Drifters' Alliance, Book 3 (17 page)

“I’ll send Macon over. He’s great with locks.”

“Fine.” She drops what she’s doing and leaves me standing there as she disappears into the grid.

I call out after her, knowing very well she won’t hear a word of it. “It was nice talking to you, Lucinda! Have a nice day, Lucinda!”

I’m smiling as I leave the biogrid. Lucinda might be prickly, but her moods are kind of growing on me. I think she actually might like me a little.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I FIND MACON IN THE engine room. He has a black smear over his upper lip making it look like he’s faking a mustache. I decide not to tell him about it because he looks hilarious, and I could use a little more levity in my life.

“Lucinda needs your help.”

He frowns. “Yeah, but I’m busy here.” He points at the twins who are on their knees, both of their heads buried inside a mainframe.

“Yeah, I can see that.” I’m suspicious of the mustache now; it’s possible he smeared that grease on his face on purpose in an effort to try to look busy. I shake my head.
Pitiful.

He reaches over to the nearby workbench and picks up a tool. “It’s critical that I stay here.” He uses the tool to point at the twins. “In case they need something. My help, for example. Or a tool.” He wiggles it in the air between us.

I jerk my thumb toward the door. “Lucinda has a lock that’s messed up on the portal leading into the biogrid. I don’t need to tell you how critical it is that no one gets in or out of there without permission. Access control is of paramount importance.” I stare at him with my eyes kind of bugging out so he’ll get my meaning without me having to reveal anything with the twins so close. Not that I’m going to lock Lucinda’s grandfather in there, but still … he shouldn’t be roaming around my ship without me knowing about it.

“Oh, yeaaah, right. Gotcha. Security is important.”

Gus pulls his head out of the frame. “What’s going on?”

“Just sending Macon off to fix a lock. That okay with you? Can you spare him?”

Tam pulls his head out too. “What’s up?” he asks his brother.

“She wants to know if we can spare Macon.”

They both shrug at the same time and look up at me as if confused.

“Come on, guys,” Macon says, “don’t act like I’m useless in here. You know I fixed that filtration circuit.”

“Dude. You flipped a switch.”

Macon looks so offended, I have to laugh. He’s scowling when he responds. “That’s cold, man. Cold as ice.”

“Where’s Baebong?” I ask, when I realize he’s not in here joining in the fun. I expected him to be tinkering around with one of his crazy inventions right alongside the twins.

“Dark walking,” Tam says. “Getting the last weapons installed. We’re doing our part in here.”

“Is he out there alone?”

“No. He’s got one of the chicks from the Osiris with him. That one with the cowboy hat that they left behind,” Tam says.

“She’s hot,” Gus adds. “I’d go to her rodeo.”

Tam shakes his head. “Lame.”

Gus shoves his brother. “Dick. I was riffing off the hat thing.”

Tam shoves him back. “Still lame.”

Grabbing Macon by the sleeve, I drag him toward the door. I have about a hundred things I need to get done before our mission launches tomorrow, and watching two droid-heads argue about sexy whores is not going to get the work done.

“Hey! Leave that probe on the bench!” Gus yells, pointing at Macon’s hand.

Macon and I look down at the tool for a few seconds. Then he slowly walks over to the table and lays it down before joining me at the door.

When we walk out into the corridor together, his shoulders are slumped and his feet are dragging.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

“Are you mad at me because I asked you to fix a lock?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I feel useless.”

“You’re going to fix a door right now. That’s not useless.”

He stops and faces me. “Are you kidding? I’m going to be the ship’s locksmith? What the hell is that? I might as well be a brownshins if that’s all I’m good for.”

I cock my hip. “You’re acting like you plan on staying.”

He shrugs and looks at a spot on the wall. “So? Maybe I am.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Then maybe you need to ‘fess up about what you know about me and this ship and Tremblay’s plans for me so I can trust you enough to let you stay.”

His jaw tenses up but he says nothing.

I continue down the corridor. “You know where the biogrid is. Go there now and get that door fixed so Lucinda can get back to work.” I don’t wait for him to answer or comply. I have more important things to see to, and I know he’ll eventually accept defeat.

I’m pretty sure he’s not faking his angst; he wants to be here with us, but he still has to make the decision that he’s not going to try and kill me in my sleep. He’s trying to figure out if I’m a friend or foe. Once he gets there, it’ll be full thrusters ahead — either we’ll be working together or I’ll be kicking him off my ship as punishment for trying to assassinate me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I STILL HAVEN’T SEEN BELTZ since our face-off, but I have seen more than enough of his cousin. He and the gingers are like three peas in a pod. Now that the weapons systems are in and the filtration set-up is fixed, Jens’s first priority is to reverse engineer the foreign devices removed from my ship to try and identify the signatures of their makers. If we’re really lucky, he’ll be able to trace them back to their signal receivers and find out who wants to find me or destroy me so badly; but I’m not holding out too much hope for that. Either my enemies or Langlade’s were sly enough to get the things in place, so I have to assume they’re also sly enough not to leave a calling card behind.

“You all set?” I ask Jens when I catch him walking by carrying a pack full of things that never should have been on my ship in the first place.

“Yes. Got all of them.” He smiles, but it’s too obvious, too enthusiastic. I’ve caught him trying to escape my ship before seeing me, and we both know it. This is the first time we’ve been alone.

“You and I still have to talk about that device you put under my table.”

“Yeah … um … maybe later? I really need to get to work on these.” He shakes the bag and then hefts it over his shoulder, exaggerating how heavy it is with a grimace.

I like making him sweat. “When?”

“Before dinner? We’re eating with you guys, or so I hear.”

“Fine. I’ll see you, on the flightdeck, just before dinner.”

“Maybe I’ll have some information for you by then. About who is responsible for the other devices.”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

He probably thinks if he delivers my enemies to me on a silver platter, I’ll be more likely to give him a pass. I’m not sure what I’m going to say or do to him when I meet him later; he’s officially a friend now. But I’m not sure I should let his little mistake go completely unpunished. I want to discourage anyone else from thinking it might be fun to listen in on my conversations. At least now I know better than to be naive; Adelle is being re-programmed to perform scans of the entire ship twice daily and deliver results to me personally. I don’t care that it eats into resources; it’s better than having a target locked onto my back.

“Okay, well, see you later,” he says.

Jens moves off to the airlock, and I watch him go, wondering what he’s going to say to his cousin, Beltz. Will the big man come to his rescue? Show up at our meeting and try to break my bones again?

Most people would probably hold a grudge against the guy for being so violent, but not me. Violence has been a part of my life for so long, I no longer recognize it as a personal insult. I just see it as a method of survival. Besides, he’s not special. He’s not evil or defective. Anyone can become violent; they just need to be put into the right environment for it. If Beltz comes at me again, I’ll be ready for him, though. And this time, I won’t be the one needing MI for broken bones. He’s had his one free pass from me, and that’s all he’s going to get.

Now that Jens is gone, and the other Alliance members have left for their ships as well, I’m alone in the cargo area again. I left my best flightsuit, the gift from Alana, across my bed, and I’m wearing a standard issue crewsuit as I get to work scrubbing things clean and work at organizing my exercise area in the cargo hold. Sweat mingles with crusted salt as I put the equipment into position and get it properly calibrated. My newly MIed body is crying out for some workouts to get my muscles back into fighting form, and I can’t wait to push myself to new limits. That tussle with Beltz showed me how out of shape I am. I should have ended that conflict in the meeting room a lot sooner and with a lot less damage to my own body than I did.

An hour later, Tam finds me hanging from the pull-up bar testing its strength.

“Need help?” he asks, staring up at me.

I drop to my feet and rest my hands on my hips, slightly out of breath. “No, I got it. What’re you up to?”

“Lots.”

I grab a towel nearby and wipe my face and the back of my neck off as I wait for his answer. “Finish whatever you were working on in the frame?”

“Yeah. And we’ve outfitted the hull with Baebong’s weapons, the ones you gave approval for before. Gus and I were just making sure they were communicating with Adelle the way they should.”

“Good.” I drink water from the bottle pack nearby.

“I was wondering if we could talk to Beltz about some upgrades to the engines we’ve been trying to work out for the past few months.”

I sit and motion for him to do the same. He declines my offer.

“What kind of upgrades?” I have to look up to maintain eye contact with him.

“Our aft thruster is kind of shitty. We’d like to trade out a couple parts there. And the filtration system is clunky. The one they have on their ship is aces.”

“How much is it going to cost us?”

He shrugs. “That’s for you to figure out. I don’t do the negotiating, I just install the parts.”

I hate that we’re here together acting as if this is a normal conversation like others we’ve had. As if our last exchanges weren’t angry ones about whether he’s entitled to hang out with humans anymore, now that we know what or who he is.
 
It’s not easy to admit that I made a mistake, but I feel like that’s what needs to happen here.

“Tam. Sit.” I point to a pile of materials that are soon to become more equipment for my crew.

“I’d rather stand.”

“And I’d rather you sit.” My tone brooks no argument, and thankfully he doesn’t push it. He sits as asked, but he’s as stiff as a board.

“Do you like living on this ship?” I toss the towel over the bar behind me with a flick of my wrist.

He follows the motion of my towel for a couple seconds and then nods. “I guess.”

“Good. Because I like having you here.”

His smile is bitter. “Except for the fact that I’m a shadow.”

“Yes. But I can’t change that, and neither can you, right?”

He shrugs. “Nope.”

“So we just have to learn to live with it.”

“I
have
learned to live with it. It’s you that has the problem.”

“That’s not exactly true, now, is it? I saw your temper tantrum the other day, remember?”

He looks at the ground but doesn’t say anything.

“I get the impression that being a shadow isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

He shrugs just slightly. “Maybe not.”

“Tell me more about it. Help me understand. I want to.”

His eyes flick up at me but then go back to the floor. “What do you want to know?”

This moment is when I finally realize what my big hang-up is with shadowing and people walking around with their brains in someone else’s body. “I want to know if there’s anything or anyone else in there with you.”

Now all of his attention is on me. “In where?” He looks down and holds out his arms. “My body?”

I point at his head. “No. In there.”

“My brain? No. It’s just me in here. In there. Whatever.” He looks disgusted.

“Why does that make you angry?” I ask.

“It doesn’t.”

“Then what’s that emotion I see on your face? It’s not happiness, which is kind of strange considering you’ve been given a second chance when most people would have been left to die.”

He mumbles. “I don’t know.”

“Why you?”

“Huh?” He frowns.

“Why you? Why did they select
you
to be shadowed? Are you special?”

“My mom always said I was.” His smile is sad.

I chew on my lip as I stare at him. The silence between us stretches until he breaks it.

“I’m not a science experiment.”

“Yes, you are. Not that it’s a bad thing, but come on … What happened to you isn’t natural.”

“Nothing in our world is natural anymore.”

“I realize that. Believe me, I’ve heard the arguments from more than one person. But you’re … what happened to you … it’s extraordinary.”

“Not everyone hates shadowing,” he says.

“That’s true. I wouldn’t even say
I
hate it at this point. I just … don’t trust it.” I can’t stop staring at his head. “I mean, if they can make a copy of your neural pathways and put them in that head of yours, and have another copy in Gus’s head, what’s to stop them from putting a third or fourth copy somewhere else?”

Tam just blinks.

“Then we’re not just talking clones; we’re talking
shadow
clones.” I shudder. “Could you imagine? A whole army of the same person —with the same thought processes— coming at you?”

“I guess it would depend on the person,” he says, trying to smile. “An army of me doesn’t sound so scary, does it?”

“No.” I smile at the idea.
Four engineers with his brain? Yeah, buddy.
“It sounds very convenient, actually. Could you imagine the ship I’d have? The technology? The mechanics?” I stop fantasizing and then hit us both with some cold reality. “How about an army of me, though?”

His eyes widen. “Uhh, one of you is plenty, actually.”

“I know,” I say, my mind kind of drifting. “But it could happen if someone wanted it to, couldn’t it?”