Chapter Five: Sarah Gets Mad

        Sarah had seen flashbangs used in fiction. Loud noise, big flash, ringing sound, lots of slow motion while the hero tried to desperately scramble for a gun to shoot back. What fiction didn’t include was the feeling of the flash-power burning onto her skin in a grid pattern, or the way the nerve-induction sonics hammered her flesh like...hammers. It didn’t mention that the gas that filled her nose and throat hit her nearly as bad as the anaphylactic shock had. And it definitely didn’t mention the security robots storming in. One of them smashed into her shoulder first and sent her sprawling to the ground. The security bot planted itself atop her body, unfolding several arms that began to spray her with fast hardening polymer – all before she had managed to even think about explaining what was going on.

        A machine gun’s hammering filled the air. Larry cried out – and out of the corner of her eye, she saw black blood splashing against the wall. “No!” Sarah shouted. Then a screeching of torn metal reached her ears. The head of one of the security mechs went flying overhead. Then Larry thumped to the ground to her left. Blood welled from a half dozen ragged holes punched into his flank – bubbling and hissing. He breathed raggedly and rumbled. “S’fine...”

        A pair of shiny black boots stomped past her head. When Sarah craned her head up, she saw the clear faceplate and armored body of a security officer. She cocked her head to the side and picked up the face of Chief Baraka. He was pale, with dark hair, and a wicked scar from one of the many minor skirmishes that NovaDyne had fought with competitors over the years. He had one of his heavy revolvers in his hand – the kind he favored because they were flashy and fancy looking. Sarah gritted her teeth.

        “That’s Dr. Bowers!” she shouted over the sound of ringing in her ears. She sounded distant. Muffled. “Don’t hurt him!”

        Chief Baraka looked at her, with cold eyes. His lip curled and he put his boot onto Larry’s ribs, pushing him onto his side. “This  thing  is Dr. Bowers?” he asked.

        “Y-Yes!” Sarah gasped. “You can hear him! He can  talk !”

        “ Yeah!” Larry rasped out.

         Chief Baraka put his finger to the side of his helmet. He was getting a radio bust. Sarah felt the pain and buzzing from the flashbang fading – her ears weren’t even ringing anymore. She strained against the restraints wrapped around her chest, her arms and her muscles burning. The restraints started to creak and groan. Chief Baraka shook his head. “I’ve fought bugs before,” he said, his voice soft. He put more pressure on Larry, pinning him down as Larry made weak twitches with his arms. Baraka aimed with his pistol, right down at Larry’s head.

        “No!” Sarah shouted. “No, don’t, please !”

        Baraka fired.

        Larry’s doglike skull exploded apart. Brain matter and bits of bone flecked against Sarah’s cheek. She went slack, her arms feeling like they’d suddenly become pipe cleaners again. Baraka spoke – his voice silent, no longer transmitting outside of his suit. He gestured to the remaining security team and security bots. Soon, human arms had slung Sarah between metal bodies – and added a second, third, and fourth layer of mummy like wrappings. She wriggled and squirmed – but no matter how hard she strained, no matter how hard she tried, Sarah couldn’t get free.

        The whole force started home.

        And Sarah began to cry.

***

        The cell that they dumped her into was painfully familiar.

        Sarah scrambled to her feet and immediately did what a dozen or so specimens she had captured had done across three different tours with NovaDyne: She scrambled to the walls and started to press her palms against the smooth, silvery surface that she knew was a full spectrum quantum dot scanner and recording device. A voice came over the PA: “Subject appears to be bipedal and fully capable of humanoid movements. Uh, start doing a thermal workup.”

        “D...Doctor Gibson?” Sarah asked, her ears perking up.

        Dr. Gibson didn’t say anything to her. Instead, a glowing bar of light wicked out from the cell walls and swept over her body. She heard a faint collection of sounds, rustling through her ears. It was a bit like being on a com with someone whose microphone was too close to their desk. She heard the clicking of styluses and pens, the soft clatter of plastic on plastic, the typing of fingers. She frowned. “Dr. Gibson!” She said, again. “It’s me! Sarah!”

        “Subject is attempting to communicate,” Dr. Gibson said, his voice sounding tired and distracted. “Uh, do you think it is a camouflage attempt?”

        “Possibly,” another voice said – one she recognized as Trevor Yale. He was one of the flashy nanotechs who had been earmarked for promotion for the entire trip. “Though, if it was going to pretend to be Sarah, you’d think it’d be more...” He started to make oinking noises.

        There was a shoving sound, and some snickering.

        Sarah was hearing three male voices – Gibson, Yale and...if she didn’t miss her guess, Barakas. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling a flare of self consciousness. “My name is Sarah Kappel,” she said. “I was born in the Torontoburgh Archaeology, in level 98101. My parents are Perez and Sarah Kappel, they both have EduTech citizenship. My mom is working on their latest Marvel reboot doing scut-level CGI for Captain America’s lower limbs, and my dad handles repair and maintenance on the Galactic Adventures amusement park in Erie Park. I s-served on this fucking ship for three fucking months and the whole fucking time, Trevor didn’t stop making oinking noises every time I walked past his fucking cubical, and the only reason I didn’t say anything is because I know he’s fucking you, Gibson, you piece of shit. Let. Me. Out !”

        The words got faster and louder the more they tumbled out of her. She trembled and she felt her claws pricking against the insides of her armpits as she tucked them against her. Her eyes glared outwards, at one of the four walls. Not that she knew which one was adjoined to the laboratory. One of them had to be.

        Silence.

        “Can the subject hear-” Yale started.

        “Yes, I can fucking hear you! Let me out !” Sarah shouted.

        “Sedate the subject,” Barakas snapped, his voice authoritative. The others didn’t hesitate. The entire room started to hiss. The gas was invisible, but it had clearly been designed to work with the biochemistry of this planet. It rushed into Sarah’s nose and down her throat. Her lungs burned and she wobbled, slightly, her knees quivering until she fell onto her hands and her knees. Her head ducked forward.

        “...goddamn, though...” She heard Trevor’s voice through a muffled pillow. “Look at that ass .”

        “It’s an alien, Doctor Yale,” Barakas rumbled. But she could practically feel the big security chief oggling her. Well. Now she knew where the fucking lab was. Her eyes closed and her claws scraped onto the ground – drawing up thin furrows of silvery metal, which snarled up against her fingertips.

        “Did you just see that?” Gibson whispered.

        Sarah breathed heavily through clenched teeth. “That’s...solid...hypersteel alloy...” She snapped her head up, her head spines tightening against her head like a set of ridges – making her look fierce and furious. Her eyes flashed. “I said...” She forced herself to her knees as more gas hissed into the room. “Let. Me. Out .”

        She punched the wall.

        There was nothing elegant about it. She hadn’t really gone in for much training, beyond the grips and grabs that most women learned to try and get men to let go of them. It was a flailing, wild swing. But it struck the wall with a gonging sound that left an indentation nearly as deep as her thumb and sent a wash of numbing pain along her whole arm. Her shoulder had gone numb, that was how far along the backwash went. The numbness faded as she lifted her other arm. This time, the impact punched through the wall and into open air. Ragged metal tore at her skin and black blood flowed along the wall as Sarah grinned, feeling...for the first time in her life…

        Powerful.

        It was a good feeling.

        She jerked her wrist backwards and saw the wounds were already closing. Through the ragged hole she had punched into the wall, she could see Dr. Yale and Dr. Gibson gawping at her. They both scrambled out of their swivel chairs and away from the broad board of dials, switches and touch screens that served as the observation room. Barakas, though, pulled out his pistol and started to fire shots through the hole and into the containment cells. Sparks showered the air as the bullets rebounded and started to bounce off Sarah’s shoulder blades and buttocks. She ducked aside and hissed as she felt a stinging lump of metal flick against her forehead – it felt a bit like a kid tossing a paper football at her.

        “Incinerate her!” Barakas said.

        “Her now?” Sarah growled.

        “We can’t, the seal is-” Dr. Gibson gibbered, sounding nearly hysterical.

        Sarah grabbed onto the ragged edge of the hole. She hooked her claws on the metal and she tore. The wall squealed and groaned and gave all in one gigantic piece. Wires, tugged free from their mountings, sparked in the air while computer components tumbled from where they had been nestled, skittering along the floor like multicolored candies. Sarah pivoted herself through the hole, her feet kicking out and smashing into Dr. Yale’s chest. The blond haired puke went flying backwards and smashed into the wall, leaving an indentation in the cheap areoplast. Gidion grabbed onto the younger doctor’s hand and tugged him to the door, screaming at the top of his lungs.

        Chief Barakas shot Sarah in the chest.

        The round slammed through her, then bust inside of her with a starburst of flame and pain. She staggered backwards, blood streaming past her lips. She coughed, wobbled slightly, then clutched at herself. Her eyes half closed. She clenched teeth and felt bubbling heat dripping through and around her teeth. “Oh...” She hissed. “You should have brought a bigger gun,” she growled in a voice that was not her own, in words that were not her own. This wasn’t Sarah. Sarah was meek. Sarah hid. But Sarah was hiding now – and something else was wearing her skin, using her vocal cords. That something else grabbed onto Barakas’ pistol hand.

        “Subject seems to have vastly increased strength,” Sarah growled.

        She clenched.

        The pistol came to pieces, and the pieces turned Barakas’ hand into a red ruin of bone and veins. The security chief’s eyes bugged and his knees buckled.

        “Subject seems to be deeply aware of human biological weaknesses,” Sarah added, bringing her knee up. She would have smashed the Chief’s balls in with that strike – but he bent and twisted, so that instead, her knee caught his thigh and the femur burst from the skin with a spray of arterial blood. She released his hand and he collapsed onto his back, gasping, his face completely chalk white. His eyes were wild and his face was flecked with blood and bits of spittle.

        “Subject...” Sarah lifted her foot.

        Barakas mumbled something.

        From his mouth. His human mouth. Her foot hovered over that face and she saw that she was about to turn a human being into pulp. Sarah wanted to be sick. She stepped back and away from the prone man, bile rising out of her mouth. Oh god, she thought. Oh god oh god.

         Baraks managed to get the words out, louder: “Security...override. Emergency evacuation orders. Now.”

        The entire ship began to wail with alerts as Barakas laid his head back. His eyes closed and he smirked. “You’re going to be...left here...to rot. Both of us are gonna die here, you alien bi-” He blinked as Sarah grabbed onto his shirt. She slung him over her shoulder and sprang into the corridor. Her brain wheeled as she remembered the emergency evacuation routines. The scout ship, like most scout ships, was designed to deploy and fabricate a large laboratory extension. Since, well, it had a maker. It didn’t have to transport a bunch of supplies from place to place. Normally, when it got prepped to leave a planet, they’d all get into work suits and dismantle the whole place and chuck it into the maker to recycle it all back to component matter, which could then be used for reaction mass or making a lab on the next planet.

        But when the emergency happened...

        The whole base shuddered and she heard screams and cries of alarm coming from others in detatched sections of the lab. Then she came to the large central airlock that led to the actual body of the ship. The doors were creaking shut with a loud derrt derrt derrt noise. Sarah skidded to a stop, panting heavily. “Hey, Chief,” she said. “You have health insurance, right?”

        “Class two!” he snarled.

        “Good!” Sarah put him down. “I didn’t.”

        She kicked him through the doorway. He skidded along the ground like a football, until the door slammed shut – sealing and locking shut. Sarah nodded to herself. Class two healthcare meant he’d get a new hand. So. She didn’t have to feel too bad about herself. Which was why she managed to keep herself from vomiting until right now. She puked her entire stomach contents onto the floor, coughing and spluttering as she spat and smacked her lips. “Ugh. Ick. Augh. Oh god. Oh god.”

        Then the ship took off.

        The sucker used a high end fusion torch – enhanced via some kind of gravitational input shunt, the same kind that they used to power the HPS drive. That meant it could unleash a terrible amount of force – and when that force hit the ground, it rippled to each side. Superheated gasses exploded through the space between the lab structures, and the cheaply fabricated materials started to melt. The entire ground rocked upwards and Sarah was flung away from the airlock door. She hit her back and saw the corridor sagging inwards, like some kind of demented house of wax – dripping with lava-like stalagmites. Or tites. She could never remember which. She scrabbled backwards on her hands and feet, crabwalking before she got to her feet and sprinted away. The ceiling, being cheaply made, started to collapse as the subsonic rumble of the rocket shook it to pieces, then the backwash bathed it from overhead as the scout ship rushed towards the heavens. She dodged left, dodged right, screaming as she batted away metal plates that tumbled onto her head and her shoulders.

        Finally, she reached one of the connection tubes that linked the biolab to the nanolab.

        Sarah sprinted right, hit the wall, then leaped off it and slammed into the window that faced the jungle. Her shoulder struck it and the armored glass shattered apart, letting her skid through the grass and dirt until she landed at the base of one of the heavy turrets. The roaring sound that had filled her ears for the past few minutes faded – slowly.

        She watched the rocket climb.

        Climb.

        Gone.

        Sarah sat up, panting softly. She touched where she had been shot. It was already healed. But fuck she was hungry. Sarah smacked her lips...and felt oddly at peace. DynaCore was gone. She was definitely fired. Stranded on an alien planet, in an alien body.

        And yet?

        She felt…

        Good.

        Real good. Sarah stood, her stomach growling. And then she did a little dance as she realized why she felt this intense sense of relief, of peace. She lifted her arms over her head as she leaped from foot to foot. “I don’t...owe...anyone...any money!” She sang, wriggling her hips from side to side. “No more debt! Woo! Dance! Yeah!”

        Sarah kept dancing for an embarrassingly long time

        Eventually, she noticed. Stopped. And sheepishly headed inside.

***

        The emergency evacuation of the NovaDyne survey ship had blasted incredibly hot rocket exhaust through a worryingly large chunk of the research complex. The whole place had been designed to try and shunt that exhaust away from important parts of the building – but the design had been created for NovaDyne’s normal exploration targets. Those were exoplanets that usually had so little atmosphere that you only needed a tiny bit of clearance to ensure that the rocket exhaust wouldn’t cook things. Vacuum, after all, was a very effective insulator. Because designing a new building would have taken valuable time away from the new line of consumer products, they had just used the old design on Trappist-1a.

        This meant that, as Sarah walked her way through the rapidly abandoned complex, she kept finding corridors and roofs that had been kissed by super heated atmosphere. Some of them had held up well. For example, the security bunker that had been positioned very close to the actual ship was nearly intact, with only minor scorching along the interior walls. Not that Sarah could actually get inside the bunker – it was locked up tight.

        Other places had survived less well. One of those ‘less well’ places included the bunk rooms and the common room. The maker that she had been kicking just twenty four hours ago was so much bubbling silvery glop in the middle of a room that looked like it had been turned to wax, then set on fire. Sarah put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the damage, making a tiny ‘tick’ noise with her tongue. She was honestly not entirely sure what to do right now.

        “You’re debt free,” she said, quietly. “You can survive on this planet indefinitely.” She frowned.

        That was just it. She was debt free. She didn’t have a paycheck to look forward to, or expenses to tally up. She didn’t need to juggle a budget or a deadline. She just... was . It was a deeply unsettling experience, now that the initial jubilation had worn off. So, Sarah clapped her hands. The sound was shockingly loud in the empty room. She actually started and looked around, as if expecting to see fellow co-workers glaring at her for disturbing their quiet. Instead, she only saw a few insects buzzing around the large hole that the rocket had burned into the ceiling, perching and roosting.

        “R-Right!” Sarah said, placing her hands back together again. “Step one, find some food. You’re hungry. Put food into the mouth hole. That’s how you don’t die of starvation.” She nodded. “...right, you...you know that already, Sarah, you have a doctorate in exobiology.” She put her hand over her face. “Shut up, Sarah. Just. Just shut up.”

        She found two candy bars that someone had fabricated and left in their desk in the cubical farm. Someone had stashed a fabbed apple – one of the PureFood brands, hidden underneath a set of pillows that someone had left on their desk for when they needed to nap there. She also found other bits and detritus that her coworkers had left behind. She found three roses in a plastic sheath with a tiny card that played the sappy love song from Bolide. It was signed to Yelena, one of the techs in the biosynth section. She hadn’t known Yelana, and she didn’t recognize the handwriting, but hearing the song played in a cheap printed speaker made Sarah’s eyes suddenly brim with tears as she remembered the touching final scenes of the movie, where Jack slowly froze to death in the malfunctioning space suit while his lover, Rose, had clung to him.

        Before she knew it, Sarah was curled up on a pleather sofa in the executive lounge, slowly eating a candy bar while crying her eyes out about a movie she hadn’t even liked that much.

        Except it wasn’t the movie, or the doomed love affair between two fictional spacers.

        It was everything .

        She wasn’t being examined, prodded, poked, pushed, attacked, flashbanged, shot, stabbed, or rolled into acid pits. She had time to really absorb what had happened to her and it was forcing out tears by the buckets. Tears and snot and blubbering whimpers and lots of shaking. But as the tears faded, something else started to fill her up: Anger. She wasn’t even entirely sure who she was mad at or why. Was she furious at Chief Barakas, who had treated her like an alien test subject and shot Dr. Bowers in the head without even asking what or who he was? Was she furious at the Eye and its mysterious and terrifying goals? Was she mad at NovaDyne for cutting the costs on security droids so she had been herded into an alien’s biomorphic restructuring pit? Was she mad at herself for choosing to work in exoplanetary research rather than trying to get one of the coveted Earth based jobs? Was she mad at the universe, for making the world like this instead of like something nicer and better and kinder?

        Was she mad at herself for being weak and pathetic – for turning into a sobbing wreck because of a cheap Valentines Day card and a half remembered movie?

        Sarah decided…

        Yes.

        So, she decided to trash the executive lounge.

        One second, she was curled up, crying and shivering.

        The next, she was wiping her hands off her face and saw the decorations around her. There was the large holographic photograph of the company founder, Daniel Tavaner Koch Butane the 3 rd . He was still looking down at her, smiling that little smile of his, still wearing his fine three piece suit. And there was the secretary desk that was set before the door that led into where the administrator had worked to run the research base – the chair had been knocked over, but the little motivational plaque that the secretary had set up was still there:  Nine Tenths of Promotion is Motion.

         That had been what had done it.

         Yeah. Motion. Specifically, the up and down motion of fellating Craid’s pencil  dick .

        She had worked for NovaDyne for years , and she’d gotten how many promotions? Oh! Right! Zero. Fucking nothing because she was a sline and a woman and mysteriously this also happened to map directly onto who wasn’t able to get ahead. People like her and Larry would stay as entry level bullshit artists while Craid and his buddies like fucking Gibson and Yale would get to head the laboratory. Motion! Fucking motion ! Sarah sprang to her feet, walked to the desk, and grabbed onto it. Her claws dug into the faux-wood with sounds not unlike gunshots and she lifted it up and over her head with a bellow. Her arms strained and her muscles trembled, but the desk still went up. She hurled it at the doorway leading into Craid’s office.

        The desk struck the metal door with an unmusical clongggg and the door burst inwards with a spray of sparks and a squeal of whining machinery. Several bits of gearing that were supposed to recess the door into the wall twitched and flailed in the air as Sarah stepped through the doorway and into Craid’s office properly. There was his desk, fabricated to look like it was made out of solid mahogany. There was the door leading to his private rooms. And there was a fucking liquor cabinet, made of lacquered wood and baroque flourishes. Sarah took hold of one of the spiky corners and then looked around to make sure no one was watching – kicked herself for being an idiot – and tipped it forward. The glass front shattered and the bottles broke apart on the ground, spilling expensive scotch and whiskey and whatever the fuck else that that smug prick had stocked in it.

        “Ohh no!” Sarah put her hands to her cheeks. “What an accident !”

        That had felt good. She walked over to the desk and punched it. Her knuckles slammed into the middle and a large, black crack spread through the wood. Splinters flecked against her cheeks and then fell back down to the surface of the desk. Her knuckles throbbed pleasantly. Sarah grinned, then punched again. This time, her fist plunged into the drawer underneath the desk and she found herself looking into a collection of brick-a-back. Including...a keyecard. She fished it out and saw that it was the newest model, with a small gene-lock and the smiling face of Craid on the front. He had left behind his keycard!

        Sarah flapped the card between her fingers, slapping it against her palm. She walked over to the door leading to his private quarters and tried slotting it in. The card made a quiet bloory noise and the door chimed. “Gene-lock not identified,” it said.

        Sarah glared at her thumb, then pressed her thumb down against the lock again. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on Craid. She thought of everything she knew about him – his smell, his snide smirks, his arrogant little walk. As the memories tumbled through her head, she felt as if she knew more and more. She could taste his blood type. She could feel the subtle differences in genetic strands, as if she was raiding the G, A, T, C of his genes like it was braille. She opened her eyes and then gently slotted the keycard into the slot.

        The door chimed. “Welcome home, MinTech Yuleacitar Craid!”

        Sarah grinned, her fangs glinting. “Ohh oh ho ho ho!” She stepped into the room and saw the huge silk bed - way beyond the price range of a MinTech, but definitely affordable to someone whose parents owned a sizable chunk of Ceres. Then she saw the silvery rectangle of a personal maker and nearly wet herself with excitement. She sprinted over and knelt down beside the maker, slotting in the keycard. The keycard chimed and the maker started to display the holographic menu once it had failed to connect to any local HUD. The holomenu showed that the maker was formatted for food and basic products, had about fifty kilos of generic matter, plenty of energy...and Craid’s bank account.

        He had nearly ten thousand UC.

        Just in his checking account.

        Sarah crooned, then started to type furiously. “Lets see, Administrator Craid, I believe that you owe me three prime ribs...” She purred. “Medium rare, with mash potatoes, maybe a salad.” She grinned. “Oh! And a double stacked fudge combo cake!” She thumbed down the order. The maker chimed, then a small advertisement popped up – two simultaneously slender and buxom anime girls in incredibly scantily designed chef outfits appeared. They sang a little jingle, while words flashed up: For the low low price of 200 UC, your meal can be made Fat Free Superfood!

         “I don’t exactly need to watch my figure,” Sarah murmured, looking down at her resculpted figure. “But on the other hand, fuck you.” She thumbed down the accept button. The maker asked if she wanted to tip the design team who had built the meal. The suggested tip was 15% of the meal’s cost. Sarah didn’t know about the pay scale for food designers, but considering how fast new food models were shipped out through the extranet, she had a feeling that it was low. Scut work, basically. Rather than flipping burgers, it was coding makers to flip burgers, with new models of burgers needing to come out every week to retain market share.

        She had no idea if the tip would even get to the team. She was on an abandoned laboratory in a different solar system.

        So, she decided to be restrained and only put down a sixty five hundred credit gratuity.

        While the maker burbled and whirred, the nanites working on constructing the delicious red steak out of raw matter, Sarah flung herself onto the silken bed and writhed around in pleasure. It was so soft. So smooth. She closed her eyes. “Man, is this what being rich is like?” she murmured, kicking out her legs. As she laid there, the bed started to warm and shift its structure ever so slightly – adding a bit of extra support there and a bit less there. Sarah giggled, then blinked as she realized that she was now laid out with her hips lifted up and her shoulders depressed back. Her legs were being subtly lifted and spread, as if she was laying down for a medical examination. Meanwhile, cheesy synth was beginning to play from hidden speakers.

        She sat up. “Bed, what are you doing?” she asked.

        A small desk slipped from the side – it contained several bottles of what looked like rubbing lotion.

        “...oh god...” She put her hand over her face. “The bed thinks I’m here to fuck Craid.”

        She suddenly wanted to throw up.

        Then the wall to the left of the bed opened and a buxom, pink haired girl with a pair of antennas sticking out of her head like an ancient TV set stepped out from a small recess she had been stored in. Her breasts were full and round and far, far, far far too perky. Like, if there was an uncanny valley for breasts, this woman was right in the midst of it. She had a bubble butt, a waspish waist, and dainty feet that were clad in neon pink hight heels. A tiny thatch of pubic hair – also pink – was nestled above her sex, and as she stepped from the doorway, the music became slightly quieter. She put her hand on her hip, cocked it, grinned, and said: “Hey there tiger. Ready to ride me like a Harley and pump your love spunk deep into my hot, robo cunt?”

        Sarah remained sprawled on the bed.

        “Okay,” she said. “ Now I want to throw up.”

        The sex-robot looked at Sarah. The silent tableaux lasted for what felt like an eternity of awkward staring…

        And was broken when two people in spacesuits ran into the room and began to spray Sarah with fire retardant foam while also beating her about the head with a golf club.