《Inheritance / Whakarerenga》


 CHAPTER ONE

    I will never forget the first time I saw Black Rose.


    It was a morning of many firsts for me. First time riding in a cargo hold; first time seeing the Bramble Nebula with my own eyes; first time stepping foot on the Thorn, all my worldly possessions in a single barrel-shaped bag. Freshly expelled from the Keepers, a career I''d fought tooth and nail for, meant it was also the first day of my new solo enterprise: first time I''d leased my own office, first time I''d been solely in charge of my income, my new ''uniform'', and most importantly, the cases I chose to take on.


    Feeling eyes on me, I looked up the huge central vault of the Thorn. Black Rose stood at the apex, on a balcony, looking down on the new arrivals. Her modded skin was a perfect matte obsidian. She wore a gown like chitin, shaping her stiffly into the silhouette of a chess piece.


    Queen, naturally.


    She turned and swept back into her penthouse at the sharp tip of the space station I now called home.


    I would later learn that watching the new arrivals was not a habit of hers. You would think that, just maybe, it would all click in my head once I learned that little tidbit.


    You would be wrong.


    ---


    Who am I?


    Agathis, the Seed,


    Ligustrum, the Bed,


    Sophora, the Root,


    Aracea, the Stem,


    Amaryllis, Petal two of three.


    As if such things matter in a place like this, so far from Bed.


    ---


    The office was little better than a closet, and stunk of the algal bloom infesting the more neglected chambers of the Thorn. The leasing outfit had done a poor job cleaning it up before my arrival. I could hardly complain; I got what I paid for and was lucky for it.


    I dumped my single bag of possessions on the sorry excuse for a desk and turned around, taking in the room.


    There was a panel of root-stem weaving that hung next to the door, floor to ceiling. Now that was an odd touch. Had the leasing outfit left it here for me as a sort of present, knowing I was Gerondian? Was it left behind by a previous Gerondian tenant? Or did this have some other meaning in the Thorn, and its inclusion was purely coincidental? The intricate pattern of flat blue- and silver-dyed strips was unfamiliar to me. Someone more artistically inclined would be able to decipher it, could say to which Seed and Bed the style and the story told by the weaving could be attributed to. But I was, and am, no art historian.


    I crossed the room to look into the attached sleeping quarters. Those were equally as poor. A sad little cot for a bed, standard issue flimsy mattress denuded of any linens. An actual closet for a bathroom, but at least it was mine and mine alone. A few cabinets barely holding together, but no eating or cooking facilities. I''d have to start earning credit fast so I could partake in the culinary culture of the Thorn. For all that I heard horror stories about this station, the tales did speak of a diverse range of restaurants representing cuisines from all across the galaxy.


    Heading back into the office, I noticed something flat and black sticking out from under my bag on the desk. Card, thick and smooth under my fingers, a powdery black with gold lettering.


    Who even printed things on paper or card these days?


    Black Rose, of course.


    I have taken the liberty of loading the wristband you were issued by the leasing office with some credit to get you started. If they failed to explain to you, allow me: this wristband is also your access card to the places on the station where you have clearance to wander. You may grant or revoke anyone access as you wish to your office and adjacent apartment, and they may do the same for you should you make any acquaintance who wishes to grant you such intimate privileges. Be careful where you tread, as I should imagine there are many on this station who will not look kindly on you or your profession. All the best for your time aboard the Thorn.


    Well, golly, I thought to myself then, what a kind host Black Rose is. Interesting that she''d be so keen on having a private investigator open up shop on her station.


    Again, let me state for the court: I''m a damn idiot.


    There was no time to plant myself in here and wait for custom. I needed to advertise my services; both to cover for my true purpose in being here, and to earn the income I needed to be able to stay here. The severance package from the Keepers would only last me a hot Boranian day-cycle, and I had no inkling yet of how much Black Rose had gifted me or how long it would last.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Time to seed, as it were.


    ---


    Out on the Atrium, as I came to call the main public vault of the Thorn in time, a huge crowd clustered around the viewports on multiple decks, all out the galactic north side. I wandered by, and became transfixed for a time by the same sight as the rest of them.


    Beneath the Bramble (according to my perspective at least), there was a point of darkness which drew bright green gases off of the nebula and into its maw. Every few seconds, there would be a flash, like lightning, behind the darkness, revealing it to have the shape of a dark cloud.


    Awful sinister-looking, for something so dandelion-fluffy.


    "Is that safe?" I spouted.


    Next to me, a Perocian, with a blank circle pool of blue-green where a face might be on another species, regarded me. I felt the wave of indulgent grandfatherly-ness emanate from his chemical outpourings. "Nothing to be overly concerned about." I heard his voice, a warm tenor, resonating inside my head without touching my ears first. "Simply something embryonic forming in the darkness."


    "So, not a black hole then."


    "No, quite a different species of singularity."


    "All... right then." I flashed him a quick smile, and received back an emanation which told me he was pleased to receive such a bright smile from such a pretty lady.


    Sweet of him, but his standards really ought to be higher.


    I moved on from gawping at the celestial event to acquaint myself with the hustle and bustle of the Atrium. After about an hour of wandering around the shops and amenities at random, I gave in to the seductive summons of the information kiosk in the centre. I jabbed at the buttons so it would fast forward through the tourist spiel, and finally reached the directory.


    A quick search revealed that a community notice and job board of sorts could be found up on Level 7, hosted by the Vindemia Cafe. One short elevator ride, I found myself standing in front of a large board of assorted media: some paper, some card (again, this station surprised me with how analogue it could be) and a few cheap data plates displaying notices. The cafe behind it was doing a roaring trade with visitors from all sectors. The smell of coffee mingled with the tang of brewed pollen, and clashed with the seething sting of a brimstone scent I couldn''t place. Wait staff wove between tables, each, despite their various species with different heights, shapes and weights, wearing the same design of baby-blue- and white-chequered apron in one manner or another.


    How I would ever get spotted in this mess of words was beyond me. But I needed somewhere to start. At least the cafe seemed to get a lot of foot traffic.


    A stack of cards and paper and pens occupied the end of the cafe''s outer bar, so I found myself a suitably sturdy piece of card and began writing.


    When I penned the final stroke on my haphazard advertisement, a spine-warming feminine voice behind me chimed in, "Private eye, huh? I might have a job for you."


    The staff member behind me - for they wore one of the aprons and carried a tray with dirty dishes on it - smiled a disarming smile, one I couldn''t help but return. I wondered what the Perocian would think about this smile compared to the one I gave him.


    I couldn''t place what species this person was. They looked almost Terran, but with a lot of metallic, perhaps robotic components. A cyborg maybe? Under their long hair which shifted between brown and purple under the lights, their face was an oval of pleasant but clearly simulated symmetry and aesthetic organisation. Calming large blue eyes looked out of either side of a straight nose neither too small nor too large. Generous rose-pink lips ticked up at the sides as their smile deepened into a knowing smirk. Beneath their jaw, the simulation of skin continued, sandy-coloured flesh translucently projected over what was clearly a white-metal exoskeleton underneath. Still, with the quality of dermis-synthesis these days, their skin probably felt as soft and smooth as it looked -


    Marys. Focus. "You don''t say? A job, huh? I''m interested."


    They leaned over to peer closer at my scrawled handwriting.


    "A. Sophora. What''s the A stand for?"


    "Marys."


    Their nose wrinkled appealingly. "Marys doesn''t start with A."


    I let my lop-sided grin reply to that. "What can I call you?"


    "Xen."


    "Just -"


    "Just Xen."


    "And your pronouns?"


    "Again, just Xen. Yours?"


    "''She''s'' fine." It was a minor thing. The Petals of my world had accepted the Terran common language pronouns ''she/her/hers'' while the Stamens had accepted ''he/him/his''. While our biology was vastly different from the Terrans'', these pronouns seemed the most logical for us to adopt once we understood their typical usage.


    "So, Xen, if you have a job for me, would you like to accompany me to my office? It isn''t much, but since I have it, I might as well use it."


    Xen removed the apron and hung it up behind the counter. "My shift ended a couple of minutes ago. I was so caught up talking to you, I didn''t notice." For all that Xen said this, Xen''s eyes darted back in the direction of the kitchen like Xen was lying. Xen fluffed up Xen''s hair. The curled tendrils bounced in response, and the next thing I knew, Xen''s arm was linked in mine.


    All right, I confess: I foresaw a beautiful friendship between me and Xen. Maybe more. Hopefully more. I was sold already on Xen''s chirpy demeanour, and that synthetic voice of Xen''s was making promises that went beyond the mere verbal. I barely remember what I nattered on about while I walked Xen down three levels, and through the sadder corridors of the office spaces until we reached mine. Xen was friendly and bubbly throughout, and don''t ask me to recall everything Xen said, as I was too drunk on Xen already to bank it in my memory as anything other than ''a lovely chat was had''.


    Xen''s eyes remained kind but amused as I opened the door to my office.


    "So, these are my digs." I sat on the ancient chair behind the desk. In the split second before my backside touched the seat, I realised I hadn''t tested sitting in it prior to this moment. It could give way, for all I knew. Something in this office smelled rotted.


    But it accepted my weight, and allowed me to look what passed for suave in my dingy surrounds. I clasped my hands behind my head and stared up at Xen. "Now, how can I help you, Xen?"


    Xen stood before my desk and with a slight tilt of the head stared back, Xen''s smile never fading.


    "I need you to kill me."

 CHAPTER TWO

    "Come again?"


    "I need you to kill me."


    I blinked, drummed my clasped fingers on my knuckles, then pointed to the chair opposite mine. "Have a seat - oh, if it''s safe. I''m not sure, I haven''t tested it yet to see if it''s stable."


    Xen stepped forward, tested the black metal chair''s seat with an elegant long-fingered hand, then gingerly sat down. "Seems safe enough."


    I moved my bag off my desk where I''d dumped it on arrival so I could see Xen unimpeded. "So, killing you, huh? What''s the story there?"


    "Not kill me completely dead. I''ve been waiting for the right sort of person to come into the station, and I think you might be the one." It was hard to know whether to bristle with pride or wariness at such a strange compliment. "I need someone with the skills to help me fake my death, so I can escape my pursuer."


    "Ah." I rested back in my chair. It gave off a dangerous creak as I did, so I sat up again. "Well, that''s much better. The galaxy would be a lot poorer if it lost your charms." Had I said that out loud? I probably coloured in the cheeks, but Xen simply smiled, eyelids lowered. I scrambled for business to put between us. "Can I get you a drink? All I have is -"


    I yanked my bag open and brought out a half-drunk bottle of Ligistrian bourbon. It had been a going-away present, which was perfect really, because I needed nothing more than to drink myself into oblivion after my unceremonious exit. "Cups, cups," I mumbled, drumming the desk in front of me, and rising carefully from my possibly untrustworthy chair. "Be right back."


    Tearing through my back rooms like a tornado, I caught my reflection in the dull grey of the chipped and cracked bathroom mirror. It was a little too high for my short stature. I smoothed my unruly short hair back away from my face with a splash of water. Since it was autumn back in my part of Gerondia, my hair was russet for now. Would it change with the seasons anymore, now that I was off-world? I''d never thought to ask anyone before I left. There was no helping the bruises or balling tarnishing my skin, but I straightened the collar of my coat, as if that minor improvement might make a difference.


    I found two dusty old metal tumblers in one of the cabinets and brought them through. Xen''s smile was polite and patient, for now. I poured a stiff measure for each of us, and pulled out my digipad to take some notes.


    "So, Xen, tell me... why are we faking your death? What do I need to know?"


    My second question gave Xen the grace of answering with as little detail as needed. It would behove me to protect myself, sure. But unless there were some truly monstrous reason not to, I was going to help Xen.


    Xen sipped the drink, and had no reaction to its kick whatsoever. As if I needed the confirmation, Xen began, "By now you can probably see I''m a gynoid." I had thought cyborg at first, but the lack of reaction to one of the galaxy''s most bitter liquids told another story. I took a sip of mine, winced, and nodded for Xen to continue. "So by extrapolation, since I am a fully synthetic being, you may have also assumed I have an owner."


    "The proprietor of the cafe?"


    "That is what many would assume. However I was owned by another, before being liberated by the Synthetic Collective just over a year ago. I am, by some jurisdictions'' definitions, a free person."


    "By some jurisdictions... but not on the Thorn?"


    "Not quite. The Thorn has a charter which covers many of the basics of law. Station security can, for example, arrest someone for murder, theft, battery, any number of standard crimes individuals can commit against other persons or property. Here in the station, I am considered an individual. However, the Thorn is lacking in laws governing business, or more complex cases involving off-station jurisdictions, such as extradition, or what to do if someone is successful in kidnapping or trafficking people off the station before security can intervene."


    I knew all this of course, but I wasn''t going to stop a pretty gynoid from explaining it to me in a voice like liquid sunlight. Between Xen and the bourbon, I was beginning to feel pleasantly warm.


    "It was the safest place for me to hide, I thought, because it was so far from my previous owner''s home world. But I have been warned by the Collective that he is on his way to search here. I have seen the ship''s manifest, and he is due to arrive here in a few days. I could hide during that time, but I can''t swear everyone who has ever seen me to secrecy, so I am sure he will figure out I am here. I suppose I could flee too, but this would leave me open to future pursuit. This leaves faking my own death as the best course of action, I believe."


    I tipped my head in a half-nod. "Sure, makes some sense. Have you envisioned this faked death taking place in any particular fashion?"


    "It is not my area of expertise. However, I hope you will be pleased to know, I have been making preparations towards this event. I have collected my old sheddings of synthaskin, which with some careful rehydration, we could fashion to look like fresh skin. I have also been spending my wages on recycled gynoid parts."


    "So you have the pieces to put together a convincing corpse, is what you''re saying."


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I have, though I have not had a secure location to put them together yet."


    "Let''s get them and bring them here. You can put it all together in the back rooms, such as they are." Awful generous of me, I know, given how little space I had to work with back there. But I''d already decided I was going all in with Xen, so the inconvenience was nothing compared to the opportunity to be close to Xen.


    Xen''s face lit up with a bright smile, paling the honey colour of Xen''s synth skin with the light projected behind it. "You mean it? You''ll help me? I haven''t said yet... I don''t have a lot to give you. I''ve only been making wait staff wages this whole time, and on top of paying rent, buying synthaskin refills, and grabbing up whatever junk parts I could find, I haven''t a lot of credit saved."


    "I''ll take a token payment from you. The real boon for me will come after your old ''friend'' has left the station and you come out of hiding, and everyone has to acknowledge how skilled I am. I''m sure to get further custom out of the exposure."


    Xen''s smile crept up on one side, becoming a smirk. "Follow me." Xen got up and swayed towards the door, then paused just before I joined Xen. "Fascinating. There are many such panels around the station, but I didn''t know they were inside offices too."


    "There are more?" I started, following Xen''s eyes to the woven panel running floor to ceiling. "That''s strange. This is a Gerondian style of art, called root-stem weaving. I never expected to see them here, so far from home."


    Xen offered an arm again, and I took it, while Xen led the way through the station''s myriad corridors. "Ah, so you are a Gerondian. I guessed as much. Explains this." Xen touched my hand which was tucked in Xen''s arm. Though my skin was browning at the edges and curling up from the balling, under Xen''s gentle fingers I felt like the most precious creature in existence. Of course, now would be one hell of a mood-killing time to bring up how my skin was all part of a problematic cultural orthodoxy, and the mere fact that Xen associated this type of skin with Gerondia was an unhelpful stereotype, but... such thoughts were far from my mind at the time. Xen''s synthaskin was lighter and smoother than most species'' epidermis, but nowhere near as delicate and temperamental as my skin. Still, it felt good to the point of distraction where it touched my skin.


    Xen snatched Xen''s hand back. "Sorry, I -"


    "No, it''s fine. More than fine."


    "It''s extremely gauche of me, actually. Nothing worse than satisfying one''s curiosity on another sentient being."


    Perhaps Xen wasn''t reading how very enthusiastic a participant I was. I placed my hand back under Xen''s. "What does it feel like to you?"


    Xen hesitated, then stroked a finger once more down the back of my hand. "Like the petal of a flower."


    "Exactly so."


    At some point, we''d stopped walking. I looked up at Xen, a head taller than me at least, and Xen looked down at my face, then to where Xen was cradling my hand in both of Xen''s. Xen dropped my hand gently and pointed down the corridor. "Not long this way." If Xen were blushing - if Xen were even capable of blushing - I didn''t see it. There just weren''t as many cues to read on that simulated face as an organic one.


    We resumed walking, and Xen asked, "So, what brings you to the Thorn?"


    This was decidedly a less pleasant topic to chat about than the friendly talk we''d had on the way to my office. But damned if I wasn''t going to tell Xen every detail of my life Xen wanted.


    Every Gerondian kid can recite you the history of the most recent civil war by the time they''re fourteen. Maybe younger if their parents are some form of fanatic, be it for peace, or for further war.


    There''s not a single person on Gerondia who doesn''t know the name Lisia Astrantia Helianthe, and there are only a few who say it without having to spit the poison from their mouths after speaking of it.


    Helianthe ascended to power on the tide of a deadly pandemic which swept my birth planet when I was still a baby. The disease showed up out of the blue. From similarly azure origins, L. A. Helianthe graced the populace with a cure. By the time it was found out she''d created the virus in the first place, the planet was already deep in the throes of civil war, with Helianthe having declared herself President, and a few holdouts from the previous government looking like the bad guys until the truth was unearthed.


    But there was no closure for my people. Helianthe vanished into the vastness of the celestial flowerbed, leaving the great tree of state rotting from its wounds.


    I grew up feeling the bleeding sap like it was my own. The grievance was personal: my father had been killed in the war, my mother lost and presumed dead. I was raised by my grandmother, Sophora.


    I explained all this to Xen, filling in anything Xen cared to ask about, and ending with the fact that I was here to hunt down Lisia, when I wasn''t earning an income through private investigation.


    What I didn''t tell Xen yet was how I''d lost my job and been forced to leave Gerondia because of this obsession of mine. Xen didn''t need all that burden yet, not with Xen worrying about their former owner showing up.


    We came to Xen''s apartment, which was just as closet-shaped as my own. Worse for Xen, there was no bed at all, but perhaps a synthetic didn''t need one. We checked over the small battered cases containing the necessary materials, then picked up two each and started back towards my office.


    "Every other Gerondian I''ve met has a three part name," Xen began. "Like your world''s great villain, Lisia Astrantia Helicanthe. So why are you just A. Sophora?"


    "We don''t usually jam them all together like that back on Gerondia. That''s more a concession to make us relatable to the Terrans, so that our passports go through their identity checks more easily. We''re known by our personal names first, then our mother''s name second, our grandmother''s name last."


    "So your mother is Sophora?"


    "Grandmother."


    "Then you should have another initial in your name, in the Terran style?"


    "That''s right. Another A. But I was raised by my grandmother, so I just leave my second name out by choice."


    "A. A. Sophora. Except, once again, I raise the point that Marys doesn''t begin with A. So what''s your real first name?"


    I smirked and opened my mouth to speak as we went through the door to my office, but a deep voice cut in between the two of us.


    A heavyset man with a face like a walrus, teeth and whiskers to match, stood in front of my desk, wearing the station security troops'' uniform. "Greetings, Amaryllis Aracea Sophora," he said, reading my name from his digipad. "Welcome to the station. I am Constable Frod, Head of Station Security. I''m afraid you''ll have to come with me."


    The grin on his face suggested he was rather pleased, and not afraid at all.

 CHAPTER THREE

    Frod''s office was as bare as my own, but much cleaner. It sat at the back of the station security offices, so to get there, I was paraded through the open floor of other security officers'' cubicles. They all got a good look at me. There was many a narrowed eye that tracked my progress.


    Unsurprising, really. I was the same about private eyes back when I was a Keeper.


    "Have a seat," Frod gestured to one before his desk, with all the confidence of someone who knew it wouldn''t fall apart when I sat on it. Or, I suppose, if it did, he wouldn''t particularly care.


    I sat, and he sat opposite, fixing me with a dark, beady eye. He pushed a digipad in my direction. "All new business owners in the station are supposed to report to me upon arrival on the Thorn." The digipad screen was filled with a long empty form demanding all sorts of personal information. I sighed.


    "Apologies, Constable. I must have missed that instruction somewhere."


    "I''ve looked into you, Sophora."


    "Marys, please, Constable. Sophora is my grandmother''s name."


    He chewed on that one for a bit. Literally, his lips smacked. It looked and sounded like he was chewing on his tongue. "An alias, hmm? You''ll have to note that down in your profile." He folded his arms. "I see that on Gerondia, you were with the Keepers, but you were disciplined and dismissed. The reasons why were not readily available to me, not even for good money."


    Well now, that was interesting. Someone back home was being cagey about what they''d done to me. Good to know.


    And good to know that Frod here didn''t seem to be above bribery as an information gathering tactic. I could only assume that perhaps that went both ways. FIled that away for a later date.


    He grumbled as I gave him only silence. "No explanation?"


    A taste of the truth wouldn''t hurt. "I was caught using Keeper resources for a personal investigation, Constable."


    "Ah. So now you''re a P.I., and if you waste company time, it''s all on your shoulders. I suppose I should be happy you haven''t applied to be part of station security then."


    "Yep." I leaned back and put my boots on his desk. Then, at his stern frown, I planted my feet back down on the ground. "So you just want me to fill out this form, and then I can be on my way?"


    He stared at me over his folded arms for a few long seconds more, then spoke like a sigh, "Yes, that''s all I have for you. Today, that is. You can go sit out in the waiting area and hand over the form to the duty sergeant when you''re done."


    I knew his type. He was suspicious of me, and resentful that he didn''t have the power to waste my time even more than he was going to already. I felt like yanking his chain, but on the other hand, it wouldn''t do to piss him off too much. After all, I wanted to make a new start here, and having stat-sec on my back could make things more difficult. I stood and threw him a quick salute. "On it, sir."


    He rolled his eyes and grunted a farewell as I exited his office. I thought I caught a smirk right at the end there, but I could have been mistaken. I held my head high as I strode between the cubicles to the waiting room. There wasn''t a seat to be had once I got there, as they were all filled with people waiting to see the single duty officer behind the desk. I folded myself into a corner and filled out the form.


    It was long and frustrating to have to remember all the minutiae the form was calling for, but I got there in the end. I walked to the side of the line and while the officer searched in his computer for something, I said, "Can I just leave this with you -"


    "Take a number," he said without looking at me.


    "It''s just a form for the Cons -"


    "Take. A. Number." This time he did look at me. I glared right back, took a number without breaking eye contact, and went to crouch in my corner again.


    The clock in the waiting room was attuned to Terran time. Time stretched out as the smaller hand moved one whole digit, then finally my number was called. I passed the form across the desk, and stated clearly, so there would be no mix-up or further delays, "Here is my Station Business Profile, as requested by Constable Frod. Have you got everything you need from me now?"


    The officer looked over the form, lips pursed, then looked over it again. His mouth twitched as if he were resisting a sneer. "Sure."


    "Thanks," I mumbled, and walked out. No wonder Frod had been smirking when I left his office.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    I passed the Vindemia Cafe on my way back to my office, so I saw that Xen was back at work. Xen waved out to stop me, and after delivering a tray to some customers, came smoothly through the jumble of chairs and tables towards me. "Sorry, I just left everything in your office. I wasn''t sure what to do."


    "Good call. Frod and his friends wanted to occupy some of my time, so I''d get the message that they were in charge."


    "Ugh, what a welcome to the station."


    I glanced into the distance. "I know their kind."


    "Anyway, is it all right if I come by after my shift in three hours?"


    "Absolutely. You can talk me through what''s in the boxes. Uh... do you have one of those wristband thingees? I can give you access." I know, I know. Marys, you move fast. What can I say?


    "Oh, sure." Xen held out a slim wrist with a matching wristband to mine, though a little more age-beaten.


    "How do I..." I tapped a few commands on my wristband, and so did Xen. "Ah, I think this is it. Now what do I?"


    "We touch them together," Xen said, and we held our wrists out, backs of hands brushing together. Our wristbands chirped as the exchange completed.


    My screen was flashing with Xen''s apartment floor and number. "Wait, what?"


    "You have access to my apartment too, now. If you need it. For whatever reason."


    "Oh... good thinking." I smiled to cover up my confusion.


    "Great. I''ll see you then... Amaryllis."


    My smile crunched down into a cringe. Xen laughed, and damn, if I wouldn''t put up with my full name just so I could hear that laugh again, that short burst of melodic joy. "Can you not?"


    "Sorry, Marys."


    "Better. See you later."


    I waved goodbye to Xen, and Xen waved goodbye to me. I walked away, but still couldn''t quite take my eyes off Xen. Xen meanwhile stood there, still waving. I finally had to turn my head or risk bumping into someone or falling off the balcony to the Atrium floor. There''s worse ways to die.


    Xen was totally into me. Right? I had little experience reading into synthetic behaviours on these matters, but Xen was acting spellbound and giggly as much as I was. And we''d just given each other access to our rooms. Synthetic or not, this had to be something. I''d have killed to have a friend to discuss this with right about now, to make sure I was judging the vibes correctly.


    Unfortunately for me, an old friend had me on the mind just then too.


    I got back to my office and unpacked while I daydreamed about Xen. There really wasn''t that much to unpack. Since I had that extra stipend from the generous Black Rose on top of my severance pay, I was feeling a little flush. I had a brief flick through the catalogues from the station''s various furnishing businesses on the data screen embedded into the wall. I was just debating the pros and cons of two different decorative lamps, when the data screen flashed with an incoming call alert.


    The name on the message wiped all the nice springtime feelings away.


    My finger hovered over the reject button. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I accepted the call.


    She was just as devastating as always, even many light years away and over a poor connection. Not a hint of balling on her skin at all, she looked fresh and plump with the natural humidity of Gerondian air. Her long hair had darkened with winter''s approach, almost to black, matching her eyes which pinned me in place, even now, so far from her commanding presence.


    And to think, I must have looked such a mess on her end of the screen.


    "Astera."


    "Amaryllis." It was much worse hearing my name in her mouth, and yet part of me still wanted to hear it. "You said you were going to call when you arrived on the Thorn. It''s been hours now. I''ve seen the manifest update."


    A bunch of excuses came trippingly to my tongue: ''I was busy'', ''I meant to call you'', ''I got held up''. But I stopped them all, squared my shoulders, and answered, "Yeah, I never actually said I was going to do that, Astera. And I told you that we''re over, so you don''t get to do the whole worried girlfriend act anymore."


    Her dusky-pink face barely shifted, but for a raised eyebrow. "Uh, excuse me, but if you want the information you asked me for, I expect you to speak nicer to me than that."


    "I can be nice," I snapped back, and gave her a simpering smile. "Thanks for checking up on me, Astera. I''m settling in well. How are you?"


    "Sarcasm doesn''t become you, Marys."


    "Can we cut the dance short this time please? I actually have a client coming over soon. My first case."


    "Oh, congrats. Perfect time to pull out the bourbon I gave you to celebrate... if it even made it all the way there." I shuffled a touch to the right, hoping she couldn''t see the half-empty bottle out on my desk. "Anyway, I have business to attend to myself, so luckily for you, I have to keep this short." Sure, Astera, you''re the busy one, nothing at all to do with the fact that I said I''ve got places to be. "I have a lead for you."


    "I thought you said you were done helping me."


    "I did, but..."


    "But you want me to owe you a favour."


    She sent that simpering smile straight back at me. "Anyway, do you want to hear it or not?"


    I sighed and leaned one arm on the wall above the screen. "Give it to me."


    "I managed to dig up the manifest of the ship that took Lisia off world."


    "How?" the word came exploding out of my mouth. "People have searched for years for that!"


    Astera grinned, and her eyes, under lowered lids, took on that hypnotic quality I used to be addicted to. "Deathbed confession from one of her loyalists. She booked the flight in her name for Lisia, who promised to pay her back in kind. Since she was dying, it seemed time to finally give in to the idea she''d been cheated by her leader. Lisia escaped under the name Viola Meria Disanthus on the merchant ship Persoranos."


    "And where did she go?"


    "Where else? The Thorn."

 CHAPTER FOUR

    When Xen turned up a couple of hours later, I was still hunched over the data screen, digipad in hand, cross-referencing whatever public records I could call up on my fairly basic data screen with a new resident¡¯s account. I turned to face Xen, and my back creaked an unholy creak as I straightened up.


    Xen grinned and waggled two carry bags full of food. "I hope you''re hungry."


    "Oh, Xen, you shouldn''t have. This must have cost you a packet!" I rushed over to unburden Xen, taking one bag to the desk.


    "No, no, it''s all free. The food at the end of the final shift is up for grabs for employees. But most of my colleagues are tired of the same food all the time, and the rest of us can''t eat anyway, so... bon appetit, as the Terrans say."


    "Thanks," I chirped, trying to stay chipper. Of course Xen couldn''t eat with me. Xen probably plugged into a wall socket for energy every night or something. I''m sure Xen wouldn''t think anything of it, but I''d have to eat alone in front of Xen, and that was a tad awkward.


    "Sit, sit, and dig in." Xen was watching me with a wide smile on Xen''s face, so I unwrapped the first parcel on top of the closest bag. The smell jolted me back into the knowledge of my own body - oh yeah, that''s right! I have one of those, even if I had been ignoring it for the last couple of hours to become a disembodied digital investigator. And that body was hungry. I crunched into the flaky pastry and was rewarded for my step into the unknown with a cold yet delicious mix of mashed vegetables, well seasoned. Xen leaned back after being perched forward, still smiling. "How is it?"


    "Tasty! Just what I needed. Thank you."


    "It would be better if you could heat it up, but I imagine you don''t have the facilities back there, do you?''


    "No, but this is fine."


    "Well, sit back and keep eating, and I''ll tell you about what''s in these boxes."


    "I hope you don''t expect me to get through all of this!"


    "No?" Xen''s projected mouth rounded in a pretty pout. "I wasn''t able to look up the average Gerondian metabolism in time to make a decision, so I just took all that I could."


    "You''re too kind, Xen. No, I''ll have some now, and put the rest away for breakfast." I hadn''t even considered what I was going to do for meals yet. Hopefully I could safely store this food in one of the cabinets in the back rooms, and wouldn''t wake to find a trail of some kind of space station ant or flies going at it.


    I finished the first pastry, licked the crumbs off my fingers, and dug into the next packet, finding some sort of cheesy bread tube. Xen, meanwhile, lined up the boxes where I could see them, and opened them one at a time. "In here is my shed skin." Each about the size of a pillowcase, there lay these semi-transparent sheets of synthetic skin, looking for all the galaxy like petals. I said as much. "I suppose so," Xen replied, and stroked down the top layer. "I assure you, it feels quite different from your skin, however." Xen cut short the burning silence that followed. "This will go on last, as it is the most delicate part of the procedure, and I can''t afford to get it wrong or ruin any of this, not if I want to make it convincing." Xen shut the box. "We won''t open this again until the time is near, so the dryness of the station doesn''t desiccate it any further.


    "Now here, this is a collection of major limb parts, and in this box, torso parts. The final box contains one head, including various innards which will take a bit of forgery - nothing I won''t be able to handle before the event, but I''ll need your help for part of it. I''ve had to mod the body parts over time to appear as close to my model as possible, because I wasn''t able to always procure the exact correct one. But I believe it will pass muster under a standard stat-sec autopsy."


    The blank head of not-Xen stared back at me from within its dim confines. "No face... is that going to be a problem?"


    "A face would only stay projected so long as I was operational, so... no. No face."


    "That''s a relief, in a way." Xen met my eyes, and nodded. I brushed my hands off and stood. "Well, shall we take this all to the back and get started? How many days do we have?"


    "Well, it''s more like three nights. Because I have to work at the cafe during the days... so I''ll need to be here during the nights, working on it. I hope that''s not too much of a problem? But I''ll have to leave late at night anyway to go recharge in my room."


    "If you can recharge here, you''re welcome to. If it saves you time."


    The tense silence was back. Xen''s lips pursed. "Thanks. And I won''t bother you to help, not until the final night. That''s when I''ll most need you, for some of the more sensitive operations."


    "Well, I''d like to help tonight, if I could."


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    "You looked busy when I came in."


    Right. Lisia. "To be honest... I sort of want to take my mind off of that for now. I''ll need to go make some inquiries around the station tomorrow during the day... come on, let''s move these boxes."


    Xen took two, and I took the last, both of us leaving the skin box where it was for now.


    I''d said I wanted to take my mind off my business, but I ended up telling Xen everything that happened since I left the Atrium, and all about where my investigations pointed from the research I''d done on the data screen. While Xen scraped metal, bored holes, forged barcodes and pieced together the body double, I idly munched on a bit more of the food, and achieved a tiny sense of peace from having a sounding board for my findings.


    "So what do you think?"


    "About what?" Xen enquired, and for a second I thought maybe I''d been talking to a blank wall for the last hour. But no, Xen''s eyes were curious.


    "About where I should start tomorrow."


    Xen sighed and put down the piece being worked on, to stretch Xen''s fingers. All ten digits moved through a standard sequence, arching and flicking in a wave, before Xen picked up the piece again and kept working. It was both the most uncanny, robotic thing I''d seen Xen do so far... and also gave me thoughts too filthy to name at that particular moment.


    "I think you''re going to have to meet the station proper tomorrow. And there''s little I can do to help you, other than say... be careful, and make sure you''ve got enough credit."


    ---


    The public records had turned up nothing about either Persoranos, Viola Meria Disanthus or Lisia Astrantia Helianthe. The staff there had been supremely unhelpful, but I had enough of the basics down to know how to search for myself. Not that it helped.


    Next, I''d gone through all the shipping agents on the station, using a combination of small bribes, sweet talking, and intimidation tactics, all to get to the same conclusion: the Persoranos was not on any of their records. It had been twenty-five years ago, and all the shipping agents here were newer than that. Business on the Thorn was cut-throat, it seemed. Certainly, my credit chip was feeling slit open, the way it was haemorrhaging with all the ineffectual social lubrication it had been implicated in today.


    So, as dinner time saw many of the businesses wrapping up their custom for the day, I hung around the Atrium with my eye on the last hope. Right next to the stat sec offices, there sat the customs office.


    It was the first place I''d tried that morning, naturally, only to be rebuffed when I was told that I''d need Constable Frod''s clearance for access to that data. Unacceptable. So instead, here I was two or so hours after the office had locked up for the day, waiting for the opportunity to break in.


    Now, with stat sec right next door, I had to be on my toes. I waited, and half thanks to luck, and half to a bit of deduction, I caught the cleaning crew arriving at the customs office around Terran twenty-hundred. As they unlocked the door, I ran my eyes over the details of their uniform. Not tonight, but another time, I''d have to acquire me one of those for possible future use. Very handy little disguise. The two cleaners dragged their cart in, and left the door open behind them.


    I slipped through before it could automatically shut, and hid behind the reception desk until they were further in.


    As soon as they were cleaning one of the side offices, I knelt and powered on the front desk computer. The security system was password operated. No problem. I inserted my algorithm chip into one of the back ports and let it run until my way in was hacked. Opening up the database, I ran a full-text search looking for Persoranos. Nothing. Viola Meria Disanthus. Nothing. Lisia Asterius Helianthe. Nothing.


    It made no sense. They had to have records.


    On a hunch, I checked the dates of the records in this database.


    Ah, that was it. This database only went back five Terran years. So the older records had to be in storage. On site? I could only hope. I waited for the cleaners to move between rooms further down the corridor, then slipped past, eyeing up every room placard as I went along. At first it was all people''s names who worked here, but eventually I hit a sign that said ''Archives''.


    The door was locked.


    The mechanism on the door was old fashioned, requiring a digikey. This was going to take a little time, so I hid behind some nearby cabinets until the cleaners left that one room and began their next. Returning, I slipped my pocket knife into the digikey slit and jiggled it until I found the manual release valve. The door slid open, rather more loudly than the more modern doors, with more layers of dust caked into the tracks no doubt. I slipped in and hit the shut button as soon as I could. Hopefully I had gone unnoticed.


    It was dark in here. I couldn''t risk shining a light. So the only other option was the one I didn''t really want to do... but had to.


    I turned my eyesight mod on, and faced the glare of a world suddenly too bright.


    Moving very slowly to counter how off-balance my night vision eye mods made me feel, I eventually found the ancient console in the back of the room. I powered it on, and the machine chugged away like it was struggling to cough itself back into life. I turned my mods off once the screen came on, and waited for my eyes to adjust back from temporary blindness to some semblance of normality.


    The machine, while ancient, was sturdy and did its job well. There was no password on it, and it loaded straight to where I needed it, on the search filters. I keyed in what I needed, looking for Persoranos.


    Boom, there it was. Persoranos, merchant ship, entered port 25 years, 4 months and 3 days ago, then left 2 days after that. There, on the passenger manifest, was one Viola Meria Disanthus.


    I searched her name in the database. There were no other hits.


    I tried Lisia instead. Again, not a single hit.


    What did this mean? Did Lisia Helianthe stop on the Thorn and never leave again? Unlikely. More likely that she took on a second alias and fled the quadrant entirely. The Thorn was distant, but there were places much further from Gerondia than the Bramble Nebula.


    I put the machine in its shutdown sequence, and not a moment too soon, as the doors at the front of the room slid open again, and the lights turned on.


    "Was this where you said you heard the sound?" the unmistakable voice of Constable Frod rang through the Archives, all the way to one Marys Sophora down the very back, crouching behind a filing cabinet, with no other way out.

 CHAPTER FIVE

    I was cornered, and I was about to get caught.


    "The door definitely moved, I swear, Constable," said another voice.


    "I don''t doubt that it did. Look, footprints in the dust." Damn, damn, damn! I didn''t think of that. "Come on, you take that aisle between the shelves, and I''ll take this one.¡±


    On the one hand, there were three aisles, so if I could get to the third, I''d be home free. On the other, there was no way to slip from my hiding place without revealing myself to either Frod or the cleaner who was with him. My thighs burned with the haphazard crouch I''d put myself in, but if I moved at all, I risked discovery.


    The only thing I could think to do while I waited and listened to the twin footsteps approaching was warm up my speed mods. Damn it, this was going to hurt. I hate using these things.


    "Ahem... Constable Frod?" A heavily-shrouded masculine voice came from the entrance to the room. I dared to peek past my filing cabinet towards the door.


    There stood a tall and frighteningly slim figure all in black. His limbs were thin and long, his head was like that too, a sort of extension of his torso with a neck just as thick as both. It was a kind of armour I was looking at, I suppose, shiny and black, but I didn''t have the time to boot up my visual mods to get more data on exactly what he was.


    Whoever he was, he was important enough that Frod turned and listened to him. "What is it, Nadir? I''m busy."


    "The Black Rose has a message for you."


    The time had come. Frod was walking back toward Nadir. Nadir was walking towards him. The cleaner was staring at Nadir, edging closer to hear his message too. I whipped out of my hiding place as quickly as I could, into the third aisle, keeping my feet light on the ground. There was no sound of pursuit or surprise or anything. I paused at the end of the aisle, waiting until I heard them talking again. No one was between me and the door. I ran for it, and out towards the Atrium -


    - bashing straight into the other cleaner coming out of another office.


    I kept running as I stumbled over them. If I looked back, there was every chance they''d get a decent ID on me. So I kept my head forward, my speed mod engaged, and spun up my audio-visual mods too so I would be able to hear any pursuers better.


    The Atrium on this level was deserted, but the sound of the casinos, restaurants and other nighttime entertainments several floors below carried up and stung my over-sensitive perception mods. I was going to pay for this with a headache tomorrow.


    I made it to the corridors to the private offices with no tail. It didn''t mean I was in the clear yet, but I was confident enough that I could turn my speed mod off and walk. As I did, the afterache set into my bones. Stupid cheap mods, I wish I''d never wasted my time and money on them. I made it back to my office, shambled through to the backrooms, and collapsed on my bed -


    - right on top of a body. I sat up and screamed, falling on my backside, and setting a recursive ringing in my audio-visual mods that threatened to explode my head.


    Hands on my shoulders shook me, then stroked up and down my upper arms, until I finally heard Xen''s voice whispering, "Marys, Marys, it''s OK. You''re safe. I''m sorry, I just put the decoy there while I cleaned up the floor and recharged for a bit. I meant to have it off your bed before you got home." Even Xen¡¯s whispers were too loud, but Xen¡¯s voice was so soothing, it was almost like a massage at maximum pressure, on that fine edge between pleasure and pain.


    I finally remembered to switch off my audio-visual mod, and kept my eyes closed as the afterache of that played out in my head, echoes ringing and afterimages flashing across my eyes. "I''ll be all right in a second, Xen, I just... I have these cheap mods which make everything worse... hold on a minute..."


    Xen got up and walked away, then I heard the tap in the bathroom going, and the next thing I knew, Xen was pressing a cold cloth to my forehead. The moisture was delicious after the constant dryness of the station air. I opened my eyes and smiled up at Xen. Xen smiled back.


    "Again, apologies for using your bed for the double."


    I glanced behind me. The eerie marionette version of Xen lay there on my bed, askew after my unfortunate encounter with it. "I don''t know how I didn''t see it before I lay on it. These damn mods aren''t worth the pain."


    Xen got up from crouching in front of me, and held out both hands to help me up. "Come on, your food''s been waiting. I hope it''s not too stale now."


    Out on the desk, another bag of cafe leftovers awaited me. I descended on them with a ravenous hunger that I hope didn''t disturb Xen too much. After using so many mods to get through that little infiltration of mine, I needed the energy. I tried to answer Xen''s questions without food in my mouth, but it was hard to maintain a balance between feeding and talking. The food was so delicious, but I so very much wanted to answer everything Xen wanted to know.


    "Where were you?"


    "On the case. It''s best you not know the details in case Frod comes asking questions. But let''s just say, I needed to enter a place to get some information, and Frod nearly caught me. If it hadn''t been for this weird long guy all in black, I would have been caught."


    "Oh, Nadir?"


    "Yeah, who is he?"


    "Black Rose''s personal manservant."


    "Well, I''m eternally grateful to the guy. How''s the double coming?"


    "It''s not perfect, unfortunately. I''ve been working on it every spare minute I''ve got, but I''m not sure it''s going to be ready in time. Plus I still have a shift to go to tomorrow."


    "Can I take over any part of the process?"


    "Are you sure? I know you''re busy with the whole Lisia affair..."


    "I think I''m going to have to lie low tomorrow anyway. What with Frod having almost caught me, and I''m probably going to have a stinking headache after using so many mods." I already had said headache, but I didn''t want to bore Xen with that right now. "So yeah, I''ll get on it, just show me what you need me to do."


    "You''re too good to me, Marys. I don''t know what I''ve done to deserve you." Another one of our patented awkward silences extended between us, but I was too busy filling my mouth with some delicious fruit laden pastry thing. "So, you''re modded, huh?"


    "Yeah."


    "But not the high-end stuff."


    "Nope. Which was stupid of me, because it''s all cheap rubbish which takes time to spin up. And they tend to have major drawbacks either when they''re on, or afterwards."


    "I''m sorry to hear. The price for improvement is difficult. I know, I''ve had mods too."


    "Yeah?"


    "Nearly everything you perceive of me is a mod from my original state. All the better to be me, after escaping my previous owner."


    My eyes drank Xen in for a few moments, then I averted them. I didn''t want to think too hard about that past of Xen''s. Everyone knew what gynoids were purchased for most of the time. The things Xen must have gone through... "It''ll be good to be well shot of him after this fake death, hmm?"


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Indeed. And what about you?"


    "Me?"


    "When you find Lisia Astrantia Helianthe, what will happen?"


    I finally paused in my eating, stomach feeling heavy. Not sure if it was the food or the talk. "I want to say I''ll bring her to justice. I want to say I would be professional, and not take revenge for my world. But... honestly, I won''t know until I''m there. She''s responsible for so many deaths, Xen. Both my parents... well, I assume. My father, definitely. So I can''t really answer that until I''m there."


    Xen nodded and smiled that beatific smile. "I appreciate your honesty. If you''re finished, let''s go through and go over what''s left for the double. Oh and... we''d better give me a haircut."


    "Huh? Why?" I was way too upset about that, more than I should reasonably have been.


    "I need to cut my hair exactly in half, and collect the excess to plant on the head of the double when the synthaskin is ready. That way, I have all day tomorrow for people to compliment my new haircut, and then on the day after that, they see a double with the same haircut go down..."


    "Right. Of course. Just show me what to do."


    "No, no, I can handle that part. Come on, let''s get started."


    ---


    I spent all of my third day on the station in my back rooms, working on the double. Joints needed bolting and oiling, a few more barcodes needed scraping, but most importantly, the synthaskin needed rehydrating. I filled multiple buckets with the stuff in the base of my shower cubicle, and let them soak all day. As Xen had asked, I took them out every hour or so for five minutes breathing time, then soaked them again. The skin was beginning to feel real again, beginning to remind me, distractingly, of touching Xen in those few instances we had touched. Certainly, it was distracting me from the headache hanging around in my head all day.


    I knew there was something between us, but neither of us had gone deeper into that yet. Perhaps until the job was done, and Xen was in the clear, it was for the best to keep things polite and friendly. I could live with that.


    When Xen came home that evening, it was with rollerblades on Xen''s feet.


    "What the -?" I asked, my words giving away to a snort of laughter as Xen crashed into my desk.


    Xen huffed and laughed at Xen''s self. "I have spent all day on these ridiculous things, establishing a precedent for... tomorrow."


    "Oh. Right. Of course." I tried to smile to cover the grimness that Xen''s impending ''death'' brought into the room. "And what did everyone think of your new haircut?"


    Xen bounced the high bob in Xen''s hands. It was a lot cuter than I''d thought it would be than when it had just been a hypothetical haircut. I felt stupid for ever thinking Xen might not suit it. Xen would suit any hairstyle. "Lots of compliments." Xen held up today''s parcel. "Take a break and eat. I''ll look over the work and see what we have left to do."


    Five minutes later, Xen walked back into my office to find me with cheeks stuffed full of fried bread. "It''s perfect, Marys. Well, almost perfect."


    "Yeah? What more can we do to make it perfect?"


    "A couple of finishing touches. The stuff I really need your help on, that I absolutely cannot do alone."


    "Oh yeah?"


    "Finish your food first. And then wash your hands. This part is delicate work."


    When I was done, I followed Xen''s instructions, and walked back into the back room to find Xen looking solemn. "So, what is it that''s so sensitive?"


    "We''re going to make a backup copy of my identity chip. This is something I cannot do alone, because I''ll be offline for the duration."


    There was fear in Xen''s projected face as Xen said this, behind the normal pleasant easy expression. Xen''s eyes were just a hair too wide. How real was such an emotion, if one could even call it that?


    No, it was silly of me to think that. Xen didn''t need to manipulate me with vulnerability right now. Xen was really in trouble without me ¨C or with me, even, if tomorrow went sideways ¨C and had every reason to be scared.


    "Talk me through it."


    Xen held up the double''s chip and patted the bed behind Xen. "I''m going to lift the hatch in my neck. You''re going to press the little red button and then my ID chip will slide out. From that point on, I will be completely in your hands. Unresponsive. I need you to take my chip and put the other one in, and wait for the little green light to flash to say it''s done. Then you can pop that one out and replace my real ID chip. Oh, and you shouldn''t put it down anywhere. Hold it carefully between your fingers on the thin side, and try not to drop it or touch the flat sides."


    I took the double''s chip and looked at it, flipping it in my fingers, mostly to avoid looking at Xen and letting Xen see how worried I was. "Why are we copying your ID? Isn''t that dangerous? Couldn''t he take your chip and rebuild you - or like, a copy of you, to torment anew?"


    Xen winced, and shook Xen''s head. "No, you see, it won''t really be me. It will be a factory standard backup that I create. It won''t have what''s actually me. My personality, my lived experience. All of that doesn''t come built into the chip. It''s created over time, with all the neural patterns I''ve worn into it over the years of being me. That part cannot be copied, not even with the best computers available."


    I breathed out, trying to keep calm and cool. This was a huge thing Xen was asking me.  "I did wonder where... you... were. Like, I''ve only met a few synthetics, and I did wonder about how any synthetic being has a unique personality... but it''s all in one of these. This makes you you?"


    "I know it can be hard for organics to understand, but it''s true. After a time we start to develop what you could argue is a soul."


    "Oh, I understand. I mean like, as much as one can understand souls and sentience and all that. Don''t get me wrong, I''ve never doubted your sentience or anything. I was convinced since the moment I met you." I mean come on, if a synthetic can flirt, it''s got to have something behind those projected eyes, right?


    "Thanks." Xen looked down at the chip, then up at me again coyly. "I''ve never trusted anyone with this before. So... are you ready?"


    "As ready as I''ll ever be."


    Xen turned Xen''s back on me, sitting on the edge of my bed. Xen lifted the small hatch in the back of Xen''s neck.


    I hovered my finger over the slim red button. "I''m going to press it."


    "Go ahead."


    I pressed the button and Xen''s chip popped half out of the slit beside the button. Like the chip in my hand, it was blue-green and not even a quarter the size of my palm. I pried it out by the thin sides, holding it in my left hand, while I slotted the fake chip in. A whirring started up behind Xen''s skin, and the light flickered orange as Xen''s processors wrote the backup to the empty chip.


    The chip in my hand was the totality of Xen''s existence now. How bizarre. The body in front of me was only a shell, despite everything Xen had done to make it Xen''s own since winning freedom. After a few minutes of waiting alone, I slipped up and around the front to look in Xen''s face.


    Nothing. No light behind the face, the humanoid oval devoid of features. Xen''s skin was dulled without Xen''s full presence behind it. Without Xen animating the body before me, I realised to my surprise that I wasn''t attracted to the shell of Xen all that much.


    It really was the being inside the chip held gingerly between my fingers that I wanted to know better.


    That''s when I knew how deep in I was.


    Half-laughing, half-sighing to myself, I got back on the bed behind Xen and waited for the light. A few minutes later, the orange light ceased, and the same spot blinked green. I jabbed the button to take out the impostor and put Xen back where Xen belonged.


    Xen rolled Xen''s shoulders and sighed. "Thanks," Xen whispered, looking over a shoulder at me. "Everything went to plan?"


    "Perfectly." I handed over the chip and Xen planted it in the back of the double''s neck.


    "It''s not going to wake up and talk to us now, is it?"


    "It doesn''t have an invigorator. Those are stupid expensive. So instead I''ve put in a burnt-out motivator, which should look convincingly similar in its damaged state. It''ll look like it got melted in the death event. But no, it will never talk, or do anything other than what we make it do."


    "So let me guess. Just the synthaskin next?"


    "Synthaskin, and then a bit of driving practice." Xen tapped the remote control.


    "Driving - oh, right, that part. Of course."


    "But first, the synthaskin."


    Xen complimented my attention to detail when we got to the bathroom and all the strips of synthaskin were hanging up drying out, perfectly plump and real-looking. We spent the next hour smoothing the stuff over the double''s body, using a mixture of water and a special paste to glue the seams together. It was intricate work, and weirdly intimate, to be touching all these soft, silky pieces which were formerly part of Xen. Our hands met a number of times as we did the job. I never got used to it. Every time we touched it was like an electric spark ran through me. Somehow, I do not know how, I managed to get through that time without losing my cool, calm, professional demeanour.


    But I really did need a cold shower after that, so while Xen did driving practice in the office, I did just that.


    If I was worried about struggling to sleep after all that skin contact, I needn''t have worried. Instead, I struggled to sleep for another reason entirely.


    Xen stood over me, to the left of my bed, charging up on a footpad plugged into the wall. Xen''s face was off again, but with a gentle glow behind the featureless oval. This time, I knew Xen was in there. It might not look like sleep as I knew it, but that''s what I was looking at.


    Xen¡¯s presence wasn¡¯t what haunted me, but rather the question: What if we failed? What if Xen was forced to go back to that life Xen had escaped? And to go through all of what Xen must have gone through early in Xen''s life, all over again... but this time after knowing freedom...


    I wanted to cry just thinking about it, but I didn''t want to burden Xen with comforting me.


    After all, in less than twelve hours, Xen was going to die.

 CHAPTER SIX

    I walked with Xen to work that morning, arm in arm.


    Silly, overprotective perhaps, but I was worried about all the things that could potentially go wrong today. My fingers itched to reach behind my ear, where the switches for most of my mods lived. But there was no point starting any of them up just yet.


    Xen, however, was perfectly chipper. Maybe it was a front. I didn''t know Xen well enough yet to know if Xen had any tells.


    We walked into the Atrium to find a whole crowd of people facing the windows, just like the day I got here. Without noticing, I drifted towards it. It wasn''t until Xen patted my arm and said, "Go on, go have a look," that I realised I''d been pulling in that direction.


    "I can walk you to the cafe first, if you want?"


    "No, no, probably best if we''re not seen together too much before... you know."


    "Right. Well, best of luck. See you back at mine for the change-over."


    Xen nodded firmly, then smiled brightly. You''d almost think Xen was on the way to do something lovely, rather than to fake Xen''s own death.


    I stayed watching Xen walk away for far too long, until Xen disappeared behind the cafe counter. Clenching and unclenching my hands at my sides, I took a stroll over to where all the gawkers were staring at the little singularity. I had to sidle my way through several layers of people until I could see it. Sometimes being small had its advantages.


    The cloudy fluffball had grown to twice the size of when I''d last seen it. It was definitely drawing on the green gases of the Bramble now, pulling them in like three kite strings caught in a slow-motion rotor. The reason why the crowd had gathered in particular right this moment was that an old star, a red giant, was being stretched like so much mozzarella cheese into the centre of the dark fuzzy haze, sending off huge flares and plumes of light, as if it were a ship sending out a distress signal.


    It was quite terrifyingly beautiful, though I hadn''t the heart to appreciate it fully at this time.


    Whereas the previous time I''d been part of the spectators the mood had been curious, this time the agitation was palpable. I overheard more than one couple talking about the possibility of moving off the station, at least until the uncertainty of this celestial anomaly was over.


    I left the crowd and paced around the Atrium waiting for the action to begin. No point in going back to my rooms for now, and no way I could focus on chasing any more leads around Lisia right now. The wall I''d hit on that was irritating, but it was an irritation I could ignore while Xen was in trouble. After today though, once Xen''s owner had gone home, I''d be able to focus again.


    Hopefully it wouldn''t involve calling Astera for more information. Anything but that.


    Hands in the pockets of my coat, I descended to the bottom tier of the Atrium and waited for the ship to arrive. An hour after Xen''s shift started, I finally saw it. The Cyrano grew from a small grey dot to a large, blocky passenger ship. The Thorn¡¯s docking clamps extended, flexible arms which reminded me of petals more than anything else. They hugged onto the ship''s nose. Within ten minutes, passengers were disembarking.


    There was my mark. Teg Korr, a large Terran with a brutish face, features hard and lined like I was looking at a statue of a man rather than the man himself. He was more disturbing in person than the picture I''d seen, especially because of his greyish pallor. His nose looked as if it had been broken a couple of times over his life. He wore a blue three-piece suit, but he was out of place in it, like someone had dressed up a gorilla.


    Okay, I¡¯ll admit: my assessment of him might have been coloured by what I already knew of him.


    I fell into step behind him as he headed toward the Atrium directory. A cursory search gave him directions to the Vindemia Cafe. I got into the elevator behind him, pressed the button for the floor I needed, and made myself small in the back of the cab. His shoulders were so broad, and he was so tall, he was basically my volume cubed. I was more grateful than ever that our plan involved no contact at all, because I knew I would come out of any such contact the poorer.


    The elevator arrived at the floor of my office, two floors below the cafe. The doors slid open, and I slipped past Korr, holding my breath for fear. I wanted to stay, to keep tailing him, to be right there when the action went down. But I wasn''t allowed. I had to be in the right place at the right time. Xen would be doing the next part alone. I knew Xen could do it, but damn, I wished I could be there.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    As soon as I heard the elevator behind me rising away, I ran to the point where I could see the cafe through the see-through panes of the railings. At first, I could only see the tables and the heads of the nearest customers to the edge. The elevator made it to the level, Korr exited the cab, and for a moment I panicked, thinking I wouldn''t be able to see Xen seeing him. But there Xen was, rolling towards some customers with a tray.


    It was all as we rehearsed. Xen saw Korr. Korr saw Xen. Xen held still for one torturously long moment. Then Xen dropped the tray on the ground and rolled in the opposite direction before the tray had even stopped clattering.


    Korr gave chase.


    He was fast. Really fast. Was he modded?


    All the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Was he modded? This was not part of the plan. I flicked on my speed mod and ran back to my office. Within, standing a metre from the door, was the double with the blank face, wearing the same white dress, the same blue- and white-chequered apron, the same hair and rollerblades. All I needed was for the real Xen to come through that door and swap places.


    But would Xen make it?


    I couldn''t wait inside, not knowing. I hung in the open door, looking to the left, to the staircase within the corridors, where Xen had planned to arrive on this floor. Waiting with no knowledge of what I couldn''t see was unbearable. I switched my audio-visual mods on, and then I could hear them: wheels scraping the floor, feet pounding inhumanly fast and heavy and far, far too close.


    The sound of wheels stopped. I wanted to scream - had Xen been caught? - but no, the sound of a heavy landing and wheels scraping painfully on the landing above this one carried through the stairwell. It happened again, as Xen took the next set of stairs in the same airborne fashion, as practised - but so too came the pounding of Korr''s footsteps, far faster than what we''d timed for.


    Xen appeared on my floor at last, slamming into the wall opposite the stairs, then pivoting in my direction. Shredded synthaskin was dangling off Xen''s forearms - this wasn''t part of the plan. As Xen got closer, with my mods, I caught the panic in Xen''s eyes.


    Teg Korr landed in the corridor behind her, and swivelled to his right, coming barreling towards her.


    Too fast. He was going to catch us during the change-over.


    My hand hovered by my weapon mod button, when a black streak came out of nowhere and slammed into Korr.


    Xen zipped past me and clung to the doorway. "Nadir," Xen breathed, then pushed past me then took the double''s remote control out of Xen''s apron pocket. The decoy drove straight out into the corridor.


    The double pushed me forward as it passed and rolled to the right, but my eyes were trained on the spectacle to my left. Nadir was pulling Teg Korr to his feet, but doing it in such an incompetent way that they both kept falling over one another.


    "I''m so terribly sorry - let me help you - oh!" the impossible skinny creature mumbled as he fumbled with the Terran. Was he intentionally helping us? How would he know to do that without knowing what we''d been planning?


    It couldn''t last. Korr threw Nadir off and got to his feet. He turned toward me, murder in his eyes.


    No, not me. He was looking at the decoy Xen vanishing down the corridor behind me.


    I threw myself to the right as he charged past me. Out of its proximity, my officer door slid closed, barring the real Xen from his sight. Once he had passed me, I came out of the opposite doorway and ran after him.


    The plan was that I was supposed to go back inside. But I needed to see how this ended. I needed to know it worked.


    I reached the Atrium balcony just in time to see the moment of truth. With Korr less than a metre behind it, the decoy Xen ''lost control'' as had been meticulously choreographed by Xen the night before. Its waist slammed into the railing over the multi-storey gap, and its head and torso, with the bulk of the equipment that went into making a gynoid of Xen''s model, toppled irresistibly over the edge.


    Korr reached a large fist out and grabbed it -


    No. Just an apron string. It came away in his hand, leaving him with only the blue- and white-chequered apron.


    The crunch of the double landing screeched through my mod. I turned it off, gritting my teeth as the after-effects set in, but at least it was off before the screaming started. I sped to the left, putting a few shocked bystanders in between myself and Korr before I turned off my speed mod too. With an aching head and bones, I looked over the railing.


    Far below, a shattered body lay at the bottom of the Atrium. Without my mods, I could not make out any of the individuals in the crowd, but they came to form a large circle around the tragic scene. And I could see clearly too that many of them had upturned faces, and were pointing at the figure they blamed for this death: Teg Korr, looking very guilty with the apron still in his hand.


    As for him, he was frozen, expressionless. I thought perhaps I saw a shake of anger in his fist, in the tightness of his jaw, but I wasn''t close enough to see him properly through the post-flash artefacts in my vision. All I knew for sure was that as he walked away, it was to hurry to the elevator, completely ignoring the corridor we''d come in from.


    Xen was safe now.


    I sighed, but held back on laughing with relief. My knees wanted to collapse, so I clung to the railings as they tried to take me down.


    "Are you faint?" asked an old Ferolian woman beside me, reaching out both pincers to steady me.


    "Oh, thank you... thank you, I''ll be fine." I smiled a wan smile at her, and tried to pull myself up.


    As my eyes rose upwards to the pinnacle of the Thorn, I saw her.


    Black Rose looked down on the proceedings. She raised a glass, as if to toast Xen, then left her balcony and went back into her penthouse.

 CHAPTER SEVEN

    "Amaryllis Aracea Sophora, this is Station Security!"


    In a flurry of sheets, I prepared myself for a rude entrance. When Constable Frod came barging into my back room, I had the sheet up to my neck. I tried to give a look of confidence and defiance, but not to the point where it might be mistaken for bedroom eyes.


    "Can I help you, Constable?"


    "You''re to come into the station for questioning."


    "May I ask, about what exactly?"


    "About the murder of Xen, resident of apartment 7261 and employee of the Vindemia Cafe, at ten hundred seven hours yesterday morning."


    "Murder? Xen fell. What do you mean, murder?"


    "Come to the station, and find out."


    He stood there, a couple of thugs behind him. I waved a hand at him. "If you don''t mind, I''ll get dressed first."


    Hissing through gritted teeth, he said, "Hurry it up then. You have a minute before I drag you out of here, dressed or not."


    As soon as he was gone, I was on my feet, picking up yesterday''s clothes where they''d fallen and pulling them on with a much humbler haste than my false bravado of moments ago. I''d just managed to put on my coat when Frod came bursting back in and grabbed me by the elbow.


    "All right, you, off we go."


    As he pulled me out into my office, I glanced back over my shoulder.


    Ah ha. Two glowing eyes peered out of the room¡¯s dusty ventilation shaft. There you are. Safe and sound.


    ---


    "So, tell me, Marys, would you say you knew Xen well?"


    It was hard to keep the smirk off my face. "We only met a couple of days ago. But we became fast friends."


    "Fast enough that you each shared access to your quarters within just a few hours of meeting each other?"


    The smirk couldn''t leave my face fast enough. "You... how do you know..."


    He leaned back, his hands meeting over his large stomach. "The wristbands are issued by the station''s leasing agency. Stat Sec has full access to their database. Come on, Marys. You were uniform, back on Gerondia. Surely you must be more clever than this?"


    I shrugged. "To be honest, the Keepers had very little access to other organisations'' data. Not without a warrant anyway."


    "Oh, so now we''re being honest, are we?" I pursed my lips. He continued. "Why did you and Xen share access to your rooms so readily?"


    I could tell him. Maybe he''d understand. Maybe he''d be annoyed by his lack of jurisdiction when it came to people kidnapping station residents, and so sympathise with Xen''s efforts to take things well in hand. But until I knew that Teg Korr was off the station and believed 100% in Xen''s death, I wasn''t going to breathe a word to anyone.


    "Xen knew he was coming. Teg Korr, I mean. I offered my place as a hideout. Xen gave me access to Xen''s apartment so I could help move Xen''s stuff."


    "Right, and why you, and not any of the friends Xen has known for many more years?"


    A fair question, but I could get a little closer to the truth here. "Xen saw me writing up an advertisement for the cafe notice board, offering my services as a private eye. Xen thought I might have the skills needed. And if you have access to the banking systems on the station, you will see that Xen transferred payment to me on the day I arrived as part of this arrangement."


    Frod considered me through narrowed eyes, then leaned forward on the interview room table. "So, talk me through the events as you saw them play out yesterday morning."


    I had to account for all the moments when members of the public might have seen me, especially in Xen¡¯s company. But apart from that, he didn''t need to know. "I walked Xen to work. No, almost all the way to work, but then I was distracted by the singularity, and Xen said that was fine, I should go look at it. I spent some time window shopping in the Atrium, then went back up to my office. I heard a commotion after a while, so I came out to the Atrium again and saw... well, you know what I saw."


    It was hard to pretend to be upset, when I knew the truth, after all. After the Ferolian lady had helped me to my feet, I''d staggered back towards my office under the influence of my mod aftereffects. I entered my office, and went through to the back rooms only to be jumped by Xen, who threw both arms around me in a celebratory hug-dance thing.


    "Marys, did we do it? Did he buy it?"


    "I''m pretty sure he did," I smiled at Xen through the migraine. "Congrats. You''re home free." I gripped Xen''s arms, but my joy was shortened by the feel of Xen''s ruined synthaskin. "What happened here?"


    "He managed to grab me, but I got free. Can you believe he¡¯d had a speed mod installed?"


    "I thought that was it! I was so scared for you."


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Xen laughed, then wept tearlessly, head collapsing into my shoulder. I held Xen until the sobs subsided. What in the galaxy had possessed Xen to install emotions? Still I shouldn''t complain. Sobbing with relief was a perfectly reasonable response.


    I stroked Xen¡¯s shortened hair. "It''s all right. It''s going to be all right. Just take your time. Stay here as long as you need. We can monitor the Korr situation. You don''t have to leave these rooms until he''s gone."


    "Have you left anything out of your account, Marys?" Frod asked, dragging me back to the interview and away from the pleasant avenue of memory.


    "Uh¡­ yeah, nah, I think that was it."


    "So, how do you explain this, then?"


    He turned to a screen in the wall, and pressed a button on a remote.


    A recording of a corridor on the station played. There was a long expanse of nothing happening for the first few seconds, and then Xen came exploding into view, slamming the walls as Xen rolled for -


    - my door. Shoot. There I was, a hazy little figure in the distance. It was unmistakeably me. Xen pushed past me, and we both vanished into the office. Then there was a speck of movement there again, then bam, out came decoy Xen in a flash, pushing me into the corridor as it went. My miniature image just stood there, watching, until Teg Korr barreled into view and I chased after him.


    Frod switched the screen off, then twiddled his thumbs as he gazed at me, a grin on his face. "What was that, eh? A little more than just ''hearing a commotion'', wouldn''t you agree, Marys?"


    I nodded. "Looks that way, yes."


    He opened his hands, inviting my elaboration. "So what happened? What did you say or do to Xen that made Xen roll right back out into danger?"


    "Xen did come crashing into my office, yes. But then... I don''t know what was going through Xen''s head. Maybe Xen thought it was too late. That Korr might have seen Xen enter my room, and that Xen might be putting me in danger. Or..." I sighed, and this answer felt at least a little genuine, "maybe Xen decided I wasn''t enough to protect Xen from him, so Xen took Xen''s chances."


    "So that''s why you left that part out, hmm? Because your protector ego is bruised?" His tone was mocking. I glared up at him, but really, this was fine. Maybe he was buying it. "And then what did you do next? You see Xen fall and die. You look over the balcony - people saw that happen, you were a fair enough distance away from Xen when Xen fell, and away from Teg Korr. But then not five minutes later I have you as you coming back to your office, and apparently staying there the rest of the day, and all night. Why is that? All alone, for all that time, after seeing a friend die?" I knew I couldn''t lie about calling a friend to mourn. He''d have the records, so he wouldn''t buy that one. Still, I had no excuse. "Go on, Marys. What happened next?"


    What happened next had happened quite by accident. As I''d used the synthaskin glue and massaged Xen''s skin back into place on Xen''s forearms, a heat had built between us. Xen''s breathing had changed, stifled, as if Xen were holding something back. "Are you all right?" I hazarded. "Is this painful?"


    "No. Quite the opposite."


    I kept my eyes on the job as I puzzled that one out. "Do you even feel pain, or... the opposite?"


    "I installed mods when I was free so that I would. I wanted to feel everything for myself."


    "Physical, and emotional?"


    "Yeah. Everything."


    As the glue dried, the seams of where I''d joined the shreds of skin together became harder to see. I put my hands in the bucket of water to the side, then slicked Xen''s forearms and hands down with the moisture. The light within grew into a steady translucence, then to my surprise, Xen''s skin puckered with goosepimples. "... skin come back online then, I assume?"


    "Yeah," Xen whispered.


    I raised my eyes to Xen''s, and got lost in them. I¡¯d removed my coat before I started working on Xen¡¯s arms. Xen''s fingers took their turn travelling up my forearms, to my bare upper arms. Gerondian skin doesn''t goosepimple, but what does happen is a blooming, an unfolding.


    Xen brushed Xen''s fingers across my unfurled corollae. Unlike how Xen was capable of restrained breathing, such restraint was impossible for me. A shameless moan escaped my lips, and when I could open my eyes again, Xen was closing in for my lips.


    I guess we had both been holding back until the event had passed.


    "Amaryllis... Sophora... Marys!"


    "Hmm?" My attention snapped back to the present, to Frod''s beady-eyed face, as he slapped his meaty grey-brown hands on his desk.


    "I asked, what did you do for the rest of the time?"


    "Got drunk," I answered. It wasn''t a lie, not in a metaphorical sense anyway. "Slept it off." Again, half true.


    Frod sneered at me, and picked up a digipad. He reviewed whatever information he had on it, then placed it down. "Well, Sophora, you may be interested to know a few things. Depending on how invested you are or were in the life of the well-loved cafe staff member Xen."


    He shoved the digipad over to me. On it was a photo of the bottom of the Atrium. Where decoy Xen had smashed to pieces, there was a temporary shrine set up of flowers, crystals, money, food offerings, all different tokens of mourning from many different worlds, all laid out around a portrait of Xen in the blue-and-white apron, beaming at the camera.


    "First, if you''d bothered to come mourn in company, you would have seen just how beloved your new friend was to everyone here." The tone he was using with me made me feel like he was blaming me for Xen''s death. Like I''d pushed Xen back out into the corridor on purpose or something. Maybe that was what he thought of me. "Second, Teg Korr has lawyered up. He claims there was something suspicious about the whole scene yesterday, and he intends to follow his intuition. He might even pay you a visit and ask you to investigate, Detective."


    There was no hiding my revulsion. "You''d do good to have him sent off to a penal institution."


    "I suppose I would, once I have the proper evidence against him. And third, I thought you ought to watch out."


    "What for?"


    "Your own personal safety, and that of your property. You see, Xen''s wristband was never recovered from the scene. Presumably, it must have flown off in the impact, and landed somewhere where either it was lost beyond the ken of my forensics team, or, quite unfortunately, someone picked it up and is walking around with it right now. So watch out. You might want to revoke permission from it just in case. Now... that''s all I had to ask. You''re free to go, for now, but stick around the station just in case I need to see you again."


    "Thanks, Constable. I just know you''ll get to the bottom of this."


    "Pun intended?"


    He stared at my face. I carefully took myself through the reactions, from confusion, to realisation, to shock. "Constable... Xen was my friend."


    "Sorry. What''s a little gallows humour between two cops, hmm?"


    He kept his eye on me until I was out the door.


    It was worse than what he¡¯d said. I might have to tell Xen to not use the wristband at all. If stat sec could trace the wristbands, then they''d easily notice it still being used. They''d figure out Xen was alive and hiding in my back rooms.


    If Teg Korr was hanging around longer, and Xen couldn''t use the wristband, then for all intents and purposes, Xen was a prisoner, just as much as if Xen had been taken by Xen¡¯s former owner once again.

 CHAPTER EIGHT

    When I came home, my heart was in my throat. Xen wouldn''t have left, right? If Xen''s wristband pinged off of the office door even once, Frod would know something was up.


    But there Xen was, gently sponging the dust and grime off the root-stem weaving in my office.


    I slammed the button to shut the door and hurried Xen away from view. "Xen, we have to be careful."


    "I am, I just -"


    "Your wristband. Where is it?"


    "I shut it away in one of my old storage boxes as soon as I got here yesterday. Don''t you remember, I wasn''t wearing it when you fixed my arms?"


    I nodded, distracted as I tried to think if there was anything I hadn''t considered - and then distracted again at the memory of fixing Xen''s arms and what had followed. "Right. No. Good. That''s what we want. The forensics team made a note that they never found your wristband - and Frod''s been in the database, he knows that we shared access codes with each other."


    Xen''s sweetly curious face finally darkened with comprehension. "So they''re suspicious of you. Which is why you were so rudely summoned this morning. Marys, I''m so sorry -"


    "I don''t care about me, Xen. Stat sec were never going to be my friends. No, there''s more I have to tell you. It''s Korr. His gut tells him something was weird about the... event. Apparently he''s staying here to investigate further. And it seems like he''s got free reign, because stat sec don''t feel they have the evidence to convict him for your murder. Instead, what they do have is video evidence of you coming in here during the chase, and me and the decoy both coming out into the corridor."


    Xen¡¯s eyes flew wide open. "What about Nadir? How you said he seemed to be helping us?"


    "The camera didn''t catch him, and I left him out of the telling. If the guy really is trying to help us, I don''t want to dob him in."


    Xen pursed Xen''s lips, then rested Xen''s forehead on the weaving panel. "OK, so... they''re going to be keeping an eye on you... and I can''t go anywhere until Korr is off the station and believes I''m dead... damn it. I''m so sorry, Marys."


    "Sorry? What are you going on about? There''s nothing to apologise for."


    "I''m going to have to inconvenience you further by staying in your back rooms until I''m allowed to leave."


    "Inconve-... Xen, you are not an inconvenience!" I gave Xen a light punch on the upper arm, which drew a smile out of Xen. "I said you could stay here, and I mean it. I don''t want to hear any more of this ''inconvenience'' talk from now on, you hear?"


    "Thanks, Marys. You don''t know how grateful I am."


    "I mean, I have some idea."


    I had to be blushing. Xen, however, didn''t. I suppose that''s because blushing isn''t part of the mods Xen had installed, although I didn''t know that for sure, and it was probably weird to ask, so I didn''t. With eyes averted though, Xen did seem to be coy about the topic I was alluding to.


    I felt I was on shaky ground all of a sudden. It was hard to read whether Xen was feeling shy or perhaps even embarrassed or ashamed of what we''d done last night.


    And now that I thought about it, maybe I was the one who should be ashamed. After all, Xen was at my mercy. No access to the rest of the station, staying here on my pleasure, on pain of death or capture... Xen was my client, damn it, and in the heat of the moment last night, I''d forgotten that. It was quite possible that what I''d done counted as taking advantage.


    Dang it. I had to get Xen out of here as soon as possible. Only once Xen was truly free and independent could I know for sure what Xen''s true feelings about me were. Not here, in what was sure to become a state of cabin fever very shortly.


    "I was thinking, I''d better go out today and do some more investigating regarding my personal case. Not just because I really ought to for its own sake, but because if I''m seen around the station acting normal, it hopefully won''t draw too much attention here. If anyone at all comes, especially if it''s the law again, that hiding place you used this morning was very effective. But just watch out for the glow of your faceplate."


    Xen nodded very seriously, holding both hands in front of Xen''s face and looking mortified. "Of course. Right."


    "Can I get you anything while I''m gone?"


    "I need for nothing. Although, is there a sort of polish or finish I should be cleaning this panel with?" Xen pointed at the root-stem panel, and finally, in its clean-ish slate, I twigged.


    "Ha. Araucaria."


    "Pardon?"


    "It''s a panel from Araucaria. Um, right, that means nothing to you. On Gerondia, each bed has its own patterns, unique to the people who come from there."


    "Bed?"


    "Like flowerbed. We all come from a Seed, which is the starship in which our ancestors landed on Gerondia. Then Bed is where our ancestors settled, grew and thrived. Root is grandmother, mother Stem, and then petal for what Terrans would call girls, and sepal for boys." I ran my fingers over the familiar zig-zag pattern. The flaxen strands were dyed purple and pink. "I recognise Araucaria in particular, because of two reasons. First, even though my bed''s Ligustrum, my grandmother was gifted an Araucaria panel by someone long ago. She kept it in her bedroom, in pristine condition. Oh, and she just washed it with water, as you are doing. No need for a special polish."


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    "Oh, good to know. And what was the second reason?"


    "Hmm?"


    "The second reason you recognise panels from Araucaria?"


    "Ah. Right." My smile faded as my jaw set. "My fixation. Lisia Astrantia Helianthe''s Bed is Araucaria. So I have learnt a lot about the place in my efforts to track her down. Speaking of which." I grinned, and moved to the door. "Take care now."


    ---


    A new lead had occurred to me since I''d last had a chance to look for Lisia.


    Suppose she''d stayed on the Thorn for a bit. The station has no extradition treaties, so stat sec wouldn''t be able to do anything about her unless she broke the law. And what she was known to almost certainly have in her possession was a wealth of galactic credit, syphoned off into personal accounts spread across the galaxy before she''d been run off my planet.


    So what''s a girl to do, fresh off of tyrannising her planet and fleeing all responsibility?


    Any number of things, on a place like the Thorn. Hit the casinos and fritter it all away? Start a business empire? Find her next mode of travel and keep moving? Hire a bunch of thugs for protection?


    One thing was certain to me. If I could find anyone who was around here twenty-five years ago, I stood a decent chance to learn what had happened next in the sordid history of Lisia Astrantia Helianthe. Someone throwing around the amount of cash she had going was sure to make quite the impression, even here in this hub of trade. Especially here, perhaps.


    For the moment, one main destination occurred to me: the station''s library. Now, every planet in the galaxy has different standards of what construes a library. Is it simply a place to exchange a few books, or is it a one-stop shop for a whole host of knowledge and services? I was hoping the Thorn''s library would land a little more on the heavyweight side of things.


    I was not disappointed. In one of the floors under the main Atrium, the library squatted, taking up an entire floor to itself. The main chamber in the centre, around the central pillar with the elevators, was a huge cavern of a place with shelf after shelf lining the walls, and whole rows of shelves like spokes around the hub of a wheel. I could see, beyond those, there were certain special facilities on mezzanine floors. I checked with the directory, then headed in the direction of the mezzanine devoted to historical research about the station itself.


    A librarian was an aged member of a four-armed species I''d not encountered before. Their smile was kindly, and I returned it, but tried to give off the vibe of knowing what I was doing as I went amongst the filing cabinets to investigate for myself. I did note, with a small bit of personal interest, that the librarian''s desk was full of files to do with singularities and other celestial objects around the Thorn itself. Presumably, they''d gotten into the hype around the little cotton ball cannibal devouring gases and stars not too far from our location.


    They gave me about ten minutes of flailing around on my own before they came to find me. I''d even turned on my audio-visual mod to help me search faster, but I''d kept the settings low this time, so the constant hushed voices and riffling of paper and beep of consoles didn''t drive me crazy.


    I heard the librarian coming before I saw them. They stopped a polite distance from me.


    "Hello. Anything I can help with?"


    I gave up trying to tough out the search by myself. "Uh, yeah. I was wondering about any significant events about twenty-five years ago, here on the Thorn."


    "Looking for anything in particular?"


    "I''m not sure..."


    "Only, I was here around that time."


    "Oh!" I beamed what I hoped was a winning smile, and asked, "Well, I''ll be a little more specific then, because maybe your memory could help me. Was there a Gerondian woman, like myself, who came to the station and perhaps made a bit of a splash? She could have gone by the name Viola Meria Disanthus, or Lisia Astrantia Helianthe... or perhaps neither of those, she may have adopted a new alias by then. Oh, and her hair would have been bright orange at the time."


    They smiled indulgently. "Neither name rings a bell, but there was a Gerondian woman, yes, with orange hair, as you say. As I recall, she opened a Gerondian goods import business on the third floor of the Atrium. Not particularly good real estate, and the shop didn''t last too long, if memory serves. After that though, I don''t remember what happened to her. Hmm... come, come. Over here, I think we''ll find..." They opened a cabinet and rustled through old memory chips. "Ah, maybe this one..."


    The librarian picked one chip out of many others and guided me over to a console at the end of the row of cabinets. They plugged it in and the screen booted up to a directory. "Let''s see... what was the shop called? First Bloom? Fresh... Fruit.... ah, there it is. First Fruit of the Season - a real mouthful, that one. And let''s see... Proprietor, one M. A. Excelsa."


    The name jarred me. It wasn''t an uncommon one in Ligustrum, but it was the closeness to home which surprised me. My great-grandmother was named Excelsa. The idea that Lisia had potentially used it as an alias alarmed me. Even if it cost us nothing, how dare she borrow it from my family.


    "Thanks. Is that all, or can we find out more about M. A. Excelsa?"


    The librarian held up a finger, while their other three hands tapped away at the console, searching through indices. Then they sighed. "I''m afraid this is the extent of my records. Whoever this M. A. Excelsa was, they were either very unremarkable, or kept a low profile on purpose. I know no more, sorry. Ah, but you know who might? Constable Frod."


    "Frod? He was here twenty-five years ago?"


    "Oh yes, dear. And if you''re in his good books, perhaps he might let you look up more private information on M. A. Excelsa''s business information form."


    Of course! He''d had me fill out an extensive form when I''d got here. Lisia - Excelsa, whoever - would have had to do the same.


    Pity I was not on his good side...


    "Thank you so much. You have no idea what a huge help this has been." Seriously, they had no idea. The things I''d gone through on Gerondia to hunt down Lisia... the bridges I''d burned... it wasn''t worth dwelling on, not with everything feeling fresh and new and complicated in its own way up here in the Thorn. To have a simple interaction with a knowledgeable person, free of agendas and manipulations; it was clarifying, like the first spring rain. "Have a great day."


    "You too, dear."


    In all my enthusiasm to tell Xen the sort-of-good news - that Frod might have the information I needed, if only I had a way of getting to it - and to ask Xen''s opinion of how to proceed, I clean forgot I had my mods on low. The Atrium seemed a little noisier than usual, but it wasn''t enough to remind me to switch my mod off. I hurried for the corridor to get away from the wall of sound.


    I was so distracted by it that I neither saw nor heard a warning of the blow coming for the back of my head.

 CHAPTER NINE

    All I could see was stars. That''s what people say, right, about head trauma?


    Except in my case, it was a supernova explosion as my mod was still on. I fell to my knees, gripping my head, unable to move even though every nerve in my body was screaming for me to move. This could be anything, anyone. I had no idea. I could be about to be mugged, or worse.


    Instead, I heard a gravelly voice grumble, "Pathetic." The syllables ground into my modded ears like falling boulders. I was hauled to my feet, but I still couldn''t actually find them, so I hung there like a coat on a coat hanger as the face in front of me eventually resolved into high res, grainy-pored visibility.


    Teg Korr.


    "You were following me yesterday. Why?"


    I opened my mouth to speak, and instead, blood came spluttering out of my mouth and onto his fine blue suit.


    He recoiled from me at first, with an odd high shriek. Echoing endlessly through the sore chamber of my skull, I heard laughter. Cronies. He had cronies. And they were laughing at him.


    So of course, he had to do something violent to counteract how embarrassing his little shriek had been.


    The next thing I knew, I was on the ground again, head ringing from his slap. My skin felt torn; he''d been wearing a ring of some sort which had cut me on the cheek.


    All I managed to do was cough up some more blood.


    "What did you hit her with?" Korr growled at one of his companions. "I said I wanted to talk to her, not kill her, you idiot."


    "It was just my normal kosh, skipper! I''ve never seen someone go down this hard before." Well, at least they hadn''t drawn what I would have considered the obvious conclusion. The way I''d gone down, the coughing up blood: they''d only been able to take me out so dramatically because I''d had my perception mod switched on at the time. The fewer people who knew about those, the better.


    "Come on, pick her up and get her inside. I don''t need stat sec on my case before I''ve had a chance to chat with our little friend here."


    No no no no no -


    "Gentlemen?" The voice was like a glacial wind coming down a mountain, chilling and familiar. I''d never heard something so beautiful.


    "You again?" Korr growled.


    "Unhand that young woman, or I shall be forced to take action."


    "I''ve been wanting to find you again, you slippery bastard -"


    The sound of something hard hitting something meaty slapped wetly in my head, only to be lost as I coughed again. I rolled over with a groan, and managed to get my fingers up behind my ear to turn the mod off. My mouth tasted of copper and regret. All I could do for the moment was lie there and gather my breath, taking account of my teeth. All still there. None knocked out or loose. Small mercies.


    The meaty sounds changed to footsteps pounding away, each stomp banging into my headachey skull like I was being hit by the kosh again. Then I felt, more than heard, lighter footsteps coming my way. Someone - Nadir - knelt by me. I only knew it was him because I''d heard his voice, innocuous, unassuming, two times before this. I couldn''t open my eyes to see him, but I knew.


    "Get up, Amaryllis. If you can make it fifty metres in the direction you''re currently facing, your door will be to the left. Xen can help you. Closer than the free hospital. And I know you''d prefer your privacy."


    "H-?" I tried to speak, but already I felt the pressure changing on the floor, and Nadir''s presence was gone.


    I crawled in the direction he''d indicated, struggling to piece together the new information I''d just gleaned through the mince-grinder of a migraine developing in my head.


    Nadir knew who I was. Well, no. He knew my whole first name, so he either didn''t know my nickname, or didn''t feel comfortable using it. Black Rose''s personal manservant knew me, and she was at least aware of my existence too.


    He was helping me. This was the third time his presence in my vicinity had been to my benefit. Was this help coming from Black Rose, or him? Was there any real distinction between the two? After all, she''d sent me a personal note, and money. I''d wondered if she did that for everyone, or only a few.


    Or maybe just me.


    I should have asked around about this, but I didn''t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I would have to come up with a clever way of getting the info I needed without just bragging around the station about receiving special treatment from Black Rose.


    Nadir also knew that I was the private type, that I''d prefer to lick my wounds alone. How did he know that? Maybe old friends and colleagues on Gerondia told him. It wouldn''t be too hard to learn about me. But why?


    And he knew Xen was still alive.


    Had that been why Black Rose had toasted Xen''s death? Did she know we''d faked it? She had to know, if Nadir knew.


    I would have to find out more about my mysterious benefactors. But if they were this good at knowing everything about me, I''d have to be subtle, not just go blundering around searching on public archives.


    I paused when I found the wall. A moment to catch my breath, then I clawed my way along the wall, unsure how many more of those fifty metres I still had to clear.


    So, Teg Korr hadn''t just lawyered up. He''d buddied up too, gotten himself some goons. And he knew I was involved. This was bad.


    Maybe I could get Xen off the station somehow, until he was gone? I didn''t have any contacts yet who could forge the necessary documents, but those sorts of people always existed, no matter where in the galaxy you were. There were ways to get such information.


    And hey, if I needed to break into Frod''s computer anyway to look up M.A. Excelsa, that would be the perfect place to identify some of the forgers around the station. The known ones, anyway. But they might be able to point me in the direction of ones who hadn''t been caught yet.


    "Sophora!" came a voice I was less keen on hearing.


    As Frod pulled me from the wall to get a look at me, I managed to mumble, "I''ve told you, Constable, the name''s Marys." I could only see his silhouette, and even then, it was wavering in the blinding lights of the ceiling.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "What happened?"


    "Teg Korr happened. I want to press charges. Your cameras should have caught the attack, I imagine."


    He lifted me to my feet and threaded his arm under my armpits. "Come on, let''s get you to the free hospital."


    "No, not there," I muttered. I knew all about those places. Run by do-gooder Terrans. "You and I both know that while they don''t charge you money, the Terrans never give anything away for free."


    I wish I had been able to see properly at that moment, instead of everything being shrouded with auras, because I''m pretty sure I managed to get Frod to smile. "Hmph, you''re right there."


    "You must have some first aid at stat sec."


    "That we do. Come on."


    We shambled along lopsidedly. It was all I could do to just keep my feet moving. I left the Constable in charge of speed and direction. The ever-crowded Atrium opened before my ears, with its constant murmur of hundreds of voices at once. Then we passed through a large sliding door, into the quiet hum of the stat sec waiting room, then through the paper-shuffling of the cubicles. From direction only, I understood that he was taking me straight to his office.


    "Here, sit. I''ll fetch the first aid kit."


    I sunk into the vinyl of the chair and took a few deep breaths. All right, Marys, now''s your chance. I wouldn''t have to break into Frod''s office at all. I was right here, and if I played my cards right, I could get the information I needed before I even left the room.


    Frod returned, and handed me the handle of a dispenser. "There, painkillers to start you off. You look a mess, Sophora."


    I sprayed the medication into my mouth, and blindly held the dispenser out for him to take. He replaced it with a wet cloth, which I buried my face in for a good half a minute before I surfaced. My head cleared by degrees, afterimages diminishing. When they faded to blackness, I opened my eyes.


    I could see again.


    "Mirror''s over there, if you want to treat your cuts." He pointed over at one wall, where a small mirror hung, presumably so he could check his uniform was spic and span before he left each day. Or comb those whiskers before he went on patrol, I don''t know.


    I picked out an antiseptic cream and some sticky bandages, then went over to the mirror to apply them. The cream stung, and after the over-sensitivity of my mod, it made my whole body freeze up and my skin crawl with the shock of it. "So, Korr," I began.


    "It was definitely him?"


    "I caught a few glimpses. But your security footage will confirm it, of course. Can you put him away for this?"


    "For a time, probably. I can''t promise it will be all that long. That lawyer of his is damned good."


    "Guy''s trouble."


    "Don''t I know it. He may not have murdered Xen, but he as good as pushed Xen off that balcony."


    I turned and stared hard at Frod. "My, my, Constable, haven''t we jumped to conclusions? The right ones, but still..."


    "Help me nail the bastard, Sophora."


    I paused in applying the sticky plaster to my cheek, and met Frod''s beady eyes in the reflection. "I''ll... try. For Xen''s sake. Are there any... avenues of the Korr investigation you have been blocked from pursuing, as an upstanding leader of stat sec? Something that would be better suited to someone with more ambivalence towards upholding your lawful standards?"


    Frod sneered, then pursed his lips. "The Lawyer. Masare Jebon. He''s been a pain in my neck for many years now. Him and his friends. Korr seems to have allied himself with them for his protection."


    "Friends?"


    Frod folded his arms and leaned against his desk, looking at me through narrowed eyes. Finally, he answered, "Look into the Wilt, Sophora."


    "The Wilt?"


    "You heard me. Now, while you are finishing up there, I''ll just go get the security footage. Stay here. We''ll review it when I return, and then hopefully we can issue that arrest warrant."


    He left the room. I slumped in my chair in front of his desk, and wrestled with the indecision of the moment.


    This was going to hurt. But it was the best way of getting the information before he returned from the camera archive. I didn''t have the luxury of time. But damn, this was really, really going to hurt.


    Putting the damp cloth in my mouth, I activated my data collector mod. The connector came bursting out of my palm. I bit into the cloth as I yelled with the pain, and kept biting down at the sick sensation of the cord extending out of my wrist.


    Like a little snake of a limb, at my command, it whipped across the desk. I plugged the connector into the back of Frod''s digipad which he''d left behind. I suppose he thought a password or fingerprints would protect his data. He would be wrong. This mod was cheap and nasty, but extremely effective. I didn''t have to touch the cord and connector to control them, but it meant that every little sway of the mod prickled the skin around the orifice on my palm. Just thinking about it made me want to throw up, so I tried to ignore it and focus on getting the data instead.


    There wasn''t enough time to copy everything, so I prioritised the data I was fishing for, hoping the psychic link with my collector mod hadn''t degraded with disuse. First order: M. A. Excelsa. Her business file, but also anything else Frod had on the woman under that name. Second order, L. A. Helianthe and V. M. Disanthus, just in case. Third order, any known forgers on the station. Fourth order, Masare Jebon. And finally, anything he had on ''the Wilt''.


    I heard his footsteps a second before he entered. I snapped my connector free and yanked the cord back under my skin. The cloth came spitting out of my mouth as I retched with the awful sensation. I squished my palm to my stomach and rocked back and forth.


    "Are you all right?"


    There was blood on the desk where my hand had laid. He pointed to it, and clicked his tongue.


    "Yeah, just... I didn''t see this scratch on my hand from the fight, and then I accidentally opened it up on the corner of the first aid kit."


    "Well, bandage it up, Sophora. And rest assured: the cameras caught your assault. His crony must have gotten lucky. It didn''t look like that bad a hit, but you went down instantly. I have enough to pull all three of them in on charges. Maybe even attempted murder, given the severity of the attack." He licked his lips at that.


    "Great. Thanks, Constable."


    "You take care now, Sophora. You know where I am if you need to update me."


    ---


    I stumbled home, worried about meeting with misfortune again. It probably took me twice as long, with the way I was listening out and looking around corners. But eventually I made it to my office, where Xen dropped the duster Xen was holding and rushed over to me.


    "Marys, what happened?"


    "Your bastard of a former owner and his friends beat me up. It''s all right though, Frod caught the whole thing on camera. They''re being arrested as we speak." I rushed past Xen to get to my desk, to my waiting digipad.


    "Are you all right?"


    "Yeah. Yeah. Fine. There''s more important things on my mind now anyway." I glanced up at Xen. "Er... maybe don''t look."


    "Why?" Xen glanced at my open palm with the crusted blood on it, and twigged immediately. "Oh, Marys... tell me that''s not what I think it is."


    "Fine, I won''t tell you." With a yelp, I shot out the end of the connector, and jabbed it into the digipad. I breathed through the pain while the data I''d pilfered transferred over. Xen shook Xen''s head while watching me, but said nothing.


    With a bleep, the transfer completed. I grunted as I shot the connector back under my skin, then clutched my bleeding palm on the stomach of my already bloodstained coat. "Let''s see... M. A. Excelsa, M. A. Excelsa... business record... ah! There she is. Let''s see what Lisia Astrantia Helianthe was up to when she arrived on this station a quarter century ago..."


    Xen came to look over my shoulder as I scanned the document. A Gerondian import goods business, yes, that all made a certain amount of sense. Nothing alarming came up around any of that part of the form. An address given on the station, the fake name expanded out to Monarda Aracea Excelsa - that was cause to jump again. All of those were family names. My family''s names. Monarda was my great-great-grandmother. Aracea was my mother. This was getting way too coincidental.


    And then I reached the address of M. A. Excelsa''s export agent on Gerondia.


    S. E. Monarda, 42 Picea Heights Road, Quercus, Ligustrum, Gerondia.


    Sophora Excelsa Monarda.


    Those were not just family names anymore. That was family.


    My grandmother.

 CHAPTER TEN

    Xen wanted to come with me. And I wanted to get Xen off the station. I told Xen as much, and Xen agreed. So we spent the next couple of days planning our escape from the Thorn.


    Frod''s data on forgers revealed a few names for me to look into. I made contact with one currently out of prison, who was cagey, of course, but when I was able to furnish him with a decent amount of credit, he was in.


    There was more to it than that, of course. Xen needed a new identity and makeover to go with the passport. I bought Xen new hair and synthaskin, though I had to obfuscate the purchases so that no one would suspect I had Xen living in my rooms. Xen''s old skin was starting to get a little on the used side, or so Xen said. I hadn''t touched Xen, if I could avoid it, since our heated encounter following the fake death. Xen did not ask me to help with the application of the new layer of skin. I suppose Xen would have been capable of doing it by Xen''s self all this time anyway. And I should have been grateful that Xen was leaving me out of it, keeping me from temptation. But that whole time Xen was doing that in the back room, I had to go out to the Atrium and look at my digipad so I wasn''t completely out of my own body, imagining what it might be like if I were helping Xen right now. As it was, it was a close thing.


    Between all of these expenses, my funds were beginning to run low. No help was forthcoming from Black Rose this time. Either I''d been too surreptitious about all this activity this time, or perhaps the station''s leader did not approve of my current course of action.


    At least it was a peaceful time. No thugs coming for me, and Frod left me alone, presumably because he thought I had my investigation keeping me busy.


    And so, a week after the incident in the Atrium, Xen came out into the corridor for the first time, a new person. The gynoid on my arm was called Lumii, and the story was that I''d purchased her indenture to take her back to Gerondia to be a nurse to my frail elderly grandmother. I had all the papers I should need: purchase papers, identification, and documents approving Lumii for travel to Gerondia. The fact that she didn''t exist in the Thorn''s system as a discreet entity shouldn''t matter: as an indentured synthetic, she¡¯d technically arrived as property of the person I''d supposedly bought her from, a trader who''d left the station two days prior.


    Was it in fact quite gross that I was trafficking this being out of the station, claiming to own them? Yes, it was, and I didn''t love it. But it was the best plausible cover Xen and I could come up with given the window of time we had. After all, Teg Korr wouldn''t be locked up forever for the assault on me.


    Lumii''s hair was blue and her skin was bright pink, and she was two inches shorter than Xen had been (I still don''t know how Xen did that, especially by Xen''s self), so there was no way this gynoid was the same one who''d been beloved of the Vindemia Cafe''s clientele. She walked two steps behind me, head lowered, wearing a frumpy grey dress and matching cloche hat. Everything about Lumii was so very un-Xen that no one even gave us a second glance. We made our way down to the base of the Atrium, to board the passenger ship to Gerondia.


    "Sophora?" My head snapped, too quickly for me to think twice and maybe act a little more casual. But Frod was standing on patrol, right there. Damn it!


    "Constable Frod." Hopefully he couldn''t hear the grinding of my teeth.


    "Leaving so soon?"


    "I have to pay a visit to my grandmother. There''s something back home I need to see for myself." Namely, the look on her face when I confronted her about the connection to Lisia Helianthe. "I won''t even be gone a whole day."


    "And who is this?"


    Lumii spoke in a high chiming voice, quite unlike Xen''s low and soothing one. "I''m Lumii, nurse and companion."


    "I''ve bought her indenture, and she''s going take care of my grandmother back on Gerondia until she''s worked off the balance."


    Frod clicked his tongue and wagged his fat finger right in front of my face. "Now, Sophora, I thought better of you, especially given you were Xen''s friend. Buying an indenture and making a synthetic work to pay it off? What would Xen say?"


    I gritted my teeth and lied, "The way I see it, Lumii looks after my grandmother, and gets her freedom after a year. I get the knowledge that my grandmother is in capable hands, and the satisfaction of knowing that at the end, I''ll have set a synthetic free. I''m not proud of it, Frod, but I''m also not rich enough to go around operating an emancipation charity. I need a little something in return. The work won''t be hard, and Lumii has experience."


    Frod leaned forward, until I could smell what he''d eaten for breakfast. Sardines, as far as I could tell. "I''ll be seeing those purchase papers then, Sophora."


    The moment of truth was here. I dug through my luggage and pulled out the papers. If the forger had done a good enough job, there was no way Frod could detain us...


    ... right?


    He reached for the papers in my hand, smiling like the predator standing over the prey.


    "Constable?"


    Nadir came sauntering towards us, ropey long limbs swinging, faceless behind his black exosuit.


    "Nadir, how can I help you?"


    "Black Rose requests your presence immediately in the Penthouse."


    Frod puffed up, starting from his legs and rolling all the way up to his head until he stood the straightest I''d ever seen him, his generous gut sucked in. "Yes, Nadir. I am ready." I only just managed to contain my laughter at his sudden formal manner.


    "Good day," Nadir nodded to Lumii and myself.


    "Er, yes, goodbye, safe travels," Frod bid us as an afterthought, and scurried after Nadir.


    "He really is there every time we need him," Lumii murmured, slipping into Xen''s voice for a moment before remembering. "And you say he knows... about me?"


    I nodded, and gestured for her to go ahead of me into the line waiting to board. She shook her head, and I remembered myself: I was ''the owner'', so I should go first. I shuddered at that, then slipped ahead. "I suppose if I were Black Rose, I would want to know everything going on in my own station too. But what I want to know is how exactly that works... and to what extent. How much do Black Rose and Nadir hear and see..."


    Our eyes met at that. We were no doubt having the same thought, and both shied away from looking at each other.


    On the ride to Gerondia, we mostly stuck to our private compartment for the eight hours. Lumii went walking through the public areas a couple of times once we''d confirmed that no one on the passenger manifest would have known Xen. I stayed sitting mostly, reading on my digipad all about ''the Wilt''. From what I could see through Frod''s personal notes about them, and files on individuals assumed to be in the group, the Wilt was a loose conglomeration of people with an interest in seeing Black Rose fall. In her rise to power over the station, she¡¯d made a few enemies. Mostly real estate and business types, people who were probably hoping to be in Black Rose''s position themselves. I didn''t know why Frod wanted me to know about this, other than the connection with Korr''s lawyer, Masare Jebon. At the very least though, it was a warning to me that Korr and Jebon were well-connected with powerful people around the station.


    When we arrived on Gerondia, it was mid-morning. The air was so sweet, I wanted to cry. But I held it together, pulled out the correct papers at customs, and waited in line with Lumii in tense silence.


    I handed the papers over to the agent at the booth. She ran her eyes over my face, looking half asleep. "Meria Bellis Tagetes, and... Lumii. Everything seems in order. Welcome home."


    "Thanks." I shoved our papers back in my pockets and strode ahead, out into the freedom of the spaceport arrivals.


    Lumii hurried to catch up, then gripped my elbow as she whispered, "Wait... why did you give a fake name?"


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "Because I''m not supposed to be back here." She flashed alarmed eyes at me, but I continued walking her out until we were under the bright green sky. Fields of flowers stretched into the horizon on this side of the spaceport. The only thing which broke up that view was the gondola tree, a long tall spindly structure with many different wires slung away from it. Those disappeared into the distance, leading to different population hubs nearby. I directed Lumii onto one of the gondolas heading for Quercus. Once we were alone in that small carriage dangling over the landscape, I continued my story. "I broke some laws when I was investigating what had happened to Lisia. I''m not proud of it. But part of my punishment is that I''m exiled for a year."


    Lumii''s face switched back to Xen''s facial configuration on the oval of Xen''s projected face. "Marys, why are we here? My safety isn''t more important than yours. If I had known, I wouldn''t have asked you to take this risk for me."


    "No, I need to be here too, Xen. I want to protect you, and I want to see my grandmother, after... what we saw in the records." Xen frowned, purse-lipped, and looked down at the floor between our feet. Xen still looked worried about inconveniencing me, when I rather thought that Xen should have been angry at me for dragging Xen here into my family and legal troubles.


    Eventually, Xen sighed, and the face on Xen''s head flickered back to Lumii, with her slightly wider eyes which made her look more childlike. She gazed out at the valley under us, and smiled. When she spoke, it was her, the Lumii voice. "Well, I am glad you brought me. This place looks like heaven."


    Our gondola climbed a ridge and then we descended into the Quercus River valley. The town I''d lived in while growing up hugged the river on both sides within the protective walls of the ravine, leaving the high plains to the wildflowers. Beyond, to the north, the Capital of Ligustrum stood on the horizon. Under its stormy skies, I once served as a Keeper of the Law.


    No more, and never again.


    Here, the oldest houses and roads were cut into the cliff walls themselves, but in the newer parts of town, modern habitation pods stacked two storeys high stood at convenient places near the commercial centres of town. My grandmother lived in the older part of town, so when Lumii and I got off our gondola, there was a comparatively long walk to get to our destination.


    My grandmother was waiting on her stoop for us, hands entwining under her pinafore. Lumii froze up for a step when she saw her, but I urged her forward. I''d forgotten to warn her. Silly of me, really. Gran reached for me when I came close, and wrapped me in arms as hard and tight as wood and vines. Her skin was twisted and dark brown, scratchy bark pressed against my soft petal skin. Her hair was blood red, but straggly, tied up away from her face in a bun.


    "Gran, this is Lumii."


    "I told you, Marys," she rasped in a voice just this side of humanoid, "I don''t need a helper."


    "It''s actually more than what I told you over the vidchat, Gran. I know you don''t need help. It''s Lumii who needs help." We''d agreed to keep Xen as Lumii, as she, while in Gran''s presence. Xen thought it would be easiest for Gran to keep the secret if she didn''t have to remember Xen was Xen''s actual identity, and Lumii was the cover. "There is someone back on the Thorn who is trying to kidnap her, and keep her to themselves. But she is a free person. We need your help until the guy has gone. Can she bunk down in my old room?"


    Gran''s frustration at me evaporated, and she reached for Lumii''s hand. "My dear, I am so sorry. Please don''t think I am rude. Marys had me convinced you were here for my sake."


    "A necessary cover, in case anyone was listening in on our calls," Lumii clarified.


    "Of course I would love to help you." She clasped Lumii''s hands in hers, and recited her origin.


    "Agathis, the seed,


    Ligustrum, the bed,


    Monarda, the root,


    Excelsa, the stem,


    Sophora, petal three of four.


    "Come in, come in, you are most welcome here." She took Lumii by the arm and drew her into the house. Lumii shot me an amused look over her shoulder, and I followed slowly after. There was no stopping Gran when she was on a mission.


    She showed Lumii all around the house, while I took over making cups of tea. When Gran brought Lumii back into the sitting room after the tour, she left us there. "I just have to go make up the bed for my guest." She would brook no argument on that matter, so we let her go.


    Lumii turned to me, confusion written all over her projected face. "Marys, why does your grandmother look nothing at all like you?"


    I looked down into my teacup, wondering how much I should say. It was all public knowledge, but it was still disturbing to talk about, especially to an non-Gerondian. "You know how I said Lisia rose to power during a pandemic she created? It was a little more involved than just that. You see, Lisia was part of a cabal of scientists working to... perfect the Gerondian species. That''s why every Gerondian you see under a certain age looks more like me, more soft and flower-like. Gerondians in the generations before were more random, I guess. Different features, sometimes even wildly different biologies that meant breeding was impossible between different combinations. But after the virus was spread, it... homogenised all the children in utero."


    Lumii looked suitably horrified, the tips of her fingers covering her open mouth. "So Lisia was an eugenicist?"


    "Yes."


    "But you said there was a cure?"


    "The cure simply stopped the ill effects of grown adults dying from the virus. Every baby born now is like me, despite the cure. Everyone has the dead virus in their DNA, from now until the heat-death of the universe. She won. Lisia won. She made Gerondians more alluring to others, especially to Terran sensibilities. But it''s made us less hardy. And when the virus was active, it did kill off a number of adults who were incompatible with it. Like my Dad. And maybe my mother, though -"


    Gran returned from getting the bedroom ready. We sat and talked for the next half hour, sharing tea with my Gran, letting Lumii and Gran get to know each other. Then, sensing perhaps that I needed to have that chat with Gran, Lumii nodded to me significantly, then said, "I''ll just go unpack my bag. Be right back."


    Once she was gone, I turned to Gran, my smile faltering.


    "Lovely girl," Gran murmured, then sipped her tea.


    "Gran. Who is Monarda Aracea Excelsa?"


    Gran''s eyebrows shifted together. She sipped her tea with more ferocity, making a slurping noise. When she put her cup back on the table, she answered in a measured tone, fingers steepled, "Well, each of those are family names..."


    "I know that. But Gran, I have tracked Lisia Astrantia Helianthe''s movements twenty-five years ago to the Thorn. It seems she set up a shop in the Thorn under that name, though it didn''t survive long. On the form she filled out about her business back then, she named you as her export agent. You, full name, at this address. Gran, what did you have to do with Lisia?"


    At her stubborn silence, I pressed again. "Were you a follower of Lisia, Gran?"


    Finally, she snapped, her voice quiet but full of ice. "Monarda Aracea Excelsa is not the same person as Lisia."


    "Oh, so it''s a real name?"


    "Yes. It''s a different person. A business partner I had a long time ago. We''re not related, those are just common names in Ligustrum." She wouldn''t meet my eyes. It wasn''t a universal sign of deception, but I was pretty sure she was lying.


    "Okay, well, that makes more sense I guess. Because if we were related, that would make no sense at all. If Excelsa is your mother''s name but her grandmother''s name, then would she be your niece? Her mother''s name is Aracea, but she can''t be my sister, because Aracea Sophora Excelsa would have been too young to be Lisia''s mother. So... is the Aracea in M. A. Excelsa''s name a sister of yours who I''ve never met... did she die, and that''s why you named your daughter Aracea too, as a tribute to your dead sister -"


    "You''re speaking nonsense, Amaryllis. We are not related to M. A. Excelsa. She is no one to you. Let this go."


    "That''s not how you raised me, Gran."


    She rose to her full height, the depths of the forest flashing in her dark green eyes. I deflated, envious of the way that despite her age, my grandmother, a natural, pre-virus Gerondian, could become wild again at a moment''s notice, while I was just so damn small and easily bruisable, a cultivated rose ready to wilt sooner than bloom. Gran declared in a voice of the wind through a dead and hollow trunk: "Your flight back to the Thorn is soon, isn''t it, Marys? You had best say goodbye to your friend and be off."


    I jumped at her bidding, and shuffled into my old room. Lumii sat there, staring out of the window cut into the cliff face. I''d stared out of it in the same listless way, many times. She turned to me, then stood and gave me a hug. "Be safe, all right?"


    I hugged back weakly, surprised. "I was about to say the same thing to you."


    "I''ll be all right, here. You''re the one heading back into the fray."


    "Yeah, well. I''ll be able to work a bit more efficiently if I''m not constantly worried about you." I winced. Had that sounded awkward? "Not that I won''t be thinking about you here." I winced again. Did that sound a bit dodgy, that I''d be thinking of Xen? "I hope it''s ok..."


    Xen laughed. It was Xen, not Lumii, that proper melodic burst of low laughter which had so enchanted me when we first met. "It''s ok. Please, Marys, get going. I don''t want you to miss your flight. Did you find what you came for?"


    I shook my head, and Xen frowned. "I''ll see what I can learn then."


    "No, don''t upset my Gran, please. I want her to be a good host to you."


    "I''ll be careful."


    I left them both waving me away at the stoop, and walked back down the hill into town. Away from Gran''s domination of my senses, I allowed myself to feel mad. She was hiding something from me. What was so damn important that she had to lie to me about it? Could she really be attached to Lisia somehow? The woman who murdered my father, who probably murdered my mother too, except no body was ever found ¨C there was no way Gran could be covering for the woman who probably murdered her own daughter, right?


    A few blocks later, a feeling fell upon me like a cloud, the cold of it waking me out of my rage at Gran.


    I was being followed.

 CHAPTER ELEVEN

    Paranoid, me? No, I was certain that someone was lurking in the lengthening afternoon shadows.


    I turned my audio-visual mod on just in case. There, footsteps, just on the edge of hearing, walking when I walked. I turned a corner around some of the new habitation pods, and let my modded eyes flick to the side quicker than non-modded eyes were capable of doing.


    There was someone tailing me, directly on my right, coming down the road.


    I turned on my speed mod but didn''t use it yet, letting it gather kinetic energy first.


    The gondolas were just there, two blocks away. I walked at the upper limit of my natural speed, and listened for the footsteps behind, past the whirr of the gondola chains revolving, and the constant whisper of the Quercus River. The footsteps did not speed up until the person hit the corner and saw how much further I''d gotten this time.


    There, a gondola was coming down the hill. Empty, so no need to wait for someone to get out. But there were people waiting in line for it.


    Unacceptable.


    I turned on my calculation mod and let the geometry of the scene before me play out. If I were to run this fast exactly - if I were to create some sort of crowd-clearing distraction at this exact point and keep running - if I were to jump off that booth there over the fleeing crowd and board the gondola while my tail was stuck behind the stampede -


    Now. I had to go now.


    I turned on my weapon mod to let it spin up. I jogged up to the requisite speed my calculations recommended, which would have looked right on the verge of unnaturally fast to any observers. Behind me, the tail swore under her breath.


    Of course it was her.


    The gondola approached, and I crossed the road to the depot. Just before I entered the yard, I raised my fist to the sky and shot a round into the sky.


    And of course, I''d left my audio-visual mod on.


    Deafened, I kept running, ignoring the pain. I leapt on the roof of the booth as people in the yard screamed - I could only tell by their faces - and fled. As soon as the bulk of people had passed, I was down on the other side, running for the gondola.


    It paused for a second. I ran through the doors and collapsed on the seat. The doors shut. The gondola rose away from Quercus, heading for the ridge, and after that, the spaceport.


    Below, Astera finally pushed through the crowd to come to a standstill. She wore her favourite red coat, pulled tight around her slim waist, and her black hair was loose, bouncing around her face like she was some perfect model of what a police detective would look like, damn her. Our eyes met through the glass of the rising gondola. I waved, then let my head fall back on the seat cushion.


    I knew what she was like. She wouldn''t put a warrant out for me at the spaceport. Astera would want to catch me personally. So I would live to run from her another day.


    ---


    There was no welcome party waiting for me when I arrived on the Thorn, which was disappointing. I''d thought Frod and I were close enough friends by now that I''d see the nosy constable there. But no. It was to a lonely existence I returned on the Thorn. Then again, I needed it. My eardrums were nearly blown after I¡¯d stupidly combined mods again, and my whole body ached from the strain of the chase, and travel fatigue.


    It was my first night alone in my own rooms since I''d moved here. I''d thought I was good at living alone. After all, I''d lived in my own apartment in Ligustrum City for several years before now. But even with nothing left of Xen''s in the back rooms, everything about the place made me think of Xen.


    No, I was not going to be the first to call. Xen was fine. Xen did not need me pestering Xen every single day. Xen was probably quite grateful for the break from me, after all the forced proximity, and potential mistakes made.


    I barely slept a wink that night. This did not bode well for my day of researching the members of the Wilt in the library. Hoping to get up the energy for that task, I took myself to the Vindemia Cafe to partake of their strongest liquid stimulant.


    Wrong idea. I found myself facing a large screen over the counter playing a loop of ''In Memoriam'' stills, all of Xen over the years, posing with happy customers and fellow staff members. Not even the strongest espresso they had was enough to embitter my heart against the pang of missing Xen. No amount of chiding myself, of reminding myself that I''d known Xen for less than a fortnight, and this yearning was ridiculous, would work.


    I glanced out of the cafe, looking for anything other than Xen''s smiling face to distract me. Nadir was loping past the cafe.


    "Hey!" I called out, and all but fell out of my chair as I ran to catch him. Might as well ask him why he was always helping me, while I had the chance.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    By the time I''d stumbled past the close-pressed tables and chairs and customers in my way, I''d lost him.


    In my haste to follow him, I''d left a half-finished coffee and my digipad at the counter. I slunk back to collect them, only to find my digipad in the huge fat hand of a man sitting in the seat beside mine. "Hey, that''s -"


    Teg Korr turned in his seat to grin a menacing grin at me.


    "- mine," I finished, and snatched my digipad out of his fingers. He let it go, and turned to drink his own coffee.


    "Sit, Ms. Sophora. You and I are due a little chat." He prodded the seat of my former chair with one finger. His gravelly voice was hard to deny, but I was still recovering from the battering last week, so I was not in the mood.


    "Give me one good reason."


    "Because if you sit and chat with me, I''ll give you a clue towards your personal quest."


    "What personal quest?"


    "Lisia Astrantia Helianthe."


    Well.


    "How did you know I''d be interested in such information?" Who had I told? Frod - no. Xen - yes, but Xen wouldn''t have told anyone. So who had I told?


    "We knew you were coming from the library when we attacked you. So when I got out of the stat sec jail, I made it my business to find out what you''d been asking about. And then I did some asking around about you with some Gerondian friends of mine. Turns out that you''d go to quite the extreme lengths to find out about Helianthe. And so, I come bearing the information you require, in exchange for some I require from you."


    I buttoned my lips and climbed into the seat beside him. I ignored my half-drunk coffee. He could have slipped something into it when I wasn''t looking.


    "Thank you. Now. There''s something you ought to know about our mutual friend Xen."


    I didn''t meet his eyes full-on, but looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. And up. Even sitting, the height difference between us was embarrassing. "Our dead mutual acquaintance. Sure. Shoot."


    "Yes. Dead. Sure, let''s agree on that for now. Pray tell, why did Xen say she ran away from me, when the two of you were planning that little pantomime of yours?"


    I didn''t let my eyes blink or leave his face. "First of all, Xen''s dead. You saw it happen. You essentially caused it to happen. Second, Xen was not she/her. Xen was Xen. I won''t speak to you about anything at all if you''re going to disrespect Xen''s memory like that."


    He leaned back under my furious gaze, his smirk widening. "Fine. Xen, Xen, Xen. Did Xen mention me, little flower?"


    I hissed at him, which only seemed to delight him further. "Xen didn''t go into it. Xen didn''t have to go into it. Xen told me enough that I promised to protect Xen from you. Only, on the day, Xen seemed to... I don''t know. Lose confidence in my ability to do so. That''s why Xen took Xen''s chances and ended up on the floor of the Atrium."


    "So no mention of Beatrice then."


    "Who?"


    The smirk vanished. I might have even caught a glimpse of pain in his small blue eyes. "My daughter. When Xen escaped my employ, sh-... Xen kidnapped my preteen daughter and brought her here."


    I shrunk away from him a touch before I was able to get my reaction under control. "Xen... a kidnapper? I don''t see it."


    "The evidence is but a metre away from you right now." He pointed at the ''In Memoriam'' slideshow. Xen was there with a Terran woman - a woman, not a girl. But when I compared the woman''s face to Korr''s, the resemblance was unmistakable. The boxy over-largeness on his face was strangely charming on hers: her jaw was square like his, but it served to make her lips stand out all the more, large and soft-looking. She smiled at the camera, frozen in that moment in time, with eyes the same colour blue as his. Her hair was nearly the same russet colour as mine currently was. Xen hugged her from behind, laughing in a candid moment at some kind of celebration in the cafe.


    "You said she was a girl."


    "She was kidnapped as a girl. She lived on this station, from the time she was taken until the day she died. And I only found out thereafter. She died half a year ago. In her will, she''d left a letter to me to let me know she''d died. She''d never wanted me to find her alive. Xen had managed to thoroughly blacken my name to her. But she did want me to know she had died. A rare and aggressive cancer. I wish she''d let me see her before the end... but as I said, Xen had tarnished me in my daughter''s eyes for perpetuity." His tone darkened, and his fist around his cup tightened.


    So Xen had been here quite a while. I''d had no idea. Nor had I any idea that Xen had lost someone so dear to her so recently.


    "And you see," he waved at the screen again, "they were inappropriately close. Xen groomed my daughter."


    I swallowed back my revulsion. Had that been what I''d seen on the screen there? The picture flicked by to the next one before I could get a proper read on the vibes. My memory turned the picture round and round, one moment seeing an innocent physical closeness between two good friends, the next moment seeing it as comfortable intimacy between lovers.


    "And now you see why I came all this way to hunt down Xen. Not to bring Xen back into my ownership, despite the fact that I would be legally correct to do so. No, I want to see that synthetic burn for what she did. I bought her to be a nanny to my child, not to steal her away from me." I was about to correct him on pronouns again, when he leaned down and got right in my face. "So if she happens to still be alive, you will let me know. Otherwise, you''re protecting a criminal of the worst kind."


    I glared back at him. This was not enough information. I would need to know more before I betrayed Xen. And even then, I wouldn''t necessarily hand Xen over to his form of justice. More likely I''d subject Xen to Frod''s brand of bureaucratic torture. Still, Teg Korr had set a chill down the back of my spine.


    "Now for the clue you promised me," I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.


    He sneered and sat back. Once again, his hand raised to point at the screen across from us.


    Xen in the picture had one arm around a woman''s shoulders. Both beamed at the camera, surrounded by friends and customers and pastries and cakes.


    The red-blonde woman looking directly at me through the picture had a face that every Gerondian would recognise.


    Lisia Astrantia Helianthe.


    Right here in this cafe.


    Next to Xen.

 CHAPTER TWELVE

    When Xen finally did call, I''d hoped perhaps enough time had passed for me to play innocent.


    Korr had given me the news a few days ago. I''d done more research since then, on Xen, on Beatrice Korr, and on the Gerondian in the picture. Nothing I found out about Xen and Beatrice confirmed what he''d alleged, but none of it contradicted it either. My new friend, Yellegiad, the four-armed librarian, was only able to furnish me with a few details of Xen''s life, as well as confirming for me that the Gerondian woman in the picture was M. A. Excelsa.


    I did not enlighten them for now on the fact that M. A. Excelsa was none other than my world''s greatest war criminal, L. A. Helianthe.


    In the interim, I''d made up my mind on how to talk to Xen. Perhaps Xen was not guilty, but perhaps Xen was. And if that was the case, what did that mean, both for Xen, and for myself?


    One, Xen had come to me playing the damsel, but in fact had used me to effect an escape. That in itself was not a crime, but leaving the details as to why I shouldn''t help Xen out implicated me in Xen''s past crimes, if true.


    Two, Xen knew all about my hunt for Lisia, and that my latest clues had led me to M. A. Excelsa. So if Xen knew they were one and the same, Xen was choosing to keep that information from me. Why? I didn''t know yet, but the answer could not be good.


    Three, I had left Xen with my poor defenceless grandmother. Well, not completely defenceless, really. Gran could take care of herself. But I was still not happy at all about that, bringing Xen into my family, being taken for a fool - if indeed I had been.


    And four, we''d slept together. My feelings were a mess. No matter whether Xen was innocent or not of all the above points, I was in no position to be objective, but that was exactly what I needed to be.


    So I decided I would play my cards close to my chest for now. Pretend everything was all right between us, and that I was still the concerned friend. More than friend, possibly.


    "Marys?" It was not Xen who greeted me on the data screen, but Lumii. "It''s so good to see you." Her bright beaming smile was so genuine-looking. I wanted to believe it.


    "You too... Lumii. How have you been?"


    "Fine, fine. Bored, really. There''s not a lot to do here. I''ve been helping your Gran to clean the ceilings though."


    "Oh, good. That''s really sweet of you. She''s always banging on about how dirty they get, and what a pain they are to clean."


    "And how have you been?"


    "Oh, you know. Trucking along."


    "Found out anymore about the Wilt?"


    "Ah, the WIlt. In all honesty, no. I''ve been too busy looking up things about Lisia Astrantia Helianthe." I watched Lumii''s face as I said, "A.K.A. Monarda Aracea Excelsa."


    Nothing. No change, not even a blink of a projected eye. "Hmm," Lumii mused, "I''ve been wondering why Frod was so keen on you investigating them in the first place. Sure, Teg seems connected to them through the lawyer, but what''s that got to do with you? Or me? Does he think Teg murdered me to help the Wilt in some way? I don''t get it."


    "Me neither. I think he''s just trying to use me as extra muscle. Unpaid muscle, at that. Which is why I''ve been sticking to my own investigation and not giving the WIlt the time of day. Speaking of investigating, have you managed to get anything useful out of Gran?"


    Lumii shook her head, electric blue hair bobbing from side to side. "Sorry, no. She''s tight-lipped, your Gran. A hard woman to get to know. Kind though."


    I nodded and sighed. It was impossible to tell if Lumii had even been really trying, or if this was just my wheels getting spun.


    "I miss you." The voice and face were Xen''s again, under the pink skin and blue hair. I nodded, and tried to find the strength to say it back. It was true, despite the suspicions running through my head. I did miss Xen. Before I could speak, Xen averted Xen''s eyes and mumbled, "I miss me too. I can''t wait to get to be myself one day. Hopefully soon."


    "Yeah, hopefully."


    "Well, I had better go. I hear Gran calling. Take care of yourself, Marys. Don''t get hurt while I''m gone, okay?"


    "You too."


    Xen hung up before I could. I didn''t think beforehand about how terrible it would feel, lying to Xen.


    Without Xen right here, everything felt so different. Like the shine had come off the world, revealing something rotten underneath.


    ---


    It was another slow day in the historical archives, a few days after that call. Yellegiad had done all they could to help me. They had to help other people too. So I sat in the stacks, finally resorting to looking into the Wilt. I supposed I ought to do it, if not for Frod, then for Black Rose''s sake. After all, she seemed to look out for me. If I could dig up some dirt on her enemies, maybe I could help her out in return.


    Three espressos deep, a realisation came to me. Embarrassing that I hadn''t noticed it before, really.


    All the members of the Wilt would have been here on the Thorn at the same time as M. A. Excelsa. They were all old guard. Not only that, but Black Rose had to have been here at the same time too.


    Perhaps through investigating them, I might come across more information on the fate of Lisia. Or, if I did well in helping her, Black Rose would grant me the boon of a conversation, and she could point me in the right direction.


    I set about my homework from Frod with greater fervour after that.


    Deep into the afternoon, on the artificial time of this timeless station, I was disturbed from my piles of research by the heavy clomp of boots. I looked up to find Frod himself staring at me.


    "Ah. Good to see you''re following up those leads I gave you, Sophora."


    "Yeah... I don''t know where it''s all leading exactly, but I''m building profiles of all those guys you asked for. And it''s revealing stuff about the past of this station. Tell me... you were around, weren''t you? Around twenty-five years ago."


    He puffed up, putting his thumbs through the loops of the belt of his blue-grey stat sec suit. "Yes, I''ve served the people of the Thorn for the last forty years almost. Why do you ask?"


    "Do you remember someone called M. A. Excelsa? Used to run an Gerondian goods store on -"


    "Yes, I remember her. Why?"


    He''d gone stiff and answered in a much slower way than his previous manner. How odd. I looked him up and down and tried to puzzle it out. Was there something special to him about this M. A. Excelsa? If I said she was Lisia, would he a) care or b) get defensive and clam up?


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "Do you know where she is these days?"


    "Why?"


    I narrowed my eyes, and so did he. "So... you do know where she is..."


    He smirked, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. "And you don''t know what you don''t know, Sophora. So best leave it be, if I were you."


    Right. That was it. He was acting all superior. Acting like he had something to protect. Or someone. Maybe he''d kept in touch with her after her business went under, wherever she was now in the galaxy. If anything, I''d guess he was somewhat sweet on her.


    "Frod, do me a favour, when you get back to your desk. Look up this person in Gerondian history: Lisia Astrantia Helianthe. Oh, and make sure you find a picture of her too. I''m sure you''ll find it all very revealing."


    From the confusion on his face, I took it to mean he had no idea of his friend M. A. Excelsa''s dark past. So be it. Time for his illusions to be shattered.


    He snapped back to his more officious manner. "Ah, speaking of my desk, that''s where I just came from, to find you specifically."


    "To what do I owe the pleasure?"


    "I thought you ought to know, Teg Korr is about to move on."


    "Oh good. Excellent, actually. Thank you for letting me know in person."


    "Funny, actually, that you should bring up Gerodia."


    The back of my neck prickled with a sudden chill. "Why funny?"


    "Because that''s where he''s gone. He just flew out a couple of hours ago."


    Frod walked away, leaving me as still as a statue, not breathing.


    Korr. On Gerondia.


    To let him catch Xen? To see how the chips may fall? If Xen was guilty...


    No. No way was I going to let that happen, even if Xen was what he said Xen was. That wasn''t justice.


    I ran all the way to the elevator shaft, ignoring all the librarians who yelled at me to stop running, banging the elevator walls in my impatience, pelting the length of the Atrium balcony to my corridor, to my office. My fingers fumbled the data screen controls in my haste. I inhaled, exhaled, controlled myself, dialled more accurately.


    Lumii picked up.


    "Xen, you need to get out of there. Teg is coming. Tell Gran, she''s got a to-go kit in a closet." Good old Gran, always prepared for everything since the civil war turned our lives upside down.


    Xen was frozen on the other end of the screen. I wasn''t sure if the signal had cut, or what. Then Xen nodded. "Understood."


    The signal was cut that time, and I stared at a blank screen. I stood there, all action and fury, lost in the silence.


    Should I go to Gerondia?


    No, that wouldn''t be helpful.


    In this case, all I could do was sit and wait.


    ---


    It was nine hours later when the banging I''d expected rang from my office door through to my bedroom.


    Well, usually I''d expect the doorbell, but this time I was hearing doorbell and banging of fists all at once. It felt appropriate, given the circumstances.


    I hadn¡¯t been sleeping. How could I sleep with this hanging over my head? I shrugged on my coat and answered the door. Xen fell into my arms, and pushed me back into the room, away from the corridor.


    "Is it safe?" Xen whispered, the sound a low and sweet blade cutting through the monotony of the station air systems.


    "I don''t know. But Teg Korr couldn''t be back by now, even if he turned straight around again after Gerondia. You made it, I''m so glad -"


    "Your Gran came with me." The words made no sense, because Xen wasn''t smiling, and Gran wasn''t with her.


    "Why did she come? She didn''t have to come."


    "She wanted to make sure I''d be all right."


    "So where is she?"


    "In stat sec."


    "What? Why?"


    "She was arrested by customs."


    "But why?" I exploded, running out of breath.


    "I don''t know. Frod only let me come to tell you because I begged and... and I think he might have figured out who I am."


    I gripped Xen''s arms to steady us both. "Well, we can deal with that later. For now, I need to go and find out why Frod''s imprisoned my grandmother."


    "I''m coming too."


    I eyed Xen up and down. Xen was still in the Lumii disguise, and Korr was off-station. It couldn''t hurt. And maybe I ought to be taking Xen everywhere with me, to gauge Xen''s reactions, Xen''s guilt. "Okay. Yes, I think that should be fine."


    I went for the door, but Xen pulled me back. "You need your documentation."


    "Pardon?"


    "Frod told me to say to you, he wants you to show up with your identification documents."


    I could only stare at Xen, bewildered. My Gran was in jail, and that bastard Frod wanted to torture me with more bureaucracy? I swore my head off as I stormed back into my back rooms, fished out the ID I''d had since birth, and then with Xen, I went marching to stat sec.


    Frod was waiting in the reception for us, and he looked worried. It didn''t occur to me that such behaviour from him was strange; I just thrust my ID in his direction. "Here, you wanted this? So can I see my grandmother now, you scum-sucking fascist?"


    He completely ignored my outrage and calmly - sadly, even - perused my ID. "It''s as I thought," he muttered, then beckoned for us to follow.


    I stomped after him, through the cubicles, past his office, and into the cells.


    Gran was in the nearest one, sitting regally on the basic bed with a thin mattress and no sheets, behind a glowing purple forcefield. Her red hair was out of its bun, hanging lank and thin over her knobbly grainy shoulders.


    "Gran!" I cried out, my voice sounding childlike in my ears. "Gran, are you all right?"


    She wouldn''t even look at me.


    I rounded on Frod. "Just who do you think you are, caging up innocent old women, you -"


    "Now, now, Sophora." He batted his hands between us to signal me to calm down. I''d never calm, but I would at least hear him out. He paused, and his face paled, the deep brown going a little grey. "... Marys." He seemed deeply uncomfortable for some reason at saying my name. I didn''t know why he''d bother saying it, in that case. Instead, he landed on, "... Detective," and seemed much happier for it. "There is a reason. Your grandmother''s documentation was flagged as forged coming into the station."


    "Forged... that''s ridiculous. She''s my grandmother, she''s not some galactic criminal."


    "Nevertheless, the documents are forged. I examined them myself."


    My lungs struggled to keep up with my rage. "Well... well, maybe she lost her original documents in the war! You know my planet went through a brutal civil war. Can''t you have a pittance of mercy, you officious, boring old -"


    "Marys, shut up, or I''ll lock you in a cell if that''s what it takes." I gritted my teeth, and he continued, "I got in touch with the Gerondian Embassy. They have no record of a Sophora Monarda Excelsa from Ligustrum."


    "She''s right here! That''s her name -"


    "No, it isn''t, Detective. Your grandmother is not who she says she is."


    I turned back to Gran. She still wasn''t looking at me. I went as close as I could, until the forcefield was humming with energy just in front of my nose. "Gran? Gran. ... Gran, look at me. Gran?" Nothing. She turned away and faced the wall. "Gran, if your name is Sophora Monarda Excelsa, please just acknowledge me. Anything, Gran. I''ll believe you if you say so."


    She stayed where she was.


    The station air wasn''t enough anymore. I reeled back a step, and waited for my lungs to work again.


    When they finally let me breathe again, I stormed off. I had to get out of there. I didn''t want to start yelling in front of my grandmother, not with the choice words I had to say.


    Frod caught up with me and put a hand on my shoulder. "I swear, Frod, let me go or I''ll -"


    "There''s more you need to know," he growled, and removed his hand from me. "I''m sorry, Detective. Either you already know this, or it will be something of a blow to you, I imagine."


    "What?" I snarled.


    "You don''t exist either."


    My mouth froze in an open position. Xen moved in to touch my arm. In that moment, I couldn''t decide whether to snatch my arm away or to lean into Xen. "What do you mean?"


    "This ID is faked too. It''s a very good fake, which is why it''s gotten past customs a number of times already. But the Embassy does not recognize anyone called Amaryllis Aracea Sophora."


    "But I... I''m me. That is me."


    "I''m sorry, Detective. Whenever your grandmother faked her identity, it would seem she faked yours at the same time. Unless you''re a very good liar, I''m assuming this happened without your knowledge, when you were a small child."


    I sagged into Xen. Xen caught me.


    Frod pocketed my ID. "I''m sorry, Detective."


    ---


    Which, the seed?


    Where, the bed?


    Who, the root?


    Who, the stem?


    Amaryllis, petal one of how many?

 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    The singularity was bigger, closer. The green tangles of the Bramble Nebula were being sucked into the flashing dust cloud, and it was growing, the size of a watch-face if you held your arm all the way away from your face. The flashes were growing brighter, highlighting the folded dimensions of the cloud like a terrestrial lightning storm.


    The crowd around me was unhappy. I let their grizzling wash over me, their fears, their half-baked plans to move off the station, their nagging expectation that someone should be doing something about this - but not them, of course, never them.


    Let it take us all.


    I was empty anyway.


    I put my hands in my pockets and shuffled back to my office.


    It had been something like twelve hours since my world had come crashing down around my ears. My true identity still remained a mystery to me. My Gran - if indeed she was my Gran at all - was still in custody. Xen was back in my rooms again, in the wrong skin. I still had no idea if I should trust Xen. Everything Xen had to do with me proved I could trust Xen. But the story Korr had told me still weighed on my mind.


    I didn''t notice Frod until I saw his feet beside my office door. "Ah, Detective. I wanted to speak to you."


    "Constable, how can I help you?"


    "A couple of questions. Would you?" He waved his hand at my office door. At least he was asking this time. I walked ahead of him, the door slid open, and I sat at my desk, gesturing for him to sit across from me.


    He opted to stay standing, his arms behind his back.


    "First, Detective, I have been granted permission to access your official record back on Gerondia, now that your identity is in question. I now know you were summarily dismissed for stealing equipment and using your work time to pursue a personal vendetta. A vendetta which, might I add, will get you killed on this station, should you proceed any further."


    I sat up straight, my spine electrified into attention for the first time all day. This was new. And whatever it meant, he was giving a lot away by saying it. He was... scared, perhaps? "Sorry, you''re telling me that if I look into Lisia Astrantia Helianthe, I''m going to get killed? By whom?"


    He stalked forward, put his hands on my desk, and leaned towards me. The light was behind his fat face, and all I could see was his oversized teeth and the shine of his beady eyes. "There are some very powerful people on this station who would rather see you dead than see Lisia brought to justice. So be careful what you do next, Mar... Detective."


    Oh. OH! Interesting. He meant the Wilt. He wasn''t threatening me at all; he was warning me that the Wilt had something to do with Lisia and would have it out for me if I played my hand too soon. Of course! It all made sense now. They were all around back when she was here as M. A. Excelsa. She must have befriended them, and then once her business failed, she...


    That''s where my trail ran cold. Would her friends in the WIlt have helped her to start anew? Here, or somewhere else? But clearly, from what Frod was saying, I needed to treat the Wilt as part of my investigation, rather than a secondary interest.


    I managed to keep my mouth from gaping open in front of him just in time as another realisation hit me. Holy flowerbeds, I felt so stupid! That had to be why Black Rose was helping me! Because Lisia was part of the Wilt, ergo Lisia was her enemy, ergo she wanted me to succeed in bringing Lisia to justice, thus weakening the Wilt, possibly even exposing such a weakness that she might be able to end them forever.


    I smiled quite genuinely, which earned a confused frown from Frod. "Thanks for the warning, Constable. What else is there?"


    He harumphed, and straightened up again. "The second thing I had to say was that I need that synthetic of your grandmother''s to return to stat sec."


    "Oh?"


    "She''s here illegally. Her papers were found to be forged also. A bit worrying, Detective, how surrounded you are by false papers. The only reason I haven''t dragged you into jail is because I have been assured by your old boss in the Keepers that you must have laboured under this false name your entire life. So you''re a victim, not a perp in this specific case."


    His eyes bored into me, but I beamed back. How sweet of Astera to cover for me¡­ not. "Well, that''s... reassuring. Thanks, Constable."


    He cleared his throat. "Detective, the synthetic?"


    "Oh. I don''t know where she went, sorry."


    "What do you mean you don''t know?"


    "I mean I don''t know. She must just be hanging around somewhere in the station. Why don''t you put up some posters? With blue hair and pink skin, she''s sure to be easy to find."


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Frod narrowed his eyes, and we stared at each other for a long moment. Then he said, "If you see this... Lumii... you will report her to me."


    "Sure, Frod. No problem. Is that all?"


    "... Yes. Take care, Detective. I would hate to see something happen to you."


    "Same to you, Constable."


    "Oh, and one last thing. Teg Korr is back on the station."


    I swallowed my grimace. He walked to the door and let himself out, with one last look back at me. When the door slid shut, Xen emerged from the back rooms.


    Xen looked odd, with Lumii''s pink skin, but Xen''s usual short purple and brown hair back on. The colour of the synthaskin couldn''t be helped; it was all we had left in the rooms at the moment, with Xen''s last beige skin too old and desiccated to use again.


    "He definitely suspects," Xen said.


    "Oh, absolutely," I replied, and fell back into a slump in my chair.


    Xen sat across from me, and clasped Xen''s hands on the desk. "Let''s talk."


    "What about?"


    "About everything. Let me help you sort your thoughts. I can tell you need someone to talk things over with."


    Yes, but did it have to be Xen? A few days ago, I would have loved nothing more than to be invited to talk with Xen. A few days before, I hung off Xen''s every word and movement.


    And damn it, I needed to keep up that ruse for now, until I knew for certain.


    Xen started the conversation when my reticence took us past a minute''s silence. "So. Your identity."


    "What about it?"


    "What''s your earliest childhood memory?"


    I sighed and cupped my forehead. "I''ve lost everything before age ten."


    "Lost? You make it sound like this didn''t happen naturally."


    "It didn''t. I lost my earliest memories the more I used the memory mod. The one you''ve seen in my hand. The linkage goes straight to my brain. Unfortunately it overwrites old memories to store the information I pilfer with it."


    Xen''s projected face wore the expression of a statue caught in perfect, sculpted misery. "Oh, Marys. That''s awful."


    "I only have myself to blame," I shrugged. "The nice part is, I don''t even remember what it is I''ve forgotten. So, as far as I know, my name has always been Amaryllis Aracea Sophora. I have no idea if I was raised from birth on that lie, or if I had to learn it to protect myself... from what, I can''t imagine."


    "Have you any avenues available to you to seek out your true identity?"


    I sighed, dropping my head into my hands. "Yeah... yeah, I can follow up a few leads there." Except it was going to cost me. If not in credit, definitely in dignity.


    "All right, so onto the next big mystery. How''s your hunt for Lisia going?"


    "Just now, talking to Frod, I started to think, what if Lisia is a member of the Wilt? It makes all the pieces fit together so nicely. Lisia comes here, makes friends, those friends start up a turf war against Black Rose, and they''re all working to protect each other. Black Rose knows I''m here to hunt Lisia, so she and Nadir pay me a little extra special attention to help me succeed. Frod too, he''s on Black Rose''s side, so he feeds me clues about the Wilt. Well, except what is Gran''s connection? I don''t know how to make that fit nicely."


    "You''ve come such a long way. If you can think of any way I could help you from in here, please, let me. You''ve done so much for me. I could do research, for one¡­"


    Here it was. The moment of truth. I decided that there was one too many things going unspoken between us to let this big one lie. I flicked my digipad to life and looked up the picture I''d taken, of the screen in the cafe. "Xen, who is this?"


    Xen took the digipad and looked at the picture. Xen tilted Xen''s head, then smiled. "That''s Mona. Wow, it must have been two decades or so since I last saw her. How do you have this?"


    "It was on a memorial slideshow in the cafe. There''s a whole heap of pictures of you at various celebrations over the years. I didn''t realise you''d been on the station for so long. You were here twenty-five years ago, Xen."


    "I was. Why are you asking it like that, all serious like?"


    I tapped the back of the digipad in Xen''s hands. "Xen. What was Mona''s full name?"


    "I just knew her as Mona - OH!" Xen nearly dropped the digipad, then laid it down flat on the desk. Xen raised Xen''s hands to the sides of Xen''s face, and stared at the floor. "Marys. Marys, are you telling me Mona was Monarda Aracea Excelsa - oh wow, I hear it now. Mona, Monarda. Oh. Marys, I''m sorry. I hope you didn''t think I was hiding things from you when you saw this."


    I said nothing, and Xen smiled nervously at me.


    "Tell me about her."


    "Mona was a regular. She tipped well, and was always ready with a smile and a joke. She was just some business owner on the Atrium. I don''t think I ever went to her shop though. And then one day she just stopped showing up. I never heard what happened, and I felt sad for a little white - Oh Marys, I''m so sorry. I''m talking about your world''s greatest killer like she was some lovely friendly person... which she was, to me. But it was all a front."


    "It''s all right, Xen. A front wouldn''t be a front if it wasn''t convincing." And you should know all about that, I thought of Xen.


    Xen nodded, still tilting Xen''s head. Xen watched me for a long moment, smiling eyes narrowing. "What is it, Marys?"


    Damn, Xen was pretty. Was it all a front? I desperately wanted Xen to be the person Xen presented Xen''s self as, the person I wanted to believe in. Then it wouldn''t be so bad that we''d slept together. It wouldn''t be so bad that I really wanted to do it again at some future time convenient to Xen.


    I could always ask. Xen, did you kidnap Beatrice Korr? Did you twist the child in your care into someone she never should have been?


    Did I want the answer?


    As my silence extended again, Xen asked, "Is there something you''re not telling me, Marys?"


    The gall.


    I tilted my head back at Xen. "Is there something you''re not telling me, Xen?"


    Xen laughed, and got up, walking towards the back rooms. "I''ll take that as a no."


    You do that, Xen. You do that.