broadcast when I speak. People aren’t satisfied yet. But there are fewer protests now than there were when I started.
“Flicka has taken Lady Luck and—”
“What?” Luck asks.
“—she’s heading towards the gate.”
“A lot of good that’ll do,” Valor says. “She can’t get through.”
“Well…” Baby says again.
I close my eyes and sigh. “Please tell me something good right now, Baby. Please.”
“I’m afraid she not only stole Lady Luck, but she has also been building a beebot army. They’re on the ship with her. And she can get through the gate. Because she just disabled every single one of our near-side security beacons.”
“Fucking suns,” Jimmy says. “How the hell—”
“We still have the far-side security,” Baby interrupts.
“Unless she disables those too,” Luck growls. “I always knew that beebot was a bad idea.”
“And…” Baby says. His voice trailing off like he’s calling a play-by-play out in space. “There she goes. The gates are open.”
Fuck.
“And she’s gone. But she did leave the far-side security in place.”
“So basically, the war has started,” I say.
“Hold, please,” Baby says. “I’m being hailed by… Tray!”
“What?” I chuckle.
“He’s here! He’s home. On a giant Mighty Minions warship!” Baby says.
“Let him through!” I say. “Now, Baby! Get him on this side!” I turn to Luck. “Are you still going to help me?”
“Are you still going in?” He huffs. “The war has started and you’re going in to find your sun-fucked soulmate?”
“I’m telling you, Luck. I’m fucking telling you this is important. I need to see her. I need to talk to her. I need to—”
“You need to fuck her,” Valor says.
I look at him. Ready to protest. Ready to lie.
But he doesn’t give me a chance. “For real, Crux. You need to fuck her. Listen to me. Luck and Nyleena have this special talent when they… you know, come. And Veila and I have a special talent too. We can see the future.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you say this already?” Luck asks.
“Because we didn’t see this,” Valor explains. “We saw war, yeah. And death. And light. And dark. But we didn’t see specifics. It felt like a win, but I can’t be sure. Here’s my theory. And it all goes back to comics. Maybe they are just stories, but every story has a little bit of truth in it. Right? So here’s what I think—we all have superpowers. Serpint and Lyra break apart universes. Luck and Nyleena make them… static, or whatever. Veila and I stop time. Tray and Brigit… I don’t know. And I don’t know how Draden fits in either. But”—Valor looks at me—“you and Corla have to do something too. You have to. It only makes sense. Our soulmates complete us, you guys. That’s the definition of a soulmate. Apart we’re cool, right? Bot-liberators. Princess-hunters. AI minds.” He looks at Luck. “And we’re soul-stealers.”
“We are not soul stealers,” Luck protests. “We didn’t steal any sun-fucked souls.”
“Didn’t we?” Valor asks. “Do AI stations die?”
“Well, they weren’t whole, that’s for sure. Why would ALCOR need half-dead AI minds? And why collect them here? It makes no sense.”
“Nothing ALCOR does makes sense,” Serpint says.
“Or,” I say—calmly, slowly—“or everything ALCOR does makes sense.” I look at my brothers. “Maybe we just… haven’t put all the pieces together yet?”
“Or maybe he set us up?” Jimmy says flatly.
“Yeah,” I say. Something clicks inside my mind. “Yeah. Maybe he did.”
“My point is,” Valor continues, “we’re cool all by ourselves. But together… together, you guys—with each of our soulmates—we’re them! The superheroes in the comics. We can save the world, but we need all of us to do it.” He looks at me. “You really do need to see Corla. You need to figure out how she completes you. And when you know that—we can win.”
I turn to Luck. “We need to go. Now. I need to get in there and see. If it doesn’t work, fuck it. We lose, I guess. But we’re gonna lose anyway. We have no plan. ALCOR’s plan will be our only choice. If there’s a chance we don’t have to blow them up to save this station, then—”
Luck grabs me by the arm and pulls me off the liftbot. “Let’s go then. The fucking gods are at the gate, brother. We don’t have time to talk about it.”
We run through the museum, passing all the empty gray holoscreen walls. And then we burst into the spin node control room. It’s dark and looks empty. But Luck goes right over to the controls and begins entering the start-up sequence.
“You have the coordinates