The I-Dent card cooled down, but it was essentially dead. There was something about it that felt different from standard tech. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen small devices like them, but it wasn’t as advanced as these things were. I spent hours between chores exploring the one I’d gained previously. The two cards reacted when in proximity to each other, but nothing else happened. I assumed it was because the one was not responding to my manipulations.
Blackeye was currently talking on the radio, but one benefit of having my hammock on the front of my raft was I could barely hear that whiney bitch. The water drowned out his voice. Every now and then, I’d turn on the mic, and Jim and I would act out some kind of scene. Mostly it was him simulating women’s voices and me flirting. Just to piss off that obnoxious fuck.
It never failed to set him off for hours.
“That bastard likes to hear himself talk,” Jim grumbled. “Does he ever shut the fuck up?”
“Do you know how he got his pirate name?” I asked my sidekick.
“Blackeye?”
“Heh, yeah, that nickname. We used to be pirates on the same crew when I first became one. Every time we docked somewhere, we’d find a bar and hit on women. The number of women that punched him in the face had to break some kind of record, and the other pirates began calling him Blackeye.”
“That isn’t funny; it’s just sad,” Jim replied, which made me laugh. “Why did you become friends with that fool?”
“Friends by circumstance. Everyone else on that ship was dull, and even if Blackeye was a fool, he was entertaining. Most of his shenanigans were bound to get him killed, so I partially stayed by his side to prevent him from prematurely expiring.”
Beep! Beep!
“Your spear is done. Going to work on your pod’s electronics and upgrading things inside.”
“Can you create a bed frame? I’ll use it similar to how I made this hammock. But I’ll weave the strings this time to create the netting under the pads, which will mimic a bed. It won’t be as loose as this thing, and it’ll be better than sleeping on that cold, hard floor.”
“I’ll come up with something,” Jim agreed.
“What about the stuff we discussed before? Did you send out the mission?”
“I did.”
“How before you’ll know if they replied?”
“I won’t. But don’t you have a device connected to a special communication array? I’m sure it has unrestricted access to a galactic network.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“This thing?” I held up the I-Dent.
“Yeah. You’ll have to look for an appropriate app, but it should let you find what you are looking for.”
Jim wasn’t wrong, but the card in my hands gave me the creeps. It wasn’t anything I could point to and be like… ‘That! That’s why it’s fucking weird.’ It reminded me of a leech and gave me the same feeling when looking at it. Like it was trying to steal my essence, it sparked a loathing in me toward it. Still, it was helpful and had a lot of strange functions I didn’t understand.
Maybe it was too many novels, but I decided to never allow my blood anywhere near it. Like it would somehow bind the card to me and become the parasite I feared it was. Or maybe I was on this fucking ocean too long, and the solitude was making me overthink everything.
On a whim, I decided to toy with Blackeye and maybe trick some answers out of him. I went into the pod, removed the other I-Dent, and activated the mic.
“Blackeye? How did they do it?”
“Oh, now you want to talk to me, shit-bird? Wait… do what?”
“This I-Dent, it stored the previous owner’s memories, right?” I killed the mic after asking that.
“What the hell was that?” Jim asked.
“Not sure, just feeling him out, and his silence is interesting.”
“Forget what I said. Throw both those things into the drawer, and don’t touch them again,” Jim said.
“You remembered something?” I asked but did as he said. Those cards already freaked me out, and it wouldn’t take much for me to have a reason to throw them out.
“Maybe. I’ll have to go through my archives, but the problem is the network with my long-term storage is too far without a transfer node nearby. It’ll take time to retrieve them, and I can’t download them all at once.”
“What do you know?” Blackeye finally asked.
I wasn’t sure if I should reply, and Jim was adamant about not using the cards, so I ignored him.
“Don’t be like that, you ass. Did… you bind that card?” Blackeye kept asking strange questions, and the more he asked, the weirder it became.
“It is like those novels!” I hissed.
“Wake up, idiot. It’s not a novel. Those things probably have a DNA imprint that would bind them to a user. I wonder if the card is bound to specific accounts or if the DNA is. If it’s the card, you could bind it and gain a fortune,” Jim said, and I stared at the ocular cybernetic, unsure what the hell he was going on about.
“You aren’t making sense.”
“I scattered all your bank accounts throughout the galaxies, right? How do you access them?” Jim asked.
“The communications array and various authentication methods.”
“What if you didn’t need to do all that? Instead, you bound all accounts to an object that only you could use?”
“Then wouldn’t I lose everything once I lost the object?”
“Maybe, but what if, like those cores used by Pilots, the card became a part of you?”
“You think they are like a Manufactured Core?”
“No, those organic ones, the living entities that survive at the whim of their host.”
“That’s… so this card is an organism that… what? Binds to my DNA?”
“Yes. Then everything bound to the card would only be accessible by the host.”
“And if I’m the host, I gain access to all the accounts left by the predecessor?”
“Not just money,” Jim laughed. “It might be linked to property as well—like a ship.”
“Is this conjecture?” I asked, feeling skeptical. It still didn’t explain why I felt creeped out by the thing.
“Jim. Activate protocol 773758.” Blackeye called out.
“Dammit, Jim. He better just be fucking with me.”
“Sadly, he’s not. It’s a shadow protocol that I didn’t know about. He must have installed it at the same time they implanted the cybernetic. You don’t give Blackeye enough credit; he is a devious fellow.”