Silvia's eyes scanned the stars. Tasìa thought the Serbian assassin seemed lost in thought, but then her eyes fixed on one location and she jerked her arm up to point at it.

"Tasìa, do you see just a thumbnail above the star Gacrux, but slanted in the direction of Beta Centauri, that there is a bluish-green object? It is a bit dim and small, but quite distinctive once you focus on it."

Silvia seemed entirely guileless now, but Tasìa still exercised caution. She stood a good two yards away and behind Silvia before looking up.

"Yes. I do see it. It even gives off a slight metallic sheen that is not the same shade of color. It is platinum white."

Silvia glanced back at her, quite satisfied with herself.

"That is Zafír Rózsa."

The long lost research station.

"Santa Muerta," was all that Tasìa could gasp.

Silvia had utterly overcome her defeated demeanor. She looked triumphant, as she now continued to speak so comfortably in her own element.

"The platinum-like sheen you are seeing is the body of the station. It is massive. If you took the HMS Queen Elizabeth and mirrored it in shape and size, the Zafír Rózsa would be very close to the result. The dazzling ultramarine color is a shimmer from the antimach drive that surrounds the hull in elaborate grid work. The color is a by-product, photonic emissions."

Tasìa finally caught up to Silvia's renewed verve and she responded, "isn't the Zafír Rózsa supposed to be lost somewhere beyond the orbit of Saturn?"

Silvia nodded slowly, but with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, Tasìa, please.

"It is returning," Silvia corrected. "I was on a black-ops expeditionary mission to the station a decade ago."

Tasìa peered up once more. The night sky was spread vast and the stars on display were so many as to create a light haze in the humid atmosphere above them. The few clouds floating by appeared tumbled over, broken up and scattered, like wrecked ships.

Tasìa turned her attention back to Silvia.

"How does an astronaut wind up in the Spore Isolation Unit," she asked.

Silvia frowned. "These matters are not unrelated. The expedition, my manifestation, my incarceration, and now being used such as I am. It is all of a piece. You understand I was exposed to the nanospores on the station."

Tasìa thought she now understood what Silvia needed.

"You want out of their game?"

Silvia grabbed her baby bump with her shoulders bent akimbo as she peered down at it.

"We all want out. Even those three men of whom you so efficiently disposed. Truthfully Tasìa, I would be trying to kill you now, but the satellite signal that feeds the compulsion has been jammed. You must have friends working with you."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Felicité. My ghost in the machine.

Tasìa felt grateful for the frankness with which Silvia spoke. It eased her natural sense of paranoia.

She understood the assassin was trying to build a rapport and establish trust. She would need Tasìa's help if she had any chance of escaping her captors.

She decided she would be upfront as well.

"I am limited in what I can do for you. You understand, the motorcycle would bring us too close in physical proximity for me to give you a ride to the bus station. I can spare you the cash if you need it."

"Would you? I only need enough for travel expenses then I can get my hands on enough for a good medtech."

"It's not a problem."

Tasìa felt around her fanny pack. She could recognize the different cards with nothing more than the stroke of her fingertips. She grabbed one with three and a half grand on it. A card she normally kept only for her grocery shopping in big warehouse chain stores.

Tasìa passed it to the assassin. Silvia stood awkwardly with the card in her hand. She was still naked.

"Oh," Tasìa said as she reached down and grabbed the pile of clothes.

"Sorry. Here you go."

As Silvia dressed, Tasìa gave the assassin's body a good last glance. Silvia showed the usual traits of pregnancy. Along with the baby bump, Silvia's dark pigmented extremities contrasted greatly with the light olive of her skin.

Varicose veins twirled up her left thigh.

That last detail Tasìa decided to overlook when she gave Silvia a wide grin while saying, "I look at you, and I envy the motherhood as it radiates from your flesh!"

"That is a nice thing to say," Silvia said, then with a change of tone, she continued to plead, "Tasìa, there is one more thing you can do to help me. Could you stuff the bodies in the car and blow it up? That may delay the Corps from realizing that I am still alive long enough to get my cochlear implant modified and that living quartz matrix cleansed from my eyes"

Silvia pulled her caramel brown hair to the side. Tasìa missed spotting the implant earlier, but it was a much subtler design than that of Felicité's whose device was intentionally bold and not even flesh-colored.

Tasìa nodded, cheerfully.

"I'll do it."

"Thank you," Silvia said as she reached down to put her boots on. "If you don't mind, I have a five-mile walk to the bus station to tend to. I need to get going."

Tasìa had many questions left unanswered but decided they could wait.

"Sure. Go ahead. I'll take care of things here. Do you have my number?"

Silvia nodded.

"Call me when you make it to ground, okay? You get that implant taken care of and I'll have a spare safe house I can loan you."

Silvia wiped at her cheeks as she repeated her thanks.

Tasìa shook her head and her wrist in unison.

"Enough with the schmaltz. Go ahead. You need to get going."

Silvia waved her hand in a bye as she started walking briskly away. Tasìa sipped from the bottle of Canadian brew while she watched Silvia make it up to the interstate.

Given the lighting of the surrounding acreage, there was no chance the assassin could double back and take Tasìa from behind. That is if Silvia wasn't on the level.

Tasìa grimaced. She should have tried to feign being distracted to see if Silvia would have taken the bait.

Tasìa's gut howled a low rumble to mock her. Nah. She would have seen right through it, the entire time she was taking tabs on your actions, expecting you to try it. There is a better way.

Tasìa's safe houses were equipped with room-to-room monitoring with an AI analytical assist.

Tasìa lifted the half-full bottle straight up and chugged it.

She had work to do, and if she weren't mistaken, the first guy whose face she had blown off had a sexy Czechoslovak Škorpion machine pistol to add to her collection.