Lu Tang rolled the metal barrels towards the rear of the cargo hold. He did it slowly, like an aging laborer might have done. Of course, if he had used his augmented strength he could have done it twice as fast. Pretending to be human was so… limiting.
It had taken a ludicrously small amount of effort to escape from the prison. Human beings. So easily deceived. And so willing to believe that everything would turn out all right in the end. Lu Tang laughed, the sound coming out as a wheeze as he tied a barrel to the netting. If his centuries had taught him anything it was that there was no wrong or right, there was just the end.
And yet… As much as he derided them, he knew that once he had been one of them. Before the change wrought upon his body had turned him into a God.
And that was another, better, laugh. For a while – a century? more? it was hard to remember now – the Augments had been seen as freaks of nature, resented for their wealth and power. Then, by some process he had never quite understood, the humans had begun to worship them. Religion, that long-forgotten collective dream beloved of the men that walked upon the old Earth, had returned.
At first, it had been exhilarating. A God was untouchable, able to do whatever he or she wanted. Thousands, millions even had wept at his feet. He had thought that it would mean the greatest success the Augments had seen. Just like the humans, he had fallen into the romantic notion of believing that life had a purpose, a direction that could only be upward.
And then came the fall.
Lu Tang leant back against the cool metal wall of the ship. How could the pain of a half a century ago still be so fresh? The Gods, fallen. Olympus destroyed. The very human beings that had put them up on their pedestals could barely wait to tear them back down.
And now? Neither Gods nor demons, and no one knew what to do with them. The Augments were relics of a past that everyone was too embarrassed to think about. So they shut them away, kept them hidden from sight in the hopes that they would be forgotten.
No more.
A small vibration made Lu Tang look down. The miniature datapad he had acquired from some careless traveler two weeks ago was buzzing.
You will be met at the planet as requested.
Lu Tang grinned. Some of the people had kept Faith. And now they were about to be rewarded. He loaded the crew list for the starfreighter onto his pad.
“Hey, you want to get paid? How about getting your ass in gear?” A nasal voice came from far too close to Lu Tang’s ear.
The man’s spleen would be a good spot to aim the first kick at. Or maybe the kidneys. They always dropped quick if you went for the kidneys.
Instead, Lu Tang held up the datapad. “Been reassigned. They want me in the engine room.”
“Really?” The man brought out his own datapad and clicked through the screens. “Huh. You’re on engine prep. Guess you must have some friends upstairs to get that cushy job.”
Lu Tang shrugged. He didn’t know anyone on the ship, but he did know the cloud system. In fact, he had designed it, a few decades back. It was pitifully easy to hack, which of course had been intentional. Never design a system you can’t exploit.
“Get your ass upstairs then and stop cluttering up my cargo bay.”
Lu Tang nodded and turned. Just a couple more clicks and he had found the shaven-headed man’s employee profile. Click click. Looked like he’d been fiddling his expenses to the tune of a few thousand. Not good for him when the trade alliance found out. Click click. And a fondness for compromising photographs of young ladies. Shame. Lu Tang made a few more alterations. A file of documents was making its way through the cloud to the asshole’s bosses. Now it looked like shaven-head would be having a tough year.
The cargo bay doors closed behind the Augment. He didn’t look back.
Chapter 3
“Okay, let’s keep this brief as we’re scheduled for launch in three hours. You all know by now that I’ve taken another case. An interstellar one. And no, I’m not happy about it either. But you’ll be on double rates for as long as this thing takes and you have the word of Scotclan on that one.”
Biddy glanced around the room at her crew. No one looked away, but nobody smiled much either. She felt her shoulder muscles bunch up. It was hot in the little office behind the control room that she used for meetings, and all nine of them were starting to sweat.
“I don’t have to tell you that we’re breaking the guidelines on this. So I’m giving you all an option to stay behind on Eris. Your contracts will all be classed as fulfilled. There will be no repercussions for you if you choose to bail out now.”
She could hear the hum of the engines going through their pre-launch checks.
“Well?”
Hastings coughed. “As the Captain, I’m not going anywhere. And I think the rest of you would be batshit crazy to do any different. Mackay has never let us down before.”
Biddy grimaced. He was trying to help, of course, but that sort of unthinking loyalty made her uncomfortable. She much preferred a crew that would keep her on her toes rather than doing whatever she said just to keep her happy. Still, Hastings was reliable, and she was glad that he was staying on. She had been the youngest ever Detective when she started three years ago, and there were plenty that still felt she was too inexperienced to
