Page 5 of Logic Broken

She frowned at me, her arms curled tightly around her body. “Why? We barely know each other. The odds are better.” I felt panic claw at me at the thought, briefly making it impossible to even reason out why it would be better not to split up.

“You have no money,” I said, remembering the horror on her face when her credits had been spilled all over the floor of that filthy establishment. Then I remembered my own horror when the pain collar around her throat had been exposed. She was a slave like my friends had been before they freed themselves. “And you are still wearing a collar,” I pointed a finger at the distasteful thing around her slender neck. My left tentacle followed suit, reaching for her, and I hurriedly yanked it back.

A small smile curled around her pink lips and I felt a bit of tension leave my body. She was laughing over my misbehaving tentacle; as long as she did that, I couldn’t be too upset about it. She nodded, “These are facts. But it’s not something you can fix, so there’s still no reason to stick around.” She lifted her chin and with a sinking feeling, I realized that she might be the type that didn’t want to accept help. I never understood that inclination whenever I encountered it and I was preparing myself for some fierce arguments. What would sway her?

“I can procure more credits for you. I can also take off the collar without triggering the anti-tampering features.” To make sure she knew I was serious, I shifted my bag on my hip and pulled out the little folded pouch with my tools. Her eyes were growing wider as she watched but she didn’t move away, peering curiously at the tools when I revealed them to her.

I could almost see the thoughts spinning in her head from the way her hazel eyes narrowed on what I was holding. Did she trust me enough to let me tamper with that collar? She had to know, just like anyone who’d worn such a tool, what it meant for her if I didn’t know what I was doing. I did, but did she believe that?

Eventually, it became obvious that the desire to have that collar off won out. She stepped closer to me, silently lifting her chin and offering me her neck. It reminded me strongly of an entirely different human woman that I’d done this for when I’d only just started to manage to control this body. Meena hadn’t hesitated as long, but then, I’d posed no threat. I’d been entirely ineffective at moving my limbs around at the time.

I got to work as soon as she let me, as eager as she was to remove the device from her neck. It took only a few seconds to remove the lid in the appropriate way, then it was just a matter of disabling the right circuit and cutting the power. As soon as I did that, the collar loosened and slipped from her throat. She didn’t try to catch it, just let it thud to the cobblestones at our feet.

“Thank you, Akri,” she said quietly. Her hand went to her throat, gently massaging the even paler strip of skin now revealed. To my shock, my left tentacle was curled around her wrist but it jumped ship the moment it got near her neck. It slid along her throat to tell me that, yes, it really was very soft, just like I’d imagined. Her eyes went huge in her face and I felt like mine did the same, heat scorching along my cheekbones.

“I’m so sorry! I don’t know what is happening; my tentacles keep malfunctioning,” I apologized. I hurried to stick my tools back in my bag so I could grab hold of the thing with both hands but I froze just before grabbing it. Jenny had closed her eyes and leaned into the touch of my tentacle gently curling around her neck. She looked pleased. I didn’t understand what was happening. There was a little curl of her lip at the corner of her mouth and it just looked... blissful.

“Okay,” she mumbled, eyes still shut. “Feels good actually,” she added, and then her lids fluttered open to reveal a look I couldn’t decipher. I tried hard to find comparable expressions in my database, but honestly, the only material that matched were expressions of the mates of my friends from when I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to watch them. Was she aroused?

She stepped back suddenly, turning away from me and my eagerly reaching tentacles. “Fine, we’ll stick together if you think you can get me back my money. Where should we go? We’ve left the trade workers’ district. I don’t know my way out here.” The rapid topic shift derailed me and this mind was not as quick at changing topics as I had been when I was the Vagabond. Especially when I very much wanted to know more about why she’d looked the way she had just now.

“I have a plan,” I said instead, drawing on the knowledge I had of the city maps and the work schedules. I’d done extensive research before coming to this planet. I knew what a risk I was taking just by being here because it was so close to the planet Drameil preferred. I was relieved when Jenny didn’t question me but simply fell into step at my side when I started walking.

*

Jenny

I was a little shaken up by what had just happened. Only a few weeks ago, I’d silently commemorated my first whole year out in space, but it was also a whole year of being a slave. When Akri removed that collar, I felt so much that I couldn’t figure out what was up and what was down. I’d wanted to touch that bare skin but had almost been afraid to discover if there was a permanent mark.

His tentacle sliding from my wrist to my throat so gently… It had felt good, really good. It felt like the first real touch since I’d gotten here. All other times his grip had been firm, tight enough to let me know he didn’t want to let go. But this touch? It was so gentle, so careful. It had felt tender and it had struck me hard. When was the last time I wasn’t alone? When I wasn’t the only one looking out for me?

With Akri, I could believe that he did care, that he had no agenda of his own. Following him into the city might seem stupid when I still didn’t know much about him, but his actions so far had all proven to me that he was a good person/alien. I also really needed funds if I wanted to survive out here. I had to buy a disguise or steal one, and I had to buy myself passage to a planet out here in this quadrant that banned slavery so I could be safe. Then I had to find a way to support myself. I couldn’t do any of that without money.

Akri had flipped the hood up on his long coat, which hid what he was if you saw him from behind. He could pass as a dockworker or tradesman. I scoffed out loud. No he looked a little too polished for that; the leather coat was clearly expensive. Now that he wasn’t hunched over, he did look dangerous, and he looked confident as he walked. A mercenary or bounty hunter, maybe.

I stuck close to him but I didn’t have a handy coat to hide with, and my dress was starting to get a little too cold for this weather. Worse, the left strap was torn and the neckline gaped a bit after that Sithral had grabbed me. If we didn’t find a place to hide soon, I’d be a Jenny-shaped Popsicle.

When we passed a bank, I didn’t think anything of it. It was closed since it was well after working hours by now, the interior dark, and the security force field turned on. Akri cast a look around to assure himself that we were alone on the street, then he jogged up the steps and went straight for the little panel next to the door. I was pretty sure that was where you could disable the alarm and force field but it wouldn’t be anything as simple as a four-digit code.

“What are you doing!?” I demanded quietly as I followed him up the steps to the panel. If we got caught at a bank because I wanted money… Things would get really bad for me. He tilted his head my way, his eyes like starry night skies twinkling at me, mirth in every line of his face. He held up the tip of one wriggling tentacle, the other wriggling out from his hood to reach for me. I was starting to get used to that; it was a little like he had two pet snakes who were extremely smitten with me.

“Getting you your money,” he said casually. Was he fucking kidding right now? Had I somehow gotten embroiled with a freaking bank robber? Then he astonished me even further by thumbing the tip of the tentacle he was holding, a little patch of skin sliding away to expose a tiny hole. With his other hand, he pulled a little cable with glowing, glass fiber-like ends from the one of the seams on his coat. It looked alive as he touched it to the hole he’d revealed in his tentacle, sliding right in.

“Nav-port,” he declared. I knew what those were, and that definitely didn’t look like any normal nav-port. Those ports were installed in the back of a person’s head, allowing them to hook themselves up to a ship’s computer so they could use their actual brain to run super fast calculations needed for navigating at Faster-Than-Light speeds. As advanced as the aliens out here were, they still couldn’t build computers small and fast enough to do that that could fit onto a ship.

Why was his at the end of that long tentacle? And what did he think he could achieve by hooking himself up to the security system of a bank through it? From what I’d learned, most minds were barely able to function as a nav-computer. Some people got lost inside that data stream as soon as they hooked themselves up for the first time. What he was about to do was crazy, dangerous, and completely unheard of.

With a few quick motions from his agile hand, wielding one of his handy tools, the screen popped free from the access panel. It didn’t take him long at all to get the other end of his cable attached to some wires inside. I had never seen a navigator in action, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe that he closed his eyes or that his face would go slack like a zombie or something.

Akri grinned at me, showing off a set of sharp white teeth with slightly more pronounced canine teeth than a human might have, but definitely not hitting that vampire territory yet. “Please observe the street. In case of traffic, tap my shoulder.” I wanted to look away and do as he said, but I was utterly fascinated when his starlight eyes changed to flicker like the stars were dancing. Then the colors changed from white to red and orange, and I gasped at how pretty that looked and how bizarre it was.

“Watch the street, Jenny,” Akri said, startling me. I didn’t think he was still aware of what I was up to, but apparently not. Doing as he had asked, I made myself turn away so I could watch for people. He was right, I needed to warn him as soon as anyone came by, but all the businesses were dark here; I doubted we’d see any traffic.

It didn’t take more than a minute before I heard a click and then the soft humming of the force field disappeared. I dared a quick look over my shoulder and realized that Akri had done it; he’d turned it off and opened the front door to the bank. We could get in now. Had he disabled the cameras inside as well?

He was already unhooking himself and rolling up his cable’, although he didn’t take it out of his tentacle. “Come,” he said, gesturing at me to follow him through the door. Since we were far less exposed inside than outside, I did as he suggested. My stomach was in knots the entire time, but my body tingled with excitement as well. This was not what expected I to be doing with my freedom. I would have never considered breaking into a bank back on Earth. Here, it was actually a little cool too. I was already a fugitive, so why not?

The inside of this bank was just a stone floor, a service desk, and a wall with partitioned little nooks. It looked almost like a bank on Earth might, though this place was small and looked like they hadn’t even tried to spruce it up. No sign of a single potted plant or painting, just stark gray everything.