Bytes of Passion

Chapter 1

Skyler hit 'end' and leaned back in her chair, releasing a deep breath. She'd finished with thirty seconds to spare before the program would alert security. She'd failed – yet again – to find anything useful about Margaret and Ephram Parsons or herself on the servers. In fact, the servers that she hacked into were sparse, as if they'd been set up to keep her occupied, and not used for anything beyond sending and receiving planetary news to and from the DNI, the Department of News and Information. Why they encouraged her to hone her hacking skills was beyond her, but she did as they asked, though not as they expected. That single outbound link, the one they thought she'd ignore because it only housed news, had given her the opening she needed.

Whoever these people were who were holding her, she was sure – as sure as she could be with a shot memory – that they weren't her parents as they claimed. Forget the times she'd awoken feeling as if she'd been asleep for days, or the times when a bruise had appeared and she couldn't remember how she'd gotten it. Those were odd incidents, but could be explained away. What disturbed her were the strange memories that had been rising to the surface lately, like the one of schematics to a military facility.

As for the two people who called themselves her parents, Margaret and Ephram Parsons, they weren't the warm and fuzzy type that one would expect to have a kid, adopted or otherwise. And she wasn't a kid. That was the kicker. No, she's spent her early years aboard a space station, roaming the maintenance tunnels with other kids, darting to the upper levels to scrounge what they could for food.

Someone with a heavy hand pounded on the door. Thayna, most likely.

"I have to finish changing," she yelled in the direction of the door as she tore the hairclip free, shoved it in her pants pocket, and darted to the bathroom to dampen her hair and toss a towel around her head. She'd learned the hard way not to deceive Thayna unless she was sure she could get away with it.

Whatever they'd done to her, they hadn't taken that one vivid memory of blowing out birthday candles on a cake when she was eleven. That was the day Devon's Disciples blew up Space Station Maximus, killing thousands of people. It had been all over the feeds for days. A quick search online clearly showed that was thirteen years ago.

So, she knew three facts. She was twenty-four, was great at hacking, and was being held on a lavish estate with two strangers that called themselves 'Mom' and 'Dad.'

"Now, Skyler," warned Thayna, her deep voice slipped through the door almost as loud as that one final knock.

And she had a very pissed off guard from the sound of it. Four things, then.

Skyler kicked off her shoes and rolled up her pant legs so they wouldn't be visible under her robe. "I'm coming."

As Skyler unlocked the door, a man pushed Thayna into her and shut the door behind them. With a loud thump, Thayna fell to the floor, like a brick. Skyler's shock gave the man in black all the time he needed to shove a cloth over her mouth. Her muscles went limp first, followed by a fog filling her brain. The last thought she had as she blackness overtook her was hoping Thayna was only unconscious, because if she were dead, Skyler would only have herself to blame.

* * *

The motion was making Skyler sick, which was odd because she'd been on ships before, large and small, or so something in the back of mind told her. She couldn't really remember being away from the Parsons' estate in months... years...? Not much about her memory was a certainty these days.

"Hello?" Skyler called out as she forced her eyes open against the bright light of the cabin. She was lying on a bed, with her hands bound behind her. The cabin itself was functional and clean, with its desk, cubbies, bed and one small portal, but it said nothing of who had kidnapped her. Righting herself took more focus than she would have expected thanks to her rolling stomach.