They approached Royce’s cell and the man with the hologram raised his eyes to the door panel.
“This is where he died. Never seen such a messed-up suicide, clawed his wrist and bled out all over the locking mechanism,” the guard told the new man.
“Hmm...” The hologram was lifted until it expanded to encapsulate the lock.
Gunner leaned his back against the wall. He heard more than saw Ely move back to his side and he reached down to curl his finger around the bar next to her head.
The airy blue holosphere vibrated and billowed, and he could taste the energy it put in the air. Gunner seeped out of his body and poked the connection, testing it, and capturing what information he could. It zapped him and he was thrust back out.
The hologram flashed red.
What the hell?
“What was that?” the guard asked for him.
“Interesting...” his techie friend mumbled but didn’t answer.
A different type of sparking flooded his mainframe, one that felt like thorns piercing his skin from the inside-out.
It fought me. It fucking fought back.Gunner, reconfiguring, approached the tech with more caution. He scoped it from a different wavelength, stalking around it like he would prey, and moved in slowly. The closer he got, the more the thorns embedded themselves, and the more his own systems went on the defense.
The hologram went red again and stayed that way while he fought through the growing pain. The battle was internal, invisible to any onlookers.
The tech eluded him, a barbed-wire of a firewall protecting its secrets. The more it fought, the more he wanted to know what it was hiding.
Passwords. Intel.Where my goddamned ship was taken.He jaw locked. A network virus danced around like will-o’-wisps in his mind.
A soft caress and a sudden shock of warmth hit the back of his finger, drawing him away. Suddenly Ballsy wasn’t in his head but Ely. The heat spread. He looked at her. Where her temple was resting on his own skin.
She filled his thoughts and drowned out everything else. That touch, her touch. The sensation mesmerizing and giving, and so out of place with what was happening it took him aback. It was a small connection—that of her brow against the back of his finger—but it shifted something inside him he wasn’t prepared for.
He didn’t have the chance to take it in, being touched, willingly, by a woman, byEly, before he was interrupted...AGAIN.
“Who’s he?”
Gunner’s eyes shot back to guard and his companion, now both looking his way. He wanted them gone.
“He’s the dumbass that owned the battlecruiser we picked up. The one that’s got us locked out.”
“How’d a man with a ship like that even get caught in the first place? You saw the cannons on that rig. Dumbass must have been taking the biggest shit of his life.” The hologram vanished in the man’s hand as he moved away from the panel to stand in front of Gunner’s cell.
There wasn’t outward strength reeking from him, but calculating, shrewd intelligence. The man smelled clean, except for the artificial fruit released into the air every time he breathed. Vitamins? No, Gunner sifted it out. Energy supplements. This guy’s chosen drug was caffeine, and a lot of it.
Gunner could also sense the second-hand cybernetic tech inside this new man and he wondered if the hologram he tried to penetrate was actually part of a larger, hidden piece, the source beneath layers of blood and meat.
If he so much as looks at Ely...
His shields were already up but he double checked them to be sure.
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
“Gunner. Yours?”
The man squinted and sniffled. “Ballsy. Yours rings a bell.”
“Does it now?” Gunner smirked.
“A mystery to be solved another time, but I’ve seen your ship. Walked through it, got comfortable, spent some time there. I’m curious.” The man lifted his gaze to look at the wall, his eyes glazing over. “Very curious.”
