Chapter Thirteen
***
GUNNER KEPT THE SIRENSsuppressed as he made his way through the crew-deck. His control was coming back to him slowly, minute-by-minute.
He wanted to go back to Elodie but couldn’t. The information the guards had given spurred him on. He didn’t like that the ship had changed course, even though he had no idea where it had been going to begin with, and he knew he couldn’t keep hacking the security feed before his prey realized what he was doing.
They’re already trapped.If the captain had truly locked himself inside the bridge, he knew he was in trouble. Gunner was surprised the man hadn’t stationed the whole crew as a human shield outside his door.
He dodged into a side room as a pair of men went past, waiting until their steps faded far down the hallway before he ducked back out. His fingers twitched on the dead pirate’s pistol in his hand. It felt right holding a gun again.
His mag remained untouched in his thigh strap, his one prize and the single piece of property that had been stolen from him, returned. He wasn’t going to use its bullets on just anyone. Like a welcome home gift. Karma gave him a little something for not burning everything to the ground in an uproar the first day he was brought aboard.
And for not doing so again when it came to Elodie’s safety.
The pull to Ballsy’s technology brought him right outside a closed, double-barricaded door, with turrets lined a top it, and protruding cameras following his movements.
Gunner’s lips twitched as he looked down at himself, naked as the day he was created, and his own mainframe still on the verge of bursting out of his skin to let his beast back out.
He tempered it and connected with the first door’s systems, forcing them open and eroding the encryptions. When he was through, it closed behind him with athunk.
At the second door, he pulled his hand back and slammed it right through its locking mechanism. It sparked, short-circuited and thundered, echoing angrily in the small hold. He sensed his target on the other side.
It was almost too easy.
He calculated the odds of a trap. But even if the odds were high, he was entering into it regardless.
The door jerked open in broken spurts, revealing a server nerd’s dream: giant bright towers littered with blinking lights stood throughout, and Ballsy slouched over a holographic tablet across the room.
“I was waiting for you,” he said, unafraid.
Gunner approached, equally uncaring. “Miss me?” he asked.
Ballsy shrugged without looking up. “Sure.”
“Your eyes are dead.”
“So are yours.”
“Yes,” Gunner pulled out a stool and sat down. “I suppose they are.”
“Were you created with them like that?” Ballsy looked up and met his gaze.
“No. War has that effect on people, in my experience.”
“I would’ve liked to have seen that,” he said, looking past him and at his sparking inner door. “The war, that is.”
Gunner canted his head and took measure of his adversary. The man was thin, gaunt, but sharp. Something about his features was serpentine but only in fleeting glimpses. Mainly, Ballsy came across as bored, constantly so, and always calculating. “No one should have to see what I’ve seen. How did you end up here?”
“Same way anyone else would. I was a hacker, a good one, growing up. Born and raised on Elyria to a mother who paid the bills on her back, and a father who was a booster addict. They were great role models. The best,” Ballsy said without sarcasm or amusement.
“I fell into computers to drown them out and I fell in deep, got myself real good in reading and understanding intelligent systems and artificial intelligence software. I don’t know why, maybe because they think differently. I’ve always appreciated the efficiency of a machine. I understood it in ways I didn’t understand people. Sold my services the same as dear old mom, except I was the one doing the penetrating this time, stealing data to sell to the highest bidder. Along the way, I was picked up. Technically kidnapped, I suppose, but it got me off Elyria.”
