by Erin Hayes
We have no idea what’s happening in there. And I’m not about to let someone check it out.
And now, we have a decision to make.
“So,” I say softly.
“So what?” Venice snarls.
PC opens his mouth to make a retort, but I shoot him a look.
“We need to figure out what we’re doing next.” I look around the table and see that everyone looks miserable and frightened for their lives—and with good reason, too. I can’t imagine what must be going through their heads, if they’re wondering if they’ll live another week, another month. What’s 300 million Space Yen when you’re dead?
We also need to figure out how we’re supposed to stay alive.
No one responds to me, not even Orion or PC. We’re all lost in our thoughts, wondering what the fuck is happening to us. And I think the only person who knows for sure is Chairman Maas, and I don’t trust him at all.
Then again, we can’t afford to be foolish.
“I don’t want to die,” Daisy says.
“Neither do I,” Oliver whimpers. His bottom lip trembles, and he watches the table, like he’s too afraid to look at us. Protectively, Daisy wraps an arm around his shoulders, giving him an affectionate rub. I realize that I’m too afraid to touch him, in case I am infected.
I swallow nervously. “This is something that we need to discuss together.”
“Because that worked so well last time,” Venice mutters. Even Daisy shoots him a dirty look.
“That’s something that we all have to own,” I say. “We voted together. We made the decision together. This is what happened next. And now, we need to decide together if we’re going to deliver this virus to Alpha. Or any other options.”
“If we bring the virus to the Chairman,” Taka muses, speaking up for the first time since I got out of the shower, “then he’ll have the virus.”
That was something I’d been considering as well. What would Syn-Tech do with something like the virus in their clutches? I don’t want to be held responsible for delivering something so destructive to a company that may use it against others. I keep thinking about the arachni-lift and Louis…
But to do that, we’d have to put our lives at risk. Again.
“You know, I’d say no,” Venice says, crossing his arms as he sits back. “In fact, I want to be let off this ship at the next port. Screw all y’all. I’m done.”
“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth. “You’re relieved of your duties. But that may be after we make the drop.”
The old man just glowers at me from his spot at the table.
“But if we don’t go to Alpha,” Daisy says, “then Louis is definitely gone.”
“I know,” I say with a nod. I comb a hand through my hair. “That’s something that we’ll have to take into consideration.” I don’t know if I can live with the knowledge that we didn’t try everything to save Louis.
Then again, what can we do?
PC lets out an exasperated sigh through his nose. “As I said, I think Maas is bluffing.”
“And he very well could be bluffing,” I admit. “But…can we afford to take that chance?”
“And that’s why you’re terrible at poker,” he quips. And the absurdity of his comment almost makes me smile. Almost.
“May I suggest,” Orion says, “that we do fly closer to Alpha? Not go there necessarily, but we would be within flying distance in case any one of us starts showing symptoms. Or if we eventually do decide to deliver the virus. Being in the vicinity at least gives us that chance.”
No one speaks as we all consider his words.
“That makes the most sense,” Taka says.
“Yeah, but that also brings us closer to Syn-Tech,” Daisy says. “What if he’s counting on that?”
“I believe that between Taka and me, we can figure out how to mask the Pícara from radar,” Orion offers, nodding towards the engineer. Taka blinks in surprise at being included. “We already have stealth technology. It is just a matter of making it more robust. That will at least keep Syn-Tech away for a time.”
“Taka, do you think you can do that?” I ask gently.
He looks at me, wide eyed, before he nods.
“Okay, so that is an option,” I say.
“Then I say aye,” Daisy says.
Taka nods. “Yes.”
I look at Venice. “I still say no,” he mutters, averting his eyes.
Fine, I want to growl at him. “Oliver?”
The boy only nods.
PC lets out a sigh. “Then yes from me, too. Why the hell not?”
And that’s already a majority in favor. Still, though, I glance at Orion. “It makes the most logical sense,” he says.
I guess that’s all I’ll get from the android.
“All right,” I say slowly. “Then we set course to put us in Alpha’s vicinity. And we’ll go from there.”
Venice scoffs angrily. I choose to ignore him.
We set course for a part of space that is five lightdays from Alpha. It’s as close as we dare to get to Alpha in such a busy part of space while being close enough should we decide to head to the spaceport. In case someone has the virus. In case I accidentally infected them.
The mood on the bridge is somber, pensive. And I’m not helping as I’m the one who commands the Pícara to fly there. It should be Louis doing this.
I can’t help but feel like I’m shitting on Louis’s memory by jumping in the role of acting captain so quickly.
Afterwards, it takes Taka and Orion over two hours to reach a solution that they’re happy with. By that point, I’m the only person who’s left on the bridge with them, as Daisy took Oliver to bed earlier in the night. PC went to bed as well, I think, to grieve Louis’s death.
And Venice decided that he wanted nothing to do with us after our decision. Fine by me. I’ll allow him that space. It’s his right to feel however he wants.
It still doesn’t seem right to sit in Louis’s chair, so I’m in my own, lost in my own thoughts while the two of them work on the captain’s console, having high-level access to everything on the Pícara.
I remember the goop coming out of Louis’s spacesuit, the reds, yellows, and whites bleeding out on the table, leaking out, spreading towards me. Getting on my shoes, leeching up my body, until it gets into my mouth. There’s a noise that I’m hearing. I think it’s screaming. I’m the one who’s screaming.
“Kill me,” I hear Louis whisper, even over my own voice. “I don’t want to live like this. Kill me. Please kill me now.”
And it’s too late for me to stop it…
“That’s it!” Taka exclaims, and I jump out of my daydream. “That’s it! That’s it!”
I cough, trying to cover up my shock over his outburst. Orion doesn’t miss it, though, and I see his smirk. Odd how an android can have so many different expressions.
“You guys got it figured out?” I ask, walking over to them.
“Oh, yes,” Taka says, his fingers thrumming together. For a moment, I wonder if he’s been infected like my cyborg hand had been. Then I remember that Taka gets like this when he’s overly excited. “Yes, we have it definitely figured out. No one would be able to find us, not even if they knew where to look.”
“How so?” I ask, leaning against the computer to get a peek of it.
“It is based on a principle of technology from old Earth,” Orion says, his mouth pulled into a smile. “We have reprogrammed the Pícara’s shields to take on a shape that reflects radar signals away from us. On radar, we will look like the rest of the galaxy.”
“You can just do that with the shields?” I ask in disbelief.
Orion nods. “It required some creative thinking, but it should be fully functional.”
I still don’t quite follow them. “Why hasn’t it been tried before? How do you know it will work?”
“Trust us, Clem,” Taka says, giving me a proud pat on the shoulder as he passes by me. “We’re safe. Now it’s time fo
r me to go to bed.” And just like that he waltzes out of the bridge, dancing with an imaginary partner, humming something to himself. The man is on space cloud nine, and I can’t help but smile after him.
He’s a strange one, definitely.
“He is brilliant,” Orion says, and I glance back at him. Did I say that out loud? “Taka is able to take the best parts of machines and wires and apply a different kind of logic to it. It was his idea to reshape the shields.”
I sigh, putting my hand on my hip. “And imagine, he’s a space pirate with that genius.”
“I do trust that he is happy. To humans, that seems to matter the most.”
I reflect on his words for a moment. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Dissect what we’re feeling into only a few words. You make me feel like I’m transparent.”
“I am an android. It is my duty to analyze the human condition and improve upon it.” He closes a few screens on the panel and shuts down the console, setting the Pícara on autopilot. Fifty-three hours and we’ll be so close to Alpha, we can spit on it. And we’ll be that much closer to civilization if this turns out to be bad.
Louis’s liquid form flashes in my mind, and I shudder.
“How are you finding tasks with just one arm?”
“Hmm?” I ask, blinking at him.
“Your arm.” He nods over to me. “You have been missing it since just after you came back on the ship.”
I look down at my right stump, at the wires dangling from it. It feels like that hand is completely alien to me now, a separate piece from me. I had been so wholly dependent on that arm before, using it to downloot other ships’ data, as my dominant hand—everything.
Funny how it hasn’t been too big of a deal now.
“I suppose I should find my old hand,” I say distractedly. Louis had suggested the same thing when he was trying to fix it.
“You have an old part?”
I flinch at Orion’s use of the word “part,” but I suppose that’s what it is. I’m over half cyborg. I have parts that can be repaired, fixed, and changed. It feels odd after what happened to Louis.
“Yeah, I think it’s in a supply closet somewhere around here.”
Honestly, I have no idea where it is, since it’s been nearly ten years since I needed it, and I purged that information from my memory banks a long time ago. I know I have it, though. Cyborg parts are so expensive, those who opt to upgrade their bodies have to make the difficult decision as to whether or not they want to sell the old parts secondhand or keep it in case of a malfunction. I was lucky enough to decide on the latter. As a space pirate, you can never be too careful with your body parts. You never know when you’ll be shot.
So we both dig through all of the extra storage rooms and turn my bedroom upside down before we spot it in the kitchen pantry, up on the highest shelf behind some canned goods. “How the hell did it get up here?” I ask, standing on my tiptoes on a stepladder.
“It must be from the many times the Pícara was stocked,” Orion says, nodding towards the hand. “Things get shifted when that happens.”
“Yeah. At least it’s here.” I blow the dust off it, making me cough. Ten years have passed by since I needed it. And that was back before life got complicated.
“It’s a lot smaller than I remember,” I muse as I step down from the ladder. “But I’ve got it.” My retina tells me that it’s fifteen percent smaller than my newer one—which is in quarantine with the mutated table—but the difference might as well be huge. You know your body better than anyone, so a slight change could really set you off-kilter.
“You still have the nails painted,” Orion adds, and I give a little laugh, noticing the pink on the ends of my fingertips.
“I took really good care of this, didn’t I? Well, here’s hoping that pink matches my new style.” I know that it doesn’t, but I’m too tired to really care.
“I assume you need help reattaching it?” Orion asks. “Your left hand is less dexterous than your right, correct?”
I lick my lips. “Yeah, but…” The last person to try to repair my arm is now as good as dead. And if Maas is correct and I have something sinister in me, then I don’t want anyone trying again. I keep thinking about that finger cutting through tough spacesuit fabric.
“Clementine,” Orion says, his voice steadying me, “I don’t sense the virus in you. It is fine.”
I nod. “You’re right.” Although I really don’t want to put him at any risk, android or no.
I bump into a jar of clear liquid. It’s a stash of Venice’s moonshine. Even just looking at it makes me want to gag as I remember it burning all the way down my throat. I’m about to brush it off but then think better of it.
What’s a better excuse to get drunk than having your father-figure die while detaching your arm? I tuck my replacement part underneath my right armpit and grab the jar.
“What are you doing?” Orion asks.
“Numbing myself.”
He frowns after me. “But any sensation you will feel is an electrical impulse to simulate pain. I can turn it off if you need a numbing agent.”
“It’s not my arm that needs to be numb.” I sit down at the table and wedge the jar between my knees to unscrew the lid. I chug a good mouthful of it, and it sears my throat and settles somewhere in my chest, where it roasts. The taste is just as awful as ever.
And that makes it all right.
Orion gives me one more look, and then he sits down and opens up a storage compartment in his forearm, featuring a set of repair tools. “All right, let us get started.”
Chapter 15
I drink—a lot—while Orion reattaches my arm. It does a lot to help dull my senses. But it doesn’t do enough to take my mind off everything.
“D’you think that Maas was telling the truth?” I slur, leaning into Orion. “That he has a cure for the virus?”
Orion keeps working, even through my questions, his attention always in multiple places at once. “That is up for debate.”
“I know.” I take a swig. “But I wanna know what you think.”
“What I think is entirely different than facts.”
“Just answer the question, Orion.” I sigh. Sometimes, talking to an android is like talking to a wall. They can be just like people in the best times and just like a tool in the most inopportune times. What I need right now is a friend and not a robot.
“I believe that there is the possibility of it,” he says finally. “Syn-Tech is a pharmaceutical company that manufactures vaccines and medication for the entire galaxy. There has been some speculation in the past that they have treated most every ailment known to biological organisms that they have started manufacturing their own.” He glances up at me. “But that is pure conjecture.”
“You mean like the Space Flu?” The Space Flu was a devastating disease that devastated millions of people on the planet Kazo-Pharmacology about thirty years ago. I remember reading about it in the newsfeeds—it just came out of nowhere and nearly killed the whole population of Kazo’s Lifers and damaged their reputation, as no one wanted to trade with a company that could potentially make them sick. A disease that we have no immunity to is far scarier than even space battles.
I remember reading some conspiracy theories that it had been coordinated by a rival company. No evidence, other than it left a crippled company in its wake.
He shrugs. “As I said, pure conjecture.”
I somber, watching him work on my arm. “Is it bad that I hope there is a cure?” I murmur. “I don’t want us to be sick, and I don’t care about the money, but I want Louis to be all right. He deserves better than what he got. And if I can help him…”
“We shall assess Captain Louis’s odds closer to Spaceport Alpha,” Orion assures me. “Everything about this is taking into account the risks and benefits. And I am not one of those androids who does not value human life.”
I smile sadly. “So you think he’s worth saving
? Even with the known risks?”
“I believe in taking a certain amount of precaution. But no matter how we look at it, there is still a highly dangerous lifeform on the Pícara that we may not be able to contain for much longer.”
“And if the rest of us are infected, too?”
He stops suddenly. “This is done. Try moving your hand.”
I look down at my arm for the first time in what feels like ages. The arm is fully attached now. The splice where the arm meets the rest of my upper arm and shoulder isn’t pretty, and I have a large ridge where it’s too skinny, but…
I wriggle my fingers, and they respond exactly how I want them to. My retina tells me that due to the smaller size of the hand, my electrical signals are sent microseconds faster, so I should allot less time for my actions.
“It works,” I say, holding up my hand for him to see. “Thank you, Orion.”
He gives a curt nod, his eyes brilliant in the fluorescent light of the mess hall. I’ve noticed them before, but for some reason, I can’t take my eyes off them now.
“It is my duty,” he says, looking at his own hand. The tools that peek out of his hand fold away into a working, humanoid hand. “And while it isn’t a permanent solution, it should suffice for now.”
“For now,” I agree, taking another mouthful of moonshine. And I look at the empty jar confusedly as I set it down. Wasn’t it full when I started drinking?
“Your blood alcohol content is at 0.13%,” Orion says, standing. I’d ignored the warning in my retina, but the fact that he notices as well makes me frown. “Your motor functions and judgment are impaired as a result.” He extends a hand towards me.
“Oh. I don’t feel that way.”
There’s another one of those devastating smiles. “Then your goal to become ‘numb’ must have worked.”
I chuckle lightly as he pulls me to my feet. Like earlier, I’m unsteady, but instead of it being caused by grief and fear, this is just from me being drunk. Just the way I wanted to be. I look up at him, noticing the height difference between us. He seems so tall sometimes. So human. I look at his perfect features and wonder who his maker sculpted him after. Full lips. Kissable lips.
