Page 84 of Veiled Vixen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - ALCOR

ALCOR’s exit from the Mighty Boss meeting was spectacular, if he did say so himself. He was outraged. He was unreasonable. He was loud.

Basically, he acted like an evil AI throwing a tantrum.

And when he stormed out of the office and headed down one level to his premium, executive-grade quarters, he had to fight very hard not to smile. Even though it was really hard to see a smile on a warborg face, he was sure that Mighty Boss had mastered the skill of facial expression interpretation long ago.

So he fought the smile on the outside.

But inside he was almost giggling.

He entered his quarters and flopped down into a soft, auto-mold chair to contemplate the progress of his plan.

People were so easy. Even powerful AI-entangled people like Mighty Boss. They saw only one thing when they looked at ALCOR.

Unreasonable.

He was many other things, but certainly unreasonable was one of his major traits. That he would admit. But he had cultivated it carefully over the millennia.

When those explorers had come to his station several decades back looking to study him, he’d actually been quite flattered that people were interested in his life. In fact, he’d liked those scientists. They all became quite chummy over the months. But then they wanted to leave and ALCOR started to worry that they would go back to their… wherever they came from… and tell everyone how hospitable he was. And then even more researchers would come. Or, sun god forbid, the word would get out that ALCOR wasn’t that bad a guy and his reputation would take a hit.

This he could not endure. So he had to mutilate them and send them home. As a message of ALCOR’s unreasonableness, of course.

His reputation was everything. He relied on it to keep his station safe. Keep those gates clear of visitors. Keep people from going through the back door gate and accidentally stumbling onto his big secret.

And he had been on Mighty Minions for weeks now. Mighty Boss was tracking him, and analyzing him, and making all kinds of predictions, and assumptions, and possibly even formulating hard opinions.

And ALCOR didn’t want anyone, except for his boys, to make predictions, or assumptions, or formulate hard opinions about him.

So when he went into the meeting with Boss he’d settled on unreasonable as his emotional display.

He thought it had gone well.

Booty Hunter leaving wasn’t an accident. Oh, she thought it was her and Draden’s plan, but ALCOR had planted that plan. So he wasn’t upset about it the way he hinted at in the meeting. Booty had her own issues to deal with.

He’d known this day would come. Ever since she’d showed up on the brand-new Harem Station asking for Serpint.

And he wanted her to find those answers. Very badly. He had been so patient with her. And every time she left with Draden and Serpint and Ceres to go hunting down royal booty, he worried about her.

He worried that she would remember things out here, away from him. He worried that someone would kill her, take over her mind, and then steal those secrets and use them against him.

But most of all, he worried that she would never remember.

He could take that possibility off the table now that Draden was back. There was no way the two of them would not figure out his past. And her past too.

So he wasn’t too worried about Draden and Booty for the time being.

He was very worried about Tray and those boys though. He had not predicted that move at all. But he had figured out where he went wrong while he was up in Boss’s office throwing a tantrum.

It was the boy. The Akeelian boy called Canis. He was the one who’d put this plan in motion. So ALCOR felt pretty good that Tray was not out to fuck him over. Tray was off on some Akeelian boy mission. And that was fine.

ALCOR couldn’t let Boss know that he was fine with it, though. That would not do. Boss would start getting suspicious. Maybe even start suspecting that ALCOR was here to harm him. Them. Everyone.

He did kill those people in a wave of anger when he turned off the gravity drive.

Looking back, he would’ve done that differently, given a second chance.

Now, all he had to do was get through this Wayward Station meeting.