She lay back down on the bed. Her eyes closed and she sank into cold, empty sadness: What had the first explanation been? He had managed to flip the boat over, but he took in too much water. He did everything he could to save you and your brother. She heard her brother again—he hadn’t stopped speaking to her since she’d woken: Stop! You’re pulling us down. The doctors weren’t telling her something. Something about whose fault it was; they wouldn’t admit she was responsible for their comas.
The day of departure came. Rain pattered against the glass of the hospital windows. Thunder tore the sky. A nurse’s cold hand led her to the two incubators: Her family. She looked at her father. He appeared the same as he always did, as if ready to spring from a nap and head into work. Her brother looked different; somehow, he had sadness in him. His arm bore the scar of his injury, the body healing long after his mind had departed.
The nurse quietly left the room.
Goodbye.
She stepped closer. It had felt nothing like she thought goodbye was supposed to; it was surreal and blank. Suddenly, the veil of denial was lifted with overwhelming force and three words crawled from her gut:
I love you.
You didn’t say you loved me back, Teddy. You didn’t tell me on the dock, dad.
It was my fault. I should have told you then. I shouldn’t have went out. I’m sorry.
“Please don’t leave! I love you! I don’t want you to—I’m sorry.”
Tears welled up, erupted, rolled in lines down her cheeks, soothing her cracking lips. Salty, painful sobs throbbed through her tiny body. A flash briefly lit the room—lightning ripping the sky. I’m sorry. She ran to them, their covers lifted, hugged them one at a time. She nested herself into her father, closed her eyes. I promise you, I’ll save you. I don’t care if it takes the rest of my life. I’ll save you both. I won’t let you die. I know you’re still here.
Eternal seconds passed. Sleep intervened with her sobbing, and a dream of the future took hold of her: She rode upon starlight, tracing the skies on a quest to save her family—there in front of her were her father and her brother. They smiled, but no words came from their mouths. It was enough, she realized they didn’t need to talk. She ran for them. Together they joined, were bonded, a warm hug of three. Light and shaking wrenched her from her happiness:
“Darling—Sera darling.” The nurse led her out of the room. She wasn’t ready to go—she was too young, her job too big to do alone, too much for a little girl.
“You’re going to a military world. There’s no safer place in the galaxy. Your aunt and uncle will be waiting for you when you arrive. We will keep in touch. If anything happens, you’ll be the first to know,” Doctor Shaw said at the spaceport. Sera looked at him one last time, feeling as though it would be her last chance to ask:
“Doctor Shaw, I want you to tell me. It was my fault, wasn’t it?” she said softly, looking up at the gentle man whom she’d wished would take her in instead of the aunt and uncle she’d never known. His kind face smiled at her:
“No, Sera—not at all. You need to realize that. And you will, in time.” And that was the last she ever saw him.
She boarded the metal-shining transport and left her family behind.
36
“Do either of you two want to wrestle?” Sera asked. She looked anxiously in at Mick and Axa.
“Is she serious?” Axa said to Mick.
“As serious as she can be,” Mick smiled. “Not right now. Maybe later.”
“Okay. You know where to find me. And Mick—” Sera said, glancing in on them again, noticing their proximity to each other.
“What?”
“Don’t get attached.” She abruptly left the room.
“For a pirate, she worries a lot, doesn’t she?”
“How’d you know she was a pirate?” Mick asked. Over the course of half a week, Mick and Axa had gradually accepted their fate as hostages, though more than once Mick had entertained the notion of convincing Axa to team up with him to overtake Sera and retake the Fogstar.
“Sera Carner. It’s hard not to know her if you come from the Bessel system.”
“Did you say Carner?”
“Yea. Does it mean something to you?”
“We stopped off at a trade post, I met an old man there.”
“Her uncle.”
“Uncle?”
“So far as I’ve heard, they’re related.”
“What’s her deal then? If people know about their racket, why hasn’t she been caught yet?”
“She’s good at what she does. Maybe the best in this part of space.”
“Listen, I have to tell you something.” Mick looked into her wide, beautiful eyes; they were huge, placed at perfect, symmetrical distance between her ears and above her slender, immaculately shaped nose. “I think she plans to sell you.”
“Sell me?”
“Yea. XJ told me she’d get twenty thousand UCD for you.”
“She’d risk tainting her plant? You know what—let her. I’ll have better luck escaping from someone else.”
“You’d rather end up sold?”
“I can deal with sex trade. That’s what my model was engineered for. She wanted to let me die out here—and given enough time, she might still kill me. I’d be in better hands with someone who lets me serve my primary purpose.”
God, she really is meant for that—look at her: her hair, her body, her face—how’d I not guess? Mick wondered at her creation, her past, and how she’d ended up running to Utopia, married. What had Carner said about marriage? A useless vestige of ancient civilizations…
“And her—she’s a cellbot too, isn’t she? What’s her model built for?” Mick asked.
“Sera?” Axa asked. “Soldier. That’s why you’re stuck here with me. That’s why you can’t kill her in her sleep, take this ship, and complete your T-jump. She’d snap your neck the moment you stepped foot into her room.”
I’ve been in her room before. She didn’t snap my neck. She didn’t harm me at all. She did the opposite of harm. Reason snapped back: Quit your dreaming, she’s right: Sera’s too strong. She’s been holding back. She could have twisted me in half, but I wasn’t a threat then.
“What’s your plan?” Mick asked her.
“Plan?”
“You and your husband were going to Utopia, right? What was your plan?”
“Our plan died when we found out the price jumped. There’s nothing now. Get away from her, do what I was meant to do. Earn a living.”
“Maybe you can stay, help me out.”
“How?”
“What could you make—in your trade, I mean?”
“No. I won’t give her the money.”
“Look—I’m the one who’s going to be murdering people for their bodies. Maybe she’ll let you go in with her after I leave, if you contribute.”
“She’d never allow it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because once soldiers have picked their target for reproduction, they become extremely territorial. She’s picked you, haven’t you noticed? I’m a threat. She wants me off.”
Picked me? Impossible.
“Trust me—she doesn’t want to reproduce. Those robots, XJ and GR? They’re her brother and father, at least they have their .HUMs in them. All she’s after is fully mounting them and getting into Utopia. That’s it.”
“She might not want to reproduce. But it’s in the military cellbots—it’s part of their cycle. They target once every ten years. Military keeps its numbers high that way. It’s just, she’s a rogue—not too many get away from their service.”
“You did.”
“Okay, give it a shot. Talk to her. It’s your neck, not mine.”
37
Mick walked into the gym. Sera was running. He flagged her down.
“You ready?” she asked. Sweat soaked her hair, arms, legs.
“No—I’m not fighting you. I have to ask something.”
“You want
her, don’t you?” Sera asked.
“No. I want my wife. I want to get back home as soon as possible. But seeing as you’re keeping me hostage here, and you’re a damned robot—”
“Cellbot Mick. And I’m really no different from you—I am you, with improvements where nature fell short.”
“I don’t care. The point is, I know you’re going to sell Axa.”
“You’re close. You’re going to sell her. I can’t risk tainting my plant on human trafficking—I risked enough on the size of that Magnadraw and Hoila transfer. I’m lucky Carner and I have a history, or we wouldn’t be flying right now.”
“I have an idea. Something that will get us the money for your tickets faster.”
“What’s that?” she said, moving close to him. He smelled her exercise.
“Do you know what she’s built for?” Mick asked.
“Ah—clever idea. One thing—it won’t work.” She started to run away.
“Why not?”
“Because where we’re going, there’s no market for that.”
No market for that—no market for sexual desire? Sterile cellbots and droids. Useless.
“She told me you targeted me,” Mick called out.
“What?” she said, stopping midstride. She looked back.
“For reproduction.”
“A nice thought for a different life. I’d take it from you, if I wanted it. But I don’t. There’s only one thing I care about, and it’s a promise I made to my family.”
“I promised my family I’d see them again too. Why do ours count, and hers doesn’t?”
“Why do you care so much about her? It won’t matter where you’re going anyway.”
“You’re right, it won’t, but I spent too long not caring about people. You are people, aren’t you—you cellbots? I thought so, but now I’m not sure.”
“So that’s it? You’ve lost it all, and you’ve changed into a good person?”
“I have.”
“The good murderer.”
Fire lit in Mick’s eyes. Weeks before he would have charged her, knocked her down, strangled her. Not now.
“You seem very angry, Mick. Don’t be. We both believe that the end justifies the means, otherwise we wouldn’t have come so far together already. We do whatever we have to to take care of our own. It’s self-centered, but that’s the way of nature. Technology cannot outstrip self-interest. Reality by its very existence is self-interested.”
“Do you know how they train FRINGE operatives where I’m from, eight hundred years ago?”
“No—enlighten me.”
“They rip apart your brain and rewire it. You have to be able to fly for a month straight, awake and alert, and after the brain fry, you can. But it comes with a price, you become a shell of a person. Nothing but anger.”
“Oh, is that why you murdered that man? Is that why you’re so angry? Should I feel sorry for you now?”
“I don’t think you feel a god damned thing,” Mick roared.
Sera sprinted to him, dug her ankle behind his leg, and threw him to the mat. She lay on top of him, exerting terrible force to keep him down.
“Is this what she said I wanted?” Sera said, her arms sliding around his neck, craning it toward him. She kissed him. “She said I targeted you?”
“Let her stay, Sera.” Mick looked up, stopped fighting. She pressed her body into him, denying his limp pacifism.
“You’ll do whatever I say until we have the money. No more crossing me, hitting me in the head when I’m not looking, trying to kill me in my sleep and steal the ship.”
“Could I if I tried?” Mick said, half-smiling. Sera ground her pelvis into him, pleasurable at first, but continued until it became raw pain.
“Whatever I want, you obey me. Once we have the money, you can leave.”
“If I agree, she stays?” Mick said.
“Shut up,” Sera said, kissing him again. Mick grew wet. Their bodies writhed on the floor as a slender, perfect figure watched them from the doorway. Mick struggled, then succumbed.
She wants her to see this.
The strange lives that exist at the edge of time. The strange desperation that compels us to continue when there is no hope. What happiness awaits me at the end of this—what happiness is there here, is there now?
38
Sera changed course and steered the Fogstar toward the Glisreel system.
“You’ll take as many as you can. Understood?” Sera said at dinner.
“Yes,” Axa replied. She looked to Mick, trying hard to repress a smile.
“Don’t get too excited. Happy endings rarely happen for one, let alone three people,” Sera said, coldly watching them look at each other.
“What about the expancapacitor rigs?” Mick asked.
“Mick, don’t you know that Glisreel 5 is one of the wealthiest sectors in all of M82?” XJ chimed in. “It’s practically an entire world of expancapacitors.”
“So does that mean less stops?” he asked.
“It means if you don’t fuck this up, it’s our only stop. Then back to Carner’s, then to your T-jump, and then to Utopia.”
“How many do I have to kill?”
“Rates are down—an influx—I don’t know why. We’ll need six, and we’ll need you to pull your weight,” Sera said, her last words directed to Axa.
Society and empathy have evolved for thousands of years. Could I have guessed that corruption would continue to evolve alongside them?
“GR and I had a wonderful idea about how to gain additional funds. Would you like to hear about it, Sera?” XJ said over his stew.
She eyed her father suspiciously.
“Here it is: XJ will be hosting a chess tournament on Glisreel. The winner will earn everyone’s entrance fee,” GR proclaimed gleefully.
“And you think you can win it all?” Mick asked XJ.
“Mick, I’ve been playing chess for eight hundred years. I think I can win a planet-wide tournament.” XJ seemed offended.
“Sounds like everything’s working out,” he said, returning to his food.
Sera smiled, looking at her crew:
“Sounds like it and looks like it are far from the same thing.”
39
Alien eyes studied Mick through a smoky barroom haze. He glanced back anxiously at his rude observers.
I am out of place here. A god damned magnet. C’mon Axa. What’s taking you so long?
One long-jawed man chuckled, watching Mick fidget, and then started to whisper in the ear of another misshapen head. Mick peered down the thin corridor that led to the bathroom stalls.
Where the hell is she? Seven o’clock sharp my ass. Too much heat in here, too hot with wandering eyes.
The bar counter, rimmed with beveled diamond, elicited the wealth of Glisreel. Even for a dive, the place was gorgeous, but it was too thick with smoke—unbearably thick—and Mick had trouble appreciating its finer points. A foul stench accompanied the fog, the body odor and murderous intentions of its patrons.
A figure walked over to Mick, pushing smoke into tiny gyres. The voice came from his backside, startling him:
“Hey,” said a dry, cracking voice. “My friends and I are wondering—and we don’t mean to be too forward—who the hell are you?”
If the creature was a cellbot, he was deformed: a portion of his long jaw, revealed in gaseous light, protruded with welts and crusted knobs. At one point, the jaw itself disappeared, leaving a hideous mound of exposed gums. His eyes glistened with malcontent. He licked his dry lips, analyzing the expression on Mick’s face, counting the time it took him to reply.
The wealthiest system—some come to enjoy their wealth here, and some to squander it. There is something familiar in this. This one sees a dollar sign on me.
Mick looked away, avoiding prolonged exposure to the traumatizing sight.
“Just waiting for a friend.”
“Never seen you in Glisreel City before. Where are you from?”
�
��It’s a big city,” Mick said, still looking away.
“You have a hard time giving direct answers. You don’t want to go that way with me, understand?” pressed Longjaw. Mick felt warm breath curl against his neck.
“I’m visiting—from off world.”
“Off world you say? That was our guess. You don’t seem like a trickler to me.”
“Sorry, am I bothering you? I can wait outside.”
“No, no. You stay right there. I’ll let you be. Last question—what ship did you come in on? There’s a couple new bounties out tonight. I want to make sure you aren’t one of them.”
Mick paused long enough to suggest guilt.
C’mon, quick—you’re a good liar—feed him something.
“Ship? A heavy transport.”
“What’s her name, friend?” came the parched voice.
Mick turned to look again at the monster. Over Longjaw’s shoulder, through clouds of grey, he saw two voyeurs, two sets of eyes watching vigilantly his every move.
“You know—I’m trying to remember her name. I hop around a bit. Fringe world mining, you know? Go where the ore’s good.”
Mick fondled his pistol under his shirt.
Walk away gum face. It’s not a good day to fuck with me.
“There hasn’t been a mine in this system for a hundred years.”
Black Hull Page 11
