we are,” he reminds me, voice crackling over my embedded speakers. “If they set off the bomb in the landing bay, they planned for this.”
“They didn’t plan on me dousing the lights.” I hope. Being the only ones controlling sources of light should give us an advantage. I draw my pistol from the holster strapped to my upper thigh. Kelly’s complaints or no, I’m never without it except when we’re in bed together, or in the shower, and even then, I hide it beneath her mattress or pillow or keep it on the counter outside the shower door. The XR-7 Safety Net, as its manufacturers affectionately named it, is legal for licensed carriers within all artificially maintained environments including unbreathable atmosphere planetary bases, interstellar vessels, and space stations. Though technically a projectile weapon, it fires blunted rounds, capable of stunning or even knocking out an opponent without risk to walls or domes.
To be honest, I’d much rather be hefting a laser blaster myself, but if Kelly shows up, pacifying rather than killing my objectives is the way to go to avoid triggering her empathic responses. Gas grenades would be nice too. I make a mental note to pack one in my utility belt in the future as part of my personal “crash and carry” kit.
Lyle pulls an identical weapon from inside his jacket. He’s not as paranoid as I am, but mercs are mercs. We’re always armed in one way or another. Besides the gun, I’ve got three knives stashed on my person at all times.
“Where’s VC1?” an unfamiliar voice shouts from inside the Alpha Dog, followed by breaking glass and the thud of heavy wood hitting the floor—probably one of the tables overturned.
I stiffen. Me? This was somehow about me? What the hell?
“Where’s your mechanical lapdog?” the voice comes again.
Nice.
“Beats ‘robot bitch.’” Lyle’s grin comes through in his tone.
I punch him in the shoulder. “Take the long way around,” I order, pointing off to the right. “Circle the perimeter and come in through the pub’s emergency exit airlock.” I stumble just the slightest bit on the last word. Airlocks and I have bad history. Lyle pretends not to notice, but I’m betting he did. “Don’t aim your light at the main entrance. I’m switching to infrared.” I do so, cutting our visibility in half, both from our perspective and that of our enemies. Can’t have them see me coming.
Lyle heads off, handlamp growing fainter as the distance between us increases. “Don’t worry, Corren,” he assures me over the comm. “Just get our guys out of there alive. I got your back.”
I swallow the sudden, unexpected lump in my throat, then plunge forward.
You want the mechanical lapdog? Better hope you’ve got a steel leash, you motherfucking bastards.
Chapter 2: Kelly—Control Factors
VICK IS upset.
“It happened again. Worse this time.” My hands over my face muffle my words, and the pause for a response lengthens to the point I’m not sure I’m heard.
Then, “Have you actually talked to her?”
I raise my head and meet Dr. Brindle’s eyes through the vidscreen. No, not “Dr. Brindle.” Linda. She wants me to call her Linda. I’m not a student at the Academy anymore. I’m an adult. With a career and a life… such as it is. “No… Linda.”
She smiles knowingly at the pause but says nothing, waiting. Wrinkled fingers with perfectly painted red nails straighten the antique brooch pinned to her shirt’s white-ruffled neckline.
I sigh and glance around the so, so empty living room, more spacious than the ones in the one-bedroom quarters, vacuumous without Vick’s presence. “I can’t.” I hate the whine in my voice, but that’s how I feel—whiney and petulant like the child I’m no longer supposed to be, debating reality with someone almost three times my age. I stand, pacing away from the desk where the screen sits, then back again, my manners still in place enough that I don’t leave the range of the video pickups. “She’s got her own problems. Lots of them. I can’t pile mine onto hers. And she’s on this independence kick. Wants to get through it alone. I understand that. It’s part of her personality. But… I don’t know what to do.”
Completing a second turn, I face Linda again. She nods her understanding, but her expression is serious. She reaches to tuck an escaped strand of hair into the graying bun at the back of her head. “I’ve read the abridged reports you’ve shared with me,” she says.
I grimace. It’s been a point of contention between me and the Fighting Storm that I’m allowed to consult with a more experienced psych-med, but only on the mercenary organization’s terms. This means the medical files I’ve sent to my former teacher don’t include some of the pertinent details, particularly those revealing the full impact of VC1 and what having the AI in Vick’s head might suggest.
“From what you’ve sent, it appears Ms. Corren has made great strides in her recovery.”
I snort a bit at “Ms. Corren.” To my knowledge, no one has ever called the hardass soldier “Ms.” anything.
“She’s lengthened her autonomously functional periods from minutes to hours to days, to weeks,” Linda continues, glancing down as if she’s reading from one of the files as she speaks.
I nod. Vick doesn’t connect with me nearly as often as she used to in order to purge her pent-up emotions. Except when she’s in extreme distress, she’s learned to identify and process them on her own, a fact that makes me both proud and a bit sad that she doesn’t need me so much anymore.
“And her memories are returning.” Linda’s fingers tap the unseen table where she sits, then reach to wrap around a mug of steaming liquid, which, knowing the stresses of our shared occupation, likely contains a shot of something stronger than tea or coffee.
I close my eyes for a moment. Yes. Memories. Lots of them. Some of the two of us together, which bring us closer, some of Vick with… others. It’s no secret Vick is bisexual and was quite promiscuous before her accident that led to her brain injury. She’s not anymore. She’s not any kind of sexual right now. But I worry that if she finds those memories pleasant, if she misses that more active lifestyle….
“Stop it,” Linda commands, snapping me out of my depressing thoughts. “Right now. Stop it. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s nothing good. If I could reach through this screen, I’d bop you on the head.”
Tales of gentle but firm head bops from Ms. Brindle passed infamously from one class of Academy students to the next and earned her the secret nickname of Foo-foo. I smile a little at the nostalgia. “You can’t read me from Earth,” I say, retaking my seat at the desk. “How did you know?”
Linda takes a long sip of her drink and sets the cup aside. �
�Sweetheart, you will never be a successful poker player.” She claps her hands once and leans in. “All right. Bottom line. Your partner isn’t as fragile as you think she is, despite her recent sexual assault.”
“Not that recent,” I remind her. “Almost ten months. Everything else about her is improving, but that… that doesn’t seem to fade at all.”
Linda waves one hand dismissively. “It will. Some take longer than others. You know that. If I may continue?”
Once my professor, always my professor. I nod.
“Your problems are already her problems, no matter how hard you try to shield her from them. The bond between you makes them so. And you snapping at her when it isn’t her fault isn’t going to make things better.”
I wince. Yes, we’d discussed that too. I’d been biting Vick’s head off for the past several weeks, and no matter how hard I tried to stop it, I couldn’t seem to make the words stay in my mouth.
“You have to tell her what’s happening to you. Then you need to seduce her.”
I need to—wait. What? The blush floods my cheeks, dipping down to the point of the V-necked T-shirt I’m wearing and rising all the way to the tops of my ears. “Linda!” I am not having a conversation about the art of sex with my grandmotherly former teacher.
“Normally I would recommend continuing to wait until she’s ready, but your relationship is, shall we say, unique, and vital to both the happiness and overall mental stability of the two of you, and that relationship is being negatively affected. So you can’t wait any longer.” Linda peers at me through her screen and laughs at the expression she must read on my face. “You are turning quite the impressive shade of red,” she says. “Even in my Empathic Relationships course, you were far more likely to study the floor tiles than the descriptions and images in your vidbook.”
I’m avoiding the idea now too. Except it’s dark gray carpet in our living room. And it needs vacuuming.
“Look,” she says, tone recapturing my focus, “I must run. I have a conference with a student in ten minutes.”
Right. Time difference. I glance at the onscreen clock and do the math. It’s midafternoon in North Carolina on Earth.
“But you’ll be just fine,” Linda continues, smiling. “Remind yourself of what attracts her to you. And if you aren’t sure, just tap into her emotions when she looks at you. Use what drives her to distraction. No avoidance. Meet her needs head-on. You will work through her traumas together over time as you have been, but her buildup of sexual frustration, her inability to process it on her own, and her projecting it onto you are interfering with that healing process. You have to solve one problem before you can make progress with the others. So. Give her no opportunities to dwell on past events during actual foreplay and lovemaking. Work her up to the point where she cannot resist you. It may not happen the first time or even the second, but patience, persistence, and understanding are key. If you can get the two of you away for a few days, all the better.”
“My annual family reunion is coming up. She said she’d go with me.” Reluctantly. Vick’s more than a little nervous about meeting my parents for the first time. Again. She has little memory of doing it before. But I talked her into it. It coincides with my birthday, which I don’t want to celebrate without Vick. And I spent over an hour convincing the Storm’s board that we both deserved some R & R. After all that effort, she practically had to say yes.
I wish she’d agreed more willingly.
“Perfect!” Linda says, clapping once with feeling. “It’s settled, then. New scenery, away from the pressures of her job, lots of people predisposed to like and support her. Let me know how it goes. And if you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”
She cuts the connection before I can thank her, leaving me staring at a dark screen, my mind swirling with questions and half-formed plans I discard as fast as they come.
Seduce Vick? Vick had been my first, last, and only. I’d done all right with our first time because she couldn’t remember anything better. But now?
Now I’m in competition with every person she’s ever been with, not to mention the demons in her head. And I have no idea how to win.
Chapter 3: Vick—Priorities
I AM a target.
I work my way to the Alpha Dog entrance, keeping low, letting the walkway’s railing shield me until it ends and I must cross the open width of the perimeter promenade. I scuttle across it, dive-rolling the last few feet when gunfire erupts once more from the open hatchway leading into the pub. It goes wide, a beamed shot bouncing off glass, then metal until it scorches longwise across the curve of the dome, leaving a blackened streak and the scent of ozone in its wake.
“Mommy!” comes a plaintive voice far down the row of stores. A glance reveals a tiny figure emerging from the bakery entrance, head turning in the direction of the bar. A pair of hands reaches from the doorway behind the child, grabs him or her, and yanks the kid back inside.
Good. That would be the last thing I’d need.
Panting, I remain crouched, back pressed against the exterior wall of the bar. More shouting, several imaginative curses, and the sound of breaking pint glasses follow, enough that I’m convinced no one spotted me and the shot was a chance near-miss rather than aimed. Several yards away I make out the pinpoint of light from Lyle’s borrowed handlamp as it vanishes when he ducks into the emergency side airlock right on schedule. A faint hiss sealing in the breathable atmosphere confirms he’s in position. Would’ve likely been smarter for us to have switched places, with me coming in through the side rather than storming the front door, given I’m apparently the one the Sunfires are all riled up about. Except, airlock.
Fucking airlocks. Holdover tech from two generations past and still in place as “safety backups.” We’ve got shields now. And secondary generators for them. The odds of a disaster large enough to have the locks be our final line of defense between humans and unbreathable air are so slight. Besides, half the doors have been jammed open or closed by the businesses they’re attached to for convenience’s sake, and of those remaining untouched, few work properly.
A miniscule shudder passes down the length of my five-foot-eight frame, unstoppable even with the emotion suppressors running at half power. I’m tempted to up their output, but it gives me an even more robotic outward appearance and opens up an avenue of control over me that I don’t want to risk giving to my AI counterpart.
I shake out the sudden tension in my shoulders, rise to my full height, and slide my way along the metal to the edge of the entryway.
Unusual for the double arched doors to be wide open at any hour, and I now see why: a body lies half in, half out of the Alpha Dog, boots and lower legs extending halfway across the promenade path, the upper portion of the unknown individual still unseen inside. Crouching again, I give a gentle tap to the closest ankle with no response from its owner. I brush the uniform pants leg up, unable to identify the color as Fighting Storm gray or Sunfire copper, and clamp my free hand more firmly around the joint. No pulse.
This the one we’re down? I ask my implants. The scoreboard numbers flip on my internal display.
Sunfires: 2
Storm: 0
Well, damn.
I’m not especially religious. Never have been to the best of my knowledge, though that knowledge is pretty sketchy. But I close my eyes for a second and whisper a quick prayer on the soldier’s behalf. Maybe his gods will hear it.
“Corren, you in position?” Lyle calls over my embedded comm.
“Yeah. You?”
“Ready to make a scene on your say-so.”
“Then get on with it,” Alex breaks in from back across the dome. “Things are heating up in the control box. I’ve patched a few pathways, but I can’t keep up with it forever.”
As if on cue, the ever-present hum of the station’s artificial gravity stutters, then fails. More screams and shouts of surprise erupt from the surrounding businesses while my own boots leave the floor and I r
ise a couple of inches into the air. I slap my palm against the side of one boot and then the other, activating the magnetic soles, and instantly I’m reconnected with the path. After a few moments the gravity returns, but I leave the magnetization on. It might slow me down a bit, but I don’t want to go floating off in the middle of a firefight.
“Did that happen everywhere or just here?” I ask, flicking the safety off my XR-7.
“Just the dome, as far as I can tell. But comms are spotty in here too. And the ventilation keeps shutting on and off.”
Now that Alex has mentioned it, it does seem a bit colder than usual. A check of my bio-stats shows VC1 is raising my body temperature to compensate. Around the promenade dome, lights flicker on and off—a neon in a lingerie storefront, an interior overhead glowtube in the throwback Earth diner, some of the heat lamps in the hydroponics gardens—like some kind of bizarre holiday display.
Alex curses over the comm. The dome plunges back into darkness.
We’re out of time.
Muttering epithets of my own, I crawl on hands and knees over the dead body, arching and twisting at unnatural angles to make as little contact with the still warm but lifeless flesh as possible and avoid bumping the doors on either side. He’s young, this former member of the Storm, a new recruit. Infrared doesn’t quite allow me to make out specific features, but he’s familiar. I probably trained him in one of my martial arts classes, or maybe marksmanship. Regardless, I count him as one of mine, and I intend to avenge him with every power I possess.
