“The Zikri bots test your reflexes. The glass maze tests your loyalty to each other. The stringy horrors test your resistance to fear and willingness to engage repulsiveness. I have yet to test for stamina and creativity, but for now these suffice to assess potential recruits, or shall I say ‘enemies’, for weaknesses and strengths.”
One of the security officers, a blond man with a scruffy beard, beckoned for their weapons.
Yul held on to his, pondered a rash escape, a flurry of fire, but he suspected he and Cloye would be cut down.
“I sense you are irked about the Zikri counterparts,” the man said. He sighed. “Strikes a sensitive spot? I can explain. We captured a few Zikri on nearby worlds and I modelled some of my guardian bots on their unique physiology. They are prototypes only—fitting that we tested our machines on my obstacle course. It seems you have had the privilege of surviving them.”
Yul glowered at the man. Was this Hresh? When would he see the end of these nutcases?
“I forgot to introduce myself.” The man eyed Cloye with amusement, her chest heaving as she struggled to her feet. “I am Sigmund Hresh, chief roboticist and owner of Sybcore Technologies.”
“Who the fuck cares?” muttered Cloye.
Hresh’s brows rose, his forehead crinkling. He blinked through those thick glasses of his. “A hearty welcome to you too, Lady Kasan.” He turned to Yul. “And you, Mr. Vrean. What a pleasure.”
Yul, startled, frowned. The man knew their last names too?
Hresh seemed to take delight in Yul’s confusion. “I knew you were aboard my terraformer when the nano-particle detector sounded. I tracked you.” He pulled up a blinking image of a wire-frame figure on a terminal. “Are you surprised? I designed the implant Mathias touts as his own and that he shoved in your blood stream. I can trace their signatures. A quick hack into his technical database and your name came up. Cloye, I know you are a well-known hired mercenary, a skilled assassin.”
She dipped her head in a mocking bow. “Now that we’ve cleared all that up, how about a little lighter on the artillery, Hresh?” She jerked an elbow at the men with the unsmiling faces and the automatic rifles.
“I think not,” murmured the scientist. He motioned to his security team and they took Yul’s weapon and reached to bind his wrists behind his back. But Hresh shook his head.
“Don’t I get special treatment too?” mocked Cloye.
“For now, no. Weapon, please.” He held out a hand.
Yul studied his surroundings. On a long, low metal dais rested a large glass case shaped like a submarine. Floating bulbs the size of potatoes bobbed inside the space, a sealed vacuum, Yul guessed. The light, brownish objects seemed to be flying around of their own accord, without stimulus or provocation. The whole apparatus looked like something out of an eerie science centre display, or some fiendish school science fair exhibit.
The visual monitor connected with wires and electrodes attached to the glass’s surface lit up in strange colours. A spike appeared on a 3D graph whenever any of the objects touched or even glanced off the sides.
“You seem interested in my exhibit,” Hresh said amusedly.
“Let me guess, the Biogron?” croaked Yul.
Hresh clapped his hands in delight. “You are informed. And I thought you were just some boorish bully boy. Only a handful of people in the galaxy have heard that name.”
Yul shrugged. “Thank Mathias.”
Hresh croaked out the word, as if it were a hated thing. “Mathias. It seems he and I see different futures for my invention. After all, I built it. Why should I not govern its fate?”
“Mathias trusted you to finish the job while on payroll,” said Yul.
Hresh chortled, a cruel laugh. “Trusted? What does that mean in today’s world? Here today, gone tomorrow. A trusted friend, a talking head that says good morning, hope you are having a nice day, all the expected pleasantries, then sinks the fangs in. If you knew what ruthless deals Mathias masterminded, how he bullied his way to the top, you would be not be as sympathetic to his cause.”
“Trust me, you’re preaching to the choir, Hresh. I’m only a hired gun. On a mission that went awry.”
“So I gather. How much did he pay you? 1000 credits? Cheap bastard. Whatever he paid you, I can double it.”
Yul shook his head. “I’m sure you can double it, Mr. Hresh, but for the record, 10k is what he paid me and it’s a moot point when my head is on the block.”
“Come, Mr. Vrean, let’s be realists. You are human like any other. Everyone has a price. Mathias bought you cheaply. I can offer you more, and what do you do? Quibble, try to do a morality check on me. Have you never been swayed by the highest bidder?”
Yul’s lip twitched as a brief memory stirred: the time he had betrayed Bedraltr, the smuggler on Maven for certain privileged information. He was still fleeing from that cock-up. Of course, Hresh probably knew all of that with his computer wizardry.
“Spare us the violins, Hresh,” Cloye piped up. “What do you want? How do we get off this planet?”
“You’re welcome to leave at any time,” said Hresh. “There’s the door. But the atmosphere outside is unbreathable, like most of the uncharted worlds in these sectors. When I came here over a year ago, this was an uninhabited wasteland. Perfect for my needs. Now it’s a fully operational research facility—out of sight and mind of opportunistic eyes.”
The man’s words seemed to enter Yul’s brain but not penetrate there. His eyes drifted to the glass case with the pulsing balls, jumping around randomly as if by magic. Yul stared transfixed. There was untethered power there which
