Levin took a deep breath, following behind Andrew. He could do this.
At least there was a lot to look at in the station. It had a homely feel, more similar to the luxury apartments in low Earth orbit than the flashy and gaudy decorations of Lunar Mall, a shopping center with ornamentation explicitly designed to remind you that you’re in a mall orbiting the moon. No, with its hardwood floors and windowless halls, this place could make him forget he was even off-world, if it wasn’t for the paintings depicting various milestones in humanity’s history of space travel lining the walls.
They walked quickly down a passageway through the station, and Andrew pulled a pocket watch with a dangling gold chain from his waistcoat, quickly checking the time. “They’ve probably started already.”
“I hope they’re not mad if we’re late,” Levin thought to himself.
Before them, a pair of fine mahogany doors marked the end of the hallway, flanked by paintings of the first travelers to Mars and Alpha Centauri. Andrew didn’t break stride as he flung both doors open around him, with Levin scurrying along behind him as they entered.
“Andrew! Where have you been! Do you have any idea how important this meeting is?” A sharp and cutting voice rang out as they entered, the harsh tone audible even through the translation device that decoded the speaker’s language into Levin’s own native tongue.
Levin focused on the source of the accusatory voice, his gaze landing upon a petite woman with pursed lips and piercing eyes, her graying hair tied up in a neat bun atop her head. She sat straight-backed in a cushioned wooden chair, piles of physical sheets of paper sprawled out on a table in front of her. Naturally, Levin recognized her – Anya Romanoff, galaxy-renowned for her breakthroughs in the field of Warp travel, kicking off humanity’s final Space Race. She ignored Levin’s examining, nervous glance, keeping her iron stare locked onto Andrew.
“What’s the big deal? All the real work is already done,” Andrew said, moving over to the side of the room.
Taking up the entire right half of the room was a bar replete with expensive-looking liquors, and Andrew reclined against it as he met Anya’s harsh look with a smile. Fang Mu moved in tandem with his employer to stand behind the bar’s counter, where he began mixing a drink with practiced fluidity.
“Andrew, dear, please take this seriously. It is absolutely vital we check over everything before tomorrow,” Anya said with a click of her tongue.
“Please Anya, just ignore him,” said another man sitting at the same table as Anya. “He doesn’t have much to go over anyways.”
This tanned and lean middle-aged man was Santiago Zhao, the founder and current CEO of Pascal Firms, the largest energy supplier throughout the main republic territories. He spoke in nasally tones that gave his translated voice a thick accent in Levin's head, a different language from Anya. Santiago sipped on something clear and bubbly, and regarded Levin with a curious gaze. Levin averted his eyes.
There was one more person in the room, a man sprawled out on a leather couch tucked away in the left half of the room. He ignored the others, his face buried in a holographic screen floating inches from his eyes, obscuring his face, but Levin could still easily identify him. He was Rohan – just Rohan – an esteemed designer of weapons at all levels of power, and part of the galaxy’s criminal underbelly alongside Andrew.
“That’s exactly right!” Andrew exclaimed with a laugh as Fang Mu passed a drink into his hands. “You should ignore me, Anya!”
She scoffed, but didn’t return to the task that Andrew’s entrance had interrupted. Instead, she turned her focus onto Levin, examining him with a critical eye that caused him to squirm under her gaze.
“Who is this child?” Anya said.
Levin shifted his weight on the balls of his feet nervously, unable to decide if her question had been directed at himself or Andrew.
Andrew decided that for him. “You don’t remember? I told you I wanted to bring a partner.”
Anya frowned in response, the lines on her face deepening as she shuffled through her stacks of paper. At her side, Santiago sighed, setting aside his own work as he waited for Anya to search through a particular section of her notes. When she had exhausted the stack, clearly not finding what she had been looking for, Anya turned back to Andrew.
“How many times must I tell you? If you don’t put it in writing, it hasn’t been said,” Anya said with a measure of exasperation.
"You’re quite fussy today, Anya," Andrew said, sipping on his drink. "More so than usual, I mean."
Levin could feel his cheeks beginning to flush from embarrassment as he watched the two quibble. He had to admit, it wasn’t surprising Andrew had failed to properly introduce him, but he hadn’t been expecting that he might be sent back home immediately due to improper paperwork. Was now the right time to argue his case?
“Part of Andrew’s contract is he gets to pick who he brings,” Santiago said. “And he’s within his rights to not notify us of it, too. The Professor said so. Since there’s nothing we can do about it, let’s focus on finishing my review before supper, yes?”
“Wait,” Levin thought to himself. “That’s it?”
Anya turned to regard Santiago with her scrutinizing glare. She carried herself like she was in charge, but Levin knew better; the owner of this station, the one behind this entire endeavor, had yet to appear. But while he was out, Anya clearly led the discussion.
“Santiago,” she said slowly. “This is of vital importance. Andrew will be amongst the first to step into a new unknown, alongside each of us here. I cannot fathom why Omar has opted to give this man the honor, and that makes it all the more important we vet any he chooses to bring. Even if, yes, he can technically bring whomever he wants.”
Santiago settled back into his chair with another defeated sigh as Anya turned back to stare down Andrew.
"And bringing this boy just one day before our departure forces me to wonder if there's something about him you wish to hide from us," she said with a cold stare.
Levin looked to Andrew expectantly, hoping to hear words in his defense, but was surprised to find Andrew meeting his own gaze instead of Anya’s. The golden-haired thief took a sip of his drink and gave Levin a wink, as if to say That’s your cue, kid.
Levin took a breath, turning to Anya as she finally met his eyes for the first time. He had rehearsed this. It literally wasn’t possible for him to forget the lines.
“I have a slightly modified version of a Class-Y Neural Prosthetic Interface Link implanted inside my brain and running down my spine. If you aren’t aware, Y-Links are designed to operate a fully synthetic body for cases where most limbs and organs except the brain have failed, but I haven’t hooked mine up to any prosthetics – I’m still fully flesh and blood. Instead I’ve attached mine to a Distributed Quantum Network capable of hosting my own brain’s signals and converting them into digital processes, which lets me –”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Andrew suddenly said, chuckling. “You’re losing us, my friend. And this old girl here cares more about the what than the how.”
Anya glared at him as he said ‘old girl,’ but didn’t dignify it with a retort. Levin blinked, trying to decipher what Andrew wanted him to say instead of his prepared explanation. Maybe it had been a little overly technical, but these were scientists and engineers, right? Wouldn’t they want to know this?
But as usual, Andrew was there to pick up Levin’s slack.
“Levin here masterminded the leak from Origene Labs, by using his fancy whatchamacallit to break through their security. If it wasn’t for him, we probably still wouldn’t know about the genetic weapons experimentation happening there. I was also undercover at Origine back then – that’s how we met – but my goals weren’t quite so noble,” Andrew said with a chuckle.
“Ah, I remember that incident. I thought an Origene scientist was the whistleblower, but you look too young for that,” Anya said, her tone rising questioningly as she examined him with the same pursed lips.
“My mother works there, but wasn’t on the teams involved. She heard rumors, and I took it upon myself to investigate them,” Levin said, feeling more confident.
“Oh, I remember you now,” Rohan suddenly said, speaking for the first time in a deep, sonorous voice using the same language as Levin and Andrew. The balding, dark-skinned man looked up at Levin as the holographic tablet he had been absorbed in faded out.
“Andrew did tell us about you,” he continued. “Over six months ago, so I didn’t remember at first. But at the time I was surprised, because most people die from the Y-Link procedure. How’d you overcome the Neuron Connection Limit?”
Levin jumped for joy inside; he had expected a question like this. His entire brain had been wired for two way communication with a computer, which presented a simple problem – too much electricity. There were only so many external signals the brain could process at once without becoming overloaded, a phenomenon known as the Neuron Connection Limit amongst those who designed Neural Links.
“I keep my Y-Link turned off most of the time, and only engage it when I need to. I also wrote custom software that can partially activate the Y-Link, engaging only the pieces I need for whatever I’m working on. That way, I always stay under the limit,” Levin said.
“Hmm…” Rohan put a hand to his chin.
Levin’s mother worked as a scientist at Origene Labs, and his father was a software engineer by trade. It was by taking advantage of their combined knowledge and connections that he had managed to not just design his custom Y-Link, but acquire all the parts as well. Restricted medical technology and cutting-edge quantum computers weren’t usually available to university students, which he had been at the time.
“So…” Rohan continued. “Why a Y-Link? If it’s only ever partially activated, couldn’t you have done the same with an S-Link or R-Link? And those won’t fry your brain if you get careless.”
Levin smiled. “My software is very good. It’s tailored specifically to me, using a brain map created with one of Origine’s most sophisticated scanners. And the Y-Link can target anywhere in the brain with its electrical signals – it’s the only class that can. So unlike the S- and R-Links, I – ”
“Don’t have a bottleneck,” Rohan finished his sentence, eyes going wide. “So it’s all for the speed, isn’t it? Then what’s the return time on your processes? Less than a second?”
Rohan wanted to know how quickly information could be transferred from his mind to his computers and back, a process that had to be performed very delicately. Consumer-grade Neural Prosthetics like the R-Link and even military-grade ones like the S-Link had a return time of a couple seconds at best.
That meant it would take a few seconds after issuing a command for the wearer’s mind to fully comprehend the result. Most people could simply search the Internet on their phone in faster time, making internal brain chips a niche form of enhancement, unpopular with average consumers.
“Milliseconds. On par with my own neurons,” Levin said, subconsciously puffing his chest out slightly.
Rohan nodded energetically. “Incredible! It's an exceptionally risky enhancement, not even considering the initial procedure, but it has equally exceptional potential. Andrew must have hooked someone like you up to something spectacular.”
Andrew laughed from the other side of the room, and Levin noticed the drink in his hand had nearly all disappeared. “At the end of the day, it’s always about the weapons with you, eh? I’ll have you know, my friend, I got my hands on some of Beastmaster’s finest. Why don’t you bring them in, Levin?”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Absolutely not!” Anya interjected. “We will certainly have none of those things about to trash up the place.”
Levin paused. He had been about to do as Andrew said, bringing them out to show off. He could envision them, within one of the dark rooms on Andrew’s ship he had specially noted earlier, containing the four objects that made up Levin’s toolkit for this project.
“Wanna go see them instead?” Andrew said with a wide smile.
“Anything would be better than this,” Rohan said, hopping up off the couch.
“Andrew! Rohan! We aren’t done here!”
“Just let them go, Anya,” Santiago said. “We still have a lot to get through between the two of us, and the Professor is running late. It’ll be faster in the long run to let them have their fun now.”
Anya thought a moment before finally acquiescing to Santiago’s repeated requests with a resigned nod of her head. Andrew pushed off the bar, fresh drink in hand, setting off with an exaggerated swagger back the way they had come. Rohan followed alongside him, and the two sank into a conversation about the possibilities offered by Levin’s enhancements.
Levin smiled as he trailed behind, suddenly feeling light as a feather as he walked in silence. He knew better than anyone what his own custom Y-Link was capable of, but chose to just listen as the two speculated; they would probably enjoy it more that way anyhow.
Technically, they were discussing the possibilities of both Levin’s Y-Link and the quantum computer it was connected to. They had been two separate parts before Levin had connected them inside his body, but now he referred to the both of them together as his “Y-Link.”
“And the Y-Link itself is the impressive part, anyways,” Levin thought idly as he followed along.
He found himself able to appreciate the decorations more this time, taking in the rich furnishings in full detail as he engaged his Y-Link and sent a signal to the interior of Andrew’s spacecraft. A short-wave transmitter built into his internal computer was one of the cornerstones of his enhancements, enabling his internal lightning-fast communication speeds to any nearby wireless-capable devices. This transmitter had more than enough range to pierce all the way to Andrew’s ship, and Levin remotely engaged his armaments to be ready for Rohan – the weapons junkie was certain to find this impressive.
He could feel his excitement building as they approached the hangar, and it wasn’t just because of the chance to show off. It was only just dawning on him, really – no one had raised any objections to him after Anya’s first bout of suspicion. Had they really accepted him, just like that? It seemed so surreal, to finally have joined after months of preparation with Andrew.
“I guess it doesn’t matter if the others actually want me to go or not, if Andrew has total control over who he brings,” Levin thought to himself, but the idea didn’t dampen his enthusiasm at all, not when tomorrow finally felt so close.
They entered the hangar, walking leisurely towards the location of Andrew's ship. Within, Levin had already moved his tools into position, prepared for a dramatic entrance the moment Andrew opened the airlock. Andrew already had the keys in hand, it was just a bit closer until he –
"Ah ha!" someone shouted in the distance.
Furious stomping preceded the speaker's appearance from a secluded corner of the hangar, a behemoth nearly eight feet tall and seven hundred pounds of bio-engineered muscle without a hint of body fat. From behind a bulging frame that shook the floor with each footfall, this monstrous woman gave a malicious grin as she stared at Andrew like a panther stalking its prey, ready to pounce.
"Bloodhound Mei!" Levin thought with shock upon seeing the galaxy’s most famous bounty hunter. "She wasn't invited here!"
He turned to Andrew, and saw that the normally calm and collected thief had gone pale in the face. He backed away as Mei approached, edging closer to his ship as Rohan watched with an amused expression.
“Oh, Andrew, did you really think you could join something as fun as this and not invite me?” Mei said. She spoke a language composed of short, guttural syllables that Levin's universal translator couldn’t fully preserve in his native tongue.
“Now, Mei, dear, I think I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t we talk about this? I can give you what you want, so –”
“The way I see it is simple,” she said, cutting him off. “You’re a criminal, so I’m going to arrest you. But maybe if your boss likes you enough, he’ll offer me a spot on your ship in exchange for letting you go. Aren’t I generous?”
“You know that ‘boss’ is the Father of the Galaxy himself, right? And if all you want is a spot, I can simply offer it to you, Mei. There’s really no need to go through this whole song and dance again,” Andrew said.
“You really think I’d believe that?” she said with a laugh.
Mei lunged forward, dashing across the distance in a flash to close her fist around Andrew's neck. But just as soon as she touched him, Mei slipped through his body without any resistance, the light of a hologram doing nothing to impede her. The real Andrew was nowhere to be found, hiding under a field of invisibility as he fled. Mei slid to a stop after her charge as dozens of other holographic, smiling Andrews appeared around her in increasingly absurd poses, and she pulled out a small device from her belt and activated it in her hand.
Levin, paralyzed by the unfolding events, recognized her gadget as a sonar device, and Mei looked at the screen on the tool for just a moment before dashing off again. Sonar’s acoustic waves would pass right through the immaterial holograms, but bounce off Andrew even if he was invisible; Mei easily picked out Andrew through his defenses, closing in on him near the exit to the hangar.
Andrew fled at a speed far beyond what Levin, or most humans, could manage, but his relatively subtle physical enhancements may as well not have been there for all the good they did in a fight against Bloodhound Mei. With her titanic body artificially sculpted to perfection without any concern for appearance, Mei barely needed to exert herself to catch Andrew.
Levin also had no issue tracking the invisible Andrew, able to analyze the sounds he heard with his Y-Link and pinpoint Andrew’s position by his footsteps. Thus he could tell when Mei had closed the gap to a mere couple feet, at which point Andrew threw a metallic sphere out into the air. He hurled it down towards Mei’s feet, and the round object flattened in midair on its descent to the ground, landing as a disc on the floor of the hangar. A moment later, as Mei ran by, it erupted in a burst of light that reached up and around her right leg, locking her in place.
Mei strained against the restraint as Andrew raced towards the hall, remaining invisible, but even her colossal strength was insufficient to break the binding light. The titanium alloy of the hangar floor, however, was a different story – it ripped free in one large sheet, exposing pipes and wires below, and remaining anchored to her foot like an oversized snowshoe as she continued her pursuit. Andrew didn’t even have time to react to the ear-piercing screech of tearing metal before Mei arrived, slamming the slab of titanium on her foot into his back and holding him down to the floor with it.
“We need to help him!” Levin exclaimed, turning to Rohan as Mei reached down and tapped a spot on Andrew’s left arm, causing him to reappear.
Rohan just laughed, continuing to watch in amusement. “Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure they’re both used to this by now.”
After undoing his invisibility, she pulled out a small cube, placing it on Andrew’s back and pushing down. Hard-light chains sprang out, binding his arms and feet and gagging his mouth, letting nothing more than strained grunts escape from his lips. She then hauled the neutered Andrew up onto her shoulder, setting off across the hangar straight towards Levin and Rohan, presumably in the direction of her ship. Levin stepped aside as she approached, standing closer to Rohan, unsure what to do.
“You might want to pick up your toys before I’m back, little Rohan. Just in case this one isn’t enough,” Mei said, looking down at the known dabbler in illegal weaponry.
“You’ve already got what you want, Bloodhound. I don’t think you’ll need to bother with me,” he responded nonchalantly.
Levin shuddered. Did Mei intend to keep arresting the criminal elements on the team until she got what she wanted? He had heard rumors she was crazy, but this seemed simply insane. Those same rumors claimed she was only a bounty hunter for the excitement, and Levin was suddenly finding that to be much more believable.
Not to mention, Levin himself could technically be included amongst the criminal elements Mei was targeting. Y-Links were a medical technology beholden to some strict galactic regulations, and he had met Andrew under some very dubious circumstances. But there was no way she could know that, right?
Mei didn't even give Levin a glance as she strode past him and Rohan. But she had only taken a few paces more when the air before her shimmered and then parted, out of which several men and women appeared. Mei came to a stop in front of the teleporting individuals, waiting for the process to complete.
At the front of a group of armored, rifle-bearing security guards, Anya stood next to an elderly man seated in a wheelchair who bore a clear gaze behind his worn, haggard appearance. This man was approaching five hundred years of age, and his wizened eyes reflected the eras he had helped rise and fall – but so too did the wrinkled lines of his face. Levin’s eyes bulged as he saw him, despite knowing the ship he stood on now belonged solely to this man. Professor Omar Al-Abadi, the Father of the Galaxy, and the single greatest mind in human history.
“Would you please give our Scout back, Miss Mei?” Omar said.
“Sure, in exchange for a ride with you,” Mei asked.
The dark-skinned man’s nostrils flared as he looked up at the towering woman. “You dare break into my laboratory, try to kidnap a friend and important member of my work, and think I’ll just happily let you in because of it?”
Mei dropped Andrew to the ground at her side, and he hit the ground with a pained grunt before struggling against his restraints to rise to a seated position. Mei crossed her arms, examining the seated Omar Al-Abadi from high above.
“Happily? I don’t care about that. Do you want him back or not?”
“I will not let you interfere in my work. Perhaps if you had simply asked, there may have been a place for you here. But this ridiculous stunt will not convince me. You can’t honestly believe it’s possible to take him away from here by force, even for you.”
“Ha! Now that sounds like a challenge! If that’s what it’ll take to convince you, I’m game,” Mei said, her grin widening.
Al-Abadi held up a hand, and the guards behind snapped to attention, rifles trained on Mei. She raised her firsts, settling into a loose fighting stance.
“She isn’t really going to fight, is she?” Levin thought with horror. Unfortunately, Mei the Bloodthirsty lived up to her many stories, and in all of them she loved to fight.
Suddenly, Andrew’s gag popped off. How had he managed that, with all his limbs still firmly bound?
“Prof, convince Mei for me. I told her I can offer her a spot, but she didn’t believe me.”
All eyes turned to Andrew. Mei raised an eyebrow.
“Why would you be given that much power on a trip to Andromeda? Omar, you can’t seriously expect this guy to be a suitable leader for the first-ever intergalactic expedition,” Mei said.
Levin cocked his head. A trip to the Andromeda Galaxy? Sure, no one had ever gone there before, but they wouldn’t be in orbit around Saturn if they were leaving for Andromeda tomorrow.
“Oh, Mei, dear. Oh, dear,” Andrew said in his ‘dramatic’ voice. “You’ve always had problems finding good sources, and this time it seems you had a particularly bad one. We aren’t planning a trip to the Andromeda Galaxy.”
“Then what?” Mei asked with a frown. “I’ve seen how many experts on space-warping have been recruited for this, and I know that’s not from a bad source. You all are definitely planning something major, and I intend to be part of it.”
“Oh yes, it’s big,” Andrew said with a wink, then turned to the man in the wheelchair. “But more importantly, back me up here, Prof. You wrote it into my contract that I get to pick my members. You said that, oh, what was it…”
Then, Andrew switched his voice, speaking in high nasally tones. “‘Andrew, your flexibility and creativity is what I want in this role. As such, bring whoever you see fit.’ Ah, that was it, wasn’t it, Prof? We signed on it!”
Al-Abadi sighed. “Yes, I did say that. But you can’t seriously be intending to bring the woman that’s hunted you for so many years? Have some patience, Andrew, and I will drive her off.”
Andrew shrugged. At least as much of a shrug as he could manage while bound and laying on the floor. “Well, these restraints are really uncomfortable. Seems the easiest way out is to go with the flow.”
“Wait,” Mei said. “What is this project?”
“We’re planning to open the Dimensional Barrier and cross into a completely new universe,” Andrew said.
Al-Abadi sighed again. Levin felt his pulse quicken as he thought about where he would be tomorrow.
“Excuse me?” Mei gasped.
“So, you lose interest? I’m sure you were enjoying the thought of being the top dog in the first Andromeda colony, but this trip is just a quick probe. We’ll be out there all of thirty minutes, then head right back home. I’m sure that sounds boring to you,” Andrew said.
“Not at all,” Mei said, her eyes gleaming. “Count me in. That’s much better than what I came for.”
“Great. Now get me out of these chains, dear.”
“Fine. But our deal only lasts the length of this trip. Once you step foot off this ship, I’m finally putting you away for good.”
“Goodness, woman, you make it sound like I’m only offering you a spot for my own self-interest,” Andrew said, plastering an exaggerated, offended expression on his face. “I’m inviting you out of the goodness of my own heart, honest. But perhaps, just perhaps, the flower of friendship will finally blossom between us on this expedition, and you won’t have the heart to arrest me anymore.”
“Whatever,” Mei said, rolling her eyes at Andrew.
She reached down, unlocking Andrew’s restraints and pulling them off, yanking the man forcefully up to his feet in the process. Andrew yelped at the sudden motion, and he began gingerly rubbing his wrists with his newly freed hands, trying to avoid looking at the nasty hole Anya was drilling into his head with her eyes. Mei turned, heading in the direction of the docked spacecraft without a word of farewell.
“Ah, there’s something I forgot to mention,” Andrew said, projecting his voice to Mei.
Mei stopped and pivoted, looking back at Andrew. The distance made them appear closer in height than they actually were, at least a tiny bit.
“I’m the captain of my team, which means you’re joining under me. So you’ll have to follow my orders while we’re away,” he said.
Mei laughed boisterously, filling the spacious area with the loud noise as she turned around and began to walk away again.
“Sure, you can believe that.”