Some people might consider it idiocy to forgive Sha’la after what she did, but holding a grudge over a misunderstanding just seemed petty and stupid. Did she make a mistake? Sure. But she also apologized for it. He also had better ways to spend his time, so he chose to forgive her and move on.

  “I know this probably isn’t part of your job, but thank you for assisting me,” Jacob said as Sha’la led him to a public comm terminal.

  “It’s the least I could do after what happened,” she replied.

  The terminal resembled a phone booth, but without a phone and much cleaner. There was just a mirror on the wall opposite the opening and an interface below that he couldn’t understand.

  “Uh… how do I use this?”

  Sha’la looked confused for a moment. “—Oh, right. Hallik did mention you were not a member species. Never heard of hummas, before. I still find it hard to believe that I was part of a first contact scenario and didn’t even realize it.”

  “Humans,” Jacob corrected her.

  “Really?” she asked. “Hallik was pretty certain you said hummas.”

  “I think I know the name of my species,” Jacob chuckled awkwardly. He was ninety percent certain that he was right. However, there was a very real chance that his memory had been damaged or lost somehow in the transfer. Melody had assured him that it wasn’t, but the AI had said a lot of things that weren’t entirely true.

  He had come to terms with the idea that Melody had taken some memories from him, or he thought he had. The eiraxin attack and the revival of his fellow humans had stirred those thoughts once again.

  Jacob assumed the other abductees would share his feelings on the matter, but none had even mentioned the problem since he brought it up during his brief introduction.

  Franky didn’t seem like the deep thinker type, while Katty seemed a bit overwhelmed with everything, so she probably hadn’t processed everything yet. As for Barry, well, he was still catatonic, so who knew what was going on in that man’s head. Those were issues for another time.

  Jacob decided that if he couldn’t trust his own mind, he couldn’t trust anything, so he chose to believe his memory was intact. Thinking otherwise sounded like a good way to go insane, and he didn’t have time for that.

  “Here, let me,” Sha’la replied as she squeezed inside the booth next to him.

  It was a tight fit with his suited drone, but there was enough space inside the suit to allow her to shift the material out of her way and push past.

  Jacob realized he hadn’t been this close to a woman since before he left Earth. His face would have turned red in embarrassment if he still had a human body. Thankfully, he wasn’t, so he could be objectively detached about the whole situation.

  He watched her press a few buttons on the terminal, and the mirror started to glow.

  “I assume you don’t have a comm chip with Hallik’s address on it?”

  “No.”

  “I figured as much. You’re in luck, because I have his address stored on mine.” She fiddled with her arm tablet for a moment, then passed her wrist across a sensor on the terminal.

  The terminal blinked once, then the silver screen started to pulse.

  Sha’la squeezed her way back out and sighed in relief once she was free. “If he’s available, it should connect; if not, just record a message. When you’re done, press the bottom button.”

  Jacob gestured to it. She had to lean in to see, but she nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one. I’ll wait for you to finish.”

  Jacob thanked her and turned back to the pulsing mirror. The pulsing eventually stopped, and a static image of Hallik appeared along with a recorded message. “I’m not available. If you are contacting me about a bounty offer, please direct your offer to the bounty office. Otherwise, leave a message and address where I can reach you.”

  “Really?” Jacob said in annoyance. He sighed. “Hallik, this is Jacob. I swear, if you are screening your calls, I’m going to be super annoyed,” he muttered. “I wanted to discuss something with you. I don’t have a contact address yet, and it’s going to be a bit before the station has compatible comms. I’ll try again in a month, I guess.”

  Just as Jacob was about to hang up, the image changed to a tired-looking Hallik. “Sorry, Jacob. I was sleeping. What’s up? Did you decide to take me up on my request?”

  “No,” Jacob replied flatly.

  “What? Why not?”

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  “Look, Hallik, I barely even know you, and you made a poor first impression by barging onto my station, weapons drawn. If our positions were reversed, would you want to go into business together?”

  “Fair enough,” the man admitted. “If you’re not calling me for that, what are you calling me for?”

  “I had another group of armed visitors come by a few weeks after you left.”

  Hallik raised an eyebrow. “Sounds to me like a good reason for extra protection.”

  “No. Besides, I already chased the eiraxins off—”

  “—Eiraxins?” Hallik asked in alarm, cutting him off. “And you said they were armed? You should have contacted me right away.”

  “I would have,” Jacob replied in annoyance, “but I don’t have compatible comm gear setup. I’m working on that issue, but I sent them packing.”

  “How did you manage that, and what did they even want with that relic of a station?”

  “Don’t worry about how I did that. I’m not calling about them, not entirely anyway. I would like to know if you have any insights into the eiraxins, and I’m wondering if you can provide me with a copy of the Astryx Codex?”

  Hallik looked confused by the request. “Why not just access it on a public terminal? It’s widely available.”

  Jacob wanted to slap himself for not considering that, but he quickly covered up his oversight with some bullshit. “I wanted someone more familiar with the parts concerning criminal activity, such as yourself. I was hoping that you could point out specific parts I should read.”

  “Makes sense,” Hallik rubbed at stubble and yawned. “Alright, I’ll send you a copy of mine. It’s already got notations and highlights tagged in the document. Should save you some time. Don’t suppose you know where the dissidents ran off to?”

  “Is that what they’re called?” Jacob asked. “Seems rather indifferent.”

  “Only when they are breaking codex laws,” Hallik shrugged.

  The terminal beeped, and Jacob pressed the flashing icon, but nothing happened. He called Sha’la over, and she helped him transfer the file onto his tablet.

  “Is that Sha’la?” Hallik asked as he slicked back his messy hair before grinning. “If you wanted to see me in my nightwear, all you had to do was ask.”

  Sha’la rolled her eyes at the bounty hunter’s antics. Jacob got to see that her eyes weren’t entirely black like he first thought. It was just that her irises were huge. That made her appearance a whole lot less creepy for him.

  She gave Hallik a one-finger salute before leaving the booth once again, which Jacob assumed meant much the same as it did back on Earth, because the man chuckled in response.

  “You and Sha’la?” Jacob asked. “I guess I can understand why you wanted to protect her.”

  Hallik waved away the question. “It’ll never happen, but I have fun teasing her. Just don’t tell her I said that,” he added with a wink. “Anyway, I need to get back to sleep, so unless you’ve reconsidered my proposal in the last few minutes, or have some actionable intel against those eiraxin dissidents, I’m going to have to start charging you for my time.”

  “No, that was all,” Jacob replied.

  Hallik grunted, then turned serious. “You should really take my offer. If the eiraxins are interested in that station, they will probably return. I’m not going to fly out there to help you when they do unless I know I have a place to resupply.”

  “Bye, Hallik,” Jacob said as he ended the call.

  He stepped out of the booth, and Sha’la got up from the bench across the corridor to meet him.

  “I think Hallik is in the wrong line of work. He should have been a salesman,” Jacob said.

  Sha’la laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Jacob asked.

  “I told him the same thing when I first met him. Do you know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “That he already did that sort of work, but he didn’t like it, so he became a bounty hunter.”

  The rest of Jacob’s visit to the station was spent supervising and scanning the supplies as they were loaded aboard his transport.

  It was boring work, but it had to be done, and Jacob was interested to see the new parts he purchased. The shield emitter, newer style of gravitic panel, and comm gear were the items he was most interested in. They were also the easiest to see since they were the only prebuilt items being loaded aboard the transport.

  He didn’t spend much time examining the items because he had no idea how they worked. As far as technology went, these three things were the first items that definitely felt alien to him.

  The trip back was uneventful, but Jacob enjoyed the silence. He didn’t bother popping back into the virtual space to check up on the others. They were all adults, and none had triggered his monitoring programs, so how bad could it be?

  He found out just how wrong he was after docking the transport and ordering the maintenance drones to begin unloading. Once he was sure the delicate devices were safe from the drones, he popped back into his apartment and found it to be a complete mess.

  “What the hell!” he shouted.

  The kitchen table had been flipped over and broken; there were marks on the wall, probably from the table being thrown against it, and there was spilled food everywhere.

  The living room was even worse. Someone had taken a knife to the furniture, sliced it up, then ripped out all the stuffing and thrown it around the room. The knife in question was now jammed into the TV, sitting in one of a dozen stab holes.

  A door creaked, and he turned to see a disheveled Franky exiting his room. The man kicked broken glass out of his way and laughed as it shattered against the wall.

  “Did you do this?” Jacob asked in annoyance.

  Franky looked up, then snorted. “So you’re finally back. Bout fucking time. This place is boring as shit. I had to entertain myself.”

  Jacob pushed the simmering rage down before responding. “So you trashed my apartment?”

  “So what if I did? You can just wish it all away, can’t you? Nothing in this fucking place is real.”

  “It matters,” Jacob replied through gritted teeth, “because it’s mine.”

  “Whatever,” Franky said dismissively as he waved him off.

  Jacob wasn’t going to put up with the younger man’s dismissive attitude. “If you can’t respect my space, go to your own.”

  Franky looked up at that. “No wait, I’m Sor—”

  Jacob snapped his fingers, and the man vanished. The gesture was completely unnecessary, but it felt right to make it. He didn’t want to hear whatever bullshit apology Franky was about to make. It was obvious the man wasn’t sorry for his actions, only sorry he had to face any repercussions for them. If he couldn’t act like an adult, he could sit in time out like a misbehaving child. He could entertain himself in his new jail cell.

  The more Jacob walked around the apartment, the more damage he found. The only spot undamaged was near Katty’s room. Franky had left that area alone, probably because he knew what would happen if he didn’t.

  “So you do have some common sense,” Jacob muttered. “It’s just that you’re an asshole.”

  He turned away from the undamaged hallway and door, and the rest of the apartment was back to its former self.

  As always, thanks for reading! And thanks for the support! If you enjoy the story, please rate it and comment below!