Chapter 42
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TIME:
1 WEEK LATER
(8 DAYS AFTER RETURNING)
LOCATION:
BETA CHARON
30 AU FROM BETA CHARON
INNER KEIPER BELT
MIDNIGHT NOSTALGIA
POV:
Liza Velsent
It's been a week, yet I still can't help but feel amazed at this structure. It was so vast! When the mistress had described it she made it sound so small, but it wasn't! This base took up almost every single cubic meter of the asteroid. And this asteroid was large. I asked the AI that runs this place and it told me the asteroid was just over 12 kilometers wide at its widest, and it was more than four times that in height.
Apparently most of the structure was empty. I doubted I would ever see this place being fully utilized. My mistress's plans are unknowable however, but I'm sure she has something planned!
I hum a song I faintly remember from my time as a maid while walking down the empty corridors. The place was so big and had few directions marked. It was quite easy to get lost in its labyrinthine passages, but YAGA knew every centimeter of the post. All I had to do was ask and she would help me. Right now I was headed towards a training room they had. Thankfully some rooms were clustered together which made remembering how to get there easier.
I was visiting the room in secret as I wanted to surprise the mistress! YAGA had informed me that Lilith was planning something and if I wanted to help I should try and exercise and learn some self defense. She refused to tell me exactly what was happening though, it was a big secret apparently. Despite her refusing to say what that secret was I thought I could guess it, the mistress was planning to possibly recruit bodyguards.
'Though if she is going to have living bodyguards, where will she have them onboard the ship? The Astro Dawn doesn't have many rooms that I could enter, but at most from what I've seen I could see it properly housing around 30 people without becoming cramped. And that's not even considering where they’d store their equipment of those likely dozens of people... well that doesn't matter, my job isn't to plan these things!'
Finally reaching an unassuming door that had a line of symbols—I couldn't read—written at head height. My new MID immediately connected to it and I was allowed entry as it silently slid open. Walking forwards I was surprised to see I wasn't alone, standing a distance away from a pair of robots that served as coaches was Adalyn wiping herself off with a rag.
She suddenly looked up at that moment and paused realizing I was here, before promptly glaring at. I tried to just nod politely and ignore her, all that got me was a silent scoff.
If I was being honest I found her scary and yet I also couldn't help but be suspicious of her. She did try and kill the mistress after all! I suppress the shiver that tries to shake me at the thought of Lilith dying. Finally reaching the hulking coaching robot that was much taller than me, but so was almost everybody, I felt a request come from the robot and I quickly accepted without even reading what it wanted.
My new MID was just so amazing; not only did it only need to be charged once every six months, but it was also incredibly easy to do simple tasks on it. For example, opening doors—my old MID couldn't even do that much—could be done without a finger even if there is no proximity sensor. It also has the ability to download and send information like IDs and other small things. Though the storage space was small, only a few megabytes, I didn't care; I no longer had to carry around a physical card ID and I could theoretically even purchase things with it.
"Greetings thrall Liza Velsent, what are you wishing to practice today?" The coach said with fake excitement as he looked slightly down at me. It was clear he wasn't sapient; even Mistress's mother, as monotonous as she sounds, usually had inflections or varied how quickly she spoke.
"I want to try and learn some basic self-defense please!" I excitedly told the robot what I wanted and instantly another request was sent. Accepting it immediately after making sure it was from the coach and not Adalyn—she recently tricked me and I accidentally sent her how much exercise I was getting, I was quickly laughed at and shamed. Despite knowing I sent it only to coach I still can't help but anxiously send a request for a log of recent requests.
Requesting things from an MID and reading them was rather strange. My old one used an ear implant to tell me what I wanted to know. This one could do that, but it could also manipulate my brain to force me to remember. It sounded incredibly dangerous at first and I was afraid to switch methods, but the mistress wanted to make sure everything worked fine so I switched. Since then, I've felt nothing out of the ordinary and my mistress seems rather pleased.
"Why the sudden interest in training, thrall?" I flinch as I hear Adalyn whisper into my ear. I didn't even realize she was there.
"It's none of your business Miss Adalyn. Now can you please leave me to my training?" I timidly responded, still a little scared. "Heh! Whatever you say, though, don't expect praise for this, or to even be accepted for that matter!"
I close my eyes and take a deep breath trying to calm my emotions. I tried to distract myself from the anxiety and self-doubt, reminding myself that I am serving such an amazing being; a precursor, an actual genuine precursor! I used to serve a middling political family with barely any influence outside Cardamom, but now, I have the chance to serve someone who will certainly reshape the future of humanity! A dagger of loneliness still stabs at my heart, I wish I could meet with Allina, but I never got the chance on Orenthia to visit her; the mistress demanded I stay safe aboard the ship and I didn't dare to refuse.
Maybe next time we go to Orenthia I can ask for some time to visit my best friend. It's been years since she was forced to leave for the military. I got one chance to meet with her thanks to her father, my now former employer, allowing me to visit since I hadn't taken a vacation ever since she left.
That however almost ended in disaster, when a group of pirates attacked the passenger void ship looking for someone sharing her name. I still don't know if they were targeting her or if it was a different Allina, but it doesn't matter, because I got to meet and serve my wonderful master. I also get to witness such amazing wonders. Truthfully I'm sure if I was given the option to return to my previous life I would never agree hundred out of a hundred times, serving Lilith is just so calming.
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TIME:
AT THE SAME TIME
LOCATION:
BETA CHARON
30 AU FROM BETA CHARON
INNER KEIPER BELT
MIDNIGHT NOSTALGIA
POV:
Adalyn
I looked at the back of my senior with contempt and pity. I knew what she was after. She wants to become more useful for our master, but she doesn't know or doesn't want to accept that our master hardly cares for her.
The eyes Lilith watches her with have a gluttony behind them that isn't all that hidden. I was even given a warning that if I severely hurt or, Lord forbid, kill her I'd be living a life of agony where death would only be the end for a version of me. However, it wasn't because Lilith cares about her or anything; she told me after revealing her true nature, and making it clear how little she trusted me, that Liza's blood just tastes really good and she's trying to figure out why. If I take away what she prizes, I wouldn't be allowed to die for my mistake. I’d die, but condemn a perfect clone of me to a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone.
I of course wouldn't try and do something as stupid as damage my lady's possessions, but it doesn't stop me from hating her. She was there. I know she was back in that dark brig. Someone had to have held my face up and it could have only been her. I hate her, yet despite my well trained skills in the art of murder I am impotent to actually get my revenge.
So I poured my hatred for that damn woman into my training, the new MID I was given even allowed me to use this thing called a training pod. It's a baffling technology that if I connect my MID to it and fall asleep lets me train in a completely safe and realistic environment. It's like a mix of lucid dreaming and those full dive gaming machines that are always just another year away.
So far Lilith has me training on it to become a bodyguard. It sounded easy at the time, but the things she expects out of me are insane; frankly I'm half certain she knows these require genuinely inhuman skill and are impossible as I am, but she doesn't care.
She recently told me that she wants me to hit 50% of my shots while being in the middle of an active warzone facing off against drones and or terrorists. Apparently this was modeled after the more grueling battles her species had fought. It’s stupid, the best I've ever gotten so far was a 37%, because dying only marks you as having a 0% accuracy.
I shiver as an intrusive thought reminds me of her and MARA’s account of the ash caked wastes of Pantell IV and the fields of concertina wire and rotting corpses. It was one thing to be told about it, but she also forced me to walk and fight in it once. I died within 30 minutes of being deployed on the humans side in an attempted assault of a Runethari position. That had been horrifying to know that it was apparently an accurate and faithful recreation of the world that was an active battlefield for both sides for nearly the entire ‘War for Existence.’
Regardless, the training pod can be set to be rather cruel as all minor injuries still hurt, and I swear if I didn't already likely have PTSD from my training as an assassin I would certainly have it now. Thankfully if I use the training pods I can completely avoid the nightmares I occasionally get.
I know she has something planned and I imagine it involves actually changing my body. She was always so proud and reminded me repeatedly when I fail that she is simply superior to me. So if she truly does change my body maybe one day I can prove that us humans can have our moments.
I just hope that if I perform my duties she will help push me to my limits. Maybe in the future I can perfect my skills and prove that I am loyal despite that. The calm I feel around her has been a surprisingly good motivator to push myself, it's easier to climb without my memories and emotions to weigh me down.
After watching and loudly mocking Liza who was getting her ass kicked for an hour by the robot that was so easy for me to dent and break—the machines was surprisingly light and flimsy—but thankfully they were quick to be repaired the dents seeming to fix themselves, though if you tear off a limb you have to help it, but even that can be fixed after a few minutes. It is such a stupidly advanced machine that makes no sense, what happened to sparring with another person or punching a dummy.
After leaving the girl to her continued beatings I decided to go to the mess hall. If there is one thing that makes me happy I failed to kill Lilith and got captured, its the food here. I am used to eating only nutrient bars since they are so time efficient and cheap; they sadly leave my stomach feeling perpetually empty and to make it worse it tastes like boredom, it's the water of food. The food here however has taste and doesn't have the consistency of a brick. Apparently Lilith doesn't care for having food that tastes like anything, so Liza and I get to use everything without needing to be polite in our rationing.
I sit at an empty table and using the tablet I was given when we got here I order my usual protein rich meal. I don't want to think where that protein comes from, but the memory of a ranch of spider-like things Lilith's Mom had apparently bought at Orenthia nonetheless flashed in my mind's eye. I don't know what she feeds them, but there was a horrifying number of them. The droning head splitting buzzing noise they constantly made will stay in my memories for the rest of my life.
"Thrall Adalyn, my lady would like to see you after you finish eating. She has told me to tell you to not keep her waiting."
Suddenly a voice spoke over the speaker in the room, I nodded my head and prepared myself to eat as quickly as possible, YAGA could be overly demanding on what she deems "wasting time." And she would report everything to Lilith.
'Oh, it's done. I should have about a minute to eat as much as possible before YAGA tells Lilith I wasted time chewing!'