Say Hello to My Virtual Friend
This is chapter five, have you read chapter one yet?
Simonee broke from Bastien’s grip. Skin-to-skin contact wasn’t a great idea right now—what with her heart pounding the way it was.
The tunnel between ships was a tube of carbon-fiber weave ribbed by titanium rings. Light strips lined each ring and gleamed off the chrome diamond-plate at her feet. The gangplank wobbled uncomfortably with each step and she gripped the handrail tight.
But Bastien was walking backwards now in front of her not holding onto anything.
“So,” Bastien said. “You’re gonna want to watch the horizon shift up ahead.” He made a T with his hands. “We’re perpendicular, and some folks get a little disoriented when the planes shift. The passive gravity matrix in the deck and the planks tend to interfere. So take it quick.”
Her teeth bared in something like a grin. “Oh, I’ve been through plenty of airlocks.” The plank wobbled, she grabbed with both hands. Another grin. “I’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t fine.
Bastien took the transition with arms flared out, diving forward, and he was gone. She edged up to the cliff where the hopper’s deck met the gangplank and looked down at him standing there, arms akimbo, like he was walking on a wall.
He grinned and waved her down... forward. She reached one foot out, over, down... flat—leaned. Half way over she stopped, stomach rolling, floating, her gorge rising. She backpedaled, arms pinwheeling, legs crumpling—straddling the joint.
And her hands wouldn’t move from the either side of the ordeal. “I... I’m stuck.”
“Here.” His hand grabbed hers and tugged. She fell—rolled—onto her back.
Bastien grinned down. “See, no big deal. Takes getting used to, but I make it a game.”
He helped her up and she couldn’t help the smile. “So, just act like a dork it all works out, huh?”
“Yeah,” He squeaked, nodding. “You’d be surprised how much easier things are if you don’t take them too seriously.”
He looked to the floor—that crinkle in his eyes gone flat.
She cleared her throat. “So… you wanted to show me something?”
“Hnn… Yeah, it’s in my cockpit.” He lurched down the corridor. “This way.”
But shouts echoed from a turn to the right—shrill in tone. Bastien halted just as Mariem stormed into the corridor with a duffel clutched in her hand. She barreled right by them.
“Hmm... maybe we’ll take a shortcut.” Bastien said, lips pulled back and teeth bared. “Avoid the ruckus.” He veered to the wall on the left and pulled aside a sliding door, exposing a ladder.
She winced. “Maybe we can do this later?”
He waved her off and started climbing. “Nah, we’ve got time. I want you to meet someone.”
She flinched. “What… who else is—”
“My girlfriend, I think you’ll get a kick out of her.” His voice echoed from above.
Right. Simonee looked back down the corridor. A screech and a clack echoed down the ladder shaft.
“You coming?”
She climbed to a patch of light, but the sliding door wasn’t all the way open and she had to shimmy through. Her foot caught on the top rung and she landed on her palms. A hand appeared in front of her. She looked up into those crinkly eyes.
“We have to stop meeting like this.” He squeaked out a laugh and pulled her up.
“There, see.” He pointed at a hatch straight ahead with COCKPIT stenciled in bright yellow. “Shortcut.”
The cockpit was small, but somehow cozy considering all the bare metal. A single seat faced an array of pill-shaped view ports with the violet glow of the Fénix’s VASIMR drives tinting the left and right of the view. All else was starlight trickling past. The seat itself sat on a gimbal mount with displays and controls jutting from the frame.
There was also a snack bar, and water closet—everything you’d need for long hours at the helm.
What was missing, however, was anything resembling a girlfriend.
She glanced around and hung by the exit. “So—”
“Ta-da!” Bastien swept his arms at the entire cockpit.
Simonee took a step back. “I don’t… what?”
His face fell. “I figured, well, you know—being a hacker and all. Maybe you’d be impressed?”
She winced. “By... your girlfriend?”
Bastien laughed. “No-No! My rig!” He started moving around screens and tapping controls.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I was expecting a girl—woman—person.”
“Ah, yeah—bait and switch, huh. Here, let me get her for you.” He cupped his hands around his mouth, and called, “Oh, Darla!” Then he winked.
But nothing happened. She glanced at the exit, she glanced at Bastien. She grinned with a lot of teeth.
Bastien’s grin flatted and he mumbled, fumbling with his pockets. “I told her we’d be here. Probably still stuck in her stories. Always forgetting the time...”
Simonee glanced at the exit again. It was open—no footsteps in the corridor—nothing blocking her escape.
She stepped closer to the hatch. “So—”
“Oh-Hi, Bastien!” A saccharine voice filled the cockpit from all directions. “I didn’t know youz was back already. Who’s the goil?”
Her shoulder’s dropped. Oh boy—AI.
“Hey there, Darla. You remember Simonee Saran, from Enceladus Station. We’ve been talking about her for weeks now.”
“You mean, you’ve been talkin’.” If an eye roll could make a sound... “I’ve just been playing the feeds. But here she is… in the flesh no less.”
“C’mon, Darla, be nice.” He winked. “You know I ain’t into fleshies. She’s not ugly or nothin’—just not drawn right.”
“I really don’t know what’s going on right now,” Simonee said.
“Here.” Bastien tapped some buttons on the arm of his elaborate chair, and a volumetric, air-stream display flared up on a console next to the drink fridge. The image resolved into a ridiculously voluptuous blonde woman in a red dress—hip cocked, blonde bangs draped over one eye.
And she was a cartoon, anime specifically, very busty.
Darla glared at her, pouty red lips aimed at Bastien but those light blue digital eyes staring right at Simonee.
She waved. “Um… hello, Darla.”
Darla nodded. “Back atcha, fleshy.”
Simonee crossed her arms. “Okay, what’s with the fleshy thing?” She let them fall. “Not that I’m offended... really—at all. But...”
Bastien hooked a thumb in his jacket. “I’m what you might call a cartoon-sexual. And I am in love with the most beautiful illustration brought to life by bleeding edge AI.” He bowed to the hologram with flourish. “Darla is my waifu.”
“I… uh… is that consensual?” Simonee asked.
Darla cocked her hip. “Whadda-you think, miss-bright-eye?”
Heat hit her ears and she crossed her arms. “Okay, but how does that work…”
Stop asking questions!
“My rig!” Bastien slid to his chair and lifted, pointed, grabbed—”See, I got nerve inductors, full immersion goggles, even an oscillating stim-probe. With this stuff babies, I can feel everything. Here, give it a try!”
“Oh—no, that’s...” She glared at the contraption like he’d just asked her to try on his jock-strap. “That’s okay, I think I’d better...”
“Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
“Seriously—” A loud buzzing broke over the speakers. Thank god!
Darla sighed. “The redhead’s awake.”
Redhead?
Bastien danced around Simonee to the hatch. “Sorry, Simonee. Have to end the tour early. One of my guests needs attention—might be seizing.”
She followed him out. “There’s another passenger? I thought it was just you and the admiral?”
He was walking backwards again. “Technically she’s one of my deliveries. Got a sick jar baby going out to pasture. Ever met a construct before?”
She stopped. Swallowed. Hard. The ladder down caught her eye, but—”Can I... can I come?”
He shrugged. “Sure, I could probably use an extra set of hands.”
She ran to catch up, and he stopped by a pair of opposing doors. He tapped in a code on the door to the right, and she couldn’t help capturing the numbers with her implant—90955—old habits.
The door opened on a small room with a single bunk, a small table, and a med-monitor flashing red. On the floor, a half-naked construct lay curled up in a ball, fists clenched, eyes rolled back into her head. Her green dressing gown flapped wide, revealing pale, freckled skin. A fuzz of red hair—shocking—over her head.
This construct was only a few months older than Simonee was when she escaped—when her own hair started coming in. Bastien grabbed a syringe off a shelf by the monitor, and injected her in the arm. The spasms settled and her grip loosened. But her eyes remained open and glassy—bright green. The same green as Simonee’s one organic eye—Emerald 42 in the SynBio brochure.
But that wasn’t the worst of it—her face... This construct looked like her—identical. Not like she was now, but younger with a different tint—fewer scars. And that orange hair—eyebrows, everywhere. There was no mistaking the resemblance, and Bastien had a strange look about him as he glanced between them—stranger than usual.
He was saying something but it was muffled by the pounding in Simonee’s ears.
“I’m sorry, what?”
He was rolling the girl onto her back. “Do you mind? Helping? I have to get her back in bed. She’s heavier than she looks.”
Simonee inched forward, but her legs wanted to bolt. She reached down anyway and hooked her arms under the girl’s armpits, lifting. Together they slid her into the bunk.
“There you go, 90955, back to sleep.” He covered her with a blanket, tucking it gently around her.
Simonee jumped when he patted her shoulder. “Thanks, Simonee. I pulled something the last time this happened—wasn’t sure I could do it myself this time.”
She couldn’t look away from the girl. “Wh—where... where are you taking her? Shouldn’t she... don’t they... dispose of...” She swallowed. “Defects?”
Bastien blew out a long breath. “Most—yeah. That’s a shame really. Fortunately, I have a customer on Cloud Ball 9 that takes some of them in. Has a kind of sanctuary there.”
She turned on him. “Sanctuary?”
He nodded at the girl on the bunk. “Yep, my biggest customer.” He glanced back at Simonee. “Now, I don’t really like this whole arrangement, them selling her like she’s a pet or a slave. But it does keep me stocked in deuterium and Cheerios.”
He kept looking at her face, studying, or waiting for something. Her mouth opened. She glanced at the construct in the bunk and there was a... tug in her belly. So many things wanted to come out but they collided in her throat.
“Hey you two,” Darla barked over the intercom. “If you’re done playin’ with our guest, the Fénix just rang the dinner bell.”
And Simonee breathed—turned.
“Better go.” She was already at the door, but looked back. “You’ll love Carlos’s cooking.”
Bastien winked. “Right, dinner. Be right there—really lookin’ forward to the conversation.”
She swallowed—glanced one last time at the construct’s face, and bolted into the corridor.
Bastien called after her, “And don’t forget about the horizon shift!”
New to Simonee’s story? The Cannibal of Cloud Ball 9 is Book Two of The Girl with the Cybernetic Eye. Book One—The Ice Princess of Enceladus Station—is complete and free to read. Start here.