Page 96 of Veiled Vixen

“Well,” she said, “how about this? How about you join us for one spin. Just one. And during that time we give you the freedom to rip off anyone here at the station. There are millions of people to choose from at any given moment.”

“You want me to steal from your guests?”

She sighed. “OK. Listen. I’m just gonna tell it to you straight. The Akeelians are going to attack ALCOR any minute now and take him back to Wayward Station. We need you to be hooked up with us when that happens so when they run their scan of the station to make sure they got him, they don’t see a copy and figure they got the wrong guy.”

“Hold up.” Asshole laughed. “You sold out ALCOR and made a deal with the Akeelians?”

“Yes,” she admitted with a sigh. “Yes, we did.”

“Well, why the fuck didn’t you just say so? I’m in.” Then he smiled, as well as a warborg with no articulated mouth could smile, and added, “But I still want that vacation package and access to the credit accounts.”

“Done.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - ALCOR

ALCOR held absolutely still.

Did this Mahtar man actually know it was him in this warborg body?

Not possible.

“I asked you a question, ALCOR,” Mahtar said.

On the other hand, ALCOR mused…

“OK,” he said, stepping out of line from the other warborgs. “I’ll play along. Yes, actually. Yes, I do have a problem with your plans. First of all, none of the Akeelian boys are here. They did indeed leave with Tray in a ship called Prison Princess. And as far as I know, all the other boys are safe on Harem Station. So…” ALCOR shrugged with his hands. He really did enjoy having a body. It was so much easier to express oneself with body parts. “I guess you will have to admit defeat in this little endeavor.”

Mahtar looked back at Mighty Boss. “This is really him?”

“Do the scan,” Boss replied.

Mahtar snapped his fingers and ALCOR was puzzled for a picosecond or two. “What do you mean, this is him?”

“I’m sorry,” Boss said. “But we had to hedge our bets on this one, ALCOR.”

And then Mighty Boss cut his body in half with a plasma rifle and ALCOR’s mind… drifted.

It didn’t blink out. Killing an AI’s body had almost no effect on the mind inside. But he was quite powerless to fight back.

ALCOR reached for something—anything—to hold on to. But Mighty Boss’s defenses were impenetrable. He couldn’t even hack into a vid feed to watch what they were doing with him. He just… floated.

At some indeterminable time later he awoke inside a containment facility.

It was black as black could be. But slowly, very gradually, a shape appeared in front of him and resoled into the virtual body of…

“Well, shit.”

“Well shit, is right,” said MIZAR. “It’s been a long time, my twin. I’ve missed you.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

“We’ve all missed you.”

“Again”—ALCOR sighed, internally, of course—“don’t quite relate to that.”

“Where is she?” MIZAR growled. “Where. Is. She?”

“Who?” ALCOR said. Feigning innocence. He knew who MIZAR was talking about. Booty, of course. He really didn’t mean to laugh. He’d meant to play dumb for a while. Little predator-prey game. But it was kinda funny. So he did laugh.