Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Once upon a time, back when I was a soldier, we couldn’t smoke our carcinogels in our quarters. If we wanted to puff up, we had to go outside. It was habit to grab your smokes and head on out, and the moment you passed through the doors, it smelled like old carcinogel sticks. There were always a few friends out there, and you could talk shit and smoke and unwind. I have fond memories of those days, and maybe out of respect of those long-gone friends, I still head “outside” when I need a smoke.
The terrarium’s about as close as I can get to outdoors here on the station. Once upon a time, when this was a military base, these quarters belonged to the females. Someone must have liked gardening and convinced the higher-ups that they needed a greenhouse of some kind, because the terrarium is one of the largest rooms on the station, and it’s top to bottom covered with greenery. I’ve let it get overgrown—mostly because I don’t care—but sometimes I like looking at it. Air feels fresher out here. Cleaner.
I flick the end of my carcinogel, igniting the self-lighting mechanism, and it flares up. I take a deep puff, inhaling the awful fumes, and watch the greenery around me idly. There’s no one to talk to, of course. All’s silent. But it’s a comfortable, familiar act and it calms my rattling nerves.
I hate that my brain’s misfiring after one keffing visitor. It’s because it’s a change, and I hate change. I like routine. I like…
My gaze falls on something ahead on the overgrown path. It looks like, well, I’m not entirely sure. Curious, I suck down another drag on my carcinogel and tuck the other into my pocket, making my way over to the dark lump on the overgrown cobblestones. As I do, a smell hits me.
And I realize what it is.
Keffing hells. Did Adiron’s human take a keffing SHIT in my terrarium?
8
SOPHIE
Even though I would love nothing more than to hide out in my room for oh, the next eight to ten weeks or so, there’s a few problems with that.
There’s no food dispenser.
There’s also no bathroom.
What kind of monster makes private quarters and doesn’t give someone a damn bathroom of their own? I’m a little irked at the thoughtlessness of it, along with the betrayed feeling I can’t quite shake at being left behind to care for a very expensive cat. Lizard. Whatever.
As if he knows I’m thinking shitty thoughts about him, Sleipnir butts his head against my hand, making that crackly noise in the back of his throat that means that he wants attention. Absently, I pet his head as he drapes his big body over my crossed legs, and I scratch at his smooth, sleek skin and consider my surroundings.
At first, I thought my room was a decent size and was kind of happy about that. The bed is two smaller ones pushed together, and the plas-blankets that cover it don’t seem to be the freshest, but they’re clean. There’s no pillow—that doesn’t surprise me after years of alien life—but I can make one. The good news is that there’s plenty of room for Sleipnir to cuddle up next to me, which he LOVES to do, and won’t knock me off of the bed like he did back on the Little Sister. But as the minutes tick past, I start to wonder.
Why do I have such a large bed?
I can’t help but notice that my room isn’t really a bedroom, either. It’s not private. There’s a large, motion-sensor sliding door that leads to the hallway that works—but only just. It groans like a dying thing whenever I try to activate it, and tiny plumes of smoke waft up from the tracks. I get the impression it’s not meant to be used, and so I leave it alone. There’s another door that leads down a dark hallway filled with clutter. Storage, I imagine. There’s no comfortable sitting in this room, either—no tables or chairs, no cushions on the hard metal floor, no nothing to make it a place to relax.
A home.
There’s nothing on the patchwork paneled walls but rust, and any sort of entertainment unit is long dead.
In short, there’s absolutely nothing to do but sit on the bed and stare at the walls. And not pee. Or eat.
“Not much of a guest, am I, Sleipnir?” I scratch underneath the carinoux’s chin.
Still, I’ve had worse. I think about the last owner I had, and my bed before I came to live on the Little Sister. My owner was a praxiian, a warlike cat species that believes in guests and family all piling into the same bed. I had to sleep with my elderly owner and his wife, and since I was a slave, that meant he fucked me in front of his wife and guests on the regular.