The Beast

The Beast - Part 43

He woke up in an endless flower field. The ground below him was soft and warm, the sky had a perfect blue, too perfect. This was Elle's doing. Gabriel didn't bother standing up, he started talking knowing Elle would hear him: "Does this mean I'm not dead?"

Her voice came from everywhere at once: "Indeed. You are currently unconscious, waking you up is a health risk I'm not willing to take."

His body was light and his thoughts careless: "Riskier than whatever Chip has planned with my body?" The sky faded into a first person view of Chip running down a hallway, checking on a floating box behind her every few seconds. He assumed his body was inside the box.

Elle explained in a slow clam voice: "Evidence suggests you are watching an escape plan unfold. Bombs have exploded in both engine rooms and it is headed for the hangar."

"It?"

Elle corrected herself: "She. Differentiating between animals and lesser sentients is not my strong suit. Yet I have to admit to having a certain interest towards this particular specimen."

Gabriel joked, still dazed with whatever Elle gave him: "What happened to unworthy flesh and so on?" Watching Chip smuggling him through the big boy was surprisingly calming.

"The statement stands. Think of it like how you would find a rodent interesting if it behaved like a primate. Your attack against her might have been sloppy in its execution but not flinching while a beast of your size charged at her was certainly impressive. It will be a shame." She signed after the last part.

Gabriel inquired: "What will be a shame?"

Elle's voice was soft and accepting as she spoke: "She violated what the perfects had accepted. That is unacceptable, I have to advise you to seek justice once you are in a position to do so."

Chip met up with Tibi who had another floating box behind her. He watched them talk but couldn't hear anything as the projection was purely visual. Shortly after they continued through the ship when they reached the door to the hangar. A guard stopped them, he watched the nians lips move. Whatever they told him motivated him to step forward and open the first box. Gabriel's body laid inside it covered in blood. Chip shot the nian with a shotgun that she had hidden somewhere, before the man could react. Seeing someone die would've upset him not a month ago but now he shrugged it off without a second thought.

"How am I even seeing this?", he asked.

"A few nanos stay behind after every use to ensure I don't miss the day the perfects return. She had her first dose at a pre-teen age on a world filled with slavery and got many more as time passed until a revolt lead her to escape hell directly into the arms of more violence."

"And you like her for fighting for freedom?"

"No, my interest is focused on her refusal to replace her non-bio arm. It would take me seconds and I cannot refuse treatment but for some reason she built this replacement during adulting and won't let go of it." Gabriel understood what she said, yet it was weird listening to her saying positive things about a race she deemed worth less.

So he decided to poke holes: "What about all the killing she does?"

Elle countered: "It is disgusting and the enjoyment she gets even more but beings have more than one trait, you should know that. The population on the planet below us is calling you a demon unleashed and yet the nian in your room was not violated." That statement killed his mood. Killing didn't bother him anymore but thinking about how he was being used to spread fear turned his stomach. He thought of himself as an average person abducted from home, not a blood hungry beast.

They continued watching Chip escape in silence. A ship was waiting for Chip and Tibi to board him their package, which they did. But Chip threw a backpack off the loading ramp before it closed. Gabriel instinctively knew what was inside. Chip's attention switched to the floating boxes. She led the box into a room and carefully unloaded his body on a bed. Then she left to get a chunky collar, which she put around his neck.

"Will it explode?", he asked Elle

"It is built to do so."

"Can you make me survive it?"

"Of course."

Chip left him alone in his new home to get the other box. On the way he saw that they left the big boy and were now in open space. She took it to another room. This one wasn't a cabin like the one his body was in, it was a prison cell. Chip unlocked the box and gave it a heavy kick that made it fall over. Out dropped three unconscious bodies, Zuski, Kanu and the princess. Chip kicked again and Verona rolled on the pile of bodies. She looked at the pile for a moment before leaving the room with the box and locking it behind her.

Her next goal was the bridge, on it waited a male nian he didn't know. She punched him on the shoulder and dropped herself in the copilot seat.

Elle talked again: "The ship's engines are reading for a jump. Is there a place you'd like to go, precious?"

Absent-minded, he answered: "Home isn't a possibility is it? How do you even control where we'll go?"

"I am everything ancient that remains, not just nanos. Every ship that jumps does so because I don't have orders to refuse them. Same goes for the suit you use in combat. If you don't tell me an alternative destination, I will allow them to go ahead without my input."

"So you're telling me that you could make every ship that jumps fly into a Star?"

"That statement is correct but you don't have the authority to order that. Last chance to choose our destination."

"Let them jump but make them arrive at the target but far enough away to be suspicious."

Elle hesitated before asking: "May I ask why?"

Gabriel smiled: "I wanna fuck with them for betraying me."

"In that case I have to apologize, your body is already prepared to wake up without the risk of brain damage but I assumed you wanted to rest."

He thought for a second: "How long until the drugs keeping me calm wear off?"

"I can deactivate them the second you demand it."

"Wake me up once she falls asleep." He closed his eyes and rolled up in the flower field which transformed around him into a bed.