Criminal Core

by Nick Broad

  “Shay did say there was some kind of infestation around the Gamma reactor,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Shit, let’s just try not to touch it any more than necessary.”

  Meiko looked grave. “This is far more than a simple infestation,” she said, glancing up to the ceiling. “This is very bad, Noah. And you’re sure a prisoner lives inside of all this?”

  It hit me. “Oh fuck,” I said, taking in the room with new eyes. “You’re right. Who would stay down here if they could possibly avoid it? Chirrup!”

  “Yes, Warden?” Apparently whatever this hard black material was, it didn’t impede my voice assistant one bit. She sounded as clear and chipper as ever.

  “We’re in Gamma Spire,” I said, realizing after a moment that Chirrup knew that already. “The prisoner, they’re how many floors beneath us?”

  “Prisoner G701 is located in Cell Block Four! Specifically cell 402, Warden!”

  I rubbed my chapped lips together, wetting them. “And they...they’re okay, right?” I had a sudden, horrifying image in my head - whatever did this had grabbed that prisoner long ago and stuffed them full of eggs or whatever it used to reproduce. Maybe they’d left them there as bait.

  I was not bringing the guy from Alien with the exploding torso back to Alpha Spire if I could help it.

  “Prisoner G701’s life signs are stable,” Chirrup twittered. “I do not have more detailed information available at this time!”

  I chewed on that for a moment. “Alright,” I said. “We stick with the plan. Let’s just be careful, okay?”

  “Understood.” Meiko leaned over a pile of black scales that spread across a table. She was able to bend so far that I couldn’t believe she managed to stay upright. “They are interesting, though...”

  “We’ll have to come down here and clean eventually,” I said gruffly. “You’ll have plenty of time to study this stuff then. Trust me.”

  Meiko gave a little sniff and balanced herself on both feet. “Lead the way.”

  The infestation only grew worse as we descended the stairs. On the first cell block, there was at least enough of a path to pick your way through without stepping on any of the plates. One level down, the chitin had spread until there was nothing but sporadic bare patches on the floor Meiko and I could jump to. On the fourth, there was no free space at all.

  “I hope this shit isn’t toxic,” I grumbled, surveying the path in front of us. “We’re going to have to walk on it.”

  Meiko brushed up beside me, balancing her weight on the bottom step. “Let me go first,” she said, sizing up the quickest route. “I weigh a lot less than you.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, glancing down at my stomach.

  She smiled. “Not like that. You’re an android - you weigh a lot more than a human. Even if you can be surprisingly gentle sometimes.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You think what we did back there was gentle?”

  She ignored that. “Those plates might support my weight,” she said, gesturing at the growth on the floor. “They definitely won’t support yours. You’re going to break a bunch of those scales and get them everywhere. I want to be safely past before you do that.”

  “So I can get toxified?”

  Her lips twisted in a smirk. “Shay will just put you in a new body if that happens,” she reminded me.

  “I know,” I shot back. “But that would still be really, really painful.”

  She snickered - then tumbled off the bottom stair as nimbly as a dancer. One foot landed on the black, glossy mass, but it didn’t stay there.

  Wow, I thought, watching her go. Holy shit, she’s a fucking ninja...

  Meiko could move. It was like she was dancing on air - her toes touched the floor for only the briefest moments, in a blur. She was fast. In the space of a few blinks, she was already across. She reached the stairs to the next level and turned around, waving at me.

  “I felt it give a little bit!” she yelled, cupping a hand around her mouth. “You’re going to need to be careful!”

  Wonderful, I thought, looking down at the black sea beneath me. I really hope this stuff isn’t poisonous...

  Gingerly, I set one foot down on the chitin. It contracted around me, flexing inward, then there was a horrifying crunch sound. It fractured into hundreds of tiny pieces, spilling in all directions like jet-black paint chips.

  “Shit,” I said, focusing on the door. “Gotta run...”

  I did. Every step brought more crunching as my boots shot right through the scaled growths on the floor. I kept my mouth shut tight, but none of it seemed to be reaching me. I was making a mess, sure, but there was no gas inside to choke me, no ichor to burn through the soles of my feet.

  It was still very, very gross, though.

  I was gagging by the time I made it to where Meiko stood. I shook both my legs, slapping them against a wall until nearly all of the black scales were off my feet.

  “Oh, that was so disgusting,” I gasped, looking at the path of destruction behind me.

  Meiko appraised my trail of footprints, head cocked to the side. “Well, the good news is you can just retrace your steps on the way back and avoid most of it. And if it is poison, at least it must be slow-acting.”

  “We still have a whole floor of this to wade through,” I reminded her with a frown. “You doing okay?”

  “I’m just fine,” she assured me, craning her neck to see down the stairs. “It looks like there’s even more of it in the stairwell.”

  There was. Again, Meiko took the lead. She lept nimbly from outcropping to outcropping, barely raising a cloud of dust as she made her way down the stairs and through the next cell block. Meanwhile I stomped through everything, the hard scales slowing me down and sticking everywhere until my legs were basically ink from the knee down.

  Don’t throw up, I commanded myself, following close behind Meiko as she approached a half-open cell door. Meiko’s never going to sleep with you again if you throw up all over her. You’re the Warden, for God’s sake...

  That thought steadied me as I joined her. “Is this the cell?” I asked, resting against the wall.

  “Yes.” Meiko’s eyes were wide, her stance ready. “I don’t hear anything, Noah.”

  Neither did I. “Hope they’re okay,” I muttered, pulling back the door.

  Even the cells in Gamma were different from the ones I’d seen in Beta. Maybe because they were designed for a ‘safer’ class of prisoner, they were roomier than the bathroom-sized square Meiko had been hunkering down in. Cell 402 was almost the size of a small apartment - a very small apartment, the kind where everything was shoved into one tiny room that used to be a broom closet.

  To my surprise the infestation hadn’t actually spread inside the cell. The gray concrete looked almost colorful by comparison. “Hello?” I called out, stepping into the darkness. “Meiko, can you find out if there’s a light or something?”

  There was. Meiko triggered it a moment later - and that’s when I saw the girl.

  Instantly I knew she was in pretty rough shape. She was curled up into a ball on a cot in the back of the room, her shoulders shaking as she rocked gently back and forth. Her hair was disheveled, forming a long, unruly mess down her back. She had on what looked like the remains of a prisoner’s jumpsuit, faded to the same gray as the concrete by time and exposure. Her face was tucked into her shoulder, and she sounded like she was muttering something.

  “Meiko,” I said, snapping into action, “check the food replicator. If it’s working, get this girl some water.”

  Meiko moved swiftly over to the console and tapped a few buttons experimentally. While she did that, I moved over to the edge of the bed to get a better look at the girl. She looked young, college-aged, but I’d learned from Shay that appearances could be deceiving when it came to the future. She could have been an old maid for all I knew.

  There were some weird protuberances around her shoulders. My eyes widened as the worst-case scenario filled my head - had wh
atever caused this infestation gotten to her already? Planted something on her back to suck the vitality right out of her body?

  “Noah,” Meiko said, her voice tight. “The replicator’s working.”

  “Great. Water, please,” I said. I brushed a lock of the girl’s long red hair out of her face, revealing an almost cherubic young beauty. Her cheeks were ruddy, her lips so full and swollen they looked as if they’d been stung by bees. I could tell that were she not in this state, her body would’ve naturally tended to curves - she had that kind of face. Even sick and obviously in distress, I was captivated by her beauty.

  “Hello?” I asked, waving a hand in front of her face. “Are you okay? I’m Noah, the Warden. I’m here to help you.”

  “Noah,” Meiko said. There was surprise evident in her voice. “The replicator isn’t just working. It’s been in service recently. She’s been using it every day, making the same thing over and over again.”

  That caught my attention. “What?”

  “Nutritive paste,” Meiko said, pulling a face. “It’s the default option on these things, but almost no one uses it. It tastes awful. Only someone who knew how to use a replicator but didn’t know how to change the settings would ever make this stuff...”

  Just then, the redhead’s eyes opened. She sat up. And I realized with a start that the things sticking from her shoulders weren’t some kind of alien parasite.

  They were wings.

  “Hi,” I said, smiling awkwardly. “I’m Noah. What’s your name?”

  The girl stared at me for a long moment, expression scrunched up in confusion. Then, with an abruptness that nearly put me back on my ass, her face filled with horror.

  “Aaaaaaaah!” the winged girl screeched.

  “It’s okay!” I screamed back, trying to calm her. “Nobody’s going to hurt you! Meiko, you got that water yet?”

  “Right here.” She was at my side, apparently unruffled by the new girl’s distress. “Good luck trying to get her to drink it...”

  A moment later, Meiko saw what I saw - the wings sticking out of the back of the girl’s jumpsuit. Her face went ashen.

  “Oh shit,” she whispered. “Noah, we need to leave.”

  “What?” I didn’t dare take my eyes off the girl. She was still screaming, though she’d started to trail off. “We’re not going anywhere, Meiko. This girl needs our help.”

  “This girl is a Fae,” Meiko shot back. “The deal’s off, Noah.”

  The deal? Meiko was saying she wasn’t going to help me? My stomach dropped. But there was still a girl in front of me - a very damaged girl - and I wasn’t about to leave her behind.

  “Look, let’s calm her down first,” I growled, shaking my head in Meiko’s direction. “Then we can talk about the fucking deal!”

  “You’re not listening,” Meiko protested. With a start, I realized her voice had retreated further behind me - almost like she was getting ready to bail on the cell. “This girl has been sitting here for what I’m guessing is years, shuffling to and from that replicator every day before curling up again. That’s the only thing she’s done for years, Noah. There’s only one reason a Fae could have fallen this low.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “She’s one of the Nameless.”

  “I have no clue what that means,” I said. “But I’m not leaving a prisoner who’s so obviously in need, even if she is Nameless. Whatever that means-”

  All of a sudden, the redhead went dead silent. Her big blue eyes turned to me, shimmering with tears. “Name?”

  “Noah!” Meiko sounded panicked. “Leave her alone, right now!”

  I wasn’t listening. “Yeah. Name,” I said, putting one knee on the end of the bed. “My name’s Noah. I’m the Warden of this prison. What’s yours?”

  The girl let out the most mournful sob I’d ever heard.

  The cell filled with the sounds of crying as she gave herself over to grief. Her shoulders moved in huge, shuddering sobs, tears spilling down her cheeks freely. I’d never seen anyone look so upset before. She stared at me as if I’d lined up every single person she ever loved, one by one, and shot them to death right in front of her.

  “They took my name!” she wailed, her nails digging into her palms. A moment later they turned red as blood trickled down her wrists. “They took my name!”

  I shrank back, terrified by her transformation. In a flash Meiko was at my side, her arm over my shoulder. She was no longer trying to flee - instead, something seemed to have relaxed inside of her.

  “You can’t help her,” Meiko said, shaking her head sadly. “She’s a Fae. And she’s been made Nameless.”

  “I can’t,” the redhead whimpered, her voice dropping as she stared down at her hands. “No, I...I can’t...I...I’m not...”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, watching her distress. “I don’t understand at all.”

  “The Fae are an alien species,” Meiko said, leaning in close. “Their homeworld is a lush forest planet called Titania. They’re very pretty, and they can do things that most other species in the galaxy consider to be magic.” She pursed her lips. “They put a very great amount of stock in names.”

  “I’m getting that part,” I said, dropping my voice as well. It didn’t seem to matter; the girl kept on babbling to herself whether we talked loudly or quietly. She wasn’t listening.

  “For a Fae to be stripped of it’s name...” she trailed off, shaking her head. “She must have committed a very great crime, Noah.”

  I digested that. “She’s in Gamma,” I shot back. “I thought they only put the murderers over in Beta.”

  Meiko winced. “Some crimes, believe it or not, are more serious than murder,” she said. “I thought you were on my side.”

  “I am,” I said. “So she doesn’t have a name. I don’t get why that has to be so traumatic for her.”

  Meiko looked at me like I’d just grown a second head. “For the Fae, names are everything,” she said thickly. “Without hers, this woman has nothing - no memories, no sense of self. She’s not even really a person anymore, Noah - just a shell.”

  The implication of that statement hit me in the gut. “You’re saying she can’t help us,” I whispered.

  “I’m surprised she has the presence of mind to activate the replicator when she gets hungry,” Meiko said. “She didn’t even move out when the infestation started. She probably has no idea it’s even happening, or even that she’s in prison.”

  “Please,” the girl whimpered, lowering her head almost to her lap. “Please, please...please...”

  “This is a much worse sentence than prison,” I said, bile working its way up my throat. “This is hell. She’s in hell, Meiko.”

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Meiko said. She gave the girl a sympathetic glance. “Which is why we should leave. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

  I raised myself to my full height. “Like hell there is,” I growled, pointing at the girl. “I’m not letting her suffer! There’s nothing she could have done that would be worth this kind of treatment!”

  “Nothing you know about,” Meiko muttered.

  That settled it. I wasn’t leaving the girl behind. Which meant I needed to find a way to break the spell.

  “She’s Nameless,” I mused, putting a hand to my chin. “What if I just...I dunno, gave her a name?”

  You could have heard a pin drop in the cell. The redhead slowly raised her head, looking at me with the most horribly hopeful expression I’d ever seen.

  “Name?” she whispered.

  “Now you’ve gone and done it,” Meiko groaned. “Noah, you cannot name her!”

  I begged to differ. This girl was hurting - hurting worse than anyone I’d ever met. Not fixing her, at least as much as I was able, would have been far crueller than anything she’d done to end up in this cell.

  “Give me one good reason why I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Meiko paused. “I’ll give you two,” she said with a sigh. “First,
you’d be undoing a justly ordained punishment of the Fae. That’s about the most offensive thing you can possibly do to them. If Titania ever got word of it, or we got more Fae prisoners on the station who discovered what you’d done...it would mean war, Noah.”

  I thought that over - for about two seconds. “Fuck ‘em,” I grunted, shaking my head. “I’m not worried about some planet halfway across the universe. Besides, my boss is a psychopath with her own torture chamber. I’m sure Shay would love to tear the wings off of a few belligerent fairy assholes.”

  “I thought you’d say that,” Meiko said, swallowing hard. “There’s another reason, Noah. You’d be killing the person she used to be.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  Meiko sighed deeply. “This girl, whoever she was - the only way for her to regain her personhood is to be regifted her name by the Fae. If they do that, the punishment ends and she becomes herself again. If someone else were to name her, though, she’d become that person instead.” Meiko made a pained expression. “Naming her can’t be undone, Noah. Once you give her a word that signifies her, she can never go back to the old one. Whoever she was back on Titania - she’ll never be that person again.”

  Now that did give me pause. “Fuck,” I muttered. “If they do, you said.”

  Meiko nodded.

  I thought it over and came to a decision. “They’re not going to,” I said, feeling more sure of it with every word. “They were never going to, Meiko. Look at her. She’s been trapped here for years, living the same few seconds over and over again while this whole station rots around her. No one’s coming for her. No one’s waiting for her on the other side of this.”

  Meiko’s expression went hard. “Everyone has a family,” she said, her tone sharper than steel. “You going to rip that away from her?”

  I didn’t like the way she was speaking to me. Not one bit.

  “This is the only way,” I snarled, staring her down. “You said it yourself - you’ll only help me if this girl agrees to help me, too. Well, she can’t do much of anything without a name. So I’ll just have to give her one.”

  “It’s on you,” Meiko said, crossing her arms under her breasts. “But I’m telling you not to, Noah.”