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I came to in a cell. You know the deal. White-walls, white ceiling, white floor—no bed. Featureless. Funny, I hadn’t come across one of these in training. I expected a door to open, someone to come and say hi, and maybe sit me down and explain what I’d be doing next, no questions asked. It didn’t, and they didn’t, so I swung my legs out of bed, and stood up. The air fizzed in an all-too-familiar way, as I turned to get a better look at the cell, and I hit the wall, face first, before I could eyeball who it was that had just ported in.
Still, it wasn’t hard to guess.
“Delight?”
She’d appeared in behind me, grabbed me, and introduced me to the wall in pretty seamless fashion. She tried to do it a second time, but I’d already driven an elbow back into her gut, and was turning along her forearm. Can’t say being head-butted was too much better.
The whole world wobbled and I felt my legs go to jelly. It was only for a moment, but it was enough.
“You done?”
Good question. Was I done? Yeah, maybe I was. At least, for now.
“Uh huh.”
I figured if they were going to walk me out an airlock, then that would follow, shortly. Of course, I also figured that, if that was all they wanted to do, then they’d have done it already. I tried to gather enough of my wits together to follow whatever was coming next.
“Your contract isn’t up,” she said, and my confusion must have shown.
She gave me an evil grin.
“What? You thought we’d just let you walk away?”
I had, especially since it had been just over a year since she and Mack and Tens had pulled me off Depredides. My answer must have shown, for that grin got wider, and she let me go so I could lean on the wall, and watch as she paced the other side of the room.
“Yeah. Our bad. Mack was looking just as confused, when we called him in.”
I raised my eyebrows. They’d what?
“He is one of our instructors. We do have his number—and we have people all over the place. He wasn’t hard to find. You, on the other hand...” She moved back to stand a couple of paces in front of me. “You are showing signs of being one devious son of a bitch. I like that in a girl.”
She did?
“Sure I do,” she said, and I realized she’d gotten back into my head, and managed a groan of protest.
Delight’s look of sympathy was not convincing.
“Aww, sweetie,” she said, and laid a hand on my cheek, “I’m sorry.”
She gestured to the cell around me.
“This place has everything you need, but you’re going to have to earn it—and that includes the amenities.”
She turned away.
“Your terminal is over there. You want a seat? You earn it. You need to pee? Better get that first assignment done, because clean-up costs extra.”
I wanted to ask her why I’d been brought back in, but she didn’t give me time, and, now that she’d mentioned it, I was going to need those ‘amenities.’
“You earn everything from here on out.”
Out, hey? I wondered how long that would take me to earn. It was not a question I was going to ask, though. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. Way I saw it, I was going back to Basics... in the Advanced class.
I looked around the cell, then glanced back at Delight. She was watching me. As soon as she saw she had my attention, she pointed to the work station, she’d indicated before.
“We want access to that file. You’ll want waste disposal, soon.”
Now, that she mentioned it...
The look I shot her was just short of filthy, but it didn’t dim the evil grin lighting up her face.
“Best be quick, then.”
I didn’t argue, just moved over to the station. It was exactly the right height for standing.
“Let me guess,” I said. “This is a rental, and more furniture can be earned.”
I didn’t need to be looking at her to know that her smile just got wider. It snuck into her voice, and rubbed the fact in my ears.
“Clock’s ticking.”
The file was easy, considering the necessities it was paying for, but I didn’t tell her that. I just went through the code, and did what had to be done. Added a tweak here, removed a line there, defanged the beast that would reduce the rest of it to a garbled mess, otherwise, and sent the decrypt where I was told.
It was only after it was gone that I realized I should have sent a little code-gift of my own, and, by then, it was too late. Which turned out to be a good thing.
“Do you want to know what happened to the last person who booby-trapped an assignment?” Delight asked, as though reading my mind, and I felt a chill wash over me.
No, I decided, I really didn’t—and was glad I hadn’t given them the excuse to enlighten me.
I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful to see a san unit in my life.
Delight watched me go in, and she was still waiting when I came out.
“You’ve earned yourself a time-out.”
I was about to ask her how, when I’d done everything she’d asked since bringing me in, but she was already explaining.
“When you went AWOL after Ghoul went down, the order came down to terminate you. Mack asked for more time to get you on track...”
He had? And he hadn’t told me what was on the line? But Delight wasn’t giving me any time to ask questions. She just kept on.
“...and you’ve shown some improvement, which is why we’re having this discussion.”
I held onto the urge to breathe a sigh of relief. Something told me I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“What...”
But Delight held up a hand.
“You want to get back to your training schedule with Mack?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Then you need to earn the privilege.”
The computer made a brief sound, and I glanced towards it.
“Remember the extra tasks you did in training?”
I flicked a glance towards her, nodded, and then sidled over to where I could see the screen.
“This time you don’t earn extra credits.”
I lifted my head, looking over my shoulder as she turned towards the end of the cell.
“This time, you get to earn your way back into the training program, and pay back the costs of your retrieval. Mack’s not cheap.”
I froze, felt my eyebrows rise.
Mack had agreed to retrieve me?
Delight’s grin took on a nasty edge.
“It was a race. If he got to you before Tyson could get you back to the station, you got a chance at having him back as a supervisor—provided you earn enough credits to recover his and Tyson’s retrieval fees inside the next three months.”
I didn’t want to know what would have happened if Mack hadn’t gotten to me in time, but I did want to know how much time I had left. Delight had anticipated the question.
“You’ll find an invoice on the terminal—and the countdown.”
She turned, as though to leave, and then turned back.
“You’ve got to pass your training, as well as earn your way back into the Advanced program.”
I wanted to ask her ‘or else what’, but I didn’t dare. She told me anyway.
“You fuck this up, Cutter—and there’s an airlock with your name on it.”
I felt my face go pale, and wanted to tell her just how much I didn’t believe her, that I knew Odyssey’s reputation was not the image she was showing me. There was a lot I wanted to say to prove she was full of shit, but I didn’t dare.
Twelve months I’d been running with Mack. I’d gotten to see an awful lot in that time, and that included the look in a killer’s eyes. Delight had that look, and I didn’t want to call her on the airlock. Whether or not she was bullshitting about them spacing me, Odyssey wasn’t going to let me go. Not until I’d jumped through all their hoops.
I swallowed down every response I might be tempted to make, and managed the only one that might rate anywhere near acceptable.
“Understood.”
She cocked her head to one side, and then nodded.
It wasn’t really a shock, when she teleported out.
