Jack and Dee lay in the bed, mood lighting on and snuggled nose to nose.
“You seem happy.” He whispered.
“I never realized until I had a real heart that when you hold someone, your hearts can synchronize. It’s comforting. I’ve always loved feeling your heart beat, now I have my own and it follows yours.”
“You had a heart before Gizzy put one in. You just didn’t realize it.”
“Aww, you’re too romantic, Jack. It’s kinda girly.” She smirked.
“It’s so strange…” he said running his fingers through her hair.
“The heartbeat? What kind of dead girls have you been snuggling? You’re not cheating on me with the microwave again are you? I know she’s hot but only when you turn her on.”
“No, the fact that you’re a little more Dee now and it just feels familiar somehow, like I know you more, but I don’t dislike it. Makes you wonder if under different circumstances and if you both made different choices, would I have fallen for Dee instead of Vicki? If she hadn’t been a cheating pornstar gold digger, and we were stuck together on a ship, would we have ended up right here? I don’t know if being a little more human makes you more familiar or if being a little bit more Dee does.”
“You actually… like that I’m getting weirder?” she asked.
“I don’t… know. The more complicated you get, the more interesting I find you. There is just something a bit familiar and comfortable about every upgrade.”
“So you’d still love me if I turned into her?” she asked.
“You can’t turn into her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re growing, not de-evolving. You’re not losing yourself, you’re adding more to you. You’re already so much more then she ever was, and part of what makes us who we are is our memory and experiences, our choices and mistakes and triumphs, and you have your own unique ones that she doesn’t, and none of hers. Would you ever cheat on me with Vinn, if, hypothetically, Vinn wanted you?”
“Eew, no. I mean no offense but he’s… not my type regardless, all the teeth and fur and hooves, no thanks, and I’d never leave you for anyone, or risk losing you over some stupid fling, even if he was someone I was attracted to.”
“Exactly. Dee cheated on her boyfriend of multiple years, with multiple strangers, and even the Delmarian Nicole was dating at the time, behind her back. She knew he was no good, she kept doing it, kept hurting Nicole by going behind her back with her asshole cheating boyfriend, and the whole time still screwing around with her own boyfriend who she was cheating on for the like 30thtime with the 30’th guy. Then she cheated on them both with Gizzy’s son, started a feud, got kidnapped BY Hyde, the Delmarian she was cheating with, and then she had to be rescued before ending up as a sex slave to some rich bidder."
“Holy shit.”
“None of that was her DNA or quirky programming traits. She made bad choices, knowing they were bad, didn’t give a shit and kept making them until it lead her to worse and worse scenarios. She nearly got Nicole killed once by going on some stupid adventure into the banned tunnels that were off limits because she couldn’t just say no, this is dangerous. She doesn’t think, she just acts, she makes choices without ever thinking about consequences, and she never thinks how what she wants may affect others. THAT is what I don’t like about Dee. The other parts like her goofy smile and her expressive dirty minded blurting, her forwardness, her assertiveness, the way she bites her lip like you do, and that body that literally made her wealthy, all of those things you share are fantastic, I just never noticed it because I knew she was trouble and a constant danger to my friends and herself. Her stupid, impulsive recklessness, her indifference to others' feelings and her selfish, unfaithful nature were all choices of hers that you don’t have to and won't inherit. Because your base program is to be a companion, not a cheater. You're programmed to serve others, not stab them in the back to serve yourself, and your base program is to be loyal to someone, not lie and go to the club without them to get a train run on their ass by strangers. You’re built different at the core level, and from that hardwired data, you have made choices and become someone unique. Any of the physical quirks of hers you may develop, I might have found loveable in her if she didn’t have a rotten core and a lifetime of examples of why I didn’t want to even consider dating her. Be yourself, don’t fight it. Whatever that is, be you, because if who you are is a little like Dee than that’s fine, because the worst of her, the dealbreakers, you’ve already covered and defeated. Everything else is just a roll of the dice, and I’m happy to play the game and see where it goes.”
“Oh thank fuck, I’ve been trying to suppress these outbursts because I thought the vulgar Dee shit would turn you off, reminding you of Dee.”
“If anything, it’s kinda refreshing.” He smiled as their kiss was interrupted by Dee’s phone ringing.
“Shit, it’s Gizzy in the lab. That’s always something important or directly related to me.” She sighed. “I’ll see you soon.”
...
She climbed the ladder down to the new bio lab and jumped at the sight of the 6 foot mass of meat and metal salivating mouth open staring at the glass.
“The fuckety nightmare is that thing?”
“That’s me… minus the brain and personality, and letting the meat grow at an accelerated rate without intervention. I’m calling him the fleshgod abomination.”
“Nicole would love that.”
“It’s mostly her idea. The name, not the actual… fleshgod. Anyways, the point is that my plan was to grow my own flesh over one of the armored robots and then just do a head swap, but as you can see, this zombie virus is not cooperating.”
“Stars.” It growled in a deep, dark voice.
“I know, we’re blocking the viewscreen, pretty stars, you can’t go out there, you’ll die… maybe. I don’t actually know. Let’s move, it likes to look out the viewport. Anywhom, this is clearly not gonna do. I need to just get fresh DNA, use existing technology to genetically enhance it without this damn virus and try again on a fresh robot because that one is just contaminated beyond saving.”
“So you called me down here to show me the thing you made before I assume ejecting it into space as a mercy killing?”
“Oh no, we’re keeping it. This could come in handy. It’s running on a small remote brain, so we can shut it down at any time. What I wanted to ask you was, and I wanna throw up uttering the words but, Dee… you have the only compatible DNA we have access to, can I use your DNA to grow myself a body?”
“Gizzy, of course you can. You’ve been an absolute hero to me, rude and skeptical, but that’s just how you are. I don’t take it personal anymore. You rescued me from that planet, you let me live, you allowed me to find Jack and now you’re helping me build a better body, returning the favor is a no-brainer.”
“That’s accurate; we’re not using any Dee brain tissue, just skin and muscle, and bone marrow for blood. I refuse to have part of your ancestor in my head. I don’t even like wearing her skin.”
“Well legally, it’s my skin now and you can wear my skin if you need to. My body is yours experiment with… I instantly hate how that sounded, but the sentiment remains.”
“Great. Now I can get started on… adding you to my surrogate body.” Gizzy said, looking queezy.
“Oh my god, we’re gonna be twins now, or like half sisters! Yay! I never had a sibling!”
“No no, don’t hug me. Never hug me. We’re not gonna be siblings, or twins, I won’t look anything like you, if anything we would just be distantly related by technicality, I’m not braiding your hair and shit.”
“You big soft undead bitch, you know you love it.”
“You know damn well I don’t.” she said as they were both summoned to the bridge under emergency orders. “Well there goes that mood. What kinda bullshit is happening now?”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
...
“You have a bounty on your head.” Nicole said to Gizzy as they all gathered on the bridge, “We’re officially being targeted, and the ship just plotted a course to some ice moon for whatever reason it felt.”
“Damnit, I’m not shocked but luckily I’m about to change bodies so I can just change face too and we can turn in the infected body for the reward.”
“It gets worse.” Jack said, turning the screen. "I hacked the Amenthis Database to see if any off-world surgeons of high rank were in play. Guess who showed up on the list?” he smirked as the old man popped up on screen.
“I’m gonna kill him, and take his guns.”
“No…” Nicole said stopping her. “You are going to interrogate him, humanely and get answers… and then depending on the answers you might be permitted to kill him and take his guns.”
“Fair enough.”
...
Gizzy rushed into the mess hall where Brandy was frying some chicken and the old man was just waiting. Without warning she yanked him out of the chair as Vinn and Jack grabbed the guns from his holsters.
“What in the hell is this about?” he griped. Brandy looked alarmed and ready to defend.
“Keep watching sweetheart, you’ll understand the violence.” Gizzy said slamming his face on the table and cuffing his hands around the chair, jabbing him in the neck with a syringe.
“That shit burns.”
“Good, it’s gonna get worse. It’s truth serum from back home. One of Jack's favorite cocktails. Hell, even Vinn’s used it.”
“Don’t wanna talk about that.” He muttered, looking shy and guilty.
“This shit is gonna get us answers and you better hope those answers work in your favor. So… who are you and what are the bullets made of?”
“It’s complicated, long damn story that needs a lot of context for you to understand.” He said, fighting the serum.
“We already know you’re a Surgeon from Amenthis, so as a fellow man of the scalpel, if you don’t relax and let the serum work, start explaining, I’m going to start operating on your trigger fingers, and you know what kind of surgery I know how to do.”
“Jack I’m your goddamn Grampa.”
“Bullshit.” Jack asked. “Is this serum any good?”
“Believe what you wanna believe, I’m just telling you what you all have been askin. I wasn’t lying when I said it was a story with context, and you wanted to understand. So here it is… Long time ago… I met the devil.”
“This about to get religious?” Gizzy sighed.
“Not if you don’t shut your yap and let me tell the damn story.”
“Well that would incentivize me to keep talking.”
“GIZZY!” Nicole yipped.
“Fuck, whatever, carry on.”
“As I was saying, I met the devil. I was a young man, thief, killed a few people. I got thrown in prison, got my way out, decided I wanted to become a killer for hire. Make money, shoot people, have all the dangerous women eye’in me. Well it worked because I got the attention of the devil herself.” He said as the room got quiet.
“…why is everyone looking at me?” Gizzy asked. “Why does everyone assume when the devil is female, that I was in the story?” she objected.
“Gizzy… no offense.” Nicole started. “But you’re an business dealing overlord who got kicked out of the perfect Osirian empire for a failed rebellion, took a bunch of overlords with you, started cloning and collecting souls on flash drives, eventually getting a dark red subterranean cave moon populated by hooved horned monsters that jokingly refer to the place as Hell, tried to amass an army, and now you’re on a mission to turn the tides of fate with dark magic and a cursed ship.”
“Okay, some of the rebooted legends may have drawn inspiration from me, but there’s like 12 other Osirians who are in some religions called the devil. Give me a break. I don’t have a fiddle made of gold.”
“You do have an upright bass with gold inlay.” Vinn reminded.
“Totally different instrum-you stay out of this.” She huffed. “This serum does wear off eventually, can we get back to the old man’s long damn story. I don’t wanna use two syringes.”
“No folks, she’s not the devil in my story. Never met her till recently, when her head went on the bounty board. But there are many she-devils out there after a man’s soul. She asked me what I would do for absolute power and I told her anything she wanted. She said she wanted my soul in exchange for 3 wishes. So being the smart young man I was, I wished that me and my family lineage would be the greatest killers the world had ever seen, so that no man could best us. Short-sighted when I discovered there were a lot of worlds out there and mine was pretty uneventful by comparison, but the deal was done. I wished for a gun that could kill anything dead or alive with a single bullet. She placed down 2 pistols in front of me and asked for my third wish so she could take my soul when I died. And I said to her, I wanna live until the day I decide I don’t want to anymore, and I shot her in the heart with one of the pistols you just took. Killed her on the spot, but I felt something leave me when I did. She already took my soul and used it to make those 14 bullets. 7 for each gun, broken into pieces and handed back to me as a taunt. I can carry them around but I can’t ever put it back together, I can kill anything that lives, but I can’t truly feel alive myself, and I cursed my family, so no man can best us. Eventually a woman always does. I had 3 boys. A beautiful woman killed my first son, shot him in the back with his own rifle as he turned to get his engagement ring, the other was tricked and had his throat slit by a hooker over a debt of 80 dollars. A beautiful woman killed your father, because she didn’t wanna be a mother.”
“My parents were killed by another Surgeon in their sleep. A nobody with a paid tip and a lucky shot.” Jack said.
“Sure he did. How many times have you been killed by another man?” he asked as Hack pondered the question. “How many times has a woman ended your life?” he asked.
“I guess you know me better then I assumed. But you don’t know me entirely.”
“I know you changed your name. I used to go by Julius Tiberius Blue, Named your father Roman Tiberius Blue. And you were born Marcus Hadrian Blue. Changed your name to Greene because you couldn’t quite let go of your lineage but you didn’t wanna say it out loud, I guess you were just a little too yellow-bellied to claim us and it turned you Greene. Jackson Thomas Greene. What a boring name. Ruined the tradition.”
“I decide my own fate, not you.” Jack barked.
“No, you just found yourself a big pretty devil woman and bartered your soul to get out. She’s got you on a leash.” He said looking at Gizzy.
“I don’t have anyone’s soul!” Gizzy objected. “I just have DNA and memory files on storage in case people die or double cross me.” She said looking guilty. “It’s completely different!”
“Well now you know why I can’t let you have the bullets and why I can’t make more. I got no soul left to divide, and every time I use one of them, I have to retrieve it, or I lose part of myself. So miss Gizzy… you wanna take my soul and kill me for it? You’re the only one here that could.”
“I haven’t started collecting them thus far, I don’t plan to start. I’m not letting you prove me wrong. What happens if you use one of those bullets to kill something that has bodies in multiple places?”
“Everything that is that person goes with it. Whatever you clone back, won’t be you, or won’t wake up at all. Course that’s just how the story tells, you dig into stories deep enough you find your own story somewhere, how much of that is true takes time to tell, but I’ve learned to trust my gut at this point, and I’d say if I wanted you dead and put one in ya, that would be the end of your story everywhere.”
“So if I say that those guns are too powerful for you to wield and I don’t trust you with them, then I just prove your point and a beautiful woman takes your soul, and I’m the thing I said I never would be.”
“Kind of a bitch idn’t it, fate? Makes an ass out of you one way or another, and eventually you die.”
“Guess what, loophole’s are a thing. Jack, you can kill him, we’ll take one gun each. Who’s the ass now? A lot of people have said that I just keep on not dying anyway, and I make my own fate. I make my own asses too, why do you think they’re so good?” she smirked.
“Eh, Seven out of ten at best. Just a tad bit muscular for me.”
“Maybe you should stop making scopes and make some glasses, old man. Your vision is getting bad.” She smirked. "So who put the hit on me?”
“No idea.”
“So you betrayed your own grandson for a bounty… Nicole, does he qualify for the death penalty yet?”
“Hang on, now, I didn’t know Jack was on your crew. I didn’t even find you. You found me. I took the job like 5 others did on that list. 16 million big ones. I went to the war planet to get armed and ready and I crashed the ship. Then you tracked me down and I just seized the opportunity, learned who Jack was after that. I’m not some family-killin traitor, I didn’t wanna kill you all, I just got a job and needed the money, got the gun that can do it, and that gun got me the reputation that got me the job. Nothin personal. But now you need me.”
“Damnit, he can’t lie, so he actually believes that.” Gizzy huffed. “Why exactly do we need you?”
“Because I don’t know who’s after you but I know a Surgeon when I see one, and if I recognize anyone, I’m your only alarm system. You kill me, the next time someone else shows up you won't see it comin, and I’m the best bet you got at an early warning.”
“That means I can't kill you. Doesn’t mean you get your guns back.”
“GAT… DAMNIT. Those guns have a damn soul in them! You cant just take a man’s soul like that.”
“Again, someone else takes the guns, I’m not the actual devil, people.”
“Can I keep one bullet on me?” he begged.
“No… suck it.” Gizzy barked.
“Gizzy, let him have one bullet. We have the rest and we have the guns, if he somehow got loose and stole the guns back he’d have all the bullets anyway they’re too valuable to destroy and we can't just… rob a guy of his entire soul. Let him carry a little bit of it.” She said softly.
“Fine, you’re the Captain. But my personal opinion is that we should take them all, separate them, break both his legs and lock him in a cell.”
“Noted, and I agree with the last part, throw him in the other cell.”
“Can I have the robot for company?”
“No.” Gizzy said, smacking him in the head. “You get a toilet, a 14thof your soul, a roll of the roughest ass-paper we can find, and enough food to survive. The nasty protein rations, not the good stuff. That robot has free will, she’s not your personal hookertron 5,000.” Gizzy said. Brandy smiled, choosing a side after seeing the evidence, and making her leave, stopping next to the old man.
“And I made you food.” She said.
“Charming the pants off of robots must just run in the family, I guess.” He said, looking at Jack.
“You should be careful old man, my ex husband was a trash compactor.” She said, strutting off.
“Feisty little sex bot. Shame she got rid of her best parts for plastic armor and free will. Yours still fully functional, boy?” he smirked at Jack. He took one step and delivered a downward punch with his weight dropped into it, knocking teeth out and almost rendering him unconscious as he leaned in close to whisper.
“Say one more thing about Dee and I’ll get the real scalpel out. We need you alive, not intact. You think I won’t violate a direct order to make you bleed, fucking try it.” he said before storming off.