Post 51

You wake up in Hoshi’s parts room, face down and sweaty on a pile of the crap you had been fixing all last night. Your cesium watch tells you it’s the next day, mid-duty cycle. Your brain feels heavy and dull. It’s been two days and the drug is gone. You had hoped to finish the ion drive before it completely left your system, but you’re too late. Now, your head hurts, your whole body feels like someone was beating it with sledgehammers and you’re starving.

You stagger into the control room and start tugging on various interface parts to find the matter converter and nutritional supplements.

Shori is lit with the moonlight colors that mean Hoshi has put her on autopilot. She feels cool and empty. He’s not here.

You manage to find something that looks like a nutritional supplement rammed behind six or seven folding cabinets that seemed to be joined together by a skin-like membrane and shaped like an origami crane. Each cabinet you unfold changes the origami of the design. First a crane, then a diamond, then cup, then a geodesic ball. You leave it in the ball formation after taking out the packets because you like the regular geometry of it and step toward the viewing screen.

Shori’s transparent cartilage spans the extent of her ‘eyes’ and are currently oriented toward a station. You can’t tell if it’s Borgani or something new. There are a number of small craft wandering into and out of the window and you can see that Shori is docked into some kind of rotating mass, but she is turned so that you can’t see the station itself, only a long field of asteroids and a far-away world that looks blue-green and inviting. Like home. You’re surprised at the quick stab of melancholy. It’s harsh enough to make your throat thick and prevent swallowing the marshmallowy disgusting mess that Hoshi calls rations. You quickly ram it down where you can’t feel it anymore and distract yourself by being annoyed at Hoshi. Where is he?

Shori might know. You glance at the red-green slime that makes up her interface and shudder to yourself. Hoshi seemed to think she was intelligent enough to name, but without the familiar cushion of Snow wrapped around your head, the thought of actually touching her organic computer makes you feel faintly nauseated. You take a tentative breath in. It would be a few days until the withdrawal symptoms got really bad. You could probably finish the ion drive before the Crash killed you. If I’m lucky, you think, taking another mouthful of nutritional supplement and trying to swallow before tasting it. Wouldn’t that make all of this so much easier if I could just go to sleep and never wake up? Drown in my own lungs and let my brain liquify?

You pause for a moment, letting that thought curl up inside you before letting it go. Hoshi would lose his shit and bring me back just to kill me, you think. Have to admire his commitment.

You put your mug down and screw up your face to slip your fingers into the organic matrix that connects to Shori.

There’s a sharp effervescence in your head, like you’d just taken a shot of Snow, but instead of just giving you a waterfall of information, this electricity is calm, focused and distinctly flavored. You can tell it’s a person. It’s Shori. She meets you with a suspicious hesitation before giving you an impression of gentle welcome and surprise. You grit your teeth a little and try not to like her immediately. There’s something very calm and very still about her mind. Like a deep ocean of sensation and instinct.

You try to picture Hoshi in your mind, understanding intuitively that she doesn’t use words, just emotions and images. There’s a moment of quiet before you feel a flood of compassion and a little pride that startles you. You try to withdraw from the link, but Shori’s mental grip tightens around you before she releases the pressure. You get the feeling she is giving you her equivalent of a pat on the head in apology. Again, you clumsily try to form an image of Hoshi in your mind. You’re anxious, lonely, and afraid without him around. Those emotions waft up from somewhere you don’t recognize and you realize Shori is pulling them out of some dark, subconscious place in your brain. You quickly try to shove them back in and away from her.

She lets you, with an almost resigned mental sigh and shows you an image of Hoshi on an unfamiliar Station. In your mind’s eye, she gives you a fluid map of life signs superimposed on the Station’s walls. Zaq Station, she tells you. You can feel that she’s feeding and resting and that Hoshi has gone for resupply somewhere that feels like a factory on the station. You focus on remembering the layout and the feel of the factory so you can find it later and then gently withdraw from the mental connection.

As you open your eyes, you flex your jaw a couple times. The interface makes your teeth feel numb and your hands are glowing a disturbing white-gold. You compulsively wipe them on your coveralls. The goo makes you feel vulnerable and exposed, even if Shori isn’t occupying your head. Why does Hoshi like that? You think in bafflement. Being so exposed and open like that…it’s…very disconcerting.

You head back to your quarters to pick up your backpack and Hoshi’s coat and start to feel a little stronger once they’re on. A little less vulnerable. You take another experimental deep breath, hesitating just a little to realize you still can and then head out to the station promenade.

Shori was docked near the agriculture market. After stepping out of the umbilical corridor, you find yourself in a live market. Fresh game of indeterminate species hang over shop windows and are displayed on ropes and spits around the circular marketplace. You pass by one that looks like some kind of lizard with a stick rammed longitudinally through its body. There’s a six-legged mammal still alive, crying in a cage.

The image makes you remember passing through the storage facility. Bodies piled up. A door opening as the hunters brought in the last one. You can smell death, even though it’s refrigerated and cold enough to keep the flesh fresh and it makes something in your chest wither and die. Caleb, the genetic engineer you’ve been working with tugs you towards the side of the room. He seems excited. You swallow and wish you could escape, but you follow him. You don’t have a choice. Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

“Here,” he says, drawing back the bio-film to reveal an older female. “Look at this one. Her metastatic readings are just off the charts! She’ll be a perfect donor for the trial…” You slam that memory away with all the other ones that remind you of corporate secrets and ambition and keep your eyes straight in front of you to avoid seeing any other helpless organics about to die. You can’t handle that shit right now.

You feel very small and alone. A couple males look you up and down before discounting you. You think you can hear mocking snickers from somewhere around you, but you keep your eyes down and focus on putting your feet firmly on the floor. As if by not seeing them, they won’t see you. Someone grabs your shoulders, feeling you up brutally and asks if you’re for sale. He laughs when you shake him off and start to run towards the interior of the station. You feel a moment of regret that you’re not bigger and stronger. Or at least better armed. Maybe Hoshi has some weapons somewhere? I’ve never seen him use any, but if we are going to be at places like this with any frequency, I want something stabby at least.

The crowds got better towards the more technical markets. You pause a moment to try and orient yourself to where you are versus the factory area Shori showed you and head down one of the twisty corridors towards the very heart of the small station. It’s disturbingly empty. And much darker than a station level should be. You start gnawing on your lip and regretting following Hoshi here. What’s he doing in a place like this? There’s a half-naked young female of some type lounging on one of the plastic totes in front of you. She gives you an apathetic look and opens her legs. You avert your eyes and keep walking, trying to picture where Hoshi would be.

You can hear the harsh buzz of a photon blade firing up, a bunch of shouting, someone screaming in pain. You start to run to what you’re hoping is Hoshi’s factory, fling open a door and then slam it closed. The building sounds like it’s decomposing. HVAC systems rumble and crunch, stopping and starting as if the belt drives had long ago been stripped and no one repaired it. Water pipes and recycling conduit lay smashed and broken around you with the absent drip of leaking septic waste. Emergency lighting flickers on and off, making odd green and black shadows in the hall. Oh, you realize, we’re in the utility level. It does comfort you slightly to be around this many machines that you can fix. You open a lighting panel to see a number of junctions rotted out and molded over with something black and disgusting. You make a few small adjustments and test the light switch to see the corridor you’re in light up from sickly green to comforting yellow-gold. The dripping water stops as well. You replace the cover and wipe your hands on Hoshi’s coat, hoping it’s not contagious and that he can clean it.

You walk deeper into the building. After a moment or two, you can hear voices echoing in the processing plant. One of them sounds light, relaxed, familiar. You breathe out a little in relief and head towards the sounds.

The corridor ends in a large storage room with several tanks and feed stock totes supporting what looks like a water treatment system. The middle of the room is open, however, and you can see a large man, older from the back. He’s leaning on what look like chemical storage boxes and a rough blanket underneath him. He seems utterly focused on something happening in front of him. You change your angle so you can see around him.

Hoshi, a mostly naked Hoshi, is on his knees in front of the man licking him. Hoshi’s tongue is long, whip-like and split, almost like a serpent and his skin is glowing blue-green like it did when he smashed your Snow. His eyes are closed and he seems to be concentrating intently on servicing the man in front of him. You have a moment of profound agonizing jealousy and disgust seeing Hoshi on his knees until you realize it doesn’t seem to be sexual.

After shaking off the feeling, you realize that Hoshi is actually licking the man’s leg. A leg that is grossly abnormal and broken. Shriveled skin and shattered bones seem to have healed wrong and have deformed what should have been whole flesh. As Hoshi licks it, you can see the deformity register on Hoshi’s leg, as if the contact transferred it to him from the other man.

Even as it does, Hoshi’s whole body shakes and his skin ripples as if he’s in excruciating pain. The other man’s face clears, as if he’s finally not in pain and you say, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Hoshi opens his eyes to look at you briefly, and you see electric purple irises for a moment before he slams them shut and shivers in helpless agony on the floor. The man he helped looks at you in surprise and then back down at Hoshi. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he says.

“What does it look like?” you say, caustically as you move to Hoshi’s body and try to wrap the blanket around him as he seizes. You’re not sure what good it will do for him, but you feel like you have to do something.

The man shrugs. “Never mind. Here.” He drops a card towards you and then stands up experimentally, bouncing a little on his newly restored leg “Hoshi and I had a deal. And I’m good for it.” He lets out a sigh of sheer relief and pleasure. “He deserves it. My best to him when he wakes up.” The man moves to leave, you try to stop him, but he doesn’t pay you any attention and shoulders past. This makes you irrationally angry.

“Hey!” you call after him, but your interest is immediately drawn to Hoshi who has stopped seizing and seems to be coming around. “Hoshi?” you ask instead, moving so you can keep his head in your lap and off the floor and keep the blanket on him. You notice an odd shape underneath the cloth as if his arms and legs morphed briefly into a single, long, thin body that whips back and forth, but you ignore the image to focus on his face. “Hoshi? Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

“Mmm,” he says, blinking at you. “Burke? What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” you say crossly, glancing again at the form under the blanket you’re holding and seeing the usual shape of limbs underneath it. “What the fuck was that?”

Hoshi smiles and cuddles into your lap, wrapping his arms around your waist and letting out a long sigh. “Work, pet. Did Simon leave the card?” You pick it up so you can show it to Hoshi without the other man having to move his head. He cracks an eye to glance at it. “Good,” he says, closing his eye again and snuggling in closer to you. “Mmm. I’ve never gotten to be held afterwards before. This is nice.”

You slap his shoulder. “Hey. You. Explain.”

“Just give me a minute.”

His voice seems frayed and tired and you feel yourself soften just a little and stroke his hair. It’s black and silky and you can feel him relax into the kindness and you hate that it matters to you. But you keep up the small gesture until his breathing settles and it soothes you too.

“I knew you had a soft spot, Burke,” he says after a moment, “several, in fact.”

“Shut up,” you say, blushing a little and then remembering that snake tongue you saw. You didn’t remember him using that thing on you and it makes you nervous. “What was that?” you say. “What are you?”

He sighs and leans up on his hands. His face is suddenly very close to yours. He brushes his cheek against yours, pausing for a minute as if waiting for something and then gives up to start pulling on clothes. “Fine. But I’m hungry. Grab that card and let’s get something to eat and we’ll talk.”

Hoshi leads you into a pub of some kind (thankfully a few levels away from the utility area) and waves over the waiter. You don’t order anything, just keep your eyes on Hoshi. Waiting. He scowls at you in exasperation and orders you a drink. You feel your eyebrows go up.

“You’ll need it,” he explains, slightly sheepishly. “Look, Burke, you have to know, I’m a little…different.”

“You don’t say,” you quip drily and wait until the waiter drops off your drink. “And here I thought all the boys had snake tongues. And, not to burst your bubble here, Captain Obvious, but not a lot of people can just remake flesh like that. Instantly. Without any tools or anything. Pretty neat trick you got there.”

Hoshi coughs a little and you can see him flush slightly. “Yeah, about that…”

“I mean,” you interrupt. “The only people I know of who can do that are the Kirin, but they’re all—” you feel your eyes going wide and your heart rate spike. “—No. No. Absolutely not.” You lean in to get a better look at him, noting one more time the bio-mimetic implant scars around his hairline, his jaw. Unusual placement, unusual size, incredibly delicate. Which would make sense if the implants weren’t implants, but was actually a humanoid mask. You blink once and then again. And then take off out of the booth, trying to sprint as far away from the creature in front you as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Hoshi seems to be expecting that reaction. He grabs you around the midsection and wrestles you back into the booth, holding you in a sort of awkward hug until the other customers note you two as not that interesting. You’re breathing hard. He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me, keeps running through your head, but Hoshi doesn’t move. He is, in fact, patting your back soothingly.

“Okay, easy, Burke. Ease up. Relax. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. Look, if I’d wanted to do something to you, I would have already, okay? Okay?”

He was right. You start to calm down. You pat his shoulders in a nonverbal acknowledgement and he gingerly releases you. Both of you settle back into your seats. You’re still having trouble breathing. Even more so when something else occurs to you. “Hoshi…” you start. “Your name. Hoshi. That’s a House, isn’t it?”

He nods.

“Oh fuck me,” you moan, covering your eyes and leaning hard on your elbows. “That’s a fucking Royal House. Do I even want to know what your family name is?”

“Fujian,” he says, a little wearily, as if he’s hoping you won’t recognize it. No such luck.

You start to laugh, a little hysterically. “Fujian? The Wind Lords? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

He looks around a little concerned. “Keep your voice down, Burke. Yeah. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” But you can’t stop laughing. Or maybe crying. People are starting to stare again. “Burke, honey, you have to calm down just a little bit.”

“Calm down? A fucking Void Dragon, one of the last in the whole fucking galaxy, one of the last of one of the most ancient races in the whole universe, a race I helped destroy is sitting in front of me telling me to calm down.” You start laughing again. “My god. A Heilong. A Heilong. You’re a goddamn Heilong. I deserve this. I deserve every bit of it.”

“Well, yes, you do actually,” Hoshi says, “but just think, I’m offering you a chance at redemption. Right? A small thing to help purify your soul. And you owe me.”

You stop laughing. He was right. You take another look at him. You haven’t been this close to a Kirin in a long, long time. And definitely not one that was still alive. “Whoever did your mods did a good job,” you say, taking the liberty to run your fingers along the seams. “They just look like normal implants, albeit in kind of a weird placement.”

“Thank you,” he says, covering your hand with his. “My mother did them.”

“Your mother?” For some reason, you feel incredibly guilty. There’s no way she was one of them, you try to comfort yourself. You pull your hand back.

He nods. You start getting that clawing, familiar hole in your stomach. “Hoshi, where are we going? Why am I building an ion drive?”

He sighs. “Thiel Industries. I want you to meet my sister.”

Fuck, you think. Not again.