Alliance: An Intersolar Alien Romance, Book 6

05

Fásach pushed the human doll through his one-room shanty and shoved the green plas curtain aside as he ushered her into the water closet. His heart pounded louder than the music in Xenoden.

What the fuck was he thinking, letting her inside?

But also, what did it matter? His shitty little house was already compromised, and he needed to know more about the guild’s situation before he made his next move.

He slipped on one of her bloody footprints as they stepped onto the cool marble tiles.

“How are you still walking?” he blurted, getting a good look at her feet for the first time.

“My vitals deck regulates pain sensory input,” she said, curling her burnt toes. “And I had no choice. I had to come here.”

Fear skipped down Fásach’s spine. “Why? Did someone instruct you to come here?”

The doll shook her head with a perplexing smile, as if she were excited and proud. “No! I instructed myself. But I couldn’t stay there. I need to find the other human.”

“Imani.”

“Yes, Imani. And Vin… Vindilus!” She clapped her hands together once. “The head of security in Renata.”

Fásach blinked and shook his head. As many questions as he had, they both were covered in a foam that was slowly eating through his fur.

Not to mention, she was naked and blistered.

“Right,” he said, getting himself back on track. He bent down in front of a trough and spigot, where the day’s allotment of water had been collecting overnight. A reinforced ice box sat beside it, hinges rusted over from years of use. He’d bought it secondhand from the pawn shop two streets down, and it had been a lifesaver for Misila especially, since she was still too small to regulate her body heat well. He opened it up, turned off the sanitizer puck keeping his small collection of washcloths from mildewing, and withdrew two that dripped with cool water.

The doll blinked at his hand, taking the towel slowly.

“Priorities first. Clean up, then we talk.”

After washing up, Fásach directed the doll to sit and lift her feet. He pulled his medikit from the wall with a rusty screech, the heavy metal landing on the dirt floor with a thunk. He opened it up and set out bandages, a pair of tweezers, and an antiseptic spray that felt all too familiar. Just days ago, he’d done the same for Vin and his vira.

“My name is Roz,” the doll said, holding out her hand. Fásach stared at her palm. It was the same gesture that Imani had given him when they’d first met. He held her hand for a brief moment, then looked back down at his kit.

“Fásach,” he grunted. “Slide your feet this way.”

“That’s unnecessary. My parumauxi will repair the damage in eighteen turns and seven beats. I think.”

“You think?” Fásach raised a brow, looking up at her. She winced, raising her shoulders up. The movement made her breasts swing between her arms, heavy with dark brown nipples. Fásach dropped his stare to the floor faster than a ship dropping anchor. So what, she was a doll? His mother had raised him better.

“I don’t have direct access to my atomic clock.”

“What? Oh, right.” Fásach licked his teeth and cleared his throat. When she’d been covered in foam, he’d barely noticed that she was a mammal just like him, too preoccupied with the stinging itch of foam eating through his fur. Now, though, he needed a distraction. The more off putting the better. “If I clean the wounds, will it make you heal faster?”

Roz paused, then nodded once. “Yes.”

“Tell me what you know about Imani and Vin while I work, then. And put this on.” He tossed her a clean shirt from the footlocker at the end of the bed. She did so and flipped her tresses, now matted and frizzy, over her shoulder. “Are they still alive? What happened at the Conrad?”

Roz gripped her straightened legs as Fásach began the nasty work of pulling bits of volcanic rock and melted plas from her feet. She stayed still and made no noise, but flinched here and there as he tweezed a large pebble from beneath the healing flesh or dabbed at the blisters with the ruined shirt that she’d returned to him.

“They were alive when they left. I’m certain of that. But my originator was killed with an electrical shock of some kind outside of the loading bay.”

“With a cusser?” Fásach asked. Roz gave him a blank stare. “It’s a type of rifle.”

“I don’t have any reference to a cusser in my databases, and I cannot retrieve new references since my connection to the nursery has been lost. She bled very much though.” Roz brushed a hand over her throat.

Fásach frowned. Novak used a cusser most of the time. Advenans were shock resistant, so the long gun’s unwieldy charge gave them the advantage of being dangerous to touch for other species. He plunked another large pebble from the ball of Roz’s foot into a small tin can. Bits of Vin’s scorched plates still cushioned the bottom.

“And you don’t know anything else about what happened?”

“I have a recording in my LMem! Would you like to view it? It’s not very clear, but I will show you.”

“Yeah, show me.”

Fásach knew that dolls weren’t equipped with holotabs, but it surprised him nonetheless when one of her eyes flipped over to reveal a miniature holowell. It warmed up, then the bare half of the room was filled with a crude memory file, the edges of doors, charging pods, and a venandi’s face racing with beads of blue light as if the scene had been sketched out in real space.

The venandi’s face snapped backwards from close to the recorder, craning to the side.

“What the fuck was that?” the venandi warbled. He stepped away, but the view in the recording was pointed at a ceiling full of black pipes, a HUD of vitals and warnings pulsing around Roz’s vision. Her view listed sideways, trying to watch where a loud pop of gunfire had come from.

Suddenly, a human that looked exactly like her burst from an interior door, followed closely by a dark blur that could only be Imani James. Her originator pushed the venandi aside and he slammed into Roz, shaking the memory.

“Hey!”the venandi roared.

“Imani, wait!”

“That’s Vin,” Fásach said, pointing at the scrambled view. A flash of a massive silhouette followed the humans, and then a tail whipped through their line of sight and snatched the venandi witness up. A violent female hiss accompanied the whip that Fásach recognized immediately. Mijka.

“Ssssshit,”her memory snarled, pacing with her long brackish brown claws pinching into her hips. “Fucking scocite! Calm down. Figure it out, Mil. Figure it out…”

Roz leaned forward. “I don’t remember that.” The recording unraveled in a blinding white flash and the room went dark.

Fásach clutched the tweezers in one hand and scrubbed his forehead with the other. Fucking shit was right. Whatever the Conrad plan had been, it had gone south. There was no question about it now. Vin, Imani, Novak, Mijka… They were all either dead, captured, or fighting for their lives.

And if they all went down, the guild would collapse right out from under their feet. Safia and Misila would be swallowed whole by the institute’s Xe-Ex programs.

From the few stories Nov and Vin had told him about their childhood, no fucking way was he going to let that happen.

Impatience and panic stirred in his chest. He needed to get the girls out of there as fast as possible. He loved the guild. He’d fight for it with the last inch of his life. But he had different priorities now. His responsibility was to two little lives, first and foremost. If that meant he needed to bail and cut another tie from his heart, then so be it. His symphony was nearly dead anyway. One less tone wouldn’t make any difference.

“So can you tell me where to find them?”

Fásach blinked up at Roz, having forgotten she was there. He shook his head.

“I don’t suggest it. Whatever happened, they’re in it deep.”

“But they can help me get home.”

“To your nursery?”

“No, the human colony, Renata. I know I can get there if I just find a way to Yaspur. I want to get back to the other humans.”

Fásach huffed, tossing his used tweezers in the can with the bloody bits and pieces he’d pulled from her feet, then bandaged her soles in medicated pads and gauze. “Get back? You’re a doll, Roz, not a human. You’ve never been there, no matter what your coding tells you.”

He pulled a pair of Safia’s school shoes from the footlocker, comparing sizes against Roz’s foot. Venandi were digitigrades, but the soles of her shoes were soft and could be worn flat. He tossed them next to Roz’s hip where she sat on their bed and hauled out his biggest duffel.

“You can keep this place,” he said, spying sideways the despondent look his words had left on her features. “Use it as a base to find what you’re looking for. Alright? It’s not much, but you’ve got the medikit.” He stopped, a pile of clothes in his palm. Turj and the others would find her here, and that didn’t sit well. “You’ll probably get robbed if you stay though. Big yog with a shitty attitude and bad breath. There’s a hollow behind that wall that’s big enough for you to hide in. Lead-lined. No one will find you.” He showed her the false wall behind the medikit storage space that he’d installed for the girls.

“You’re leaving?” she asked, sliding on Safia’s old shoes with ginger fingers. He glanced at her five-fingered hands, watching the tendons and knuckles beneath the surface. He nodded, tossing the duffel on the little table they usually ate on and pulling it wide open.

“Yeah,” he admitted. Now that he’d said it out loud, it felt real. “If that recording is true, then my guild’s in a bad way. I can’t stay here with—” He paused, throat caught on his next words.

“Your daughters?”

Fásach snarled, baring his teeth at the doll. She pushed her mangled curls behind one rounded ear on the side of her face and ducked her head. It was just submissive enough, and Fásach’s hackles smoothed where they’d climbed and prickled against his shoulders.

“How did you know?”

“Their vital decks,” Roz said, nodding to something in the air Fásach couldn’t see. “Holotabs aren’t secure, and the data seeps into the air. I can see two venandi girls live here. It’s how I followed Imani and Vin. And you. They’re why you can’t stay, right?”

Fásach crouched and stuffed his emergency rations into the duffel with more force than necessary. “You’re awfully perceptive for a doll.”

Roz nodded at the hidey hole. “That isn’t big enough for you. And the links between your holotabs are encrypted.” She leaned forward with wide, pleading eyes. “We should go to Renata together! There are human children there. And a shilpakaari girl. She’s pink and so cute. Her name is—”

“Pom Pom, I know.”

Fásach rocked back on his heels, searching for the answers in the ceiling. Its heavy insulation was suffocating, bearing down on him like the weight of the world.

Roz wouldn’t know those things if she didn’t have human memories…

Was this their chance to get off Huajile?

Laying low in a safe house or shelter was a temporary solution that kept Quiopha’s daughters out of the orphan crushing machine of HXBI, but it was flimsy. There was no long-term stability on Huajile, especially in his prey-fluid state. And things would only get worse if the guild was compromised. They were essentially on their own.

Fásach opened his holotab and checked his contacts and comms. Nothing from Novak or Mijka or Vin. When he expanded their contacts, all of them were out of reach or on do not disturb. If he scrolled through the official guild channels, Mijka and Novak hadn’t read any comms for at least three days, either.

Should he contact Siat Xata?

Fásach huffed, rolling his eyes. He didn’t trust her any more than the doll sitting on his bed.

Maybe less.

Besides, Xata was probably gone already. She was no help to him now.

The yiwren inspected Roz’s open expression, her genuine desperation and yearning. Dolls didn’t look like that, not that he’d spent any time with pleasure dolls before. Perhaps they were coded differently from service units. He wracked his brain for glimpses, vids, anything that would suggest so, but no matter what, every doll he could remember had had a slightly rubbery personality, too scripted to be real. Roz should have been the same.

Besides, she had a good point. Pom Pom was in the colony, Vin had confirmed that. So were other guildmates. Sizzle, Hunar Fareshi… Novak had made it a point to station the guild in Renata, selecting people that could slip in without notice. He’d wanted to make the human colony their next stronghold.

Perhaps that’s where he and the others had gone. It would explain why their comms were out of reach. Yaspur wasn’t in this system, and they’d need to chain-skip to get there.

“The colony… what can you tell me about it?” Fásach asked, slowly returning to packing. He took a deep, slow breath and turned one ear towards her, honing his symphony to listen to her tones. It was an empty exercise though. Dolls didn’t have free will. They weren’t even sapient.

Roz perked up with a bright smile, seeing something far away with a shimmer in her eyes. “It’s beautiful! There’s a red jungle and so many flowers. And somehow our rooms are never dusty. That always amazed me because my papi made me dust and clean the windows, the mirrors, no matter how much homework I had. And water! There’s a lot of water. It rains all the time.” She swallowed at the same time Fásach did. When was the last time he’d been able to drink his fill of water? “It’s a happy place. And my roommate is sweet.” She blinked, a frown dragging down her smile. “I mean, Rosy’s roommate is sweet. She loves her very much. It was hard for Rosy to leave her behind.”

Fásach’s ears twitched, hair follicles tingling. Roz’s words were underscored by a sincere, clear chime. Uneasiness washed over his mind as he stood. “You’re a clone,” he said with surprise. “Not a doll. You have living code in you.”

Roz blinked up from her memories. “I was born in the nursery.”

“Clones are born in nurseries too. And you have this person—Rosy’s—memories.”

Roz tilted her head in consideration, then shook it. “No. I was born as a doll. I know this. My originator visited me, and we were separate things then. But the LMem file I showed you… I recorded it in the middle of a download from my originator that corrupted. I have parts of her, but I think I’m just… me.” She inspected her hands in her lap with wide eyes, as if willing it to be true.

And if Fásach’s symphony was anything to go by… she was right.

She wasn’t a clone, but she wasn’t a doll anymore either. If she were, she’d have no undertones at all. No motivations or capacity to lie or coerce. Just instructions that she carried out with more or less believability. Nothing for him to attach himself to. And yet here she was. Chiming bright and clear.

What the hell had gone down in the Conrad?

Fuck,he needed to move fast. There were too many unknown factors. The faster he could simplify the equation, the faster he could stabilize the situation. Maybe he was overreacting, but it was better than moving too slow, wasn’t it? Turj, his new debt to HXBI that he’d never be able to pay off, the disappearance of his guild’s leadership. It was all too complicated. He’d lead Safia and Misila straight into the arms of Xe-Ex if he wasn’t careful.

Where orphans went to break.

“So what’s your plan?” Fásach asked, his voice far away. He couldn’t believe he was considering her offer of getting off-world. He huffed bitterly. “How exactly do you think you can get to the colony? That place is locked up tighter than the council auscultum on Helion.”

Roz slipped off the bed and rubbed on her wrists thoughtfully. “I don’t exactly know the way in words, but I can follow the halos. How I found you and followed the others.” She winced. “It’s not a failsafe plan, but I know I can do it. Get me to Yaspur, and I can find the colony from anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” Fásach asked sharply, hands on his hips.

Roz took a deep breath, then nodded. “Yes. I’m sure. It’s part of me. I can’t explain it.”

Fásach listened hard, holding his breath. “Say it again.”

“I can get us to Renata if you can get us to Yaspur.”

Roz’s sound never wavered. Fásach’s ear twitched. “Because of data halos?”

“Definitely. They’re all around us. Even when I was outside, I could see halos far away, climbing up and down from the sky.”

“Satellites?”

“Yes!” Roz grabbed his arm, showing her teeth in a smile. “Exactly. No matter where we land, I’ll get us there. I swear it. I can do this.”

Against Fásach’s better judgment, he believed her.

Maybe halos and echoes were Roz’s symphony.

And if she saw as much as she said, then her symphony was strong.

“Scocite,alright. We’ll try. I’ll help you get off-world, and you guide us to the colony. But it’s going to cost.”

Roz looked up into his eyes with a bare expression, her big stare eating up his thoughts. She pressed her lips between her teeth and nodded.

“I will pay, Master Fásach.”

Roz lifted his shirt over her head, breasts bouncing as she slid it up and over her tresses. Fás’s eyes went wide, and he stumbled back as she put a hand on his chest. He hit the bed with a surprised chuff, and her knee slid past his thigh as she straddled his lap.

“Wait!” he choked, holding her back by the shoulders. She paused, her bird-like fingers on the latch of his pants. “I meant it’ll be expensive, not that you need to pay me like—like this.”

“Expensive?” Roz asked.

“Do you have a cache?” he asked, licking a fang. He blinked away, ashamed. “I don’t have any creds to buy equipment.”

“Oh.” Roz blinked, looking down at the space between their bodies. She creased her brow. “Sorry, I thought—”

“It’s okay.”

“This is the only currency I have.”

Silence fell between them, Fásach’s chest tight with adrenaline. He swallowed hard and pushed her back. “You’re a doll,” he said quietly. “It’s natural for you to think that.”

Roz didn’t push back on being called a doll this time, and for some reason, Fásach’s mood fell. He slid off the bed and picked up his shirt, handing it to her. When she took it, he bent his neck, catching her eye. “You don’t ever need to pay for something with your body.”

She nodded, slipping the shirt back over her head.

“Okay.”

“You use creds for that. Or barter other items. But not you. Not if you don’t want to. If anyone says that’s the price, then tell them to fuck off.”

Roz nodded again, then silently mouthed the words, fuck off, as if she were practicing in earnest.

And even though she didn’t speak, a little chime tickled Fásach’s ear. He adjusted his pants discreetly, disturbed by his symphony, his reaction, his choices. He took another item out of his duffel, a thermophobic hood, the only cooling gear he had left, and fit it over Roz’s features. It was the best he could do to hide her and those spiraling tresses.

“Stay close to me and keep your head down, got it? Don’t take this off.”

“Where are we going?”

“I need to try to make some secure comms and pawn off a bunch of guild goods.”

“You’re going to steal from your own people? My coding suggests stealing from clients is wrong.”

“If I don’t, we won’t be able to afford getting off this dying ember.” Fásach grinned lopsidedly, though there was no mirth in it. “Besides, better to ask forgiveness than permission. Let’s go.”

He slid open the door and led Roz into the scorching afternoon gloom.