3.1
Small and alone in its solar system, they planet emerging from the dark of surrounding space glitters a deep lilac against it’s yellow star. Though the viewport, I watch the curved edge grow larger until continents form, sunlight catching in a misty purple haze along the rim. I’ve been entertaining myself with the files on the planet. It has a number, but the galaxy has called it Amethyst for so long a more formal name was never sanctioned.
How cliche.
The files for Amethyst are much more detailed than the ones I managed to find on Yayth, and the small jungle rock we just left didn’t even have a name. I flip through info on weather and cities and the political climate. listening to music with large headphones so it’s obvious to Lalia I’m in no mood to chat. Smooth violins don’t irritate my heading aids.
Still, I keep glancing at the woman over my shoulder. Putting my back to her means I don’t have to know when she’s staring, but it also makes it difficult to keep an eye on what she’s doing. Luckily, she’s pretty much out of commission. We’re heading to Amethyst for a reason, after all. It’s a rich planet with plenty of good hospitals. Barriers to entry are high, but getting into the lower levels shouldn’t be difficult. One of the many undercities drilled into the undersides of the planet’s crust should let us in.
This time, when I glance at her, she’s still crashed in the padded chair along the back wall.
It’s been a solid forty-eight hours since our run-in with Captain. Most of that’s been spent in sleep or my desperate attempt not to make eye-contact.
No sign of anyone following us.
No word from Audra, either.
A few hours ago, Lalia called up her brother. He’s going to meet us at whatever hospital we manage to find.
So this week should be going down hill a little more.
Lalia yawns loudly, stretching in the chair.
“We there yet?” she mumbles. I gave her another dose of pain killers a few hours ago. It makes her loopy. Well, more than usual.
“Close, I just put in a request to get in.”
“How long will that take?”
“Few minutes to an hour, depending on how trustworthy they think I am.”
In his cot above the viewport, Bat snorts.
Lalia asks. “Does you being a cyborg make you more or less trustworthy to the average government?”
“Depends. Rich planets like us. We’re good crowd control even if we’re unregistered. Rich idiots like to hire us out for things Amerov numbers won’t do.”
“You ever done a job like that?”
“For someone rich?”
“Sure.”
“Not on my own.”
She perks up. “What does that mean?”
I wish I hadn’t brought it up. “I used to run with some scavengers before I got my own ship. We all did a job for some Capitol woman who wanted competition ruffed up.”
“Neat.”
She sounds like she wants me to continue, but I keep quiet. It wasn’t a particularly fun time in my life—relying on a group of humans to survive after I escaped Amerov—and I don’t want to relive it for a stranger. She doesn’t push the topic. Either she’s still sleepy or starting to the get the idea not everyone’s a chatterbox.
Eventually, my hearing aids beep, the comms I have hooked to them letting me know in a robotic, pre-programmed voice I can land in Undercity Thirteen. Almost directly below us, so we won’t have to travel around the planet. Even from above the atmosphere, I can see a few of the deep caverns drilled into the planet’s crust leading to separate undercities. Coordinates pop up on my computer, sent from the planet, directing me toward the right one.
“Hold on,” I tell Lalia, dropping the ship through the atmosphere. Rough ride.
“Your ship needs repairs, doesn’t it?”
I grind my teeth. “Why do you ask?”
“It rattles a lot in atmosphere.”
“It’s safe.”
“Yeah, I figured. But it’s old too. Ours is a little older than this, it has more problems than I’d like to count.”
Her and her brother share a ship. The one they’ve been piloting as they spent years hunting down their brother. Who she very stubbornly believes is me. I’d think them both insane if Audra hadn’t mentioned it might be possible. Maybe the brother—Zane—will take my side on the issue and confirm the whole thing is a load of crap. But he did save my ass back on Yayth. If he’s just as invested as Lalia, I don’t know how I’m going to handle the situation.
Hopefully, he won’t back Lalia up. We’ll be able to put these stupid past few days behind us and I can never see either of them again in my life.
Even if that happens, I can’t in good conscious collect on their bounty. If Captain wants Lalia for Amerov, he’ll want Zane as well. I can’t turn them over. Not after risking my ass to get Lalia off Captain’s ship and nearly getting myself reconditioned in the process. The siblings may be criminals, but they were trying to find their long-lost brother.
Apparently I have a soft spot for such things.
Hopefully, Lalia hasn’t noticed.
Landing in the underground levels of Amethyst is a simple flight. No barriers are up for landing my ship. Security is high on entry, but it’s so difficult to get to the surface from an undercity no one tries to corral us once we’re underground.
Bat presses his nose to the port window. Lalia limps to his side on her splint, trying to get a good look, and he shies sideways. Heat from the nearby star abruptly dies, the tunnel bathed in a low, purple light. Everything about this spinning rock is purple—vegetation, rocks, and even some of the soil are all shades of purples and pinks. A bluish-lilac radiates from the tunnel walls. My eyes click as they readjust to the cool of the world beneath the planet’s crust. I’m fairly sure the tunnel is traveling just under the surface, not deeper and deeper towards the planet’s core.
“Wow,” Lalia mutters, and I peek out the port window over her shoulder.
The tunnel breaks into a vast cavern, complete with its own life support and terraforming. Purple-tinted light filters from some openings in the ceiling obscured by underground trees and greenery. A miniature city crops up from the center, buildings draped in fog. Vegetation explodes in pinks and purples and sometimes greens. Birds take off in flocks and land. Ships as small as mine drift in and out, tiny hovercraft weaving in and around buildings. If this is what the undercities look like, it must be paradise on the surface.
No wonder people with money flock here. It earns it’s reputation with just looks alone.
“Lovely,” I agree, a tad irritable. Lots of people. “Go sit down, you’re not supposed to be up.”
She grumbles something as she plops back in her chair, wincing, and asks, “Do they have gambling halls here?”
“Of course they do, why—oh for heaven’s sake. We’re going to a hospital. For you. This is not a luxury vacation.”
She folds her arms across her chest and tries to stare me down, but she’s not nearly angry enough to make it convincing.
“We could gamble just a little, I’d never get into a place like this on my own,” she says. “And this is a rather expensive planet for a hospital stop.”
“That’s why I picked it. They take charity cases.”
She looks insulted. No argument though.
Unburying my coat from the foot of the bed, I tug it on and secure the hood. Unregistered cyborgs might be wandering around here, looking for easy credits. We’re a pissy bunch and don’t take kindly to competition. I’d rather not get involved. Amerov numbers could be here as well. I try not to shiver. It shouldn’t freak me out so much. After all, I just came into contact with plenty of my own kind. Maybe that’s why I’m so nervous. The jacket and hood helps.
I settle the ship near the hospital. Clustered towers shimmer with dark, reflective glass. Hovercrafts land on the top levels and along the sides. People filter in and out, but it isn’t terribly busy. Which means there are less people who might notice me. Small blessings.
“Come on,” I say. “I called ahead a little while ago, they know we’re coming.”
“They know we’re coming but we still have to walk in?” she asks, snatching her coat from the side of the chair.
“It isn’t cold here. And you’re lucky I’m letting you in my ship, I’m not letting anyone else.”
“Touchy.”
I stare.
“Fine.” She sighs. “You’re going to have to help me. Hopping a few feet is not the same as walking out a ship and to a building.”
Right. Touching her makes me a little twitchy, but it’s not the first time I’ve had to do it. I carried her in here from Captain’s ship, for star’s sake. I’m being stupid. Still, I can’t quite keep the grimace from my expression as I sidle over to the chair.
She struggles into a sitting position. “Stop looking at me like I’m contagious. What do you think I’m going to do?”
Her voice is cheerful, but I glare. My shoulder burns when I pick her up, heading out the airlock once it’s cycled through. I’m extra grateful for the coat, an extra barrier between her skin and mine so I don’t feel quite so much like I want to dig a hole, jump in, and bury myself in nice and tight. Bat clatters after me down the gangplank, my backpack in his mouth.
Weather here is a hell of an improvement compared to the last two planets we visited. Warm, but not nearly so hot and sticky as that little jungle rock we just left. It might heat up later—the clock on the ship said it’s morning here—but maybe the underground location keeps it pleasant.
None of the people exiting the hospital bother to take look at me but give Bat unnerved glances. All in all, we might fit in here a bit better than on Yayth. Everyone’s so rich there are plenty of people who’ve augmented their bodies. One woman we pass has obvious metal implants along the bridge of her nose, thin and shimmering, that I can’t imagine the use for. A man has shoulders far too broad to not be enhanced in some way, a bit like Captain. Not like Bat and I, but still.
“They have neat birds here,” Lalia says, leaning against my shoulder to point at something, her arm brushing my cheek
“I’ll try to contain my excitement,” I say, leaning my face away as best I can with her still in my arms. She gives me a look I might imagine a teacher giving a back-talking child.
Two clear doors rimmed in iridescent metal slide open with a sigh. The hospital’s polished floor is a light shade of purple to match the outside world—it’s a little sickening how much they lean into the color of the surrounding planet, even in a medical building.
“Hello,” says a pleasant voice while I’m giving the floor a good stare, and I look up into the face of another cyborg.
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