Aspirant
Book 2
Aspirant is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or deceased, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Harrison Rexx & Maxx Whittaker
Copyright © 2020 Saving Throw Ink
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Publishing Partner,” at the email address below.
[email protected]
First Printing March 2020
Cover Art by Unreal Studios
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
1
Chamber 0
Aspirant #1
“Get up. Please, please, get up.”
My eyes snap open. The world swims around me and my senses are muddled, but features immediately make themselves clear.
White ceiling. Long hallway. My naked skin against the cool metal floor. A feminine presence at my side.
No. No way.
This can’t be happening. Not again.
“Please wake up. You have to.” Hands push at my shoulder, shaking me. I turn away, not looking at her. If I do, then this is real. This is happening.
After everything I’ve been through, I’m not sure I could take that.
“Sam… Get up.”
Something is different. Something is missing.
The accent.
“Mika… What?” I finally turn, take her in.
Not Mika.
“Astra.” She kneels at my side, almost as shapeless as when I first met her. She has no hue or color. Her eyes are wide and panicked behind her thick frame glasses, and she bites her lip as she casts hurried glances down the hall.
“Thank God,” she says. “Hurry, we have to go.”
“Shit,” I breathe as I scramble into a sitting position. I don’t turn around, don’t look down the hall. I know what I’ll see.
I thought we’d escaped.
“Sam,” Astra says, hands to my shoulders. “What did you do?”
I ignore the question and wait for the inevitable sound I know is coming. “What’s happening? Where’s Mika? Syl?”
Astra growls and sits back on her heels. “What’s happening? How would I know? This was you.” Color flushes through her in a ripple from head to toe; something I remember from before, in her study. When she was truly afraid. “As for the others, I’m not sure. They should be alive.” Her laugh is half fear and half bitter. “I just don’t know. I don’t know anything, anymore.”
I should take control, calm her, but my head still feels like I tried to drink a fifth of Jäger with my eye sockets. I cough, blink away lingering ache. “We’re still in the Citadel.”
“Yes. I don’t know how, or what’s going on. But I do know that we have to go.”
I know why. I haven’t looked, yet, but I know. Which is why I’m terrified, but unsurprised, when he gets close enough that I finally hear him.
Scraaape…
Shit.
I scramble up, pulling Astra with me. Her flesh is soft and warm despite looking like she’s solid metal. She doesn’t pull away.
I turn, know what I’ll see. Know that, despite everything inside me screaming that this can’t be happening, that it isn’t right, that this isn’t the way things were supposed to go down… I know that he’s waiting. That this is happening.
Again.
Scraaape…
The Shepherd strides toward us, unhurried, his midnight blade digging a furrow in the polished floor. He’s as terrifying as I remember with edges blurred like he doesn’t fully exist on this plane. Little white threads of code flow through him and his eyes blaze like tiny stars in the shadowed darkness of his head.
He takes another step toward us, and all questions flee. Why this is happening again, why Astra’s here instead of Mika, why we’re not on Homeworld.
All that matters is that we’re here, and we need to get the hell out.
“What do we do?” I breathe, gasping like I’ve run a marathon. “Run?”
Astra clings to me, her metal arms ringing my chest. “I don’t know,” she says, peering over my shoulder. “Something’s changed.” Her grip tightens. “Sam… I can’t… I can’t feel the Citadel anymore.”
That sounds bad. “So run?”
For a moment, she doesn’t answer. Just holds me like I’m the only thing tethering her to the universe. Then, with a deep breath, she lets me go. “No. No, this isn’t right. I have to… Have to take control.”
“What are you doing?”
“He still has to follow the rules. Whatever you did may have severed my programming, but I’m still me, and he’s still him.” She turns to me, her form solidifying and her color returning. In moments, she’s like I remember her; lab coat, loose black tank top, grey pants, dark curls and blue eyes. Her smile is brave. “I can handle this.” With that, she turns away, striding toward the Shepherd.
I move after her. Even with the Shepherd at least twenty feet distant, she’s tiny compared. “Astra, I’m not sure… This seems like a shit idea.”
She smiles over her shoulder, radiating confidence. “Trust me, Sam. I’ve been doing this for a very long time.” Her mouth quirks, and her color ripples, the briefest glitch in her appearance. “Still, it would be advisable to stay back.”
Yeah. Great. Experimentally, even though I know it won’t do jack against the Shepherd, I reach into myself and find the place the little core of my power resides.
It’s still there, like a tiny ball of flame in my soul. Thank God. I’m not sure what use it’ll be right now, but considering I’m naked and weaponless, it’s a comfort. That what I’ve gained from this place didn’t reset somehow.
Astra stops a few feet from the midnight beast. It closes the distance to her with a final scrape of its blade before it stops to stare down at her.
She stares right back, dwarfed by the Shepherd but still composed. “Now, now,” she says without a hint of a tremor in her soft voice. “Are we really going to do this? You know the rules.”
I want to grab her and yank her away. The Shepherd is completely still, aside from its flowing and blurred body. I’d be crapping myself in her position, but she holds his gaze. She doesn’t waver or tremble, just stands like a rock. Completely sure of her place in the universe.
She shouldn’t be.
The Shepherd cuts her in half.
It’s black blade flashes sideways, so fast I don’t have time to process before Astra screams. Everything below her chest loses cohesion in an instant, falling like liquid mercury and splashing against the white tiling.
“Astra!” Instinctively, I seize her upper half with my mind and yank with my power. Her chest, shoulders, and head come hurtling at me, smacking into my outstretched arms so hard I fall flat on my ass.
“Oh shit. Oh fuck. Astra. Astra!” I turn her, but she’s l
ost shape and color again, and I can’t tell by her silver face if she’s aware of my presence or even if her eyes are open.
The Shepherd starts toward us again.
Scraaape…
“Oh God. Oh shit.” I repeat it over and over as I lift what’s of the AI with me. She’s so light I barely feel her weight in my shaking arms. Or maybe it’s adrenaline, or the levelling up. Doesn’t matter. I spring up like I’ve been shot from a cannon, already sprinting for the door.
It’s exactly as I remember. A flat, dark panel that almost seems to float from the surface of the door. Twin impressions of two handprints, one delicate and feminine and one just my size.
Astra’s losing shape in my arms. I’m not sure why she doesn’t instantly dissolve like her lower half did, but she’s still melting. I have to get her to the convalescence chamber. I have no idea if it’ll work on her like it does on me, but it’s the only idea I have.
I didn’t save her before just to lose her now.
“Astra, honey, wake up.” I shake her in my arms but she doesn’t respond. She’s still losing her form, flowing around my arms. “Astra! I need you!”
Nothing.
Dammit.
My mind races. Behind us, the Shepherd scrapes closer, still far enough away that we can escape if I can just think of something. I try in vain to maneuver Astra, to lift her arm and fit her hand to the pad.
But no. Her arms are severed at the wrist.
Fantastic.
But maybe…
I have no idea what I’m doing, but I take hold of my power again. I lift her handless arm up to her half of the pad and seize her stub with my mind. If she’s slowly turning to liquid, maybe I can change her shape, form her.
It’s crazy. Probably won’t work. But I’ve got nothing else, and so I strain to mold her silver flesh into the impression on the pad. I take the shape of her wrist in my mind and will it to change, to splinter into the form of a hand, to flow along the grooves made for her fingers alone.
My nose drips, and a fat drop of blood spatters to the floor below. The pain in my mind is intense, deepening as I work Astra’s material. God, this is hard. In the past, I’ve used my power as a war hammer, smashing scaag away from Mika or punching through the chest of a dragon goddess. I’ve never needed to use it as anything more than a weapon.
This is so much harder. Using my power as a scalpel instead of a sword requires so much more thought and delicacy, and it’s taking a terrible toll on my brain. Twin trails of crimson run from my nose and my vision darkens as my mind is flayed from the inside. The agony is intense, consuming, and when I cough a spray of blood paints the door.
But I don’t stop. Stopping is death.
The Shepherd is close, now. Maybe fifteen feet away. Maybe closer. I can’t tell how far back the scraping is through the pounding in my ears.
As my mind screams in protest, Astra’s silver flesh changes. It pushes up into the pad, and with agonizing slowness, fingers and a palm form. Their shapes are rough, really damned rough, and I have to struggle to hold myself up as I take the form in my mind and work it. I thin out her fingers and flatten her palm further.
There. Done. It’s a mangled amalgam of her hand, but it fills the cavity on the panel.
I smack my hand into my impression and pray.
The door doesn’t change.
Dammit. It has to be something I did wrong. My hand fits perfectly, gloved like the grooves were made just for me.
Astra. It has to be Astra. I can barely hold her with my left arm, and flowing silver that felt weightless thirty seconds ago is like an anvil against my chest. I lean close, peering at the misshapen hand I’ve created, searching for something I messed up. Anything.
Scraaape…
So close, now.
I can barely see. My heart beats like a jackhammer, and with every mighty pump shadows flow at the edges of my vision. I can’t release the power, not for a second. I squint, trying to figure out what I screwed up.
There. Her ring finger. It’s a millimeter too short and doesn't fill the cavity properly.
I want to laugh, but there’s too much blood in my mouth.
A fucking millimeter.
I’m about to pass out. I can feel it, that strange weightlessness just before everything goes black. I’ve become way too familiar with it since I got to the Citadel.
Just a little more.
I push against liquid silver. Pull material from her wrist across her hand and into the finger.
The door lights and starts to dissolve.
I moan in relief as I release my power and slump against disappearing metal. Astra’s melted completely against me now, so formless I can’t find her head or shoulder or anything else. I try to gather what’s left of her, but I can hardly move.
The door dissolves as slowly as it did the first time when I was with Mika, but I barely notice. Time slows as my ravaged brain tries to cling to thought. The Shepherd could catch us now, cut us down, and I wouldn’t be able to raise a hand to stop him.
All I have left goes into holding myself against the door and Astra in my arms.
He’s behind us. I can feel him, somehow. Something about his presence is so wrong, so antithetical to life, that it’s like death itself is standing at my back.
I want to pound the door. Scream at it to hurry the fuck up. But I can only moan, wait, and pray.
A black blade rises. I can’t see it, but somehow, I know.
Game over.
The door evaporates.
The hiss of the Shepherd’s blade cuts, a last, desperate slice.
I feel it score my back. Feel the pain as it cuts through muscle and bone as we fall into the convalescence chamber.
Too late, asshole.
2
Convalescence Field 0
Aspirant #1
Room Timer: 00:10:00
For a long time, nothing exists but the pain.
I’m vaguely aware, somewhere deep in my subconscious, that I’m sitting against one of the featureless walls of the Convalescence chamber. That the loose blob of Astra’s remaining material is still hugged tight in the spasmed muscles of my arms. That I pulled her through with me.
But all that fades. Everything does. The Citadel, Mika and Syl, our mission; all of it seems so distant in the face of the iron hot poker of agony stabbed between my eyes.
Healing sucks. 0/10, would not recommend.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to be alive. Happy I didn’t die in that hallway, leaving the others to their fates. But goddamn, this is bad enough that it’s almost enough to make me question if this is all worth it.
Thoughts and memories drift in and out of my awareness like ships lost in a raging storm. Important things, screaming for my attention. The Threvian invasion. Saving the world.
The fact that I’m dead.
No. Not yet. My mind shies from the thought.
I’m not ready to face that one just yet.
Though, if I’m just a collection of data, now… An AI, like Syl, why the hell does this hurt so goddamned much?
They seriously could have left that bit of realism out.
It feels like hours pass. Hours as I sit, body locked, mind spinning from thought to thought. In reality, I know only minutes go by as orange lights pulse madly above me. They’re brutally efficient, and my body’s intact. It’s just my brain that’s been pulverized. Synapses repair as tissue knits, and slowly, the world comes back into focus.
I gasp, then moan as the iron fists gripping my lungs finally release. I open my eyes without meaning to, just in time to see the blood caking my face and torso mist into nothingness. But the burn and heat in my brain is still too intense, and I close them against harsh overhead light that magnifies everything a thousand times.
But it’s getting better. The healing might feel like shit, but you can’t argue with the results. The pain fades to migraine levels, then to a dull pounding, and then to nothing as the convalescence finishes.
Astra.
I still haven’t looked. Some part of me is terrified of what I’ll see. She still has form; I can feel her resting lightly in my arms. But there’s no movement I can detect and she doesn’t stir.
I take a deep breath and relax my death grip on her remains. What’s left of her settles against my thighs as I open my eyes and take her in.
She’s a blob. Not even human shaped. A rough mass of silver that sits in my lap. Cold and motionless.
No. Please no. “Astra,” I whisper, running my hands along her surface. It’s soft and malleable, and if I push too hard my hands sink deep inside her. I shake her, sending ripples along her mass, but there’s no reaction otherwise.
This can’t be happening. Not like this. Not after pulling her through the portal, after saving her in the hallway. I reach into her with my mind, searching for something. Anything. A heart to breathe life into, something I can hold with my power and… And… Shit. I don’t know. I’m grasping at straws.
There’s nothing. Just a blob of silver. I cast my power inside her over and over, but there’s nothing to hold onto. Nothing to find.
Black rage, molten in my veins, so hot I can barely think. Fuck this place. Fuck what it’s put us through. To lose her after all this, when we were supposed to escape… I want to rip the walls around me apart with my mind. Find the people who programmed it, programmed her, and make them pay for what they’ve put us through.
But I can’t. None of this is real. I’m not real. Or am I? I don’t know. I’m a simulation running on a computer somewhere without even a body to return to. I don’t know what I am anymore.
I just know I’m pissed.
But wait. There’s something…
At some point I’ve buried my face against Astra’s remains without realizing. My cheek rests against her cool surface. A cool surface that I swear is getting warmer.
Logic reasserts itself as my anger fades. Above me, the healing lights continue to pulse unabated, bathing us in a soft glow. I’m fully healed, so why would they bother unless…
Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 1
