“Wait!” Ladee yelled, his voice full of an urgency he’d never heard from the robot. It made Zelup suspicious.
“Why should I?” he asked, his hands still in the air. He’d already decided not to smash the shit, but he wondered what was so important about it.Time to wring some information from this furry fiend.
“This is sensitive equipment!”
“Not good enough!” He continued his bluff, shaking his fists.
The robot’s eyes were wide, its mouth open. “Don’t!”
“What’s so damned important?” He lowered a hand to grab at one of the wires snaking its way along the pile. His hand went through the image. Zelup tried again but failed.
“What the fuck?”A hologram. The image wasn’t real. Something was hiding beneath the mess on the bench.
The fox put his hands on his head. Zelup turned on him, his eyes cold. “Show me. Turn off the emitters.”
The robot rolled forward and hit a switch with a sigh. The illusion of mechanical junk disappeared, and what it revealed made the Vartik’s heart drop. Two figures lay within identical stasis fields on medical units like the one he’d slept on. One was a willowy female with light purple skin and hair that hid her figure. The other was his little doll, her face slack in sleep. On both heads sat identical neural caps, small screens in the med unit displaying their vital signs.
“Explain. Immediately.”
Ladee stared at him, and Zelup watched the play of emotion over the creature’s face. “Dr. Illya has been hiding her research from you. Her true subject is the female you see before you. The doctor discovered her within the asteroid belt, purely by chance. She’s been trying to find a way of bringing her out of her unconscious state. The neural link was her best chance.”
“Who is she?”
Ladee raised his little hands, palms up, and shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know. That’s one of the things we planned to find out. She was sealed in crystal with nothing to identify her, and her description isn’t matched in any of the databases.”
Sealed in crystal. “I think I know who she is. She’s the one I’ve been looking for.”
Suddenly, Dawn twitched on the table, her face shifting into a troubled frown. The tiny motion hit Zelup with the force of a laser train.
“Bring her out of it. Now.”
The fox was shocked. “I can’t interrupt the cycle. Dr. Illya gave me specific orders. If we break the link between them without the found female waking naturally or Dr. Illya withdrawing herself, there could be permanent neural damage.”
“Then get me in there!”
“It’s a dangerous proposition. It took weeks of work to revamp standard neural nets to build a bridge while the subjects are unconscious. We carefully calibrated the system for Dr. Illya. Throwing you in there now, there’s no telling what might happen.”
“It’s even more dangerous to do nothing. The oracle has never been wrong. I can’t risk losing the Guardian.” But it wasn’t the alien female he was looking at when he said those words. His gaze was fastened to his little doll.
“There is a backup rig. If I input the DNA code we pulled from your skin sample, it should be enough to calibrate it for you.” The robot rolled off and Zelup decided not to worry about the fact that they’d stolen his DNA and tested it. Instead, he headed for the storage room and began digging out the old medical unit he’d used as a cot.
By the time he got it wheeled into the lab and placed next to the women, the fox held the backup cap in his hand. “I’ve done the best I could,” he said.
Zelup grabbed the cap and put it on. Then he vaulted onto the unit and attempted to fit his oversized limbs on the cushion.
The fox moved to the main console, hitting a few buttons. “When the link is initiated, it will force you into unconsciousness. I cannot tell you what to expect in there, as no link has ever been successfully created between subjects who aren’t conscious. Another first in a long line of achievements by Dr. Illya.”
“I’m ready,” Zelup said, closing his eyes. His heart was hammering, but he used all of his training to calm himself and prepare for the task in front of him. Saving the Guardian was necessary to ensure the fate of his world. Saving Dawn was necessary to his sanity.
“Good luck, Zelup Vartik.” The fox’s voice was trembling.
Zelup opened his mouth to reassure the robot, but before he could say a word, the link initialized. It felt as if he was falling, a fast swoop that wreaked havoc on his stomach. Then the feeling disappeared, and the world righted itself.
Zelup opened his eyes, blinking in the sunlight. He was surprised to see the familiar confines of the Vartik throne room. The towering floor-to-ceiling windows let in the sun, making the opulent walls shine like they were on fire.
“I’m surprised you showed up,” Marek snarled from the dais. He beat his fist against his throne, his other hand squeezing the hand of his queen. Jazmine was sobbing, the sound cutting through the room and causing Zelup’s chest to tighten.
How did I get here?Zelup glanced around, noticing his brothers arrayed behind him. Each of them wore identical scowls. Mayra and Kara sat on the dais steps. Kara’s face was pale, her eyes rimmed red from tears. The oracle held her head in her hands, sniffling.
