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“Absolutely not. Never. I’m never going into any simulation. I’m never going to give my brain over to anyone. Not even you. Not for all the pancakes in the universe.”
“Sandy, you are being silly.”
“Her name’s not Sandy,” Emrys growls. “She hasn’t told any of us her real name. There’s no point calling her anything other than ‘human female.’ That’s what she is. An impudent set of holes who… ARGH!” His comments end in a scream as Atlas does something horrible to him, presumably because he doesn’t like me being called a set of holes. He’s very gallant for someone who wants to take my brain and use me as a sort of eternal Stepford fuck toy.
“Sandy,” he says. “Come back to the ship and we will talk about what is to be done with you.”
“I’m not coming back, Atlas. I’m going as far away from here as possible. Trust me, it’s better for all of us this way. Thanks for the pancakes. You can keep that fucking cane.”
I turn the ship about and accelerate out of communication range. There’s no point continuing to talk. I’m never, ever going to allow myself to be taken by any of these alien males.
I’m looking for a black market doctor. That’s what I need, someone who can isolate the nano-tags and either deactivate or remove them. Once they’re gone, I’ll sink back into blessed isolation. Nobody will know who I am. I’ll be free to do what I planned to do in the first place, and make the money I need to make to do what I need to do.
There’s a lot of time to think when I’m rocketing through space on my own. I get to think about Raz, how seductive he was, how he made me feel like he gave a damn. Atlas, too. He made me feel like I was something precious. Something worth preserving. Yes, it was creepy as hell, the idea of being put in a simulation, but the impulse behind it was protective.
These aliens did nothing but pay for me, and already some of them care for me. When I slept with Raz, and when he tried to help me repay the debts, I had an ally. I don’t have one anymore. I don’t have anyone. I don’t have a pretty pink bed covered in frills. I do, however, still have the galaxy’s most ornate nightdress. I attacked a ship while wearing a pretty pink frilly gown. That makes me giggle. Also makes me want to talk to someone, tell them what I’m doing. But friends are a luxury I lost long ago when I left civilized space. I’m on my own. I used to feel good about that. I used to think being on my own was for the best. Kept me safe, etcetera.
But I think I got a little taste of something different. I knew what it felt like to have people care again. Alien people. Alien people with agendas. But still. I’m going to have to get used to being alone all over again.
I set the ship’s coordinates to the nearest den of shady iniquity I know, and I curl up in the oversized pilot’s chair for a little spot of sleep. Outside the window, the lights of stars slide by in rapid succession as I drift off in my cute nightie.
4 MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
“Can’t do it, I’m afraid.”
I got to the station and I found a doctor. The doctor is a human male, which made me feel a bit better at first. There’s always something comforting about interacting with your own species. That should have been the end of my intrepid journey, but here I am, yet again being told why my very simple plan can’t work after all. What the hell is going on with reality that I can’t seem to ever get my way?
I am lying on a bed held together with metal tape and bits of other beds. I am still wearing the frilly nightgown, though it doesn’t look quite as pristine as it did when Atlas first gave it to me. The bottom hem in particular has picked up a range of interesting staining and debris. I have managed to find some boots, though they don’t actually match. I have one sheepskin boot on one foot, and a tight leather boot on the other. I look like a dominatrix shepherd. I look like a mess.
What I look like is the least of my worries. The nanobots are what I have to worry about, and why I apparently can’t get rid of them.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because the nanotags that outfit uses burrow into flesh. They’re not designed to be temporary. They’re designed to be permanent. To get them out, we’d have to not only locate each of them, we’d have to punch five separate holes in your body to get at them, and those holes aren’t just going into fat and muscle. Looks to me like several of these tags have lodged themselves into organs.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
He gives a shrug. “They’re nanotags. They’re tiny. So, no. Hopefully not. But it does mean I can’t get them out. As for deactivating them, the amount of radiation I’d have to bombard you with in order to achieve that would make you sicker than you already are. Best advice I can give you is wearing shielded clothing. An inert material that reflects signals would do the trick.”
Ileave the doctor’s back office wearing a tinfoil hat. I also have a tinfoil jacket, and tinfoil pants. I have my doubts that they will work, but they’re better than the literal nothing that the doctor could otherwise offer me.
I still have the scythkin shuttle for now, but of course that’s trackable too. I’m going to have to trade that. I decide to take care of that right on the docks. They’re crowded enough with reprobates of all species, cashed up pirates with more money than sense. The scythkin vessel is getting a lot of attention from the wrong sort of people — but it’s possible one of them might have the coin to take it, or better still, a ship in trade.
I stand up on some crates and raise my voice to the crowd.
“Anybody interested in the keys to a scythkin runabout? Authentic technology. Straight from the belly of a scythkin spaceship.”
There’s a murmur of interest, but no actual takers at first.
“Come on, this is a once in a lifetime chance. You’ll never see another one of these for sale, I can guarantee you that.”
I’m making some good points. A scythkin shuttle could really be bad news in the wrong hands, and every single pair of hands in this place is certifiably wrong.
An alien comes out of the crowd. Pale, lizard-type skin, brilliant blue eyes, and a smirking expression that I know all too well bodes ill for me. He’s wearing good armor, the kind that costs money, but I’d bet every credit I have he didn’t pay for it.
“I’ll give you ten thousand credits.”
“It’s worth well over a hundred thousand.”
