Page 39 of January Bell

“Shitface. The AI from shitface?” Ken repeats, looking perplexed, interrupting my tangent.

Zan looks at me fondly. “She is of sound mind.”

I glare at both of them. “Don’t fucking take his side,” I tell Zan, shaking my finger at him, practically vibrating with rage.

“Although there are myths of our females taking the mating serum before battle then denying themselves sex in order to get themselves more violent…”

He looks at me, clearly intrigued by the thought.

“I will fucking kill you both,” I tell them. “Well, maybe not you, Zan,” I retract immediately. “I need you.” I like you, I almost say out loud.

But I don’t.

Ken laughs, a booming sound that takes me by surprise, redirecting my ire squarely onto him.

“Are you going to fucking shut up now and tell us what the hell we’re going to do next, or are you just going to stand there and look like a see-through idiot?” I glare at him.

“Well, I’m not sure that the serum is helping your intelligence…”

He slips into game show host mode, which is too bad.

“Because this—” Ken gestures broadly at nothing “—is going to be a battle of wits, not of physicality.”

“Well…” he pauses dramatically.

Zan’s tail tightens around my ankle, and I step toward him, craving his company and wanting the comfort of his closeness.

“Not all of wits, because I fear there will be an element of danger. It wouldn’t be fun if there wasn’t.” Ken smiles.

I’m practically growling at him, which is a strange sound to have coming out of me, but I’m absolutely riled the fuck up and ready to fight. Even though I don’t know how to fight, and I’m about to gnaw off Zan’s arm in hunger, and in fact the poor chicken—who looks at me with trusting, weird bird eyes—is looking more delicious by the second.

“You need to feed her,” I tell Ken, completely ignoring his spiel, which is very effective at pissing him off. If there is one thing I’m good at, it’s knowing exactly how to piss someone off—even if that someone is an AI.

I grin at him. “Or are you going to keep just torturing all the flora and fauna of this place? Hmm? Is that what happened to all the people on your damn space station? Hmm?" My ears are hot with rage, and I wouldn’t be surprised if steam was coming out of them like a cartoon character. "You tortured them out of existence? You took up all their water supply and they couldn’t live anymore to power your own servers? Is that what happened?”

“It feels like you’re projecting,” Zan says.

“Oh, what? Just because that’s what happened on Earth doesn’t mean that’s not what happened here,” I snap, completely losing my temper.

“On that note, it’s time to get started,” Ken interrupts.

A pair of what seem to be drones fly into the clearing we’re standing in, and on the spot where our dome was just last night—where Zan did wonderful, delicious things to me—the drones begin to build what looks like a glass enclosure.

In a matter of seconds, it’s taller than Zan, and in a matter of minutes, it’s twice as tall as him.

The shape is unmistakable.

I swallow hard, not liking the looks of this.

Ken snaps his fingers, and the next thing I know, we’re inside the structure.

“I don’t like this,” I say out loud, fear tamping down my rage. “I don’t fucking like this at all.”

I pace back and forth inside the glass structure, tapping on it, thinking there’s no way those machines were able to print glass—but based on the way it feels under my fingers and the sound against my nails, this is definitely glass.

“What is this thing?” Zan says, looking absolutely perplexed.

I let out a huge sigh. “I have a feeling we’re about to be trapped in an hourglass.”