I guess there was at least one thing I should be grateful to Odyssey for.
I backed further out, couldn’t face going back in, so I closed my eyes, and closed the connection, cutting it as I returned to the implant.
“Well, that was educational,” Abby said, watching me organize the data.
“Oh, yeah. That was a barrel of laughs.”
“Looks like you have plenty of nightmare fodder, right there.”
“Abs…”
“Don’t worry. None of that requires desensitization. In fact, I’d be worried if it didn’t give you nightmares.”
Well, that was a relief.
“You got your breath back?” she asked, when I was done sorting the data, and I wondered just how many potential clients she’d identified from that initial foray. “Let’s just say I can afford to buy a black-market AI if I need to—and that’s if just half of the folk I’ve sent offers out to accept… even with the charity jobs that are going to run alongside.”
Abby did charity?
“It’s part of Dasojin’s charter. Sometimes good folk get caught up in things that aren’t their fault—and they can’t afford to pay their way out. We try to fix that when we can.”
From the way she said it, that sounded personal.
“And not just for me,” she said. “Now, shift your tushy and get to digging. I have deals to make and hearts to break.”
Her tone of voice suggested she wasn’t looking forward to the last part… or, perhaps, she was.
“Some hearts need breaking, child,” and I heard steel, “and not all of them survive the process.”
I hadn’t known Dasojin had a vigilante arm.
“We have a new patron,” she said. “He pays well, but he’s very demanding. I’ll pass him some of what you uncovered for assessment.”
And, now, I understood she’d been riding with me in my foray into the underbelly of the universe’s darkness.
“It’s not something I’d let you do alone, dear.”
And, why the fuck not?
“Not every nightmare has to be faced in isolation.”
I wondered who’d be keeping over watch while she acted as my bodyguard.
“You’re not the only one who can isolate their systems,” she said, “and I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Well, then. I took a deep breath, and rebuilt my entry to the worst the galaxy had to offer.
I searched every crawl space and cavern I could reach, before Abby pulled me out to eat, and then I went for a long, hard run in the sim. It didn’t work, though. I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, that something out there had decided I was prey.
“We might have a problem,” I told Abby, as I sanned off the sweat and tried to scrub away the clinging feel of dark deeds and evil.
“Oh, yes…”
“I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Lay it out, hun.”
“I feel like something’s hunting me, maybe hunting us.”
“I’ll look into it.”
It made me feel better. She hadn’t laughed, and she hadn’t called me crazy. She hadn’t even said I was being paranoid.
“Sweetie, there is no such thing as paranoid, just warnings from our subconscious. I remember what it was like to be human.”
She did? And I’d thought it was a long time ago.
“It was, but there are some things you just don’t forget.”
I’d take her word on that. It wasn’t something I wanted to find out for myself.
“We all have choices, hun. That’s one I pray you never have to face.”
Well, okay, then.
I stepped out of the san, and came face to face with an arach warrior.
Sure, he was in human form, all slender and grey-skinned, eyes dark with hunger—and me without a stitch on, without my blaster, and the door too far away. I slammed into the wall behind me with all the force of a sudden reverse, and then lashed out with a fist, a knee, and a bare foot, as he followed. I was still fighting when he vanished—and I was shouting, wordless fear and outrage mingled.
“Goddammit, Abby!” I said, when I realized what she’d done.
“I’d call that a colossal fail,” she said, as I slid down the wall, and sat on the floor of the san.
“And I’d call you a colossal b—”
Sound slammed into my skull, cutting off the words. Abby’s voice followed.
“Uh-uh. There’ll be none of that, sweetie. You need to get enough of a grip on yourself to take stock first, and then react. That’s all I’m asking.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t dare speak. I was trembling all over, my hands shaking so hard I almost dropped the towel—twice! Something told me the next two days were going to be full of times Abby and I didn’t quite agree.
“Oh, sweetie. I’d hug you if I could.”
“You keep your grubby paws off me,” I snarled, “and I won’t try to ding every panel in your guest cabin.”
I think Abs took that as a challenge… or she’d been planning on continuing with her idea of a desensitization program no matter what I said. That could have been it, too. Either way, she kept with the spiders and arach until I did nothing more than flinch, and cuss her out for pulling another practical joke. After that, she got me to go back in the airlock.
Well, damn she was persistent.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You need to be more in control than this, or I won’t be able to use you.”
Use me for what? was a question I didn’t want to ask—and one that she chose not to answer.
“Better,” she said, when she told me my five minutes were up, and I was able to operate the inner lock on my own.
Better? I was half tempted to open the outer lock, instead. Almost anything to make it stop.
Except I didn’t think she’d let me—and I wasn’t ready to call it quits. Although, there were days…
I shook
