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Delight shot me the second we landed in Odyssey’s transport room. Fortunately, she shot me in the gut, and not the head. At least they were going to let me live a little longer. I wondered if it would be long enough for me to regret it.
I had enough time to gasp, and feel my skin grow cold with shock, before she’d closed the distance between us, grabbed me by the bicep and pulled me close, and then shot me twice more.
“You’ll listen better from a regen tank,” she said, and kept me upright until the medics reached us. “So stay conscious, Cutter. I don’t have a lot of time.”
She didn’t have a lot of time?
I had a Bastien to catch, a Bendigo, too. I tried to stay conscious just for that. I really did, but I think she’d shot me good, and my body didn’t want to cooperate. I was heading for oblivion by the time the medics got me in the tank, and it started to fill. Delight watched like a hawk from outside the glass, the front of her tunic stained with blood and gore.
And she didn’t seem to be the tiniest bit sorry about what she’d done.
I’d ask her about that if I ever woke up.
* * *
It only seemed like an eye blink, before I came to, and Delight was there to greet me, when I did.
“We thought we’d let you live, this time,” she said, her voice coming in through the implant as she talked to me from outside the tank, “and we thought we might explain the recruitment plan you came in on.”
I stared at her. There’d been a recruitment plan?
Apparently, they’d recalibrated the implant to pick up the random impulses I used as thought—just like last time, but a hundred times faster.
“Keevers didn’t tell you?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“Shame,” she said, without seeming even the slightest bit worried by it, “but we don’t usually have to make things this clear. Most people are grateful enough for being rescued, that they don’t quibble about working for us, after—especially when they didn’t have a life beforehand, and weren’t going to have any sort of life without our interference.”
“Had a life,” I managed, forgetting the futility of trying to form real words, in a tank full of whatever they filled these tanks with.
Delight sneered.
“Not much of one. Do you know what the pirates had planned for you when Keevers stepped in?”
I shuddered, a myriad of images rising unbidden. I hadn’t known what they’d intended for me, but I’d seen what they’d planned for some of the others. My stomach did a slow flip, and I fought down the lump of sudden fear that caught in my throat.
“Exactly,” Delight said. “What Keevers didn’t tell you, when he pulled your ass clear, was that he was recruiting you as a post-dead special.”
Post-dead special? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“It means you weren’t ever getting off that ship, sweet-pea. Keevers hadn’t pulled you? You’d have been dead in three, five weeks tops, depending on your stamina. There was at least one very sick puppy due to dock an hour after we boarded. We caught them coming in, cruise-ship style, and expecting a very good time with the cargo, if you catch my drift.”
I caught myself starting to vomit, just as the tank’s counter-measures kicked in.
“You were to be part of the menu of a very sad buffet.”
I closed my eyes, and a sharp staccato of blows rattled through the tank. It sounded like she was knocking. I mean, really? Why didn’t she just go away?
“Because you need to know what a post-dead recruitment contract entails.”
Of course, I did, even if I hadn’t ever seen a contract, let alone signed one. And, if I was on a post-dead contract, then why weren’t all the rest of those they’d saved?
“Damn,” and I was pretty sure Delight hadn’t meant for me to hear it.
I laughed, not in a happy way, but more in a the-world-isn’t-fair-and-I’m-screwed-anyway kind of way. I wasn’t letting Delight off the hook that easily, though. Nope. I wanted her to admit the discrepancy, regardless of the complete lack of good it would do me.
“So, Keevers thought I had skills,” I said, using my voice in spite of the tank. It bubbled, but still managed to grate like I was coming down with a sore throat, “and he thought Odyssey could use ’em...” I paused, feeling breathless in spite of the machines feeding me oxygen. I hated being this weak. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, again, but I took a deep breath and continued.
“And if he’d just left me, I’d have been rescued. Given a new life. Free.”
Delight was silent.
“Right?” I pressed, even though my voice was fading, and my brain was shutting down, again.
Delight didn’t answer, and I drifted into sleep. It wasn’t anywhere near as long as I thought it should be—and I was out of the tank and dressed in combat fatigues when I woke.
“We sped up the nanites,” Delight explained. “We’re out of time, so I’ll give you the quick version,” and then she laid a hand over my mouth, when I tried to interrupt. “Post-dead special recruitment is for those with skills we need. You get training and employment, instead of settled into a minimum-wage job on a backwater world, or being sent back to a bad home situation.”
I stopped trying to talk; I knew which of those I would have fitted into. Delight took her hand away from my mouth.
“We train you, give you a career, and you thank us by succeeding—with us, for twice the time it took to train you, and half again for equipment and expenses. No one gets to buy out their contract, and few even get to sign one, but you can, if you insist.”
“You shoulda just asked,” I managed, and my voice still creaked.
Delight ignored me, and laid a small stack of papers and a pen on the wheeled table she’d drawn up beside the bed. I pushed it away.
“And that’s the second time you didn’t ask,” I said, pulling myself upright, and then swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
That was a lot harder than it should have been, and pain rippled through my gut. I ignored it, but added, “and you just told me there was no time for negotiation.”
Delight’s eyes widened, and she paled with annoyance. I slipped out of bed, glad to discover they’d set a pair of boots and some socks, beside a chair. If they were in that much of a hurry, then I’d get away with what I was about to do next... just.
“Where are Mack and Tens?” I asked, leaning on the edge of the bed, so I could catch my breath.
“Here,” came from the doorway, in Mack’s familiar rumble. He looked across at Agent Delight, his expression almost apologetic, and just a little annoyed.
“We have to go,” he told her. “Whatever games you’re trying to play, they’re gonna have to wait.”
Delight pulled a face, and pushed the table away. She reached out, as though to steady me, and I avoided her hand, moving toward the chair and footwear, as quickly as I could. I registered more pain, and a certain amount of weakness, but I kept going. The pain could go, or stay, as it pleased. The rest I knew how to deal with.
“I need stims and painkillers,” I said, reaching the chair, and sinking carefully into it, “and I’ll need a tank after.”
“What’s wrong?” Mack asked, stepping into the room with Tens on his heels, but I shook my head.
“Stims and painkillers,” I repeated, pulling on the socks. “We’re out of time.”
“Docs are on their way,” Delight said
Whether or not Mack liked me ignoring his question, he had to give way to that. He came across and stood in front of my chair, Tens following like a shadow.
“Odyssey sent a patrol in,” he said. “They tapped the security systems just the way you did, but they couldn’t find anything—and that includes the server room, the lab. Anything.”
“And the patrol didn’t come out, again.”
That last was Delight. I gave her a pained attempt at a smile.
“Figured there was a reason you stopped torturing me,” I said, adjusting the boots as I slid my feet into them, and pulling the laces tight.
“Docs are here,” she said, as a man and woman entered the room.
‘You’re not supposed to be out of bed,” the man said, and I glanced up, registering the hypoderms the pair held.
I started to rise out of my chair, but that was as far as I got, before Mack and Tens tilted me back, and pinned my shoulders to the wall.
“Hey!”
“Look at me!” Mack commanded, and I did, just long enough for the doc to come along side.
The first shot went straight into my stomach, the second and third into either side of my throat, just above the collar bone. I had time enough to shout, even as they said what they were.
“Fast-nans to accelerate the healing process.”
“Stim.”
“Painkiller.”
Mack and Tens held me until the docs were done, and Delight had escorted the pair of them to the door. The female doctor turned back to address Mack.
“Tank will be ready when you’re done. Teleporting in and out as close to the entry point would be best. The nans should continue the repair work, and stop things from getting worse.”
Delight opened her mouth to say something, but the doc turned and walked away. The sound of her receding footsteps sounded angry to me, and her male colleague had the sense not to say a word.
Delight turned to Mack.
“Doc’s right; she’s only half done.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. I was ready to do the job, my boots were on, and the stims and painkillers were taking hold. I tilted the chair upright, and brushed Mack and Tens’ hands off my shoulders. Maybe later I’d have a word to them about holding me down for needles. Then again, given I wouldn’t have sat still for them, if they hadn’t, it might be best if I didn’t say anything.
I pushed to my feet and headed for the corridor. Well, that was what I intended to do. Mack laid a hand on my shoulder, and I stopped.
“I have to get my gear,” I said.
“Tens brought your gear,” he said. “We replicated what you had the last time, and Rohan said you’d need these, as well.”
He held up a data stick, one that would fit the port for a jack. I eyed it warily.
“Did he say what was in it?”
“Said to tell you he was along for the ride last time, and remembered what you used the most, and what you wished you’d had more of.”
I took the stick from his fingers, and stared at it.
“Did he tell you if he’d put any more intrusion software on it?” I asked, because I just wouldn’t put it past the little beggar to have put a worm or something in there, in the hopes he could tag along, once more.
It was Tens who answered.
“Nah. I checked it. All legit.”
Delight sputtered with half-suppressed laughter, and I looked at her.
“I thought he was such a nice boy,” she said, “that the very thought of doing that kind of thing offended him.”
“You wish,” I said. “He’s come in contact with several bad influences.”
“I just bet he has,” Tens muttered, and I guessed he was making more notes on the finer points of cyber–etiquette for his apprentice.
“Good luck with that,” I said, but I swept my hair out of the way, and stuck the stick into my head.
It contained everything Tens had said it did—and not a worm in easy sight. Either the kid had learned, or he was sticking to his principles, which was not a comforting thought, given the shaking those had had lately.
I copied the programs into the implant, and then duplicated them again, because you could never be too prepared, right? When I was done, I pulled the data stick, and handed it back to Tens.
“You need any of these?” I asked, but he shook his head.
“Nah. I’m good. Kid set me up before I left the ship.”
“Fine.”
I looked up at Mack.
“You gonna lead the way?”
“No,” Delight answered, before he could reply. “I am.”
And silver light engulfed us.
