“What is it?” Nicole asked as they gathered around the cubic hologram.

“It’s a cube, a trans-dimensional link that has the power to freeze an entire universe or generate one.” Gizzy explained.

“A 4th-dimensional cube of infinite power, like a hypercube, or a tesseract?” Jack asked.

“NO!” Gizzy snipped. “We can’t call it that, it’s too close to copyrights. We’re not collecting items to construct a glove of power to wipe out half the universe, we’re collecting items to…construct a different thing of cosmic power to do some entirely different… morally gray villainy…it’s a cube of power, just call it the cube!"

“Looks like it’s made of some kind stone. Like a powerful stone” Vinn squinted.

“No, we’re not calling it the power stone either. GATDamnit, are you trying to get us canceled, because that’s how you get canceled!” Gizzy barked.

“So what do we need this for?” Vinn asked.

“Aside from keeping it out of the hands of evil…” She said as eyebrows raised. “Far more evil than me, with worse… We’re destroying it. The Cube prevents another item from working. It’s part of the process, don’t question the process. The point is we have to break it for the mission, and also breaking it prevents other beings from abusing power, which could only go poorly.”

“Why does everything have to be so cryptic?” Vicki sighed.

“You’re a cannibalistic spy working for an Alien Overlord on a pirate ship of illegal clones. Why would anything NOT be cryptic?”

“Hard to argue with actually.” She reluctantly agreed.

...

The ship pulled up to a small meteor, barely big enough land on. A temple stuck out of the side, so massive it made the entire meteor look lopsided, and gave it an eccentric wobble rotation. Jack and Vicki followed Gizzy, both of them in full military EVA suits, while Gizzy was just in a spandex body suit, and an intimidating armored mask. They stepped into the temple, the creaks and groans of rock shifting under them.

“This place is incredible. I’m shocked that there’s even gravity.” Jack said.

“It has a very heavy core, don’t question it.” She said as they entered the main chamber. “Even has oxygen.” A dark red stone room was illuminated by the glow of a large raised platform in the center, like a stage or ritual auditorium, as well as 5 flaming goblets. In the center were 4 walls, bricked and mortared but sanded and polished to a mirror so clean it was hard to tell if the stone was black or just reflecting space around them.

“Oh wow.” Said Nicole, the 3 of them turning in surprise.

“I said stay with the ship.” Gizzy sighed.

“You said, Vinn…stay with the ship. I’m the damn Captain, and I wanna see the asteroid temple."

“Temple of the 4 walls.” Gizzy corrected. She squinted and stuck her tongue out.

“Damn the stonework is insane, you wouldn’t even know the walls were made of smaller stones unless you got close with a flashlight. This is Masonry built.”

“Very good.” Said a deep thunderous voice from the depths. The furthest giant burning goblet rose up and it became clear that the flame in it was a living entity, a bipedal walking humanoid 12 feet high made entirely of churning flames. “You are familiar with the Masonry. A very old and forgotten race.”

“Well they built my house, so I see their work every day. You don’t really respect the craftsmanship until you have done repairs and felt every wall and doorway for months. I’m Captain Evee Nicole Alekseev of the Medusa.” She said proudly.

“And you will be the one taking binding your soul to the great burden?”

“Gizzy, you wanna lead this mission.”

“Fuckin right, sidecar your tiny ass.” Gizzy muttered. “No that would be me. This is my journey and my burden, she just owns the damn ship.”

“A leader who serves, and a child who leads.” He chuckled.

“I’m not a child, I’m just small, but I’m feisty and cute.” She said gritting her teeth like a Chihuahua or a small ferret of equal intimidation.

“You’re 29, and this is an ancient guardian probably closer to 60,000 years old. You’re a child to us. I am Gizzy Koi Etlaan Adrian Michael Greggarious of the Osirians, and you’ll be seeing us frequently.”

“I’m Lorde Behrnought. It’s unusual for someone to find me, as I tend to be the one to find them.”

“I’m here for the block.” She said firmly as Jack slowly readied for combat.

“Are we going to have to fight this guy, or bring him a sacrifice?”

“I got this.” Gizzy winked.

“What makes you worthy of the block?” Behrnought asked.

“I’m 15,000 years old, I’ve done everything, and I’m bored.”

“Wow, okay. There it is on the podium. You passed it on the way in. You may take the block.” He shrugged.

“Well that was easy.” Nicole scowled.

“Yeah, getting the writer’s block is easy, breaking through it is the tricky part.”

“The what?” She asked.

“Cube of power. Getting it is easy. Breaking it is damn near impossible. We may be stuck with this for a while.” Gizzy corrected.

“Once you place your hand on the cube, it is yours, and yours to bear. You will not progress until the block is broken. You cannot leave it behind. It will find you.”

"I know, I was reading the writing on the wall.” She said as everyone else looked at the wall.

“The hell are you talking about?” Nicole asked. “It’s a black wall.”

“Not to those who have the sight. They do not know do they?” Said the living flame.

“Should we?” Nicole asked, looking annoyed.

“They wouldn’t understand.”

“And you do?”

“Not entirely, but I’m working on it. I’m a planner, but I plan as I go and adjust.

“I could see the writing once. Long ago. Gaze upon the final wall, Gizzy. Look beyond the words, and what do you see?”

“Just shiny reflection.”

“If you gather the items you seek and bring them here, you will be able to see beyond it, and eventually step through it.”

“What’s on the other side?” Nicole asked.

“It varies, often a basement or Starbucks, but a thin veil of light separates you from that side. From the eyes of god. Step through that wall and you become god.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I knew it.” Nicole said throwing her hands up. “Villainous power move. We’re just searching for more power.”

“Not just power, Nicole. The power to rewrite reality. The power to keep this universe going. Every universe has a god that created it, and that universe only lives as long as there is a god to observe it. Ours is dying. Someone needs to take their place. If a universe is no longer observed, it begins to break down. We’re at 17 percent proton decay.”

“Should have stayed on the damn ship.” Nicole sighed.

“It’s not too late to get icecream…can I interest you in a nice cone?” Gizzy grinned in a shit-eating way.

“Tempting but I had a shake earlier.”

“So wait…” Vicki said looking panicked. “The actual universe is ending here, and Gizzy has to become god to stop it?”

“Only for a little while.” Gizzy sighed. Vicki dove for her hand.

“Give me the damn cone, cone me, I wanna go back to the ship.” She insisted. Gizzy rotated her phone and clicked the button. “Where the hell are we?” She asked.

“Space map station. Flickery Jones here is getting us some map updates. You’re needed back on the ship.” She yawned, Jack nodded and she headed back, looking over her shoulder suspiciously.

“Some people can’t handle the truth. I’m frankly amazed Nicole is doing okay." Jack said

“Xanax.” Gizzy said while chewing something crunchy.

“Anyway, my valiant crew of highly professional experts and shit, and myself mostly can handle this mission. Thanks for the cube. I’ll be seeing you shortly.” Gizzy smiled.

...

Nicole sat in the mess hall, drinking a beer alone in the dark. Jack strolled in.

“Figured you were here.”

“Well, I would be drinking in my own personal Captains bar with the cool gamer lights, but right now my husband is in line with that bar, and your wife is on top of him, just…suckpire-ing away like he’s a big ol' furry 7-11 slurpy. Oh and the universe is ending so…” She shrugged, chuckling and frat-boy shotgunning the can.

“We’re working on preventing that.”

“Jack. Gizzy is good, but she’s not THAT good. What the hell did most of that even mean back there? Some living torch just sits in a goblet waiting for the chosen one, and there’s invisible words on the wall and god is dying? Are we still tripping from the…fucking ghost we had in a giant pooper scooper for 3 days?”

“I kinda hope so. I’ve learned to just tune out things above my paygrade.”

“Must be nice.”

“Works better when people I work for keep me in the dark.”

...

Vicki strolled through the dark halls, almost running into Gizzy as she fiddled with the cube.

“Startled me.” She sighed.

“I keep forgetting I don’t glow in the dark anymore and my eyes only light up when I force it. and I actually can't see now, when they do that. You seem edgy, you up to something sinister?”

“NO. Why, you?” Vicki defended

“Constantly. It’s how I keep busy, everyone on the ship is always doing something sketchy behind closed doors. Enjoy your nightly cocktail hour with Vinn?”

“It’s not like that.” She muttered with annoyance.

“Well, whatever it is, as long as you’re in optimum mission condition, I don’t care. I need you in the lab for something. Experimental, barely invasive, minimal pain.”

...

“I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood.” Vinn sighed, looking drained, mostly because he literally just was. Nicole tossed her hands up in frustration.

“We never get any time alone anymore, and you’re always freshly Vicki’d when we do. I guess I’ll go for a walk around cargo bay.” She shrugged.

“Gimme 2 minutes and I’ll walk with you, just need some coffee and like a minute to get my heart rate down.”

“No, you rest. You’re too tired, remember.” She snapped.

“That’s fine, I’m just gonna take down this curtain for a while. Vicki can’t even sit here with Candice visible, let alone do anything distracting. I kinda like watching her swim around."

“You wanna take down the curtain?” She said nervously. “She could be sleeping, the lights may wake her.”

“You don’t want me to take down the curtain because then I can see you up there in cargo talking to Candice.”

“So what if I talk to my pet? People talk to their pets. Pets need love too, dumbass.” She snapped. “Pets…people. Everyone needs attention.” She added as if hinting.

“Honey, You’re getting high on the snail goop, aren’t you?” He asked.

“Maybe. Someone has to clean the tank, you can’t swim, Vicki sure as shit isn’t going near it, and Jack is always busy, so I clean the tank and filter the slime. We’re bottling it for a cash operation. So what if I get a little second hand side effects?”

“Just worried me then you got 2 gallons under the bed and you don’t tell me.”

“Well, it worries me that you’re spending an hour a day with Vicki getting your life force succubused.”

“Are you just insecure about it?”

“YES! I’m very insecure in general. My self esteem is shit, and this isn’t helping. It bothers me that you enjoy it too. You can’t just manually tap and bag her a fresh meal every day and Capri-Sun it on her own time?”

“Gizzy says she has a psychological fixation with the hunt and she needs the satisfaction of the attack or her cravings come back sooner.”

“What about my fixations? What if I need to pounce on you occasionally to get satisfaction or my cravings get worse.”

“Well…you just get snippy when you’re horny and call me names, and it’s pretty playful and harmless compared to Vicki potentially going monster mode and killing someone, probably Jack."

"So she gets satisfaction, and her sex drive is higher, Jack gets satisfaction from that, you get high on Vicki juice, and I get grilled for tapping into the goo supply a little. Everyone gets laid and high except me, and I can’t get laid, and I get scolded for getting high. It’s even my damn ship. If the captain of the ship can’t get laid, something is wrong.”

“I can’t help it. My energy is low, and my fluids are low. You know all fluids are connected, so if your body is devoting all your water to make blood, there are other problems that can happen.”

“Do you need boner pills and a hamster tube? Could we have sex and THEN you let her feed?”

“We tried that.” Vinn reminded. “I passed out. And if my blood pressure craps out to nothing, the feeding takes longer and then I’m too wiped to move.

“Then don’t you dare get on my ass about the goop. I mean…I do want you to get on my ass, just not about the goop. I’m sharing my husband, and Jack’s drinking alone because he won’t say that it makes him insecure, and I need some form of antidepressant. We don’t have a therapist up here, let alone a pharmacist, and I can’t get my jollies in the bedroom. I can’t bite Jack and drink his blood. Well I could, but it accomplishes nothing. The snail goop makes me feel happy and warm and not care anymore. Gizzy even said it was safe.” She noted.

“Gizzy snorts crushed up cocaine and radioactive starship fuel to stop reading the subtitles, whatever that even means. Safe according to Gizzy just means you probably won’t die from it. It doesn’t sound safe.”

...

“This really don’t seem safe.” Vicki said as Gizzy grabbed a syringe and the vial of the Imposter blood.

“Oh it’s not gonna kill you to lose a little blood, you just topped off your tank 5 minutes ago, you should be sloshing with extra. I’m not injecting you WITH the Imposter blood, I’m mixing the two for experimenting. I’ve been synthesizing it for lab testing and it seems to clone just fine.”

“Why?” Vicki asked.

“It’s one of the rarest creatures in the universe, and its blood is impossible to get. And yet, we got 5mililiters of it. Seems like a good thing to have extra of, in case something goes wrong. I’d like to have some cloned blood as backup and to screw around with.” She said as Nicole strolled in and stood arms crossed behind Vicki.

“Speaking of screwing around and blood. Hi Vicki. So riddle me this, why can’t you just clone my husband’s blood?”

“Well, we can. It’s also really expensive since she needs half a liter to a liter a day. This blood here, there’s about 20 liters in the known universe and we now have 2, so it was well worth the 800 grand, since we’ll never find any again.

"Look I’m just gonna say it, I’m kinda unhappy about Vicki sucking on my husband more than me. So there’s that. I’d rather him just take a sample bag and give it to her, but apparently she has some psychological feed response where she craves the attack, but right now, I’m starting to crave an attack. You wanna maybe throw some ideas out there?”

“I actually have one.” Gizzy smiled.

...

Dee stood on the secondary bridge looking confused.

“You wanna what? She asked, looking worried.

“We’re gonna grow you human skin and a refillable blood pouch so that Vicki can attack you every day instead of Vinn.”

“What the shit!?” Dee objected.

“Her personality mode is set to lifelike.” Nicole noted.

“Yeah, I turned it up to full realism. If she acts like a damn cleaning robot, Vicki wont get believe it, and her feed instinct wont kick in. It’s gotta be convincing enough when she bites into her neck and starts bleeding her dry, her instinct treats it like a real kill.”

“I can hear you guys, do I get a say in this?” Dee asked.

“No.” Gizzy said. “You’re a nonsentient AI android.”

“No I’m not, I’m Double Dee, your personal Virtual girlfriend.” She scoffed. Nicole winced, and looked down awkwardly.

“Hey…” Gizzy shrugged “It’s a personality patch for a fuckdoll made by your friend, who shows ass for tips online. She made this atrocity happen, don’t act like I’m the weird one. There’s no spy and vampire bait algorithm, there’s just the virtual girlfriend simp-stimulator, and the cleaning droid patch you added over top. We can turn the realism up and down, that’s it.”

“God it really does look and act like Dee.” Vicki cringed. “I don’t wanna fake murder Dee every day. Is she gonna moan and make sex noises?”

“Maybe...” Gizzy said. “If so, let me know and I can try and change that. Unless you… prefer it that way.”

“Eew. This is weird enough without my friends bangbot involved. Now it might get turned on by my killing it?”

“Oh so it’s fine when my husband enjoys you biting and sucking his juices but when it’s a robot that looks like a friend, that’s crossing the line.” Nicole scolded, raising an eyebrow.

“I hate all of this.”

“I’m not thrilled either.” Dee huffed.

“Nicole, don’t judge your vampiric friend, if she prefers her victims to struggle and object rather then orgasm, that’s her sexdoll to adjust.” She said, trying not to crack a smile.

“I hate everyone right now.” She said as she heard a thumping sound behind the wall.

“Oh, you’re really gonna hate me now.” Gizzy smiled. “Forgot to tell you, I cloned a male Snail, so we can have babies for food. So there’s a 45 pound blue snail in a plastic tub behind the elevator.”

“WHAT!?” Vicki yelled.

“Can I name him!?” Nicole smiled. “I’m naming him Ricardo.” She beamed.