[PG-13] Expendable: Gamma Moon

[Enigma]

"Please return to the center transportation pad, we will override the Caretaker system to release everyone in storage and allow transportation to the surface."

"Just one thought on that plan." Sonia opined. "When you say release everyone...now who else might you be lettin' out along with our guys? There's a lot of specimen jars in there."

"There are 57 different races in the caretaker system, approximately 311 individuals," Davis replied, cocking her head. "It takes approximately six of your minutes to select and place a stasis pod into the interview station to retrieve the occupant. Each will be sent up to the surface after revival, approximately 31 hours 6 minutes."

"What abou' you?" Max jabbed, looking down his sword at Davis. "Are you just gonna disappear once we get up there?"

"This body will be returned," Davis replied, glancing at Max curiously, "After the others have been released. While I can override this facilities' systems, I am only an operator. The surviving caretakers are in storage along with the others, including the engineers. I am sure if you are looking for technical assistance, one of them should suffice."

[Azazeal849]

"There are 57 different races in the caretaker system, approximately 311 individuals," Davis replied, cocking her head.

“Fifty seven?” Sonia repeated in a murmur. “Fuck.”

Humanity was aware of alien life - occasionally the news broadcasts back home would announce a new species of plant or bug that had been discovered on some moon or other. But they had never found evidence of sentient life, beyond fossils and ruined structures like the one they were stuck inside now. It was almost like humanity was chronically late to the party.

But fifty seven? And to think that Sonia had never had time for the kids who used to boast that when they grew up they were going to join Explorer branch and make the first alien contact. Now she and Margrew and two robots were going to make fifty seven of them.

She definitely didn’t have enough shotgun shells.

“Don’t tell me your plan’s to let ’em loose all at once?” she said warily.

"It takes approximately six of your minutes to select and place a stasis pod into the interview station to retrieve the occupant. Each will be sent up to the surface after revival, approximately 31 hours 6 minutes."

Sonia doubted that the operation would go quite that smoothly. Somehow, she predicted something closer to a prison riot. None of that was conductive to getting Davis to the corporation so they could pick her brains about what was going on down here, and so they could uphold their end of the deal to send Sonia far, far away from Earth.

“Are you sure they ain’t just gonna start running around all over the fucking place?” Sonia asked sharply. “We saw some dead thing with claws on our way in, looked like it had been running away and fell into the moat. You know anything about that?”

“I am afraid not.” Davis replied, levelly. “You will have to ask the caretakers.”

Sonia scowled. “I thought you were a caretaker.”

“While I can override this facilities' systems, I am only an operator. The surviving caretakers are in storage along with the others, including the engineers. I am sure if you are looking for technical assistance, one of them should suffice. And if I release the caretakers first, they can take over the reanimation process and could give you more information on the other individuals in storage. They can also change the order of releases.”

“One caretaker will be fine.” Sonia countered, thinking that being outnumbered by the alien body-snatchers was probably a bad idea. Speaking of, maybe we should get them to let Mouse and the others out first. While Sonia couldn’t really have cared less about the other convicts, there was a certain advantage to being the same species in this situation - even if it would leave her with a smaller share of the corporation bounty to start her new life with.

Step one: stay alive. Everything else can follow on.

"What abou' you?" Max jabbed, looking down his sword at Davis. "Are you just gonna disappear once we get up there?"

"This body will be returned," Davis replied, glancing at Max curiously, "After the others have been released.”

Sonia’s dark eyes flicked over to the CES robot - still offline and inert. That was going to be a problem, if Davis planned on disappearing before the corporation stooges made it down here. No doubt the CES knew the correct three-character code to summon them down on the VLF...though maybe they’d at least think about dispatching help if Sonia messaged them NOW and $$$. Either way, the idea of being stuck down here permanently with the rest of the caretakers’ menagerie didn’t appeal. Sonia glared at the disabled CES. Going dead precisely when they needed it was not doing anything to counter her already entrenched prejudice against robots.

"Would you mind switching the schizo bot back on?" she asked Davis curtly.

Davis shook her head. "I cannot."

Sonia's eyes narrowed. "And why's that?"

"It is a side effect of my presence here."

"That'd better not be a lie." Sonia threatened. She tugged the VLF transmitter from its mag-clamp at the android’s hip joint, and handed her own receiver to Max.

“A'ight. If you carry the tin can, I’ll go up top first. Same safety code as before. Sound fair?”

They traipsed back to the central cavern, with Davis leading and Sonia aiming her shotgun just slightly to the left of the other woman’s back. Their footsteps against the spindly connector bridges were the only sounds - the transport bots and the chrome, cone-headed guards seemed to have vanished. Sonia tried not to let her tension show, limiting it to a steady chewing of the side of her tongue. Now that she had had time to think about her plan to outfox the Company with their own contract, the more second thoughts kept coming to her. What if the thing puppeting Davis didn’t keep up its end of the deal? What if the Company didn’t keep up theirs? It wasn’t like she had a lawyer on hand. If there was a way to get her bomb collar off without letting go of her gun, then they’d be talking.

“Where does all the prisoners’ stuff go?” Sonia asked Davis, glancing briefly towards the tunnel where the transport bots had been sorting through the effects of the survey team and their would-be rescuers.

"This is a secure facility." Davis answered, glancing back over her shoulder. "Because you were carrying an authorisation token, nothing was removed from your person on arrival. Anyone without a token is completely stripped and transferred to storage. Dangerous items such as weapons and explosives are neutralised before being archived."

Sonia glanced back at the CES, still hanging inert from Max's shoulder, and lengthened her stride to pull closer to Davis and out of Margrew's earshot.

"I'm carrying a bomb," she confessed to Davis once she had almost pulled level with the alien that was piloting the human woman. "As a kinda last-ditch failsafe." It wasn't technically a lie. "If you're on the level like you say, I ain't really needing it anymore. Could your teleporter thing put it in storage?"

"You mean your collar." Davis stated, her eyes dropping immediately to Sonia's neck. "It has already been catalogued as a dangerous item by the system, so I can set the matter transporter to remove it."

"Yeah." Sonia nodded quietly. "If you could do that, that'd be perfect."

When they reached the circular platform in the centre of the domed cavern, Sonia retrieved the colour-changing token from the velcro pocket of her exo suit. “So I just step back onto the platform?”

Davis nodded.

Sonia took a covert breath, and stepped forward. Once again the sensation of pressure and falling enveloped her, like she had missed her step and tumbled from the platform into the abyss below, but within a heartbeat her boot scrunched down onto smooth stone, and a smell of dust and sea-spray invaded her nose. Sonia spun round on her heel, sweeping the empty basalt cavern for threats. Everything was just as they had left it an hour before - even the bag of tokens that she had kicked across the floor. Beyond the door, she could see the robot pack mules standing idle among the rows of monoliths. Criss-crossing footprints in the dust beyond the clear circle were the only sign that her fellow convicts had passed through.

Sonia groped at her neck with a gloved hand, and felt only the rubberised seal of the exo-suit against her skin. Her bomb collar was gone.

The convict grinned quietly to herself. Now, definitely, they were talking.

All seemed quiet. Chewing the corner of her lip, Sonia retreated to the wall adjacent to the entrance, and let her shotgun hang from one hand as she fumbled out the VLF transmitter and tapped in the all-clear code with her clumsily gloved fingers.

AAA.

[Potatrobot]

Max did a double take as he noticed Sonia handing him her VLF receiver, and held out his hand to accept it. A pair of thin, metal tendrils snaked out of his wrist and wrapped around the receiver, so as to not crush it between his enormous, clumsy fingers.

“A'ight. If you carry the tin can, I’ll go up top first. Same safety code as before. Sound fair?”

"Fair 'nough." Max grunted, looking back at Davis with a wary optic. "Ah, which code might tha' 'ave been again?"

"Triple A." Sonia muttered back with audible disdain, before turning and leaving for the central cavern. She stopped to allow Davis to walk in front of her, and once she was gone, Max lumbered over the CES and picked him up with two of his remaining free hands.

"Closing time." He called out, sparing a glance back to Margrew, before following Sonia back to the teleportation pad. He got there just in time to see her step onto the pad, and vanish. Max held up the receiver she had given him and squinted at the readout. Before too long, it beeped, and the code AAA appeared.

"Welp." He said, shifting the CES onto a more balanced position on his shoulder. "I'm out. See you topside." He picked his token out of the storage unit he had stowed it in, and nodded at Margrew, who was already fidgeting with his own token. He looked to Davis, then stepped forward onto the pad.

He was met with the familiar but disorientating sensation of falling, although his built-in gyroscopes couldn't tell him in what direction. However, his enormous feet were standing on the floor of the cavern they had entered through before long. Sonia stood just before him, and the sound of another pair of boots on the ground behind him told him that Paul was not excited by the prospect of staying behind, alone.

Max stepped out of the circle of cleanliness and set the CES down on the ground. "If wha' Davis said was true, he should be waking up, now that he's far enough away from 'er."

He straightened up and looked at Sonia. "All in all I'd say that wasn't too bad."

[Enigma]

The CES robot laid sprawled in the dust where Max had dropped it, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"....use caution," it suddenly announced. The nameplate flickered on its chest, settling on Rand as it pushed itself upright.

"What happened?" CES Rand demanded as Paul suddenly appeared in the center of the circle. "We're in the pyramid again! How did we get up here?"

"She sent us back," Paul blurted out happily, then get out a loud whoop! "Finally free!"

"Who let us out?" CES Rand demanded crossly, glaring at the two inmates and the surveyor. "Someone tell me what is going on?"

[Azazeal849]

He straightened up and looked at Sonia. “All in all I'd say that wasn't too bad.”

“Hold that thought.” Sonia replied. “An’ say it again when we’re home an’ dry, yeah?”

“She sent us back,” Paul blurted out happily, then get out a loud whoop. “Finally free!”

“Who let us out?” CES Rand demanded crossly, glaring at the two inmates and the surveyor. “Someone tell me what is going on?”

Sonia took the withering look she had been directing at Margrew and his premature celebration, and shot it towards the CES instead.

“Short version,” she snapped. “Some alien caretaker is wearing your pal Davis like a suit, and they’ve got the rest of our gang in cryo down there, along with three-hundred-odd other aliens that they’re about to start thawing out. So what you need to do,” She shoved the VLF transmitter against the robot’s chest with a solid clank. “Is get on the line to your corporate buddies and tell them to get down here right fuckin’ now.”

[Potatrobot]

"So what you need to do,” Sonia commanded as she shoved the VLF into the CES's chest, “Is get on the line to your corporate buddies and tell them to get down here right fuckin’ now.”

"Yes, please." Max grunted, looking over his shoulder at the pair. "The sooner we get off this rock the be'er."

Already he was trying to calculate just how much they would be paid, considering that they had managed to retrieve the entire survey team.

"... which makes fifty kay right off the bat, then there's the 'undreds of fridged sods down below, they could net us 'undreds of thousands... we found out what this place was for, so I s'ppose we're free to go..."

He turned around and stared back at Sonia. "I think we've just won a lo'ery and walked right ou'a jail." He paused. "I guess tha' comes down to when everyone else down below gets out, an' if this Corporation 'olds its word 'bout our pay."

He turned back around and stared out the archway of the pyramid, the muggy, sulphuric breeze barely reaching him from outside. "I guess we'll need ta start makin' travel plans."

[Azazeal849]

Max turned around and stared back at Sonia. "I think we've just won a lo'ery and walked right ou'a jail." He paused. "I guess tha' comes down to when everyone else down below gets out, an' if this Corporation 'olds its word 'bout our pay."

Sonia tilted her head to one side and then the other, stretching her neck. "I'd be quite happy to back you up in persuading 'em." she remarked casually.

Max turned back around and stared out the archway of the pyramid, the muggy, sulphuric breeze barely reaching him from outside. "I guess we'll need ta start makin' travel plans."

Sonia offered a grunt and a lop-sided smile in agreement. She and the former human might not be friends, but self-interest was far more reliable. That, at least, set her fellow convict aside from a fucking robot.

[Enigma]

The CES paused, eyeing the two convicts carefully, then CES Rand said, "I see. This structure is blocking communication with the ships in orbit, I will go outside to contact them. Do we know when our people will be coming up?"

In the center of the circle, a figure appeared, dressed in a standard survey uniform. He jerked, looking around. "What's going on?"

"I should contact the ships," CES Rand muttered, heading towards the nearest doorway.


The first shuttle landed 93 minutes later, by which time the survey team including a very bewildered Davis had appeared as well as a number of aliens wearing black jump suits with a red stripe running down their right side, and a small dwarf wearing an orange jumpsuit with a white stripe. They stood in a separate group, eyeing the humans curiously.

"You two should board the shuttle with the survey team," CES Rand told Sonia and Max. "A fast courier is on standby to send you to any location outside of Corporation-controlled space. As you two were the primary agents on this mission, it was decided to pay you each $1 million for your services here. The remaining $1,110,000 will be split among the others."

CES Rand handed them each one a card. "This will allow you to access your bounty, each is keyed to you alone."

"Before boarding, the shuttle crew will prefer you to disarm yourself. Your weapons will be added with your personal possessions and released to you when you exit corporate space. I have been instructed to remind you that while you are in corporate space, you are still subject to corporate law and that any violation will be strictly enforced. Please do not maim or murder any individual until you have left our boarders. I trust that is understood?"

"Additionally, management has asked me to relay an offer?" CES Rand continued. "Should the Corporation find itself in similar circumstances, it wonders if you would be willing to be contacted for other recovery operations? Without the collar, of course."

[Azazeal849]

The salty air was growing cool against Sonia's exposed face as the sun dipped towards the horizon, and still the released prisoners kept coming. Sonia eyed each one warily, one hand on the stock of her slung shotgun, the other holding a foil-wrapped protein bar scavenged from the robot pack mule. She chewed and swallowed methodically, leaning her back against the alien monolith closest to the pyramid.

"We come in peace." the former convict murmured, sucking the inside of her cheek as she watched the small knot of life-forms, keeping to themselves by another one of the dragon-tooth pillars. No doubt some things were going to change in human space with a discovery of this magnitude, but that was emphatically Someone Else's Problem.

As yet none of their fellow convicts had emerged from the teleporter pad - which, really, suited Sonia just fine. They'd done the decent thing and secured their release, as long as the Caretakers kept up their end of the deal. Apart from Max (and maybe even then...) Sonia didn't trust the other convicts as far as she could throw them. She certainly didn't fancy watching her back all the way back to the orbiter, after Lady Blue found out that Sonia and Max were waltzing off with the majority of the bounty, and she and the others were getting the comparative shaft.

Margrew, Rawlings and Davis were already loading the pack mule back into the surface-to-orbit shuttle. Now seemed as good a time as any for Sonia and Max to make themselves scarce. Sonia pushed her exo-suit boot back into the stone pillar and levered herself up, tossing aside the empty wrapper of her ration bar. It snagged in the wind and went skittering away through the rows of alien monoliths.

The CES, still hovering around after completing its task of calling down their ride, came pistoning over as Sonia approached the shuttle ramp. Sonia wondered idly just how much the schizo bot was worth, and if now - courtesy of her new-found fortune - she could simply absorb the damages of shooting the ugly machine in the faceplate.

"Before boarding, the shuttle crew will prefer you to disarm yourself. Your weapons will be added with your personal possessions and released to you when you exit corporate space."

"Is that prefer like a friendly suggestion?" Sonia asked, curling her gloved hands around her shotgun. "If so then I'll be keeping a hold on them, thanks."

"I have been instructed to remind you that while you are in corporate space, you are still subject to corporate law and that any violation will be strictly enforced. Please do not maim or murder any individual until you have left our borders. I trust that is understood?"

"Course." Sonia replied, almost breezily. "You ain't paying me to."

She stole a glance at Max, but predictably the re-skinned human's black chassis gave no indication of any humour he might be feeling. In any case, his back was turned to Sonia as he rifled through several caches of confiscated goods that had been shipped up from the prison. A small pile of repair kits, weapons, gadgets and other miscellaneous valuables was growing by his enormous feet as he dragged them out of the caches with the manipulator tendrils on his wrists. After a moment, seemingly feeling confident he had taken anything he could conceivably use, he emptied out some poor soul's duffel bag and stuffed it with his spoils.

Max straightened up and took in his surroundings one last time on the planet. Everything was grey, bar the odd splash of colour on the uniforms worn by the seemingly never-ending line of prisoners filing out of the pyramid. The shuttles could only ferry so many to the orbiter, which from the surface appeared as a hollow silhouette on the hazy sky, lit from below by the setting sun. The shuttle designated for Sonia and himself was parked nearby, and it looked like the last of the personnel and cargo was being loaded, so he began to approach the loading ramp.

"Additionally, management has asked me to relay an offer?" CES Rand continued as the three converged on the shuttle ramp. "Should the Corporation find itself in similar circumstances, it wonders if you would be willing to be contacted for other recovery operations? Without the collar, of course.”

Sonia paused with one foot on the shuttle's boarding ramp. She looked up at the sky for a moment, as if considering, and then scrunched up her face and shook her head.

"Fuck off." she told the CES, and turned to hike up the ramp into the shuttle. Max lumbered after her with his bag in hand and his three enormous box-cutters clamped to his arms and back.

* * * * * *

To Sonia's great surprise, the transfer process on the Corporate orbiter and their onward journey went off without a single hitch or double-cross. It seemed that it really was company policy to throw money at a problem to make it go away, rather than expend any actual effort in tying up loose ends. Still, she didn't allow herself to relax until she and Max were on their transfer shuttle down to Donovan Station. And she wouldn't be celebrating until she'd had a chance to check the card the CES had handed her, preferably at one of the more reputable station-side banks.

Donovan Station loomed large beyond the cockpit glass, all spine-like comms masts and jutting docking arms; backlit by engine flares from the ships pulling away from it, outbound to the wider universe.

Sonia snapped the catches closed on the lock-box that held her shotgun and shelved it in the overhead storage. The company could have it back; the police-issue weapon wasn't easy to carry quietly, and would only attract the wrong kind of attention, even on a station with notoriously lax gun laws. Painting a target on her back was not something Sonia was keen to do ever again. The Riorden-Metzer 9mm holstered at her hip would do just fine.

Sonia chewed the inside of her cheek. It seemed strange to be going back to sleeping with a gun under her pillow after four years behind bars, where she had had no such luxury despite being locked up with people like Lady Blue. Civilian life would be safe by comparison - especially since even after paying her ticket to Beaumonde she'd have enough of her bounty left to rent (perhaps even buy!) a place in a much nicer neighbourhood than she was used to. She let out a breath, caressing the rough metal grip of the pistol with her thumb. Maybe one day she'd throw the gun out. Maybe.

She turned to Max, who was sitting at the opposite end of the cabin, performing maintenance on his machete-sized 'daggers'. They would be going their separate ways soon, and while Sonia would probably never have felt truly comfortable with the hulking cyborg at her back, it was odd to think that until a few hours ago there had been a real possibility of them rampaging through the corporate orbiter together to take their freedom by force.

"Hey Max." she called over to him, as she fished her lighter and a packet of smokes out of the pocket of her new, freshly laundered cargo trousers. She figured by now that she owed the former human the courtesy of using his real name. "Where are you planning on going after this?"

Max’s tiny, skull-shaped head swivelled up to face Sonia. He vocalised something meant to sound like a sigh, though the mechanism that produced it left it sounding profoundly synthetic.

"Tha's the million-dollar question, innit?" He lifted his daggers with his upper arms and sheathed them into the slots built into his lower pair. "What does a charmin' bloke in the body of a forklift do, now tha' the 'ole galaxy is his oyster?"

He replaced the small grinder he was using on his blades in the repair kit and clamped it shut, but held it like that for a few seconds, seemingly paused in contemplation.

"I can't go back to the shit'ole where this happened," he said decisively, gesturing at his armature, "I was only makin' ends meet. Barely scraped by, doing wha' I did, and then the 'ole thing goes ta shit and I jump into a digi'al Valhalla to get away from it all."

"Junipero?" Sonia guessed. The Junipero euthanasia project had been one of humanity’s more outlandish experiments in consciousness transfer, until the government decided that even dead people should work for their welfare payments.

"Yeah," Max grunted, then seemed to pause for thought. "I'd be long dead by now if I stuck with my old body. I 'ave... forever... ta figure out what I wanna do. How the fuck d'ya even begin ta plan around tha'?"

He looked back up at Sonia, who was wearing a somewhat more sincere expression than he usually associated with her.

"Ah, fuck, listen ta me just pra'le on. I've got forever ta get my shit sorted. You got any plans?"

There was a metallic chink as Sonia flicked open her lighter and cupped her hands round a cigarette, buying herself time to think. Max’s candour left her with an uncharacteristic urge to reciprocate.

"Beaumonde." she told the cyborg. "I hear it’s nice there." She had also heard that most of the planet’s sovereign nation-states regulated the coke trade, which meant she could feed some of her dirtier habits without worrying about crossing paths with pricks like Don Xavier again.

She paused to inhale and blow a squirt of pale smoke towards the cabin ceiling. To hell with the air scrubbers.

"After that I really dunno." she admitted. "Bodyguard work, maybe? Or maybe I'll aim a little lower first, like nightclub bouncer. As long as it ain't Earth and New Detroit, I'll manage."

She wasn't going back home, even if the old gang had been the one place she'd ever felt any sort of belonging. Not even to put a bullet in Don Xavier for hanging her out to dry after the hit on that congressman had gone sideways. It wasn't worth it to have every ganger in New Detroit out for her head, and besides, she knew now that it had been nothing personal. Xavier wouldn't be going to jail now; the feds had been after him for twenty years. He certainly wouldn't be going for the sake of one of his low-level hitmen. She could almost picture him rationalising it with the same words she had thought down in the alien ark facility. We ain't friends. That realisation made her profoundly uncomfortable.

"Bouncer..." Max mused. "Tha's not a bad idea. I could make serious bank just standing outside a door. Nobody sane would step up to this tank. Then, who knows? Maybe I could do more stuff like this, jus' keepin' a crew safe while they travel around, diggin' shit up or wha’ever."

Sonia chuckled - or rather, she exhaled down her nose and flickered a brief smile. “Just hope they don’t dig up any more aliens, huh?”

While Max sounded enthused, already he could feel doubt pulling at this ambitions. Whether it was due to technological limitations or bare-minimum provisions, his corporate labour armature sentenced him to a hollow existence. The neural matrix in which his consciousness resided, while advanced enough to emulate the human brain's major functions, lacked the subtleties its organic counterpart had spent millions of years perfecting. It was as if parts of his mind had been lobotomised, leaving all sensation distant and rudimentary. He was bereft of pleasure, and pain, and even from his short time working in the body, he knew that it was no substitute for his old brain, and if he was going to persist for generations, he would need something better.

"Maybe, though, I could find a be'er body. When all's said 'n done, and I 'ave my fortune, it'd be nice to slip into somethin' tha's actually comfortable to live in. So I don't 'ave to trot aroun' in this bloody thing tha' can't feel anythin'. Maybe jus’... live like a normal person."

The last part struck a deeper chord with Sonia than she cared to admit.

"You know," she said, placing her booted foot against the wall of the cabin and taking another draw from her cigarette. "I get you. I actually do. I'd been wanting something different from all this since I was about 13. I wanted to be able to walk down the street without looking over my shoulder...I wanted to be able to go down the shops and buy something without having to think about whether I could afford it. I wanted to be able to help my mum out when she never had anything either."

She bit her tongue and shook her head, the tattoo around her left eye compressing as she frowned at the memory.

"Course, she's 8 years dead now. If we'd been able to afford medical they might have caught it in time."

She shrugged, and blew out smoke.

"But now I can do all that stuff, and there’s nothin’ tying me back to the old life...I don't have a fucking clue where to start."

"You an' me both." Max grumbled, looking out of a porthole on the other side of the cabin. Stars scuttled across the view like the myriad of possibilities Max and Sonia were now forced to consider once they arrived planetside, free to finally choose how their lives would play out.

Sonia shifted round and leaned her forearm against the overhead locker, looking through the forward window to watch another ramshackle starship cast off its grav tethers and coast free of Donovan Station in a halo of white engine flare.

“I’m sure we’ll figure somethin’ out.”