Page 50 of Her Alien Boss

Evie’s advanced simulation time is technically over now. She should be back in my office, but she’s not. And somehow I knew she would not be, even before I looked in there. She’s gone. I can feel her absence in a way I did not even know I could feel her presence.

Would she have run away? No. There’s nowhere to go. And she’s never shown any signs of trying to escape. If she had, something would be missing. Maybe something is.

I try to stay calm, though inside, I am already raging. The warrior I have had to be all my life knows when he has lost something. Ground, territory, advantage, anything.

I go up to Drak’s lab, telling myself that of course there’s a very reasonable explanation for this. He’s held her back late. She needs to do a little more. He’s found a way to iterate something…

The door to his lab opens, and he is standing there, almost like he was waiting for me.

“I can’t find Evie,” I say, only half-meaning in the physical sense.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I have her.”

“Thank the gods,” I sigh. “I was worried something had happened to her. I’m going to take her home now. We need to talk about these disappearing acts she keeps pulling…”

“She can’t go home right now, she’s indisposed,” he says.

“What does that mean? Where is she?” The tension is returning as quickly as it disappeared.

“She’s still here, but you are going to have to get used to her being different.”

He is backing away toward the guards, I notice. Not wanting to face me on his own. Not wanting me to have physical access to him without backup.

“The human was always disposable,” Drak says. “We told you to choose a reasonably priced one for that very reason. Not that you listened. The transport costs were well over budget.”

“I thought she was going to be an integral part of the construction,” I say, as I consider how I will kill him. I want it to be painful. Very.

“And she is. Going to be an integral part. Her mind will power the Fematrix’s bionic centers for centuries to come.”

I force myself to sound calm. I speak in an even register that I hope disguises the fact I am thinking of the many ways in which I will imminently kill this man if it turns out he has indeed done what I think he has done.

“I’m not comfortable with that. I want her to keep being herself. Intact.”

“It’s too hard to put a whole human inside the machine. It makes more sense just to remove the brain, once the training process is complete. The brain can be run on human fluid analogs. But an entire body requires exercise and nutrition and all sorts of various other inputs that will, over time, degrade the brain. This is the best for the machine.”

“Drak. What did you do?”

“Don’t be angry,” he says. “That won’t make any of this any better, and it may make it worse.”

“Why?” I ask the question with a flat chill.

“I may have removed her brain, inserted it into the machine, and she may have absconded with the machine.”

“Where is her body?”

“Nice and safe on life support. I know how attached you are to that four-limbed little freak.”

I punch him so hard his ancestors feel it. The entire front of his face becomes one flat surface for a moment.

He collapses with barely a grunt, just drops to the floor like the soulless thing he is.

I feel as though I am on autopilot as I lecture myself about my carelessness. I should never have allowed her out of my sight. I should never have trusted Drak. He has no sense of limits when it comes to things like this. He does things because he can, not because he should.

And now he has given her consciousness unfettered, direct experiential access to a machine so powerful it could end wars, and civilizations, for that matter.

* * *

I go to the med bay, walking as if I am still on autopilot. I do not know how to process this level of betrayal, or this amount of loss.