Astra stumbles after me, coming to rest with her hands at my back. “What’s wrong?” she asks, voice hushed. “What is it?”
“Just expected more originality from the world’s most elaborate mouse trap, I guess.” I put a hand to the cell door, giving it an experimental tug. As solid as I remember. “Figured this place would have something new and horrible to torture me with.”
Guttering torchlight ignites on Astra’s dagger as she holds it up, almost as if she can’t believe she’s really holding it. “Yeah,” she says, voice low and hollow. “The first trial is usually some variant of this, taken from the minds of the Aspirants. They made this for you last time, and I’m kind of a blank slate, so…” She shrugs. “Sorry.”
I laugh. “Sorry? Why?”
“I oversaw this place for so long I… I don’t know.” She laughs, too, but it’s as threadbare as her words. “I feel kind of responsible for all this.”
“Hey, don’t.” I squeeze her shoulder. “This is great. Love it. I’m Commander Shepherd, and this is my favorite dungeon on the Citadel.”
She stares at me blankly for a long moment, and I realize she’s probably not nearly as versed in nerd shit as Mika. I’m about to open my mouth to explain when her eyes light up. “Oh! I know that reference. From your memories.” She smiles slyly, and then her form shifts and melts, reshaping in an instant into…
“Holy shit.”
She’s Shepherd. Red hair cascades around eyes hard as chips of ice. She’s taller, and far more muscular, though her body’s hidden underneath layers of N7 armor straight from the game. She grins. “I know this character. You were pretty fond of her, for a while.”
My mouth works. The detail is flawless. She even looks like a videogame character brought into the real world, more rendered than human. “That’s… That’s amazing.”
She melts again, shifting back to Astra. “Easy. Especially with memory as vivid as yours. You had a bit of a crush on her.” She cocks her head. “There’s more… Something about rule 34 and a certain alien–”
“Time!” I say, shoving my wrist display in her face. “Running so low on time. We best get moving.”
She frowns. “We’ve been here less than a minute.”
“Exactly. Time’s a wasting.” I pause. “How did you know all that?”
“Everything you were is data now, Sam. Data I’m intimately familiar with.”
“You have my memories?” This is too damned trippy.
“Not exactly.” She chews her lip. “It’s more like… Like I’ve read a book with every detail of your life.”
“And you have perfect memory.”
She runs her hand along the wall, then idly kicks a pile of straw at her feet. “Well. Yeah.”
I’ll have to unpack that one later. The disgusting pile starts to tremble and move. A low hiss fills our cell.
A ‘just about to attack’ hiss.
“Shit, look out!” I grab Astra and pull her behind me just as a rat the size of a Doberman flies from the pile like a ball of pure hatred.
I don’t even draw my dagger. My punch impacts the rat’s stomach like a jackhammer and it shrieks before smashing into the far wall so hard it leaves a spatter of blood against the dark stones.
It lands, flopping to the ground bonelessly. “Shit, sorry… Forgot about–”
My words die as the rat flips over, finding its feet like an acrobat. Blood drips from between nightmarishly jagged teeth, and though half of its body is smashed flat, it still starts toward us, rearing for another strike.
“How the hell?” I pull my dagger, and remembering my deathblow from the first time I was in this cell, dart forward. The rat’s mouth opens in response, tries to catch my hand, but I’m too fast and I bring my dagger down through its brain, impacting the cell floor so hard the blade shatters. The rat lets out a low whine as its whole body goes rigid before it dies and slumps to the stones.
Just like last time.
Except… Not.
Astra’s shaking hand finds my arm as I stare down at the crumpled body. “Sam? Sam, are you…? What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, give her a smile filled with false confidence. “Nothing. Just forgot about that part. Like I said.” I don’t mention the fact that the rat was way stronger this time.
“I did, too.” She hands me her dagger, looking away. “Thousands of Aspirants and years as overseer and I didn’t think to tell you. To remind you.” She’s shaking like a leaf, now… A ripple of silver flows from her head to toes, something I’ve come to associate with her being freaked out.
“Astra, hey, hey. It’s okay. Dead rat. Soon to be dead guards. We’re good.” She buries her head at my shoulder and I wrap her slim shoulders in my arms. “Hey, shh. I need you, now. Help me. Tell me what’s wrong.” My wrist display reads 00:12:13
She looks up at me, miserable. “What’s wrong? Sam… I… I don’t… I could die here. I could die.”
“Well, yeah. Any of us could. But that’s why we have each other, right?”
“Yes… Yes… Sorry.” She sobs again, tries to school her expression and fails. “Sorry. I… Just… I’m not used to this.”
Realization settles over me. She was programmed for this place. “Born” here, in a way. She’s spent years as its immortal overseer, untouchable as long as she followed certain rules.
Now she’s an Aspirant. For the first time in her life, she has to face death.
Tears run like rivers down her cheeks, smearing makeup that must be part of this form. The fact that, even now, she’s expending some energy so to create and effect so real is incredible. I wipe her tears away with my thumbs. “Astra, I can’t pretend to understand the life changing shit you’re going through right now. It must be like finding out that up means down, or that your hands are feet, or something.”
She cracks half a smile at my shitty comparisons. “Something like that.”
“I do know that we’re in this together, this is our new normal, and that we can survive if we help each other. Keep our heads. Think. It’s like when I came here. I died and woke up in this place, chased by a fucking shadow monster. It was pants shitting.”
She wrinkles her nose, then laughs. “I don’t have to imagine. A couple of Aspirants actually did.”
“Shit their… Never mind. Not the point. What I’m saying is, I survived. Adapted. It’s what humans do best.”
“I’m not human,” she says sadly.
I turn her eyes back to mine. “Could have fooled me.”
There’s something so grateful in gaze eyes that it almost melts me. “Thank you, Sam. Again.”
“Now. You with me? Got a little over ten minutes to get out of this cell and kill two guards. Then onto finding the others and figuring out how to get out of this godforsaken program.”
Astra takes a long breath. Her form ripples and shimmers, losing cohesion for the briefest moment before reasserting itself. When she reforms, her makeup is perfect and the redness at her eyes is gone. “Yeah. Good to go.”
I eye her a moment longer. The clock ticks in the back of my mind, but I have to be sure. “You sure?”
Her nod is decisive, so firm that her glasses slide down her nose. She’s almost commanding. It’s nuts how fast she shifts from breaking down to in control. Must be nice to be an AI with the brain of a computer.
“Okay. Good. Now,” I say, turning to the black metal bars. “Last time was pretty hit or miss. Any clues you can give me? Hidden lever or catches that’ll open this so we can pull a little sneaky on the guards?”
“No,” Astra says, laying her hands next to mine. “When you escaped the first time, you executed it perfectly. Getting the orc’s attention then bluffing or killing them were your only options.”
“Wait, bluffing was an option? Now I feel terrible.”
“Don’t worry. Only point zero four percent of Aspirants attempted to bluff the guards in their version of this trial, and only two ever succeeded.
“Oh?”
“Yes. Both of the successes involved…” She blushes, looks to the floor. “Let’s just say that some of the guard variants are susceptible to sexual advances.”
“Huh. What about the orcs? Might be an easy way past them.”
The look she gives me is incredulous. “What? You want me to–”
Her words die in a laugh as I slowly pull up my shirt. “What?” I lick my lips slowly. “Think I’m not pretty enough?”
She bats my hands away, then pulls my shirt down. Her fingers linger on my skin longer than they need to and her expression is almost tortured. “You have to stop this, Sam. I told you, your bond with the others–”
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupt. “And I told you we’d talk about that later.” She opens her mouth to protest, but I tap my wrist. “Hey, no time, remember? Now, anything else you can tell me?”
Her frown is fearsome. I get the impression she’s not used to being put off or shushed. But she looks back to the bars and sighs. “No. This place adapts itself to the Aspirants who enter. So even if I did know of some release or shortcut, it would have changed by now. Like this.” She pushes her hand through the bars but stops about six inches beyond. “See? Invisible barrier.”
“Wait? Why?”
“Probably to keep me from shrinking to mouse size and stealing the keys.”
I blink at the image. She can shrink? We don’t have time to question that further, though. Another thought intrudes. “Shit. If there’s some kind of voodoo force field on the other side of the bars, my trick from last time isn’t going to work, now.”
“No,” she says. “Let me try…”
“Wait!” I say, reaching for her hand, but she’s already poked it through the bars and around. Her finger melts, then flows into the locking mechanism.
A strangled breath stabs my lungs. Knowing this place, the lock is filled with acid or will close and slice off her finger. Or something even worse.
But nothing happens. Astra’s face screws up as she fiddles, then she frowns. “Dammit. I can’t… I can feel its shape, but it won’t move for me. I don’t know why. Maybe if I…”
More of her arm liquefies before flowing toward the lock. She screws her face up in concentration… No, pain? Her eyes are slits and she grits her teeth as she forces more of herself into the cold metal.
“Astra, hey, chill. We can try something else if–”
“No, I can do this,” she hisses. So much of her is pushed through the bars that her opposite arm melts into her body to feed her efforts. The lock is completely surrounded by silver now.
“Astra…” I put my hand to her shoulder.
She doesn’t react. A moment later, she jerks so hard that I stumble back as her body impacts mine. I hit the far wall, not hard, but enough to startle me.
“Astra!”
She jerks again. This time, it’s so violent that her body rips free from her arm, separating in a shower of mercury. Most of her tumbles into my arms. The rest of her, left behind and still tangled with the door, loses cohesion and splashes to the dirty floor.
“Astra, stop!”
She lets out a little sob. “I can do this.”
“No. You can’t.”
My words still her instantly. She doesn’t pull away, but she goes so stiff in my arms I almost think she’s turned herself to stone. “What?”
I take a step back, hold her at arm’s length. She’s pissed. Her cheeks are flushed and she won’t look in my eyes.
00:08:17
“Hey, listen.” She still doesn’t look at me, but she also doesn’t pull away or turn her back. Good enough. “I get it. You’re used to taking control. Solving problems. But that won’t work anymore. You’re an Aspirant, now.”
Finally, she meets my eyes. The grief and anger lurking just beneath the surface is staggering. “You don’t get it,” she whispers. She’s so angry, and her moods are changing so quickly. Is she malfunctioning?
No. If anything, she’s more human than she’s ever been. “Tell me.”
“I was so close.” She takes a ragged breath, leaning her head back to my chest. “So close. Thousands of Aspirants before you. Gone. Many of them worthy. People that didn’t deserve to die like they did. Mangled. Torn apart. Vaporized. And I had to watch it all. Watch, and wait, and hope that this time… That this time they’d succeed.”
“But they never did.”
“No. Thousands of Aspirants before I had the courage to break the rules. Before I risked everything to save you. And I was so close to fulfilling my purpose, Sam.” Her remaining fist balls my shirt, her grip so tight against my skin that it hurts. I don’t interrupt. “We were there, Sam. At the brink of getting you out. I was so close.” She sobs.
I feel like an asshole. All this time it felt so heroic, saving her. Bringing her with us. But now, we’re back in the Citadel with no guarantee of surviving this time. And Astra, whose entire life was devoted to ushering Aspirants through, to guiding us to save the world… She feels like she’s failed. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t thought… Didn’t think about it like that.”
She laughs, burying a hot breath against me. “This is why I gambled on you, Sam. You’re apologizing for saving my life. Apologizing for the most… Romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“Getting mixed signals here,” I tease.
She takes a step back, wiping her cheeks. I love that she does; she could absorb the tears back into herself effortlessly, but wiping them away feels so much more human. Does she realize? “Sam, I’m angry. Angry that I almost succeeded. Angry that my life’s work ends with me as an Aspirant and probably dying here.”
I try to interrupt, but she pushes on. “Stop. Please, let me finish. We probably will die. You needed my help to escape the first time. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m angry, and I’m a failure.” She sniffs. “But you saved me. Sacrificed your escape to rescue me. And I love that I’m here with you, now. Love that we’re together. Even if I’m scared out of my mind. And now, I have to help you any way I can. To make your sacrifice worth it,” she says, gesturing to the puddle of her material still rippling below the lock.
“How is hurting yourself helpful? Ripping yourself in half over a stupid lock? You’re trying to do it alone. Think, Astra. You’re forgetting the rules of this place already. When I landed here naked and scared shitless, was I alone?”
She swallows. “No.”
“And you’re not by yourself, now. We’re in this together, remember?”
“Yeah,” she whispers, shamefaced.
“I know this blows. You’ve lost the abilities that made you the big boss of this place. The Citadel doesn’t recognize you anymore. The Shepherd’s as deadly to you as he is to me. You can’t even escape this little cell.”
“You’re not making me feel any better, Sam.”
“But all that’s okay. We have each other. I’ve got wacko brain powers. Mika throws fire. Syl’s just scary. And you? You can still shift form. Shrink, grow. Go all T-1000 Terminator when you want to. You’re amazing. Just because this lock isn’t the challenge you overcome doesn’t mean the next one won’t be. Or maybe this lock is meant for you, but we’re going about this the wrong way. I don’t know. But I do know that literally ripping your limb off to escape this trap isn’t the answer.”
Astra’s silent for what feels like forever. In reality, it’s only ten seconds, but our time limit turns every beat of my heart into ratcheting tension. But this is worth it. If we can’t make it out of here together because she’s too rigid to work with me…
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t promise… I can’t promise that this won’t be frustrating. But I’ll try to remember. We’re in this together. I can’t do it alone. I just… I have been. Alone. For so long. Working toward one goal. And now… I don’t know who I am, anymore. What my purpose is.”
She feels bizarre as I pull her close, a torso with no arms. “You’re not alone, anymore. And as for your purpose? Welcome to being
human. None of us really know. We figure it out as we go.”
She relaxes in my arms, then shrinks. Her body shortens by several feet, and then she sprouts new arms which she wraps around me tight. “Thanks, Sam. Again.”
I shake my head, stepping back. Her body’s still the right proportions, but she’s so much smaller now. Just to give me a hug. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
Astra winks. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
Something about her wink heats my blood. She can change shape, form, size… The possibilities…
I cough. Later. “What was that you said about temptation?”
She colors. “Sorry.”
“No… No no. Don’t be.” I shiver. “Anyway. Now. Let’s open this goddamn door.”
Her smile is like the sun rising after a stormy night. “Okay.” She takes a long step back, touches her heel to where the rest of her body still puddles on the floor. It ripples as it absorbs into her foot, and I watch, rapt, as it rejoins her. “Let’s go.”
I wrack my brain and start to pace. “Okay. Can’t do it like I did last time. You can’t turn the lock from the inside physically. Maybe the guard’s keys are enchanted? But that makes no sense. We can’t reach through the bars to gank one. Or maybe we have to get them to unlock? But how? You said that bluffing never…”
Astra’s eyes widen. “That could work.” Her clothes shimmer and start to melt away.
“What? Hey. No. I was kidding, before.”
She winks. “So am I.” Her clothes reappear, and she laughs.
“Damn,” I laugh with her. Kind of a screwed up time for a joke, but at least she’s not terrified or angry now. “You had me for a sec.”
“Seven minutes,” she says. “I don’t… I’m sorry. I’m not used to not having answers. I want to help, but I don’t know how.”
“That’s okay. I get the feeling that admitting that is hard for someone like you.”
“Created specifically to be in control? Programmed to have all the answers?” Her laugh is brittle but genuine. “You could say that.”
I sigh. “Okay. There’s one more thing I can try.” I’ve been avoiding this because of how it screws with my head, but if I must… “Be ready to move.”
Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 3
