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Last thing I remember was Mack letting go; I was out before I hit the floor, Agent Delight’s words chasing me down into the dark.
“She really hates needles, doesn’t she?”
Mack’s reply, floating after it.
“Now, where were we?”
I came to with a mother of a headache, and a blindfold over my eyes. Tried to lift my hands to take the blindfold off. Found I couldn’t.
“Just great,” I muttered.
It got worse, when Mack spoke... from inside my head.
“You can unlock the force cuffs with your implant,” he said.
I could? I thought about it, and the headache got worse.
“You might want to sleep a bit longer,” he suggested, and I wanted to argue, tried to argue, felt something click inside my mind, and dropped right off the planet.
The headache was gone when I woke up. The same could not be said for Mack.
“Feel better?”
“Oh, f—” which devolved into a shout of pain, as lightning lanced through my skull, and then Mack explained.
“No more cussing.”
So, of course I cussed, again.
And again.
And. Ag—
“Oh. Fu—”
“I can keep this motherfuc—”
“All day, man. All day...”
“You know, she’s gonna kill herself to prove a point, right?” Tens voice was a welcome distraction, ’cos what I was gonna say next was gonna hurt like a bi—
“Oh do you fuc—”
And the pain stopped, which left me dragging in another breath, one that sounded too much like a sob for my liking. I pushed past it, managed to find a voice that sounded steady.
“Took you long enough.”
“For what?” Mack sounded tired.
“To understand that...” I stopped.
I mean, really. What the hell was the point, anyway? I could tell them no-one was going to ever make me do what I didn’t want to, but truth was, it just wasn’t true. Truth was, I was pretty much going to go on the next mission Odyssey had set for us, and then, probably the next, and the next, and the next...
I tried to curl up in a ball so I could cry, and the force cuffs stopped me. Well, that was okay, I undid those with a thought, and rolled onto my side. The ankle cuffs were just as easy, and then I realized the implant in my head was hooked into the ships’ systems. I straightened myself out.
“You motherfucking sons of bitches want to play? Let’s play.”
That caused a scramble. Pretty sure I heard an ‘oh shit’ from Tens, and I knew Mack was heading my way. The good thing about implants is that they’re mobile... or, at least, I hoped they were; I hadn’t had much experience with them. I rolled off the bed, yanked the blindfold free, and headed for the door.
It, of course, was locked.
Took me a minute to patch through to the locking mechanism. The ship’s innards were shifting to block me. Something in the implant tried that, too, but there was this little trick Odyssey had taught me, which turned that sucker right off. Off, I say—and I laughed.
I looked for the mechanism that had been causing me pain for cussing, and I grinned. Now, I had a plan. First, I had to deal with the lock... and Tens. Something told me Tens wasn’t going to be too impressed with me—and, if Mack was on his way, then Mack was almost here. I opened the door and bolted.
I was two corridors down and heading for the shuttle bay, when he finally caught up. By then, I’d gotten the implant to put the trigger mechanism for the cuss-punisher into the ship, and was just putting the finishing touches on the delivery mechanism—and Tens was fighting me all the way. Boy, was he pissed.
If I didn’t get my ass off this ship, I was going to be in more trouble than I’d yet managed. And that was saying something. To add to the mess I was creating, Mack was definitely upset with me. Score.
“I know what you’ve done.”
“Yeah. Sure you do.”
“And you need to undo it.”
I kept moving. Got my hand on the handle for the hatch leading to the hangar. Got jolted into the other side of the corridor. Damn, these boys liked their electricity. That was... that was... A needle punched into me, and I looked down, saw the dart hanging out of my side.
Well, crap!
“You gonna undo what you did?”
Mack was kneeling beside me, so I shook my head.
“Don’t want Tens getting bored,” I mumbled, and then Tens stepped into the corridor.
“Well, damn,” I muttered, and the ship zapped me, again. “Oh for....”
And I stopped, and I glared at Tens, but he was already walking away. Laughing fit to bust, as he stepped into the panel he’d opened up to shoot me from.
“Bastar— Ow!”
“Tens!” Mack shouted, and the lights dimmed and then came back up, again.
“Right,” Mack said, turning back to me. “Now, you can swear!”
But the world was shuddery around the edges.
“Great,” Mack said, pulling the dart, and then lifting me from the floor, and Tens’ disembodied voice floated out of the comms system.
“At least we know she’s got the hang of her implant.”
“How long before this wears off?”
“Antidote’s in her room. The blue one.”
The blue one? I rolled my eyes at Mack, and then closed them. Whatever the hell Tens had put in his dart, it was making me feel sick... and sleepy.
“I hate you,” I murmured, as Mack set me down, keeping an arm around my shoulders as he picked up the blue hypoderm sitting on the bedside table. I really wanted to run away, but nothing was working, so I just watched him make me a pin-cushion for about the three millionth time. “I hate Tens, too.”
“Yeah, you can hate him, later,” Mack kept his arm around me, and handed me a glass of water. “Right now, you and I need to get going. You’ve wasted enough time.”
I’d wasted enough time? Seriously?
But Mack gave my shoulders a squeeze, and took the empty cup from my hands.
“Yup,” he held out his hand.
It was easier to take it than argue. He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. I let Mack guide me to a closet. Hah. This really was my room!
“You’ll need the set on the left,” Mack said. “You’ve got underwear in the top drawer.
Wait. I what? I looked at Mack, and he shrugged.
“You need to get dressed,” he said, and I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot.
Mack shook his head.
“Nope. I’m not leaving. You have caused enough trouble as it is.”
I swallowed, cleared my throat.
“Well,” I said, “could you at least turn around?”
And he tilted his head to one side and raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, yeah,” Tens said. “Like that would make any difference in the fact you’re gonna be watched every step of the way.”
I glanced around the room. Couldn’t see a single camera. Turned back to Mack, and folded my arms.
“Don’t make me come down there and get you dressed.”
I felt my jaw drop, and raised my eyebrows at Mack. He just folded his arms and raised his eyebrows in answer.
“You heard the man,” he said. “Don’t make him come down here.”
I wanted to think they wouldn’t, but I had a nasty feeling that I’d find out otherwise. Mack looked at me, and pointed to the clothes I’d taken from the cupboard.
“You’ve got what you need,” he said.
This was ridiculous.
“If it helps,” Mack said, “you can turn around.”
“Why don’t you just back off?” I asked, and, to my surprise, he did.
I’m not sure, Mack lounging against the door was much better, but at least he was no longer in my face.
I started getting out of my clothes, remembered the cameras, and stopped.
“Don’t look, Tens.”
The response was not what I wanted to hear.
“Two chances.”
“Tens,” and, for once, I was happy to hear Mack’s voice.
There was a sigh, and the cameras went down. I know, because Tens patched the system overview through to my implant, and let me watch the ones in my room go off-line. Well, that made me feel a whole lot better. I was out of my clothes and about to get into the new ones, when Mack interrupted.
“You need to change your underwear.”
I felt my face heat.
“Go to Hell.”
“The new stuff has a bit extra in it.”
Sure it did.
“And you need to be quick.” Tens.
“I thought you weren’t looking.”
“Didn’t say the audio was off,” and the relevant circuitry showed on the implant, along with the why of me needing to hurry up.
“Crap.”
