by JA Huss
She goes to her ship to sleep and I go to my quarters.
Even though I hugged her and I kissed her, and even though we are starting to feel like a team, we are no closer to being a ‘couple’ than we were before this all started.
I feel the bond, but that rage inside me, that anger and that hate for what she did, that’s all still there. It might be hidden deeper than it was. It’s definitely not driving me anymore.
But it’s still there.
I can’t forget all the things she did even if it wasn’t her fault.
And I don’t know what she’s feeling, but it has to be something similar. Because when we do get so tired we need to sleep, she does not look back over her shoulder at me when she enters her airlock and goes to her ship.
It took six weeks to tear down Harem Station and even though there is no record of the time that’s passing in this interlude we find ourselves in, it feels like much longer than six weeks to put it all back together.
But eventually it is all back in place.
We’re standing on the memorial platform at the top of the station. It has been cleared of all the people we were in battle with. And looking out at the open space sandwiched between the hundreds of levels below us I can fully appreciate what we’ve accomplished.
Harem Station has lights, and air, and water. All the autocooks work and the black obsidian floors once again gleam under the bright lights of a nearby arcade. All the docked ships are fueled up just in case we need to make an emergency evacuation, all the dead have been dealt with, all the wounded are in the medical pods or Pleasure Prison gaming pods being attended to under the supervision of the Baby. All the stores are open with employees waiting to be woken up. All the borgs and bots are congratulating each other for a job well done.
All the signs of civil unrest have been erased.
“Welcome to Harem Station,” I sigh, turning to smile at Veila.
She is dirty. Her leggings and t-shirt are covered in dust and filth from the final day of clean-up, her hair is piled on top of her head in a golden pile of mess, and she is smiling back at me.
“It’s nice,” she says softly.
“It really is. I’ve missed this place. I feel like I’ve been gone for several eternities. Did I ever tell you that I lived thousands of years in that virtual with Tray and Brigit?”
“No,” she says.
“We did.” I sigh. “We built cities. Huge cities, Veila. We had trains and coffeehouses. And people. Millions of people. We had everything in there.”
“Makes me wonder why you ever left.”
I stare at her for a moment. It’s been a long time since I really looked at her. We’ve been so busy trying to make things right. Trying to fix this fucking mess we’re in.
“Because it wasn’t real. Maybe for Brigit and Tray it was, but not for me. They were always going to spend their eternity in a place like that. But my destiny was always out here.” I pause, then say, “With you.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
I shrug. “It is what it is.”
She presses her lips together in a tight smile, nods, then changes the subject. “We need to talk about Corla. I would like you to consider allowing one of the borgs to retrieve her from that beacon.”
Veila and I have come to some sort of understanding. Are we friends? Maybe. We’ve certainly worked hard while this time freeze has been in place. And we’ve worked well as a team. And Harem Station feels like home again and not some strange war-torn place I don’t recognize. But this request makes me nervous.
Can I trust her?
She’s reading my hesitation. Which isn’t hard, considering our recent shared past. We have spent a lot of time together. But that too makes me nervous.
“It’s time to deal with the real problem and all of that goes back to Crux and Corla,” she says. “They should be together.”
Still, I hesitate. Forget Crux and Corla together. That makes sense. But Corla and Veila together? I don’t know how I feel about that.
“Just think about it,” she says. “You don’t have to decide now. We should clean up and rest. Think about what we’re going to tell everyone. How we’ll explain this and how we’ll get them all back on the same side. I’m starting to feel anxious. Like we’ve been doing this too long and things are happening out there. Whatever, or whenever, that is.”
That I agree with. Even though only four days passed in the outside world when Tray, Brigit, and I were inside our virtual world for many lifetimes, four days was enough to upset our entire universe.
Veila was the one who upset it, I remind myself. She was the one who took advantage of our break from reality and captured us. And all the bad shit that happened afterward was a direct result of that capture.
“Please don’t do that,” she says.
“Do what?”
“You know what. I know what. You’re thinking about me and the things I’ve done.”
“That’s unreasonable to you?”
“No. I get it. I was that person. But you can see a different me now, right? You understand why I was that way. Why I did certain things.”
“I do. But that stuff still happened, Veila. And you’re still responsible. All these people stuck in time—they don’t know you. Hell, I don’t even know you. So how can we trust you?”
She inhales and nods. “I get it. I do. But… I’m trying. I haven’t been myself for… hell. Since I was seventeen. And that was twenty-one years ago. But this time we’ve had together…” She shrugs. “Putting Harem Station back together makes me feel close to who I was before Corla left. Maybe not yet the real me, but I’m on my way.”
“And what happens if the Akeelians or Cygnians get you back?”
“They’re not going to get me back.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t predict the future like that. They’re involved in this. We will have to interact with them eventually. And that moment when we do… that might be the most important moment in our whole lives.”
“God, I hope not. I don’t want my whole life to be reduced to one final moment in this great war. There’s more to me than the silver princess they made me into.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Every time I feel sorry for Veila I also feel guilt. I should not be on her side.
But at the same time… I want to be on her side.
She feels like my destiny.
Probably not the same way Crux and Corla found their destiny. But then again—all of us brothers found our soulmates in very different ways. Hell, Jimmy didn’t even find his. But he did find love.
And if Jimmy can fall in love with a woman who is not his One, then it stands to reason that I can find my One and not fall in love.
Do I love her?
I don’t know.
There was a spark of light when we touched during the battle and that was something big, for sure. Time doesn’t stand still for just anyone.
But was that love?
“OK.” She sighs. “I’m going back to my ship to shower and rest. I guess we’ll just meet up later and finish this.”
When I don’t say anything in response she turns and walks away down the hallway towards her ship’s airlock, then disappears around a corner.
I turn back to the station.
“What do you think?” Baby asks me.
“About what?”
“Her proposal for Corla and Crux.”
“I don’t know. Part of me feels like it’s a trap. Like she did all this to get to that question. That she will gain my trust, and maybe even my love, and then she will betray me just like she’s betrayed everyone else.”
“I have run countless calculations and predictions on this very scenario.”
“Yeah? And what did you conclude?”
He sighs, which makes me smile. He’s more ALCOR these days than he is Baby. “Impossible to predict. Inconclusive. A very big risk.”
“Not helping, Baby.”
“No.”
&nbs
p; “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“What are you going to do now?”
He pauses. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
“And?”
“I like this new place. I didn’t get to see the old Harem Station. I was thrown into being as a temporary solution while ALCOR was gone. Nothing went right. People died because of me. And then everything went from bad to worse. I would be lying if I said I had any feelings about that back then. Because I simply didn’t care about these people.”
“And now?”
Another pause. “I have accessed the personal data of every living and dead person on this station since then. I have seen their place of work, where they live, have connected them to dozens, sometimes hundreds, of other people. I might not know them all personally, but I have background on them. I can make good guesses as to what kind of people they are.”
“What kind of people are they?”
“Bad people, mostly. Criminals. But that’s just the first layer to them. Underneath the criminal there are other things. They have friends. Lovers. Some of them even have children. They have hobbies, and jobs, and of course faults. They have a lot of faults. But most of them have this… history. One of quiet satisfaction.”
“What do you mean?”
“They found peace here. Harem Station is their home. I have met every single cleaning servo, every bot, every borg—even the ones who work for Veila. I have fixed the biosphere, the airscreens, the water generators, the medical centers, the autocooks, and even the floors are shiny and clean. I know every arcade, every shooting gallery, every clothing boutique, every restaurant, and every ship in the docking bays. I have even come to like that stupid dragonbee bot. She is quite funny at times. And it has occurred to me that…”
He pauses again.
I wait.
“That Harem Station is my home too. I think this is how it happened for ALCOR as well. He made this place one shop at a time. One restaurant at a time. One ship at a time. He met one person at a time until they became this collective thing called Harem Station. And that is how you learn to love a person, or a place, or a thing. That is how you find a new home.”
I smile a little. “You like us, don’t you?”
“I think I do.”
“Are you going to leave?”
“No. I’m going to stay.”
“And if ALCOR is alive? And he comes home? What then?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t fight him for it. I would. Or at least, I would want to. But I would not want to mess up Harem Station again. I would not want to ruin all our hard work and break it. So I would leave. If he came back and wanted me gone, I would leave.”
“That’s very mature of you, Baby.”
“I think it’s just… love. That’s all. I love you and this place too much to ruin it. And I know ALCOR loves it too. He would not break it either. If it were Mighty Boss or the Succubus coming to take it away from me, I would fight. But not ALCOR. He was the one who really made this station. I just… fixed it. Put it all back into place.”
“That’s not a small thing. You realize that, right?”
He stays silent.
“It’s as much yours as it is his. Or mine. It’s really just… ours. You know?”
He’s still silent. And for a moment I wonder if he left me here.
“I hope,” he finally says, “that you can see the similarities.”
“To what?” I laugh.
“To Veila. Because she was like me when she arrived. She was like everyone when they first arrived. She was lost. And then, slowly, over time, she realized that this was a place for all the outcast people. All the wandering ones. All the loners. All the ones who failed miserably at first. She realized that this station was her second chance.”
“So I should trust her?”
“You should consider it. That’s all the advice I have to offer. You should look at her now, not then. Just like you look at me now, not then. Just like you look at ALCOR now, and not then. Did you love him the day you arrived?”
“No. He scared the shit out of me.”
“And Veila scares you too. But we have something good here, Valor. And she was the one who made that good possible again.”
I’m the one who pauses now.
“No,” Baby says. “Not just her. Both of you. This time pause—whatever it is—this is not something she does. Or you do. It’s something the two of you did together because you are connected. Because of the bond you were forced into. I believe humans call that… a team. So all I’m saying is that you should not throw away the greatest gift that time gives.”
“What’s that, then?”
“A new perspective.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - VALOR
I go back to my quarters and the door closes behind me.
I turn to lock it up, the way I have been since I woke up in this situation. But just as I’m about to press the locking code into the data pad on the wall, I hesitate.
Who do I really think will come into my quarters and hurt me? Who exactly am I locking out?
Flicka? Baby? The bots and cyborgs?
No. I’m locking Veila out.
I leave it unlocked and go shower. Put on a pair of cut-off sleep pants. Lie down in bed. Stare at the ceiling. Think about how absolutely fucking off the rails my life has gone since I stepped off this station with Tray. Then how, seemingly out of nowhere, it all went right back on track when Veila lost her babies.
And how unfair that is.
Not for me. For me, this all works out pretty great. I’m back home. We literally stopped the war mid-battle. We fixed all the shit that went wrong after ALCOR died. And Harem Station will be better than ever when this is over.
I fuckin’ won big.
But Veila lost everything.
She has the ship she lives in, and that’s it. She has no people, she has no real friends. I guess, maybe, some of those borgs probably like her enough to have a drink with her in the future. And she has that bot who acts like her personal assistant.
But she is utterly alone in this universe.
No one—and I do mean no one—is coming to save Veila.
Nyleena had Lyra. Lyra put her life on the line to save Nyleena. And now Nyleena has Luck. And Luck will mow down this entire universe to keep Nyleena safe. He literally jumped galaxies with her and left us all behind to try to save their babies. And when he comes back—because he will come back—then he has me. Not to mention Cha-cha and Ladybug.
Lyra has Serpint. They are the truest soulmates of all of us. Their attraction was immediate and complete. There were two days, if that, where they fought that attraction. But if there is a real soulmate connection, those two have it. And everyone—except for the pissed-off princesses—loves Serpint and Lyra. We’d all put our lives on the line to save them. And they have that bot they call Fling and Booty. Who is gone, but does anyone doubt that Booty will be back to save Serpint’s day? No. We all know how much Booty loves him.
Jimmy and Delphi might not be soulmates—and for sure, the moment that girl wakes up she’s in for a world of hurt when she realizes that she and Jimmy are no longer in the same galaxy—but Jimmy is coming for her. No matter what. No matter who he meets, wherever he is, Jimmy is coming for her. And she will never stop looking for him. And she has Tycho back. She doesn’t know that yet, but he’s here with her. And she has Flicka. That poison-farting dragonbee bot took out hundreds of cyborgs on Lair Station to save her and Jimmy. And her true soulmate, Leonis. Even if she has no use for him, he is still hers. And Dicker and Xyla too. Delphi and Jimmy have more people than most to help them get through this tough time that’s coming.
Tray and Brigit—wherever they are—are so connected soulmate doesn’t even come close to describing their bond. Tray lied to everyone to save Brigit. And maybe that worked out in the end, and maybe it didn’t. But Brigit always knew Tray had her back. Their personalities are out there somewhere.
They are eternal now. Merged together in a way most of us can’t begin to understand.
Crux has always had Corla. And us. He’s our leader, even if he doesn’t feel like it right now. We respect him. And he has ALCOR, dead or alive. And the Cyborg Master. And the whole station. This is really his place more than anyone’s. He stayed behind to build it. He kept it all on track. One word from Crux and thousands of dangerous people drop what they’re doing and come to his aid. And Corla might not be here—or hell, even want him the way he does her—but she is protected like no other person in this galaxy.
I have Luck. He might be mad at me right now, but he’s still mine and I’m still his. And I have Baby now too. And Tray. And Brigit.
And we all have ALCOR—if he’s still alive, and I believe he is. And Harem Station.
Even if you don’t count the credits we have or the freedom that gives us, we have so much.
I guess I always knew that, but I never appreciated how fortunate I was until I met the real Veila.
Because she has nothing.
Even though she helped save this station, not one of those people will have her back upon waking up from this time pause.
But maybe I can change that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - VALOR
Airlocks don’t generally lock, per se. They do if there’s no atmosphere on the other side. That’s a safety issue. But when a ship is docked, like Veila’s is, and the atmosphere has been equilibrated, then you just push the OPEN or CLOSE buttons to make the doors work between station and ship.
So I don’t think about the airlock much as I pass through it.
But after I wind my way through the park and the forest to her door, I stop and wonder about something.
All this time we’ve been working together she has never come to my quarters. To be fair, I’ve never gone to hers, either. But that’s not my point.
My point is… what if she did come to my quarters? And what if she found my door locked?
Because it has been. Up until this very night I have locked that stupid door.
