by JA Huss
So I do. I tell him about how Tray lied to me. About how I dragged the truth out of him and agreed to help him find Brigit. “But,” I say, “I only did it because we were in this time warp inside the spin node, Luck. No time was passing out here. And then we found her, and Tray wanted to go inside to explain that he’s going to set her free now, but I… I wanted to go in too. Just to see if it was real, you know. I was still very suspicious of him. And then he got lost trying to come in after me because Brigit had broken the world inside the virtual, and it took forever for him to find us—in our time, at least. Only a couple hours on the outside. But inside it had been years in virtual time. And so when Tray finally arrived, Brigit and I were friends.”
Luck raises an eyebrow. “Friends?”
“I didn’t touch her,” I say, holding up my hands. “I swear to the sun. At least, not before Tray…”
“Tray what?”
“Well… he was very happy to see her. And she was very happy to see him. So they… you know. And I just did my thing. But then…” I sigh. “Yeah. We… um… we were all together.”
“Inside the virtual.”
I nod. “But then… you know… the only thing waiting for us out here was war. So Tray was all… ‘Time is so different. We could stay here for a while.’”
“So you stayed. With them.”
I nod.
“And then what?” He is pissed. He’s just holding it in.
“And then…” I sigh and look around the ship, picturing our perfect virtual world. “I had been keeping track of time. Because I knew Tray wouldn’t. And we realized that four days had gone by in the real—”
“Four. Fucking. Days?” Luck growls. “That’s like—”
“That’s thousands of years in virtual time.”
“How is that possible?”
I shrug with my hands. “I don’t know, Luck. Well, I kinda do. It was a trap. She was a trap. Tray was a trap. To get me to Veila. And then we came out of the virtual, and…” I skip the part where Tray and I had sex alone as we were waiting for Brigit to thaw out. Because this is not the time to explain that. “And then Veila was there and Tray was spitting out the coordinates for the rendezvous point for Booty, and… and then Veila… I don’t know. I don’t really remember anything after that. Vague recollection of torture. Possibly some sex?”
“Possibly?”
“It’s pretty foggy. And then I remember being put into a cryopod. I think Tray made some kind of deal to get me out of there. I kinda remember that. But…” I shake my head. “Something must’ve happened. Because I woke up here. And Veila was the one who did that.”
Luck is silent for a few moments. Then he throws his head back and laughs.
I laugh too. Uncomfortably. Because I’m not sure what kind of laugh this is.
“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” Luck says, suddenly not laughing. Suddenly angry again.
“What are you talking about?”
“You expect me to believe this bullshit story?”
“Dude, that’s how it happened. And now Veila says she’s pregnant—”
“What?”
“—but she says I’m not the father and—”
“Are you fucking with me right now?”
“—and I don’t really know what to make of that.”
“Well, I don’t know what to make of you,” Luck growls. “But I’ll tell you something I do know. You’re an asshole. We’re not on the same side.”
He gets up from the navigation table and starts to walk towards the airlock.
I get up too, rushing over to grab his arm.
He turns on me. Eyes lit up like a fucking Cygnian princess. Only this isn’t lust, it’s hate.
“Crux and Serpint came to me upstairs.”
“That’s a good one. I killed Crux.”
“No, dude.” I shake my head sadly, trying not to remember those dark, empty pits in Crux’s eyes. “You didn’t. He’s alive.”
“That’s impossible. I shot him. Point blank in the chest with a plasma rifle.”
“It was on stun,” I say, automatically lying. Not sure why I’m lying, I just don’t want to get in to what I saw inside Crux or his story about the golden place.
“It wasn’t on stun,” Luck insists. “I saw it. I saw…” But he trails off.
“He’s alive, Luck. I just fucking talked to him. So it had to be on stun. Hear me? It had to be because he’s still up there.”
Luck turns to look at me. Confused. Angry. “Is this another lie?”
“Just listen to me. They said I have to get you to let Veila through the spin node—”
Luck guffaws. “You are too fucking funny.”
“—and Veila said the same thing. And—”
“Fuck you!” Luck says, pushing hard. Two flat palms on my chest so I go reeling backwards and crashing against the edge of the navigation table. He takes two steps and crosses the distance between us and points his finger in my face. “Go back to your princess, OK? We don’t want you here. Go back to Crux, and Serpint, and Veila, and Tray. Because that’s where you belong now, Valor. We’re fuckin’ done.”
“Listen to me!” I yell. “I can trick her. I can trick her the way Tray tricked me. I can use her. She told me something about Earth, Luck. She says none of the babies will be born if they don’t get something special from Earth. Some… I don’t know. Antibody, maybe?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Earth!” I say. “You need to get Nyleena to Earth if you want to save your babies. And Veila has control over the spin-node level. So you need me, Luck. She needs you and Nyleena to get through the node and you need me to get up to that level. Because I’m telling you, there’s a lot more going on than you realize. I didn’t even tell you about the Akeelian girls yet. And trust me on this. You will need to know that little bit of hidden truth.”
He turns away, but doesn’t make any more moves towards the airlock.
“I have only one weapon left.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“The soulmate bond.”
“Yeah.” He spins around. “Thanks for reminding that you can’t be trusted.”
“It’s weak, Luck. It’s so weak. We’re barely connected. I’m not even sure it’s real. Because I hate her fucking guts. And it’s not like you and Nyleena were. I don’t secretly want to fuck her. I want to kill her. I can kill her. But not until we get you and Nyleena through the spin node and safe on Earth.”
“You don’t even know that’s where it goes.”
“I know more than you think. I was on Angel Station. I was in a whole other galaxy. I lived inside a spin node for lifetimes in the virtual and months in the real because time was so different in there too. And I’m telling you I’m right. And even if I was wrong, we can’t stay here. There’s only one way out of the ALCOR System now and that’s through that spin node.”
Luck looks at me like I am filth. Like I’m a traitor. Like we didn’t spend our whole lives together.
“I can trick her,” I whisper. “I can get us out of here. She’s vulnerable right now. She’s pregnant and she’s about to lose the babies. She needs to get to Earth too. She told me she would do anything to save them. I can use her to save us.”
“All I have to do is trust you, right?” Luck says in a low, even voice. “Just trust you to take care of everything. Well, I already did that, Valor. And this is what I got. Harem Station is gone. We’re fucked. Nyleena is pregnant with my twins. And no one is coming to save us because you and Tray got caught up in a sex game inside a virtual and forgot the whole motherfucking reason you left here was so you could find ALCOR and bring him home. And oh, by the way, the Baby is… well, not a baby anymore. He wants nothing more than to cut off our air supply and kill us. And the only thing that’s stopping him is a demonic AI no one trusts.”
“Listen, Baby is not what you think. He’s confused too and—”
“Oh. My. Fucking. Sun. Are you for real ri
ght now? Everyone up there is just misunderstood? Is that what you expect me to believe?”
I want to tell him about Crux and Corla, but… I decide he wouldn’t believe me anyway. So I don’t.
“I get it,” I say. “But I’m not a traitor. I’m on your side, Luck. I never stopped—”
“Don’t,” he says, putting up a hand. “Don’t you dare tell me you never stopped loving me. Because that just makes what you did that much worse. You fucking left me.”
“It was part of the plan,” I say.
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”
I do know it. I fucked this all up. But I’m not ready to give in yet. “Just… give me two spins, OK? Two spins to get Veila under my thumb and I will get us out of here.”
He sighs and turns away.
“I don’t want to say this, because there’s no way to dress it up and get me cred with you, but I have to. Because it’s true. I’m all you have right now, Luck. I’m all you have. So you need to trust me. You need to think long and hard about all those years we spent together and all those times I saved your ass. All those times I had your back and got you back here, safe and sound. Because I’m still that guy.”
He turns back to me. “Are you sure about that, Valor? Because from where I stand you’re not that guy at all.”
I take a step forward. He doesn’t back up. Just tilts his chin up and locks eyes with me. Daring me to do what I want to do next.
I reach for him and both his hands come up and block me. “Touch me again,” he says, “and I’ll kill you.”
“Fine,” I say, backing off. “That’s fine. You’re with Nyleena. You’re happy—”
“Happy?” He laughs. “I do love her. And we will be together because they made us this way. But what you and I had…” He swallows hard and shakes his head. “You can’t engineer that. And you walked out.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He smiles a little. It’s one those I-can’t-believe-you-just-fucking-said-that smiles. “Well, you know what? Before—you know, before this whole thing blew up in my face—‘I’m sorry’ would’ve worked. It would’ve made it all better. But it’s not enough now. Not nearly enough.”
“I understand. I do. But I’m not fucking lying. I’m on your side. I’m always on your side.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Lady says.
“Lady?” I say, looking up at Dicker’s ceiling. “How are you here?”
“I’m sorry, Valor,” she says. “I was asked to listen in.”
“Ah,” I say, heat filling my whole body. “To see if I was lying.”
“And you’re not. He’s not,” Lady tells Luck. “Most of what he said has been sincere.”
“Which part wasn’t sincere?” Luck asks Lady.
“The parts having to do with Tray. His biological reactions tell me he left a lot out.”
Luck glares at me. But to Lady he says, “But the parts about Veila?”
“All true. He’s not in love with her. That bond is weak. I think his plan could work.”
“And I think,” Dicker chimes in, “that he’s right about Nyleena giving birth on Earth. There’s something to that place. The flowers were enough to get her pregnant, but the chances are very high they are not enough to bring those babies to term. And we cannot get there without getting up to level one twenty-two.”
“We?” Luck says. “You and Lady can’t come with us. We’ll have to leave you behind. And I’m not like—” He pauses to stare at me. “I’m not like that. I’m not walking out and leaving you two to fend for yourselves. So that plan won’t work for me.”
“Not necessarily true,” I say, ignoring his not-so-thinly-veiled attempt to accuse me of abandonment one more time. “Tray worked out some of the mystery behind ALCOR and the station and he says Harem used to be in this other galaxy. And if ALCOR could pull a whole station through a spin node, then there has to be a way to pull two ships through too.”
“Through that hole in the fabric of time and space located on level one twenty-two?” Luck scoffs.
“The Succubus could do it,” Dicker says. “Mighty Minions had a spin node too, after all.”
“Like she’s going to help us,” Luck says.
“Let me take care of that. I think we can come to an arrangement. She’s as eager to leave as we are,” Dicker says.
Luck looks at me, then says, “You have two fucking spins to figure out what Veila knows about Cygnian pregnancies and report back with a plan for Nyleena and our babies.”
“OK.” But goddamn. What he just said—‘Nyleena and our babies’—my heart hurts hearing it.
“Two,” Luck growls. “That’s it. And then whatever we decide to do, we do it without you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT - VALOR
Lady arranges a lift bot for me to ride back up to the top of the station and even with that luxury, it’s a long fucking ride. Not so much because it’s four hundred levels—even though that is a long climb no matter how you look at it—but because people are screaming at me from the edges. Spewing threats, and insults, and a whole lot of hate.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what would’ve happened to me if I had to walk up all the dozens of non-working escalators without Veila’s cyborg guards and also find myself missing ALCOR so much, my chest begins to hurt. And not because I was shot with a plasma rifle by Captain Red down there.
This station without ALCOR… well, it’s not Harem anymore, that’s for sure. I never realized it. I guess I just took him for granted all these years. So sure that I would be protected by this almost god-like… thing. Person. Whatever he is. That he would always be there on my side. Always have my back.
And now he’s not. Now he doesn’t.
So this is what I think about on my way up even though I should be thinking about how I’m going to convince Veila that we’re soulmates in love, get her to trust me, and then figure out a way to get the Succubus to infiltrate the Baby’s side of the data core so she can come up with a plan to take two huge ships through a spin node that’s only as tall as one level.
That’s assuming Luck can get the Succubus on board with what we’re doing, and who knows if she’s even capable of this little task. Also assuming the Baby doesn’t figure out my plan. Because he has to stay behind and run things. I can’t leave all these people to die on the station. I don’t care if they’re all at war with each other right now. We’re still Harem and these people came here because they trusted us to take care of them.
I will not let the Baby kill them all by leaving.
I should also be thinking about Luck and how angry he is. At me. Specifically. Me. How did things go so wrong? I feel like I told him a lot about what happened to me in the last six weeks but he told me nothing about what happened to him.
I need that story. But it’s too late now. I can’t go back down until I have Veila on our side and that… well, that might not even be possible. She is the most ruthless bitch I’ve ever met.
And she has her own agenda.
Yeah, that little voice in my head says. Babies.
And let’s get real here. Does anyone really think those babies aren’t mine? I do have some vague recollection of sex with her. Or maybe not sex. But… eh. Gross. I can’t think about it. Because if those babies are mine then she farmed me for my genetics.
So gross.
And then I play Luck’s last threat over and over in my mind. I have two spins, then whatever they do, they do it without me.
It’s an insult more than a threat. Because like two seconds before that he was going on and on about how he won’t leave Dicker and Lady behind.
But he’ll leave me.
Fine. Whatever. He’s allowed to have his feelings.
All this is what I ponder as I ascend and by the time I reach the level where my quarters are—which is, thankfully, somewhat private and inaccessible to the angry masses down below—I’m worked up with doubt, and regrets, and sadness, and anxiety, and hate,
and probably every fucking emotion a human is capable of when I step off the lift and head into the hallway that leads to my quarters, flanked on either side by cyborgs.
The door opens when I palm the biometric lock and I enter alone.
Alone.
Great. How do I even contact Veila?
“Baby?” I say to the room.
“Valor.” ALCOR’s voice comes back at me. And God, that hurts. It’s so much his voice I have to remind myself several times that this thing is not ALCOR before I speak.
“Is there a way to contact Veila?”
“I can arrange it. For a price.”
“A price?” Yeah. There’s the reminder I needed that this isn’t ALCOR. The Baby is not on our side. He does not have my back. “What price?”
“I need something.”
“Of course you do. What is it then?”
“I need to know how to get the security beacons back online.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s Princess Veila’s price for what I need from her.”
She’s hedging her bets. If she can’t get Luck to take her to Earth she will get to Corla and steal whatever it is inside her that can save her babies.
She told me she would not stop. She would die trying to save them.
“They’re not like that and you know it,” I say to Baby. “The security beacons are self-contained entities. They’re people. So if they locked you out, then they locked you out.”
“I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Valor. I need this. You could ask Crux to go over there and talk to them. Set up a small… parlay, if you will.”
“Why don’t you just ask Crux?”
“Because Crux doesn’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust you either.”
“Yes, but you need something from me and he does not.”
“I’m sure there’s lots of ways to threaten Crux into doing your bidding. Use your evil brain.”
“I’ve tried that. Veila interfered. I am not allowed to harm Crux, Serpint, or Lyra.”
Interesting. “Why are you taking orders from her anyway? Who is she to you?”
“She…”
“She what?”
