Eye of the Abyss

by Michael Formichelli

  —a hissing sound filled her ears. She monitored a bar graph hovering in the air. A single, red rectangle filled with pixels on the display. When they reached the top the words “Siren Transfer Complete” flashed over the image. Yes, it was finally coming together. Soon her work would come to fruition, and the Confederation would be on its knees—

  Sanul cut the feed, dropping them both back into their bodies. His dull eyes opened languidly, and he half leaned-half fell onto her hands-first.

  Siren! She felt a shock go through her body. The same murderous nanomachine that wiped out the Calemni colony was here, in the capital, just beneath the floor of the seat of the Confederate government! The alarm was enough to cut through her drug-induced haze, and she gasped.

  “That’s what I had to show you,” Sanul slurred, drooling green saliva on her breast.

  She tried to sit up, but her head swooned, sending her back down to the cushions. She laughed and didn’t understand why.

  “We have to do something. We have to—” She forgot what she was going to say. She grabbed Sanul’s arms and the ochre-streaked fur covering them tingled against her skin in a way that sent a hot shiver through her. He pitched forward, and his face knocked into her head. It should have hurt, but it made her laugh again.

  “Sanul, this is serious.” She giggled. “Can we trust you? I mean, can I trust you?”

  His clouded eyes met hers. “Of course, Cygni. I can keep your secrets. To hell with the company, and to hell with Revenant and Cronus!”

  “I’m so glad. I’m so glad.” Tears welled up in her eyes. They were hot to the point of pain on her skin. Before she realized what she was doing her lips were pressed against his. The touch was warm, rubbery and strange. On impulse, she swept her tongue out feeling it touch his as Sanul sat slack-jawed and surprised. Her lips tingled and she tasted bitter grass and metal, but addled by the drug, she didn’t care and went back for more.

  The front door beeped and slid open. She kept exploring Sanul’s mouth, not even caring who could have just walked into her apartment without knocking.

  “Cygni? Who is that on—” Shkur asked, then growled. “I will kill him!”

  Oh fuck. She pulled away from Sanul as fast as she could, gasping and giggling in spurts.

  Shkur stalked around the edge of the couch as Cygni, her head muddled by the kalkoa weed’s effects and the disorientation from disconnecting from Sanul’s fleshrider feed, scrambled back to the opposite end. His short, stocky frame was hunched over, and his arms were up in a fighting position to either side of his three-part jaws. She could see that both his small, yellow eyes and his pointed ears were locked on Sanul. All three of his lips were pulled back, displaying a mouth of sharp teeth that left little doubt as to what he intended to do.

  “Shkur, please,” she slurred out. Her eyes refused to focus, and she warred with the bubbling urge to giggle every few seconds as the kalkoa continued its work.

  “Please?” The petals of his pink rose-like nose vibrated as he snorted at her. “Please what? Give up my mating rights to this weak-looking fur-ball?”

  “Furball?” Sanul’s Volgoth accent and sloppy speech made the word almost unrecognizable. He stood up, putting the tips of his curved, crystal horns thirty-centimeters above the top of Shkur’s head. Despite being taller and broader than the Nyangari, Sanul Mondu’s short-furred body was clearly outmatched. He was a programmer and a gifted technician, not a warrior. His geode-like eyes were wide with terror as he stared at the smaller being in the black-and-red military uniform coming for him. His hooves made dull thumping noises on the carpet as he backed up into the shelves on her wall, knocking half-a-dozen mementos from Cygni’s media career onto the floor.

  “Shkur, it’s not what you think. Sanul is my employee and—”

  “You were kissing him. You are almost naked. Isn’t that how you humans express the mating desire?” Shkur growled out. It was clear he struggled with the Solan words as anger muddled his cognitive abilities.

  “We weren’t kissing! We just bumped into each other when you came in.” Her words sent spit flying from her numbed mouth. She could feel her heart pounding with the desperation for him to believe her. Nyangari could smell a lie if they were trained as he was, and on top of that, he was familiar with her pheromones from their years together. Her only hope was that he was too angry to pay attention to what his nose was telling him.

  “Your words smell of lies, Cygni. And you, whoever you are, if you want my woman you will fight me for her!” Shkur lunged at Sanul, who let out a scream that sounded something like a whinny as he leapt to the side. Propelled by his triple-jointed legs, he jumped clear over Shkur’s head from one side of her living room to the other. His hooves hit the floor and he tripped, slamming into the opposite wall. The impact cracked the cheap printed material and left an oval depression she was sure the management company would have her head for. Shkur leapt after him in an attempt to pounce on the scrambling Volgoth, but came up short by half a step.

  “Shkur!” she shouted. “Leave him alone!”

  “You take his side?” He paused his advance, turning his head towards her with such violence that his neck-pouch swatted both of his elbows.

  “No, I’m not taking his side. He doesn’t have one! I wasn’t kissing him. I’m not leaving you for him, and you’re out of line!” Anger was starting to clear the fog in her brain. She tried to get up on the couch but slipped and pitched over onto the floor behind Shkur.

  His nose-petals flapped while he stared at her. She counted three breaths before he let out a roar, and with a quick step forward, slammed his fist down on Sanul’s thigh. A howl emitted from the poor Volgoth’s throat, and he curled up around his leg, whimpering.

  “Shkur! How dare you! He wasn’t doing anything!”

  “Enough lies. I was challenging Ambassador Shef for you. Remember that, Cygni.” Shkur glared at her once more, then stomped his way out of her apartment.

  She stared at his back, open-mouthed, right up until the door slid shut behind him. How could he assume she was cheating on him after their years together? A kiss while high meant nothing! How could he be so callous? That Shkur was so pigheaded, so ready to believe the worst, wounded her deeply. Were all men, regardless of their species, so selfish and self-centered? Her mouth went dry and her throat tightened, threatening to squeeze tears from her eyes until Sanul moaned and drew her attention to him.

  Maybe not all men, she thought.

  “Are you all right?” She scrambled up to her knees and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to see his leg around his folded arms.

  He gasped when she touched him.

  “Sorry,” she said. The leg was already starting to swell up inside his smartfabric pants.

  “That was your boyfriend?” he asked.

  She nodded. “He’s a bit possessive. I’m sorry.”

  “I can see that.” He coughed and sucked in another breath. “I think he broke a bone. I can’t feel anything but pain.”

  “I’m sorry, Sanul. I’m so sorry.” She looked around, wondering what she could do for nearly a minute before she remembered she had nanomeds in her bathroom cabinet. “Hang on, I’ll get you meds.”

  “Don’t bother.” He grabbed her arm before she could get up. “Human nanomeds won’t work on Volgoth.”

  She gasped. He was right. She wasn’t thinking. “I’m sorry. Should I call an ambulance?”

  Sanul seemed to think it over for a moment. “Yes, I think I need one. I’m sorry, boss.”

  “It’s my fault. I’m sorry.” She stroked the brown fur between his spiral horns and requested medical assistance with her cerebral implant. It would probably cost her an arm and a leg, but that didn’t matter now. She had to help him, and she had to make this up to him somehow. He’d done nothing but help her, and his leg was broken thanks to her carelessness.

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re not the one who broke my leg.” His nostrils flared, and he screwed his eyes shut for a moment
. “Gods of stone, that hurts. You better get the stuff out of sight before the medical ‘bots get here. They’re notorious snitches without a sense of humor.” He flinched when he gestured at the drugs on and around the sofa, but managed a lopsided, human-like smile.

  “You’re right.” She got up, only mildly dizzy now that the epinephrine was flowing.

  As fast as she could manage, she grabbed the metal box with the kalkoa and put the small pipe back into it. She threw the curled leaves of his phytrophor in the box as well. Outside she heard sirens approaching in what must have been a galactic-record for a medical response. She shoved the box under her bookcase, and after a pause to take in what Sanul knocked over earlier, did her best to pile the objects back up on the shelves as fast as she could. One of them, her two-year old media award for best investigative streaming, was broken in half. Though it pained her to see that, mourning its loss was the least important thing for her to do right now. She put both halves of it back on the shelf and hurried on to the bathroom. A shot of nanodetox, a rearrangement of her robe, and some water on her face had her ready to receive the medical ‘bots. They were just pulling up to her window in the fat, pill-like ambulance when she came back into the living room.

  “Hey, Cygni,” Sanul said, his voice hoarse with pain. “Don’t let this wreck us going after the bastards, okay? I’ll be fixed up by tomorrow, and then I promise I’ll be back on the case for you. Okay?”

  His words penetrated her head, and despite everything, she smiled. “Okay, Sanul. I promise. We’ll be back after them tomorrow.” She knelt down beside him and put a kiss between his horns. “You’re a sweetheart, Sanul. Thank you.”

  Her living-room window moved up and out of the way when the ambulance hovered up and linked its ramp to the building. The air in her apartment pressurized with the outside in a burst of chilling wind that made goosebumps break out all over her body. The side of the ambulance slid up revealing a clean, white interior packed with shelves of medical equipment and a broad gurney. Two, four-legged robots with white-plastic housing and red crosses on their sides walked out from under it into her apartment. They looked like octagonal packing crates with a single, glowing-blue eye in the center of their forward-facing panels. They extended their legs, growing taller until they came up to about her waist, and deployed two, multi-segmented robotic arms from either side of the eye when they stopped before her.

  “Please describe your emergency,” a pre-recorded voice said in melodic Solan.

  “My friend is hurt,” she said pointing down at Sanul. “He’s a Volgoth.” She moved to the side to allow the robots access to him. Heat rose to her cheeks as she realized that they could see perfectly well that he was a Volgoth, and her statement was vapid.

  The ‘bots moved to either side of his prone form. One extended a narrow sensor probe from its arm and waved it over him.

  “Subject, male Volgoth in the early-adulthood phase of his lifespan. Fractured bone in the upper segment of the left podia,” the robot announced. “Recommend splinting and a Volgoth-specific nanomedical injection.”

  “Concur,” the other robot announced in an identical voice.

  “Interfacing with subject’s cerebral implant—”

  “No thank you.” Sanul winced.

  “Sir, it is standard procedure to determine your metabolic state and analyze any unusual chemicals in your system,” the robot said.

  “Refuse,” he responded.

  “Don’t link to him,” Cygni said, trying to add some force to his demand.

  “That is irregular. Do you take responsibility if the subject perishes or is harmed by undiagnosed conditions as a result of your refusal?” The first robot asked.

  She looked at Sanul’s eyes when she nodded. “Yes. I take responsibility.”

  “Do you intend to house him here?” the robot asked her. “We cannot transport him without a scan. He will be unable to move until the nanomeds complete their task.”

  “Cygni, you don’t have to do this,” Sanul said, but it was the least she could do considering it was her fault he was in need of medical attention in the first place.

  “Yes, I will.”

  “Acknowledged. Please stand by. We will set the leg and apply the injection.” The robots’ arms reached forward and tore Sanul’s dark pant-leg open from his last joint to his hip. They cut it off completely with a laser tool, then aligned the leg and started printing out several thigh-length rods from a side-panel compartment. Sanul whimpered and squirmed, but his movements did not hinder their work. He shouted once when they pulled the leg out straight, and in short order he had a splint bandaged to his thigh and an injection of painkillers in his system.

  “Thank you for using Emergen-C Services, Incorporated, an EpiGenome company,” one robot said as both of them moved back towards the waiting ambulance outside her window. “Your account has been charged four-thousand ConSovs for today’s service.”

  “Four-thousand?” She felt her stomach drop. She was surprised the charge even cleared her bank account.

  “Correct. A breakdown of charges has been sent to your Cyberweb Protocol Address. Emergen-C Services, Incorporated wishes you a safe and happy day.”

  She watched the robots load themselves back under the gurney in the ambulance and her window slide itself shut. She knelt beside Sanul and examined their work once it pulled away. The money was gone, there was nothing to do about that. She figured it was just another blow in the long series of bad events in recent weeks. The way things were going she should have expected it.

  “They did good work,” she said without really having any basis to speak other than the neat appearance of the splint.

  “And they have good meds,” Sanul attempted a human smile. “Cygni, I can go home. Really.”

  Although in some ways that would make life easier, she couldn’t have that. “Nope, you’re staying here. I insist.”

  “I’m sorry about all this.” He started to struggle up to a seated position but winced and fell back to the floor. She helped him prop his back against the ruin of her wall on the second attempt. He was heavier than he looked.

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m happy to help a friend, okay? Let me get the bed ready.” She got to her feet, huffing with the effort, and her eyes fell on the corner of the metal box sticking out from under her bookshelf. The thought that all of this mess would be easier to deal with if she had Sanul’s gift back in her system crossed her mind.

  Later, she told herself and headed for the bedroom.

  Typical of its type in the neighborhood, it was a small chamber in a small apartment—too small for the rent she paid, but the prices were worse outside the ghetto. Her Queen-sized bed met the walls on three sides, leaving almost no space for her dresser and the personal items she collected as the years wore on. She never really had the time, or to be honest with herself, the will to clean it. The narrow walkway by the bed was awash in colorful laundry, dust bunnies, and long forgotten artifacts from her life. She got half-way through clearing the space by throwing the mess into an open closet, which was itself little more than a growing mountain of clothing and plastic boxes, when the rush of epinephrine wore off and the weariness hit her.

  Her head spun and she wound up face-first on the ruffled sheets of her bed. She laid there for several minutes with the sound of her long breaths in her ears before she realized she would need help to get Sanul off her floor and into the bed. She couldn’t call Shkur, that was obvious, and her former best friend, Boadicea Euphrati, hadn’t talked to her since she admitted to planting that spy-grain on her person. In retrospect it was a dumb idea, but she was desperate for information at the time, and Boa hadn’t been inclined to help. For a moment she thought about calling Giselle, but the woman betrayed her. True, she would probably still be in a CSA interrogation cell if Giselle hadn’t done what she did, but getting her enslaved to Baroness Sophiathena Cronus was the wrong way to conduct a rescue. Some part of her wanted to believe that Giselle did the best she could
, and maybe she had, but she couldn’t get the feel of that Orgnan’s hand in the limo out of her head. She was terrified, and she blamed Giselle for it—which left her few options as to who could help her with Sanul.

  She could try calling her assistant at Cosmos Corp, Aratiach’Ila’Anaeriae, but niu was hired through Baroness Sophiathena’s barony, the Elthroa Staffing Corporation, and when Cygni revealed some of what was going on Ila refused to break niur company loyalty. As a result she knew she could not trust nium. With Ila off her list that left only one person she could call. He had his own complications, but she was reasonably certain he would come.

  She prompted her implant to contact Biren’s CPAd. It only took a moment for his spectral image to appear next to her on the bed.

  “Cygni, this is a surprise.” He looked at her with dark eyes from beneath a full head of seashell-adorned dreadlocks. A devilish smile put dimples in the smooth, mocha skin between his square jaw and robust cheekbones. Thorny, vine-like tattoos were just visible above the collar of his shirt where a blue and green beaded necklace peeked out from beneath the fabric. A lifetime of activity, and some extensive genetic engineering, had his muscular body drawing her eyes up and down the bulges in his clothing. Even without the presence of his beguiling pheromones in her nostrils, the sight of him made a small part of her eager despite her melancholy.

  She sat up on the bed and brushed a lock of hair from her face.

  His dimples vanished when he ran his eyes over her body. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said. “I need your help.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Thank you,” she said, sending him the door codes. He looked surprised, then worried.

  “I’ll hurry,” he said and cut the connection.

  She found herself staring out into space after the call. The whirlwind of thoughts circling her mind transitioned into a numbness that seeped into the rest of her body as she waited. She heard the murmur of activity from the other apartments around her, and Sanul doing something in her living room, but all she could bring herself to do was sit, and stare, and feel nothing. It wasn’t until she heard her apartment door slide open that she felt up to moving again. The chronometer in the lower left corner of her UI had moved forward forty-minutes since the last time she checked it.