| |
––––––––
I was never so glad to leave a room in my life... except for maybe leaving the lab where they wanted to use me to test the Canton 82, or the cell Bastien the Ghoul... Okay, so maybe I’d been happier about other rooms I’d left. Whatever. I was just glad to get out of the ops centre, too.
Mack didn’t say a word until he’d taken me out of Bastien’s complex to the shuttle he and Tens had come down in, and, boy, was I glad to see that thing, too. I followed him on board, and settled into a flight couch across from him. I didn’t expect the shuttle door to close, or the thrum of its engines coming on-line.
If it hadn’t been Mack sitting across from me, or the fact I knew this new craft was his shuttle, I might have panicked. As it was, I still felt a curling of unease.
“What’s going on?”
Mack stared at me, and I held my breath. This was where his face melted to reveal the Bastien beneath. Right?
“Mack?”
“We get you out of here,” he said, and relief washed through me, although I was still afraid.
I think he caught the emotion, because he leant forward.
“What is it, Cutter?”
But I couldn’t answer him. I glanced past him toward the cockpit, but the doors were closed, had been closed since we boarded.
“Cutter?”
My eyes snapped back to Mack’s face, and I felt Tens slide into my head, even though it was Rohan who answered.
“She’s scared you’re not you.”
I looked up, then looked around the cabin, but there wasn’t a single Rohan in sight. The next words he said had just a touch of sadness to them.
“... and she’s scared I’m not me.”
“Cutter!”
And well Mack might shout, because I was out of my seat, and heading for the cargo-hold door, trying to put as much distance between me and Mack and the cockpit as I could manage. There might even be weapons in the hold, if push came to shove...
Mack was out of his seat and on me, even as my back hit the wall. I yelped as he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms—and he was in my head just as fast.
“We’re real.”
I might have tried to break free of his grip, to kick him and Tens and Rohan out of my head—again, but it was pointless. Mack’s grip was too tight, and Tens outmatched me tech-wise on his own. With Rohan helping him... In the end, I did the only thing I could think to do, and the one thing I should have done the first time I woke.
I poked all their implants.
“Hey!”
“Quitit”
“Whatthefuck!”
“I’m here.”
They all came out as a chorus, and only Rohan sounded anywhere near calm about it, which was when I realized I’d poked four implants, and not the three I was expecting. Tens caught on first.
“Delight?” he asked, and then, quick as lightning, he did something with the code that made Delight’s link become visible. As soon as he had, he turned to me, “Do it again.”
So I did, and this time, it was fun.
While I poked around for more connections, Rohan ran a diagnostic inside the implant, picking out the other links I had, and I noted I now had my link to Mack’s ship back. I laid a lock over that one, before Delight could move toward it, and then I explored the others.
No wonder I’d been feeling like the world I was in wasn’t quite real. It was real, but there was a section of my head that just wasn’t in it.
“Bastien the Bastard,” I muttered, and I didn’t mean the Ghoul.
Delight crossed over to see what I had found, partly because she was that bull-headed, but mostly because Tens wanted to see, too, and he had a firm grip on her ability to leave.
“He’s still alive?”
Mack said something that echoed my comment, and Rohan settled himself quietly in a corner of my implant and started to tinker. I just stared at the link I’d found and wondered how Bendigo-Bastien had managed to get himself off the gurney, and into the situation he was in... or rather, how Bastien the Ghoul had managed to get Bendigo-Bastien off the gurney and into the situation they were in. Also, why Bendigo-Bastien had chosen now to let the link go live.
“Rohan, can you trace this?” I asked, and felt him focus on me for a flicker of time, before going back to whatever it was he was working on.
We had Delight’s attention, and Tens’s as well, although he was none too pleased with me.
“Leave the boy out of this.”
“I can trust the boy,” I said, making it clear I wasn’t so sure I could say the same for him, or anyone else.
Delight laughed, but Mack was still in the dark.
“Tell me what’s going on,” he said, and then snapped at Tens. “Shuttle won’t dock itself.”
Tens stuck around, but the shuttle docked without any problems. Mack’s response was typical.
“Who’s flying this thing?”
“Case. She’s been on the remote since just before I stuck my head in here.”
I could feel Mack glowering. He wasn’t happy, but Case was his main pilot, so I didn’t see how he could argue.
“Well, that’s just mean,” Rohan said, and we all turned toward his corner.
“What?” I asked.
“Bendigo’s warping your reality,” he said. “It’s just a little bit, but it’s enough to make you feel that nothing around you is real.”
“What do you mean?” Mack.
“He’s got part of her conscious linked to where he is.” Rohan looked at me. “I bet you feel like one of us is going to turn into the Ghoul any second, right?”
I nodded. Inside my head, but outside my head, as well. It was the weirdest feeling.
“Well, that’s because Bendigo’s surrounded by Ghouls, and they all want to know what data you took.”
“I took it all.”
“Yeah, and now they’re just figuring that out... or they were.”
“What do you mean?” Mack, impatient and fuming.
“I’ve put a temporary shunt on the link. Now they’re only getting pictures of Delight’s face.”
“That’s Agent Delight to you, child.”
Rohan should have been scared witless to have her looking at him like that. Instead, he returned her gaze, and there wasn’t a skerrick of fear in sight.
“Cutter calls you Delight,” he said, “and that’s good enough for me.”
I felt Delight’s attention rest on me, and did my best to mimic Rohan’s nonchalance. Tens and Mack straightened, Tens dragging Delight a few steps further away from me. I waited to see what happened next, was surprised when Mack left the implant, even though he kept a tight grip on me in the real.
“Time you left,” Tens said, looking at Delight, and I was surprised to see her vanish, more surprised when Tens looked over at Rohan.
“Is she gone?”
Rohan stilled, and then raised his head, with a very satisfied smile on his face.
“She is now,” and then he left, too, with Tens following in his wake.
“We’ve landed,” Tens reminded me, just before he vanished from my head, “and Mack’s gonna want to talk.”
I didn’t say anything in reply, just stood in the silence of my now empty head, and carefully locked down every link I’d found. The only one I had trouble with was the one Rohan had identified as belonging to Bendigo. That one, I stared at for a good long moment, wondering what to do about it.
Rohan had rerouted it to a file that scrolled through different images of Agent Delight, but he hadn’t been able to undo it, or kick Bendigo completely out of my mind. Taking a closer look, I saw that what he’d done wouldn’t last very long once Bendigo realized he’d been re-routed, but that I’d be alerted to any changes that occurred. And Tens hadn’t tried to improve on it, which meant I really did have to come out of my head and talk to them.
Damn.
All I really wanted to do was leave.
Everything.
A very long way behind me.
For good.
But I couldn’t tell them that, any of them. Not even Rohan. The boy was too young to be saddled with that kind of responsibility, and I don’t think a single one of the adults gave two shakes of a shit. Tucking that thought carefully away, in a direction that might even have meant it was stored in my grey matter, instead of inside the implant, I sank back into my body, and opened my eyes.
Mack’s shirt blocked my vision, and he smelt—‘good’ was not a word I wanted intruding, nor was ‘manly’, ‘comforting’ or the phrase ‘like home’; there was just no freaking way!—‘like Mack’, that seemed to be a good fit. Mack smelt like Mack, and that would just have to do.
“Green just isn’t your color,” I said, even though I couldn’t see enough of him to make that call, “and you stink.”
Completely unfair, because he smelt no worse than any other man who worked in an office, but it had the desired effect, and he let me go.
“You shouldn’t go around sniffing your male colleagues,” he said, and Tens sputtered.
I couldn’t resist.
“You’d prefer it if I went around sniffing my female colleagues?” I demanded, and Tens grabbed Rohan, and pulled the boy to the main hatch, so he could open it, and they could both leave.
Mack ignored them.
“Whatever turns you on, kiddo,” he said, and turned to follow Tens and the boy. “Whatever turns you on.”
I stopped him with a single question.
“What about freedom?”
Mack turned back around.
“Not until your internship is over,” he said, “and then not until your contract with Odyssey is up.”
“Contract?”
It was news to me. I didn’t recall signing a contract. Mack frowned.
“You did sign a contract, didn’t you?”
I felt the anger I’d held for Odyssey’s high-handedness return, and grabbed it tight.
“I’m sure there’s a contract with my name on it, somewhere.”
“Hmmm. Be that as it may, we have to discuss what to do next.”
I followed him out through the hatch and into the docking bay. My world still didn’t feel quite real, but there was nothing I could do about that. There was a piece of my head being held hostage by an asshole, and I was probably going to have to go and get it back.
With that firmly in mind, I followed Mack away from the shuttle, and into the ship proper. Tens was waiting by the door, but Rohan was nowhere in sight. Tens caught me looking around, and answered the question I wasn’t going to ask.
“He’s hiding in the engine room,” he said. “I’ll have to go dig him out, later.”
Rohan used his limited swear vocabulary, and vanished out of my implant, and I realized, with a jolt, that I hadn’t even know the little beggar had been there. Tens gave me a grin, but he didn’t seem too happy.
“I’ll give him a lecture on cyber-etiquette, while I’m at it.”
I glared at him.
“Don’t bother,” I said, sliding past him through the door. “With the role models he has, it would be wasted.”
And I sincerely hoped Rohan wasn’t around to hear that. The boy was going to be just fine in the world of Mack and Miss Delight, and that was good. It was also sad to see him stepping away from his sense of right, so fast. The Rohan I’d met on Bendigo’s ship, would never have hidden a link in my head—and he’d certainly never have ridden my mind in secret the way he just had.
I sighed. The Rohan I’d met on Bendigo’s ship wouldn’t have lasted long in the world he was in. This Rohan? He’d do just fine. It was cold comfort, and I turned through another door after Mack, with Tens following close behind. I was surprised to find we’d entered the ship’s cafeteria.
“I need a kaff,” Mack said, “and breakfast.”
Breakfast? I’d thought it was later than that.
“I try to keep to ship’s time rather than shift with the day cycle of every planet we visit,” and I couldn’t be sure if Mack had read the confusion on my face, or if he, too, had stayed in the implant—and since he didn’t clarify, I had no way of being sure.
“You can eat, too.”
Domineering bastard—although I was hungry, and I had forgotten when I last ate.
“You were out overnight.”
Fantastic. Man was reading my mind.
We passed through the canteen to a small room set alongside the kitchen. Mack introduced it with an economy of words, as he took a seat at the end farthest from the door.
“Officer’s Mess.”
He had officers?
If he was in my implant, Mack didn’t respond, but he waved me in, indicating I should take a seat to his right, which would put me in a corner, across the table and diagonal to the nearest door. Can’t say that was appealing. I took the seat at the foot of the table, as far away from him as I could get.
Mack sighed.
“I’d rather not have to shout across the table,” he said, and I shrugged.
“Too bad.”
“Fine,” he said, speaking directly in the implant, and opening a link for Tens. “We’ll just have to do it this way, then.”
Tens stepped into the implant, and made himself comfortable, and I rested my forehead on the back of my knuckles, and sighed.
“Fine,” I said, my heart sinking, and I got up and walked to sit by Mack.
They didn’t say a word, but they did get the hell out of my head, and that was all I wanted. Mack turned to me, not a trace of smugness about him. Tens shut the door, and took a seat opposite me. At first I was surprised that he hadn’t chosen a seat on the other side of me, and then I realized that where he’d chosen would put him closer to the door. I guess they still didn’t trust me not to make a break for it.
Smarter than they looked.
“Tell me what you thought of in the ops center,” Mack said, like he hadn’t been privy to what I was thinking.
“I can’t access the networks for the outer or inner security peripheries,” I said. “Did Delight close the door behind her?”
“It was the only way to make sure nothing came through it. Why?”
“It’s just that I couldn’t access the inner security periphery, until the inner airlock door opened, and it was the same for the security systems in the Ghoul’s server room. I had no access, until I could tap into the wireless net inside—and I couldn’t do that, until I was inside, so I’m going to have to go back in.”
“And?” Mack asked, like he knew there was something else.
I frowned. Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought I had anything else. I shrugged.
“There’s bound to be more. I just can’t think of it, right now.”
He nodded, and glanced toward the door.
I guess, if I’d been as tapped into his head as he was into mine, I’d have known breakfast was arriving. As it was, I didn’t expect to see the food being brought through the door. I also didn’t expect Agent Delight to be one of the people carrying a tray.
She handed Mack his breakfast, and passed him his coffee, and then came and sat down beside me. I flinched, and cast a nervous glance toward Mack. He watched Delight, not a skerrick of emotion showing on his face. When we’d all been served our breakfast, he started eating. Delight followed his example, and I tried to do the same.
Not a word passed between us, until Mack had finished his meal—and, even then, he said nothing until the rest of us were done. The kitchen crew came in and cleared the plates, but they left a hot pot of kaff, a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. Mack refilled his cup, and passed the pot to Delight.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came for the briefing.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“She is our trainee, and we can sit in on anything she’s involved in.”
Mack looked at me.
“You’d better leave, Cutter,” he said, and I stood, but Delight wrapped her hand around my wrist and pulled me back down.
Or, at least, she tried. I twisted free, and moved around behind Mack.
Delight stood, drew a small projectile pistol from beneath her jacket, and calmly checked the settings. She didn’t look at me, or Mack, or Tens, just prepped her weapon. A wave of unease washed over me, but I put my trust in Mack, and moved past him.
Delight finished her weapon check, just as I passed behind Tens. She raised her head and looked at me, holding the pistol down near the table, and not pointing it at me.
“Don’t go, Cutter,” she said, and it was as much an instruction as the one Mack had issued.
I glanced from her to Mack, and waited. Tens said nothing, but tension thrummed through his body, and I noticed his hands were below the table. I wondered if he had a weapon hidden out of sight, and if he’d get to use it if he did. Delight had not become a legend without reason.
She waited, not following my glance to Mack, and appearing not to pay any attention to Tens. It was as though I was the only person in the room that mattered. It was a thought I found disturbing. Beside me, Mack swayed, grabbing at the table for support, before sliding limply out of his chair. On my other side, Tens went boneless. Delight’s gaze did not shift.
I leant on the wall behind me.
“What did you do to them?”
“Smeared the inside of their kaff cups with nan-contained knock-out drops. Let them drink the nans with their kaff, and triggered the nans to release when Mack wasn’t being cooperative. Any more dumbass questions?”
I blinked.
“Why?”
“Because you and I needed a little girl time.”
Somehow I doubted that, but Delight left me no room to argue, and the silver light of teleportation wrapped around us.
