"No."
Jolly Francess, the chief of operations at the UPWA, a man who looked like a depressed basset hound on his best days, squinted miserably at his top operative. "Look, Kyra, be reasonable. Applied Humanistics is even offering you an upgrade swap to a new UR-IT, fresh off the design table. Their first model approved for limited combat scenario deployment."
Kyra's boots waved back and forth nonchalantly where they were propped up on his desk. "Not interested." she drawled. "I told you I didn't want a pilot, remember? Even if the lawyers were forcing me to get one. Didn't need a teammate. Multiple times. But no, you and that skuzzy sales rep told me I'd be convinced if I just gave the experiment a shot." A gruesome grin. "Well... Congratulations, Chief, you got exactly what you wanted. I'm convinced. They're not getting her back."
Her boss sighed deeply. "Look, the things you've been doing with their product... They don't like it. Any of it."
"Not my problem."
"You're treating that clone like it was human. Breaking the rules they set out. In public. And that little stunt with the race? You wouldn't happen to know how the highly classified recordings of that spread all over the holonet, would you?"
Kyra's shoulders shifted minutely, and a dangerous undercurrent seeped into the conversation. One that could swallow a person whole in an instant, never to be seen again, if they weren't very careful.
"Berry is human. She's one of the most human people I know. More human than I am, for sure." She paused, considered something. "And definitely more human than that piece of shit Crash Dicksplash or whatever his name was." A nasty smirk. "Not that that matters anymore."
Jolly winced, remembering well the public scandal those unedited mission recordings had caused, and the fallout that'd followed it. The shake-up in the UPWA's higher management. He backed off. Held up his hands placatingly as he continued.
"But BR247516-I isn't human." He hurried to add "I mean, not according to their marketing, and the affidavits they signed with the United Galactica federation and various other governments."
"Again. Not my problem." Her boots stilled, and she added "By the way, did you know?" with feigned casualness. Her whole body had gone motionless, the air around it pregnant with explosive potential.
"Know... what, exactly?" Her boss asked carefully, sensing that he was still treading water above a dangerous abyss full of dark and terrible leviathans.
In the blink of an eye, Kyra's voice went flat. Emotionless. Lethal. "Did you know about their little planned obsolescence kill switch when you gave Berry to me?"
"What? What are you talking about? What kill switch?" Jolly didn't have to fake his surprise. Or the cold sweat that suddenly broke out. Oh... shit. What had they done? What had she discovered? And more importantly: what was she going to do about it?
The operative studied the man who was maybe the closest thing to a maybe-friend she had. Not that that mattered. It never did. Dissected him and his words. Weighed everything carefully. Judged. "You should ask your buddies at Applied Humanistics about it sometime." she replied, colour returning to her voice as she relaxed, ever so slightly.
Her boss dared to breathe again, feeling like he'd been been one step away from a sudden, violent end. When he could trust his voice not to tremble, he told her "They're never going to stop trying, you know?"
"Still their problem."
"Is it?"
Boots thumped onto lavishly carpeted floor as Kyra sprang from her chair, her knuckles making her chief's expensive mahogany desk creak as she leaned on it. Loomed over it.
"You tell them to leave me and my pilot alone, or else I'm going to huff and puff and burn down their little empire until there's nothing left but a hole in the universe where they used to be."
The chief leaned back nervously. Away from the palpable malice and gleeful anticipation radiating from the most dangerous woman he knew. From the feral snarl in her voice.
The leash the UPWA had on her was worse than paper thin. More of a formality really. An agreement. Her humouring them – and something the organisation very gratefully accepted, because she got results. They sometimes just had to make sure not to ask too many questions about how she'd gotten them. And pay for any collateral damage.
He had to attempt to redirect her. Talk her down. If he even could.
"I don't think threats will work against them. They're one of the mightiest corporations in the known universe, Kyra. They have subsidiaries everywhere. Powerful friends. Governments in their pocket. Not to mention they must know I wouldn't sanction any move against them. Couldn't." he quickly corrected himself.
Despite its lofty name, the Universe Protection Works Association wasn't a charity, but a for profit corporation with a board of directors, and everything that entailed.
"You've known me for almost a decade now. Known what I am." Some of it. Not all. Never all. Nobody came even close to knowing that truth. Kyra was shrouded in mystery and death. So much death. A campfire story whispered throughout the universe. If people knew of her, they knew enough to fear her, which suited her fine.
The only one who wasn't afraid of her was Berry. Not one bit. Not even after witnessing some of her work, and Kyra was going to damn the universe if it tried to take the kid away from her.
"Do you think I wouldn't? Even without your blessing?" Her voice went flat again. Cold and hard, like the vacuum of space, and just as pitiless. "I don't do threats."
The chief swallowed. There was no way for him to win this. To stop her from doing whatever the hell she damn well pleased, like she always had.
"I'll... pass along the message, but I honestly don't think they'll care."
The answer he got was a hungry smile featuring too many teeth to be comforting. "Well then, I guess we'll all be able to look forward to some fireworks in the near future." Kyra winked. "Bye chief, good talk. We should do this again never. See you for the next actual mission briefing, yeah?"
Done, the operative just strolled out of the office, leaving her boss staring at the closed door for a long time before he dialled a connection he, by now, unfortunately knew by heart. He had to try, at least. For everyone's sake.
Outside, Berry looked up as the door to the chief's office slammed open. Jumped to her feet. "Is everything okay?" she asked anxiously, searching Kyra's face.
People on the holonet were saying that Kyra... that they were murderers. That they'd killed that man Chip, which would be extremely incorrect behaviour for a clone like Berry, warranting immediate decommissioning. Even worse than some of the other things she'd done with Kyra.
Yes, the man was dead, but she didn't feel bad about it – also extremely incorrect, in so many ways. But Berry hadn't been piloting his ship. Hadn't started the race. Hadn't colluded with the pirates. It was unfair to lay his death at their feet.
Still, she couldn't help but worry, no matter how many times Kyra told her to stop paying attention to these – the actual words she'd used to describe them had been unfamiliar, and Berry had had to look them up in the dictionary. Couldn't even repeat them in the safety of her own mind – people. To ignore these toothless dogs and let them bark. That too much Holonet would rot her brain. That nobody could touch them. Nothing would come of it.
Berry couldn't help herself. She had to pay attention to what naturalborn said. She was literally built that way.
Her operative's eyes twinkled and she slung an arm around Berry's shoulders, giving her a little pat. "Everything's peachy, Berry. Relax. Nothing to worry about, just a mixup in someone else's report. All smoothed out now." Kyra watched the worry lines disappear from her pilot's face. "What do you say you and I go surfing?"
Berry nodded quickly, making a mental note to look up why a piece of fruit might have been involved later. "Oh, I'd love to!"
