Sunspot

[Proselyte]

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I welcomed the proper uninterrupted rest. However, when I woke, I was surprised to find myself not in that rough looking medbay, but in what looked like a prison cell.

I’m laid up in a concrete room with a high ceiling, and only one door made of metal. My bed was sequestered into a sad little corner. There's a tiny vent high up on one of the high walls for circulation, and that howling wind still makes itself known from there. A single thin beam of light shines down from the ceiling into the center, pushing the dark into the periphery of the space and stinging my weary eyes as I pry them open.

Not the most comfortable place. Not even a restroom. I thought I'd be waking up to the medtechs again.

Maybe this doesn't bode as well as I thought.

Okay. Relax. I'll just have to remember to give them a one-star review later. That's all.

I know I'm on a planet at least. The gravity doesn't feel particularly abnormal, so I don't think I'm under a dome on a moon or anything. And it's cold, more so than I’d gotten used to being out in the elements on Erie season-round, when we had blankets of snow resting on the canopy above our campsites. The chill practically lives in the walls here. I try not to let it sap my resolve, even if it steals the heat from my fingertips.

There's a few places this could be... but I'm too fuzzy to sort through them right now. Even just sorting through my memories of where I was before I woke up feels like trudging through mental mud. Frustrating.

Instead, I check on how I'm feeling. Still a bit dazed, so best to take it slow. There's a dull pain under my ribcage that rears its head when I breathe. Plenty of red marks along my arms. Received several lacerations, looks like. Altogether in one piece, though.

I wonder how much luck I've burned through living like this. I'm beginning to lose count of the brushes with death. I hope he hasn't opened a tab for me.

I look back to the rather primitive door. There's a retractable vision slit set at eye level, but it looks like it's opened from the opposite side.

I pull myself out of bed carefully, dressed in a loose-fitting patient gown. Coming up from under the covers elicits a shiver. I hurry over to the door and try to open it: locked. So, I give it a knock.

Hello?

No reply. I don't see any cameras in this cell to get anyone's attention, so I pound again.

Excuse me? Is someone there? Uh... hello?!

Quiet as the grave. Not good.

I step away and sit on the bed, spending a few moments to ponder. The fog's started to clear enough for me to know I'm in this mess because I charged off on my own.

Despite knowing it was a risk, knowing they would be hunting. What kind of stupid idea was that?

Whatever the reason, I have contacts out there. I was among friends. Sort of. Maybe it was moreso between friends, at the time. I need to get a message to them somehow, but that's not happening as long as I'm stuck in here without a Net linkup.

On the other hand... there is also the gift.

The dormant potential she taught me to harness, within the Shrine. Knowing the rhythm of consciousness, and how to conduct it to bridge the spaces between.

I remember the means by which she would reach across the expanse of space to sing new thought to those minds she was familiar with.

But that's a fool's hope, I think.

I had already tested the limit of my talent without our connection, since I'd barely escaped the fate that would have led me to, and achieving the same feats as her kin is beyond me. Due in no small part, I bet, to the advantages of their meticulously designed biology. There are ways to compensate for that, and precisely none are available to me here.

I'm on my own. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

The vision port on the door suddenly slides open with a hair-raising metallic scrape, startling me clean out of my thoughts. A pair of tense brown eyes are peeking through at me, and this stranger's youthful voice pipes up from the other side.

O-oah! You look alive! Good. Now that I've seen you are, can you keep it down?

What- keep it down?

Yeah, that's eeeh, that's what I said isn't it? We're trying to listen to the broadcast.

No, look- I need to talk to someone. Am I some kind of prisoner? Where am I?

Well, I think I'm someone, but, for serious now? Damn, girl, nobody told you?

You "think" you're someone?

Erh- shut your mouth! Figure of speech.

It's an olive skinned young man with dark, curly hair, and a loud bouncing voice that quivers a tiny bit at the start of his sentences. Judging by the attitude, I'd say my visit isn't solely of a medical nature anymore.

You're our guest until the big man has his word with you, ¿tú entiendes?

I rise and approach the door to meet him eye to eye. His presence practically vibrates with unearned bravado, with the two of us separated. By his accent and word choice, unmistakably Hispanian. Whichever variant I'm dealing with, that's grim, but I silently hope that it's anyone but the Maltese.

Can you at least tell me where I am, or what day it is? My head's spinning, it's really cold and the room service could honestly be better.

Aw, you gotta pay extra for the special treatment, Sirian chica. And you look like you got about zero scrip, so too bad, eh?

What about some warmer clothes, maybe? I don't want to freeze over before he gets to me.

You deal with it, that's what. Maybe the others would yip and yap with you, but not me. I'm too rock solid for that.

Yeah, man of few words clearly...

I contemplate my options, but before I come to a course of action, I notice with how close I am to the slit that he's wearing a hat.

Wait a second...

With purpose, I step up to look right through the slit and up at the hat, our eyes centimeters apart for a brief moment. The force of my approach stifles his attitude and he reflexively steps back from the door, giving me a clear view of the red and black baseball- well, plasmaball cap he has over his curly black hair. The team name is embroidered on the front.

Denver Destroyers!

Is that my hat?!

Getting a full look at the kid, he looks barely out of his teens. No cardamine injector I can see, and I spy the bullhorned emblem on his vest jacket.

Corsair. Revulsion takes me and I give him my iciest look. What they were doing to the Zoners on Freeport 9 is fresh in mind. Not to mention the racers on the Hood. I enjoyed those people.

He recovers from his momentary recoil long enough to grin back at me glaring daggers at him.

Nah-ah. Was your hat! Now it's mine. Me, I'm a big fan of that sport you all lose it over. Now I got a little something to show it off, heh.

It doesn't match his rust red Cretan clothing any better than it usually matches mine, but I've grown fond of it. I'm not eager on leaving gifts I've gotten in pirate hands. Besides, I wear it better.

Don't get used to it. I want that back.

Whatever. Now, eh- crawl back in your hole 'till we're nice and ready. And keep it down.

He probably meant for that to sound more intimidating, but the way his hand quivers a bit reaching up to slide the viewport shut doesn't help him much.

Just like that, he's gone.

I take myself a moment to breathe and refocus, to keep the nerves surrounding my helplessness at bay. I've been through worse. Just not as the captive.

If it's the Corsairs holding me, I'm probably in the Omegas. Or at best, Rheinland, in the sticks someplace. There's no way to tell.

I think I'll be here a while.

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