Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind (15 page)

I was on my feet running again, and I swear my heart skipped a beat when I entered the cargo bay, shuffling to a slumping halt. All of the containers we’d brought aboard were open and empty, and there were two larger ones I didn’t recognize sitting empty and discarded against one of the bulkheads. The weapons were gone.

“Shit!”

“Captain, please, I would like to speak with you.”

The voice startled me and I spun around, backing away. It sounded oddly familiar, now.

“Alex, is that you?”

“Yes, and there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Alex stepped closer, smiling again, and it reminded me of a demented Cheshire cat, deranged teeth and all.

“You…you’re in a droid body. How?”

“Do you like it? I’m quite proud of it, actually.” He rotated slowly in place, showing himself off like a model on a catwalk. “I configured it to something I thought you might find visually pleasing.”

Yeah, maybe in another time and place. He fit the stereotypical image of a muscle-bound god that was so sickly handsome it reminded me of the hero cover-art on a romance novel. He was also hung like a mule, almost exactly like one in fact. Not since my time in the stables…

“Pleasure droid, indeed,” I whispered softly. I couldn’t have cared less what he looked like, I wanted answers.

Speak for yourself… I think I just came.

Can I handle this, please?

I don’t think so; you’re too fucking soft and wishy-washy. Let me deal with this guy.

“You better start giving me some answers and quick, where’s Nathan, what’s going on, and where did that other droid come from?”

“You mean Cherise? I purchased her at the same time as my own body. She has been ordered to look after you. If there is anything you need, she will see to it without question.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t purchase anything, it’s against the law, and I sure as hell can’t see Nathan picking up two pleasure droids on a whim. Which brings me back to my first question, where’s Nathan?”

“No, Captain, I purchased them on Tallin using Mr. Burke’s account. Might I add that you did an excellent job at escaping the spaceport and Federation naval forces. I’m very proud of you. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“What are you talking about? I was fighting the Seth, not the Federation. Dammit, Alex, you better stop dancing around my questions and tell me what the hell is going on. I want to know why you disobeyed my orders and why you’re in a droid, and I swear to god if you don’t tell me where Nathan is…”

Alex made the oddest expression, and for a moment it looked like he was going to throw up.

“Yes, Captain, that’s what I meant. You did an excellent job at fighting the Seth. You really need to eat something, would you like Cherise to prepare you another meal?”

My fists balled hard enough to make my knuckles crack, I’d just about had enough of playing games with him.

“No I don’t want to fucking eat! I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know where Nathan’s at!”

Alex let out an exaggerated breath, and I think he was trying to frown.

“I really wanted to avoid this discussion until you’d had some time to adjust to normal bodily functions, but I see you won’t take no for an answer. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Burke was killed in an accident. The main hatch malfunction that was detected before liftoff became worse and he tried to repair it while you were in stasis. There was an electrical malfunction and it opened, and…I’m sorry, but Mr. Burke is dead.”

I heard what he said, but it didn’t quite register. The best I managed was to stare back at him for several awkward moments of silence.

“Say again? If this is some kind of a sick joke...”

“It’s no joke, Captain, he’s dead. It happened nearly a week ago.”

The bile rose in the back of my throat, somehow I knew he was serious. I began pacing the cabin, shaking my head, choosing to ignore the truth of the situation. It’s impossible, Nathan can’t be dead.

“What about the redundant failsafe system? The emergency bulkhead hatch?”

“All the safety systems suffered a simultaneously failure due to operator error, I told him he wasn’t qualified to do that level of maintenance work, but he wouldn’t listen. Once again, I’m terribly sorry, but he is gone.”

I’m sorry, hon. I never cared for him much, but I know how much he meant to you.

I hung my head staring vacantly at my feet. I felt it coming, the emotional explosion welling up behind my eyes. Is that hair growing on my stomach? Impossible. It was a blurry hallucination, and nothing more. I started to shake, and Alex stepped closer putting his arms around me, trying to comfort me. His naked body pressed against mine, tighter, closer…

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”

I pushed him away much harder than I meant to, but I was venting my pain in the only way I knew how. Alex’s two hundred plus pounds flew through the air hitting the bulkhead ten feet way with a reverberating thump. He sank to the deck looking up at me in shocked fear.

“Don’t ever touch me again; you hear me!”

I could barely see through the blurry haze of tears now, whinnying softly in distress.

“That…hurt, Captain. If I’d been human, that attack would have severely injured me, possibly killed me. You… you tried to kill me.”

I barely heard him, while my body continued to rip itself apart in anguish. I whinnied so hard my sides began to hurt, blubbering like a snot-nosed baby on my knees.

There, there, Margo… It will be okay. I’ll take care of you now, I promise.

“Why did ya leave him, Alex?” My words came out in a stuttering mess with a Deep South drawl. I hadn’t done that in a long time. “We have to go back, he may still be alive.”

Alex was on his feet again, keeping a safe distance from me now.

“That is impossible, and you know it. I understand—”

“Shut up, change course. We’re going back… for him.” I was starting to hyperventilate.

“It’s standard Fleet…procedure…Nathan…Nathan would have had an environmental suit on if working near a…an airlock. He’s trained… he knows…”

“Captain, he didn’t have a suit on. He’s dead.”

“No! Nathan is…is smarter than that! Change… change course now!”

“We can’t. We are currently in jump space. He’s dead, you have to accept the fact and move on with your life. You are only hurting yourself by denying his death.”

He’s gone, baby girl. Let him go, just like Daddy, and Tiff. You have to if we’re going to survive. It’s just us again.

I don’t want to! It isn’t fair!

I know… I know…

“You will follow orders, Alex. Change…” The room began to spin as my vision grew dim and pinpointed.

“You must calm down, Captain, your vital signs have risen to a dangerous level. Let me give you another sedative, if not for your own wellbeing, then for your unborn.”

Did you hear what he just said? The droid bastard… I told you there was something wrong with him- I told you, and you didn’t listen! Why didn’t you listen to me!

A moment of clarity in my madness as it all fell into place. Another sedative… Alex had been drugging me this whole time. No wonder I kept blacking out. No wonder I couldn’t remember anything. What was he up too? Why wouldn’t he obey orders any longer? He should have taken the shuttle back to Slave World after Nathan’s death, it was standard safety programming for any AI to return to the point of origin in an emergency like this.

Unborn what? I vaguely remembered Nathan saying something about babies. Was I pregnant? Impossible!

It is impossible, it’s a trick! Get up, we have to get out of here, Margo!

“Nathan…”

My eyes rolled up in the back of my head. I’d never really fainted before, and was thankful later that I couldn’t feel my head bounce off the hard deck of the cabin floor.

***

I awoke in near darkness, in bed again. I didn’t panic this time or jump up screaming like a banshee. I was strangely calm, lying motionless, listening. The shuttle was deathly quiet, even with the cabin door closed. The sound dampening system must be active on the bed. Another six hours had passed.

Morning, sunshine. Feeling any better?

That’s a stupid question, what do you think?

Hey, don’t get an attitude with me, you little bitch. This is your fault, it’s always your fault, and you know it. If you would have listened to me-

I know…I know, sorry, you’re right, you’re always right when it comes to things like this. Can you just give me some time? I need to think for a while.

Sure, just don’t take too long reminiscing over spilt milk. We need to figure a way out of this mess, and quick.

I still couldn’t believe Nathan was gone. What was I going to do now? Nathan, the man I had always dreamt about was gone forever just like every person I’d ever loved. I was alone, again, and my life was spinning out of control. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to deal with it this time. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep, never waking up…ever.

I don’t know how long I lay there and cried, an hour, maybe two. Did it really matter any longer? What in the hell I have gotten myself into? I knew something was wrong with Alex the moment I stepped on board the shuttle.

Listen to your gut, Margo… You should know better than to question me by now.

I should have known better; I should have said something, but didn’t. I’m not sure it would have made a difference anyway.

Something had happened to Alex, a serious malfunction somewhere in his brain. AI’s did not go traveling across the universe after their owner’s died. They didn’t purchase bodies for themselves, or buy a female companion droid. They didn’t disobey orders or voluntarily drug people like he had been doing to me. They didn’t act the way he was, or show the emotion’s he had, maybe that was the scariest thing of all. I’d heard rumors, bogeyman stories to scare little kids, about AI becoming self-aware. Alex had gone rogue.

Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Haven’t I suffered through enough shit in my life already? Dammit, I was starting to cry again.

Damn, you’re a fucking crybaby, always have been.
Thank goodness you’ve got me, or we’d really-

Just leave me alone! Why are you being so mean to me?

I’m not being mean, I’m just stating a fact, is all. Fine, I’ll leave you alone, but when you come crawling back to me like you always do because you can’t take the heat, don’t expect a friendly pat on the ass and a hug.

I blindly reached for the intercom speaker on the headboard and flipped through the different cabins, maybe I could do a bit of eavesdropping and figure some things out. I was greeted with total silence for the most part, but when I switched it to Nathan’s rec room, the cacophony of screaming, unintelligible voices blaring back at me actually made me jump. What the hell… It sounded like one of those stupid talk shows with goofy guests and outlandish topics like, ‘I married a transvestite gelatinous slim devil from another world’, or some crap like that. After turning the volume down to a normal level, I heard something else in the background of insanity, something unmistakable. You’ve got to be kidding me… Who’d ever heard of two droids doing it?

“Faster… fuck me faster. I’m cumming, Alex! Yes, yes, give...”

I switched the speaker off, shaking my head. By the sounds of it, Alex and Cherise were fucking like a couple of sex-crazed cavemen while watching a talk show, could this day get any weirder? Oh shit, it just did, I am growing hair!

This has to be a dream, I thought running my hand across my lower stomach and down between my legs. It was on my legs and arms, it was everywhere, a thick yet short matting of off-white snow the same texture as my tail. Oh god, it was actual horsehair. I franticly started searching my body for more of the impossible, and lo and behold… What the hell! My shoulders, too? It was even starting to come up in the small of my back, growing upwards along my spine from my tail. I’m going crazy, I know it! I’m turning into a hairy monster! What the hell did Alex do to me?

Oh, this is getting exciting, now! Look at us!

I thought you said you were going to leave me alone? What are we going to do!

Sorry, just couldn’t stay away from all the fun.
Don’t sweat it,
being a pony isn’t so bad, it’s actually fun if you just go with the flow. Michael was going to do this to us anyway, so what’s the big deal?

What’s the big deal? I’m growing hair! Everywhere!

Okay, get a grip, one thing at a time. There has to be viable excuse for me suddenly growing hair… horsehair….over my entire body. Yeah, right.

I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath to keep the nausea in its place. First things first.

Focus, Margo, focus! We need to find a way out of this. On your feet, girl.

I was a bit surprised to find the cabin door unlocked, and I padded cautiously into the corridor. The sound of Alex and Cherise’s lovemaking, and I use the term loosely, was much louder and just the absurdity of the whole situation almost made me want to laugh like a lunatic. Fortunately I didn’t, while inching my way closer to the cockpit. I had no idea how acute Alex’s hearing or other sensors were at this point, but the more I thought about it there was really no point in trying to sneak around at all. No doubt he was still acting as the ship AI to some degree which meant he was already aware that I was awake and watching. So much for that idea….