Claustrophobia

Chapter Six - In Transit - 1

'Have you seen anything?'

Helios was drifting away from Crorst, having departed an hour and a half beforehand. Walking around the top deck before going in to dine for the evening, a cool artificial breeze tickling her exposed skin, Z9 had spotted Lar.4G finishing off a ten lap run around the deck, having not even broken a sweat. He jogged up to her, a smile on his lips that she reciprocated with all the enthusiasm of a child forcing to talk to their teacher on Parents Evening. The two of them went to the railings looking out past the shimmering bubble into the dark, Crorst's twin planet Habios drifting far below them in sleepy ignorance.

'Haven't even heard the man breathe, I'm afraid,' he said apologetically. 'Although I was occupied most of the time.'

'Oh?' Z9 asked, raising an eyebrow. 'How so?'

'Managed to hire a Viper Air Séance and took a few friends for a road trip out of the city. Tearing up the roads, of course.'

Road trip here being code for orgy.

'It must have been fun,' Z9 said, a little irked that she hadn't been invited along.

'Oh, very much so,' Lar.4G agreed, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. 'Not as much fun as I can have on the ship, of course, but fun nonetheless.'

Z9 took the hint and dismissed it. Now that she knew her recruitment attempt had been essentially wasted for a good few days, she looked around casually for an excuse to get away from the hologram of a man.

The deck rumbled as the ship pulled out of the range of Habios, moving out into interstellar space. The beach worlds were being left behind in search of the planet of liquid amethyst. Out of the corner of her eye, Z9 noted a small group nod their heads and begin to head to one of the doors. They had apparently decided that now was as good a time as any to eat, and Z9 leapt onto the idea for her escape excuse.

'Thank you so much for doing this,' Z9 said, trying to bring a tear to her eye. 'I know I don't have any proof, but, if it is true that... that he...'

'Hey,' Lar.4G soothed, his arms coming up to bring her into his fold. She turned away.

'I think I'd better get prepared for dinner,' she said. 'Thank you again.'

Before he had a chance to say otherwise, Z9 turned away and walked towards the door heading into the ship again. She brought a hand up to wipe away an imaginary tear to ram home the point to Lar.4G. Maybe he'll actually do his damn job next time.

*

In her room she picked out a dress as silver as her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw her face long and distinctly uninviting.

Your attempt to look sexually appealing is going to shit tonight, Z9 thought to herself. She plucked at the dress' fabric and decided against it. Her eyes were drooping despite the electric blue she had added to the lids, and her smile looked like it had been removed by a fist.

In her mind she brought up Kassre DyGleyre's face and studied it. To her horror she watched it morph into the face of Xerou Evangra, before dissolving back again like blinking away a dream. The face was smirking; the smug expression of a hunter that knows the prey will come to them, in time. Kassre's face laughed and it was the voice of Evangra atop the C.A.T, the wind howling in the distance and the sweeping searchlights going on and on, combing the city in the distance.

When Z9 refocused again her hand held a small cocktail glass, the Amatherrone gone save for a few drops at the bottom. Her hand was raised, ready to throw the glass at the mirror in front of her and shatter it into a thousand pieces.

What the fuck are you doing? She asked herself. What the ever-loving fuck are you about to do?

Z9 slowly put the glass down, hand shaking and heart racing, and she staggered over to the bed, throwing herself upon it.

'What's going on?' she murmured. She gazed up at the ceiling and asked it for answers, but the ceiling gave no hint it had heard her prayers. There weren't any answers coming at the moment, only more questions flooding in from every direction. Too many to be answered by one woman alone.

She slowly got up off the bed, her limbs aching with emotion. She felt her leg try and cramp up but crossed the room anyway to look at a sign on the wall. She glanced down and waved her hand over the Halo-Core embedded into the wall beside it. A menu appeared and she tapped the first dish on the list.

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING. YOUR FOOD WILL BE HERE IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY DELAYS AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND CUSTOM.

Z9 went back over to the bed and sprawled herself back across it. She closed her eyes and asked the dark for answers, but like the ceiling, the dark gave no reply.