"Is it finished?" Jard's voice seemed far away, or blocked out by a thousand miles of water. "27, can you hear me?"
There was no clearing away of the mist, no returning-to-consciousness that Kari had experienced before after unsuccessful bar fights. Her sight was restricted to a drinking-straw-sized hole, like looking through only one half of a pair of binoculars. Kari remained half-awake, her mind murky and dark, but her lips formed words, and she spoke without realizing it.
“It’s finished,” she said. “Wake the other host.”
What’s wrong with me? Kari thought frantically. Those words weren’t mine!
There were mine, another voice in her head replied, as clear as if spoken to her. I promised to ensure your retirement if you complied; so far, you’ve done well enough. Watch as I reward my last host.
Kari’s body turned and walked –it felt like floating through the air– to where Lorna sat. The blonde-haired girl slowly began to stir, waking up like someone who’d had a hard knock to the head, and then spoke.
“Is it over?” Lorna asked, in a voice that did not sound like Lorna’s at all. “Am I free?”
“As free as I can make you,” Kari replied, taking something from Jard. “Here is your pay.”
Kari saw that the object was a credit chip, and she gasped –mentally– when she saw the number of zeroes that showed up on the tiny LCD screen when Lorna pressed the refresh button. Enough money rested in that chip to buy a planet and resources to stock it for a century: Lorna had to be under some galactic government; a mafia didn’t have half enough money.
Lorna looked at the chip dazedly, and then smiled.
“Thanks,” she said, standing up as Jard released her from the chair. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Never,” Kari replied, pressing a button behind the chair. “Goodbye.”
Lorna suddenly disappeared into thin air, and Kari recognized it as the newest Teletransport: a system only in prototype stages even among the highest laboratories. She’d seen it as an experimental addition to the Handybots in her old job, but it had never worked. Now, right before her eyes, it handled a living, large-scale load without a glitch.
You understand now the pay for this job, The inner voice said. Now let me explain to you how it works, and what you will be going through soon.
Kari had come to understand that Lorna was a ‘host’, and that the real being, 27, was now…inside Kari’s head? It didn’t make sense to her, but she couldn’t do much: her body no longer obeyed her commands, moving now to 27’s will.
Kari walked to the opposite side of the room and tapped a button on the control panel. A loading screen popped up and the other computers around the room began to start up, one screen at a time.
In a few months, the Galactic committee will hold a joint session over the possibilities of mekkin mining on a newly-discovered planet, Image, 27 thought-spoke to Kari. I intend to be there, but I cannot control you during my task.
Kari’s head tilted towards the screen and her vision widened slightly to reveal a planet surrounded with UGA cruisers. It was bluish-green, and had several orange rings orbiting it.
They will hold their meeting at the capitol, 27 explained. In Thasin.
Kari nodded, or at least, meant to nod, but instead, her sight dropped to the keyboard, where her fingers were already flying across the buttons. Each button was marked with an alien symbol or two, but a handful was in English; it was these that Kari was pushing now, and most notably, one marked “Teletransport”.
Kari saw the world spin into a blur; the white room, Jard and the machine melting into nothing. Within seconds, dark shapes formed before Kari’s eyes, and she found herself back in her own apartment room.
That’s it? Kari thought. What was with the backpack and all that?
I am bring you here one last time to retrieve an item of mine, 27’s voice rang loud and clear in her head. That picture you were so fondly staring at. I want it.
Kari’s body lurched forward against her will and her hands grasped the picture frame. Once the picture was out from under the glass and safely in Kari’s fist, 27 spoke again.
We begin our training now, Kari, she said. You must learn to seize control of what little body movement you have, and how to ‘take over’ for me in any instance.
Kari once more nodded, and this time it came through: she could control her body once more.
You learn fast, Kari. Let’s hope it keep you alive. For both our sakes.
Kari wandered the streets of Seljik, her hair blown about by the dirty draft that steamed up from the manholes. Looking at them reminded Kari of Lorna’s sewer pip lair, and she bit her lip. Only a day had passed since they’d left Jard and Violet behind, but already 27 had taught Kari so much.
The ‘taking over’ that 27 had mentioned was the hardest part. 27 would jump off a building-sized platform in the huge underground training room, grabbing hold of a bar about halfway down. Sometimes she relinquished power to Kari when they were falling, sometimes when 27 had already gripped the bar tightly. Each time, Kari had to resume any outside body work that 27 had been employed with; the first few times on the bar Kari didn’t grip fast enough, and landed head first into a stunt-man cushion.
Eventually though, Kari got into the hang of it and could even take over when 27 was underwater, upside-down and surrounded with dangerous electric mines that would go off if Kari so much as brushed them. She was shocked dangerously three times before getting the hang of it.
27 worked in levels, and, by the time Kari had mastered the ‘plasma-blaster-and-laser-trip-wire-level’ her mind was thoroughly sore, as if the physical strain had been on her brain and not her body.
But now, in Seljik, 27 was asking Kari to do something completely different and definitely much harder.
“You want me to do what again?” Kari whispered aloud.
Find the main computer of a hotel, 27 replied. Insert a bug in the cooling tower and get out. Nothing could be easier.
“Easier said than done,” Kari snorted, looking up at the tall brick building that was 27’s target. “How am I supposed to get inside anyway?”
Leave it to me; you just do the computer work
Kari felt the drowning-sensation of being pulled out of her consciousness as 27 took over. It always gave her the strangest belly-flop feeling, like the second before the bungee cord pulls tight and snaps you up. Not that Kari had ever gone bungee-jumping, but she imagined it’d be like that.
Now, Kari watched through the tiny amount of sight left to her –the drinking-straw view– as 27 leaped into the air, grabbed a rusty bar that made up the bottom rung of a fire-escape and began climbing.
You can take it from here, 27 said. Seventh floor.
Kari clenched her jaw and clambered up the remaining rungs. Once again, she felt her brain wearing out mentally while her body remained as fresh as ever.
“Why aren’t you doing this?” Kari panted, as her feet slapped up the metal steps. “If you can take over my body and all that, why even give it back to me so many times?”
It uses up my energy to do so, 27 explained. I’ll need to be working once we reach the computer, so I’m saving up for it.
Kari didn’t have enough breath to continue arguing, but she thought –again– about deserting the mission and just walking off. She remember the event yesterday, when 27 had gripped her brain and squeezed it like a lemon, after just a teensy rebellious thought. She quickly erased all thoughts of disobedience and continued running.
Finally, she reached the seventh floor and stopped outside a window.
The window was framed and barred across with thick metal beams, but in one corner the bars were bent away, as if some creature of immense strength had ripped up the bars.
I had Jard open that 27 years ago, 27 said, before Kari could ask. In preparation of your coming.
“So, like, you prophesied I’d come along and agree to be your slave?” Kari asked, loading her words with as much contempt as possible.
No, I knew.
Kari sighed and examined the hole, which was barely larger around than her waist.
Climb in, 27 ordered. I made sure it would fit you.
It did, but Kari left pieces of skin on the sharp metal. She was about to complain to 27 about not making the hole big enough when her breath caught. There, a scant yard away from her, sat a gleaming, polished Wasp-V, the latest model in racing craft. Flame vinyl streaked across the black sides, ending in bloody skulls with nails and snakes through their eye sockets. Kari could barely keep herself from running across the room and (hugging? Drooling over? Riding? I need help here, guys!) it. It was probably covered over in laser trip-lines though, and that alone kept her from doing so.
“Is this why we came here?” Kari asked breathlessly, taking a tentative step towards the Wasp.
No, 27 replied flatly. Ignore it and continue with your work
“But it’s a V-class Wasp!” Kari retorted. “And it’s sitting right there in front of us!”
Once more the desire came over Kari to disobey 27, but –as quickly as it came– the thought was culled by none other than 27 herself. Kari felt the mental fingers squeeze her mind ever so lightly, and quickly decided to find the computer.
However, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the ship as she flipped on an out-of-date memory-processor. All throughout the loading sequence of the computer, her mind kept wandering back to the days before she’d landed a huge debt and lost her old Wasp in a lawsuit. It still amazed her that she managed to escape it all without going to slave labor on Kyll.
27 tightened the hold on Kari’s brain so suddenly that stars flew into her eyesight. Dizzily she clutched the computer desk and slowly brought herself back to a sitting position. It was the equivalent of a migraine headache, but compacted into a few seconds of blinding pain.
“What was that for?” she stormed at 27. “I wasn’t doing anything!”
Then start doing something, 27 retorted.
“But why’d you have to go squeeze me like that?” Kari shouted as she rubbed her temples angrily. “Dammit!”
It was unintentional. But 27 does not make apologies.
Kari, fuming and growling curses at her brain-parasite, hit the final key-sequence and entered into the structure of the hotel and its branches. A few minutes confirmed her suspicions: this hotel was so old and outdated that she couldn’t access any of the newer planetary uplinks.
“Fine,” she muttered. “We’re in now: what do you want me to do?”
Remove the casing of the cooling tower.
Kari kicked the rusty metal plating and it fell to the floor, clattering loudly. She bit her lip, hoping no one had heard the sound.
Now locate the main transistor.
“Got it,” Kari replied, tapped her fingers against the humming, glowing box.
Open the case and stick your finger in.[i]
For a minute, Kari wondered if she’d heard 27’s order incorrectly. But the order was not repeated, leaving Kari to seriously doubt her companion’s sanity.
“You what me to do what?” Kari double-checked, tapping the side of her head in hopes of jarring 27 a little.
[i]I’m not in there, idiot, 27 snapped. I exist in the electricity of your entire body. Now do as I say: stick your finger in.
“There’s no way I’m doing that!” Kari cried. “Even this old model has a zillion volts of power running through the cooling tower: it might kill me!”
Is that my problem?
Despite being a thought in her mind, Kari could well enough sense the irritation in 27’s reply. She bit her lip, took one last look at the Wasp, and then jammed her finger into the glowing plasma.
For a second, Kari felt nothing. A slight tingle, yes, but not enough to make her jerk her hand away. She held still for what seemed like hours, anticipating the shock that would throw her twenty feet backwards and short-circuit the computer. Instead, the tingling grew oddly warm. Before she could register even this, the heat increased, and suddenly it seemed like her hand was afire. She screamed and pulled, but the electricity had already clenched her hand muscles into a tight fist.
Her fingers were locked around the core of the computer.
And then came the smell of burning flesh.
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