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But the people-movers don’t move because… wait for it… there are no people.
Except us.
The floors are gleaming, even in the low light. Shiny, dark obsidian slabs. Where the hell did they get slabs of obsidian?
“It’s not abandoned,” the Xyla bot says. “We live here.”
“You and… the AI, I presume?”
“And the bots.”
“What bots?”
She stops and turns to look at me. She’s pretty, of course. She was made to be pretty. Her hair is long and purple, her synthetic skin something between fair and tan. Her eyes are bright, bright lavender. And her body is… let’s call it fantastically curvy. Huge tits, small waist, big hips, and legs that go on forever. She’s wearing a pink t-shirt that’s probably a size too small and black shorts that leave nothing to the imagination.
“What bots?” she asks me.
“That’s what I said. What bots? There are more of you?”
She taps the toe of her stiletto heel on the obsidian floor and places a hand on her hip. “What do you call these?” She pans her hand over to a group of cleaning servos.
I raise one eyebrow at her, then look over my shoulder at Jimmy. He’s paying no attention whatsoever to our conversation. He’s just looking at this Xyla creature with lust. “Servos?” I say, answering her question.
“They are bots,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me.
“Mmmm-hmmm,” I say, pursing my lips and nodding my head. “They are. But…”
“But what?” she asks. I can tell I’m setting her off right now. Something about this conversation is really starting to rub her the wrong way.
I just don’t really get that. So I forge ahead despite the inner warning bells. “They’re servos. That’s it. They barely qualify as bots, Xyla. They are programmed with a purpose and that’s all they do. So I guess my question is… are there more bots like you?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she says, mimicking me. “I suppose I’m nothing more than a servo too? I was programmed with a purpose. Should that be all I do as well?”
“Look,” I say, holding up a hand. “I can see this issue is”—I channel my father, suddenly thankful I’ve been watching him placate aliens for the last sixteen years—“near and dear to your heart. I’m not trying to offend you and I’m not implying you have no”—for sun’s sake—“free will. I’m just… doing my best here, Xyla. OK? I’m sixteen years old, I just shot a princess through a spin node, escaped an Akeelian warship, limped my way through a gate on a disabled ship, and now I’m here, on some abandoned station with no clue why I’m here, other than that princess I mentioned told me it was necessary. So,” I say, letting out a long, tired breath, “I’m sure we have more in common than we don’t, and I’m not looking to make an enemy right now, so can you please just take me to this ALCOR… person… so we can deliver our message and maybe these kids can be given a place to sleep and some food because it’s been a long fucking day.”
She smiles and says, “Very well. We can discuss this more another time.”
“Thank you.” I sigh.
She turns and we continue walking. She stops at the edge of the level, right up next to the plasti-glass half wall, and I realize there’s a door there. She opens it and pans her hand to the open space just as a large, flat, circular lift-bot hovers up to the edge and stops.
The circumference of the lift-bot is large enough to fit a couple dozen people, so I wave everyone forward and then grab onto Serpint and Draden’s hands before they can jump on, because I got these damn kids this far. I’m not gonna have one of them falling off the lift and dropping a hundred levels just when I think we’re safe.
When we’re all on board the lift hovers upward. Everyone is looking around. Trying to make sense of this place.
I’ve been to a few stations besides Wayward and this one is definitely unique. The open-air space is different, for one. All the other stations I’ve been on, including Wayward, have no open space. At least not one you can see from every level. There are always parks and shit like that. You need plant life on a station to create a viable biosphere, but they are mostly sequestered into greenhouses for life-support efficiency.
So this place is… nice. Feels more like a place you’d live. Not like a planet. I’ve been on a few of those too. And it’s not that open. But there’s a little bit of wind.
Still, it’s dark, and silent, and empty. So it’s super creepy too.
My only knowledge of this place was taught to me in school during seventh year. And it was only mentioned in the context of gate mapping. Because ALCOR Station has a monopoly on two gates. And there are thousands of gates in the galaxy, so you’d think that being unable to travel through two of them wouldn’t be a huge deal. Except it is. Because this is the only route to get to the Seven Sisters.
