Chapter 36 Nex #2
I reached into the ship’s surveillance mesh without thinking, pulling the feed from Kelly’s lab.
The lights were dim, and there was no registered movement.
I checked Sirena’s camera one more time, to spot her lying down on her pallet, before releasing my hold on her cameras and taking hold of Kelly’s, getting the data for a clean, protective loop as I walked down the hall.
On my way there, I ran through whatever data Voss’s crew had gotten on the Dullahan—which wasn’t much. They were more magic than science, and magic didn’t have to make sense.
The doors to the lab slid open, and Kelly’s eyes opened up. Spotting me—and thinking me Marek—he began to curse profusely. I could read his lips, even if I couldn’t hear him, because his head was suspended in neural gel.
I took a moment to loop the sensors reading data from him, then unsealed the top of his container and reached inside, pulling him out of his suspension—and getting spat at in the process.
“How’d you like that!” Kelly crowed, the second his mouth was empty and his lips were free.
“I don’t.”
Kelly glared, first at me—and then at the stain the gel he’d spit had left on my chest. “Awww, man! I was hoping it’d be acid!”
“If it were acid . . . wouldn’t it already be burning you?”
“I’m a talking head. You think anything can kill me?” He snorted. “Unhand me, you motherfucker,” he said, gnashing his teeth in my direction.
I brought him to eye-level. “Kelly, it’s Nex.”
He stopped mid-snarl. His eyes narrowed. His mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s me,” I said evenly. “I downloaded myself into a human body.”
“Why’d you pick that one? That guy was an asshole!”
“I know. That’s why I chose him. Also because he was the only one foolish enough to have a neural-port pre-installed.”
“Well, all right! So what’s the plan, then?” Kelly asked, his entire face now animated. “You finally took over the ship? Overthrew Voss? Broke Sirena out? Smashed the system? And came to haul my glorious cranium to safety and justice?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I was mostly coming to see if you were okay.”
Kelly blinked. “Okay,” he said slowly. “So. Just to clarify. You came all the way here. Hacked the ship. Gained a body. And your plan was just to check on me?”
When he put it like that, it did seem underwhelming. “Yes.”
He gave me a flat look. “And have you had time to come up with a backup plan yet?”
“I just became human three hours ago. It was confusing at first.”
Kelly sobered. “Did you check on Sirena?”
I tried to fall into myself. To keep my voice even. “Yes.”
The Dullahan’s head squinted. “Huh. So that took you . . . three hours?”
“Yes.”
“Dude,” Kelly said, as I balanced him on the edge of the jar’s glass. He made several wet, revolting noises, then spat out a gob of neural gel and took a long sniff. “Duuuude,” he said again, louder. “Now that that shit’s out of my system—you reek of sex.”
I gritted my teeth and considered dunking him back into the jar. “Also, yes.”
He grinned like he’d won something. “Well?” Kelly asked, eyes darting. “Where is she?” And then, when I took too long to answer: “Or were you also just checking on her?”
“No,” I protested. “We don’t have backup—and Sirena wants us to wait.
” I caught him up on Voss’s plans and what we’d learned.
How this wasn’t just about saving her anymore.
It was about ending the whole operation—and making sure no one else ever tried it again, and by the end of it his lip was curled up, like a wince.
“I regret to inform you that’s more of a concept than a plan,” he said with a grunt. “But it’s all right. I’m good at predicting the future.”
I picked his head fully up again, to eye it more closely.
“What?” he protested. “I ride a bike in the city. I’ve never had an accident.”
“I’ve read your entire agent file. You’ve had three accidents.”
“Yeah, but—I knew they were coming.” Kelly blew air up his face, like he was trying to shoo a lock of wet hair away. “What’s our timeframe?”
“Not long.”
“Okay, then. Put me back in the jar. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. I always do.”
I knew from Kelly’s file that his major strength was being indestructible—but I knew from reading Marek’s plans that they were going to try to vivisect him.
“They have diamond-core drills,” I warned him.
Kelly rolled his eyes dismissively. “Nex—this isn’t even my first super science cult. You just keep Sirena safe—and leave the rest to me.”
I decided to walk the long way back to Marek’s—by first taking an elevator up. One of the ones that would open outside.
It did, and I stepped out, into the night, beneath the stars.
And that moment was almost—but not quite—as amazing as touching Sirena for the first time.
The tiny hairs on my arms, the ones I’d just managed to tame the nerves from, were brushed by a silent evening breeze. The air smelled like ocean and clean—and the sound of the waves slapping the hull was a delight.
I . . . was truly a being.
And even though Sirena wasn’t there—my heart swelled with love for her.
The right person cared.
The piercing ache I’d felt in my soul when I’d been born had disappeared—leaving a different sensation behind. A hum of pleasured satisfaction. An entirely disproportionate feeling that all was right in the world—even though there were so many reasons the world was clearly broken.
It was like holding hope in my chest in spite of—or perhaps because of?—all known alternate realities.
I wanted to shout aloud that I loved her, even if the wind ripped the words away from me, because I needed the entire world to know.
I managed not to, however—and after a few more exhilarating minutes, I took the elevator back down to my own deck.
I walked quickly past the doors to the Hollows’ holding pens, until I saw Voss, coming out an open door.
“Marek?” he asked, as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
I hadn’t been monitoring the camera feeds—I’d been too busy feeling in love, while trying to make up data for tomorrow’s briefings, while processing the sensory backlog of her hands on my skin, and rebalancing my motor control systems accordingly.
“Look. At. You,” he said, taking my discombobulated state in. The wind had tousled my hair worse than Sirena’s fingers. I hadn’t tucked my shirt back in, either.
Voss clucked, as he pulled two of Sirena’s doppelgangers out behind him. “Sampling the wares,” he said, with a slightly irritated huff. “I never would’ve guessed you had it in you.”
I had no idea what the correct course of action was to take in the moment—and I hadn’t left enough of Marek around to ask. I let a data firehose into me, sorting it as fast as I was able.
“You’d better be doing mouth shit only,” he began in a growl.
“Of course,” I said with Marek’s voice. “The virgins are worth more. I know.”
He relaxed a bit. “And none in here?” he said, jerking his head toward the room he’d just vacated, where my last-second environmental scan told me several more Sirenas—like the ones he had on his arms—were waiting, each sleeping in a small berth. “I don’t want your sloppy seconds.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Good.” Voss’s eyes narrowed dangerously, as he weighed whether or not to believe me, then he pushed by me, in the direction I’d just come.
I stood still, trying to control this body’s involuntary stress reactions, until I heard him shout from behind me. “Hey, Marek! From here on out—keep your dick out of my product’s holes!”
“Yes, sir!” I shouted back, with Marek’s voice—and then sprinted for his room.