Domeria blinked. She closed her eyes again, dazzled as the room’s AI interpreted her awakening as a request for enlightenment. The light was dimmed, so she opened her eyes without any problem. She felt in great shape… but strangely, apart from a few details, she felt like she was reliving that scene.

A quick glance around reassured her: she was no longer in the infirmary.

Sitting down on the bed, she cautiously observed her surroundings. Her mind was clear enough to not believe she was at home and to remember recent events… but she no longer remembered exactly what she had said during the meal…

The room was a real bedroom, a little smaller than her old cabin. The bed she was on was on top of the standard escape pod. There was some furniture, a table and a few chairs, a desk… On a chair near the bed, she saw that new clothes had been laid out.

Letting her legs dangle to the floor, she reached out and grabbed the outfit. It was a standard crew uniform, made up of two parts that would merge into one once equipped. The new pants also covered the feet and she removed the hospital pants to put these on. As she did so, she realized that the day before (or at least she called the moment before she fell asleep the day before), she had walked barefoot without realizing it. She must have been in a really bad state… What nonsense or worse, truths, had she let slip?

As she grabbed the top, she discovered that while the suit seemed devoid of insignia, its shoulders bore a symbol. It was a human skull in front of two crossed femurs, all stylized. The universal symbol of fairytale pirates, or real but unimaginative ones. Sava couldn’t help but smile: whatever the truth about him, one could tell that her host had a sense of humor.

She put on the top and felt satisfied to finally be presentable: she felt less vulnerable… Even if it would be much better with a weapon at her side in this situation…

The two parts of the suit merged and she adjusted a belt over it. To separate the two parts of the outfit, she would just have to send a command to her identity bracelet, which had probably already connected to the garment…

“Ah,” she hissed, “damn: it’s true that he took it from me…”

She removed the belt and carefully observed the suit until she found the manual system. She tried it on, then closed the garment and put the belt back on. Continuing to analyze the outfit, she discovered that the cuffs contained the controls for a small holographic touch screen, allowing to regulate the internal temperature of the garment or to adjust its size in case of malfunction of the automatic system.

Finally ready, she headed for the door. The Ham almost jumped when it opened, so convinced was she that it was locked. During the second of opening, she gathered all her concentration to not let anything show if something was waiting for her on the other side. She was so ready that she was disappointed that there was nothing.

The common room had changed in appearance, there were several tables of various sizes, surrounded by comfortable armchairs. The banquet table from the day before was now surrounded by sofas and no longer seemed as high. Although the walls had not changed, it seemed to her that she was entering an entirely new place.

There again, no trace of the Hom, or his crew.

Sava began to wander around the ship, opening rooms at random. Of course, her movements were monitored by the onboard AI, most likely of the Z.I.A. type, even if it resolutely refused to speak to her when she tried to call out to her. Some rooms were closed, like the captain's cabin, but she doubted he was in it.

She discovered the location of the corridor, but the secondary doors were locked. The young woman continued on her way to a beam elevator that ended the corridor.

The machine worked for her, offering her two directions. After a moment of hesitation, she pressed the arrow indicating the bottom. The holo-screen of choice disappeared and the beam put her in a state of levitation. The floor opened and she was quickly transported down without the slightest sensation of movement.

The new section of the ship that opened up before her was clearly the hold. Perhaps it wasn’t the best choice of direction if she hoped to find the master of the place? But she could perhaps learn something there…

Leaving the beam, she observed the place. There were pallets supporting containers wrapped in protection, whose symbols indicated the presence of additional energy reserves. A group of robots were busy on a pile of scrap metal, apparently busy recycling it… Had the renegade become a space scrapper? Unless these were the remains of his latest victims?

In the center of the hold stood a strange room with reinforced walls. Its door was open, revealing three metal tubes.

Curious, she approached it. They were three stasis tubes surrounded by some sort of additional protection. The latter was open, revealing the three people who were cut off from the present time.

“The sign of the prison department,” she murmured, “these are prisoners. Apparently alpha level... This guy is being prosecuted for having participated in the liberation of prisoners from this level, if I remember correctly... Why are they still in stasis?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Good question, isn't it, Miss Domeria?”

Sava let out a sharp cry of surprise as she turned around. Lhom was there, next to her, as if he had always been in this room. A stealth suit perhaps? He probably didn't need to go that far: the Z.I.A. on board could probably alter the environment to create visual illusions, undetectable to someone without the slightest modern equipment.

“Did I scare you? I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sava thought, “you're not even hiding your amusement!”

But, out loud, she gave another version of herself:

“To make up for it, wouldn't you like to explain this vision that troubles me?”

“Ah, I just activated a small stealth shield: it creates a variation in the air around me in order to...”

“No: I mean the prisoners. Who are they? Why are they... well, haven't you tried to free them? Don't tell me you can't open these devices: coming from an alpha+, that would be pretty pathetic.”

Lhom smiled amusedly:

“To be honest, I don't think I'm able to open the Cyclops' cell. It's a bit annoying, since it prevents me from opening the Ktn-Ktn's cell as well in case I need to. My enemies have informed me that the first one controls the second one, which would be quite dangerous otherwise.”

“I guess who the Cyclops is, but which one is a Ktn-Ktn?”

“That one: the bull.”

“And the person in the middle?”

“Oh, I was told she'd be difficult to control, but she could be useful in the technical field...”

He narrowed his eyes, realizing a detail:

“Maybe she'd be able to break through the Cyclops' security...”

“And what would you get from freeing these criminals?”

“A development of the situation… Maybe for the worse, but it’s still better than finding yourself without a solution, isn’t it?”

“You could also surrender.”

The Hom’s gaze became so contemptuous that Sava felt hurt.

“You think I want to waste decades of real time for crimes I didn’t commit? I’d be in for thirty or a hundred years! So, I’m going to do something, even if it means playing into the enemy’s hands! I’m going to free these criminals and see how far this story will take me, what opportunities will arise…”

His gaze was implacable and his cape flew majestically behind him, certainly equipped with one of those heroic air current simulators that the Homs were particularly fond of. He had a strange smile and Sava instinctively felt that this was some kind of test, the ins and outs of which she didn’t know.

“So, I'm going to free them now, before the killers announced by my enemies come... Unless there's another way for me to regain the Administration's favor...”

The Hom opened the control panel of the central stasis pod and began to activate the opening sequence.

The young woman caught a sideways glance that he gave her during a brief Tik. She finally guessed the nature of the test: either she would provide him with interesting information, or he would release these criminals into the wild. A hostage situation with a dilemma... typically homtest. It probably wasn't a bluff.

“I was going to tell you about it,” she began, “but if you’re going to release criminals to try to save your own skin, maybe you’re not the person I need to investigate a corruption case…”

The Hom stopped and turned around. He probably thought he was putting on a straight face, but Sava could read his true mood perfectly: hope.

“Corruption? Really? With all the inspectors monitoring our reports and all the complaints filed against us?”

“You talk like you’re still an administrative agent.”

“Just because I’m an outlaw wanted throughout the universe doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being a representative of those who are looking for me.”

“Tsss.”

She turned her head, affecting contempt for his argument. In reality, she wanted to hide her smile. She cursed inwardly as she remembered that her opponent had microscopic and flying cameras that patrolled the surroundings. However, he did not seem to consult them given his reaction.

“I'm serious! Okay, I made fun of you with this story of inspectors, and I ask you to forgive me. I know that there is something fishy that has infiltrated our ranks: the sabotage of my vehicle was literally impossible without the complexity of an agent of my own level, or above. The sabotage itself was of such expertise that few people across the universe would be capable of it...”

“Hogloos, perhaps?”

“Why are you talking to me about Hogloos? Zcarbbs, I could understand, but these modifications didn’t seem like their way of designing programs… In short, if you have anything that could help me obtain a pardon, I’ll help you… and if it helps me find the people responsible for my troubles, doubly so.”

He had dropped the Game and was speaking frankly. In a way, that meant Sava had won. It was too bad the only favor she could possibly want to extort from him was the one he was asking: to participate in her investigation.

“Okay. I can’t tell you all the details, but I’m looking for a Hogloo master geneticist named Zoghoze. He’s involved in the Utela case, and I intend to convince him to tell me the truth about who ordered it.”

Libre had a slight beard ending in a small goatee that he scratched mechanically as he thought.

“I know a Hogloo here, whom I have already employed. I could pay his services to authorize our passage through their space...”

A detail struck the Ham:

“But? With what money? Your bank accounts, even secret ones, must have already been blocked or put under surveillance...”

“Indeed. As for yours, they must have already been treated in accordance with your death, officially recognized. But, rest assured: I had left here a physical deposit of a good amount of materialized credit. There is enough to buy a space fortress.”

“My death, officially recognized?”

“Yeah. I must say, leaving a copy of the ship using the synthesizer and making a jump, all at the moment of the explosion, it was a rather clever move on your part to prevent your attacker from discovering your survival. Well, the downside is that the Administration also thinks you died in the explosion. Don’t worry: as long as your disappearance doesn’t last more than a standard year, you can get a refund of your assets… minus the portion taken by the Administration as part of the inheritance tax, of course.”

“A rather smart move on my part?”

“Um… Are you okay?”

“I’m officially dead?”

But Sava Domeria had lost her footing. How had she survived in fact? An AI could not have imagined such a plan, much less calculated it to the nearest second without having infinitely more computing power than that of her ship. Worse still: if she was officially dead, it meant that her loved ones were going to suffer…