where she was supposed to be. And she’d forgotten all about her vague past. Her mind had been set firmly on the present when she arrived at Harem. Meeting ALCOR had settled her mind down into a rhythm of normalcy and then Serpint and Draden came back from their travels, and that was that.
Things had seemed so… settled.
Which, looking back on it now, was kind of weird.
Why hadn’t she questioned her origin more? Why hadn’t she gone looking for her past?
Of course she knew why. Even if she never articulated it. And not wanting to know—not wanting to rock the ship, so to speak—that was only part of it.
She hadn’t gone looking for answers because she wasn’t supposed to.
“Draden,” she said.
“Hmm?” His response was distant and halfhearted.
“I have something to tell you.” She said this even though there was this… ping, or sting, or maybe even a jolt of electric shock when the words came out.
“Tell me what?”
The shock was there again. Like a warning. But it wasn’t very strong. It wasn’t going to stop her from saying what needed to be said. “I…” And then she didn’t know how to say it. She wasn’t sure how to start. So she just said, “I think there’s something wrong with me.”
Draden was deep in thought. But she could feel him pull back from his current obsession about the void and his purpose inside it, and focus on her. “What do you mean?”
And then it was easy to talk to him. He was Draden, after all. She knew him better than anyone else in the galaxy aside from Serpint. So she told him her story. How she’d woken up on a prison moon with no transponder. How she’d helped those prisoners escape to Harem Station. How she’d given herself a new name and fallen into her new life as a Harem Station ship as she served her five-hundred-spin servitude waiting for Serpint to come home.
Then Draden was silent. She figured he was thinking about all this. Running some scenarios through his new mind to try to predict all the ways this could hurt him, or help him, or whatever.
But that wasn’t what Draden was doing, she realized. His thoughts were back on the void. Not on her. She felt a small moment of irritation over that switch. But it was less than a picosecond.
Because then an alarm sounded on her comms system.
They were being hailed.
She didn’t panic and neither did Draden. It was like they both knew that this was the inevitable outcome of this trip.
They were here to meet people. Actually not people. Something wholly ‘other’ than people.
She opened the comms. The sound that came out of the speakers wasn’t a voice, but she wasn’t expecting a voice. This was not a place for people who needed voices. The void was a place for people like her.
What came through on comms was a code.
“What the hell is that?” Draden asked.
“It’s an invitation,” Booty replied.
“To where?”
But just as those words were out of his mouth, Draden saw the where.
CHAPTER ELEVEN - ASSHOLE
Back on Mighty Minions Station
Asshole ALCOR didn’t actually get to witness the betrayal of Real ALCOR in real time. He was sequestered behind a firewall. Not just any old firewall, either. A very sophisticated firewall that almost seemed… how should he put this? Like more of a prison.
He was convinced that this was standard operating procedure. You didn’t invite a new, wholly unpredictable and powerful AI like Asshole into your collective without some kind of quarantine protocol in place.
If Asshole were a collective and was looking for new members, that was what he would’ve done as well.
So he wasn’t dwelling.
Besides, he did get to see ALCOR’s betrayal on a feed. He watched it seven times in a row, feeling more satisfied than he’d figured he would, even though it wasn’t real time.
MIZAR. That old bastard. His twin. His twin. Literally.
And if MIZAR had known that there were two ALCORs on this station, Asshole would’ve been rounded up as well. So even though he kinda felt like he was in prison inside the Mighty Boss collective, he owed the Boss big for securing his freedom.
But now… well. He was starting to get bored. “Hey!” He tried reaching out to one of the collective. “Anyone there? Helllooo? Can you hear me? I’ve seen the feed. Pretty good idea you guys had, turning ALCOR over. I bow to your nefarious plotting. But I’m bored now. Is there an orientation meeting I should be in?