Page 175 of Light Leech

“Keiro,” she said under her breath. “Just because he said the same thing before we lost him doesn’t mean you’ll lose me. I’m not charging head on into a suicide mission like he did. Well… maybe that isn’t the right thing to say right now. What I mean to say is that I’m not charging in blind hatred to finish some job. I want a break. I want to finish this, then come home without an active target on our backs. Can’t I be tired that way? Sure, someone will always be looking around for us, but the Correction knows we are coming. I want to use the energy I have left right not to go to the moon, do what we need, then have a little family time to ourselves. You plug?”

“Yeah. I’m tired, too.”

“See? Not everything needs to be tied to past scars.”

“So… what now?”

“Take what you need for a few days’ vacation to the moon. I’ve got the tickets lined up to fly out like I said. Visit if you need, but I already told the others to expect this.”

“Pulse.”

“We’ll feed hard right before the spaceport departure. I’ll take a few emergency teeth in case we need them to push us through until arrival. Once we’re there, we can figure out how to feed next. The moon resorts are full of pompous rich shacs who can keep us well fed for the way home.”

“But what if we can’t defeat the Correction on our own? I mean, it’s a full-on organization.”

“Trust me. We’ll chat about it on the ride there. Enjoy yourself for a bit. I’ll grab you when it’s time to leave.”

“Pulse.”

As I walked through the halls, I watched the joy that we had built from a series of disasters. Ralia held us up with an ever-present “can-do” attitude even against the impossible Kuni, the test-subject orphan had a full family of unfit parents to raise him. Denji, the wannabe Luxists was on his way to becoming one of the best monks ever known. Abbas was redeeming himself by turning to peace where his past associates waged war. We weren’t at that peace quite yet, but we were en route. Boyband and Akna gave me hope that even the tainted youth might make the future worth reaching.

Naoma. She had been my muse from the beginning and once I cleared those clouds of corruption, I saw that she was unequivocal in beauty and personality. As my world went to guk, she shined the light at the end of the tunnel. We had pulled her from glory, wealth, and unparalleled fame, yet she refused to return.

People. It was always about the people.

I tried to smile, focusing on what we had, not on what we entropy was bound to take.

Chapter twenty-seven

Let Me Play Among the Atars

Islept most of the flight to Marathon City. The transfer ride from there to the spaceport was only fourteen minutes, yet I slept for twelve. Ralia pulled me awake and my heartbeat felt like it was vibrating. I had a cool sweat running down my back and images of the neurocore fresh in my mind.

Prior to leaving Marathon City, Ralia had pointed us to an underground ring–one of the many in the oddly capacious airport–of data traders who extracted flight and associated travel information from Republic immigrants to point them towards the increasingly hostile Immigration Enforcers. She only had to show me a single video of a southern Republic family that had immigrated to the north being torn apart to fill detainment center quotas. The father and one of the children were pronounced dead, leaving the daughter paralytic and the mother with irreparable PTSD.

When we eliminated the ring’s reps, we took out the corrupt security officers who had their backs.

We got our fill of teeth.

My gratitude for Ralia redoubled as she mapped our way through the spaceport, through expedited security, and into the back of the shuttle for private luxury seating. I doubted she had paid for these, but figured it was better not to ask just how much she had manipulated the system in our favor.

The takeoff was smoother than I had anticipated. Then again, these people were paying for luxury, not mere practicality.

Each of our flight pods had the option for sedation during take-off to avoid the jarring G-force, but I chose to endure it. It was still noticeable, but less dramatic than the footage I had seen of flights a few decades ago. I wondered if the pseudo-earth’s developers–or settlers, the whole idea was far from clear–had aided the technology, having mastered it enough to construct a false moon for transportation and whatever the Correction did.

Nothing made sense. Despite Ralia’s assurances, I never would have thought I would have made it to this point. We were leaving Earth’s orbit and–if a freak accident didn’t bring a grim twist to my story–would land on the moon. If all of that had been possible, I suppose we could return alive and successful.

I heard a few flight pods playing music to muffle the retching of passengers as gravity lost its strength. I tapped on my personal flight display and sent a request to the pod next to me to merge. While I waited for Ralia’s response, I looked around in my pod as the glass around me. The glass had shifted to a dark tint to protect our eyes from the sun, but I could still see through it. The pod’s space was not too cramped, but it might have been too much for a larger claustrophobe. A drinking tube stuck out of the wall on my left. I pulled it, took a sip, then let go and watched it retract.

The flight panel before me had anything one could need for a two day flight except the ability to walk around. I could recline the seat to sleep, order food to a tube on my right, use the restroom with some mechanism that would change my seat–though I was yet to try it. The pod gave me premium neuronet access allowing me to stream an endless library of music with Finian augmentation, all of the newest mindshows, and plenty of neurospace games that I considered trying if I got bored.

The panel flashed green, showing that the pod next to me approved my merge request. I watched it slide towards me, link to my side, then the glass between us dropped.

“Getting anxious?” Ralia asked. Her top buckles were undone, unlike mine. I wasn’t frightened of the flight, but I didn’t want to risk anything I wasn’t permitted to do, even if that meant undoing one of the four sets of buckles.

“Just want to know what the plan is,” I replied. “I need something to keep my mind occupied for the next day and a half.”

“Fine. Maybe you can come up with a plan then.”