The Toll Road Between the Stars (Perseus Gate Book 5)
Page 8
Placing Ron in a position of authority was one Jessica and the team had debated for some time. In the end, they all had to admit they were still in a system filled with an overabundance of less-savory types. Extortion had been the name of the game here for centuries, and Ron knew many of the players, and what skeletons were in their closets.
Like Brooke. It turned out she had extorted so much money during her ‘inspections’ that she was one of the wealthiest people in the system. She had also tried to charter a ship to get off The Reach the day Derrick was arrested.
Ron had gleefully picked her up and put her in the slammer. It seemed that the two had never been fans of one another.
The hardest thing—at least thus far—had been finding a judge to form the backbone of a fair court system. The Reach had never been a place that engendered trust, and there weren’t many people considered to be fair and impartial.
It was Cheeky who brought the solution—the bartender named Bill. It turned out Bill had always given everyone an ear, and never told any tales. He had informally arbitrated dozens of disputes on the station over the years, and people often came to him for advice.
He had been nervous about the idea, but he was now the system’s one and only Judge. Hopefully, as they established reasonable laws, he would be able to help keep things on an even footing.
Iris asked.
Jessica replied.
Jessica laughed.
Jessica looked around the large, oak paneled offices, and through the windows at the simulation of Lake Athabasca, and its low waves lapping at edge of the sand dune desert on its southern shores.
Iris nodded in agreement within Jessica’s mind.
She summoned the list of candidates she’d been going over. The Perry System wasn’t densely populated. A dozen major stations, the largest of which was Ellis Reach with its ten-thousand occupants. All told, the system barely had one hundred-fifty thousand inhabitants.
Jessica bit her lip. She had, but she didn’t think it would work—at least not yet. One of the first things the AIs from Sabrina had insisted on was the liberation and enlightenment of the AIs on The Reach—of which there were seven. Sabrina’s created an expanse, and helped the AIs learn and grow.
The Reach’s AIs had been blown away by how limited they’d been, and how they hadn’t even known. In a matter of days, they had taken up tasks which had helped the people immeasurably, and earned their trust.
Oria was especially good at station management, and had identified and repaired hundreds of failures while working with the maintenance teams to turn The Reach into a top-notch facility.
Jessica had considered offering Oria the job of Perry, but the AI really seemed to revel in managing the systems, and the comings and goings of people insofar as organizing timelines was concerned, but she had no desire to deal with the actual interpersonal conflicts.
Iris snorted.
Jessica laughed aloud.
Jessica wondered what had facilitated the alarm. The Perry Strait wasn’t the busiest place in the galaxy, but there were always a few ships on inbound vectors.
“Shit!” Jessica swore.
JUMP GATE
STELLAR DATE: 05.15.8940 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: The Perina’s offices, Ellis Reach
REGION: Perry System, Stillwater Nebula, Perseus Arm
“Hot damn, you look good purple!” Jessica said when Cheeky walked into her office.
Cheeky spun and gave a short bow. “Discount Retyna Girl at your service.
Jessica rose to look Cheeky over, nodding with satisfaction. Her skin was purple—though a slightly different shade—as was her hair. She wore tall heels to approach Jessica’s height, and the purple skinsuit made her look curvier than she was naturally.
The best part was the glow. Finaeus had nailed it, specifically by not nailing it. Rather than the variations of Jessica’s bioluminescent glow, Cheeky’s was well-nigh neon. It was both very purple, and very much the wrong purple.
“Finaeus did a great job,” Cheeky said with a wink. “Somehow he made me look as much like a sex-bot as you without having to pull out half my ribs.”
“Hey,” Jessica said, patting her abdomen. “I’m only missing two ribs, not half. Those ones are extra, anyway. How are you managing with all that pesky clothing touching you?”
Cheeky laughed. “Finaeus did something to my sense of touch when he made my skin glow. I can barely feel anything,” Cheeky said as she pushed on her cheeks. “It’s really weird.”
“Yes, well, stop touching yourself like that,” Addie said, shaking her head as she came into the room behind Cheeky. Today, however, Autonomous Human Assimilation Personage wasn’t Addie. She was the new Perina.
The AHAP appeared to be a tall, white-haired woman with a severe expression, and piercing eyes. She exuded power and control in her dark suit.
Although Jessica had worked to ensure that no images of herself had leaked out after she’d seized control. She knew that it would be impossible to hide the fact that a Perina was now in control of the system. Hence the AHAP masquerading as the woman in charge.
“How do you like your office?” Jessica asked.
The new Perina walked around the space, examining it with a critical eye. “I suppose it will do. The décor is not quite to my taste, but we�
��re on a short timeline here.” The Perina stopped and ran a finger along a counter. “Needs to be dusted as well.”
“Finaeus, cut it out.” Cheeky laughed.
“Oh! So you opted not to let Addie run with this herself?” Jessica asked with a raised eyebrow.
Finaeus-Perina nodded. “Addie probably could have—stars, she did you for several days back at Serenity. But I’ve been getting bored. Plus, I wanted to try this out, see how it works. It’s very convincing. I actually feel like I’m in this body. I’ve got a nice set of knockers too.”
“Finaeus. Stop that, it’s unseemly,” Cheeky admonished.
Finaeus-Perina snorted. “I adore you Cheeky, but you live in a glass house when it comes to unseemly.”
Jessica laughed, and Cheeky blushed…or, rather, her neon purple glow took on a slight pink hue.
“Sorry that you have to hide so much, Finaeus,” Jessica replied as she leaned against the desk. “If you weren’t so damn famous….”
“Or infamous.” Finaeus-Perry chuckled. “But thank you, I appreciate the sentiment. It’s nice to go for a stroll and not have to worry about people spotting me. There’s only so much I can do in the small lab I’ve carved out on Sabrina. Especially with how much time we spend in the dark layer. There are a lot of experiments that are far too risky to run in there.”
“I really don’t like that you run experiments aboard the ship at all,” Cheeky said with a long-suffering sigh.
“Cheeky, my beautiful blueberry, I’ve survived for over five thousand years running experiments on nearly every sort you can imagine. I’ve never—well, very, very rarely have I blown up the ship I was on.”
“So much confidence has just not been established,” Cheeky replied.
“My dear Oria, I’m always in charge,” Finaeus said as he-she sat at the desk and spread his-her hands on the mahogany surface. “Hail them.”
“Wait!” Jessica called out. “Finaeus, we need guards. You’re not just going to have fake Retyna Girl in here on her own.”
Finaeus frowned. “I suppose not, though I bet I could take her. Especially with Addie’s body. Jessica, go fetch Andy and Karl. They’re in on all this, right?”
“Stars,” Jessica muttered. “Yes. I’ll be in the hall watching over the Link.”
Jessica walked out of the room and beckoned Andy and Karl. “You’re up, guys. Be gentle with Cheeky, she’s not as tough as she likes to think she is.”
“You got it, Perina,” Andy said with a nod. “Kid gloves, that’s us.”
Jessica leaned back against the wall and brought up the room in her mind, watching and praying that Finaeus wouldn’t do anything stupid.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the man, he just had a habit of not taking things seriously enough.
Jessica drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before responding.
Jessica laughed aloud.
Via her monitoring on the Link, Jessica saw that Oria had connected Finaeus and the RHY representative. She set aside her thoughts of how being the Perina had brought her out of her empty-nester’s slump. Maybe she had needed something important to take care of….
In the room next door, Finaeus-Perina said, “Welcome to the Perry System,” as a holographic figure appeared before his desk.
The RHY representative was a man, and bore a striking familial resemblance to Phoebe, the marketing executive they had met in the Naga System.
While Jessica and Iris had discussed gates and the man’s relationship to Phoebe, he had responded.
“Greetings Perina. My name is Rath, vice-president of RHY’s R-Bio Division. We received word that you have found the person who was used as the model for Retyna Girl in the Naga System several years ago.”
“I have, yes,” Finaeus-Perina nodded slowly, eyes narrowed. “I knew that she was of some value to you, but for you to send in five ships…and via jump gate if I don’t miss my guess.”
Rath nodded slowly. “I was wondering if you knew about jump gates out here. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that there were settled systems this deep in Stillwater. It’s very curious.”
“Word tends to get around,” Finaeus-Perina replied. “About jump gates, that is. Even for those of us just trying to scratch out a living out here.”
“So, you said that you have the woman named Jessica, who was injected with our product for her shoot as Retyna Girl. You sent back some very convincing video of her, but now I’d like to see her myself.”
Finaeus-Perina smiled coolly. “I’d like to know what you’re willing to offer in trade for her. From what I saw in the news feeds, you took a very large hit when you lost the Retyna product line.”
Rath snorted. “More than your system pulls in over ten years, I imagine. Now show her to me or we leave now.”
Finaeus-Perina sighed, and waved her hand to indicate Cheeky, who was bracketed by Andy and Karl—who held her arms. Cheeky, for her part, looked exceptionally morose—her hair was disheveled and she slouched in the grip of the guards.
“Show me her face,” Rath said without an ounce of compassion in his voice. Andy reached over and pushed Cheeky’s purple hair aside, then shoved her head back—not too roughly, but enough for Rath to believe she was a prisoner.
“What’s with her skin? Is it degrading? She doesn’t look right at all,” Rath said, turning to someone next to him that wasn’t being projected.
A moment later he pulled another person into view, and Jessica almost laughed to see Phoebe. The woman was alive, which Jessica had hoped wouldn’t be the case after the explosion on Hermes station, but her joy was derived from how mortified Phoebe appeared to be.
“But…we saw vid…she was here! You have to believe me Rath, the person in the vid was her! I don’t know who this girl is, but we have to find Jessica! She has the microbes; I know—”
“I assure you,” Finaeus-Perina interrupted, “this is the same girl. I have Retyna Girl. If you’d just dock and come see her, I’m certain that you’ll realize she’s the genuine article.”
Rath pushed Phoebe back out of view. “That’s it Phoebe. That’s it. Third strike and you’re out. You’ve had me flying oall over the OFA chasing Retyna Girl sightings. And this time we just had to jump into the ass crack of nowhere. You’re finished.”
They could hear Phoebe wail off camera, and Finaeus-Perina spoke up again. “Please, come to the station, see her for yourself. Take sam
ples.”
“Do you take me for a fool,” Rath replied. “So I can become your next hostage? I don’t think so…though I have half a mind to send you Phoebe. Maybe she could do some promotional work for your…whatever it is you do out here. Fuck knows she’s finished at RHY, even if dad does owe your father a favor or two still.” He said the last facing away at where Jessica presumed Phoebe stood.
“I’m open to that, we could use her to—” Finaeus-Perina said, but the connection closed and Rath was gone.
Jessica opened the door and walked back into the office. “I can barely believe that just happened. Did that just happen?”
Cheeky tapped Andy on the arm and winked at him. “You can let me go now.”
Andy coughed and stepped back. “Sorry I was a bit rough there.”
“Rough?” Cheeky laughed before giving Andy a slow wink. “Seriously? That’s not even close to rough.”
“Uhh…I feel very uncomfortable right now,” Andy said and turned to Jessica. “Can we go?”
“Yeah, good work, guys. Take the rest of the day off,” Jessica said and patted them each on the shoulder as they walked past.
Jessica put the view of the five ships on the room’s holoprojector. The ships had all ceased decelerating, and one of them was deploying a series of objects.
“No,” Finaeus-Perina replied, his-her eyes widening. “It’s a jump gate.”
Over the next hour, the RHY ships constructed the jump gate, their vector bringing them closer and closer to Seaway. As they watched, the rest of Sabrina’s crew had joined them in the Perina’s office, watching as the RHY ships constructed a doorway home.
“Shit,” Finaeus muttered. “They’re going to let it fall into the planet when they’re done.”