New Chapter: Adrift Homeless 1x07 "Mrs Roboto" Presented by 99geek.ca

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1x07 “Mrs. Roboto”

Released on www.patreon.com/99geek  on December 2018

“You were always too good for this place,” her boss told her, as he was firing her from the diner. “With everything -- the attacks on the city, the paranoia—“ he trailed off under Steph’s gaze. “Business is down. I can’t afford to keep you on.”

“You don’t understand,” Steph tried to argue, but his expression made it pretty clear he did. “My entire family relies on my support. The bar I worked at closed for,” she tried to think of how to put it, “renovations. You’re literally all I have left in this world.”

“I’m sorry,” he said crossing his arms, and frowning. “That’s pretty pathetic though. Don’t you have a boyfriend or something.”

She was about to continue arguing, but stopped in her tracks at his sudden comment. “How’s your wife,” she snarled at him. His wife had been dead for five years.

She stormed out the front door before she could even gauge his reaction. She didn’t want to see it. She was done with that place anyway. Sand swept across the quiet streets as night had long past descended upon Hymalious City. Of course her boss had waited till the end of her shift to inform her she no longer worked there.

What was she going to do? How was she going to help her parents now? Things were only ever getting worse, it was like her life was in a never ending decline. She felt so helpless, her actions so futile.

She was angry. The anger boiled inside her as she barely made it a few steps, ready to explode. She stumbled into the familiar dark narrow alley around the side of her old employ, and choked back her tears. Instead of crying she let her anger out with a heavy fist against the side of the adjacent building. Her fist thudded painfully into the sandstone, and the coarse surface grinded into her knuckles. She did it again with the other hand, this time releasing a scream from the depths of her lungs as she swung with all her might and left a bloody smear.

She punched a couple more times, each time harder than the last, each strike hurting her more. The pain was just a welcome distraction from the anger. She tried to imagine her bosses face in the wall and punched again and again. It wasn’t fair. It didn’t matter what she did, it didn’t matter if she did everything right, things just kept going wrong anyway.

She almost didn’t hear the man approaching her from the opening in the alley over her own angry sobs, even as she stopped punching and collapsed against the side of the building. She did, however, hear his blade slide out from its handle as he pointed his weapon at her.

“Having a bad day?” he asked with a smirk on his face. He was young, but with a weathered face that made him look twenty going on forty. His grin showcased his yellowed decaying teeth, and his voice was high pitched and whiny. “I’s got just what the doctor ordered. All’s it’a cost ya is everytin ya got.”

Steph frowned at him, too tired from her recent tantrum to be scared. “I don’t have any money,” she said between heavy breaths. “You’re just gonna have to terrorize some other damsel in some other alley.”

“Oh comes now,” he said, inching closer. “You’s a very pretty girl. I’s sure you can find a way to pay the toll. I cans think of one proposition fors ya.”

Steph sighed, leaning her head against the bloody sandstone. “And what if I don’t feel like cooperating with your proposition.”

“Well that’s whys I got this knife,” he told her. “It’s for stabbing,” he added, as if that needed to be said.

Steph dug mindlessly in her large purse, and her hand landed on something she’d forgotten was even in there, at least forgotten until her subconscious had taken over. She grasped it, resolute, and pulled it from her purse to point at the man’s head. “

Well that’s why I’ve got this gun,” she told him, brandishing the weapon with a steady hand. “It’s for shooting people in the dick so they never stab anyone again.” She lowered the aim of her weapon.

The man dropped his knife on the ground and raised both hands. “Whoa, lady,” he said, backing up slowly. ”You’re one crazy bitch.”

“Try me,” she said, stone eyed.

He shook his head. “Not a chance. I’m outta here.” He went for his knife but she fired the gun into the floor by his feet, forcing him back.

“Leave it,” she told him. “It’s mine now.”

He frowned at her. “It’s literally all I have in this world.”

“Yeah well,” she said as she pointed the gun back at his head. “Life isn’t very fair, is it?”

He ran out of the alley, and she dropped to her butt against the wall she was still leaning on. She took several deep breaths, her heart beating way too fast in her chest. She looked the gun over, having not given it another thought since she’d lifted it during the chaos on the night Lankey’s bar collapsed in on itself. Things had been so crazy, with the hidden Blazkor Gunship right underneath their feet, that no one had noticed her steal it away.

It was of Blazkor design, blocky and bulky. It was almost rectangular, but the handle was more a triangle shape around the trigger. It was insane of course. What was SHE going to do with a gun? Besides threaten creeps in an alley.

She supposed she could barge back into the diner and demand her boss hire her back. Wave the gun around. Threaten his life or his manhood like she had the mugger. But that wasn’t her. She seriously had doubts things would work quite like that anyway.

And what good would she be to her parents from inside a prison cell? What good was she to her parents now? She closed her eyes, and placed the barrel of the gun onto the tip of her tongue, her hand shaking as her finger furtively caressed the trigger. It would only be too easy, and then all her worries and responsibilities would melt away.

Along with the entire rest of the world. Along with everything that she was. It would be almost too easy, and then it would be as if she never existed at all. She dropped her gun arm to hit the ground beside her with a thump. Too easy wasn’t nearly as hard as she deserved. With her free hand, she pulled her comms device from her pocket and texted her boyfriend, exactly as her boss had suggested in his own misogynistic way.

Wanna do something? She asked him, her shame enveloping her even before the dastardly deed. She quickly added No limits this time

His response to her first text came as she sent the second. We’re going to be moving at the end of the week, I wont be able to see you anymore.

It was immediately followed by. What do you have in mind?

Tie me up, she began to write. Whip me, flog me, beat me, cut me, penetrate me with whatever you like, choke me. Hurt me as hard as you can. She read it over before sending, feeling disgusted at herself, and erased it all in a huff. Whatever you can come up with. was what she sent instead. Last time she’d offered him that, they’d ended up with electrodes on her nipples.

That had been a step too far, not just from the pain, but he also managed to stop her heart, and she almost died that day were it not for his panicked resuscitation. It had been then they’d decided never to give him full control again, but that was an exception she was willing to make this time. Dying then hadn’t been so bad. She died having an orgasm. It was perhaps the best way someone could die, she reasoned. At least she hadn’t felt the panic, when it happened, the way she did now imagining a world with her not in it.

She tried to imagine a world without the world in it. Imagined the sun expanding in a magnificent flash of light, taking with it all the life on Rommeria. Imagined the streets and buildings of Hymalious city engulfing in flames until there was no evidence left that they had ever been there. She could imagine the entire planet exploding, the heat so great that even the little chunks of rock were vaporized into nothing. That seemed to be the fate that awaited all of them.

Let’s make it quick her boyfriend texted her back finally, saying easily the most romantic words ever when in reference to sex. She frowned at his response, but despite her better judgement, or frankly any judgement at all, she slowly got to her feet. What other options did she have for the day?

She stashed the gun back in her purse. She was almost tempted to leave it behind in the alley, but again she caved to her far from better judgements. What would she ever possibly need a gun for, really? All it would be was a constant reminder of what she’d almost tried to do in that very alley. It was a weight she would just have to burden.

Derek’s house was on the entire other side of Hymalious city. The fastest way there would cross through Prime Central Station. Steph raised her jacket’s collar to the cold night desert wind and started her long trek.

*

“’e’s here somewhere,” Slade’s voice rang out in the crowd, loud enough to hear over the chaos of Prime Central Station. “Find the twerp.” He was speaking to the others with him, all of them friends of Alec’s dad.

Alec had been trying to lose them all day. He’d led them on a chase all around the city, taking advantage of every hiding spot he knew of. And growing up in Hymalious city, never once stepping foot outside the city limits, meant he knew of quite a few. Yet no matter where he stole off to, they were always just moments behind him. It was almost like they were tracking him, but how?

And why did they want him so bad? What did he do to deserve this kind of furied search?

Alec quickly looked away as one of the toughened men with Slade looked in his direction. He had stepped in amongst a crowd of gossiping women, covering his head with a large brimmed sun hat as they talked around him about who they thought might get chosen for a spot on the colony ship. Not that any details on how people would get picked had been released yet, but it didn’t stop everyone from speculating anyway.

“I heard Suzie in finances has a shoe in,” One of the ladies said, and Alec nodded along with the rest, pretending to shift through the merchandise at a vendor they’d stopped at. The hat he was wearing was taken right from the rack, and with an angry grimace the shopkeeper snatched the hat back.

“No using the merchandise unless you’re going to buy,” the shopkeep said in a condescending tone, waving the hat at him. He tried to snatch it back.

“Come on,” He begged as the shopkeeper lifted it over his head. “I just need that for another minute. I have the money right--”

It was too late. One of the men with Slade noticed him, a man with a thick moustache and scruffy neck stubble. Alec watched him nudge Slade and the three of them all locked eyes. He gave them a sheepish grin.

“It’s been fun ladies,” he said, giving them a wink as he slipped between them.

“That’s the twerp!” Alec heard Slade yell, even as the women watched in confusion, having not even noticed he was there. “Get him!”

Alec broke into a run dodging, weaving, and squeezing through the crowds of people as Alec tried to find some kind of authority figure. How badly did these people want him? Bad enough to make a scene?

There were three of them, and Alec could just spot them through the people, splitting up to clearly try and get around the crowd to cut him off. How was Alec going to dodge them? He didn’t have time to figure it out, as one of the men with Slade came barreling straight through the crowd towards him.

“Outta the way!” It was the moustached man who had recognized him and, looking back at the man, Alec could make out that his large forearms were each the size of Alec’s head. The man used those large beefcake arms to swat people aside. “Move less ya wanna get hurt,” the man muttered at the people around them as they started to make way for him.

Alec was so busy looking behind him, that he wasn’t looking where he was going, and barreled over a garbage can, knocking it over and strewing all its contents across the floor as he fell in amongst them. Alec dropped his head, closing his eyes and breathing heavily as the pain washed over him, and opening in time to see a familiar woman’s face hanging over him.

“Alec?” Steph said with surprise. “What are you doing down there?”

“Being put out with the trash,” Alec muttered, kicking the garbage can away from him as the moustached friend of his dad’s friend caught up to them. The bin rolled into his way, tripping him as he was right on top of them.

“You little shit,” the man uttered angrily as Steph offered Alec a hand and helped him to his feet.

“Who is that?” Steph asked him.

“No friend of mine,” Alec assured her, not letting go of her hand, but instead pulling her to follow him. “We gotta run. Come on.” He only made it a step however before he collided with Slade’s large muscular abs and almost fell back onto his ass if Steph didn’t catch him.

“Where ye think yer goin’ twerp?” Slade muttered in threat. “Yer father has plans fer ye. Plans brew’n since before he got released.”

“Wow,” Alec said to him, ignoring his words and patting him on the chest. Alec’s own heart was hammering frantically in his chest. “Those are rock hard,” he complimented the man. “What do you bench? Like two forty?”

“Two eighty,” he said, dropping a stone grip onto Alec’s shoulder.

Alec gulped. “That’s like twice what I weigh,” he said with a look to Steph. Steph pulled a gun from her purse. Where she’d gotten it from was quite beyond Alec, but the design looked a little like a Blazkor weapon.

“Let go of him,” Steph said, pointing the gun at the man’s face. “Or I turn your face into swiss cheese.”

“Or,” Slade said, with a sideways glance at her, “Ye give me the gun and I don’t turn your face into tenderized steak.”

Steph didn’t move, the gun held determined with both hands. “Don’t fakking test me,” Steph growled at him. Slade let go of Alec…

And with a smooth, single motion, Slade slapped Steph’s gun aside, her shot going wild, and he pulled the gun from her hand turning it on her. With his other hand he punched her in the face, breaking her nose. She raised her hands, her face frozen in surprise and pain as blood dripped from a nostril.

He aimed the gun on her, a smile spreading on his lips while off to the side, someone in the crowd screamed in agony, having been hit by Steph’s stray bullet. The crowds were really making room now, everyone watching with interest at the engagement between Slade and the two of them.

“So yer the twerp’s flame?” he asked with a gloating smile on his face. “Gotta admit, the idea of you two bumping boney bods together sorta makes me feel sick.”

“She has a boyfriend,” Alec corrected him.

“Don’t even bother,” Steph told Alec. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“Maybe I’ll keep her a secret from Peter, use her pretty mouth for my own purposes and dump her outside the walls.”

“I’ll kill you,” Alec yelled at him, feeling his blood boil in his veins.

“You and what army of nerds?” Slade gave a guttural chuckle.

“Chill,” Steph told Alec, but this time her eyes didn’t waver from his. “Men who make rape threats generally have the smallest dicks.”

“You’re really asking for trouble aren’t you,” Slade told her. He looked at Alec. “Your girlfriend must be quite the pain freak. I look forward to making her scream.”

“Freeze,” came an unfamiliar voice from the crowd, and the people separated further apart to give a Prime Central security officer a wide berth. “Drop the gun or I swear to god I will put a bullet in your brain.”

“You were saying?” Steph said with a sly grin at Slade.

“Of course,” Slade said, raising the weapon to point at the sky. “This dispute doesn’t concern you, officer.” The crying of a man shot in the thigh seemed to argue quite the opposite, his moans cutting into the silence between them. “This boy here is my friend’s son.”

“I said drop it,” the officer said, ignoring Slade’s attempt at an excuse. “That means on the ground.”

Slade sighed. “Of course officer,” he lowered the gun and fired three shots into the officer’s chest. The officer got off a shot of his own as he dropped, but it WAY missed its mark. Another man went down with a scream and a shot to the leg.

Alec screamed in surprise, and this time Steph grabbed his hand.

“Run!” she yelled to him, yanking him into the crowd. The people tried to give them a wide berth, but the two of them moved faster than the crowd could, and squeezed through people while Slade was still shouting something. There were more gun shots, and a woman beside Alec took one to the head, dead before she even hit the pavement. Alec shrieked.

“Who the fak are these people?” Steph asked over the screams of the crowd.

“He wasn’t lying,” Alec muttered, as they pushed for the doors of the large pyramid that made up Prime Central Station. “They’re friends of my father’s,” he explained to her. From her judgmental gaze he added, “My father’s not a very good person. I never knew him, he went to prison when I was very young.”

“That must have been very hard on your mom,” Steph told him, stopping him in his tracks.

“I never knew my mom either,” Alec said with a shake of his head. “She was taken by the Suits before my father even left. It was her absence that pushed him into a spiral, at least from how my sister explains it.”

“That’s a nightmare of a childhood,” She remarked, and they started moving for the door again. “I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

“She went missing,” Alec mentioned, having almost forgotten. “The day we met, actually.”

“Solar gods,” Steph said, stopping them again. They were so close now! “Your life is horrible. And I thought I had it rough.”

Alec shrugged. “There are good days and bad. Can we keep going before they find us?”

“They?” Steph asked. “I’ve seen two, how many more are there?”

They turned to enter Prime Central station, but the third man chasing Alec had apparently succeeded at going around the crowd and had managed to block the entrance. He was at least as large as Slade, and his facial hair was considerably more extravagant than the moustachio’d man. He was sporting, in fact, a full beard that hung to below his belt.

“At least one more,” Alec told Steph as the huge man put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“If you only knew your father’s plans fer ya,” he said. “Ye wouldn’t be running. Bring the damn floozie if you want.”

Steph grabbed his shirt with both her fists, and for a moment Alec wondered if she was going to try to fist fight this man twice her size.

Slade’s friend also looked at Steph with surprise. “Did I strike a nerve, little dove?”

I don’t know,” Steph said, and with seemingly all of her might, she yanked the man towards her, and brought up her knee to strike him in his groin. Alec could feel his jaw drop. He’d never seen anyone get sacked that hard before.

“Did I?” Steph shouted in the man’s ear as he dropped to his knees, grabbing at himself and closing his eyes tight as he let out the wildest of groans. She ignored his wails, clasping Alec’s hand and pulling him with her through the doors into the station.

“You sure we shouldn’t call him an ambulance or something?” Alec asked her, glancing back one last time.

*     *     *

The large metal door fell with a loud thud that echoed across the dark empty bridge of the alien craft. The engineer holding the blow torch took a step back, and turned expectantly to Lieutenant Amy Beekler and Chief Science Officer Katherine Pross.

“Good work,” Amy told him with a curt nod from where they stood behind him on the raised platform. “Thank you junior crewman. She hoped that was what he was looking for. She didn’t exactly have a cookie.

He returned her nod and stepped away, letting the two women approach the entrance to the empty abandoned alien craft. Its shiny metal hull reflected the glow of every huge spotlight around, illuminating the entire camp with a strange glowing aura. The two women stood in front of the large entrance, hesitant to go inside.

“You sure we’re not gonna find that creature in there?” Amy asked Kat, the two of them peering into the darkness tepidly.

Kat shook her head. “We both saw it get sucked out this v-very hatch by explosive decompression,” she reasoned to Amy.

“But there could be more than one right?”

Kat shook her head again. “The cave art only depicted one creature,” Kat promised her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amy told her.

“I’m certain it’s s-safe,” Kat told Amy with a nod of her head, almost as if to convince herself. They both stood there, and everyone in the camp seemed to be surrounding their raised platform, watching them with interest.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Amy asked her, the two women planted firmly where they stood.

“W-well, I mean, you have the gun,” Kat said. “Obviously you sh-should go first.”

“Uh huh,” Amy said, with a roll of her eyes and a sigh. She pulled her pistol from its holster, activating the flashlight that hung below the barrel, and she pointed it through the hatchway before taking her first steps inside.

Kat moved to follow her, but Amy raised her hand in warning, suggesting Kat wait. Amy swept her pistol across the dark bridge, illuminating the dead broken computer terminals, and strewn debris scattered by the impactful crash. She stepped up to the furthest console, and swept her gun around to make sure nothing was hiding just out of view.

“It’s clear,” Amy said, as Kat was already stepping in. She had her nose buried in her tablet, and seemed to have found what she was looking for.

“It’s this way,” she told Amy. “The readings show the element I’m l-looking for to be on the other side of the sh-ship.”

“Slow your role,” Amy said. “We’ll do this room by room. Is there any way you can get power to the ship from here?”

“Power had already been restored last time we were on board,” Kat reminded her. “If y-you wanted me to guess, my assumption is th-that the impact of the crash jarred something loose in the engine room.” Kat shrugged. “Without actually being there, there’s nothing I can do.”

Amy crossed her arms and the room at the same time. “Conveniently the same place we’ll find your thingamajig,” she said, leaning out of the hatch. “Can we get some lights in here?” she yelled to her crew outside, everyone under her command waiting for her to give them the okay to explore this mysterious alien find.

A number of engineers stepped past her onto the bridge, and began hanging battery powered lamps from the ceiling and walls.

“Let’s keep everyone contained to the bridge for now,” she told them, as the newly arriven communications chief stepped through the hatch. She’d already forgotten his name. “That goes double for you,” she told him.

“And triple for you,” she told Kat as the squirrely brown haired girl approached her.

“Aren’t I th-the ranking officer here?” Kat asked her, and it was kind of cute watching her flex her authority like that. “And I want to push for the engine room.”

“You might outrank me,” Amy said, “but your safety is my responsibility and that overrides any order you give me.”

“And you’re no longer the ranking officer on site,” the newcomer said to Kat with a sneer.

“Wh-who are you?” Kat asked, with a confused look to Amy.

“He’s the chief of communications,” Amy explained quickly.

“Billy Blake,” he told Kat, ignoring Amy. “You must be Katherine Pross. I’d heard you were weird, but you’d actually be pretty cute if you smiled more.

Kat frowned. “I d-don’t understand. Wh-what do we n-need a communications expert f-for? I th-thought--”

“You’re st-st-stuttering,” Billy interrupted her rudely. “Did you know?”

“He was helping us with something unrelated,” Amy explained, before he said anything meaner.

“I just thought I’d flex my clearance level,” Billy told them, his eyes mostly on Kat. “What’s the point of being the chief officer of communications if I can’t explore the odd alien spaceship every once in a while.”

“It’s not actually alien in d-design, it’s f-from our own ancient history,” Kat explained to him, frowning again. If looks could kill, the scowl she was giving him would have been set to vaporize. “I’ve g-got everything under c-control. I p-promise I can h-handle--“

“Y-y-y-you’re doing it again,” Billy interrupted her, pushing his wiry glasses up his greasy nose.

“I’m sorry?” Kat said in surprise.

“It’s okay,” Billy told her, putting an unwelcome hand on Kat’s shoulder. Amy could see Kat visibly shiver at his touch. “Just think about what you want to say before you say it. If you don’t catch yourself every time you stutter you’re never gonna learn.” He let go of her, and left the two women to fiddle around with one of the powered down computer terminals.

Kat looked at Amy, and Amy frowned. “He’s also an asshole,” Amy muttered under her breath.

“But s-so if we both out rank you w-we both agree to p-push to the engine room--“

“Then you can both suck my dick,” she told Kat, maybe a little too loud, and Billy looked up from what he was doing with a grimace.

“You have a dick?” he asked with disgust.

“It’s a figure of speech,” she told them, rolling her eyes. At least she thought it was a figure of speech. “I grew up with a lot of brothers.” She pulled a walkie from her belt and spoke into it, “Can we get a security detail in here? Over.” She looked at Kat one last time. “We’ll push into the hallway once we have a few more men to spread out and cover the forks. We’re gonna systematically clear out every room on every floor of this thing, and work our way inch by inch across the ship till we get to your engine room. Is that clear?”

The two nerds nodded their agreement.

“Good.”

*     *     *

“Doctor,” David heard Gilber’s voice ring out behind him as he made his way through the confusing corridors of the Rebirth. “Ye doin anything important?”

David turned as General Gilber effortlessly jogged to catch up with him. “I was just about to check in on a patient,” David told the general walking backwards, “Yes.”

“Good,” Gilber said, obviously not hearing what David had just said, “then I can have a moment of your time.”

“If we can walk and talk,” David suggested. “And perhaps you could help me find the med bay. I’m kind of lost.”

“It’s this way,” Ed Gilber said, leading, “And about seven decks down.”

“It’s not on deck eight?” David asked, so sure he’d remembered that right.

“Ye know,” Gilber said to David with a grunt, “Yer duties as first officer aren’t gunna give ye time ta play medicine on the side.”

“My colleague Doctor Zachary Pross will be heading the medbay,” David told the general. “I’ve already filled out the necessary assignment papers.” David crossed his arms as they got to an elevator. “But as he is not here, nor in fact any medical crew, I have been trying to get things started down there.”

“Speaking of which,” David said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about how people are going to be chosen to fill the residential floors. Is it going to be by lottery, or does is there one person who gets to make the judgement call for who in our society gets to live or die?”

“Ye’ll totally get a say in dat,” Gilber promised him. “But maybe we could start a little smaller. There are still a number a high clearance positions that still need filling.  Including a number of bridge crew. I’ve been going over potential personnel files and I was gunner forward some of my top choices fer ye ta go over yerself. Tell me if anyone jumps out at you.”

David raised his tablet, held in his off hand, and checked his emails. “I’ve got it,” he said, quickly glancing at the attached files. “We haven’t found a pilot yet?” David asked the general with surprise. “We’ve built a ship that no one knows how to fly?”

“We haven’t exactly needed to until recently,” Gilber admitted gruffly. “But with construction of the command bridge nearing completion it’s about time we have a full bridge crew picked out.” The elevator doors opened and they both stepped on. Gilber hit the button for Deck fifteen.

“So who do we have so far?” David asked, searching his email for that attachment.

“Well there’s me and you,” Gilber said.

“I knew those two already, thanks,” David said. “Also Emma and Doctor Pross now, technically.”

“They’ll have the same clearance level I suppose,” Gilber said, “But I still have to vet this Zachary Pross guy.”

“He’s been working on the gene descrambler for you,” David reminded him. “His daughter is your Chief science officer.”

“She’ll have a seat on the bridge,” Gilber told David.

“Solar hells,” David said. “She’s nineteen. Our only crewman is a nineteen year old girl.”

“Billy Blake will be communications,” Gilber said. “He was in the control room during the Battle of the Deep Desert.”

The elevator got to deck fifteen and opened to an unfinished metal corridor that looked the same as all the others, if not even more unfinished.

“How old is he?” David asked.

“Twenty three.”

David nodded. “Oh that’s much better.”

Gilber slapped him on the back, perhaps a little too hard. “That’s why we need yeh Doc.”

They stopped at a door. “Speaking of, we’re here.” The door opened to the large white lab that made up the medbay. It was full of empty surfaces, shelves, patient beds that had never been used. All the curtains were still tied up.  Only one bed was in use, and it seemed David’s patient was awake. “This place is a little sparse, don’t yeh think?”

“Whose fault is that?” David said darkly. “Perhaps if you gave me some resources to put into here…”

“Keep in mind,” Gilber said, reaching out a hand to stop David, though at this point all David wanted to do was end this conversation and administer to his patient. “It’s a little tricky getting resources or personnel up here since the Blazkor destroyed our space bridge.” Under David’s glare he added, “I’m working on it. That’s my problem to solve.”

“Great,” David said. “Now if you don’t mind, since I’m the only doctor on the ship I have a patient in need of immediate attention.”

“He’s a fakkin Blazkor terrorist,” Gilber said, hardly sparing the man a glance.

David crossed his arms. He wasn’t going to have any prejudice in his medbay. “The man was brainwashed,” David said in a hush whisper. “He’s best friends with Suma’s daughter. She vouches for him. Your golden boy John vouches for her.”

“Hey look,” Gilber said, putting a cigar in his mouth and spreading his arms wide. “You think taking him in is worth risking the lives of every single person aboard this ship, then this is exactly why they wanted someone like you as a first officer.” He grinned. “Which means all these calls are yours now, and when the shit turns red it’s on your conscience Doc. Not mine. My shit stays brown.”

“Your -- who -- what?”David said slowly and blinked. “There was no part of that metaphor that made sense,” he told the general. He then locked eyes on the man’s cigar. “You better not be planning to light that in here.”

“You--“ Gilber said, pointing at David and releasing a growl through gritted teeth that turned into a chuckle and a grin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Gilber stepped into the hallway and the doors wooshed closed behind him.

David approached the bed where the dark skinned man lay unmoving. His eyes were open, but it seemed as if he was waiting.

“I heard all that,” the man said at last, deciding, David supposed, that it was safe now to talk. “Even when you were whispering.”

“When did you wake up?” David asked him.

The man turned his head towards David. “Long enough to wonder if I’d woken up in some kind of haunted abandoned hospital.” David looked around the bay, and figured the whole place being so barren probably didn’t help.

David tried to give his most comforting smile. “You’ve been watching too many late night serials.”

The man smiled back. “So where am I?”

David sighed, taking a moment to figure out how best to say it. “You’re in a giant spaceship in orbit over Rommeria.”he explained, his smile wavering. “You’ve jumped genres to high concept science fiction now.”

Jack gulped. “So when do the aliens come and probe me?” he asked.

David shook his head. “No aliens yet,” he promised, glancing as his tablet syncing his medical records with the machine taking the man’s vitals. “Your name is Jack Delle?”

The man nodded.

“Well,” David said. “It looks like your vitals have returned to normal. It was a little touch and go there.”

“I’ve seen this place before,” Jack told David. “I led the attack on this place, just before the attack on the space bridge.”

David smiled again. “Well I wasn’t on the crew then,” he said to Jack, “so you don’t need to apologize to me.” He dropped his tablet to his side. “You have to understand something. You were under a very advanced form of mind control, written into your very genome. You had no choice but to do everything Suma Davi’s told you.”

Jack leaned back in his bed suddenly, and laughed a little to himself.

“Is everything okay? David asked him.

“Yeah doc,” he said. “It’s just every time someone even brought up her name there would be this, like, cloud over my mind. I didn’t even notice it right away, but now that it’s gone it seems so obvious.”

“Fascinating,” David told him, more than tempted to write a thesis paper on the man’s experiences. “Mr. Delle, you were patient zero in an experimental treatment meant to unspool and correct all the tampered parts of your DNA. You were the first person we administered it to, and I’m relieved it’s been a complete success,” David said, quickly adding under his breath, “especially since we’ve already administered it many more times since then.” He readjusted his collar awkwardly and cleared his throat. It hadn’t exactly been his call to make.

“I sent a message to your friend,” David told him. “Tameka. Letting her know you’re awake. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

“Meka?” Jack asked, surprised. “She’s alive?”

“She got you out,” David assured him. “I believe she’s been cooperating fully with us. She was even granted a security clearance.”

“I bet that pissed the other guy off,” Jack said with a laugh, “see’n a Blazkor woman rise in the ranks.”

“General Gilber?” David laughed too.”He’s a character, to be sure. But you’re a military man yourself, aren’t you? You have to be used to people like him.”

“Me?” Jack said. “Naw, man. I’m just a pilot. I like to say there isn’t anything I can’t figure out how to fly. At least there hasn’t been anything yet.”

David placed his tablet on the table beside Jack. “Really?” he said with a raise of his eyebrows.

The doors to the medbay opened, and Tameka stumbled in, her long black hair tied in a bun. “Jack!” She yelled across the bay, running the easily forty steps and almost tackling Jack in a bear hug as he tried to sit up in his bed.

“Damn that was fast,” Jack said, “how fast did you run to get here?”

“I was five decks down,” Tameka said. “They had me reassembling damaged Blazkor gunships so they can use them as transports.” She shrugged. “No one understands their designs quite like me.”

“Well I suppose I have you to thank for my treatment,” Jack said, nodding at David. “For my having a doctor instead of a prison guard. If it wasn’t for you cooperating, who knows what could have happened to me.”

Tameka put her hands on her hips. “They really aren’t like that. Everyone I’ve met in the Hymalious City Forces have been nothing but kind to me.”

“He just met Gilber,” David told her.

“Almost everyone,” Tameka corrected herself. “They’re nothing like my mother told us they were.”

“What happened?” Jack asked. “Where’s Suma Davi’s? Did we get her.”

“She’s dead,” David assured him.

“You were there,” Tameka reminded him. “You saw her get sucked out the hatch.”

“I can’t--“ Jack started to say, but he shook his head. “Meka. I can’t remember any of that.”

“Memory loss,” David said, picking up his tablet, and typing up some notes. “I’ll have to keep an eye on that.”

“He was struggling really hard to resist Suma’s control at the time,” Tameka suggested. “Could that have something to do with it?”

“Perhaps,” David said, supposing memories steeped in the corrupted genetic marker could have been unraveled along with the rest of Suma’s influence.

“So mother’s really dead?” Jack asked and Tameka gave David a look. He was reminded of something she’d said to him the first time they’d met. Her mother was still out there.

“Yeah,” Tameka said despite her own feelings on the matter. “She’s gone.”

Jack breathed deeply, closing his eyes to savour the moment. “I don’t want to believe it’s true. She’s destroyed so much of our lives.”

*     *     *

The all-terrain vehicle skidded to a stop in the sand. Dinah stepped out from the passenger seat of the buggy, and looked back inside at the driver, Belmont. The side of his face was all messed up from his fall, and it was quite possible that under all that swelling he’d lost an eye. Dinah couldn’t really tell. His right arm was also in a sling but, other than all that, he’d survived his fall miraculously unharmed. He fared far better than their mother at least.

“You sure this is the spot?” Dinah asked him, and Belmont shrugged his shoulders.

“These are the coordinates provided by the signal we picked up,” Belmont told her. She supposed, then, she had no one but herself to blame for this mess. There was nothing there. Just more sand. Like everything else in the Deep Desert. A large sand dune stretched out before her, with other slightly less large sand dunes on either side.

The radio signal, broadcasting in simple morse tone, had the correct Blazkor command codes, and promised that the resistance wasn’t over. It had given these coordinates. Dinah had sent a return message, checking in. Her gunship had been shot down during the battle, and from what she could tell she was the only one from that battle who got away before Hymalious City forces were on top of them. Away with a radio at least. She had found herself questioning had she been the only one to have received the message?

There had been a reply. To her reply. It had given her a mission. And that mission brought her to Belmont, apparently given a similar mission objective. They accomplished it together, but their victory felt bitter in their sudden disappointment. Was this all some kind of Hymalious City trap? What rubes they would be were that true. Of course they’d want to confirm her death.

“Lets go,” Dinah told Belmont. “There’s nothing here.”

As she turned her back, she heard a strange sifting of sand, and Belmont gave her a most peculiar look. Dinah turned quickly around to find a strange box barely the size of a case of beer rising slowly out from the sand. It was a dirty blackish brown, likely hidden just under the sand the whole time. It stopped rising at about Dinah’s height, stretching all the way down and into the sand, a long narrow rectangle, or a box atop a pedestal. A box with a built in microphone and speaker.

“Do you have it?” a deep and monotonous but accented voice said from the

Dinah approached the small black box cautiously. “She’s in the trunk,” Dinah said, peering around. “Are you here somewhere?”

“Do you not see it?” the voice said, and Dinah was already getting tired of his questions. “In the dune, to your right.”

Dinah searched the sand with her eyes, then spotted what he was talking about. A lens flash. A camera. She was being recorded.

“How was I supposed to notice that?” Dinah asked the box. No one would have noticed that without being told where to look.

“There is another to your left. And straight ahead,” said the box as Dinah glanced back at Belmont, who stepped out from the driver’s side of the buggy. “You’re not very perceptive are you?”

“What are they saying?” Belmont asked her. She didn’t answer him with anything more than a frown.

“I postulate that you’d like to come inside,” the voice in the machine said.

“Unless you’d rather let mother decompose in the trunk,” Dinah said sarcastically. What was it that he was even inviting her into? She wondered if perhaps it was some sort of subterranean base like Blazkor’s last outpost.

There was a sudden quaking of the ground, getting more and more severe as the sand dunes around Dinah all shifted and swirled about. The shaking got so intense that Dinah was swept off her feet and landed hard on her butt.

“What’s happening?” Belmont yelled in question, and Dinah slid backward on her bum until her back touched the bumper of their all-terrain vehicle.

The large sand dune in front of them exploded as a massive object rose up in front of them to tower over their heads. The sand dunes beside them similarly exploded upward, large towering pillars upon which the cameras she’d previously spotted were situated shot into the sky, along with a large rusted gate that blocked their way just behind where the small speaker still stood at Dinah’s height. There was a stone pathway that led from the gate to a massive extravagant mansion, likely once opulent and beautiful, but now in a state of decay and disrepair. As the large house settled in place all the quaking came to a stop, and she could see sand still seeping out of open windows and crevices.

Dinah got up slowly, and brushed herself off. “You want us to bring her in there?” she asked, trying hard not to sound impressed.

“Oh no,” the voice in the box said. “All that was just for show.” She wondered if the voice was being sarcastic. A far more subdued rumbling erupted in the sand, and an opening formed near their buggy. “That entrance is for the help.”

Dinah’s hand clenched into a fist. “When I meet you face to face,” she said to the box as she peered into the opening, “you’re getting punched.” It seemed the entranceway was a ramp that led into an underground tunnel just tall and wide enough to drive their buggy through.

“I believe the appropriate colloquial response would be good luck with that.” The small box sunk back into the ground.

She returned to the buggy, and Belmont shot her a most quizzical look.

“What in the solar hells was all that?”

Dinah frowned at him. “Just get back in the car,” she snarled.

*     *     *

“Alright,” Emma yelled into the engineering bay as she stepped inside to start another day. At least she thought it was day. She wasn’t actually sure what time it was anymore. “We’re going to try this again. I’m going to need stats on the current power consumption rates for every deck as well as estimates for future consumption once all the decks are complete.”

There were about twelve engineers on duty, including Senior Officer Lazarus Englebert. A number of them shot her dark looks before returning to watching their screens. Watching the pressure gauges was not a priority task. If anything went wrong, the gauges would sound an alarm.

Crewman Doug Wicks approached her, giving the others in the room a dirty look. “I can get those number for you,” he told her respectfully.

“Good morning Doug,” Emma said loudly, trying to prove that she could be pleasant and civil. He was huge, at almost twice her size, with long greasy hair down his neck and scruffy stubble all over his two chins.

“Morning ma’am,” he said gruffly. “It’s Englebert,” he added as she looked around at the others in the bay. “They all accept you’re the boss lady. But Englebert’s been talking shit. Sayin’ your ideas ain’t gunner work.”

“He say anything about my mom?” Emma asked, refusing to look in his direction.

Doug smiled. “Not t’day. Unfortunately.” Doug was apparently looking forward to a round two. She hoped if it came to that, this time he’d have her back.

She looked at Eggie, but he immediately cowered under her gaze, limping to a bag of tools and picking them up cautiously.

“There’s been power fluctuations on four more decks,” he told her quietly. “I figured I’d go check them out.” It was the same sort of busy work they had her doing yesterday.

“Fine,” Emma said defeated. “Get out of here.” At least he’d be out of her way for the day.

“Everyone else needs to listen to me, cause I’m only going to say this one more time,” Emma said, and she looked around the bay, waiting until every engineer had their eyes on her. “This generator here doesn’t output enough energy to satiate the needs of this ship. If we don’t come up with some creative solutions to this problem then the entire Rebirth project and hundreds of billions of tax payer’s credits will be dead in the water.”

Now it seemed she had everyone’s attention., engineers on the second floor leaning over the railings to hear better. “You can either come down here and be part of the solution,” she said up at them, and to the people around, pointing in front of her. “Or you can take Eggie’s side and ignore the problem. But then I’m just going to replace you with a woman who can do your job but better so the choice is yours.”

She was almost disappointed that every engineer in the bay came to stand at attention around her, forming a circle. “Alright,” she told them, a satisfied smirk spreading on her lips despite her struggles to resist it. “Let’s figure out how bad the problem really is and what we can do to fix things. Let’s go people.” She clasped her hands together.

*     *     *

“Alright everyone,” Lt. Amy Beekler called across the bridge of the crashed ship, as everyone prepared to move out. “There’s two exits from this compartment. Beta team will take that entrance there. We’ll take this one. Stay in radio contact, always in groups of at least two.”

Kat glanced at her tablet excitedly. The element was there, not even a thousand feet away. She was impatient for them to be on their way, and hoped once they started things would go fast.

“Every room you clear,” Amy continued to explain to her men, “report it in with Billy here.” She pointed to Billy, who had set his laptop up over a busted console. “He’ll be putting together a map of everything we find.”

“Kat!” Amy called across the room, and Kat looked up from her screen. “You’re with me.”

Ensign Janet Miles finished strapping on some body armor and clasped Amy on the shoulder. “Thanks a lot for including me in this,” she told the woman in a tone Kat believed was sarcastic. “Last time I was here went so well, I’ve just been counting the minutes until I got to go back.” Yeah, it was definitely sarcasm.

“Alright lets do…” she approached the door but nothing happened. Frowning, Amy turned to Kat.

“Oh,” Kat said, stepped past a man with a gun to take a look at the door. “W-well I mean… there’s no power.”

“Can you fix it?” Amy asked her, and Kat nodded furiously. She leaned in to closely examine the panel that controlled the door, Amy shining a light down on it from above.

“I’m going to need a screwdriver,” Kat told them. “A flat head I think.”

An engineer passed her the tool she asked for, a number of them watching her work so that they might repeat the process with their separate teams.

“We’re also gonna need batteries,” Kat told them, every one of the older men and women following her every word.

*     *     *

“This way,” Steph told Alec as they entered the lobby of her apartment building. “They won’t find you at my place. And I’m sure my parents would love the company.” Steph checked her comms device, and saw a message from her boyfriend.

I got held up by something she responded to him, not bothering to read what he’d written. We’ll have to do it later.

There wont be a later he responded. We’re on the next transport off this dying rock.

Steph dropped the phone in her pocket as they got on the elevator, sighing deeply.

“Everything okay?” Alec asked. The doors weren’t closed five seconds before they opened again.

“I’m fine,” Steph said, getting off the elevator and putting her key into the correct door.

The door swung open, her mom apparently waiting for her to arrive. “We heard what happened,” she said sweetly, drawing her daughter into a hug. “I’m so sorry you lost your job.”

“You lost your job?” Alec repeated as Steph struggled to push herself away from her mother. “Another one?”

“Is this your boyfriend?” her mother asked, finally letting go of her. “He seems nice. I don’t understand why you waited so long to introduce us.” Her mother offered Alec a hand. This was quickly turning into a nightmare. “I’m her mother.”

Before Alec could shake her mother’s hand, Steph pulled it away. “He’s a boy and he’s a friend,” Steph clarified. “That’s it. My boyfriend just broke up with me actually.” She tried to hide any disappointment from their piercing looks. “His family got early placements on the Rebirth.”

“Your boyfriend broke up with you?” Alec repeated, and Steph grabbed his hand.

“Get inside already,” she chastised him, dragging him into their apartment.

“Steph,” her father said, getting up from his chair in the living room.

“Not now dad,” she told him, and could tell he was drunk again.

“Your mother and I have been talking,” he told her, only slightly slurring his speech. “And you don’t have to find another job. We have enough to last us, you should just enjoy what time you have left.”

“Last you until what?” Steph asked, losing her cool. “You guys are broke, you couldn’t last the month.”

“Well you know--” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, not continuing his train of thought. “Just promise me. If someone offers you a way off, you take it.”

“A way off what?” Steph asked, though she had a feeling she knew what he meant. He meant a way off the planet. He meant leaving them behind.

“Sir,” Alec said, stepping forward, “why do you sound like you know something is going to happen.”

“Alec,” Steph said, glaring at him. “With all due respect stay the fak out of my life.” Perhaps she had been too harsh.

“Honey!” her mother yelled in disapproval.

With a look of rejection and heartbreak, Alec made for the door, but Steph grabbed his arm roughly. “My room you idiot,” she said, only more harshly. Now he just seemed confused. “I’ve got a window. Keep a look out while I sort out my shit. And keep your fakking fingers in your ears.” She felt like she could start shouting at any moment.

“He won’t be your friend for much longer if you keep treating him like that,” her mother warned her.

She ignored her mother. “What do you keep meaning about what’s coming?” she asked her dad.

“He’s had too much to drink,” her mother said.

“Yeah I know,” Steph agreed with her. “And that’s always when he starts talking about what’s to come. And now it’s close?” She crossed her arms. “I want answers.”

“Your mother’s right,” her father said with a nod of support.

“I think we’re all very tired,” Steph’s mom said. “Maybe we should all talk about this in the morning.”

“Mom--“ Steph said as a warning.

Her mother crossed her arms. “You want me to stay the fak out of your life too?”

Steph had lost. She’d get nothing more out of them tonight. “No,” Steph said, defeated. “It’s just-- I love you.” She added under her breath, “I love you both.” There was so much sadness in their eyes, as her parents drew her into a tight group hug. Why wouldn’t they tell her the thing they wouldn’t tell her? What secret could be so horrible?

“Uh Steph,” came Alec’s seemingly desperate call from her bedroom.

“We love you too hun,” her mother promised her, the two of them letting go. “Go be with your friend now.”

Steph couldn’t help but feel, not for the first time, that this would be the last time she ever saw her parents. She’d been wrong every time before however, but it still felt just as real with each passing goodbye.

In her bedroom, Alec was pacing back and forth impatiently by the window, watching something with interest.

“They’ve found us,” he told her, pointing out the window.

She couldn’t believe it. “How is that possible?” she asked him, approaching the window and opening it a slant. Sure enough, there were two of them on the street below. The one Alec said was Slade, and the large bearded man Steph had beaten in absolutely fair combat. Where the man with the moustache had gone was anyone guess.

“When it’s this real does the how really matter?” Alec asked her and she put a finger on his lips. He seemed to placate at least for the time being.

“How long are we going to be running in circles like this,” the one man asked Slade, the both of them easily talking loud enough for Steph to hear from her second floor bedroom.

“If ye’d pick up the pace…” Slade muttered angrily, trailing off. “He’s just a fast bugger.”

“You don’t think we might just be running in circles chasing nothing?” the other man said. He was still walking a little funny.

“Howie says as long as he don’t know we’re tracking his wrist doohickey, then we gots nothin to worry about.”

Steph looked down at Alec’s wrist at the same time he did.

“Destroy it,” she hissed at him harshly. “Destroy it now!”

“Give me a sec,” Alec said quietly, activating his device and tapping away on its touch keyboard.

“Destroy it before they trace you to my parents,” Steph insisted, reaching to take it from him.

He backed away from her. “Chill,” he begged. “First of all the GPS on this thing will only give them the approximate location. All they know is that I’m in this building.”

“Don’t you think that’s more than enough?” Steph was losing her patience. She picked up the heaviest object she could find, her jewelry case.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Yes. But second of all, this thing is actually worth kind of a lot of money.” He backed away from her, his hand still working away at his device. “Just put down the box. This thing is a lot more valuable to us in one piece.”

His device chimed.

“What are you doing on it,” Steph asked him, hoping whatever he was doing he would do it faster.

“I was searching my registry command lines for any hijakers, and I think I found my hacker,” Alec told her.

“And you really think you can out hack this guy?” she asked him, disbelieving.

Alec gave her a smirk. Trust me,” he said with a surprising amount of confidence and swagger. “This guy’s an amateur.”

Alec worked away on his little wrist computer. “I’m pinging him now.” Alec explained to her. “He seems to be working off multiple proxies. My ping is being bounced to satellites all across Rommeria. Every IP address I’m fed back is a decoy. He’s a good amateur but he’s still an amateur.”

“None of what you’re saying makes any sense,” Steph said with frustration.

“Oh it makes sense,” Alec said under his breath as he continued to work. “Just not to you.” He looked up, his fingers continuing to type even as he looked away. Steph couldn’t help but feel like he was showing off.

“I’ve got a tracer bot routing through his decoy IPs, and I’m programming an adaptive firewall to keep him out no matter what IP he tries to hide behind.” Alec smiled, apparently succeeding at something. “And now I’ve got his local domain IP. There’s nowhere he can hide now I can’t find him.”

“So where is he hiding?” Steph asked, leaning over his shoulder to see what the hell he was looking at on the little screen that covered his right wrist. It looked like a map.

“He’s at David’s house,” Alec said with surprise. “My dad must still be there.”

Steph went to the door of her apartment, the apartment quiet now that her parents had gone to sleep. Pressing her ear against the front door, she heard exactly what she was afraid of.

She ran back into her bedroom. “They’re already on this floor knocking on doors,” she told Alec with a frown. “We have to leave now.”

“Well they can’t track us anymore,” Alec assured her. “But how are we supposed to get out of here if they’re just out there?”

“If they find us here,” She said, having a hard time thinking of a solution, “who knows what they’ll do to my parents.”

“Maybe nothing,” Alec suggested. “What if I give myself up?”

There was a pounding at their door, and she could hear her parents waking up.

“What was that?” she heard her mother ask.

“No,” Steph said, as she glanced at her window. “I’ve got a better idea.”

She opened the window as her parents answered the door.

“You two see any twerps tonight?” Steph heard Slade’s voice from the doorway.

“I dunno what that is,” her father answered the man. “But I can assure you only two of us live here. My wife and I.”

“If that’s true then who’s tha girl in tha’ picture.”

Alec stuck his head out the window. “I’m not jumping that.”

“You might have to,” Steph warned him. “It’s not that far.” She grabbed a letter opener from her desk. “Here.” He looked at it confused. “Dig it into the wall and hang from it.” She grabbed a few pens and quickly did as she told him, crawling through her window and stabbing the pens into the sand stone of her apartment building. It took some force but she was able to dig them in deep enough that they would support her weight, and she stepped out from the window, holding herself up best she could.

Alec tried to follow her example, digging his dull blade into the other side of the window and hanging himself off from the wall. Steph tried to place her feet against the wall and take as much weight as she could off the pens lest they give way. Alec was watching her silently, trying to match her pose even as her bedroom door slammed open and she heard the two men step inside.

“This is absurd,” her mom protested, coming into the room to yell at them. “I demand you leave immediately. We’re calling security forces.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to kill you,” Slade said, leaning out the window and turning to find himself face to face with Steph.

“No you won’t!” Steph yelled at him, leaping from her hand hold to grab a hold of the window. She dropped with it hard, pinning Slade painfully in place as she dropped. Letting go, she fell the remaining number of feet to the ground, and landed on her back with hardly a thud.

“I’m letting go!” Alec yelled, jumping after her.

“Wait!” Steph tried to yell up, but it was too late. He crashed into her and they both strewn out in the parking lot in front of her building.

“I’ve got you,” she said breathlessly, holding him tight against her. She hadn’t expected that to work.

“I’m going to get you!” Slade yelled at them from the second floor. “And I will do unspeakable things to your girlfriend while you watch.”

“We really have to go,” Alec told her. “But I’m out of hiding places.”

Her mind spun with possibilities. Absolutely not Derek’s mansion. “I think I’ve got one more,” she promised him. One more hideout she knew she could trust.

She grabbed his hand and they started running, back towards Prime Central Station.

*     *

“I told you, Pete” Howie said for the tenth time. Peter Penman was getting tired of hearing it. “The second he realized what we were up to, the whole thing would be bust. Well he figured it out.”

“How is it,” Peter asked, massaging his forehead, “that my sixteen year old kid is a better computer hacker than you?”

Howie turned around in his wheelie chair, and gave Peter a bemused look. “Well I mean he’s one of the best,” Howie said with a proud chuckle. “I’ve sort of been following his exploits for years on Readdit. I’m kind of a fan.”

Peter glared at him. “Is there nothing else ye c’n do?”

“I told you,” Howie insisted. “This is why we needed him for your plans. There’s no way I’m a good enough hacker to hack the Hymalious city database and get us spots on board the Rebirth. But he could.”

Peter grabbed Howie by the neck and lifted his old prison-mate from his wheelie chair.

“You know,” Peter said through gritted teeth as Howie choked and struggled against him. “I’m getting really tired of you telling me things you’ve already told me.” He smashed Howies face into the keyboard. “Is that all your good for? Because if it is, ye’ve got me wondering why are ye even here?” He smashed Howie’s head through the monitor, and then through the computer tower, bashing both to pieces. Finally growing weary, Peter flung Howie across the room to crash into the wall and drop in a slump.

Even through gasps for breath and a never ending stream of blood running from his nose, Howie tried desperately to plead for his life. “There’s still other’s who could do what you want,” he promised Peter. “I could help you find them. But they’re going to want something in return.”

Peter crossed his arms. “Well that’s something,” He said, pointing to the desk with the now broken shards of what used to be the home owner’s personal PC. “Hurry up and find them then.”

“I’m going to need a new computer first,” Howie told Peter, the man clearly struggling not to swallow too much blood.

“Alright,” Peter said, trying to be reasonable. “I’ll go find us a new computer ye can use. And ye can use the time ta clean yerself up.” There, that was reasonable. If his son were here, he bet Alec would’a been proud.

*     *

Alec and Steph ran at full speed through the crowds of people, not even daring to look back.

“Move aside!” Alec called ahead of them. “Coming through!”

“Watch out!” Steph yelled beside him. People were slow to react, but some DID react. And they were able to sidestep the rest.

The two of them passed a large kiss-o-cam, and Alec stopped. It was just a dumb screen hooked up to a camera that would show nearby couples with heart shapes around them. It would be exactly what they needed.

“Here,” he told her. “Just stand here for a second.” He stood near her, and the two of them watched the screen show them on the kiss-o-cam. Alec awkwardly tried to put a hand on her wrist, and he was surprised to find that she smiled. Leaning in, she kissed him, her lips gently brushing against his, then pressing tighter. Sucking on his lip, her tongue danced on the tip of his, and then they separated.

“Did that help?” she asked him.

“Uh--“ he said slowly, his mind no longer working at full speed. “yeah, that was fine.” He looked both ways. “Which way is it from here.”

“We have to go to your left,” she told him.

He grabbed her arm and went right. He didn’t go far however, before he turned around and came back.

“Alright,” he said, typing into his wrist device. “Now I’m going to hack this screen to replay the past couple minutes back again on repeat.” He pulled her behind the screen, and they waited.

But they didn’t have to wait very long.

“Aw look a da two dumb lovebirds,” Slade’s voice said from the other side of the screen. “Dey went dis way, lets go.”

Steph and Alec watched the two disappear into the crowd, and she looked at Alec impressed. “That was actually a good plan,” she said as they stepped out from behind the TV.

“So,” Alec said, clapping his hands together, “let’s go check out your secret hiding place.”

Steph stopped him in his tracks. “Aren’t you going to fix this?” she asked him. He looked at the screen, slowly zooming in on the two of them passionately kissing.

“Looks okay to me,” he said with a shrug, pulling her along.

*     *     *

“You okay?” Ensign Miles asked, placing a supportive hand on Kat’s shoulder, and making her jump sky high. They split off from the others as they reached a hallway, groups of two searching each of the rooms.

“I’m fine,” she assured the woman, taking a deep breath. “You guys m-might think that I’m n-not as s-scared as you are,” she said, widening her eyes dramatically. “But I am.”

“Okay,” Janet Miles said, raising her hands in surrender. “And a spooky abandoned ship isn’t exactly the best place to treat PTSD.”

“I’m fine,” Kat said again. “I’m holding it together.” She checked her tablet, slowly tracking their progress towards her rare element. “I just wanna get this over with.”

Janet sighed her sympathy. “You go check that bedroom,” she said with a nod ahead of them, “I’ll string up some lights over here.”

Kat did as she was told, dragging her feet across what must have once been someone’s living quarters, and peered into the dark bedroom.

A man was standing in the bedroom, facing away from her. He was shrouded in the darkness, only a mere shadow to her. And he was speaking to himself.

“I’m too late,” the man whispered in a familiar voice. “I should have gone further.”

“David?” Kat asked, recognizing his voice anywhere. The man turned around, and it absolutely was not David. For one thing, the man had a long beard.

“Is someone there?” Janet called from the other room as the man in the bedroom turned and stepped into the adjoining bathroom. As soon as he was out of Kat’s sight, there was a dull blue flash of light that illuminated the entire bathroom for just a moment.

Kat didn’t follow, frozen in place as Janet joined her. “What was it?” Janet asked with concern.

“He went in there,” Kat said, pointing to the bathroom. Raising her gun, Janet trudged across the bedroom and peered into the bathroom. Kat waited for the inevitable scream, but no scream came.

“There’s no one there,” Janet said, coming back into the room with concern on her face.

“I could have sworn--” Kat said, squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe Janet had been right. Maybe she WAS suffering from PTSD.

*     *     *

“Alright everyone,” Sara called from the front of their briefing room, “Come in come in. Sit down, there’s more than enough seats for everyone.” The briefing room had been designed to fit up to ten squadrons worth of pilots, but they still only had the one split into two flight teams. That was twelve people in a room with over a hundred seats.

“As you know,” she said into the podium over the voices of the other pilots as they continued talking amongst themselves while taking seats scattered throughout the room, “John and I are swapping places on the roster. I will be taking over the One spot, and John will be Alpha Two.”

She looked to the side of the room where John stood watching. “His responsibilities means he won’t have time to fly every training run with us, but he’ll still be flying with us on missions.”

Still people were talking amongst themselves, though a young girl in the front was watching attentively.

“I just want to do a quick roll call,” she told them, hoping to find any way to get their attention. “Let’s just introduce everyone and then maybe we can run some simple drills. How does that sound for our first day?”

A couple more people stopped their conversations.

“So I’ll be in charge, but if I’m not around the next person in line is John. If neither of us are there, Lieutenant Thalia Ewen leads Beta wing and she’ll have immediate command.” Sara Mikkels glanced across the room at Thalia, who was in the center of a group of pilots that included her sister and a new trainee. At the mention of her name, Thalia gave Sara a thumbs up, and then continued talking.

“From there,” Sara continued, not about to let her squadron slow her down. “next in the chain of command we have Ensign Ox and Private Dennis Munroe.” Sara pointed to where the two squadron veterans sat together, arms crossed in quiet judgement. “They’re the oldest pilots in this squad besides me and John, and they deserve the same amount of respect.”

“When John isn’t flying with us,” Sara told the two of them, relieved at least they were paying attention, “you’ll both fly wing on me unless otherwise stated.”

They nodded their agreement with that arrangement.

“From there we have two recruits joining in the first flight group,” Sara continued on reading off names, “there’s Crewman Gillian Jazz at Alpha Five” Gillian was apparently the young girl watching at the front of the room, and when Sara said her name, she gave the flight leader the cutest little wave. It was a wave Sara returned.

“Wait,” she spoke up excitedly. “I’m in Alpha flight?”

“I decided we’d take two of the three recruits,” Sara explained to her, “So yeah. You’re alpha five.”

“Ensign Dana Alya,” Sara called from the front of the room. “I knew your brother. He was my wingman in flight school.” Her brother had been one of the pilots lost during the attack on the Rebirth. It seemed forever ago now. “If you’re half the pilot he is, you’ll make a perfect Alpha Six. His old call sign.”

“I’m twice the pilot he was,” Dana promised Sara from her seat with Thalia and her posse. “And if you had recruited me alongside my brother, he would still be here today.”

“Okay,” Sara said with a nod. “On Beta Flight, Thalia is Flight Leader, with her sister Ensign Tania Ewens set as her wingman. They will be Beta One and Two, or Alpha Seven and Eight. Depending on the circumstance.” Tania gave a little wave from beside Talia, waving her hand high enough for everyone in the room to see.

“Rounding out Beta flight is Senior Crewman Anthony Taylor at Beta Three or Alpha Nine,” Sara said with a nod at another one in Thalia’s posse. “Also Jessica Chibit is still Beta Four / Alpha Ten.” Anthony gave Jessica, another member of the posse, a high five. “And from Flight Group Alpha, I’m giving you guys Riley Hunter in the hopes you can fix whatever thing you guys got going on over there.”

Tania threw Sara the finger, but in a joking way. Thalia and Jess gave Riley looks that said “Try me,” and Riley gave a dramatic sigh.

 “Finally the Beta Six / Alpha Twelve call sign goes to Junior Crewman Carlton Neyers,” Sara went quiet. “I hope you can hold Beta six longer than the last pilot who sat in that chair.” She tried to give the pale, nervous looking rookie a reassuring smile. “Just focus on surviving todays drills and we’ll go from there.”

“That’s going to be our line up going forward,” She told the group, stepping away from the podium. “I’ve told the engineers to prep our fighters for training, if we could all make our way to the launch bay in an orderly fashion.”

Everyone got off their butts and began shuffling for the exit as Sara approached John.

“How was that?” she asked him, hoping she wasn’t too awful.

“You were great,” John assured her. “You guys talked over most of my briefings too.”

“Well it’s really annoying,” Sara told him. “I feel like they don’t respect me the way they respect you. They’re not gonna feel the same about taking orders from me in the thick of things.”

“It’ll come,” John said, crossing his arms. “So how easy do you want me to go on you in training?”

Sara laughed, as they followed their squadron into the hallway. “Oh is that how it’s going to be?” she asked him. “Well you’ll have to make me look good for the team.”

“Of course,” John told her.

“Hey John!” David called from further down the hallway. The two pilots slowed behind their squadron as David caught up.

“Commander Stanfield,” John said with a nod.

“Doctor is fine. Have you seen Gilber?” David asked, joining them as they got to the elevator.

John nodded. “He’s not on board the ship right now,” John assured David. “The general went planetside a couple hours ago.”

“What for?” David asked with a quizzical look.

“He’s got all kinds of responsibilities,” John told the first officer. “I don’t exactly know them all. But he’ll be back. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“I think I have some creative choices to fill some of the bridge positions he asked me to look at,” David explained to John. “I think I’ve found someone crazy enough to pilot this monstrosity of a ship.”

John nodded and said, “General Gilber told me to just allow you final say on any staff positions.” He spread his arms wide as the elevator arrived. “I say just go with it.”

David frowned. “He told me HE wanted final say.”

“Well I guess he changed his mind,” Jack told David. “You know he’s not nearly as bad as you guys make him out to be.”

Sara laughed. “John is a bit of a kiss ass,” she told David, and John turned to refute. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I’m not a kiss ass!” John insisted.

“You’re literally sleeping with the teacher,” Sara said with a smile at him as her squadron squeezed into the elevator.

*     *     *

“Wake up,” said a deep monotonous voice, strangely both familiar and foreign all at the same time. Everything was black.

“Is she even alive?” Dinah’s voice said in the darkness.

“She’s awake this very moment,” the robotic voice said all around her. “Open your eyes, my granddaughter, and take in your life renewed.”

Suma opened her eyes, only to replace one darkness with another.

“Your eyes will adjust,” the robotic voice said from all around her. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from, it was as if he was in every direction. “You were dead. Do you remember?”

Suma remembered everything. She remembered fighting with her daughter. Remembered the fall from the plane. And then…

“Recent memories will be easier,” the voice said, continuing to monologue. “The rest will return to you in time.”

Her vision was starting to adapt, and she could see she was on a table. Large machinery swung over her head, tentacle like arms reaching down to zap at her limbs, soldering something to her arm, and screwing something to the side of her skull. Looking beside her, she realized her arm wasn’t her arm at all, but some kind of robotic appendage.

She tried to lift her arm, and the appendage raised like any arm would.

“Your body is no longer completely your own,” the voice continued to say, almost as if it could read her thoughts. “I had to make some modifications. Improvements.” Suma could see Dinah in the darkness, standing over her and giving a concerned look to someone else.

“Rise my Grand Daughter. Rise!”

Suma pushed herself up off the table into a sitting position, her body squeaking and whirring as she moved. Her waist had been completely replaced with a robotic joint, her spine was at least part machine. And her head weighed a lot more than it used to, with all the metal grafted to her skull. She reached up with her only remaining flesh arm, and tried to feel for her hair. She had none.

“You probably have a lot of questions,” the voice of her dead grandfather said slowly, and she finally spotted him. Her grandfather’s face, but yet not his face. A strange likeness of her grandfather on a computer monitor suspended over her head. It was moving seemingly on its own, and controlling the limbs that were still continuing to work on her as she moved.

Suma looked around the room at each of them. “Only one,” she said, her voice coming out in a similarly monotonous robotic voice as her grandfather’s. “What is he doing here?”

The man she was referring to stood in the shadows at the back of the lab. Behind Dinah and Belmont. He raised something to his face, and flicked a lighter, lighting a large cigar he held between his teeth.

Slowly the man stepped forward, dragging from his cigar, the light illuminating an all too familiar face.

“Yer grandfather an’ I ‘ad a little unnerstand’n,” General Ed Gilber said between puffs. “Ye’ve been goin a li’le off script, so I jus’ thought I’d come by and point ye back in the right direction.”

Next Time on Adrift Homeless at www.patreon.com/99geek in 2019
1x08: Alec Penman and Stephanie Nattel find somewhere to hide, and Steph gets a surprising offer. Chief Science Officer Kathrine Pross finally finds what she’s been looking for. Doctor David Stanfield and Chief Engineer Emma Penman continue getting situated into their roles on the Rebirth. Sara and Alpha Squad fly training drills against Beta squad. And Peter Penman finds an unlikely ally.

Next Month on Urban Fantasy at www.patreon.com/99geek in January 2019
2x07:  The Tempus Cult has got Rachel Lin Smith, and Tanya Daytton won’t sleep until she gets her girlfriend back. But who will go farther for their vampire lover? Tanya, who also has her newly announced campaign for mayorship of the city holding her back? Or Ian Fletcher, just returning from a trip south meant to clear his head? Meanwhile, Andrew Gezzy and Mike Jones take a trip to the neighbouring city of Mississauga, seeking help from the Mayor to save Rachel.