The Great Galactic Score!

2

2

Demi knew these kind of accommodations well. The kind of accommodations that came along with three square meals and an hour's exercise time every day. The captain had thrown her in here, her hands electro-cuffed, the bag still over her head. The force-field had buzzed into life after he left before it buzzed again and the captain removed the bag and cuffs, apologising. Now, the force-field up once again, she stared out of the cell, not knowing what would come next.

The sudden explosion was not what she would have expected to happen first. Or at all. They were in a ship, that much she could tell, and that ship lurched to the side as something hit it. Several other somethings hit the ship in close succession, sending the ship heaving the other way, then bouncing up before Demi felt the force of entering a wormhole. To where, she couldn't imagine.

Over the course of the next hour or so, the ship exited and entered several more wormholes and she knew that would put a strain upon the ship's engines. The captain was reckless. Of course, she already knew that, after seeing the devastation back at the bar, but she didn't think anyone so reckless they would chance blowing up their own ship.

With the ship settled, no more somethings hitting it, or careless, risky multiple wormhole jumps to disturb it, the captain returned to the brig, along with his two-dimensional, Planeian companion. The captain dragged a metal chair across the brig, the feet screeching against the floor, and sat on it to face Demi through the force-field. He flicked through a bunch of Repli-papers in his hands.

"Demi Quaver-Tempura. Age, twenty-six. Born, Halflaf Colony, Quadrant twelve, in the year 3765. Parents, deceased. One brother, one sister, both voluntarily retro-de-memorised of any knowledge of you. Nasty. And, oh, yes, the greatest AI hacker the galaxy has ever known." The captain crossed his legs and looked over his shoulder as the Planeian crinkled at him. "No, that's not her whole life. It's the heavily abridged edition."

The captain looked back towards Demi, glanced back at the Planeian, frowning, then looked at Demi once more. He smiled and that smile gave Demi visions of a thousand Virt-Prison life sentences. The mere thought of living even one more, single compressed time within the twenty-first century made her want to vomit. She did. It felt cathartic.

"I'm not doing it. Whatever it is." She saw no point in denying anything he had said, she could see her holo-photo waving from the top page of Repli-paper in the captain's hands. "Besides, I can't. They removed all trace of my superior cognitive abilities. I'm just a normal human. Just normal. That's why I work in a bar. Worked in a bar. I don't have the intelligence for it anymore."

"That's what I thought you'd say." The captain raised a finger and the Planeian moved towards a control panel near the door. "The programmable gas we're pumping into your cell will begin by liquidising your insides, before eating away at your flesh, then your bones. Your brain, it leaves for last. You have, ooh, fifteen seconds to stop it before it does too much damage."

With several scraping, screeching jumps and shuffles, the captain moved the chair so he could face both the cell and the control panel. The Planeian had wandered away, crackling and crinkling to themselves, causing the captain to roll his eyes. He looked at a wrist that didn't have a watch and whistled, shaking his head.

The gas had pooled around Demi's feet, appearing to reach towards her knees. She knew it wouldn't help if she lifted herself out of the way of the gas. In fact, it had probably already infiltrated her lungs. She felt the need to vomit again and began to panic that the gas had already started eating away at her stomach. In desperation, she made a single, life-changing decision, switching on the implant deep inside her brain. With a thought, she evacuated the gas from the cell and took deep breaths of clean, filtered air.