by CH Gideon
What have I gotten myself into?
Back at the ship—which she refused to think of as Reynolds—they’d passed the android and Reynolds’ bot form off to Doctor Reynolds—which wasn’t strange at all—and he groaned when he saw the state the android was in.
“Damn it, Reynolds, I’m an AI, not a miracle worker,” the doctor cursed.
“Do your best, Doc,” Reynolds answered from the bot. “We have a mission to accomplish, and I need my best…” He sat up on the med-bed and glanced at the android. “Well, maybe not my best. We can start with eighth string, I guess.”
“This was your idea,” Jiya reminded him.
“Actually, it was Comm’s idea, that bastard.”
“I know that Comm is you, too.”
“Now you’re splitting hairs,” he replied, wagging a finger at her. “Just go and get ready to meet your contacts. I’ll be along shortly.”
“That’s what you think,” Doc muttered. Reynolds ignored him and waved Jiya off.
Jiya didn’t hesitate to leave. She strolled out of sickbay, trying to remember her way back to the lounge without getting lost.
The earlier mention of coffee had her fiending, and she needed a fix.
Chapter Seven
“I look like a fucking toaster,” Reynolds complained, staring at his new android body in the reflective surface of the viewscreen. He ran a hand through his synthetic black hair and grunted at the dark pools staring back at him. “How do you run around looking like this all the time?” he asked Jiya.
She snorted. “It’s easy when you’re as hot as I am.”
Reynolds turned from the viewscreen with a dismissive grunt. “Let’s just get this over with. I feel like a clown without a birthday party to crash.”
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, Captain, but you look weird. Very clownish,” Tactical offered.
The new Reynolds sighed, waving Jiya toward the bridge door. “Helm, you have the helm.”
“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious,” Helm mumbled from his console.
“Belay that belligerence, Mister Christian. You shall be drawn and quartered!” Reynolds replied.
Jiya fled the bridge and made her way to the hangar bay, where her cab was parked inside a small shuttlecraft. Reynolds followed her. As they clambered into the shuttle and strapped in for the quick flight back to the planet, she got a good look at him.
While he was obviously an android, the doctor had spruced the frame up a bit, making it slightly less apparent that he was one of the Jonny taxi drivers. A few touch-ups here and there had cleaned him up. From a reasonable distance, most people wouldn’t give him a second glance, thinking he was a Larian.
Up close was a different matter.
“They did a good job on you,” she told him. “There are almost no char marks visible.”
Reynolds glanced in the side mirror. “You damn near scorched his eyes out. I look like I’m wearing mascara.”
“It looks good on you.” Jiya grinned, fighting back a chuckle. “Very robosexual. You go, Bot!”
He shooed her away. “Helm, get us dirtside, please.”
“Sir, yessir,” Helm replied, and the shuttle engines came online.
Jiya drew in a deep breath and held it as the shuttle shot out of the hangar bay and launched itself into orbit, circling the planet with growing velocity. She was pressed hard into her seat, the safety harness biting into her skin at every contact point.
The atmosphere rattled the craft as they descended and Jiya spewed lungfuls of recycled shuttle air, desperately trying to suck in a replacement breath. Her stomach was a hard knot, and she could taste the bitter sting of bile hitting the back of her throat.
“Uh, Helm?” Reynolds called over the comm. “Think you might want to chill with the theatrics. We’ve got someone on board who’s less tolerant of the gyrations than are we.”
“Oh, shit,” Helm responded and the shuttle leveled off, angling to slice across the atmosphere rather than burrow through it.
Jiya gasped, finally able to grab a decent breath.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Helm apologized over the comm. “Been a long time since we’ve had meatbags aboard.”
Jiya bit back her retort. From where she sat, “meatbag” was a pretty accurate description, her insides sloshing all over the place. She felt as if her guts had been pureed. She didn’t even want to think about where they’d spill out of.
“Just put me on the ground nicely, please, and I promise not to puke all over the shuttle floor. Maybe.”
“Roger that,” Helm answered.
A short while later he did exactly that, the shuttle settling on the tarmac with a gentle thump.
Once her guts stopped roiling, she gathered herself and stumbled to the cab parked in the back of the shuttle. The magnetic clamps holding it hissed and drew back, releasing the cab as the back hatch of the shuttle eased open.
She climbed into the vehicle, Reynolds dropping into the passenger seat. Once they were buckled in, she backed down the ramp and eased out onto the tarmac. Then Jiya put the vehicle in gear and shot across the port, glad to be in charge once more.
Out on the road again, the chaos of the other Reynoldses behind her at last, Jiya eased into her seat and relaxed for the first time in a long time. She knew it wouldn’t last long, given what they were off to do, but out here on the road, traffic whizzing past, she was at peace.
Too bad it was over far too soon.
Takal Durba sat in his living room, fuming as he glared at the vidscreen. President Lemaire loomed large on the public relations dais, shouting out at Takal and pounding his fist on the podium.
“We will not surrender our position to these terrorists! I promise—”
“To screw over everyone I know to make myself look better,” Takal finished, growling at the screen. “Vidscreen off!”
The screen went black at his command and he sank into his seat, grabbing his mug from the coffee table on the way back. He took a sip of the whiskey-infused coffee and sighed.
It was good stuff. Still, it wasn’t as good as having a job he loved and an income.
“Damn you, Lemaire,” Takal growled, taking another large swig of his coffee.
“You say something?” his niece Geroux asked, peeking in from the hallway. As always, she had her reading material, her thumb stuck between the pages of an antique book to hold her place.
A smile broke across Takal’s face at seeing her. “No, dear. I was watching the news.”
“Lemaire?” she asked.
He nodded. “Always Lemaire.”
She sighed and strolled into the room, dropping her butt on the coffee table despite knowing Takal hated it when she did that. He cast a quick glance at the table and bit back a frustrated sigh.
She always did what she wanted, and there was little he could do to change that now, but she was a good kid. He’d spoiled her ever since he’d been awarded custody, so it wasn’t like he really expected to control her. That chance was long gone. She’d been her own person since early on, and that was one of the biggest things he loved about her.
“So, what did the president do now?” she asked
“What didn’t he do?” Takal grunted and sat back in the couch. “He’s got very weird thoughts when it comes to technology and the advancement of it, as you very well know.” He waved toward the vidscreen. “I even created a personal cloaking device for him, something that could have advanced the Larian military’s superiority by a landslide, yet he never let me even test the thing outside of the confines of the lab. It’s still there, stuffed in a cabinet under lock and key. It’s likely coated in dust by now.”
“The man was never a far-thinker, Uncle,” Geroux soothed. “If the project wouldn’t immediately fatten his pockets, he didn’t have a use for it. Besides, military tech was never his thing—you know that. Hell, half the projects you worked on, however brilliant, are probably still stashed away in the lab somewhere, like your cloaking device.�
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“That bastard wouldn’t know what a technologically sound idea was if it built a rocket in his ass and launched him to it,” Takal barked.
Geroux chuckled, setting her book aside. “You’re right about that, but I—”
The door chimed right then, interrupting them.
Takal straightened. “You expecting someone?”
She shook her head, her wild hair flipping about. “Not me.” Geroux hopped off the table, to Takal’s delight, and trotted over to the door.
“Maybe it’s an accidental pizza delivery,” she said with a grin. “I love those.”
She flung the door wide—another habit of hers Takal hated—and gasped.
He jumped to his feet and ran toward her. “What is it? Are you—” His question slipped away when he saw who it was at the door.
“Jiya!” Geroux screamed, diving into her arms.
The two hugged, and Takal’s eyes narrowed with suspicion and uncertainty. He hadn’t seen Jiya since the last time he was at the presidential compound. Which was where Jiya was supposed to be, although he had heard that she’d moved away several years back—sometime after his dismissal. Details had been scarce, of course. There had been a total blackout on the news because Lemaire couldn’t have anyone in his family showing defiance of his authority.
Regardless, her showing up at their door couldn’t be a good thing, not given the current political climate.
“I’m happy to see you,” Jiya told Takal’s niece as they embraced. The young girl’s voice rose to a squeaky giggle as they chattered back and forth.
After a moment, the pair separated, and Takal got a good look at Jiya.
She looked tired. Rundown, nothing like the little girl he remembered gallivanting around the presidential compound in her younger years. She and Geroux used to play there all the time when they were kids, screaming and shrieking through the yard and his workshop while Takal served as the president’s head of technological affairs.
Things had changed a lot since then.
Jiya met his eyes and offered a soft but tentative smile. “Hi, Takal. I was wondering how you were.”
It was a loaded question, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. It always upset him and guaranteed he’d drink more than a reasonable amount of his daily whiskey allotment. Speaking of which, he picked up his mug and downed what remained before answering.
“I’m doing well, Jiya,” he prevaricated, not wanting to go down that particular rabbit hole.
Jiya muffled a laugh and came over, giving him a hug, her arms unable to wrap all the way around his ever-expanding waistline. “You don’t need to lie to me, Takal.”
He sighed, realizing he was actually glad to see her, and returned her hug. “I hope you know the same applies to you, young lady.”
She broke away and met his gaze for a moment before nodding. “I understand,” she answered. “And since we’re being totally honest…” she split her focus between the two, “I’ve come here for a reason besides a social call, although I should have come for just that long ago.”
Takal nodded, having already realized that. Geroux put on her questioning face, which consisted of a scrunched nose, narrowed eyes, and a peeled-back upper lip.
“What do you mean, Jiya?” Geroux asked, worry in her voice. “What’s going on? Is everything okay? Are you hurt?”
“Oh, nothing bad,” Jiya replied, doing her best to ease their concerns and ward off the barrage of questions. “In fact, it’s kind of fantastic, really.”
“Of course, it is,” called a voice from the door.
Takal and Geroux spun, staring at the strange being looming in their doorway.
“I thought I told you to wait outside until I called you in,” Jiya growled at the newcomer.
“But it’s boring out there,” he stated emotionlessly. “Do you know how many threads there are in the ragged carpet that runs the length of the hallway? Let me tell you. Two million, four hundred-eighty thousand, five—”
“We really don’t need to know that, Reynolds,” Jiya told him, waving him all the way inside. “Just come in and shut the damn door, would ya?”
“Yessir!” he snapped, slamming the door shut and stomping over to stand alongside her.
“Is that…one of the Jonny taxi androids?” Geroux asked, staring at Reynolds.
“Yes,” Jiya answered.
“No,” Reynolds contradicted. “I just have one of those familiar faces. I get that all the time. ‘Hey, you’re one of those Jonny guys!’ ‘No, I’m not,’ I have to tell them each time it comes up. Sheesh. It gets tiring, I have to say.”
Jiya nodded, sweeping aside his drawn-out deflection.
Reynolds loosed a disappointed sigh.
“Anyway…” Jiya started, making sure Reynolds was done defending his androidness before she went on, “Reynolds here is an AI.”
Takal harrumphed and leaned in to take a closer look at Reynolds.
“He looks like a Jonny taxi android to me, too,” he said. “I’d hardly call that an AI. The last Jonny taxi I rode in couldn’t even get the card reader to work. A monkey could make the thing work.”
“I’m not a Jonny driver. I stole an android body to look more like one of you and move around town less obviously. For this conversation to move forward, you’ll need to accept that premise.”
“Just noting that my Jonny taxi experiences haven’t exactly been…reassuring.”
Reynolds didn’t bother to argue. He’d made his point.
“Fair enough,” Takal finally agreed, retreating from the argument.
“Good, then can we get on with why we’re here?” the android asked.
“Yes, please,” Takal said. “Do tell us why you are here.”
“Well,” both Reynolds and Jiya said at the same time. “No, you go ahead,” they told each other in unison. Both grunted.
Jiya raised a finger, warning Reynolds off so they didn’t keep parroting each other. “We’re here to offer you a job. Both of you.”
“A job?” Takal asked for clarification. “What kind of job are we looking at? I can’t be crawling around under chassis like some grease monkey these days.” Takal stuck his broad belly out and patted it. “I’m not exactly in fighting shape anymore, not since…”
He paused, realizing he was about to mention the time he’d spent in Lemaire’s prison, but he held back those words and swallowed them. He saw Jiya bite her lower lip, drawing it into her mouth. She clearly knew what he’d meant to say. The last thing he wanted to do was dredge up bad memories for her or himself.
“But yeah, I’m not exactly in the market for a job these days.”
“Don’t be so difficult, Uncle,” Geroux cut in. “We don’t even know the details. Let’s get more information, and then we can decide if it’s right for us or not.”
Jiya shook her head, clearly not believing a word. “We’re looking to offer you both jobs.” She patted Reynolds on his metallic shoulder. “Despite his many…many failings, this is an opportunity for all of us to get out from under my father’s thumb for good. To get away from his politics, which are tearing this planet apart.” She gestured to the vidscreen. “I know you’ve been watching the news, Takal. You always do. You’ve seen what’s going on.”
Takal stiffened, but Geroux only grinned. “Yeah?” she asked. There was no hiding her excitement at the prospect of a new adventure.
“Yeah,” Jiya answered, meeting her friend’s wide smile. “Reynolds here is actually a superdreadnought, believe it or not. Ix-nay on the Onny-jay axi-tay.”
“I understood that,” Reynolds grumbled.
“So, his Queen sent him on a mission, and he needs a crew to do all the things he can’t do on his own.” She grinned broader and winked at Geroux. “The pay and benefits are generous, too.”
“Who said anything about benefits?” Reynolds questioned.
Jiya cast a dirty look his direction. “He can be a bit of a smartass, though, since he’s getting used to deali
ng with people. It will be a lot to get used to, trust me. I’m not even remotely there myself. But beyond his quirks and the split personalities, this job is an opportunity to start over. A way to take back a lot of what my father has stolen from you, starting first with your freedom.”
“Split personalities?” Geroux asked.
“Out of all that, you pick out the personality bit?” Reynolds asked. “That gives me insight into your mind. Jiya said you were a scientist. I shall enjoy working with you.”
Geroux shrugged. “It was the most glaring piece of information.”
“I’ll explain all that later,” Jiya assured her.
Takal stood quietly for a moment, contemplating the offer and wondering just what he’d be getting him and Geroux into if he agreed to it.
Everything he knew was on Lariest, but did any of that matter anymore?
Lemaire had taken his workshop away—the place Geroux and Jiya had played so often. Had robbed him of his tools and equipment and finances, and had effectively banned him from any position that allowed him to work on the tech he so loved. But if this AI superdreadnought could give him even a portion of that back, he would be more than willing to put up with the thing’s quirks.
In fact, he’d be ecstatic.
Anything was better than growing old in his house, withering from boredom.
Still, he had questions. He didn’t want to trade one tyrant for another. He could hide from Lemaire in his house, but out in space, there was nowhere to run if things went bad.
“What kind of work would I be doing for you?”
“Tech work, Takal,” Jiya answered for Reynolds. “Same as you did for my father, only without the restraints or expectations based on political ramifications. You could go back to experimenting, inventing things to help people live better lives.”
“Well…to be honest, we have a militaristic side,” Reynolds corrected, butting in. “Sure, we’ll let you experiment and build things—inventions that have a positive impact on society at large—but I’m not going to lie. A lot of your efforts will go toward ridding the universe of Kurtherians. That is my singular focus, all foibles aside. I need a crew to help me hunt down and destroy them.”
