Chapter Twenty Seven
Iona gazed out the window. It was dark on Io and there was nothing to see except Jupiter hanging in the air, so close, she felt like she could touch it.
Her skin didn’t hurt. Benediction was right in that he had been doing a very good job caring for her. He was patient, kind, and attentive.
She sighed.
Didn’t he have something else to do? It felt like he should have something else to do. Years ago, when Iona had been rented out to individual clients, either they carted her along with them everywhere they went and slammed a workload onto her that would make a rented mule shudder, or they left her alone for so long she forgot what they looked like. What was happening with Benediction was neither of those things. He was so attentive that this was the first time she had been alone all day and it was night.
She looked out onto the sand. The light of Jupiter mirrored over the yellow dunes like moonlight. It was planet light, but those words sounded stupid.
She felt stupid.
She felt very stupid.
Over the course of the day, she’d decided on a few things. First thing was that she was not going to join the Church of Voynich. If she joined them she would have to have the pigment removed from her eyes and that was not okay with her. The black skin and the green hair were easier to fathom because Benediction looked so good it made women weep. It was the potential loss of her eye color that really bothered her. She also noticed that Benediction had not had to make that sacrifice as his eyes had no pigment in them to begin with. He also didn’t need to mourn the loss of what he had looked like all his life because how he looked wasn’t special. There were nine other men who looked like him. It wasn’t a parallel act of self-sacrifice they had to perform to join the church.
If she lost her honey-brown eyes, she felt like she wouldn’t be herself anymore. Eyes were the windows to the soul, a trick of light reflecting in and out, like seeing the inside and the outside of a person at once. No, she could not give up her brown eyes.
Benediction would try to persuade her. He’d work on her and given time, she’d wear down like a stone under moving water, change shape and become what he wanted her to be.
Iona was the ninth most expensive model in the Jovian region, which meant she was oozing with charisma, but Benediction had converted a whole generation of followers to the Church of Voynich. Those two things were not on the same level. She was good but not as good as him. She was also half his age as if her lack of experience justified her losing to him. He didn’t look sixty. None of them looked sixty.
Surveying her skin, every inch that had been exposed to the sands of Io was pink, hard, crinkled, and shiny like the skin under a scab. She knew that she could not accept any of the bids that had been offered on her. Her looks were gone, if only temporarily, and she could not even think of entertaining offers from clients until she was healed. She needed to get to the computer at Sleeping Beauty Inc. headquarters and refuse all offers on her. Harrison Fox would not have seen her message yet and it would be at least a week before the cancellation of all bids went public.
If everything went perfectly, she needed to go back to Ganymede to rest and heal. The only thing stopping her was that Benediction was so set on nursing her back to health. She needed to consult a travel agency and make arrangements to leave which was another reason she needed to use the computer at Sleeping Beauty Inc. headquarters.
Yes, Benediction was nice.
Yes, Benediction was handsome.
Yes, he was what she said she wanted before.
But, she didn’t want any of that old stuff anymore. Without Gage, she was like a little homesick orphan. She wanted to go back to Ganymede and take a room at the boarding complex she liked. There was a great chain of boarding houses where someone could go for a day or forever. She’d stayed in one a few times when she was a child and on the run. It was the closest thing to home and it was where she wanted to go. The rooms were tiny and the walls were padded in teddy bear material. Going inside one made her feel like she had been swallowed by the big bad wolf and that the unhappy ending wasn’t all that bad. It was quiet and the dark was comfortable. There was unlimited free reading material, though movies cost extra, so she hunkered down and read. When she got hungry, there was a buffet packed with food like pancakes, soup, toast, and salty butter. It was her shameful heaven for people who were sick at heart. Hopefully, no one would recognize her if she went there as an adult with an extremely red face.
Once her skin was all better, she’d contact Harrison Fox again and tell him that she was available for hire if he had a job for her.
That was the best she could do for herself.
Since Benediction couldn’t leave her alone, not even when she was in the black bath water, it was only a few minutes before he returned and caught her at her musing.
“I need to go to Sleeping Beauty Inc. headquarters,” she told him.
“Whatever for?” he asked breezily.
“I have some loose work ends to tie up and there’s a computer there I can use. Can you take me?”
“In the morning,” Benediction said, giving her a possessive grin.
Iona had seen that expression on many men’s faces. Sometimes the look was directed at her and sometimes at another model. Whenever a man made that face, she took an immediate dislike to him. The churning in her stomach was a surprise to her as well. Surely, she’d be into a man who looked like Gage, except that expression soured her.
Gage never looked at her like he owned her. Even when he was her handler and truthfully had an incredible amount of power over her during her transport, he treated her with a kind of courtesy that made her melt.
Benediction was botching it.
“If it’s at all possible,” Iona said softly. “I’d like to go tonight.”
“Why the rush? It’s not like any message you send will be read sooner than a week from now?” he asked, leaning against the table he used to display her medicines.
“That’s exactly why I need to go,” she said. “You may as well know what I’m doing since I think you’ll be interested in what work I need to do there.”
He waited, ears open.
“I need to refuse all the bids that have been made for my contract.”
“Oh!” he said, startled. “Of course, you need to do that, and the sooner the better. You could have told me that was what you wanted. I’ll get a few guards and we’ll head over.” He stepped out of the room but made the crucial mistake of leaving the door open when he left. He didn’t get three steps away from the room when his communication device pinged. He tried to ignore it, but the ringing changed from the normal ring Iona was used to hearing when people tried to get in touch with him and became an incessant buzzing.
Iona rushed to the door and seeing his back, she heard his side of the conversation as he took the call.
“Tuton’s wrecking crew found what?” he said in dazed surprise. “Where? That’s not possible. What? Oh, I bet I know what this is about. I was supposed to do something else right now, but I clearly have to get there right away. Yes, I’ll bring him. I bet he knows a lot about what’s going on.”
Benediction moved to turn around and Iona rushed back to the bed to resume her previous position when he returned to the bedroom.
“Listen,” Benediction said, poking his head into the room. “Something urgent came up. I’ll send Vych with you to go to Sleeping Beauty Inc. so you can take care of your loose ends right away. I’ll get her to administer your evening treatments after you return and I’ll pop back to see you when I’m finished dealing with the mess.”
“What happened?”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure about the details, so it’s better for me to wait before I say anything. It might be pretty big. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it. Go with Vych. I’ll give her my instructions and then you can be off.”
Iona followed him out to the main hall of his personal mansion and watched him don a massive black cloak that shook with yellow sand like glitter.
“Cuff Leviticus,” he said crossly through his communication link which was merely a button at his throat. “Arms, legs, gag him. The whole works. I’ve had it with his lies. Where’s Theology? I mean,” he said, stopping to correct himself. “Where’s Gage?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Iona’s heart leaped higher than the top of the top ring on a stage. He was alive?
“He left? Why? Huh? Who did he have with him? Get Tuton to send Gage a message to bring the helocarrier back to Loki’s Breastplate with the other two. We need to sort this out now. This is the kind of madness I never wanted to happen on Io. I’ll lash that traitor to the rocks myself.”
Benediction was clearly unaware that Iona had followed him because he had not wanted to share the fact that Gage had lived. She wanted to run to Gage and if Benediction was going to meet him, she wanted to go with him, but she shook her head and retreated into the shadows as Benediction strode out of his mansion.
She knew what Gage would want her to do. He’d want her to use this opportunity when Benediction was not watching her to escape.
She returned to her room and dressed as carefully as when Gage had last dressed her aboard the Cannonball III.
When Vych knocked on Iona’s bedroom room, the servant was surprised at Iona’s clothes and preparedness.
“You look properly dressed for the sands of Io, Iona,” Vych said in disheartened shock. Then she facepalmed herself since she heard herself double up on the word. “Please refrain from doing things that make you look like the goddess of Io. It’s disheartening for those of us who want that title more than you.”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” Iona said. “Let’s go. Do we need more bodyguards or are you all we need?”
“I’m the only one that could be spared. Everyone else is busy,” she said, trying to hide whatever news had come to light about Gage on Loki’s Breastplate. “They left us a small helocarrier. It will be bumpier to get there than the other transports you’ve used. Please be patient.”
Iona nodded and walked with Vych to the hangar where the aerial transports were stored. Once aboard, Vych strapped herself in and treated Iona to a lengthy explanation of the straps that Iona thought was completely hilarious because she had personally sold over a thousand models of the helocarrier they were riding in, though most of them went to Mars.
“So, you take this strap and click it into place between your legs,” Vych explained. “If you had tried to come out in a dress, I would have made you change.”
“Well, I didn’t know that we were going to be riding in a VX model 9800-52, nicknamed the Desert Asp. It is a little like a dirt bike or like a shoe with a thin sole so you can really feel the ground under your feet. It has eighteen cylinders, three cooling units, runs on two conjoined rupters, and was the first model designed with a battery used only for starting the engine and no alternator. Yet, even with those feats in engineering, the thing that is really remarkable is the plastic used to make the windshield. It is coated in white sapphire to stop the wind and stones from marking the windshield. This model was sold three years ago and look at how clean that windshield is. How many kilometers does it have on it?”
Vych glared at Iona. “You are the most detestable person I have ever met! Who the hell are you that you know all that?”
Iona looked out the windshield. “I’m just a little more ruthless than the average.”
“Can you fly it?”
Iona nodded. “I’d do better flying it if I was on Callisto. I know my way around there. As it stands, I’ve not spent much time on Io. I don’t know how to get where we’re going, but if I was left alone with your instruments for a few minutes, I’d be able to figure it out. These babies practically pilot themselves. Let’s get going.”
Vych ground her teeth together as she threw the Desert Asp into gear and lifted them off the ground.
As they sped over the dunes, Iona sensed that Vych wanted to ask her a long list of questions about Benediction. She was in love with him, like every other female follower, but she had little chance of getting together with him.
“So, how do people leave the Church of Voynich when they’ve had enough?” Iona asked.
“No one leaves the church. Once their body is changed, they take the church with them wherever they go, whatever they do. You only need to be converted to the truth once.”
“Then what is the deal with this base? If you take the church with you everywhere, why are you all together here?”
Vych sighed. “There are those of us who seek to live collectively so we can live our religion more completely. That’s why we’re here on Io. No one wants Io. It’s a mass of toxic sand, intense gravity, and volcanic eruptions. Here, we are free.”
“Huh, so in theory, you could leave?” Iona asked.
“I wouldn’t want to!” she shrieked over the sound of the propellers.
“I’d leave if I were you,” Iona advised.
“Why? I love it here. I love the mansions. I love the people.”
Iona noticed that the woman was refraining from saying that she loved Benediction. Iona picked up on it for her. “That’s all fine, but if you’re staying because you think Benediction is going to fall in love with you and crown you with the cross of Voynich, you’re going to be waiting until you have your brain pulled out through your nose.”
“We only mummify our dead on Io because that is the most convenient thing with all this sand.”
Iona stifled a laugh. “I wasn’t criticizing it. On Europa, they dump dead people into the water hoping to move nutrients around. You have to have a lot of money on Europa to get a non-sea burial. On Callisto, they bury you under a carpet of mushrooms and what is left after they have finished eating you is so horrifying that no one who goes to your funeral is allowed on that spot of land again. On Ganymede, they burn you to a crisp and churn your ashes in the soil with the hope that one day it will be fertile enough for the entire moon to bloom. All places are trying to feed back.”
“Nothing gets fed on Io,” Vych said sourly. “A body won’t even decompose here. It is just preserved in the sands.”
“Exactly, and so will you, just be preserved in the sands. You’re being preserved now and you’re not dead yet. Will there even be a difference when you die? You should leave. If Benediction wants you, he’ll chase you.”
“Not if he has you,” Vych barked.
Iona replied softly. “He only fell in love with me because I wasn’t a baby about the gravity trial. It could have been you if you allowed yourself to be strapped across the crack.”
Vych didn’t reply and Iona wondered what thoughts were being filtered through the other woman’s mind.
Iona thought it unnecessary to say anything more to Vych as they flew.
At Sleeping Beauty Inc.’s Io division, the lock on the front door was broken since the last time she had been there. She imagined Benediction and his army thugs did that when they captured her. Inside, Sleeping Beauty Inc. headquarters was empty as Iona opened the front door and went in. She got on the computer behind the reception desk in the lobby and sent a collection of messages to the head office in Ganymede explaining her medical condition and that she would be unable to accept any bids until her skin had healed. She didn’t plan to accept another contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc., but it didn’t do any good to spit in their face, especially since she still needed them.
She sent a second message to Harrison Fox explaining her situation and putting forth her intention to take employment with him when she was healed.
Then, she really got to work. She sent messages to travel agencies on Io, recycling vessels, and pretty much anyone else she could think of asking for transportation off Io. She found one that was leaving in thirty-two hours from the Dahlcroft recycling plant. It was thirty-eight kilometers from the Sleeping Beauty Inc. headquarters. If she could get her banking information, she could buy a cryochamber aboard it for a trip to Ganymede, which was exactly where she wanted to go. She unlocked her banking info, but she didn’t have a Sleeping Beauty Inc. bracelet to store it on.
There was a vending machine nearby, and actually, Vych was leaning against the pink glowing cabinet.
Iona got up. “Step aside,” she said with a little hand wave.
“What are you doing?”
“Selling myself into slavery… clearly.”
“You can’t do that!” the girl shouted.
“I can. I can actually do whatever I want. What kind of bracelet should I get? Which one do you think is the prettiest?”
“Benediction won’t like it!” Vych said, trying to stand like a wall between Iona and the cabinet.
“Please relax. He hasn’t offered me a communication link or a personal computer. It’s almost like he’s trying to cut me off from the outside world. That’s all I’m getting from the vending machine, a personal communication device. That’s what these are. They’re Sleeping Beauty Inc. brand because that’s what I can get my hands on, but I don’t have a buyer, so they’re not connected to anyone. I was just teasing you. I did as I said I would and refused all the bids that were placed on me.” Iona waited for the woman to move and when she didn’t, Iona began tapping her toe. “It feels like you’re trying to turn me into a prisoner. This isn’t a sale contract. It’s a communication device. Please move.”
Vych slowly stepped aside.
“Thank you. Which one should I get?” she asked, looking at the pink display.
There were two distinct kinds. The kind that wrapped a pink and white screen all the way around a model’s wrist and projected images on a wall when a larger screen was needed. The second kind had a square screen that could manage a few functions and store information. They were more convenient to use, but the ones that were left in the vending machine were the ugliest versions of the Sleeping Beauty Inc. bracelet.
“Go big or go home, huh?” She picked the ugliest one and punched in her Sleeping Beauty Inc. ID number.
The one she selected fell to the bottom and she reached to pull it from the slot.
Vych interrupted her with a question. “Just because I’m curious. How much money was your highest bid for?”
Iona paused. “That is incredibly private information.”
“Okay, can you give me a ballpark number?” Vych asked in a little voice.
“Hmm… imagine a high-powered career woman and her salary.”
“Okay,” Vych said.
“Now imagine the paycheck of a high-level whore, or a porn star, or an expensive stripper.”
“I don’t know how much they get paid.”
“More than the career woman,” Iona said with a resigned sigh.
“Are you saying you accepted the paycheck of the stripper?” Vych asked in barely concealed disgust.
“No,” Iona said briefly. “I’m saying that when I sell myself, I get both their paychecks.”
Vych whistled.
“Plus, I get so many bonuses, it’s insane. I get jewelry, clothes, perfume, and so many presents from clients and coworkers.”
“Why do they do all that?” Vych asked, her disgust more obvious.
“When I’m working, I’m very popular. If you think it’s surprising that Benediction fell in love with me, it’s not. I have a gift for making men fall in love with me. I would not have been able to be a successful model otherwise.” Iona moved the bracelet in her fingers from one hand to the other. “It’s okay if you hate me more for having heard all that.”
Vych nodded, suddenly realizing that Iona came from a world where so many women already hated her that one more woman’s dislike was meaningless.
Stepping away, Iona took her bracelet over to the computer and synced them, so all her model information and banking information was on the watch. She turned off the computer and came around the reception desk. She was about to pull the bracelet over her wrist when Gage suddenly appeared in the security arch of the front door.