by V. K. Ludwig
She stared at me but eventually pointed at the floor right beside Katie. “Oav’r thear?”
“Ask her if she needs me, or if she’s going to be okay for now?” I asked. “I need to talk to Adora. Get a few things lined up and organized.”
Grace shook her head, and the droid answered my question. “She said she will be okay.”
A dip of my head and I positioned the mattress right beside Katie’s bed. Then I left the apartment, the click of the door loud when it fell into its lock, resonating the hallway long enough to take on the sound of my skull cracking. What was I supposed to do with this situation?
I made my way downstairs, that map of the many hallways this place had coming back to me all on its own. Jal’zar females pulled patrons behind them, some Vetusians and some Kokkonians, all equally drunk.
Music blared from the main hall, the bite of alcohol camouflaging the lingering smell of interspecies copulation. I sat down at the center of the bar, the stool screaming its age underneath me.
“So…” Adora stood behind the counter, all four sets of arms crossed in front of her torso.
I took a deep breath, the words sticky on my tongue. “Nobody can explain how it happened, but she’s got two Vetusians matching her. Used to, anyway.”
“And she killed the other one?”
“She killed the other one. He, um, raped her or tried to rape her. I haven’t checked yet.”
Her lower set of arms grabbed a glass and a rag, polishing it while one hand wiped away a tear someone like Adora couldn’t afford. Not in this line of work, and not around her workers.
“Nobody ever told her she’s got two matches,” I said with a shrug. “She still doesn’t know, and, Adora, it has to stay that way. At least for now.”
“Are you telling me that girl has no idea that you are her fated mate?”
“Am I?” That question came out with a laugh, though nothing about this was funny. “I don’t know what I am anymore. This is all confusing as shit. I need to concentrate on the mess at hand, not put my efforts into an unreliable link.”
She lifted a brow, those additional wrinkles she had grown since I last saw her underlining her dismay. “Are you concerned she might kill you next if she found out?”
“Very funny.” I put my arm onto the counter, leaning my head against my palm. “It might have crossed my mind. Seriously, though. A Vetusian male assaulted her. Probably raped her. The last thing she needs is another lusting after her.”
I didn’t let the way her wrinkles grew deeper get to me. This defective Gaia link of ours broke my heart once. No way I’d let that happen again. Especially not on Odheim, a planet that ate broken-hearted ex junkies for breakfast.
It would be better like this, really.
No matter how many times I showered or how white my uniform was, underneath it all, I was packed with filth and dirt. One bad decision had chased the next in the past. This wouldn’t be one of them.
I was resolved. The last thing Katie needed was my advances. The last thing I needed was another blow to my heart, so fate could have another good laugh at my expense.
“I should probably find some nanites and —”
“How about you buy me a drink?” K’terra asked.
The Jal’zar female leaned against the counter, her smile showing intact fangs, her tail flicking by her side. “The Melek I remember never turned down some fun.”
That last word had a dangerous ring to it.
“The Melek you remember was high half the time.” I held my palm out to Adora so she could scan my DNA for the credits. “I’ll gladly buy you a drink, but I’m afraid I won’t join in.”
She licked her gray lips, her balance shifting toward me. “So you’re boring now?”
“You call it boring. Rehab calls it being responsible and mature.”
“It’s just a drink.”
“A drink leads to another in this place. The fifth leads to a line. And a line leads to me pissing my pants because I can’t manage to unbutton them anymore. No, thanks.”
Her breath whispered around my ear. “I wouldn’t mind doing it for you.”
I shifted away from her with a shake of my head. “Is business really this bad?”
“It’s Jal’zar mating season,” Adora said with a tap against my palm. “They froze your credits.”
My spine rounded a bit more at the news, making me shrink into the barstool. “Shit. Already?”
We had just arrived and were already broke? Even if I found a deal on nanites at the black market to help Katie’s knee, I had no means to pay for it. I had no means to pay for anything.
“So…” I said, tapping a quick beat against the bar. “Work. I heard you’re short a janitor?”
A smile shifted across Adora’s lips. “I’ve also been short a healer for several solar cycles now.”
“That’s probably a good thing because I can’t tell a nut from a bolt. How much does unlicensed healer work pay these days?”
“Room. Meals. Ten credits a day.”
“Ten?” I groaned. “I made twenty-five last time you hired me, and back then I leaned passed out in a corner most of the time.”
She shrugged, once more tending to polish tumblers and glasses. “Times are difficult, Melek. I’ll pay you thirty credits a day if you agree to see workers from other houses. Plus emergencies during mating season.”
“The Jal’zar females would pay for you to seed them,” K’terra chimed in with a fat grin.
“Yeah… I don’t think so. I’m not seeding anyone.” Anymore.
“Ten plus room and meals,” Adora said. “Or thirty plus room and meals, but you help me tap this additional income stream. Take it or leave it.”
“As if I have a choice,” I scoffed. “Alright. Room, meals, thirty a day, and you’ll give me an advance so I can get medical nanites for Katie.”
Adora gave me a satisfied nod, but a pained smile cracked through her business facade. “I will make sure the girls let them borrow some of their clothes.”
“Hey, you don’t happen to have a language chip implant gun, right? Or know where I could get one?”
“Of course I do. Go get it for him,” Adora said and waved K’terra away before she jutted at the back hallway. “I used it to chip the Jal’zar when they first came in after the war.”
Just once, luck seemed to be on my side. Or so I thought, until K’terra placed a gun in front of me with a crooked trigger, the rust covering the injector eating a hole into my stomach. Healer Corp approved looked different.
The box she placed beside it clanked. Inside, a bunch of translucent chips tossed around as I swirled my finger through it.
“You got English somewhere in here?”
Laughter rippled from their throats, followed by Adora’s voice, “Why by the Burnt Soils of Heliar would we have chips with Earth languages? They are all Cosmic/Vetusian chips so the workers could communicate with patrons.”
“Shit.” I turned against the counter and let my face fall into my palms, my words coming muffled from between fingers. “Katie and Grace will be thrilled if I suddenly show up and chop their hair, then hold a gun to their heads. Doesn’t make me look like a psycho at all.”
Adora picked up my face and stroked a hand over my cheek, showing me a glimpse of that big heart she had hiding behind a shell of scales. “It’s good to have you back at Brot Adnak, Melek.”
Brot Adnak.
The name sent a shiver down my spine. Who was I again to think I could somehow save them? A fucking sgu’dal, broke, no-good, dragging Katie and her teenage daughter to a brothel. Yeah, a real hero.
Five
Melek
* * *
The next morning, I let my eyes trail over the mirror, edges fogged, that guy staring back at me nothing but pitiful. Even after washing the stench of vomit, sweat, and commiseration off me, I was nothing but a shadow that trailed behind mishaps.
A bald patch sat above my temple where I had removed my hair, that
piece of language chip standing from my skull not doing my looks any favors. Neither did that infection brewing along the edges of the torn skin, red, inflamed, with yellowish traces of bad news.
I grabbed the medical pliers from the sink I’d found in my old healer pack Adora had given me, bile already bubbling at the pit of my stomach.
Metal clanked against metal.
I grabbed the chip.
I yanked it.
Thick with puss, a new wave of blood ran down my cheek. The pain was bearable, but the pop… pop… pop… of nerve connectors detaching turned my stomach into a knot.
I tossed the chip into the stone sink and flushed it down, my legs first tingling then disappearing underneath me. Trembling arms grabbed rough stone, veins popped, keeping me from collapsing to the ground.
Two breaths later, I splashed some water into my face, and I rinsed out the wound atop my head along with all traces of blood. I grabbed into the healer pack on the shelf beside me, fiddled the cap off a canister, and sprayed my wound generously.
My old set of uniforms, which Adora had kept, sat a bit snug around the chest and biceps. After suns of abuse and rehab, I had packed on weight and muscle, my body healthy now, trained and defined.
A final glance into the mirror, and I nodded my approval. One patient down. Two more to go.
Grace sat on the couch with the Odheim Nightlife magazine on her lap, flipping through the same set of pages for what must have been the twentieth time. Her gaze wandered to my wound, her face scrunching up.
“Is she ready?” I asked.
Zera nodded, fluttering her eyes at me. “Mmmhmm, yeah, baby. I’ve explained the entire procedure to her as found on the cosmikin instruction manual.”
A glance across my shoulder revealed Katie still sedated in her room. I had cleaned her up after I’d returned with the nanites, scrubbing the tiniest specks of blood from underneath her chin.
I didn’t stare at her breasts when I removed her fear-soaked dress, replacing it with one Adora had provided. Didn’t let my gaze trail over her pubic bone when I changed her into new panties. And I didn’t allow my thoughts to wander while I examined her for cuts, tearing, seed, or any signs of rape. There hadn’t been any. Neither had there been significant relief over it. Where did sexual assault end, and rape begin anyway?
“Grace,” I said and pulled the worn armchair next to the couch. “I’ll have to cut some of your hair first, okay?”
She stiffened as Zera translated but gave a brittle nod, shifting her weight, so I had better access to the side of her head. “Is’et goan da hurt?”
“She’s asking if there will be pain.”
“It’ll burn,” I said. “She might feel dizzy for a bit. Headaches are common for the first few days. As is nausea. Some make the brain connections faster; some take a few moments until they can switch between languages. Depends on the individual.”
I grabbed the implant gun, injector cleaned and trigger patched up, and loaded one of the dual-language chips into it. Then I took the laser and leaned over to Grace, carefully cutting her hair as close to her scalp as possible. Blonde strands glided to the ground and draped over my white boots.
“Zera, you can return to your mistress,” I said. “We won’t need you anymore after this.”
The droid walked out, my palms turning sweatier at each of her steps. I’d never chipped anybody aside from that one time in training some nine sun cycles ago.
Grace flinched the moment the injector touched down, breath bursting in and out of her flared nostrils. Her hands clenched into fists, but she otherwise remained stoic, still.
The indicator turned green.
Without another moment wasted, I pulled the trigger.
Tsk. Pop, pop, pop.
She howled, throwing her hands onto her head before her face dived into the silver cushion of the couch. There she stayed, screaming, tossing, piercing my heart.
“Can you understand me?” I asked in Cosmic, the language predominantly spoken on Odheim, taught across galaxies. “Grace?”
“What er ye doen toa mey daug’ dr? Goa’er way!”
The moment I turned toward the voice that shouldn’t have been there, a hard object slammed me straight into the face. My cheeks burned, and my eye throbbed.
Katie kept swinging a book at me until the balance pulled out from underneath me. The room turned upside down. Something poked against my shoulder blade. Next thing I knew, I landed on the ground, ramming full force into the low table next to the couch.
“Fucking shit!” I shouted, raising my arm to counter the onslaught of hardbound pages. “Grace! Tell her to stop! Grace!”
The teenager pushed her face from the pillow, glancing around in disorientation until, at last, her lips finally parted. “Mom! Stop!”
“In your language!” I grabbed for the implant gun and kicked myself back across the floor. “That was Cosmic. Come on, Grace. English.”
“I can’t!”
Shaky fingers fumbled the other language chip into the implant gun, while I dodged whatever Katie threw at me. The book. The table. The cushions. Everything came raining down on me while she screamed in rage, limping on a knee that should have caved in underneath her. Should have.
Grace pressed her hands onto her ears, her face a full-blown red now. “Mom, he’s helping us!”
“Fucken perv’rt!” Katie screamed, her eyes blazing rage. “Ei killt woan of yer, ei’ll kill ye tou!”
My chest heaved at the sight of her. She was everything I’d imagined a mother to be and then some, but it all crumbled when I jumped up.
With my legs once more sturdy underneath me, towering her by a few heads with a gun in my hand, she gulped. Katie stumbled back with a hiss. She screamed and shouted at me, but that tremble in her lips betrayed her fear. I didn’t want her to fear me, but for now, it suited.
One jump toward her, and I swung her around by her shoulder. She screamed in pain, and I pulled her against me before her knee would finally give in. How she could stand on that thing was beyond me. Her blood must have been pure adrenaline.
I swung my boot underneath her legs, robbing her of her balance so I could lower her to the ground. Then I swung myself on top of her, disabling her arms by pinning them close to her body with my legs.
Her knees kicked against my spine, and her face scrunched up in excruciating pain whenever the injured one bumped against my spine. But it was her face the moment I pressed the implant gun against her head that froze my veins.
“Noa noa doan kill mei, please,” she whimpered. “Grace!”
I pressed my hand onto her face and turned her head slightly, ignoring the way her choked breaths came from underneath my palm. She didn’t need to see what she must have thought were her final seconds.
Implant gun adjusted.
Indicator green.
Tsk. Pop, pop, pop.
“Augh!”
I immediately let go of her face but remained astride her chest, keeping most of my weight off her. “Do you understand me now?”
She kicked her legs and pressed her hands onto her face until white showed along the outline, and yet she squeezed a ‘you fucking bastard’ through the gaps.
At least we made progress.
Until she spat straight in my face.
I picked up my shirt and wiped it off, probably looking just as nasty again as before the shower. “Grace, I could really use you here right now.”
Grace slipped off the couch and crawled over to us, her hands hovering uncertainly over her mother’s sternum.
“Moam, please c’lm doan and listen toa mei. He’s help’n us,” she said in a tangle of languages.
Not that it mattered as long as it brought the message across.
And it must have because Katie stopped tossing underneath me. Her chest heaved against my crotch, and she stared up at me from wide, frightened eyes.
“I’m letting you go now,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Do yourself a favor and don’t mes
s your knee up more than it already is, because I’m not a surgeon. And don’t touch that language chip I just implanted.”
She neither nodded nor said a word, but I took my chances and slowly lifted off her. I swung my hands up and backed away, placing the injector gun into my healer pack.
The two females clung to each other, shoving their faces together as they mumbled and whispered. Katie threw me suspicious glances, her voice picking up steam every now and then before she hushed it back down.
If Kidan hadn’t traumatized her already, I certainly had. Sweat lined her forehead from our struggle, and uncontrolled whimpering sneaked onto her tone between sentences.
“Who are you?” she eventually asked.
Wow, did I have answers to that.
But since she didn’t trust me and I didn’t trust that link of ours, I kept it simple. “Melek.”
“You helped us escape?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she said with a snort. “From the goodness of your Vetusian heart?”
I kept her gaze the way she kept mine, that distrust between us mutual. “Something like that.”
They exchanged more mumbles, words like trust and dangerous humming from their tangle of limbs.
I turned the armchair toward them and sat back down, that burning sensation along my temple telling me she must have gotten a hit at my wound.
“I’m sure they told you during your intake that our laws are rigid when it comes to murder.” My voice had them jolt. “I found you assaulted in your holding facility. Afraid that they would put you on trial and subsequently execute you, I smuggled you off Seneca.”
She cut me a glare, her words pushing through gritted teeth. “He tried to rape me.”
“In which room? Because I found his corpse —”
Her hand first swatted at me then pressed onto Grace’s ear.
“Alright. Let’s just keep it simple for now,” I said. “Did Grace tell you where we are?”
She glanced around the room and nodded, then asked, “Is this like… a hospital or something?”
I threw myself back into the chair, the weight of this entire ordeal just now collapsing on me. “Ehh… kind of. All you need to know for now is that you are safe with me.”
