Passage on the Nyx 1

Passage on the Nyx 1

The incessant dripping didn't irritate Catherine 97801-08111985A senses anymore. She was cold. But one of her cybernetics must have been skipping. The flesh of a biological replicant had its ups and downs. Cloned and perfected by dozens of years of practice and use, her body was regarded as a industry standard, a human clone with enough cybernetics to be declared a Cyke. Her body never got tired and was ten times quicker than a normal human. But the raw random skips of memory due to wet cold...

If she had could sense her emotions beyond what her inhibitor gave her, the clone of a clone would've hated the Martians and their dirt poor domes. Most of their moisturizers, condensers and other dome technology simply was so far behind, that the entirety of Utopia felt like it was soaking with rain. As she shivered in the trash, she tried again to reboot herself.

Perhaps days went by. Or weeks. Catherine 97801-08111985A couldn't tell. Her body was inoperable. She was a rag doll lying in the trash, wearing a gunny sack for lack of better clothes.

That is where Fai found her. The Genehacked woman walked down the alley to the fallen clone. She cut a sharp figure, covered by a short bright red dress. The genetic manipulations on her were clearly cosmetic. She was the standard cat girl. In Fai's field, most men liked a woman that purred. Whose stamina was modified to be long and hard to stall. With a tail and a smaller body to curl up next to. Plus, the right cybernetics let her rearrange her persona for clientèle.

Fai enjoyed the claws genehacked into her. It kept those clients who wanted more than she allowed. She wasn't some common whore. On Utopia she was a Queen. An escort. A businesswoman on a planet full of Dusters who lived and worked for men and women they never even met.

“Girl? You Halaal?” Fai was intrigued by her. Lying in the trash, clearly broken. There was a story here. Fai liked a new story. “I said, are you halaal? Can you talk at all?”

Try as she might, Catherine 97801-08111985A couldn't respond. She could not even attempt to even blink. Catherine simply watched as this woman bent over and looked into her eyes. Fai studied her with her own catlike eyes.

“My name is Fai,” Fai stooped down, judging by the glowing blue irises that Catherine had to be a Cyke. Earther designed too. Fai judged that based on her size. This cyke was what? Just over one and a half meters? Fai herself was the average for a Duster woman. She stood over two meters. Martians tended to be huge compared to an Earther, and this little Cyke must have been Earth-born or raised in Earth gravity. “I can help you. Do you have a open Wi port?”

Catherine tried, she really did, to open her Wi port. But another hard drive crash was coming on. Her memory was about to skip again. She blacked out.

Fai gently picked the Cyke up and carried her away from the trash of the dirty, fek-filled streets of downtown Utopia...



The spider spun its web unaware of the eyes that could see it. Extrasensory perceptive eyes studied the small black creature as it crafted a new web. The space spider, for gene hacks had granted the small critters new adaptations to handle the various holes in a gravity field, was one of a dozen or so that lived inside the Hemera Nyx's air vents. Benjamin Savka loved to watch them. They could spin a new web within ten minutes of starting.

He was stirred out of his ESP by the beeping. Beep beep beep. Benjamin rubbed his eyes, and flicked his holoputer to mute. The screaming music coming from it went silent, the seven floating orange holoframe still cluttered the air as he went to the intercom. His quarters consisted of one room, with a door just as wide as the room. Space inside the Hemera Nyx was cramped.
The room's most distinct feature was the yellow rust stains on its grey-blue silksteel walls. They left trails like little rivers where water leaks or just regular condensation had built up. Rivets here and there denoted the seals of the quarters and the fluorescent light above him flickered every once and while. Its unnatural glow did nothing to help Sighter relax. The room felt cold and the lights lacked the rightness the sunlight had on a warm summer day.

The quarters were barely wider than five feet. There was enough room for a bed, a small table and a meager wooden chest that always seemed to be in the way. Every quarter and living space on the Hemera Nyx felt as cramp as his did. Bare metal bulkheads and little room to walk seemed to be a hallmark of the ship and others of its model, the minuteman-class freighter. Cheap and quick to build- no wonder it seemed to lack enough room for one to breathe. Benjamin made his way to the intercom that looked like it was stenciled to his door.

“Yes?” Benjamin pressed down the intercom and tried to sound a bit courteous. Last thing he needed to do so far this trip was be a jerk. Silva and Borecky probably were still pissed on how he messed up the LMA job. Hey, they got away in one piece, even if the entire Gray of the Moon was aware of it. It wasn't like they were going to admit the theft. Who would they go to? No Graybum in his right mind would try to violate their one most holy rule: don't fek where you eat.



Saul 'Reaver' Silva slurped his small mug of mead. It wasn't honeymead or that nice sweet stuff they made over at Nightland- actually he wasn't quite sure what the Graybums on the Moon used, but it gave the alcohol a nice metallic taste. Oh well. He continued his drinking.

Let see, he thought happily, got paid today. Silva flicked one of the multitude of stickers that littered his ship's main controls. Each sticker had sex position from Karma Sutra, a dance move from the waltz or a position from tai chi. All ones he had tried and enjoyed of course. Not real unless you tried at least twice.

Let see, got paid today! Silva couldn't wait to drop off the goods and get to the payment. Two or three payments here and there to get rid of. Not to mention paying off Sighter and Wrecker. Most definitely pay Wrecker. Silva remembered the qikker's promise to haraam his genitalia globally.

“Yep. Gotta pay the crazy nukin saob.” Silva took another swig of mead and leaned back in the chair that had been duct taped to the silksteel and rusty floor of the cockpit. The chair was a armchair, except most of the upholstery was long gone. There were no windows of the space outside, and behind his chair was a pair of lawn chairs, bolted to the stained floor. His chair sat in the front of a mess of floating flat holo images, each holo held a variety of images from the cameras from all over the ship.

Also before Silva's “throne” was a mess of wires, fuses, buttons and a variety of levers. Saul Silva himself was not out of place in the narrow cockpit. The right half of the Saul was heavily scarred, something he never talked about. His other half of his body, his 'pretty half' as Saul put it, was tattooed heavily with a variety of beautiful, yet naked women riding various dragons.

Let see, got paid today!

Silva took another celebratory swig, only to nearly choke on it as the ship rocked all of a sudden. Those Raddie soabi! Haraam it! Why can't anythin ever go halaal for me? Just this once, Universe. Make it halaal. Come on.

The Hemera Nyx and its crew did have a reason to be harassed, of course. Silva knew this. Fek, the man had laughed his head off when the crew and he stole the freight container right under the Reformed Asian Dominion or Raddie freighter. The Nyx literally towed the stuff away.

“Haraam nukin' Saobi! Nukin' Faraj! C'mon!” Silva sneered, beating his ship into action. He also needed that Fork of his down here to get some sort of advantage on this.

“Silva? You nukin' og! What are you doing? This isn't lolle you ognuke!” The voice of Rae Borecky, or Wrecker as Silva called her, blared angrily at him over the wireless.

“Sorry, can't chat,” Silva flicked a switch with a sticker that bore the image of the missionary position. The Vox channel with Wrecker went mute.



“Hello? Sil? Borecky?” Benjamin tried once again. Stupid thing seemed to be going og again.

The intercom buzzed this time with a response. Vox-only as usual. The Hemera Nyx never seemed to quite have the right internal functions. None of the creature comforts. No holo-frame intercoms. Just one of the luxuries of being a Class Two citizen.

“Hey, Sighter!”

The voice over the intercom almost sounded like a swagger. Sighter was Silva's nickname for the young Forsaken. That was the slang for having the gift of ESP. People on Earth feared it. Just like they feared Cykes, the Genehacked, the Gor, the Dusters and every other disaster that nature spewed. “Amig, I needja to make a nice sharp jog up to the nukebox. ESP time.”

Benjamin opened his door and stepped out onto the catwalk. The catwalk ran the length of the center of the Hemera Nyx, going over the heart of the thing. Its guts, its engine and the gravity generators sat and steamed underneath it. And it roared.

Benjamin made his way toward the end of the catwalk that led into the Nukebox. He paused when he raised his head. Borecky. Rae Borecky marched her way down the catwalk toward him. Her face was emotionless and cold. She was in her fight mode. He tried his way to avoid her. Or her wrath. Rae Borecky marched on past him, her short Omn-Quebecer Marine training in clear control.

“Sighter, ignore her!” A voice grumbled from below him. Benjamin glanced down at the dark gray and silver furred figure below him. The Gor or Gorilla- they preferred Gor as Benjamin had learned the hard way- was Amatersa. Amy the mechanic. Benjamin still hadn't figured how she managed to handle the machines, but she had a sharp eye and could handle zero gravity like no one else on the crew could.
“She's in a halaal mode. Take as a warning, amig! Doom!” Amatersa gave a smirk at him. Benjamin returned it with a single hand wave. He continued onto the Nukebox. He stepped through the hole in the gravity wells between the catwalk and the Nukebox.