Page 50 of Cloverleaf Station

“Understood.” A string of glowing blue lights appeared on the wall. Deysan followed them on wobbly legs, stopping every now and then to vomit. He was going to make Elenus pay for this treatment. He was going to break his spirit, break it completely. He’d record it all, make sure Elenus could see him forcing his stupid ship to damage itself before he handed it over to his buyers.

It was going to be beautiful.

The lights led him to a vaguely familiar hangar, and the door opened instantly at his touch. In the center of the large, dark room was … was … Deysan narrowed his eyes. That was the Catalina? It had generally the right contours, but the lines seemed a little different, the—

“Daddeee?” A flash of color played over the hull, and Deysan’s suspicions vanished. This was it, all right—refitted for some reason, probably just because Elenus was bored, but the same mechanics underneath the new fittings. He kind of liked the bulkier, retro look, actually.

“Computer, isolate all audio and visual in this hangar,” Deysan said.

“Understood.”

Deysan watched as the flare of pink light turned orange, then dark, dark red. Yes, Catalina had figured out who he was. It was scared … just how he liked it to be. “Noooooo,” it bleated into the hangar, a desolate cry shared with no one who cared. “Where’s myyyy daddeeee?”

“I guess he didn’t care enough about you to let you know,” Deysan replied and watched the effect of his words ripple across the ship’s frame. God, Elenus had made such a delicious mistake when he programmed an AI to incorporate feelings. “We’re getting out of here, you and I.”

“Noooo!”

“Oh yes, we are,” Deysan growled, limping over to the ship and knocking threateningly on its frame. “You’re going to take me out of this place, and you’re going to do it fast because if you don’t, I’m going to go find your daddy right now and smash his head in with a sonic wrench, do you understand me?”

“Not myyy daddeeee,” Catalina crooned desolately. “Nooo, pleeease.”

“Then shut up and get ready to get out of here.”

That was the beautiful thing about a ship that “thought” for itself—it could make decisions that counteracted the orders of its creator. No doubt Elenus had told it that Deysan wasn’t to be trusted or listened to, but this was a young, naïve intelligence. When he leveled threats, it took them seriously, like a child would. That meant he could take it out into space without Elenus being able to do a godsdamn thing about it.

Undone by his own hubris in giving a machine the ability to make these kinds of decisions. It was perfect. Deysan hoped he got to see Elenus’s reaction via the comm system when he realized what Deysan had done.

With the ship’s engines humming into preflight mode, Deysan turned to the station’s computer. “Where are the greenie suits?”

“Inside the third compartment to the right of the door by which you entered.” Deysan went and got one, struggling into it. His heart was beating too fast … but he’d be fine once he’d had a chance to rest and to gloat. “The hangar door cannot be opened,” the ship’s computer went on.

Deysan scowled. “Why not?”

“Emergency procedures dictate that all external openings be under lockdown during a flare.”

“The flare isn’t here yet,” he argued.

“We are within the risk zone, as the flare is expected in approximately twenty-one minutes. The hangar cannot be opened.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. How was he supposed to threaten a stupid computer into compliance?

The answer presented itself as soon as Deysan thought of the question. “Catalina,” he snapped, “figure out a way to override the hangar door’s controls in …” How long should he give it? “Five minutes, or I’m going to kill your daddy slowly.”

The ship whined again—like a dog, Deysan thought. Some of his fellow CEOs had been enamored of the ancient Earth canines, resurrecting their DNA and making designer dogs for themselves. Elenus hadn’t been one of them, but apparently the exposure had stuck.

Three and a half minutes later, Catalina announced in a small voice, “The doooors will oooopen noow.”

“Good.” Deysan looked around the hangar one last time, but there was nothing he needed there. The ship was bound to be stocked with food, and Elenus knew better than to leave his getaway vessel under-fueled. “Then we’re getting out of here.”

And as soon as they were a safe distance away, he was going to call Elenus to gloat … right before he flew off to make his next fortune.

Good fucking riddance.

***

“Flare incoming in five minutes. Emergency procedures enacted. All personnel must head to the secure shelters in the center of the station immediately. Flare incoming in four point eight minutes. Emergency procedures enacted. All personnel must—”

The station’s computerized voice cut off abruptly as Deysan shut the outer airlock. He frowned as he tried to figure out how to get the inner door to close—this had been so much more intuitive before Elenus had made all these ridiculous changes to the ship. Eh, he’d get it to handle it on its own.