Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
I hit him a handful more times before a channel opens up on the comms. I don’t know how to stop that from happening, so I am stuck with Emrys’ voice filling the space. He hisses with his customary rage, which I find funny. He sounds the same right now as he probably would if someone messed up his order for fries. The guy is permanently at a hundred. I don’t think he’d know zero if he fell over it. He has to be the most wound-up dude I’ve ever encountered.
“Desist, small vessel!”
“I could, but I won’t. Should, maybe, but… shorn’t.”
The sentence doesn’t really make sense. It doesn’t really have to. It just has to annoy him, and it does that most successfully.
“HUMAN!” Emrys snarls the word over the open channel, and I can only imagine how his entire face must be contorting with rage as he recognizes my voice. “What are you doing? Does the beast not have you contained?”
“Does it look like he does?”
“What do you think you are doing, Sandy!?” Atlas’ voice comes over the channel in swift order. I wonder if I interrupted them fighting one another to the death over who owns me. That must have been quite the struggle. I imagine Emrys is terribly injured.
“I’m escaping, because I don’t want to be a mindless pawn in your simulation any more than I want to be a political pawn in Emrys’ evil civilization. I’m a free human, and I intend to stay that way.”
“I am going to hunt you down, human female. And I am going to make you regret your impudence!” Emrys’ voice returns to the fray.
I get the mental image of Emrys having pushed Atlas away from the mic, and probably regretting it because of how sharp the scythkin is. I have no doubt that the bridge of his ship is a complete bloodbath. He’s going to have to rest up for a good long while and feed well in order to regain his strength.
“You do that just as soon as you stop being cock-locked together with the scythkin vessel, idiot,” I laugh. I know there’s some small chance I might run into one of them again. After all, I still have the fucking nano-trackers inside me. That’s my next mission — to untag myself.
“Sandy, I want you back on this ship this instant!” Atlas is back, and he is not happy.
“Absolutely not. Never. I’m never going into any simulation. I’m never going to give my brain over to anyone. Not even you. Not for all the pancakes in the universe.”
“Sandy, you are being silly.”
“Her name’s not Sandy,” Emrys growls. “She hasn’t told any of us her real name. There’s no point calling her anything other than ‘human female.’ That’s what she is. An impudent set of holes who… ARGH!” His comments end in a scream as Atlas does something horrible to him, presumably because he doesn’t like me being called a set of holes. He’s very gallant for someone who wants to take my brain and use me as a sort of eternal Stepford fuck toy.
“Sandy,” he says. “Come back to the ship and we will talk about what is to be done with you.”
“I’m not coming back, Atlas. I’m going as far away from here as possible. Trust me, it’s better for all of us this way. Thanks for the pancakes. You can keep that fucking cane.”
I turn the ship about and accelerate out of communication range. There’s no point continuing to talk. I’m never, ever going to allow myself to be taken by any of these alien males.
I’m looking for a black market doctor. That’s what I need, someone who can isolate the nano-tags and either deactivate or remove them. Once they’re gone, I’ll sink back into blessed isolation. Nobody will know who I am. I’ll be free to do what I planned to do in the first place, and make the money I need to make to do what I need to do.
There’s a lot of time to think when I’m rocketing through space on my own. I get to think about Raz, how seductive he was, how he made me feel like he gave a damn. Atlas, too. He made me feel like I was something precious. Something worth preserving. Yes, it was creepy as hell, the idea of being put in a simulation, but the impulse behind it was protective.
These aliens did nothing but pay for me, and already some of them care for me. When I slept with Raz, and when he tried to help me repay the debts, I had an ally. I don’t have one anymore. I don’t have anyone. I don’t have a pretty pink bed covered in frills. I do, however, still have the galaxy’s most ornate nightdress. I attacked a ship while wearing a pretty pink frilly gown. That makes me giggle. Also makes me want to talk to someone, tell them what I’m doing. But friends are a luxury I lost long ago when I left civilized space. I’m on my own. I used to feel good about that. I used to think being on my own was for the best. Kept me safe, etcetera.