“I'll be honest, the last time I knew Alice before she became human, she was busy turning that super carrier into a slaughterhouse. I'm having trouble forgetting that, especially considering the body she chose. I'll get over it though, it's just a little eerie, that's all.” Jonas said with a chuckle.
The lift lit up as they approached and they stepped inside. It was just large enough for five people comfortably. Jake selected the bridge, while Jonas selected the brig. “I have to see him.”
“He was taken by Vindyne. They double crossed him about the same time they took you. When I crossed Regent Galactic they let him out of their inventory and sent him after me with the Triton. Their mistake.”
“You can say that again.”
The lift stopped on deck fourteen and both of them stepped out of the car. Jonas started for the brig and Jake started in the other direction towards the command deck. “I'll head to the bridge when I'm done.”
“See you there,” Jake said with a nod.
Lucius Agrippa Wheeler
He woke up shivering. The headache was secondary to the sensation of freezing from the inside. I'm nude for pity's sake! The least they could do is turn up the heat! Wheeler thought to himself as he pounded on the twenty centimetre thick transparesteel panel between him and the rest of the brig.
The lights were out. It was night watch and he couldn't see anyone else in the brig aside from the Minister. With a code securing the high priority cell he knew there was no way he could get out. He had never found a way out of the special containment cell. Some of the other ones were a little less hardened and with some ingenuity and pain it was possible to escape, but they had placed him in the highest security unit.
The headache worsened and as he began to shiver he realized he had a serious fever. His thighs twitched, there was a burning starting just above the knees and it was moving up. What the hell did they do to me when I was in stasis? He thought to himself.
Wheeler's teeth chattered and he clamped them shut, laying down on the bench. Guess they flipped the switch, pulled the plug, sent the signal. Why does it have to be so God damned slow? I hate super corps, dealing with 'em always costs almost as much as you're getting paid in the end. Even when they're pulling your God damned plug they've just got to get that last shot in so you know they've got all the power and you're just another little worker getting crushed in the gears.
The lights came on and he swung his feet off the bunk onto the cold floor. His arms huddled around him. “Jonas! Or should I call you Jake. Come to see me off?” He said with his best attempt at joviality.
The other man smiled at him as he walked up to the cell and entered the four digit code that would allow the audio box to work.
Lucius looked at him again, there was something very different. “You are Jonas, aren't you? They busted you out.”
“Alice found me. One of your friends wanted to present me to her as some kind of gift, it backfired.”
“The real deal, I can't believe it. You can be the first to spit on my grave, lucky thing, it's going to be a long line,” He chattered, trying to suppress a spine wracking shiver. His feet pounded the floor, and he realized he was dripping with sweat.
“No one's planning to execute you. They might even bring you back to Freeground. Captain Valance is taking me home.”
“Ha! You really think any of you are in control, that anyone on this ship actually does anything the all mighty Gods of this universe don't see coming or even force into being? Regent Galactic's got me wired, boy. My body's getting ready to fall to pieces because I wasn't able to drag your double in. They really take themselves seriously. Bargain like bankers and foreclose with force.”
Jonas was difficult to read then as he looked Wheeler up and down. “Medical, we have an emergency in the brig.”
“We're on our way,” someone from the infirmary replied.
“Hurry, Wheeler's suffering from some kind of time released poison.”
Lucius laughed, his eyes wide. “You're really going to try and save me? I mean, come on, I betrayed you to Vindyne, got your ship all shot to hell, ended your mission early and you're going to try to save me? I almost want to speed this thing up so I can watch you cry over my corpse as they drag my soul through the gates of hell.”
“What do you mean you ended my mission early?”
“I was the one who brought you in on that last mission! It never occurred to you that it was supposed to be a stealth operation? I wanted to drag that antique hull through the ringer, hand it over to Vindyne then watch your crew, especially Ayan Rice, the sacred daughter of Admiral Rice, twist and burn while they ripped her open looking for genetic secrets. God, what I would give to see them pull her apart for everything they did right with her.”
“What?”
“She's a God damned experiment! Her and about three hundred others. For a thousand years, more maybe, we've been tweaking genetics, making this one a little blonder, most of us immune to diseases we just couldn't cure any other way, and so on and so on. Her generation was made from scratch! She's the product of the first materializer capable of producing living matter from energy, the core of this framework crap that's about to change the galaxy. It failed for most, but the advancements they made regardless are beyond what anyone imagined. By the time I turned you in, Vindyne already had that intel somehow, and all they wanted was you and Alice, the next big things because she had managed to make the jump between machine to man. God damned software making history, who the hell cares right?”
The medical team, led by Grace, entered in a rush.
Wheeler coughed suddenly, spraying his hand and the transparesteel in front of him with blood. He stared at it and started to laugh. “Hang on to something folks, I think I'm about to blow!”
Grace started to scan him as a security officer rushed in and opened his cell. She immediately stepped back. “He reads like he's made of Rexmet, pure explosive and he's heating up.”
“No shit! I'm taking my ship with me?” Wheeler said as he laughed and wiped blood from his nose. “I couldn't think of a better way-” Blood started running from his eyes and he collapsed into violent convulsions.
“Open the door! Open it!” Jonas shouted. He ran in once there was enough room for him to squeeze inside and picked up Wheeler's twitching body. He was out of the cell and running for the door the next second. “Get me to the nearest airlock!” He yelled at the guard nearest to the door. “Bridge, get us out of hyperspace. I have to throw live explosives out the nearest airlock.” Jonas said through his communicator.
The guard and Jonas ran as fast as they could down one hall and around a corner. Four escape shuttles flanking an airlock came into sight and he could see that the ship was just decelerating out of hyperspace. The guard rushed so hard towards the inner door that she collided with it and unlocked it as fast as she could.
Jonas dropped Wheeler inside and slammed the hatch door. Luscious' pores were seeping with fluid that no longer resembled anything human. He pressed the button to open the outer lock door and the decompression cycle started. “How do you skip it? We need him away from the ship and the air rushing out with him might do it.”
The guard looked at the electronic door panel then back at him helplessly.
Taking a guess he accessed the environment control sub-menu and found what he was looking for. He deactivated the safety system and opened the outer door. Wheeler's body was flushed out of the airlock by the rush of the remaining air. He turned and ran away from the hatch. “I don't know how much time was left. He didn't come with a counter,” he shouted over his shoulder.