Page 102 of Star Bringer
“Noted,” Gage says. “But this isn’t science—it’s magic.”
He whips the wand into Max’s face, and—credit where credit is due—Max does a pretty perfect imitation of a man turning into a slogg. Even I can’t help laughing.
“I take it you haven’t found anything yet?” I ask.
“Not a thing,” Gage replies. “Not that I expect to. No way someone bugged this ship. But Ian won’t believe me until I search every single centimeter of it.”
He walks into the galley, wielding the wand like a sword. In the meantime, I look at Max, who is still smiling. “Looks like you two were having fun,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “Gage does an amazing impression of—” Then he breaks off, like he just remembered who he’s talking to.
Which, of course, only makes me want to know more who Gage was impersonating. “Of?” I prompt.
But Max just shakes his head. Unlike Ian, he really does know when to keep his mouth shut.
I glance into the galley just in time to see Gage finish up his sweep. “Come on, just the rest of this hallway and the bridge to go,” he says.
I follow them back. And watch as they repeat the process in the bridge while everyone looks on. No beeps. No alarms. Not even a blinking light to indicate a problem.
Gage puts the wand on the back console and slumps into a seat. “I did say it was unlikely,” he mutters. But he still seems annoyed that he couldn’t find something.
“Damn.” Ian runs a hand over his face. “So how the fuck did they find us, then?”
“Maybe they’ve developed a way to track alien artifacts,” Gage tries. “I know they were working on some sort of prototype.”
“Well, let’s hope that’s not the case, or we’ll never lose them again.”
Max picks up the wand for himself, tosses it in the air, catches it, then points it at Gage’s head. “Prepare to be—”
It beeps.
Everyone goes still and turns to look at Gage.
Max moves closer, waving the wand over Gage’s head. The beeping gets louder.
Gage frowns. Then his expression clears. “That’s not a bug,” he says, brushing the wand away. “It’s my neural chip. We all have them in the Corporation. They’re implanted when we join up.” He glances around and frowns. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“You have a chip in your head?” Ian asks. “A neural chip?”
“Yeah. What’s the big deal? I told you—we all have them.”
“And what do these chips do, exactly?”
“All sorts of cool stuff, but you don’t get access to most of that until the higher levels. Initially, they just use them for keeping track…” He trails off, his eyes widening. “Oh shit.”
“Oh shit, indeed,” Ian mutters. “And you’re supposed to be the intelligent one in this little group. Fuckingfuck, man.” He runs a hand over the top of his short hair—I’ve noticed it’s a habit of his when he’s thinking or pissed off about something. “So, you have a neural chip in your head that they can use to track you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how far away it can be picked up.”
“Let me take a wild stab in the dark—pretty fucking far.” He shakes his head. “So, what do we do now?” His eyes narrow on Gage. “My vote is toss the fucker out of the airlock along with his neural chip.”
Beckett raises a hand. “I second the motion.”
Bloodthirsty drokarays—both of them.
Gage tugs on his earring, then glances at Max, who shrugs like he doesn’t care one way or the other.
And now Gage is starting to turn a little green.
