Nuovo Portolago’s flat surface of gardens and canals welcomes its visitors in an orderly fashion.

The sharp corners of the hundreds of reflecting ponds across the model colony are strategically placed near the thousands of landing pads, themselves organized between rows of manicured greenery. Quadrangular fields of wheat flourish on one side of the settlement, while the natural ocean on the opposite of the peninsula teems with schools of yachts and hydroelectric installations. Waves roll and recede, disturbing the wooden polacca that laze within the marinas. White stone and grey steel buildings of all purposes meet at the pre-planned walkways that facilitate the inhabitants from one piazza to another, buttressed with multi-story, featureless villas that hide their own hydroponic farms in private arcades.

The flat marble campanile that juts into the sky is emblazoned with littori and an engraving proudly stating ‘CCCXVIII’. It projects a conquering shadow over the Piazza Vittorio and the buildings adjacent. One of which is your destination.

Dyle touches down on the crowded landing pad. Hull doors spring open, flooding the cockpit with the smell of saltwater. The ship’s ventilating spines shift and allow for a slight cross-breeze, eliciting a soft metallic whistle. You scan out the windows for any sign of life within the platform attendant’s office.

A simple wooden, hand-written notice informs you he’s currently on break.

Your craft’s registration flashes onto Dyle’s screen. A memorandum calmly reports your craft as last reported stolen from the colony of New Port Moresby. The automated response of the security network notifies you that the ship’s information shall be forwarded to the colonial gendarmeria. It suggests you stay on board and meet them for inspection.

The mare chews her lips, staring past the isometric guard shack towards the building at the other end of the piazza. Botticino limestone crawls from the small garden at its base up nearly fifteen stories, the individual offices hidden behind their L-shaped windows of natural olive-wood and steel wiring. Her eyes trace to the top of the façade, to your destination tucked away in the private executive suites.

Dyle’s locking mechanisms reengage as you depart the Mr. Memory. The blast shielding rearranges itself into the airtight testudo formation that had brought you planetside. Dyle lifts off, leaving you to your business, laying distance between you both.

Rows of short cubic hedges partition the landing platform into individual spaces, and slightly deafen the loud click-clacking of the pirate queen’s hooves against the stone walkway. Milling colonial denizens shoot you cursory looks, investigating the unfamiliar visitors as you approach the building.

An elderly woman sits at the fountain’s base in the center of the piazza. The statue behind her, the goddess Diana in a spiral composition, stands above the water in recognition of the sector’s corporate headquarters. The nearby café’s patrons murmur to themselves over their cappuccinos as a girl skips from table-to-table selling hand-picked red and pink lilies.

An inquisitive leonine woman with white, thick-rim sunglasses admires your armaments from a distance. She nonchalantly tilts her head at her suitor, who responds in a politely hushed tone, describing their makes and models to her in depth. He takes a sip of his drink before he gesticulates towards his own sidearm for contrast, comparing it to yours with a polite smile and nod.

You both enter through the glass doors and into the double-height atrium of the building. Waxed marble colonnades allow the sunlight to reflect against the nearby ocean and fill the room with a burst of natural light. Multiple bar-coded secretaries, suited executives, and token medical wonders wander through the maze of seating and reception to form a cacophony of hurried footsteps.

The relaxed life of the floor lounges in the seaside rear, where, through the opened sliding doors, an external alcove holds a shaded plaza and small bistro. Seawater laps against the staircase that greets the waterline as relaxing workers roll up their pant legs and dresses to dip their feet in the tide. They smoke and chit-chat, soaking in the afternoon sun.

An attendant patrols the elevators, cradling a kinetic rifle with both hands. The black body armor that protects the attendant’s chest contrasts with white embroidery, a familiar corporate symbolism, above a seven-digit identification number. As the twin elevators empty and fill, he investigates every passenger, politely providing directions to visitors as he eyes them up and down for malicious intent. Avoiding scrutiny, the two of you approach the secondary staircase on the opposite of the atrium, content to take the stairs.

As you turn, a pair of colonial gendarmeria hurry from an arriving elevator. Their sets of jackboots crash against the marble flooring as they trot out towards the piazza’s landing platforms. One, handgun deployed, holds his pith in place with a gloved hand. The two beige figures exit the atrium, their departure unnoticed by the churning corporates.

Sensitive to your limited time, you pause at the foot of the staircase, in the path of a pair meandering down the steps. They’re two humans, an elderly woman in a spotless alabaster lab coat and a young man in a tailored chalk stripe suit. The man, preemptively wearing his tortoiseshell sunglasses, pauses for a moment as you both inspect one another.

He slows his march after spotting your gun, removing his glasses for a better look at you. His short brown hair ends past his ears, curls groomed to remain within his corporate obligations. His hawkish nose twitches at his lip as his view bounces to your companion, looking just as imposing with her exposed laser rifle cradled in her open palms.

Turning back to your gaze, he shoots an infectious smile, nodding at your sidearm with approval as he taps his own pocket. Replacing his sunglasses, he and his scientific partner ramble towards the café.

As he departs, you steal a final inquisitive look over your shoulder, as if wondering where you two had seen each other before.

Your mind wanders until the mare’s obnoxious march of hooves flings you up fifteen flights of stairs and back to reality.

At the top floor, you pause and survey the hand-organized directory; “XV - Executive Offices”, which lists the roles of every minor officer of the local organization, each Vice Presidential role of unknown importance stacked atop one another. Unlike the opulent entrance on the other end of the floor, this entrance is guarded by a lone hippotigrine female. The she-zebra anthropomorph is engrossed in her pulp-paper comic book, blissfully unaware behind the simple check-in desk.

Careful to not make any sudden movements, Ø approaches from the side. She catches the bestiamoide by surprise and holds a single finger to her lips to ask for compliance. The zebra, placing her charcoal hands behind her own similarly equine skull, is met with the swing of a gunstock, sending her unconscious to the ground, concussion expertly delivered.

The mare checks beneath the workstation for alarms. You peer through the glass doorway to the rest of the floor. Within the inner sanctum of the corporate beast lays each of the hydra’s heads, the individual luxury offices. Each with their own balconies and designer furniture and quarterly income reports, fluffed and puffed for proper presentation. Opposite this row of enclaves is a collection of floor-to-ceiling windows of three-inch pseudo-glass. Multiple marble support beams bisect these windows, flanked by brightly colored wing lounge chairs with satisfying earth-tone upholstery.

The resounding click of a locking mechanism announces the mare has found the doorman’s switch. You both cautiously enter the floor. She takes point, gliding across the tiled floors with as little sound as possible, checking off the various titles next to the closed doors before arriving at your destination; “Lorenzo Ambrosio, Product Development.”

You both press yourselves on opposite sides of the door. Your shoulder pulses in pain as you brace against the wall, skin taught against your moist shirt, sweaty from a mixture of both fear and the taxing journey up fifteen flights of stairs. Central air conditioning whips your face as you inspect the weight of your sidearm, double-checking that it’s, indeed, loaded.

Imperfectly synchronized, you watch the pirate, who rolls her shoulders and twists her hips in anticipation of a breach. You’ve felt it before, the crunch of keratin on wood pulp. It was two years ago, then five before that. Shadows of the same mare, repeating the same mechanical movements, drift through your memory. They’re implanted, like the directions she huffs from her closed maw.

You feel her muscles pulse as she mentally counts from three, pausing on two, bringing a hoof into the door on one.

Wood breaks at the locked knob. The door whips against the wall, snapping off a hinge and languidly tilting. The room’s dual occupants lurch in surprise.

The android guard near the window, lighter in hand, reaches for his sidearm as Ø plugs two rounds into either side of his sternum, eliminating the threat. You turn to your right, shakily staring down your sights at the seated corporate. His grey-blue quasi-wool suit jacket covers his waistcoat, the astute style contrasting with his cosmetically youthful face of bronzed skin, sculpted and reconstructed. One of what you assume is many body modifications.

The executive’s cigarette hadn’t hit his desk before the mare had flung him by the collar to the floor. You pop your head into the hallway, checking to see if the commotion has disturbed anyone. The pirate, however, begins her interrogation. She snatches the pressed tie of the vice president with a shaking fist and forces the datapad into his field of vision.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Where’s the data?” She asks, holding her prey in place with a single grip on his neck, intermittently squeezing his windpipe to accelerate the information into the man’s head. “I said tell me where the data is!”

The mare’s bellowing reverberates against the fine finto-leather couches and hand-blown glass tables of the executive suites, deafened only by the off-white cut-pile carpeting. You’re convinced you hear a chair push away from a desk, or the main elevator doors open, and your heart quickens. Your spine gushes with foreign excitement as you muse whether the stairway guard had been sent into a coma.

A sharp yelp escapes the executive as the pirate queen forces him back against the ground, gasping for oxygen as her squeezing continues, fabric coiling around her fist. With an air of desperate self-preservation, he stares into the datapad, his artificially improved consciousness reading through the first twenty file directories in only a moment. He lowers his eyebrows in bewilderment before his eyes jolt open with renewed fear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he declares in seemingly genuine confusion. An invasive thought considers whether you could sever his right arm from his torso with your bare hands. However, you hold your vision still and drew a deep breath to reassess the situation. The mare loosens her grip on the corporate, turning his gaze down the barrel, bruising the thin skin at the base of his throat.

“This was put out by your department, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I’m not going to ask again, where’s the cure you’re working on?”

“There isn’t any,” he gasps in between breaths, gripping the knot that constrains his neck, attempting to wriggle it out of its Onassid shape. “There’s no drug, no data, not even initial trials for this genetic reconstruction nonsense.”

Your vision clouds, and you turn towards the room in confusion. Ø relaxes her knuckles, letting the executive crawl backwards in a vain attempt to escape her wingspan. His bony fingers toy with his poplin shirt collar, re-folding it into place and fixing his knit tie. Bouncing his gaze between the two of you, he coughs, delivering a presentation for a pair of potential stakeholders.

“We’re divesting from that research. We had no intention of actually following through, but we needed a justification to suspend dividends last quarter. The redliners down in Accounting suggested we increase yearly expenses with more R&D, and that lunatic Dr. Taraki is a living money pit, so we gave him carta bianca for all of his asinine ideas,” content with his grooming, he drags himself to his feet and places his palms on his hips in a stance that radiates corporate power. “And, as we know, none of this is disallowed under the Legislative Decree of 874 E. F. n. 201, so you can inform the rest of the Finance Ministry that they will hear from counsel. On behalf of myself, my organization, and the recently dispatched Sergeant Libera.”

A feeling of bristled palm leaves rakes against your thigh, then your shoulder, then chest, before your nerves all shriek in distant emotion. Your mouth waters, begging you to vomit the impossible. Vertigo threatens to send you to the floor in a fit of tears. Your vision turns a deep red as you feel yourself thrash against the borosilicate tank that constrains you, shaking loose your catheters and tubing as your semi-conscious equine body craves the cruel freedom of oxygen, atmosphere, and some unknown cure.

In a second of clarity, however, your perception returns to normal. You watch as the mare stares at the feet of the magnate, letting her rifle tilt towards the carpeted floor. Her wide nostrils suck in as much cool air as possible as she closes her eyes, resigning herself to the penultimate disappointment of a quest denied. She’s alone in her struggle.

But only for a moment.

Sensing your gaze, she once more turns to you in a flash of divine lucidity, guided by that unseen magnetism. Her cloudy eyes look at you, past you, down the improbable pathway of tens of thousands of cycles. Generations cry out in familiar pain, separated from one another to suffer in mutual silence within their own pitiful fates, souls denied their syzygy.

She finally exhales, letting escape the trillions of crimson flower petals that line her inner lungs, engulfing the nearby marble columns in twining vines. Cultivated gardens spring from beneath the carpet, enveloping the android’s corpse, shattering the balcony glass to allow for a humble breeze. The thousand-year-old olive tree that sprouts from the desk provides you both shade, protecting two souls that had first connected hundreds of generations ago.

Citrus and cigarettes dance on your tongue, invisible flavors of non-narcotic origin. Loafers dig into the racetrack’s mud, yet you trudge unabated. It’s hot in the ancient natural atmosphere, but you remain comfortable. You meet the mare at the finish line, midmorning fog dissipating from the racetrack.

She’s your favorite, you say, lighting the unfiltered tobacco at her panting lips. In lieu of congratulations, she muses. A thorny rose crown of victory cuts into her scalp, deflating her barbarism. Sweat drips from the brand at her chest, the pre-modern, analog mark of your ownership.

Droplets hold in the air, repeating their trajectories, like any other recapitulated, hand-me-down memories. She whispers from thousands of fragmented angles and pitches, asking whether she’ll always be your favorite. One of you, hundreds of you, say yes, completing her quest for metempsychosis. Your digits intertwine like roots as the clouds dance across the endless sky.

Unnatural electricity conducts as you murmur to one another in your own seclusion, alone together beneath the canopy of branches. An absurdity, she thinks as the sunlight glitters on her bare fur through the falling flowers, that she could ever again be incomplete in body or spirit. Once more, her soul looks to yours, eyes filled with tears of joy. Her heart beats to your protecting cadence as she lets her will, like a horrific storm, break against the four hundred billion stars between the galaxy’s edges.

Your lips mash against one another as you grip her back, feeling the muscles beneath her auburn pelt. Her forearms relax themselves, begging you to draw her closer with your own volition. In your firm embrace, her fingers trace your vertebrae as her warm tears drip onto you. Coughs interrupt her quick breaths and sniffling of release, taking only small moments to whisper unintelligible nothings, before you hold her close, letting her oblong head rest against your now damp chest.

She gives a final cough, then a meek laugh, before looking up at you. She opens her eyes to shimmer against the sunlight as you bring a finger to them, wiping away the tears before placing your palm on the side of her head, cupping it as she bats her long eyelashes and composes herself to her renewed life.

“That’s where you’re from, right? You’re auditors, aren’t you?” The stooge asks in confusion, meekly watching his two captors in their embrace. His answer manifests as a blinking white light that appears at his desk. This same repetitious klaxon echoes against the marble flooring outside, against the walls of the other suites, atop the nearby ocean’s edge, waking the entire complex to the intruders. You release your mare, letting her reach down to her discarded rifle as you check the unguarded doorway. The executive speaks with a tone of disdain. “Wait, who are you two?”

The glass doors on opposite sides of the floor give way, releasing a confused gaggle of office executives from their suites. A familiar black-and-white guard shouts for you to drop your weapon from across the hall. Her shaking fists let loose a string of rounds, recoil spiking her equine ears with further headaches. Ø fires back through the bystanders, nailing the zebra in her tibia, tearing a hole through her soleus as several other guards enter, taking cover behind furniture to ferry out the scurrying managers.

Your mare horse-collars the executive once more, who yells and thrashes against the arms of his unidentified captor. You activate your simple distress beacon, alerting Dyle to your situation with the tap of your communicator. Looking back at the captive, you weigh your options.

A distortion of heat appears outside the window, cooking the glass and heating the room to an uncomfortable temperature. The security aircraft lowers itself, taking a hovering vantage point at barely five meters from the office suite’s windows. The two pilots hidden within its chrome armoring adjust the gain of their thrusters, stabilizing themselves to bathe you all in a blinding amber light, the craft’s internal systems identifying friend and foe.

After spotting the Aer Lualdi L-859, you expect the worst. The three of you sprint into the floor’s atrium between the interlocking gunfire and bystanders, diving between twin couches of pulverized fabrics. Completing its security assessment, the gunship lets loose the quadruple concussive cannons, eviscerating the olive wood desk, bookshelves, and the entire wall of the office. The thousands of rounds tear tiny holes that enter one side of the building, and shatter the windows facing the rolling ocean.

Surrounded, you brace yourself against the brass frame of the couch, leveling your arms to fire near the several security officers that have entered from the main elevators. Ø instead stands in the open, pinning her hostage against her chest. She fires into the smaller group of personnel that reluctantly return fire, landing hits on their executive vice president’s ankle and shoulder as they avoid center mass. You glance at the gutted office, now an inconsistent crater of crumbling stone that no doubt detracts from the imposing exterior façade. Readjusting its aims, the airship’s quadruple guns rotate menacingly in your direction.

Your mare tosses the meat towards its security forces, sending the stooge sailing into the remains of a designer loveseat as opposition advances from the rear. You both turn your firepower upon the main entrance, springing from the gunship’s range. In response, pausing its volley, the craft adjusts its trajectory.

After its internal financial systems review the cost-effectiveness of the next maneuver, the whirlybird strafes the building. At a predetermined cost-per-second, it fires its quad-cannons, tearing into the individual offices to catch you through the walls, ripping apart polished beams and fleeing bystanders along a horizontal axis.

You both dive to lie flat against the floor, firing in the general direction of the elevators. The dust, mixing with the pulverized remains of executive organs, chokes the air. Your antagonists stumble unprotected against the eviscerating hail of kinetic projectiles that tear through their fabric covers, pseudo-kevlar, and finally their muscle groups as they’re hit with inadvertent friendly fire that ricochets through the administrative suites.

Two resounding thuds shake the building from its foundation. The twin elevators have collapsed. The aircraft circles, shooting indiscriminately into the fifteenth story to subdue you both.

The limestone pillar next to you groans, its internal iron wiring snapping under the weight of the collapsing ceiling. You stand, sprinting in the opposite direction, dragging your fingers against the broken plexi-glass as the wailing steel cables scrape against the toppling colonnades. Your opponents, including the limping she-zebra, vacate the area, vaulting over the bodies of fallen contract workers and skeletal furniture to make for the staircase. A chime from your communicator informs you that Dyle was close, specifically just to your side out a shattered window, cargo hold held open and inviting.

Your mare grips your hand. She thrusts you towards the fractured window, trampling the spent casings and fallen columns. A clutch of ceiling panels hitting the carpeting and collapsing to the story below forces you both to terminal velocity. You dash to the edge of the building, arm in arm, aiming for the metal deck of the Mr. Memory’s cargo hold, its airborne position wavering against the seaside winds.

Your feet hit the ship, and you crumple at your knees, falling forward into a somersault that takes you a safe distance from the open blast doors. As you lay on your back, you stare out the cargo bay as the shutters slowly close. They recede, edging out your view of the pursuing aircraft, dilapidated office building, and finally, the tranquil seas of Nuovo Portolago. A gratifying note plays over the ship’s communicators, announcing that you’ve escaped the atmosphere in one piece.