Big Dicker, page 5
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t really give a fuck, Delphi. I don’t give a single sun-fucked fuck what you’re doing here. As long you help me get the hell off this station tomorrow, we’re cool.”
I nod at him. “Cool.”
Because I will be helping him leave this station. Just not the way he thinks.
“So… you wanna take a spin on the autoshopper?” He cocks his head to the side where holy suns, there is the biggest, most modern version of the autoshopper I’ve ever seen.
I look back at Jimmy and say, “Why?”
“Because that little outfit was cute down there for like… ten minutes. But up here, you just look ridiculous. And uncomfortable. If you really do have a room here, and you really do owe your roommates money and can’t go back there, then surely you will need something else to wear tonight. So go for it. My treat.”
“Why?”
“I think I just answered that.”
“No,” I say, sucking in a deep breath of air. “I mean, why is it your treat?”
He shrugs. “Because I’m fucking rich. And I don’t care how many credits Mighty Minions scams me out of, it’s not going to matter. Just a little blip in the bank account and nothing more.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to imagine what that feels like, and find I can’t. Not even when I was back in Cygnian System did I have access to unlimited credits to buy anything I wanted. And I was one of the lucky ones. One of the girls who had an actual family, and a home, and didn’t live in the harems with dozens of sisters.
“You can stay here all weekend too,” he says. “If you want. It’s paid for. Might as well enjoy it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Why not? I wonder.
He’s not what I expected, that’s for sure.
Flicka buzzes in my ear. “Don’t fall for it. He’s dangerous, Delphi.”
I swat her away and she flits off to go exploring.
“Where did you really get that dragonbee bot?” Jimmy asks.
“I told you, she’s been with me since I was a little girl.”
“What kind of parent gives a child a dangerous bot like that?”
“How do you know they’re dangerous?”
“I’m sort of a bot expert.” He refills his drink, takes a sip of whiskey, and then uses his glass to point to the wall panel where the maidbot appeared and disappeared a few moments ago. “That’s an UltraClean 9000 series. A very high-end bot with near-sentient processing power.”
“Get out of here.” I laugh. “Near-sentient? Please. It’s a vacuum.”
“No,” Jimmy says, shaking his head. “That thing could beat you at any game of chance you could imagine.”
“A maidbot?” I scoff.
He nods. “They’re actually pretty creative too. I once knew a maidbot who painted Centurian portraits as a hobby.”
I shake my head and scoff again.
“I swear. She still does. She’s got a gallery on Harem Station. I haven’t seen her in a while, but she was one of the first bots I ever liberated.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Liberate bots? That’s not what you do.”
He raises that eyebrow again.
Oops. I shouldn’t know what he does. “I mean,” I say, correcting myself, “you look like… I don’t know. A bounty hunter, or something.”
“No.” He laughs. He’s got a nice laugh. And a nice smile too. In fact, Jimmy of Harem Station isn’t anything like I imagined. “That’s my brother, Serpint. He’s the bounty hunter in the family. I’m in charge of bot liberation.”
“That word,” I say. “It makes no sense to me. I mean, liberation? I don’t get it. You what? Buy them and take them back to… did you say Harem Station?”
“Sometimes we buy them. Most times we just steal them. You can’t own people, you know.”
“Yeah.” I laugh. “But you can own bots.”
“Not if they’re people.”
“They’re not people.”
“They are people.”
“OK,” I say. “Whatever you say. Thank you for the shopping offer, but I’m fine. In fact, maybe I should just find another place to stay?”
And you know what the funny thing is? When I say this to him, I mean it. He’s weird. This whole bots-are-people-too thing, also weird. And his brother, Serpint? One of the most awful men in the entire galaxy. They not only steal bots, they steal us. Me. People like me. And they take us to that rogue station, and trap us in their special princess harem, and use us for sex. Just like everyone else. They are not liberators. They are hunters.
I’m sure I could find a way to sneak back on Queenie. There has to be a way. In fact, I’m sure she’d even help me. Subvert some security system or something. I just can’t stay here with him. He’s creeping me out.
“Well,” Jimmy says. “You could try.”
“Try what?”
“To leave.”
“What?”
“Come on.” He laughs. “How stupid do I look, Delphi? Or should I say, Princess Delphi? You’re a Cygnian.”
“You’re crazy.”
“‘Oh, I have a little dragonbee bot my parents gave me when I was a child.’ You know, that was your first giveaway. But the second one was your attitude about the maidbot. Only true assholes or Cygnians feel that way about bots these days. Which is really kind of sad because you seem to actually like your little bot friend.”
Flicka buzzes in front of him, preparing to sting while I turn, leg in the air, ready to deliver a flying leap kick to the side of Jimmy’s face. But Jimmy taps his wristband and Flicka drops to the floor like dead weight and then his forearm comes up, blocking my kick, knocking me down, and before I even realize what’s happened, he’s got me pinned to the floor.
“Get off me.”
“No. Your little bot friend tried to sting me. And if you’d have landed that kick I could’ve lost a tooth. So no. I’m gonna stay right here on top of you while you explain just what the fuck you’re doing and why you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Ha.” He laughs. “Pretty much everything out of your mouth today was a lie. You don’t live here, do you? Are you even an engineer?”
“Get off me,” I seethe through gritted teeth.
“Answer me,” he growls, pressing his full weight down on my body.
“I can’t breathe,” I whine.
“Save it,” he snaps. “If you can talk you can breathe. Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Flicka is buzzing in circles just a few feet away. Desperately trying to get her functions back, but failing. Jimmy must’ve activated some kind of bot regulator when he tapped his wristband.
What should I do? What can I do?
I can’t tell him, Tycho’s life is on the line. And I can’t not tell him because he’s got control of Flicka.
“Look,” Jimmy says. “I’m really not a bad guy. I’m actually pretty reasonable. But I’m getting the feeling that everything that’s happened to me today is because of you. So tell me what I need to know and I’ll let you get back on that lift bot and leave the way you came.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Because why? Just spit it out, Delphi. Your plan, whatever it was, is fucked, OK? Fucked.”
“It can’t be fucked!”
“Why not?”
“Because my brother will die, OK? And I’m not gonna let him die. So if it comes down to you or him, I choose him!”
“Me?” Jimmy says, easing up a little so I can take full breaths again. “What the fuck do you want with me?”
“Let me up.”
“And then what? You run? You spill everything? You try to kill me? What happens if I let you up?”
I suck in a deep breath.
“Whatever it was you were doing, Delphi—if that’s your real name—it’s over. I’m not gonna hurt you unless you make me. So please,” he says. “Don’t make me.”
And then he rolls off me, stands up, and offers me his hand.
CHAPTER NINE - JIMMY
She doesn’t take my hand. Just hikes her legs back and flips onto her feet like some kind of Mighty Warrior.
Which, I admit, I find sorta cute.
She circles me, jaw set, knees slightly bent, like she’s about to pounce.
Also kinda cute.
“What’s all this?” I ask, panning my hand in her direction. “You’re gonna attack me?”
“Maybe,” she says, breathing a little harder than normal.
“So do it. But I’m gonna warn you ahead of time. There’s a timer on that shutdown function I just zapped your little dragonbee with. And by shutdown, I don’t mean it wears off. I mean it kills her.”
“You’re such a dick!” Delphi growls. “Hurting innocent bots.”
“Innocent? No. I know what she is. I’ve seen dragonbee bots in action more times than I can count. We don’t even allow them on Harem Station, that’s how dangerous and unpredictable they are.”
“Mine isn’t. She’s my friend.”
“And yet you called the maidbot a vacuum.”
Delphi huffs.
“So, you wanna play by my rules or not?”
“Let her go first,” Delphi says, jutting her chin towards the spinning and buzzing dragonbee bot on the floor.
I give her a wide smile, then walk over to the bot, pick it up—carefully—by the wings, then walk back over to the bar, drop it inside a glass, and turn the glass over.
Delphi sucks in a deep breath of air. “That’s not letting her go.”
“No, it isn’t. She’s gonna stay right there until we’re done talking. But just so you know, the shutdown sequence is still running. We’ve got”—I look down at my wristband—”six minutes and seventeen seconds before she goes poof.”
“Why are you being such a sun-fucking asshole?”
“Because you’re lying. And you know what? I’m starting to get the feeling all you pinks and silvers are nothing but liars.”
She touches her hair and frowns. “How’d you know I was a pink?”
I roll my eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m fucking serious.”
“Your eyes are pink when you’re angry.”
“Oh,” she says. “Shit. I forgot about that. But I wasn’t really hiding my identity anyway. So whatever.”
“We good?” I ask. “Gonna tell me some truth now?”
She just glares at me.
“OK. What’s your real name?”
“It’s Delphi. I didn’t lie about that.”
“Cool. Good. Why are you here?”
“Here?” she says, pointing down at the floor.
“No,” I say. “Here, as in Mighty Minions.” But actually, now that she mentions it, why is she here in my hotel room?
She growls a little. I interpret this as frustration because she doesn’t want to spill all her secrets.
“Come on, princess. Your jig is up.”
She makes a face. “What’s that even mean?”
“You know. You got caught. There’s no way out but the truth. So spill it.”
She just shakes her head.
“What’s that mean? You still in denial and you want me to believe you don’t have secrets? Or you can’t say?”
“Can’t say.”
“Because you’re afraid of me? Or how I’ll react? Or… afraid of someone else?”
She frowns.
“Hmmm,” I say, thinking this through. On the one hand, she doesn’t look very dangerous. She’s short, and petite, and she’s sporting a uni-horn on her head. And even though I’m pretty sure Mighty Minions is probably where demon worshippers take their kids for fun and she’s dressed up like them, I’m also pretty sure she’s not really a Mighty Minion.
But on the other hand, she does have that asshole dragonbee bot.
And she is most definitely a Cygnian princess, which… wasn’t that the whole reason I was heading to the genetics lab in the first place? To avoid people like her?
“How about this,” I say. “I’ll make you an offer.”
“What kind of offer?”
“You tell me what you’re caught up in and I’ll see what I can do to help. I have connections, you know. I actually know a bunch of Cygnian princesses. My brother collects them in a harem on my home station.”
She just stares at me.
“But you know all that already, don’t you?”
She gives me just the slightest bit of a nod.
“I can help you. If you let me.”
“You really can’t,” she says.
“Right,” I say, remembering the words she blurted out just before I tackled her. “If it comes down to me or him, you choose him. So you’re here for me?”
Not even a blink from Delphi but her tiny bot is spinning and buzzing like crazy inside the glass, futilely trying to get control of its motor functions.
“You’re here for me,” I say again, trying it on for size. “Like… you’re a booty hunter for Akeelians?” I smile at the irony. “Hey, is there a harem wherever it was you were gonna take me? Like… are there a ton of other Akeelian males just letting their cocks hang out while dozens of rich women peruse them and take them for a spin?”
“You think this is funny?”
“I have no idea what this is, Delphi. I’m just filling in my own blanks because you refuse to illuminate me.” Then I laugh. “Ha. Little glow joke there.” But then… oh. I recall the reason why everyone loves the Cygnian princesses and wonder what she’d look like out of that stupid costume. Wondering what she’d look like exploding like the sun.
No, that’s a bad idea. Very bad idea. I’m on my way to make sure no Cygnian princess ever catches me in their stupid soulmate net.
Still… there’s kind of an innate attraction to her. Or at the very least, a fascination.
“OK,” I say, taking a deep breath and letting it out. “How about a truce?”
“Why?”
“Why? I mean, it’s pretty obvious why.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yeah, it is. You’re here for me and I need you to tell me why. Because I’m starting to think that the whole reason I’m stuck on this stupid resort is because of you. Did you send my ship a virus?”
She presses her lips together and folds her arms across her chest.
“Ahh,” I say. “OK. Well… truce. How about you do a little shopping, take a shower and wash that ridiculous horn off your head, and then we can eat something that isn’t four-hundred-credit noodles.”
“Why?” she snaps. “Why are you being this way?”
“What way?”
“Nice! Understanding! Considerate!”
“Maybe because that’s the kind of guy I am,” I say. Smoothly, I might add.
“You kidnap princesses.”
“I already told you, I liberate bots.”
“You keep them captive up in that station.”
“They’re there by choice.”
“You sell them to rich people all over the galaxy.”
“Not without permission, we don’t. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“Which part?”
“Every part I just mentioned! For sun’s sake, why can’t you just accept my peace offering? I’m the victim here, not you.”
“Exactly,” she says, nodding her head like this explains everything.
I point to the bedroom. “Go take a shower and wash that shit off your hair.”
She shakes her head. “Let my bot out of that glass and stop that shutdown sequence.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “I forgot about that.” I tab my wristband and the bot springs up, hitting the top of the glass, and knocks itself out.
“What did you do?” Delphi asks, rushing over to the bar. But I put a hand over the top of the glass before she can lift it up.
“It stays in there for now. It just hit its head.”
“She’s a she, not an it.”
“Right. Flicka.”
“Yes. And you better not hurt her. She’s the only friend I have left.”
“Well, that’s all very sad, princess. But she stays put until you spill the beans about your plan. And,“ I say, putting up a hand because she’s about to protest again, “the reason I’m calling a truce is so you can find a way to trust me. OK? That’s it. I give you things, you give me things. We’re good. Both of us gets something in the end.”
“I need something you don’t have.”
“Ah,” I say. “Your brother. Now that’s an interesting story because I was told that Cygnian males are worthless pieces of shit.”
She opens her mouth to curse me, but I continue before she can.
“Just what I’ve heard, Delphi. I’m not saying it’s true. But I do know they’re not highly regarded where you come from, so this has got to be a very interesting story. And it’s worth the stop on Mighty Minions, the seven-thousand-credit family pass, the insane demon holo children, and the cost of this room just to get that answer. So go take a shower, buy yourself some new clothes, and then we can talk like rational, grown-up people whose only purpose seems to be to fuck each other and make babies.”
She blinks at me. “What?”
I sigh. Because even though I know better, even though I know that getting mixed up with this girl just puts me one step closer to soulmate territory, and stupid kids, and all that other shit our kind seems to have been genetically engineered to need, I can’t help it.
The only ride on this resort I’m interested in taking is Delphi.
CHAPTER TEN - DELPHI
“That’s it?” I ask. “‘Just go shopping, Delphi. Go take a shower. Relax. Let’s get dinner. Have a little date night.’ You think I’m actually gonna buy that crap?”
He narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” I huff. “I know that you know.”
“I know what?”
“Uh-huh. Exactly.”
He does one of those long blinks. You know, when people are tired of you. When you’re wearing them down. But I don’t fall for it. I don’t fall for any of it. “I know that you know what I am. I heard all about Lyra spilling our secrets.”
