The cyber master turns to me with something that looks like a cross between a needle and a laser, and says, “Hold out these two fingers,” as he holds out his own two fingers in example.
Vibrating fingers, I remember from yesterday morning.
“You want to see my credentials?” he asks me when I hesitate. Nothing but snark in his voice.
“No,” I say. “I’m fine. I’m just thinking about how you violated me with those fingers, that’s all.”
The cyborg master isn’t made of flesh. He’s not human, he’s just a very high-end robot. He doesn’t even really have a face. It’s mostly just silver-metallic synthetic skin with a single vision sensor and a slit of a mouth that is nothing more than a speaker.
But still, he rolls that vision sensor at me after I implicate him in the previous day’s torture. And then in one quick motion he pricks my fingers with the laser needle thing and it’s done.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“That’s it,” Serpint says. “Now ALCOR just needs to assign you credentials and you can use it. But we don’t have to wait for that.”
“She shouldn’t have this,” the master says, glaring at me with that one vision sensor.
Serpint just shrugs and says, “Not up to you, my friend. Just send in the order and call her when it’s done so we know.”
When we exit the clinic and get in the elevator the nanny bot is back, to Serpint’s dismay. And he’s chirping at me about his night off while we ride the lift down to the city. Which I give no shits about, but no matter how many times I tell him that, he just keeps going on and on about bot bars, and bot girls, and bot this and… like… that’s not a thing where I come from. Bots are just bots.
But not here, apparently. Bots are people here. Like the ships, I guess. That conversation this morning with ALCOR about Booty was bizarre.
And when we step out of the lift I start to think this whole place is bizarre.
For one, it’s not built like any other station I’ve ever been on. The kind with many levels all separated by ceilings and floors.
This station is one large open space running down the center of the ring with tall buildings on either side.
We come out somewhere in the middle, so when Serpint leads me through a crowd of people—all of whom look like they kill people for a living—and over to the edge of the wide walkway, I can peer down, and up, and it is just like he said.
Magnificent.
There’s people-moving walkways going in all directions. Up, down, sideways… crisscrossing like snakes in a jungle of lights, and flash, and glass-sided store fronts.
Gambling halls, shooting galleries, bars, clubs, arcades, brothels—every fun thing a sinner might like is available.
I look up again. Start counting levels. Because even though it’s all open, there’s walkways along the perimeter of the buildings.
“Two hundred levels that way,” Serpint says, pointing up. “And two hundred more down there too. Crux’s harem is all the way up at the top.”
I squint to try to see it, but I can’t. And I don’t know if it’s because the sides of the station curve up to a gently sloping roof overhead and I’m just at the wrong angle to be able to see the top, or it’s truly just so far away I cannot. The same effects happens when I look forward and back. This station is a ring. So the buildings actually curve off into the horizon in both directions. “Holy suns,” I say. “This is… just… I can’t even comprehend it. It really is a whole city in here.”
“What’d you expect?” He laughs.
“Well, you know. A station. Low ceilings, cramped quarters, horrible smell. But this place—is that a garden down on the bottom level?”
Serpint nods. “Yeah. But that’s not the bottom. That’s just the park level.”
I can’t stop the laugh. “Outlaws have parks,” I muse. “Who knew.”
“Stick with me, princess. I’ll show you a good time.”
I roll my eyes at him, but not sarcastically. Because he already has shown me a good time.
“Come on,” Serpint says, tugging on my hand. He’s been holding it ever since we left his quarters. And even though that’s weird too, it’s not. It feels right for some reason. Which makes me think about our conversation last night about being soulmates.
We should’ve asked the cyborg master about his cock and how it got stuck up inside me last night until he came again.
Then again… gross. I’m not talking about anything with that subhuman piece of space trash.
“Wow,” I say, looking at all the store fronts on this level. All designer. And jewelry stores too. The really expensive ones like I’ve seen on the screens when one of my sisters would hack into an illicit feed. And everywhere there are people. So many people. Selling things on the side of the wide walkways, and gathering in small crowds. And almost all of them look happy. “This place isn’t anything like the stations I’ve been on before.”