Your mind is a terrible.., p.1
Your Mind is a Terrible Thing, page 1
YOUR MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING
A novella by Hailey Piper
Manuscript Copyright 2021 Hope Madden
Cover Art Copyright 2022 A.A. Medina
Logo Copyright 2022 Off Limits Press LLC
Edited by Waylon Jordan
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author.
Layout of the M.G. Yellowjacket, Crossing F009333A
Pod A: Bridge
Pod B: Quarters 1
Pod C: Processing, Supplementary Core
Pod D: Water Treatment 1
Pod E: Main Shuttle Access
Pod F: Storage 1
Pod G: Kitchen/Dining
Pod H: Physical Recreation
Pod I: Shuttle Parts Storage
Pod J: Wraith Repair Center
Pod K: Cargo Hold 1
Pod L: Cargo Hold 2
Pod M: Accounts
Pod N: Crew Lounge
Pod O: Water Treatment 2
Pod P: Quarters 2
Pod Q: Quarters 3
Pod R: Storage 2
Pod S: Cargo 3
Pod T: Cargo 4
MIND-HACK
1
The brain was to blame. Simple as that.
Inner snow flew from the bad side of Alto’s brain, as if their mind belonged to someone else. Personal wants and needs were junk against a head full of bizarre chemical imbalances and a cruel bias against having a good time.
They watched Esme explore the bedroom, cream walls and dark tile floor giving little more space than a walk-in closet by terrestrial standards. Every inch mattered on a starship.
But Esme’s room had to be larger, right? That couldn’t matter; no need to compare the quarters of a counselor versus a comms specialist. And either way, Esme was here. After a nice meal and conversation in Pod G’s kitchen, she had followed to Alto’s room and shed her coat and boots, which meant she wanted to stay.
Why the hell couldn’t Alto enjoy the moment? This rocketing pitter-patter heartrate echoed schooltime crushes of yesteryear. The worst classes could be brightened so long as your eye-candy idol showed up that day.
Esme was better than any teenage fantasy. She was thirty-eight, and gorgeous and round and confident, and her violet eyes shined brighter than any star. Black hair hung loose to either side of her rosy face and past her shoulders. She wore a button-up short-sleeved crimson blouse and slacks as white as her shed coat. Bare feet padded Alto’s room, Esme’s toenails painted the same dark purple as her fingernails. Self-assured in every way, like the room belonged to her. She spread a grabby hand and plucked up a small instrument from one of several wall cubbies filled with trinkets and scrap-paper memories beside Alto’s bed.
“A harmonica,” Esme said, her voice dry and soothing. “You play?”
Alto shrank to insignificance under that violet gaze, nothing but a stick-like insect with chopped-down bright blue hair, the kind to mistakenly crawl onto a starship. Once upon a time, intrusive thoughts had told Alto no one liked them, everyone was pretending. Sometimes riding those thoughts had brought relief. If no one cared, why should Alto?
Esme crushed those illusions under word and heel, both through sessions and her genuine compassion. She cared, and somehow that made Alto’s inner snow fall heavier. Now there were good moments Alto risked losing if they twisted into knots and forgot how to be a person in this room, with this woman.
“Play,” Alto echoed. Their hands were shaking as if someone had shut off heat to the Pod Q living quarters. “Strong word, but solitary hobbies help when you travel cross-planet ships so often.”
Let alone aboard a corpse ship, but Alto kept that nervous detail tucked behind their lips. A reminder of the M.G. Yellowjacket’s cargo might kill the mood.
Esme tossed the harmonica to Alto and nodded at them. “Play for me.”
The command stirred Alto into an apprehensive smile. They tapped at the harmonica’s synth-wood comb, raised the brass reed plates to their lips, and out came a nameless tune of slow notes and long sighs.
Esme listened without watching, as if she knew her gaze might shake nerves and knock planets from orbit. The music seemed to settle her with the air. She belonged in this room, taken by the harmonica’s charms, and Alto couldn’t be sure if they were savoring this moment or stalling the next. When the nameless song felt finished, they tossed the harmonica back.
“Beautiful,” Esme said. She hummed to herself and then placed the harmonica into its cubby. “I’ve heard the music while passing through the lounge up-ship, but I never knew it was you. I’m surprised you never mentioned it during sessions. For coping, I mean.”
Alto wanted to say something playful, but their brain wondered if they were a liar by omission. Esme was right. Not once in therapy sessions had Alto noted the harmonica, or the entertainment wraith they kept in their quarters closet, or how beautiful they found Esme.
The room’s chill deepened under another bout of inner snow. Alto hadn’t weighed whether a counselor/client date was appropriate, and now they’d taken the step of inviting Esme to the room, and her coat and boots lay beside the sliding door, and the bad side of Alto’s brain asked, Could Esme lose her job for this? Alto had been seeing Esme for sessions through the past two crossings. Granted, everyone aboard any starship suffered some form of anxiety or depression, especially the crew of a corpse ship. How could casual conversation fight the knowledge that the dead filled four cargo holds?
Sometimes therapy felt pointless.
Except Esme had taught Alto that their brain was to blame, not themselves, whatever that distinction meant. Brains were organs like hearts and kidneys, and likewise they could malfunction, rough as any comm unit under Alto’s repair. If Esme lost her job, there would be no more sessions with anyone. Another Perfect Alto Fuck-Up, this time ruining someone else’s life on the way down.
“Will this be okay?” Alto asked. They should have thought of these complications sooner, but they’d been too captivated by confidence and beauty and brilliant eyes.
Esme turned from the wall, and a new atmosphere breathed from her posture. No more curiosity and concern. A wild heat burned in her skin, and she approached Alto with deliberate steps, the ceiling light sliding down her curves.
Alto’s chest turned heavy. They wanted to let this moment happen, but their conscience fought the trembling desire inside. Or was that anxious snow making excuses against a moment’s happiness? If only the human head weren’t so complicated.
“I don’t want to get you breaking ethics, that’s all,” Alto said, voice rising in pitch. “As my therapist, you know?”
“Oh Alto,” Esme said, almost a purr. “I’m not like other therapists. I’m a fun therapist.”
Alto’s thoughts squirmed again, doubting every moment in one last-ditch attempt at sabotaging this sweet visit. Why would Esme want Alto, this wiry jittery nonsense mess who couldn’t make their own brain shut up for a few hours?
Words spilled out before Alto could stop. “Don’t want to get you in trouble,” they said, clambering backward onto the bed.
“You won’t,” Esme said.
She climbed onto the bed’s foot. Blouse buttons hung loose from their catches, leaving fabric flaps dangling, and the light chased the curves of her breasts and belly. Every covering fell away the closer she came.
Alto slid toward the headboard, told the lights to dim, and slipped inch by inch from their black pants, white tank, everything. Clothes sometimes seemed like material shame, a way to cover Alto at their best. As they shed, the inner snow thinned. No crystal fragments flying inside the mind, only clear weather of a rare kind.
Alto’s asking turned playful. “Sure you won’t get in trouble?” they asked with half a smirk.
“You’re worried,” Esme said, pausing midway up Alto’s chest. “Do you still want this?”
Alto let the word burst out: “Yes.”
“That’s all that matters.”
Esme planted a soft kiss on collarbone, neck, beneath jaw. Excited nerves rippled down Alto’s body, where flesh and metal fused between their legs. A thought could change this fusion’s shape.
Esme’s fingers brushed Alto’s inner thigh. “You never mentioned this, either.”
“A surprise,” Alto whispered.
Below their waist, the augmentation of tissue and machine either allowed their natural hollow space to open and shut, or to swell into a mountain. In, out, anything between.
“Whatever you like, I can do,” Alto said. “Best time for everyone. A good surprise?”
“I like your surprises.” Esme ran a hand down Alto’s chest, between the slanted scars beneath each dark nipple. “I like you.”
“Likewise.” Alto raised a cautious hand. “That’s why I don’t want trouble for you.”
“Alto,” Esme scolded.
“You’re the best thing on this ship,” Alto said, now in full smirk. “And I’d hate to—”
“Alto.” Esme’s whisper was bouncy yet stern.
She pressed down, and Alto held her close, not another word between them, only laughter and sighs and a tender space between their skins, where anxiety found a quick death.
Esme managed to stagger to the bathroom and back, Alto after her, and then they both clung naked on the bed, where abstract dreams swirled throug h Alto’s head. Everyone else talked about their dreams like stories, but Alto only knew shapes and colors, scents and sounds and the illusion of touch. At the dreamscape’s edge, fingertips stroked their naked back, and purple paint coated their sensations.
Esme again. She wanted closeness, and Alto’s skin tingled with mutual hunger. Alto had known their share of rough experiences, either with women who changed their minds at seeing the augmentation or those who treated a designer mecha-vulva/cock combo like coming face-to-face with their souls. Esme was different, self-assured, and she recognized the human mixed with the machine. Alto rolled over and opened eager eyes.
The bed was empty.
Alto sat up. “Esme?”
A hollow space in the tangled sheets showed where Esme used to lie. Shadows coated the bed’s surroundings, but the dim room hid no one. There was nowhere to disappear, and no light shined beside the shut bathroom door to suggest it was occupied.
She had left. The augmentation wasn’t a problem, but while Alto had tasted sugar on eager lips, for Esme the sex must have been terrible, some new regret on her dance card, and a woman so lovely likely kept a long one. She had waited out of politeness for Alto to fall asleep before leaving.
“Stop,” Alto said, tapping their forehead. Palm struck skin, and an answering tap echoed from the hall. “Esme?”
Her boots and coat remained beside the shut bedroom door. Alto saw no other clothes, but Esme might not have left, only gotten lost in the dark in search of the bathroom and wandered into the hall by accident.
Alto slid from the bed, bare feet filling with the floor’s cold. Checking the hall naked didn’t bother them, but someone else would find it inappropriate. Alto had no robe and getting dressed felt like abandoning future closeness with Esme when they found her, so they drew a sheet from the bed, wrapped it around their torso, and slipped into the hall.
Pod Q’s dim corridor curved in a ring, its outer circular wall punctuated by shut sliding doors to the slender airlock, four bedrooms, and the exits to Pod P and Pod R. Amber lights dotted the ceiling, their glow catching a shape lying on the dark floor.
Someone had collapsed outside Alto’s bedroom.
Panic flashed in snow squalls through their head until squatting close revealed this was not Esme. Too narrow. Too many pieces scattered along Pod Q’s inner circle, as if someone had smashed a glass the size of a person.
Pod Q’s service wraith lay inches from Alto’s toes. Once a living person, and then a dormant corpse, some Merchant Guild facility had later processed it into a calcified husk and fitted cybernetics across its body. In normal circumstances, a black shell of a mask hid the skull face beneath psionic wraith-nodes and an interface display. A segmented brace-like wraith-plate usually clung to the torso and fused around the spine. This joined the pelvis in forming a snakish tail, easier than legs for the wraith to slide through the small cylindrical wraith-ports that connected starship pods.
All that complicated fusion lay strewn outside Alto’s room. The wraith’s spine and tail fizzed and twitched where wires curled between spiny vertebrae. The wraith-plate stretched from sternum and pelvis, leaving no support for the body. A heavy blow had cracked open the wraith’s mask, leaving its nodes to dangle like blinking fruit from a vine. One black socket peered through the shattered darkness, a glimpse of the wraith’s skull.
Alto stroked the mask, but no interface lit the display. Out of commission. Somehow even the dead could die again.
The wraith-nodes looked undamaged. Had the wraith sent a psionic cry for help to Grid, the Yellowjacket’s A.I.? Would a machine even understand that level of self-preservation? Doubtful one would harm itself by running against the walls, and even then it would have made such a racket as to wake everyone in Pod Q. This damage was deliberate. But who would hurt a wraith? They were defenseless. Core to their design.
Soft skin brushed the floor somewhere down the hall. Alto pivoted on their heels, still squatting, about to open their mouth and ask again for Esme.
Their breath caught in a choked gasp.
The ceiling lights reflected in the glistening surface of a nest of maroon snakes. They writhed against the walls and floor, growing out from a dark lump hidden in the gloom. Their heads whipped toward Alto—no, not snakes. These were hollow tubes, as if someone’s intestines had been torn out, cut into pieces, and given new life.
Alto slid back on one heel and thrashed one protective hand outward. Their choked gasp broke into a squeaking cry as a purple-lit curtain of pain fell over their eyes.
Pod Q shrank to a bruise-colored hallway and filled with silhouetted figures dashing in a furious circle. They were people, and they weren’t people, and Alto couldn’t tell why or how that made any sense. One shape swerved from the pack and slammed into Alto’s chest, knocking them off-balance.
Their back struck Pod Q’s cold floor, their sheet flopped over their body, and the purple curtain parted from the dim hall.
“What—” Alto started, but their voice caught in another gasp.
The tubes slapped up Alto’s legs, over the sheet, across their pelvis. The augmentation shut between their legs almost on reflex, terrified these tubes might try to crawl inside. Beyond their feet, the dark lump at the tubes’ root slid into clearer light, and at last a sharp scream rocketed up Alto’s throat.
Wrinkled pink-gray flesh curled into a great pulsating brain as large as Alto’s chest. Crimson ichor dripped from its underside where it balanced on the snaking tubes, and thick drops spotted the floor with tiny red puddles. A quake rippled down its limbs, spattering the sheet with slime and sending the tubes coiling and digging at Alto’s skin.
Alto thrashed their hands to either side. Fingers fell on the shattered wraith’s broken mask, and Alto plucked it up as a makeshift bludgeon.
But the wraith had been smashed too hard against the floor. Its mask collapsed around crumbling bone as Alto swung forward, and they only raised a dangling wire of nodes against the feral brain and its furious limbs.
The brain’s front wrinkles flexed with bicep-like tension, and a shockwave of purple light filled the hallway.
Alto plummeted down a dim maroon chasm. Wind rushed through their choppy hair and swatted their eyes to tears. They rushed toward some surface, about to splatter meat and bone across an unforgiving floor, they were going to die—
Except Alto wasn’t falling, wasn’t here. The Yellowjacket had not cracked open over a steel canyon. Some violent thought had driven this purple vision into Alto’s mind. Even the airy swirl in their ears carried a false hum, and it somehow sounded purple, too.
The vision’s ground flew at Alto’s face, and they flinched back into the real hallway of Pod Q, where the brain hovered over Alto’s chest, its tubes lashing at neck, face, eyes. Alto thrust their hand over their face, needed to stop this, couldn’t let the brain dig inside.
An electronic ping rang through Alto’s face. They had forgotten that their fist still clutched the wire of nodes. Had the wraith come back online? Could it function enough that a cry for help would spread through the ship?
Another scream tore up Alto’s throat as an icicle of wire jammed into their forehead. Starships tended to be cold, but Alto had never felt this frigid intrusion drill through their skin, muscle, skull, seeking and finding their nerves and thoughts, as if Alto’s mind were a physical organ to be torn open and catalogued.
And the violent brain was here, too. It grasped at the floor on twisting tubes and lurched toward eyes, brain, and thought. It wanted in.
Alto screamed one last time. The freezing pain cut forward from their skull, as if they’d grown a unicorn horn of ice. Flashing violet rippled down the hallway, across wraith parts and writhing tubes, into the oncoming brain.
The new vision stretched away from Alto, as if they were watching it on a screen rather than being thrust into dreaming it. The walls to either side of the brain spread into a cracked-open starship, its only pod gutted into one vast steely amphitheater housing a violet-tinged cathedral of gore. Shattered bones formed its structure, and flayed corpses dressed its skin. The sight should have iced Alto’s blood.
But Alto had suffered the worst chill in their life moments ago, and this pretend idea couldn’t freeze them up. It belonged to them, a prize from inside the brain, and they drove the vision sword-like, thought against thought, numb purple failing beneath Alto’s sharp violet.
