by Erin Hayes
Even though we’re calling back way too soon, Maas is still seated and waiting for us when Louis pulls him up on the big screen once again.
“Your Grace,” Louis says, as if he expected to have Maas waiting for us, “we’ll take the job.”
Chapter 6
“Excellent,” Maas says a little too cheerily. “I knew you’d come around. You are no fool, Captain.”
Louis doesn’t look very happy about the chairman’s reaction, and I wish he’d wipe the sour expression from his face before Maas changes his mind about hiring us. “Well, money talks, doesn’t it?” is all he says.
“It does indeed,” Maas says without skipping a beat. “I’ll upload the finalized brief to your ship now. I expect the next time I hear from you to be in person within the week. There’s no need to wish you luck, so I will see you then.”
And just like that, the screen goes blank as the Chairman cuts off communication with the Pícara. Louis swears under his breath and simply looks as if he swallowed a rotten space slug. “I don’t like this,” he mutters under his breath. “Don’t like this one bit.”
Meanwhile, I can’t keep the smile from my face. I’m leading this run, something that Louis has never let me do before. I’ve been with him since I was a child, watching him lead the various crew members over the years on different runs. I know that he’s been grooming me to take over the Pícara when he retires.
Maybe this is the first test to see how I’ll do. And his portion out of that payment will go a long ways towards his retirement.
My console beeps as the brief is fed through to our ship. I accept the package and scroll through it as it extracts. Plans for the Nova, a manifest, all known activity in the area—what Syn-Tech gave us is a treasure trove. I haven’t realized how little we’ve had to go on in the past until now. Usually, when a corporation is going after a competitor, they have vague schematics and maybe an idea of where the target is located in the galaxy. As it’s one of their own, they know everything about it.
Really, this is going to be the easiest job ever. And I’ll be able to get my new leg.
“PC, Daisy, and Taka,” Louis says, his voice gruff like he needs to drink some water, “Clem is heading up this run. She’ll be your leader and your point man. What she says goes. Treat her like you’d treat me on missions.”
“So completely ignore her, then?” PC quips, causing another glare from our surrogate father. “Can do, pops.”
“I’ll send everyone the brief,” I say, flicking the folder over to their individual avatars. “Be sure to read it from beginning to end. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean that we need to let our guard down.”
“But it is really easy.” PC is already looking through the files before I can stand. “Basically, a proverbial milk run.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Taka muses softly as he scrolls through his own data on his mini-tab. “But I assume it’s as easy as this looks?” He indicates the schematics of the Nova.
“Don’t get cocky,” Daisy mutters. “Cocky’s when you get killed.”
PC snickers as I get to my feet, swaying softly as the gears and wires in my leg adjust to standing. “Orion, set course for the Nova. Try to get us there in ample time, in case there are any projections that are off about the strength of that blackhole.” The android’s face is pensive as he nods. I hope he doesn’t have remorse about not agreeing with the captain more. Remorse is impossible in an android—they simply agree or disagree with their programming. Then again, Orion’s always been a bit different. Like the Pícara.
Maybe he just doesn’t like receiving orders from me.
“I shall run the diagnostics for the most direct course,” Orion says. “I will alert you once we are ready to enter FTL.”
I nod. That should give me a little bit of time to work out the kinks in my own programming. “Taka, I could use your help,” I say, curling my finger towards him. He looks over at me, curious. “I’m going to need some help putting up some firewalls in my data banks.” I’m a great hacker myself, but if Taka and I combine forces, we can put up something impenetrable by any virus.
The engineer blinks dazedly. “Why the need for more?”
I tilt my head to Louis so he knows this is for him. “I’m trying to avoid being cocky.”
“Why do you think he turned it down in the first place?” PC asks, idly tossing a red ball and catching it. The ball floats to meet his hand, a sign of the Pícara’s weaker gravity. Planetside, it would fall much quicker. I can’t help but be hypnotized by the motion, even as Taka works on his mini-tab, which is plugged into my right arm.
“I think he believes it’s too good to be true,” I tell him blithely.
“Well, it is,” PC admits. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s not true.”
“I’m not sure that’s how that saying works,” Taka says as he quickly types along the screen. After working with him for a little over an hour, I can see how the engineer is even more brilliant than I give him credit for. He approaches code like a virus, trying to find ways to break it. I thought I was good—within five minutes, he had already come up with ways that something malicious could break through. I’ve only had a little trouble in the past, but now that I see how he works, I’m glad that he’s helping me out.
It will make future runs easier on me, too.
“He’s just trying to protect us, PC,” I say empathetically. “His concerns are for the crew.”
PC tosses the ball up and down, deep in thought. “I know that, but…shit, Clem, it’s 300 million Space Yen.”
“I know. And we’re doing it, aren’t we?”
A small grin plays at his lips. “I guess that’s true. Can you imagine?” He sighs. “After we collect, I’m going to take a loooong vacation on Pan Sun Werks.” Pan Sun is another company, known for their advanced gravity systems and Earth-replicating products. Their planet base is a vacation hotspot for all tourists—if they have enough Yen.
“Well, you’ll be laying on a beach soon,” I say. I jolt suddenly and grimace as Taka gives an apologetic chuckle.
“Sorry,” he mutters, though there’s amusement in his voice. “Didn’t think that would do anything to harm you.”
I scratch at my collarbone with my left hand where the metal of my prosthesis meets my flesh. It itches from whatever he did. “It felt…strange.”
“I rearranged some of your inner components,” Taka says, tapping his mini-tab, and I wonder how the hell he did that without actually opening up my arm and poking around in there. “Now there’s a physical barrier between your data banks and the rest of your cyborg parts. If there is something malicious, it won’t get past your elbow.”
I grin. “Nice one, Taka.”
“It does require a new process for accessing it, though,” he says, and he flicks a packet to me. My retina screen scrolls through the various steps that I now have to use to access my right hand’s data banks.
A small price to pay. It really comes down to an extra step for opening up a valve. I’ve already committed the changes to memory, and it will take an extra second of my time. No biggie for peace of mind.
“So you’re running this, eh?” PC says, and I hear a sour note in his voice, causing me to look up at him.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask with a helpless shrug. “I’m first mate, PC. Do you think he was going to do these runs forever?”
His expression falls. “No, I just—”
“We’ll talk about it after this run,” I tell him. “Just…let him get used to the idea that he needs to let go of a little of his control and then we can see about you getting more responsibility. It’ll just take him some time.”
“I know, but…” PC pauses and gives me a hard look. “Why you instead of me? I mean, we found him at the same time, so how did you get ahead?”
“Well, for one, I don’t interrupt him when he’s speaking to a chairman.”
He snorts and shakes his head.
“And I�
��m more responsible than you.”
PC bares his teeth. “Are not!”
“Oh yeah.” I nod. “Remember what happened at that bar when we were all planetside? You still have a dent in your head plate from that big guy.”
“Hey, he was the one who started it!”
I roll my eyes, and I’m so glad that my mechanical eye is advanced enough to follow the movement. “And we had to pick you up from the Feds’ jail cell. That left a great impression on Louis, let me tell you.”
“You’re the one who always gets shot during runs.”
I level him with my gaze. “Yeah, trying to protect you guys.” I pat my leg. “This last one, I stepped out in front of you, because there’s more machine to me than you. And I knew that I could handle it.”
That shuts him up, at least for now. “I suppose you have a point then. Since you always know what’s best,” he says softly before turning on his heel and leaving my room.
I watch him go, frowning after him. There’s always been this rift between us, ever since Louis found us years ago on Dark Horse-1, a cobbled-together spaceport that’s only accessible to Free Agents. And the best way to tell a Free Agent is if they have cyborg parts.
I have little memory of life before Dark Horse-1. I was just one of the vagrant children on the street with old cyborg pieces holding me together. I remember I was missing my left eye at that point, and my child-cyborg parts were much smaller. I only had the name “Clementine,” the only thing I owned. PC found me first and took me under his wing, standing up to the other kids in the slums when they tried picking on the too-small, too-frail girl.
It was that way for a few months. Just life in the dark alleys, digging through dumpsters to see what even the food recyclers deemed as inedible, sleeping under trash. My stomach was biological then, and I remember the constant hunger. PC would always give me some of his scraps and didn’t protest when I cuddled up next to him at night.
We were like brother and sister. And when Captain Louis was thrown out of the brothel across the street—even to this day, I don’t know what he was doing there or why he got thrown out, because he hasn’t been to one since—he saw us, two shivering children.
And for whatever reason, he took us in. The Pícara had a different crew back then, and there has been a constant revolving door of downlooters since then. Some gave up the life and decided to go down a different path. Others…well, they just left.
But Louis, PC, and I were the only constants. Even down to Orion. With all his Space Yen saved up over the years, Louis bought Orion a few years back to take the guesswork out of navigating deep space. Eventually Venice, Daisy, Taka, and Oliver made their way onto the ship as well, and we fell into our respective roles.
And for whatever reason, I was named first mate while PC was delegated to boatswain. Even though PC is three years older than me, Captain Louis deemed me to be a better fit as his second-in-command.
I never understood it either, except that PC can be impulsive sometimes. Then again, can’t we all?
“Ow,” I mutter, the electric shock that zips through my body bringing me back to the present. Taka has moved on from my arm, and he’s now poking around the hole in my leg with a soldering iron.
“If you’re leading this run, you should do something about this,” he says, poking again. I’m prepared for it this time, and I hold my teeth clenched.
“After this run, I’ll be able to afford a new one,” I tell him.
“Yes, but…this could be dangerous,” Taka says. He turns to his tool box and rummages around. “Let me see what I can do about it.”
I open my mouth, but Orion’s voice comes on over the intercom. “Course has been set for the STS Nova,” he says, his voice even and measured, sounding every bit like the robot he is. “T-minus five minutes until ignition.”
Immediately, my left retina shows a red timer, counting down the milliseconds until we need to get to the bridge and get strapped into our seats.
I give Taka an apologetic look. “Looks like I’ll have to take a raincheck on that. Let’s get to the bridge.”
He appears to be disappointed as he packs up his equipment, and I feel a tinge of sympathy for him. I can imagine that he’d love nothing more than to open all of me up and see how my biological parts interact with the mechanical ones. Trust me, I do too.
Another time, maybe.
We’ll all get to play after this run.
Chapter 7
I stare at the plans for the STS Nova for the twenty-eighth time—I know, because my data banks are keeping score with how many times I’ve looked through them. I just want to be absolutely certain of where everything is on the ship and commit the schematics to memory—the human part of my brain.
It’s after 0000 hours, and everyone is asleep, ready for the mission tomorrow. Everyone except me, because I can’t sleep, not with it looming over my head like this.
I’ve been over everything multiple times, trying to account for all possibilities and anything that could go wrong. I know where on the ship I’m supposed to downloot the patents for Syn-Tech, I know how many steps it takes to get from the server to the airlock, and I know where I can access backups of the information. It’s all there. It’s all for me to figure out.
It’s not just because Louis has put me in charge of the run; it’s because I have the crew’s lives riding on me, and I don’t want to let them down. I can’t let down them. I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it otherwise. There’s always an element of risk with these runs, and this one seems to be easier than ever, but…
They’re depending on me.
“Your data banks must have stored those schematics even when you downloaded the brief. Why are you insisting on looking at them so much?”
I look up to see Orion peering over at my station on the bridge. His hands are in his pockets again, his unnatural eyes watching me curiously. Embarrassed, I lick my lips and swipe my screen away to my desktop, a photo from a beach on old Earth.
“I wanted to memorize it,” I say. “You know, in case my computer brain fails me.”
He cocks his head. “No, I do not know.”
Self-consciously, I tug at my ponytail, wondering if I’d insult the android by saying that I don’t trust my computer brain. Then I wonder why I’m so worried about offending a robot. That’s all he is, right? I need to stop thinking about him as a man. I need to stop thinking about him as a him.
So I charge forward. “Let’s say something gets fried up there—I just want to make sure that I’ve done everything to make sure that no one gets killed.”
“Why do you think your processor would get destroyed?” He sounds genuinely interested.
“Murphy’s Law.”
“Who is Murphy?”
I blink for a moment before chuckling, passing my left hand over my face. “I don’t even know. It’s an expression—an old one. I think he was a guy from Earth way back when. But anyways, it means that what can go wrong will go wrong.”
His eyebrows pinch together. “If you think this mission will go wrong, Clementine, then you should pull out of the agreement.”
“No, it’s not going to go wrong. It’s just that—” I grasp at what to say, because in a way, he’s right. If I truly believed someone would die, I should call off the job. 300 million Space Yen isn’t worth our lives. “I think it’s just my paranoia is getting to me. I don’t want to fail Captain Louis. Or the rest of the Pícara.”
As if in answer, the ship groans around us.
Orion pointedly ignores it. “It is a very human reaction to believe that the worst will happen. Up until recently, humans only had one incarnation of their bodies. If they lost a limb, it would be gone for the rest of their lives.”
The fingers of my cyborg hand twitch in reply, reminding me that my body has been through some trauma, even if I can’t remember it.
“Besides,” Orion continues, striding to me, “we currently have a 97.6% chance of success with this mission.”
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“It was 97.4% earlier,” I say, confused.
He flashes a devastating grin. “It went up. I found a route to the STS Nova that gets us there thirty-seven minutes earlier than initially planned, so that tips the scales in your favor.”
I nod distractedly. “That’s good. I just—”
“You care,” Orion says. He glances at the screen, where our estimated time of arrival is less than seven hours. “And you should rest. At this rate, staying up any later will be a detriment to your mission as you will be too tired to think clearly.”
I nod with a sigh. “You’re right.”
“I am an android programmed to calculate the best way to proceed. I’m always right.”
I watch him for a moment, wondering what’s happening in that head of his. He’s obviously not as nervous as I am about tomorrow. To him, tomorrow is just another set of probabilities and odds, a trajectory that is always changing and needs to be recalculated. On a base level, it doesn’t matter to him who comes out alive or not, possibly not even his own survival, because he can just be remade.
Still though, I can’t help the thrill that runs through me as he pats my left shoulder. For an android, his hand is softer than my own cyborg parts. You wouldn’t know he wasn’t human with your first encounter.
“Just make sure that we keep that head start,” I say, swallowing back the lump in my throat. “I’d hate to wake up and realize that we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”
“What is—”
I wave off his question as I stand. “It’s another expression, and that one I don’t know. But it’s something you say to mean, well, that we ended up where we’re not supposed to be.”
He frowns. “We are on the correct course.”
“Forget I said anything,” I say. At the exit, I stop and turn back to him, fascinated at his silhouette as he stands in front of a kaleidoscope of stars streaking past us. He cuts an intimidating figure, and I wish I were more artistic so I could draw this version of him. He looks like a work of art.
