Ghost in the Machine (Corwint Central Agent Files)

by C. E. Kilgore

  “Smart girl.” Merik tapped her nose playfully and turned to Hank with a toying grin. “She has grown up quite a bit in the past year, don’t you think? Quite the woman.”

  Hank set his jaw as he eyed the Trexen. He didn’t like the hungry look that had come across Merik’s eyes standing so near to Tara. Hank would have slammed his fist into anyone else’s face for flirting like that with her, but he knew Merik was just trying to illicit a reaction for his own amusement. The black-eyed bastard was also one of his most trusted allies and had saved his ass on numerous occasions. “Did Jehdra send you to look over my shoulder?”

  Merik’s carnivorous grin morphed into a smile that held the smallest hint of the fondness he had for Hank. “I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello.” The look of fondness vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “But yes, Jehdra asked me to make sure you picked her up.”

  Hank gave an exasperated sigh. “I told her I accepted the order.”

  “Besides, he has me to ensure the order is carried out.” Ethan turned around to face Merik as the group stopped near one of the ship landing bays. He was not entirely pleased by the Trexen’s appearance. Merik seemed to revel in encouraging Hank’s wild tendencies, and he had the habit of disappearing just in time to avoid any recourse from Central. “So, thanks for saying hi and we’ll see you next year.”

  “Hello tin-man.” Merik reformed the smile on his lips, but his eyes narrowed into glaring slits. “Miss me?”

  “Hardly.” Ethan both hated and enjoyed the dance he and Merik played around Hank. “Although you did cross my mind yesterday when I was dumping the ship’s waste load into space.”

  “So sweet of you.” Merik loved toying with the mechanical man. “Thinking of me while you’re blowing a load into space.”

  “Oy.” Tara rolled her eyes and stepped between them. “Put the blasters back in your pants boys, we have more important things to worry about.”

  “Yeah, like how’re we supposed to find this chick with no picture?” Brom scratched the top of his scaly, bald head.

  “Oh I don’t think it will be you finding her.” Merik’s voice sounded almost reverent.

  Hank didn't like the look that came over Merik’s face. “What do you mean?”

  Merik paused for a moment. Breaking from his normal seclusion, he found speech to always be so tedious. Relaying ideas through the limited vocabulary that the Common language allowed posed an aggravating challenge sometimes. “A Vesparian is only found when she wants to be found, only seen when she wants to be seen.”

  “So you’ve dealt with them before?” Tara had never heard Merik speak of anyone with a genuine appreciation in his voice before. She suddenly wondered if this Orynn had messed with his mind.

  “No.” Merik came out of his thoughts, unaware of the small essence of emotion that had escaped his subconscious. He had respect for a creature such as a Vesparian. It was the type of necessary respect that existed between two predators delicately sharing the same territory. “At least not that I can recall. It doesn’t mean I haven’t met one before, perhaps even this one. I was debriefed on their existence several years ago, but they have a clever habit of making people forget things.”

  “Exactly!” Brom cut in, his nervous anger flaring up again. “They can get inside your head and mess you up. I also heard from a Kentar trade-ship Captain that they eat men for breakfast. Literally.”

  “All rumors. We already went over this on the way here about five times!” Tara was full on blistered now.

  The rumors surrounding the race of Vesparians read more like a myth than a real people. They were whispered as being a long lived race made up of entirely females that moved in and out of society like shadows. It was believed they were empathic and could control people with their emotions, including their sense of time and memory. No one knew what they looked like, though everyone swears they had seen one. It was also said that they stole men to propagate their race and then ate them. Tara seriously doubted that last part most of all.

  She took in a breath to calm her annoyance. She knew Brom had a good reason for being uneasy, but she hated it when people passed judgments on others just because of rumors. “Besides, Merik can read her mind and tell us if she can be trusted so we can finally put all this shit to rest.”

  “Well I won’t argue that.” Hank wasn’t sure how much Merik would be able to read, or even if Merik himself could be fully trusted at this point. All of the distrust growing around the crew was really starting to bother him. If the rumors were true, this Orynn could be inside all their heads, manipulating them for her whims already. They were treading into unknown and dangerous waters, but he had no choice except to keep moving forward.

  It was the palpable tension that existed between his crew that was troubling him more than anything. This crew had always been together and they always had each other’s back without question. The idea that this Vesparian might be driving an intentional wedge between them was dragging a knife across Hank’s already raw nerves. He felt the sudden need to lighten the mood and dissipate some of the anxiety, even if just for his own sanity. “Well Brom, if she eats you, I promise to buy a new bike with your share of the pay and bury it with what’s left of you.”

  Hank thought Brom was about to deck him, but he watched as the Orellian’s anger died into a small chuckling laugh. “Maybe we’ll all get lucky and she’ll eat Ethan.”

  “Ha-ha.” Ethan eyed Brom and Hank as they both broke out into laughter. “I’m sure I taste better than you, anyway.”

  Tara loved the way the emotions of this group moved. Heated testosterone filled sparring matches leading into laughter. “So, then we are going through with this?”

  A sudden movement caught Hank’s attention before he could answer as Merik appeared behind Brom again. “Found her.”

  Brom jumped and turned on Merik with a raised fist. “Dammit man, stop that! Wait, when did you leave?”

  “Shortly after the mention of breakfast.” He held up a half-eaten Hedarion meat pie in a vending machine wrapper. “I was starving.”

  Hank stifled a chuckle at the Trexen’s dry humor. “You said you found her? How can you be sure?”

  Merik swallowed the bite he was chewing. “Because she popped in my head and told me she was the one we were looking for. Apparently she has been listening to us the whole time.”

  “See, man!” Brom’s tense apprehension returned. “She’s not even on board yet and she’s already in our heads read’n us!”

  “Actually, Vesparians can’t read thoughts like I can.” Merik crumpled the wrapper and threw it over his shoulder. It landed effortlessly into a waste receptacle. “She heard us because she’s sitting right over there.”

  All of them turned to follow the direction of Merik’s gaze to a small short-travel cargo pod docked a few feet from where they had stopped to have their conversation. The pod itself was in poor repair and the contents of its cargo hold were stacked off to one side awaiting their next transport. On one of the containers sat a small, lithe female figure, who at first appeared to be teenager of Corwint, barely sixteen.

  “Are you sure?” Hank quirked a brow.

  “Absolutely, positively, one hundred and a billion percent.” Merik quipped in his deadpan voice, giving away how long he had been following them. “Take a closer look.”

  Hank furrowed his brow. He hated staring at people. Then, like a fog being lifted, he slowly began to see the details of the girl. He was able to make out small creases and wrinkles along her smile and in the corners of her eyes. Her eyes were large and almond shaped and they were investigating a piece of equipment in her small hands.

  Tara’s breath caught in her throat as the teenager before them turned into a woman. The lines of her long legs and slender arms were marked with the signs of scars and history that were lacking on a child. As Tara watched in stunned silence, the woman’s plain brown hair changed into silvery white. It was pulled away from her face by a clip, but was
allowed to flow freely and untamed down her back. She had never seen someone’s appearance altered so drastically right before her eyes. “How is she doing that?”

  “She is inviting us to see her.” Merik was more impressed by her abilities than by her appearance. She was able to mask her true appearance to all but those she wished without much thought. It was more a natural and automatic reflex than a forced projection, and it intrigued Merik for the possibilities it opened. She was projecting herself as different forms to anyone who bothered to look her way. He found himself looking through the minds of others in the hangar just to see the effect in its full genius. One man saw her as an obese Orellian trader, and another saw her as a Hedarion child playing with a doll. She really was able to exist and not exist at the same time. He wondered what he would be capable of with his own abilities if he had the Vesparian lifespan to practice and refine them.

  “This is kind of creepy.” Brom felt like he was the only rational one remaining in the group as he eyed the girl with a deeply suspicious caution. Her appearance was unique, but at the same time it was also oddly common. Her clothing consisted of a pair of well-worn sandals, loosely fitting cargo pants in a faded grey and a pair of slouchy long sleeved shirts she wore layered. Aside from the stark white hair, she looked like the simple everyday cargo jockeys or hitch hikers that were common in these kinds of way-stations. Despite the woman’s less than threatening vibe, Brom knew looks in this universe were always deceiving. Part of him was expecting her to leap out and eat his manhood at any moment, and the other part was brewing a storm of history-infused anger.

  Ethan tilted his head to the side with a raised eyebrow. He could see the female’s figure perfectly fine. Unlike the easily manipulated minds of Breathers, Mecha were mostly immune to the mental charms of races like the Trexen. Apparently, the Vesparians were no different. He was more interested in what she was working on. “She seems to be attempting to repair the circuitry of that pod’s stabilization module. Her personnel file didn’t mention she had knowledge in such areas.”

  Hank shrugged. “It didn’t really mention much about her at all.”

  “True. It probably wasn’t important. She doesn’t seem to be very skilled. She hasn’t even opened the main board compartment. She’ll never be able to cal..i..brate...” Ethan’s words were lost as the module raised two inches from her outstretched palms, then flew apart into its individual components. The pieces of the module hung in the air as her eyes surveyed them. Ethan blinked a few times, adjusting his visual sensors to make sure that what he was seeing was reality. “Why do I suddenly feel uneasy?”

  Merik let a tinge of amusement seep into his voice. “Because that could be you next, in little pieces, floating around the hangar.”

  Orynn had to stop a small laugh from escaping her throat. The group of five across from her were indeed intriguing. They were, by far, more interesting than the company she had been encountering lately. Although her ears were still listening to their conversation, her eyes, with irises that looked like liquid mercury, focused on the floating pieces above her palms.

  Most would have mistaken it for telekinesis at first glance, but that was not an ability known to her race. Instead, she was using an electrified current generated by her aura that existed between herself and the stabilizer. It had been the stabilizer that had taken itself apart, not her. It had been giving the pilot of the pod trouble the whole journey, making for a very unsettling and uncomfortable two day ride. She brought her left hand up and took the mainboard into her fingertips. Through the physical contact, she could feel the calibration misalignment as the energy pulsed through it.

  Everything in this universe has an energy that seeks to be connected and balanced with the energies that exist around it. It was something she had learned early in life, and it was a truth she had experienced almost every day since. It was also a truth she had fought with herself over time and time again. Her heart was an energy that sought desperately to feel connected and balanced with everything that existed around her. Such a desire was not something a Vesparian should allow herself to have. Still, I want to connect…

  Breathing in deeply and closing her eyes, Orynn heard the module’s pulsing beat grow louder in her ears until there was nothing else in the hangar. The module illuminated her mind with a blue light and hummed in response to her as it tried to match her rhythm. The misalignment caused it to misfire and fall out of synch at a certain point each time. Her mouth opened in a silent exhale as she searched to find where the misfire was rooted. Her mind followed each of the metallic pathways of the board, through each node and over every junction point. Her eyes fluttered half open on the edge of complete connection with the board.

  So close...

  Ethan didn’t notice as his own jaw became slack and his mouth opened slightly while watching the girl tune herself to the electronic pathways of the board. She was connecting herself to it, matching its pulse to the verge of what appeared to be ecstasy. He could feel the electrified air surrounding her and its gravity threatened to pull him in. He had never seen anything like it before, and he found it captivating. Deep down, something else within him, buried and forgotten, stirred at the sight.

  Orynn’s eyes shot open suddenly and she gave a wide smile. Found you. “Aaxn, please hand me your soldering tool.”

  Ethan could pick up the excitement in her voice and it caused that buried tension at the pit of his core to dig deeper. A warning in one of his internal advisory sensors went off and he wondered if she was using the stabilizer as a distraction to test his defenses. His eyes narrowed as the sensations stirring in his core were squelched by a rising feeling of suspicion. If she was trying to get to him the way she had manipulated that piece of equipment, she was going to have to try a lot harder.

  “Dear child, please tell this poor old man you have managed to fix that blasted thing. I don’t think my bones could take another ride like that last one.”

  The group watched as a squat elderly male hobbled over to her carrying a beat up and rusted tool box. He rummaged through it for a moment before producing the electronic soldering gun. He either didn’t care that the module was floating in pieces in front of the woman, or he couldn’t see it.

  “She seems technically inclined. Maybe she can give us a hand with more than just our diplomacy.” Tara’s gaze lingered on Ethan and the emotion she swore she could see in his eyes as he stared at the girl

  Ethan woke out of his thoughts and crossed his arms. “You have a technician.”

  Merik reached one arm around Ethan’s shoulders while they watched Orynn solder a few places on the floating circuit board. “Yes, but can you do that?”

  Ethan shrugged off Merik’s arm. “Anyone can take things apart. You seem to be apt yourself at tearing everything to pieces. It’s fixing things and putting them back together that takes skill.”

  “That should do it.” Orynn set the soldering gun aside and eyed the pieces again. With a long blink, the parts reassembled themselves back into a completed module. She flipped the switch on the side and it hummed to life.

  Ethan’s cynical skepticism melted into a shocked blink as the stabilizer pulsed with its now perfectly balanced calibration. The pulse filled the space between where he stood and the strange woman sitting on the cargo crates, and once again he felt himself pulled in by it. Another sensory alarm sounded in his neuro pathways, but it went ignored as his eyes refused to look away from her.

  Merik’s dark smirk widened as he watched the surprised and entranced expression forming on Ethan’s face. He put his arm back around the Mecha’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper to him. “She seems quite skilled to me, tin-man. Wouldn’t you like to see what she could do with you?”

  “Oh splendid, child!” Aaxn almost danced as Orynn handed him the stabilizer module. “How can I repay you? I can’t offer much. Perhaps a free return trip sometime? I come to this port all the time!”

  “Do not worry about it.” Orynn gave him a smile that
had a false brightness to it. “In a few days, you will not even remember me.”

  “Silly girl, of course I will! Your company has been most pleasant. I will always remember our two days together and this kind favor you have done!” Aaxn toddled off to his pod to install the fixed module.

  She sighed and watched him go. “No, you will not. Safe journey.”

  Standing up and hopping off the cargo container with a light step, she finally turned her eyes to her new temporary companions. It was about to start all over again. A new set of faces, a new assignment, the impossible hope for friendship; all of it fleeting the moment it began. In the beginning, she had always told herself it would be different this time, or that she wouldn’t disappear from their lives for good. Now, she realized, it was just easier if she approached her relationships with others in full knowledge that it would, someday, end. Someday they would need to forget her, for her safety or theirs. Someday, goodbye would really mean and who are you?

  Aaxn came out of his pod holding a small leather money pouch that jingled as he walked. “I know it isn't much, but I...” He stopped and looked around in confusion. “Excuse me miss, did you see a young girl here, just now?”

  She turned to the kind man with a sad smile. “I am afraid she just left. She looked like she was in a hurry.”

  “Oh, well that’s too bad.” Aaxn’s shoulders sagged heavily. He hobbled back into the pod, mumbling to himself. “Too bad. She was such a nice girl, that... oh dear, what was her name? Yes, such a nice girl.”

  She was unable to stop the soft frown that formed on her lips. No matter how often she did it, when the companionship had been good, watching them forget everything about her remained difficult. It felt as if each time she made herself disappear from their lives, a piece of who she was disappeared too.

  Hank watched as Orynn stood alone in the hangar, her eyes lingering on the pod with a noticeable melancholy. He had just witnessed the abilities that Vesparians were rumored to possess. One moment she had existed for that pod Captain, and the next moment she was gone. Such power could easily be a danger to him and his crew if she turned out to be an enemy. With that thought on his mind, he stepped toward her with rest of the group following behind him.