“So Vicki is going to kill us.” Dee said.
“Honestly, she may try. It seems like nothing we do takes out the evil in her. It’s like the moment she left Delmar and entered deep space, she’s been just an evil core slowly corrupting the body.”
“Vicki would never kill me.” Jack said firmly.
“You sure? Because before you lost your memory you weren’t sure, you were so not sure that you stood beside Dee and pointed a gun at Vicki, shot her with a soul bullet. We may be right back to that Vicki or heading there. She hates Dee for stealing you to the point that she stole her body and shot her into space in an escape pod to slowly die alone. Nothing in the universe is worse then being semi immortal and lost alone in the void of space for an eternity. Even before she went full evil she had no problem feeding on Dee, ask her about those details if you wanna know your wife’s darker side. Jack, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Vicki you married and fell in love with is back on Delmar with you, and whatever we brought with us is a different animal entirely. One that evolves and is capable of anything. Don’t think for a second that she’s the quiet human girl with cancer that you knew, who would never hurt you. How’s your shoulder by the way?”
“I just can’t believe she would even consider killing me.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem. You just can’t believe it. I can’t believe humans listen to Kanye West songs but they do. Just because it’s an unthinkable, baffling, fluke of nonsense, doesn’t make it not real. She’s less Vicki every day and more something else that space has forged from hell, and you’ve killed things that space has created and know how evil it is. You think 1 percent Vicki is enough pure goodness to overpower 99 percent of the shit we’ve encountered? You believe that?” she asked. He silently pondered. “I bet you an Osirian dollar she’s tried to get into the artifact freezer, the shit in that freezer can turn anything evil, even if it wasn’t already on the line. You wanna check the freezer and see how many times it’s had a denied entry code?” she asked.
...
They stared at the small pull-out screen on the freezer and their worst fears were confirmed.
“Well… that’s 2 failed codes and one successful code. Dee, you didn’t by any chance hack the freezer that only me and Nicole can get into normally, just as a goof, like ha ha here’s the 3 missing vials of chaos god stuff, it’s just a prank?”
“Uh… no.”
“Well then we have a much worse problem. That’s impostor ink, the last of the cloned pitch that frankly nobody knew existed but me, and a DNA sample of the raven I concentrated from the quills.”
“Why are you keeping them?” Jack asked. “I thought were destroying these things to keep them out of the hands of evil.”
“Jack, these are the only things left of the chaos gods, the most powerful primordial beings in existence that have all died off over millions of years. That kind of power could be harnessed and made inert and safe for so many things. The understanding of them, the pure science alone is beyond valuable. If we could reduce down the power of a chaos god into something good, we could do more than extend the universe, we could fix it.”
“Or we could just end up creating another chaos god, if it fell into the wrong hands again. Like Vicki.” He sighed.
“You’re right. I fucked up again. But you see why she is too dangerous to trust?”
“Gizzy, you are too dangerous to trust with these things. You have the right intentions but you said it yourself, even Vicki infused with this shit becomes an unstoppable evil. You’re already far more evil than she was before we left. What if you got tempted to take them?”
“Jack, I’m the one who locked them up for safe keeping. Granted I failed, I keep failing all of us, but if I had better hiding spots, better security, and didn’t have Vicki turning evil every other day and somehow finding these, they would be safe.”
“From everyone but you. It corrupted and tempted her in just a few weeks, and I know my wife. That’s not her. She never wanted power or fortune or greed, she’s a quiet girl that even hides from me sometimes to be alone and hidden safely away. If a few weeks have taken so much of her away that she’s something else, what makes you think in a few months, a year, that your already grey mechanical heart won’t just get tempted one time to use it and lose control? Even I’ve wondered what that power would be like and what good we could do with it. We can’t do good with something that evil.”
“Not with that attitude, everything breaks down to science in its simplest form. Everything can be purified and extracted and made better with enough drive and time and willpower. We just don’t have the equipment on this ship. Apparently we don’t even have the equipment to properly lock it up. I need more time and better tools and we just can’t get there with Vicki setting us back.”
“We’re not killing her. If you can extract evil from a vial of pure evil, you can extract evil from Vicki. Fix her, and then I’ll believe you can fix the universe.” Jack said turning and leaving the room. Dee stood, looking horrified.
“Gizzy, I’m scared.”
“You should be. We should all be. We both love Jack but he’s too blinded by her to see the truth. She’s gone. There’s no Vicki left to save, just a monster left to grow. And I can’t protect you every second of the day and still fix the problems we have. So you need to listen carefully and be strong.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“Neither do I but welcome to the shitshow. Here is my pistol. It’s custom rebuilt to fire the 50 caliber rounds and it’s loaded with one of the last soul bullets. If Vicki comes after you or Jack, you have every right to defend yourself and him. Do it. if she’s still in there to save she won't go that far, and if she goes that far, then she chose death and your life is worth defending as much as Jack and Nicole. If you have to, shoot the bitch. Aim for the heart.”
...
Nicole sat in her room, still drinking and staring at a pile of Vinn’s things.
“I know you can’t hear me. I know you can’t help me or protect me anymore but I know you’d want me safe and happy. I know you’d forgive me, you’d forgive everyone, you always have… but something evil is growing and I can’t keep asking for help and expecting people to fight for me and protect me. Not with you gone.” She said softly.
“I’m still here. Just be strong.” He pointlessly said to silence. "And I don’t know what I was thinking. I forgive you. I forgive Jack, it must have been an accident, I forgive Gizzy for giving the order, and I can’t be mad at you for moving on. Jack can protect you better than I ever did. Just hang on and be strong.” He begged. She took out the vials from her pockets and looked at them, not even sure what they contained. Gizzy’s cryptic mislabeling to prevent temptations did little to slow her down. Her loneliness and desperation, the feeling of helplessness coupled with grief weighed on her too much in her drunken state. She opened the metal tubes in her hand and took a deep breath.
“Honey, what are you doing? Nicole listen to me, you don’t need to do this, just keep them hidden, just trust Gizzy and Jack. They’re killers and they know how to defend people, just let them do their job. Please don't do this. It could kill you, Nicole please just once hear me, feel something, just…FUCK, anything!” He desperately said, trying to punch and kick objects to get her attention. Yelling and trying to be heard as she tipped the tubes up and drank all 3, chasing it with a shot of vodka and waiting to see what happened, not really caring what the results were, because anything was better than being alone and helpless. And then the room began to fade to black. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t struggle or choke or move, just the feeling of dying and drowning all over again as she realized her mistake, the labeling was wrong, and she felt the cold presence of the pitch again, spreading out through her insides and filling every cell. And then was sober, awake, numb. Her body too heavy to move, but it stood up on its own. She tried to sit back down but her legs were taking steps and her hands were moving to hide the vials in a bag, as if she was covering her tracks automatically. She was a prisoner in her own mind, able to see and feel and her memory open and exposed, but something else was driving, and remembering and she couldn’t even scream in her own head or thrash to fight it. She was just an observer sharing the feedback, and whatever was the pilot was already on the move. She walked down the hall, bottle in hand, spotting Gizzy and trying to scream for help.
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“There you are. We have a problem, follow me.” Gizzy said as she did without hesitation, silently and obediently. They went to Vicki’s room, knocking and entering with override codes.
“I think she’s about to go full chaos god.” Gizzy said quietly.
“I don’t understand, doesn’t that usually take time?” Nicole said without wanting to.
“Not if she has the extracts. We have to find them before she takes them, hopefully she is storing them for later and not just downed them on the spot.” Gizzy said while checking every drawer and cabinet. Nicole discreetly tucked the empty tubes under the mattress and pretended to search the room.
“What do you mean… extracts? I thought you stopped experimenting on the artifacts.”
“I didn’t. I cloned some of the impostor ink, extracted the death angel wings and made synthetic pitch. She shouldn’t have even know it existed, let alone how to get in the place she didn’t know it was hidden, but it’s gone and I would know if I took it myself. I’m not that stupid or insane." she said while checking the bad and pulling out 3 empty metal tubes. “Well, fuck everything.”
“Please don’t tell me those are empty.”
“So you’d prefer I lie and keep you in the dark?”
“Oh god, we’re all dead.” Nicole said, reacting exactly in the manner she would, without being able to stop herself. Her very personality was now open to sampling and her memory and emotions, unlocked and on display for whatever was in control. “Do we have any soul bullets left?”
“Two… and Dee has them. If she goes after anyone first it would be Dee. You’re her friend, she loves Jack, and I can stand my ground with her long enough to buy time. Dee is a sitting duck.”
“I need one of those bullets.” She said, feeling the sudden urge to put one in Gizzy for some reason. She realized the greater threat and the only one who could potentially reveal or pull out some insane backup plan, secret weapons, clone army. Gizzy always had multiple plans she never trusted anyone to know. She was the biggest threat; Vicki was just the assumed villain.”
“With all due respect, that bullet kills and you don’t. Giving you a bullet you won’t use is pointless. Dee will at least defend herself. Frankly, I don’t think you have the killer drive in you to shoot one of the crew, especially someone you believe deep down is still your friend and can be saved. Not everyone can be. She’s been gone this entire trip. Dee hates her, she’s not a natural killer but Jack wont shoot Vicki, and Dee will defend any of you from her of she has to. She needs the bullets.”
“So Jack doesn’t have any, and you don’t have any. Our biggest hitters and most skilled killers don’t have any bullets, and the one person that can take down a chaos god is Dee?”
“Sounds bad, doesn’t it? That’s because it is bad, but it’s the least bad of the other options. She’s the only one who won’t hesitate, and Vicki won’t expect me to give her both. That means she assumes I have one and Dee has one, and if Dee misses the first shot, her cocky ass will toy with her, never knowing she has another one till she’s point blank. I want her cocky and thinking she’s won.”
“She wouldn’t expect me to have one either.”
“I can’t risk it. I can’t lose Dee because she got scared and missed the first round, while you have the other and can’t pull the trigger.”
“Oh, I promise I can.” Nicole smirked.
“Yeah, you believe that, I don’t. Military emergency overrides Captains orders, so… sorry. Maybe on the next mission you can murder someone and prove me wrong."
...
Jack sat up from the bed, grabbing his gun and pointing at the door.
“Jack, it won’t help.” Nicole said before pulling him back down to the bed. “If she finds us together, we die together. I’d rather die with you than die alone anyway and that gun won’t stop her.”
“I just can’t believe she took the vials, after every time we’ve brought her back."
“Jack, she’s like an addict. How many people on meth get clean in jail and get out, only to go right back to it? The power is addictive, she’s never been clean of it, and it stays.”
“It makes no sense, Gizzy said the bullets kill the soul. And if I shot Vicki with one and killed the pitch, it should be erased from existence and gone, all traces of it. If we reset her then it should be only Vicki. And how did Gizzy clone the pitch back if all traces of it should have died with the bullet?”
“I don’t understand it either. Maybe the pitch died and its power remained, waiting for a host. Maybe Vicki was always evil and hungry for power and this is just her given the power to be what she wants to be.”
“I don’t believe that. The woman I fell in love with is an angel, the only reason she did what she did is because it wasn’t her. So what is she? How is any of this possible?”
“Jack, I’ve never seen you scared before, but I’ve seen you lie before. You always do that before a mission when you say it will be okay and you don’t really believe it. So why are you terrified and lying to me?”
“Am I so easy to read that everyone knows when I’m lying now?”
“Jack, we all know you. Even an assassin has tells and signs when he’s bluffing and we know you better then anyone. What are you most afraid of?”
“I thought it was losing her, but if Gizzy is right I lost her already and just moved on to Dee, and here I am in bed with you. So clearly I’m not the man I thought I was under the worst conditions. I think it’s because deep down I know I can live without her and I can’t let her know that, because she will kill me. I’m terrified of my wife, Nicole. Or the monster that took her over, or whatever is happening in that body and mind of hers. The woman I loved and trusted with my life has to be gone, because that thing scares me. I’m alive because IT believes what she did… that I would never hurt her and that I trust and follow her blindly. And I don’t. Both times I knew in the back of my mind and the bottom of my heart, despite the denial and the lying to myself, that she is gone and I can be happy with someone else, Dee or you. You were always my friend, I always loved you and trusted you, but my heart was Vicki’s alone and you had Vinn so I grabbed the only thing left, a robot with the body of someone I barely even tolerated that was female and attractive and tolerable, and I was almost happy. With Vinn gone and you alone, I have to protect you, and I’m the reason he’s dead.”
“Jack, don’t. It was an accident. Even I don’t believe you could have ever known it would happen and if you didn’t take the shot, we may all be dead. You did what you had to do and Vinn was just… unlucky? Chosen by fate? Selected to torment me specifically? He died for us, and you did NOTHING evil to hate yourself for. If I can’t hate you for that, you can’t hate yourself. We’re survivors. We move on. We heal, we adapt.”
“So my love for Vicki was empty and meaningless survival, and anyone would do. Even a robot. I guess she must be pretty great in bed because she kept me around and then when I was taken away she hooked Gizzy and kept her. Hyper intelligent AI in the body of a literal sex machine we all see as a familiar face. Potent combo for the lonely and lost souls adrift on a ship of lost loves and no hope. But she’s not you. The thing that hurts me the most is knowing I’m not capable of love, just survival and killing, and the closest thing I ever had to true love is the thing I fear the most because I can't kill her and I cant fix her, and if she knew this, I have no doubt she would kill me, and in a slow and painful manner. Death never frightened me. Being murdered by the ghost of my only love scares me, and being slowly killed for vengeance by someone who knows how to hurt me… that’s a death I’ve never known I was afraid of. Bullets and bombs are fast. Vicki takes her time. What scares you the most?”
“I thought it was losing Vinn but now that he’s gone, losing myself is even scarier. Seeing Vicki lose herself and all control, killing her best friends and betraying everything she knows while she helplessly watches. What could be scarier than that?” she asked, as if taunting the Nicole inside her head, making sure she knew just how lost she was. Despite the pain and the fear, no tears were shed from her eyes. The body wasn’t hers anymore. Not even subconsciously.