She wouldn’t be alive today if she had in the past.
He’s gone too far.
“Prepare for docking,” Hysterian’s voice invaded her ears from the intercom, “at seven hundred hours.”
Alexa tugged the gun from her pants and threw it in the trash.
I can protect myself.
It may have had a tracker on it anyway.
Fourteen
Hysterian waiteduntil the entirety of his crew had vacated the ship before he left. He wanted them to think he’d stayed behind so they wouldn’t, so they’d find other arrangements and maybe not come back at all.
He’d been keeping tabs on Alexa for days, and knew she would probably kill him right now if given the chance, and he deserved it. He had given her a gun for that very reason. He deserved to be shot, quartered, and hanged. He deserved that tenfold and more.
He lifted her underwear to his nose and breathed in her scent.
Unfortunately, it was clean underwear, but he could imagine her arousal clinging to the cotton. He wanted them dirty. He wanted them covered with her slick and his semen. He’d been bucking for days, half-mad.
She refused an order.
He glared at the bed in his quarters.Not for much longer.
After today, he was determined to keep her close, when he knew he wouldn’t harm her in his lust. Today, he was visiting a brothel knowing it would slake him. If he was lucky, it would do more than that and rid him of his obsession for Alexa entirely. A Cyborg could fucking hope.
Hysterian stuffed Alexa’s underwear into his pants and around his cock. The cloth was damp within seconds, clinging to him.
He made his way off the ship and into the bustling port, barely acknowledging the androids restocking his ship. He trusted Horace’s capacity to do his job.
No, he wasn’t going to linger any longer. He had an appointment to make.
And he had Raul to take care of.
Libra Station was one of the rare, fully colonized stations around the known universe. It was originally established hundreds of years ago as a giant broken freighter ship, and over the years had expanded into a state. Ship after ship had been added to it until they were ships no longer, but instead an interconnected system of docks and floors where people lived and worked.
There were at least a hundred thousand or so inhabitants at any given time. Whether they lived on Libra or not, its docks were always bustling. Many crew workers would rent a room on a port like Libra—something no bigger than a hole with a bunk and a desk—and use that as their address. Those same crew workers only went home when their jobs happened to bring them there.
He’d checked if Alexa had a room on Libra. She didn’t. She didn’t have a room anywhere as far as his searches went.
It wasn’t uncommon for people in her field to not have an address either, if they chose not to invest in a hole in the wall. It saved money in the long run. Sometimes, they were forced to put their earnings elsewhere.
Paying back fines, paying off bail, or perhaps they had a sick family member that needed help with medical bills.
He could’ve gleamed a lot about Alexa if she had a room. Though he still learned something because shedidn’t.
She was paid well. Above average for her position. His whole crew was paid well. If she wasn’t keeping up a home, where was her money going? He’d have to request special privileges to see her bank account. He wasn’t an expert hacker like many other Cyborgs.
People dashed past him as he made his way off the docks. Some stared when they realized there was a Cyborg, but most had other things on their mind. The further Hysterian got from Earth, the less people cared about Cyborgs.
He kept an eye out for his crew, mainly Alexa.
Deeper in the station were shops, hundreds of them, enticing those who were traveling to spend all their money and credits on items that they might not be able to get elsewhere. Stations like Libra were ruled by the government but since they were not rooted on a landmass of any kind, the laws were murky. Something that may be illegal on Earth or Gliese, might not be illegal on Libra. No one cared if you had stolen shells from Tau-Ceti here or bought a Coke with coke in it. As long as the systems ran and taxes were paid, those in charge paid no attention.
Though, if you did break one of Libra’s precious laws and were caught, you’d spend the rest of your sentence regretting it. The jails on ports like this were some of the seediest. It was easy to forget about people in a place like Libra.
Which was why Hysterian averted his trip to Atrexia a little while longer. He could get his relief, and then expunge the security systems of his passing entirely. Systems, electricity, and power surged everywhere, ready to be manipulated and digitally fucked.
