Overall, Cypher’s ship was cold. Well lived in but relatively out of date.
Shuffling and the sounds of machines buzzing pricked her ears. She turned back to the room. He was on the opposite side toying with several hologram screens.
Between them was a small lounge area with a single table against the wall to the left. Three empty bottles of alcohol were atop it.
So that’s why he’s grim.
The rest of the room was floor-to-ceiling state of the art replicators and high-level food prep machinery. Vee took a seat at the table and pulled one of the empty bottles toward her, sniffing it.
She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t believe you drink this stuff.”
He answered with a grumble. Vee pushed the bottles away. Cypher joined her at the table and placed a plate of food, some utensils, and a coffee cup in front of her. There was toast, jam, scrambled eggs. Her belly growled—sounding very similar to a certain Cyborg—and she picked up her fork.
“Thank yo— You can sit down, you know?” She peered up at him where he stood over her, staring holes. Any chill from the ship’s starkness vanished.
“Send me your contract,” he snapped.
“Oh, okay.” She turned on her wristcon and opened the encrypted files. She swiped them in his direction, and his eyes flashed once. “Did you get them?”
He sat down across from her. “Hmm.”
She wiped her palms on her dress.Grouch.
Cypher stared blankly at the table before him, and she went back to her food.
“I wanted to thank you,” she began, swallowing, “for letting me stay here.”
His eyes shot up. Anger suddenly etched his features. “You signed this?”
“Y-yes?”
His shoulders visibly strained against his brown leather jacket. “Did you even read it?”
Vee’s face scrunched, and she sat back as he grew bigger. “Of course I did.”
“You signed away your fucking life—your fucking life—and for what? Three million and the chance to play a game before a crowd? Can you be so stupid? Are you worth so little?”
Her mouth dropped. “How dare you,” she whispered.Major grouch.All his softness disappeared. She’d read the contract. She wasn’t signing away her life. She agreed to what Nightheart offered, and had been happy to do it. “I’m not stupid, you asshole—”
“Nightheart owns you!”
“—I’m worth so little? That’s precious coming from you, who’s literally made up of priceless technology and metals. Who threatened me before you even knew what was going on. He doesn’t own me. No one does.”
Cypher laughed. “What? Because you don’t have a bill of ownership pinned to your ass? You do realize what reading between the lines mean, don’t you?”
Hurt ripped through her. Her face reddened, but her eyes narrowed. “Of course I do.”
“You’re promised a job after the championship, you know that, right?”
“Yes!”
“That if you aren’t offered one by one of the private or government-owned colonizing corps, that the EPED will provide you a job on one of their teams? Non-negotiable. A matter of loyalty to the cause, it states.”
She remembered. She and Nightheart discussed it. A job like that was what this was all about, after all. A way to freedom, a way to do what she loved doing best, a way to use the skills she’d honed for years to good use…
“I read the contract, Cypher,” she said. “I know what it says. Why do you even care?” Vee slammed her fork onto the table.What is with this guy?
He surged to his feet. “No one’s colonizing anything, Vee! No one.”
