The Rescue (Alternate Dimensions Book 3) Page 7

  He gave me another look over, like he was considering that maybe, just maybe, there was a slight bit more to me than he had anticipated. It was stupid of me, honestly. I needed him to think I was run of the mill and predictable. Yet here I was, challenging him with my gaze and my questions. “If I must break it down for you, you’re strong. It’s clear you’re from planet-side and carry a certain sort of gravitas to you that station raised just don’t have. Your secondary sex characteristics are all larger than I would say the average is, and you have cheekbones that others would pay handsomely to have implanted in their own faces. You’re not the norm, but not so outside of it that you’re ugly or spectacular. You’re approachable. Just slightly enough above average so you’re attractive but not intimidating.”

  He stopped speaking, and the smirk on his mouth was just so damn superior that I felt my fist clench. Was this guy really trying to neg me? There was no doubt his game was good. He set the frame properly, started off by buttering me up with things he probably thought I was hoping to hear, but then undercut me by reminding me that, while I was pleasing to him in the moment, I was not so valuable as to make a nuisance of myself and still be found worthwhile.

  Amazing.

  What a prick.

  “I think that is the most scholastic way I’ve ever heard someone explain it. Thank you.”

  “I hope I didn’t insult you, of course.”

  Yes you do, you egomaniacal prick. “No, don’t worry about that. You were just being incredibly scientific and logical. I appreciate it, actually. It’s a nice change of pace.”

  “Good! You wouldn’t believe how many people get offended when you tell them that their beauty is not the center of the universe.” He went off on another tangent about inferior common people and I slid back into my demure persona. But with every passing second, I was more and more sure that this man was no longer possessed by the dark enemy who wanted me dead, and only a colossal douchebag in-between me and reuniting with my childhood friend.

  I was really, really going to enjoy knocking him out of my way.

  Chapter Seven: Human Resource Department is so Romantic

  For once in my life, I was grateful for an uneventful weekend. I didn’t know where Maven was pulled off to, but after our little escapade to their not-a-prison that was definitely a prison, I hadn’t heard from him.

  By the time Monday rolled around, Janix was on board and in his own orientation class, with Bajol, Viys’k and Angel all more diligently on the feeds.

  It made sense, now that we had over ten nanite generators breeding, and two fully functioning feeds to monitor, we needed all hands-on deck. We were right at the finish line and I just needed to make sure I got as much as I could from Maven, while Janix made sure he got as much as he could from the station.

  After seeing the kodadt facilities, I realized that Jyra could be on this very ship, holed up in some transparent dungeon and fed meals through a slot in a wall that had no door. Or she could be in an identical containment unit thousands of lightyears away. We wouldn’t know anything until we got more information on what resources the cloud had, how it had allocated them, and who it might have inhabited to do so.

  We already knew he had possessed Maven to kidnap her. There was no way the tall, but slim scientist had the strength to pick the woman up and run with her over his shoulder for several minutes. But I also knew that the being was no longer in the self-assured researcher. Which meant that my dark-haired friend had to be at least somewhat compliant and in the know of what was happening. Sure, I didn’t expect him to be some pinnacle of ground breaking information, but he would at least have to be aware of some peripheral details.

  But then Monday came. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. I was halfway through training and I was running out of time. Every minute was another minute that Jyra was in danger. Another minute closer to the end of the world, and I did not feel like I was properly equipped to know what to do next. I needed my Gee-Gee.

  I needed to get to Maven’s personal quarters, and I could only really think of one way to legitimately get there.

  “Are you absolutely sure that you can’t get me access to the higher research quarters?”

  “Nope. Sorry, Fireskull. And even if I did, there’s no way you could sneak there without being way too suspicious. And as far as I can tell from Janix’s pilfered blueprints is that there’s no way we can sneak you in there either.”

  “Fine.” I was trying not to pout. But it was hard.

  “But, you’ll be happy to know that your lover boy just so happened to have docked while you were sleeping. According to life support readings, he’s passed out in his own quarters.”

  “Good. I want you to tell me the moment he’s in green access areas. We’re getting this down.”

  “Alright, but don’t rush this. We didn’t spend all these resources for you to blow it because you’re pissed about the kitties.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Andi, I’m literally the woman who helped an entire species rebel against slavery. Of course, I’m not down with the commodification of these kodadt lives, even if there are noble intentions behind it. But that’s a thing about a war, Andi. You can’t save everyone. If you try, you’re going to fail, and then no one will be saved at all.”

  I swallowed hard. I knew she had the wisdom of experience, but her words rang sour in my ears. “I… I don’t know if I can agree with that.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.” I could hear her sad smile. “I didn’t either.”

  “It is way too early for whatever heavy handed moral philosophizing y’all are doing right now.”

  “Quiet, Janix. Go patch the ship like a good boy.”

  “You’re just mad because my training was only two days and you’re still in yours.”

  “That’s because your job is entirely on the outside of the station. Technically speaking you’re a million times safer than I am.”

  “Oh yes, a million. I’m sure that’s mathematically correct.”

  It was amazing how sniping at my companions made me feel like everything was a little less hopeless. I strode to training early yet again, making sure to discreetly check the nanite generators to make sure they were doing their thing and remained undisturbed.

  The day dripped by torturously slow, just as it always did. You’d think that by this point I would have become numb to the pain, but every day it was a fresh reminder of how much the classroom made me feel like my mind was slowly suffocating. So, when Viys’k voice sounded through my ear after our first morning break, I felt a disproportionate jump of elation.

  “Your boy is on the move.”

  “Where is he going?” I tried to whisper as quietly as possible.

  “I don’t know. Let me check Janix’s heisted blueprints.” I heard rustling and then some beeps. “Um… bathroom. I think.” There was a pause as she realized that I was not in an environment conducive to me answering again. “Oh yeah. I’ll tell you when he seems to be heading for a green zone. I don’t know entirely what you’re planning, but I do know that I already don’t like it.”

  I nodded, although she could only see my moving line of sight and not the gesture itself. I didn’t even like my plan. But a girl had to do what a girl had to do. And apparently, that was put myself in direct danger for the faintest chance of a tiny clue that could maybe, possibly lead me to my best friend that I had forgotten about for, oh… ten or so years.

  “Alright. Looks like he might be on his way to the research labs, which will take him through the northern communal rec room and maybe even the viewing area too.”

  I could make that in time. Standing, I muttered something about needing to use the restroom, and then headed out. I waited until I was down the hall and around the corner before breaking into an easy job. I had picked up that it was fairly normal for workers to use an elevated pace -either to avoid being late on their commute across the expansive base, or just sheer boredom- so hopefully I wouldn’t be drawing too much su
spicion.

  But now was not the time to play it carefully, I had decided. Now was the time to take opportunities as they presented themselves.

  I beelined for the green-zone lift, crossed over through the northern dorms, then out into another series of hall. I most likely would have been hopelessly lost if not for Viys’k’s turn by turn guidance. And the other employees walking by were much less likely to be suspicious of a maintenance working walking by with assuredness, than a trainee wandering around aimlessly.

  “Alright, he’s around the corner, refilling his water bottle at the purifier. Whatever you’re doing, I hope this works.”

  “You and me both.” I whispered before stepping forward into the hall and promptly walking the opposite way of my target.

  “Natalie?”

  I turned, a wide-eyed expression of surprise slapped across my features. “Oh, Maven! Hi! Why are you in a green zone?”

  He smiled and half-jogged to my side. “Green zones are for everyone, you know. I would have thought you already covered that in training.”

  I gave him a playful shove, although I wished it was much harder. “Very funny. I just assumed you had some super important, blue level security stuff to do.”

  “I definitely do, but everyone deserves a break once in a while, right? Besides -they don’t tell you this, by the way- but some purifiers here are better than others and this is one of my favorites.”

  I pretended to be utterly interested in his preferences in water. “What makes it better than the others?”

  “It’s temperature is set a degree lower, and it just tastes a bit less processed, at least in my opinion. Of course, the flavor part could all be in my head as some sort of confirmation bias, but either way, it’s worth the extra trip out here.” He lowered his eyebrow and gave me a look that I knew he thought was so clever. “But the real question is what are you doing here? I’m almost absolutely sure you should be in training right now. You’re second week, so I’m guessing you’re either talking about passcodes, or mapping out the eleven hundred emergency exits that dot our facility.”

  “Close. We’re on which chemicals we are allowed to handle at entry level, and what kind of spills require higher ranked maintenance staff.”

  “Really thrilling stuff.”

  I laughed dryly. “It’s really the best. That’s why I’m out here ‘getting lost’ on my way to the bathroom so I can get a half hour break from it all.”

  “Playing hooky already? How surprising from such a quality employee.”

  I shot him a playful look over my shoulder. “Sometimes even a quality employee can be a little naughty.”

  His eyes widened and his pupils dilated a bit, and I knew that I had him hook, line and sinker. “Is that so? I’m not entirely sure that’s something you would want one of your superiors to know. I am your boss’ boss’ boss, after all.”

  “Normally, that would be true,” I smirked at him, trying to look like the epitome of flirt. “But what if my boss’ boss’ boss is exactly the person who I’m hoping will notice?”

  “I would say that’s a fairly dangerous gamble to make.”

  “Dangerous, naughty, quality.” I retorted. “These are all just adjectives. Words we use to describe things so we know where we can sort them off to.” I whirled to him, stopping dead in my tracks so he had to pull up short. I looked up at him, eyes hooded. “Is it so wrong to want a different word for my label?”

  He hesitated for a moment, before his hands gripped my waist. “And what word were you hoping for?”

  I responded by wrapping my arms around his shoulders, allowing myself to come within just a breath of him. “It has a lot of interactions, but don’t make me be poetic by spilling it all out here, where there’s probably already two security officers watching. Perhaps we could go somewhere a bit private, and talk things out?”

  He looked past me, at something I couldn’t see, then back to me. “I know the perfect place. Come on,”

  And with that, he took my hand and began pulling me down the hall. Of course, my companions were going nuts in my ear. Viys’k was stating how risky my act was, Angel was yelling at me for not telling them ahead of time what I was up to, and Bajol was gently reminding me that I needed to be careful playing with the emotions of a man who clearly had quite a bit of power and knew how to use it.

  But I ignored them all and focused only on the goal. This was already going better than I could have hoped, and I certainly wasn’t going to balk at the finish line.

  Even if thinking about the finish line made my skin crawl.

  Maven, of course, had no idea of my inner discomfort or the angry chatter in my ear. He would look back occasionally, expression wavering between determined and boundlessly excited. He led me to a yellow area, and then to a purple, and finally to a lift that was very clearly marked in blue.

  “I suppose it would be redundant to say that I’m very obviously not allowed here.” I murmured, following him in.

  “What happened to all your talk of wanting to be naughty and breaking the rules?”

  I tossed my hair over my shoulder and gave him a playful shrug. “That’s the catch twenty-two. I like being bad, but I also equally like being employed. I wouldn’t want to do anything to threaten that.”

  “Your job matters that much to you, huh?”

  I tried my hardest to reply with cheeky banter, but instead my voice dropped closer to my normal register and I shot him a bit of an incredulous look. “You’ve definitely never been poor. Jobs don’t matter, but money does.”

  Thankfully he smiled and tipped his head in apology. “I understand. I’m very grateful I’ve never been in the position to do something I hated doing for the sake of money. I didn’t mean to make a slight of anyone who has been in that place.”

  Alright, I had to bring it back in. Killing the mood now would pretty much ruin everything. “That’s really sweet of you. You know, when I first heard about you, I expected you to be some rich, know it all brat who treated the secondary staff like peasants. But you’re really not like that, are you?”

  “Oh god, I would hope not! We need each other, and no one is more important than the other. Or at least that’s how I’ve always looked at it.”

  “You’d be surprised how many don’t think that way.”

  “A shame.” His eyes roved over me. “You miss so many amazing things when your view is that narrow.”

  The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open with an innocuous whooshing sound. “Here’s to not missing anything.” I murmured, stepping out.

  “Not a single thing.” He echoed, gripping my hand once more and pulled me along. This was normally right around the time that I would tell someone that I was capable to walking myself, but I kept my opinions to myself.

  The hall we were in, surprisingly, was no different than the same halls that lead to the lower level dorms. I had expected the higher-level employees to have grander, more elaborate, even bigger corridors to stroll their massive brains and paychecks down, but they were basically identical.

  I marveled at that equality of it for a moment and had to admit that it was pretty cool. In fact, I didn’t even notice a single dissimilarity until we reached a pair of reinforced, metal doors. Quickly, Maven punched in a code on the dial pad, slid his card and stepped over to a retinal scanner that popped out of the wall.

  Before I could blurt out any witty banter or what have you, the doors beeped and Maven was leading me through them. He didn’t let go until we were smack dab in the middle of what potentially was the classist future-Livingroom I had ever been in.

  “Nice decorating,” I commented, looking around at the opulence. It was strange, being in what was clearly set up to be an ‘old fashioned’ eleganza theme and it was still about a hundred years or so ahead of my time.

  “Thank you. I ordered it out of a net-log all by myself.”

  “How impressive.” I whirled to him, eyes bright and tail wagging, as they say. “How about giving me a t
our? I’ve never been in my boss’ boss’ boss’s quarters before.”

  “Well, there’s really just one room of interest.”

  I puffed my cheeks out in what I hoped looked a little coquettish, and not just petulant. “What’s the rush? I want to see everything.”

  He sighed but his desire to show off his social status seemed to beat out his desire to get to wherever he thought this little rendezvous was ending. “Who am I to resist such a simple request. It’s the least I could do.”

  “Yes, quite literally.”

  He offered his arm once more, and I wrapped mine through it while he played the role of tour guide. I quickly surmised after his conference room and bathroom that his arrangements were about the same size as the entire set up for my entire group. What on earth could he do with all that space? There were eight of us in our area, and it rarely felt cramped, and here he was all on his lonesome.

  Despite the light banter I was keeping up with myself, my adrenaline was kicking into high gear. At least the rest of my companions had finally had the decency to shut the hell up while I tried my hand at this high stakes espionage.

  “And this is my office.”

  I snapped to attention at that, and looked through the open door he was quickly guiding me past. “Oooh, what’s in here?”

  “Nothing all that exciting. This is where I log my end of day reports, or any communications from sponsors, higher ups and the like. It’s incredibly boring.”