Nicole angrily stomped her way down the hall and pounded on the hatch to Gizzy’s sleeping chamber.
“Go away.” Gizzy yelled.
“We have a serious problem.” Nicole said. A moment of shuffling preceeded the hatch opening just slightly and Gizzy peaking out.
“Now is not a good time.”
“It’s an emergency situation, get up out of your storage container and stop playing god with whatever form of experiment you got going.”
“Move, we’ll talk somewhere else.” Gizzy said while trying to squeeze past Nicole.
“The shipping containers are most secure location on the ship… or technically under the ship. I just woke up in my bed next to Jack and neither of us know what happened. Nobody showed up for morning mess hall briefings and you’re still in your dungeon of science. That creepy bastard did something, drugged us or hypnotized us, tried to set us up or something, let me in.” she insisted.
“That creepy bastard is trying to slumber.” A deep voice said from the shadows of the container as Gizzy scrunched her face and wished she had just shoved her way through quicker.
“Oh…” Nicole said, blinking slowly and processing the concept even slower, by intention.
“I do sincerely apologize if I’ve caused any trouble.” He yawned, strutting naked into view as Nicole with a look of shock, diverted her gaze. “I did attempt to confine myself and my temptations but they would not be tempting if we were never to indulge them, and the range must have been significantly more than I would assume.”
“Okay, pants, NOW, Gizzy, back down into the box, we are having a conversation.” She said aggressively.
...
Gizzy sat, for the first time since Nicole knew her, looking embarrassed as Demitri enjoyed a wine glass of what was presumably blood.
“What are you, what happened, what is your damn problem?” Nicole asked while crossing her arms.
“I told you I bring chaos without intentions, and your crew attracts chaos.”
“What the hell does that mean? I just woke up in bed with not my husband and I can’t find my husband, and I’m calling magical bullshit. What did you do to us?”
“Nothing intentional or fully expected. I have a charm to my nature, and it tends to extend beyond my immediate presence. There was no plan nor any spell cast, I merely found myself tempted by this rather fetching woman and engaged in mutual entertainment. I assumed two things incorrectly, that this location would be private enough to contain it, and that Gizzy was merely a typical turned. Had those been correct assumptions, no further effects would have been noticed.”
“Okay, stop talking like Count Fuckula and get to the part that makes sense. You have a vampire sex hypnosis aura and Gizzy amplified it because she’s… conductive?” she asked with confused annoyance.
“I cannot help my biology, and I cannot turn off my attraction. I do not encounter other vampires often, especially ones as lovely as Gizzy. How can one resist? I did take what I thought to be… precautions for the rest of you. I have apologized for the mistake, and will take further ones next time we dance.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself.” Gizzy blurted.
“There’s no need, you provided quite the satisfaction already.” Demitri grinned.
“Okay Gross but also… NO. You can’t use sex magic on my crew, and brainwash them into getting laid, especially if it brainwashes everyone else. You are FORBIDDEN to fornicate on my ship.”
“I told you, there was no magic or brainwashing involved. That’s not how it works. People find me attractive, to no fault of my own, and usually when I…”
“Swear to god, I will punch you in the dick of you say it.” Gizzy scolded.
“When I… respond to that attraction… it can cause those in the proximity who are unconscious to engage in their unconscious desires. Call it sleepwalking with a romantic dream as your guide, provided via lack of distance from my own engagement.”
“You… cause sleep-sexing in people close by when you’re having sex yourself?”
“A crude but accurate way of saying it. In my defense, the distance is usually limited to the next room, and being 14 meters from the main living space, I am rather shocked it even took place.”
“You still Sexmatized Gizzy!” she blurted.
“Well…” Gizzy said carefully choosing her words. “It’s more complicated than that.” She paused, looking even unhappy with herself. “Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of asshole. I came here to confine and watch the dangerous intruder and he wouldn't stop talking and… I’m not married anymore. I’ve been single and alone and Dee and I never really established if we were an open relationship or a closed one, we were still just in the experimental phase so I didn’t even cheat on anyone.”
“Wait… You and Dee are hooking up?”
“Son… of a bitch.” Gizzy huffed. “Of course you didn’t know that yet either. Can we just focus on how I’m a single adult woman who’s been alone for a long time here and did nothing inherently wrong.”
“You banged the intruder.”
“Technically I guarded him effectively. I intended to make sure he didn’t leave confinement and I succeeded, he’s still here.” She barked.
“Okay then, Nosferascrew, So why did I end up with Jack? Is it just random?”
“Oh dear, nothing about it is random. My aura merely frees inhibitions and lets people do what they desire without the shackles of consequence and fear. If you went to Jack, you wanted to. You just had reasons to suppress that and never act on it. If you didn’t know your own desires, then you have some troubling personal demons of your own. Blame me for the accidental inconvenience and I shall formally apologies to the crew for letting them have a night of fun that I was unaware I was providing. The real mystery here… is what are you?” he asked, looking at Gizzy.
“That’s pretty complicated.” She sighed.
...
The crew gathered in a half circle around the mess hall as Demitri enjoyed his breakfast and everyone awkwardly listened for the logic.
“So…” Nicole blurted. “What happened was nobody’s fault except HIS, and nobody else should be mad or upset with anyone else but HIM for anything that happened.”
“May I speak, captain?” he asked playfully.
“You… better walk a fine line if you do.”
“You asked who and what I was and there is no denying it anymore. You now know why I am a wanted man with a bounty. I have an effect that offends people, and a powerful weapon if chosen to use as such. Do you really not understand what I am?”
“A sex wizard?” Vinn snipped.
“Two of your crew are vampiric, I assumed you know a bit of your own heritage. Apparently I have made numerous assumptions lately that have been incorrect. I am the original source. The first of our kind. Cursed and blessed by a dying god, the same dead gods that empowered the artifacts you search for, I was bestowed a power of great proportions and left to wield it without instructions or guidance. Immortality, healing, insatiable lust and virility, both a source of great pleasure and great chaos. It took me many decades to learn to control my desires and alas, the resulting offspring have spread through the universe through species and mutations and the suffering I have created is my burden and my personal hell. I have wept countless nights at the death toll that has been amassed by my ignorant fornication, but I cannot be blamed for knowing or ever imagining that my… plague spawn would be such voracious things. A young man cannot be held fully accountable for the sins of his sons and daughters, only the sad fault of a young man’s frivolous breeding, with no concern for whether or not he left offspring to begin with. I was a young bastard, with power I didn’t understand and needs that I was not wise enough to temper. So it began. And most of them were hunted as I was, and most of them were killed, and like ripples on a pond, my actions of ignorant bliss generated a wave of insatiable monsters much less concerned of their actions than I ever was. I am not evil, per say. But I have created it, and it has grown, and I can neither stop and kill my own kind nor take back my mistakes."
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Oh great.” Gizzy sighed. "You screwed one of the bugs that took over my moon and bit Vicki.”
“I screwed someone that bred something that became that in some number of generations. An apology would almost seem insulting, so again, I suggest you shoot me in the head and fire my frozen corpse into the abyss, or accept my presence, because giving me to Amenthis and weaponizing my power is not an option I will allow.”
“He’s right.” Nicole sighed. “A whole moon was almost wiped out by a handful of those bugpyres, and that was an accidental cargo screw up. If whoever runs that planet can turn that into an army, They basically just win any war they want.”
“Okay… bullet and freezer it is.” Gizzy said getting up and starting to draw her gun as Nicole stopped her.
“We can’t just kill him.”
“No, I assure you we can, we have the technology and his permission.” Gizzy said as Nicole yanked the gun away.
“I mean we won’t just murder an unarmed guy because he’s sick and made mistakes. You of all people have lived long enough to understand that mistakes can evolve over time and you can’t undo the damage it causes.”
“Oh I’m sorry. Are you referring to the men I killed in combat, or the species I defended my family from with lethal force? I distinctly remember my accidental offspring being a pain in the ass but not murdering ent…” she paused, feeling a strange sense of correction.
“Which one of your kids don’t we know about?” Nicole scolded.
“I don’t know.” She paused. “And the fact that I feel that hesitant is a side effect of early memory wiping technology. Déjà vu, ominous sense of dread and dreamlike fear at the attempt to remember something you shouldn’t.” she said taking a step back and looking overwhelmed. She sniffed back the urge to shed a tear.
“But apparently it worked because I can’t remember why that hurts so much. So fine. Point taken. Flip a coin and either let him walk around free or just shoot us both and promote Jack to head of military decisions. Excuse me.” Gizzy said handing Jack the pistol. “back of the neck, not the head, just in case a 54 caliber slug doesn’t go through my armored skull.” She said shuffling off. Everyone stood silent as she disappeared slowly into the end of the hallway and Nicole sat down blank and speechless.
“What in the hell just happened?” she asked.
“Cursed souls and a cursed ship, exactly where I belong.” Demitri said with a sad smile, taking his tray of food and going the opposite direction. Jack sat next to Nicole, hesitant to comfort her with a pat on the back as they stayed several inches apart and exchanged strange looks.
“She’s 15,000 years old Nicole. She’s been married over 30 times to other Osirians that have mostly died of old age by now and she has 4 kids. You don’t think she’s had a few that didn’t make it? Would you want to remember the ones that died?” jack asked.
“Fuck… I guess I don’t really think in terms of thousands of years and what kinda shit you experience in that. I’m fucking 29 and I’ve seen more shit than anyone should have. No wonder she’s so… you know.” She shrugged.
“We know.” Jack said as everyone else looked deep in thought and in varying degrees of sad horror.
“Okay so, let’s not make this worse than it is. Things happened, and everyone probably made some mistakes and were not themselves last night. I don’t think it would be fair to ask or accuse anyone of it, or blame anyone for things out of their control. If any people wish to bring it up with their partner, I can’t stop you but I advise doing it with an open heart and understanding. Can we all agree not to make enemies and play the childish blame game?” Nicole asked. Everyone nodded, some looking more ashamed than others.
“Good. So we’re all imperfect and cursed little shits on a ship that generates bad luck and we’re not gonna be assholes to our fellow friends and family about it. We’re gonna move on, we’re gonna let go and we’re gonna… figure out what to do with this Demitri guy. We’re not letting him be turned into a plague machine, we’re not shooting him into space where anyone could find him, and we don’t kill people because they are a nuisance and made mistakes. Self defense and protecting the innocent, fine. We don’t just coldly murder for convenience on my ship, though. So… what are some ideas and options? Would anyone like to make suggestions and start a dialogue about it?” she asked.
...
Jack stood in the shower, not even flinching at the sound of Vicki entering and sliding the shower glass open.
“Jack. You’re not okay.”
“No I’m not.” He sighed.
“Jack, I am so sorry, last night…”
“Don’t. Whatever or whoever you did last night was not your fault or anyone’s and none of us are to blame. I don’t need to know, I’ve forgiven you already, you need to forgive yourself. I’m not upset about that.”
“Then what are you upset about?”
“I’m upset because my abandoning bastard grampa showed up and then left again like the coward he is, but he left me one soul bullet. I wanna hate him for leaving me and only giving me one damn round, but these are his soul. So he gave up a bit of his soul to protect me and I can’t measure that kind of price. I can’t ask someone to give more of their soul so we can have more ammo, especially since he told Gizzy how to make more. The fact that she hasn’t made more means it’s not something we can make without sacrifice. So we have one… damn… bullet.”
“I thought she said she could make more. She had a whole setup in the reloading container.”
“And they don’t work. I put one in Demitri and he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even feel the difference between that one and the other bullets. She made those by cloning my grandpa’s bullet. So not only do we have absolutely no reloads, but it means Gizzy can't clone a soul. Which begs the question… If souls are real, did any of us get cloned with a soul?”
“Jesus, Jack. You can’t think like that.”
“If a bullet with a soul clones into an identical bullet with none, then not one of us on this ship has a soul. It’s easy to laugh about that when you don’t believe in them to begin with, but when you find out first hand that they’re real, and you might not be… Well, then what the hell are we? Are the stupid Delmarians right about one superstitious thing… Do clones not have a soul? Are there just thousands of soulless people being printed every day, and some of them…” he said taking a deep breath.”
“Jack, I had cancer, I was going to die if they didn’t clone me.”
“Do we know that? Did we just kill you and bring you back soulless like me, because we didn’t know? What if you could have fought it? What if, for convenience and better odds of life, I encouraged you to die, and get cloned back healthy and hollow? Nicole, me, Gizzy, none of us have an original either. Aside from Vinn, we’re all copies of copies and the one with a soul is just… dead. We’re a ghost crew of a dead ship and the only soul on this ship, is in the one fucking bullet we have that can kill a god if we encounter one… and that’s our mission, isn’t it?”
“Jack, wake up, you’re over-thinking everything over one detail we don’t understand. Nicole was chosen for that zombie mission because she had a soul. She’s a 3rdgeneration clone. She can’t have a soul if they can’t be cloned. So that doesn’t make sense. That cloning machine runs on alien magic we don’t understand, and Gizzy isn’t in control of it. She’s a mechanical god, she knows mechanical manufacturing and she can 3d print guns and ammo, but who’s to say that machine doesn’t print us whole and her workshop just doesn’t cut it? She’s just printing dead bullets because she doesn’t understand the bullets. We’re not damned ghosts without souls on a broken mission that fate made as a joke to torture us, we’re damaged people who signed up for a nightmare without realizing how bad it would get and it’s wearing on us all to the bone. You’re just emotional and you should be, we all should be, we’ve all died and killed… except Nicole apparently, because zombies don’t count… OKAY, let's let her have that technicality, keep flexing that one on us. You’re just tired and beaten down like all of us, and sometimes you just have to stop thinking so hard and stop worrying about things you don’t understand.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re not. Nothing I can do about it but think and worry or try not to think and worry less. But we still have one bullet and a potential demon on the ship, Gizzy can’t make souls, and I’m wondering if we have the right to even try now. What is the mission anymore? We got the book, we killed the villain, we suffered and we won and now what? More artifacts, more villains, for eternity? There’s no going home. I signed up thinking this was a suicide mission where I would die for a cause, I didn’t realize we’d be trapped in limbo waiting for death and finding out there’s nothing beyond that anyway. We weren’t ready. None of us were. We fucked up.”
“Yeah we did… But we’re stuck here together. Limbo, hell, or just void of space, we’re all here together. How is that any different than being home and working construction by day, assassinations by night? Clubbing, restaurants, game night, wasting every day doing nothing? How is doing nothing with friends on a moon in space any different than making a difference with friends on a ship in the same vacuum?”
“Are we making a difference?” he asked.
“We weren’t back home, so we can’t be doing any less. The only difference is that this ship hurts more and ignorance is a beautiful curtain over the window, but outside the darkness is still there. We just know it now. Do the mission, soldier. And in the mean time, just try and remember what you have with you. You wanted to leave me at home and go alone. What would you be without me right now? What help would you be without all of us? What would any of us be without the rest of us?” she asked, hugging him as the water poured over their heads and matted their hair together.
“You’re right. You survive the mission, you just get another mission. Let’s keep doing our job.” He said with a very hollow smile.
“Good boy, Jack.” She whispered.