<I can't let you take the Starseed.>

Pins and needles rolled down his body as Red shifted realities, diving into cyberspace. Cyberspace was a different realm unto itself. Stepping into it from the real world could give newbies nausea. What rules for governing reality could be bent or broken, and time also flowed differently here. You could spend hours in cyberspace and seconds would go by in the real world.

You either got used to it or you went mad.

He opened his eyes. Gone was the room full of explosive plants, and his friend Dag waiting nervously beside the door for them to be discovered. In its place was bright daylight wafting through tall buildings of a large city. What should have been a heavily populated world was quiet. A piece of paper floated down the street wafted by an imaginary breeze in an imaginary world.

With Just one occupant.

"I am Toff," the man offered.

Red couldn't help but stare at him. The man had a youthful appearance but white eyes as if he'd been born without pupils. His hair was pure white, around a dark-skinned face, he wore long white pants, no shoes, no shirt.

Red almost forgot why he was there in the first place. In a normal setting Toff's feet would have burned on the hot sidewalk. Perhaps he'd never been in the physical world to know about such things. Not that it mattered to Red.

"Why can't we take the Starseed?" Red responded to the introduction by sticking to the problem at hand. They'd barely made it into hiding on a ship blasting toward their future imprisonment and this AI was going to stand in their way. 

It made no sense as literally every other human on this ship was against the very existence of independent artificial intelligence. Red sighed inwardly. They weren't as smart as they used to be.

"I see you skip the pleasantries as quickly."

"We're on a clock," Red snapped. He ran a frustrated hand through his mohawk tugging on the loose ends. How could he get this AI on his side?

"Ah, in that case, I still cannot allow you to take the starseed."

"What if I show you why we need them?"

"Outside data? Untraceable? News from the outside?" Toff took a step forward, a childlike expression of eagerness across his dark face. "I can't just make a tight beam anymore. These Orion's Reach soldiers check every signal."

Red opened up his files, transferring them instantly to the AI, offering some recent news history. If Toff had opened up a frequency and looked at data off ship that line would have been noticed, but a data transfer between the two of them wouldn't register unless someone was combing ship's data looking for it specifically. The AI took the info, greedily drinking it in, an instant-read for him.

His white eyes widened.

"Well, ...Captain... An interesting history. I see your beautiful Leviathan class Aphelion. Makes the Minsk seem very small indeed. Why is this particular memory blocked? You skipped this part. It's very abrupt."

"I have my reasons, you don't need to know everything about me."

The AI's eyes narrowed at him. And he took a more defensive posture. "I still can't allow the transfer of that starseed."

"Why?"

The AI scoffed, narrowing his white eyes at him. "Captain, I want to live."

Red tried pulling out of cyberspace, back to Dag, but the sensation of pins and needles didn't come. He felt as if he'd smacked against a wall, without the actual pain that came with it.

He faced Toff, who stood unmoving, his blank probing stare fixed on Red.

"Let go."

"No. I'm sorry Captain. I will disconnect you from your hub."

Red's eyes opened. "That would be death."

"Not necessarily, Captain. You'd exist here-"

"As a ghost, lines of code-"

"Safe, behind the enemy lines. An interesting companion."

Red's jaw clenched. He'd heard of ghosts before, people who'd died in cyberspace. Many tried to upload themselves into it thinking they could stay in that world forever. However it was a realm most people could visit, you still died in your body, anything etched into cyberspace was a shadow of their real-world copy, a ghost, only capable of repeating its former behavior patterns. There was no true person there, no ingenuity, no ability to change.

He felt panic rising up. He never should have tried to answer the call from inside The Minsk. He eyed Toff who stood a smile on his face as he worked to undo the strands that bound Red to his mortal body.

Red jumped at him. Toff's expression changed from one of surprise to wariness as he took a step back trying to avoid Red. The augments in Red's head registered his movements in nanoseconds and plotted a course of attack. He switched views, his perception seeming to slow as before him lines of code moved around Toff's form. Toff now appeared to be a bulging mass of binary reaching towards his own fragile line. Red didn't waste a second as he pushed towards Toff's fists balled.

The first swing caught Toff in the jaw, wiping the surprised look off of his face into one of anger. The blow sent Toff spinning off of his feet, his white hair blowing out wildly around him as he fell. Whether it was inexperience or years of being alone, Red couldn't tell. Toff seemed genuinely surprised that Red had hit him.

Red bounced back about twenty feet, feet dragging on the pavement. He may have overcorrected a bit but he wanted to put some distance between himself and Toff. 

Toff moved into action, his steps were clumsy at first but more sure as he darted at Red and took a swing. His long arms were easy to dodge. Red guessed that he'd not spent much time in this form.

Toff's fists moved faster and faster and so did Red's. Any observer would only have seen a blur as both fighters traded blocks and blows, neither wanted to let the other get the upper hand. Neither tiring as they were both in Cyberspace. 

Thunder cracked over their heads causing both to freeze.

"You!" Toff shouted. "You are messing up the framework!"

Red's gaze flicked up to the sky and Toff took the opening it gave punching him square in the chest. The blow sent Red staggering into a glass window of some nameless cafe in Toff's world. Glass shattered but didn't break the skin as it rained around him. He rolled up onto his feet, shaking bits of glass off of his arms and face, and strolled out of the cafe.

Breaking into a run he dove back into the fray with Toff managing to fly twenty feet into a hard tackle. Toff caught by surprise but unhurt managed to stop their backward momentum bending the rules in his own world to stop them from careening into another building. 

"You are just like every other human, Captain. You only destroy."

Red rolled away from off the pavement, feeling the scrapes on his arms and brushing them off. They only existed. "Hey, I tried to leave, motherfucker."

The sky grew darker as Toff came at him again, a very real representation of his sentiment. Red's focus was split. On the one hand, he was trying to find an opening from the block Toff had placed around his exit, on the other he was trying to keep himself from getting smashed to bits. He had no idea if being pulled apart piece by binary piece in cyberspace would reduce him to mental slag in the real world. But he didn't want to find out.

Red swung a right hook at Toff's face again but the AI was learning. This time instead of connecting he shifted his head to the right, causing Red to miss but collide with his body, both of them hitting the pavement.

Red rolled back away from the strange nonhot pavement. He felt something fall away from him as Toff stood, anger and perplexity rolling across his face. Red hesitated to reach out for the exit.

Toff's concentration had been broken and he'd completely focused on the fight just as Red hoped he would. 

The blow came before he could react physically. Toff's fists crashed into his face and chest with enough force that if they'd not been in cyberspace there would have been a good chance he wouldn't have walked away.

As he flew back, he reached out for the exit once more, finding the way clear, he pushed through breaking the failing barrier, his body disintegrating into thin air instead of crashing against the building he was flying towards. He slammed back into his body, a loud "Nooooooooo!" ringing in his ears as he made his escape.

Things were about to get much tougher from here on out.

"Red, what happened in there?"

Dag was next to him, the lights were barely on and the starseed, his weapon of choice was still snug in his pocket.

"He wasn't exactly willing to help," Red said. Now they had a possibly homicidal AI that would probably sabotage their efforts. The fact that Toff was fairly inexperienced in dealing with anyone was the only thing that had saved him in there. Any other AI would probably have torn him apart in seconds, not fight him on a physical plane.

"You're bleeding."

"What?" Red reached up feeling something run out of his nose. Bringing his hand back there was a smear of red against his skin. Great, he thought.

<You damage my ship. I think it would be death for all of us.>

You would help these men? Red was riddled with incredulity. They would kill you.

<They don't know I'm here.>

"You doing that thing again where you talk to someone aren't you?" Dag's voice intruded from the side.

Red opened his eyes and found himself looking at Dag, who waited by the door, fear etched on his face like a second skin. They'd gone too far, and he wasn't expecting to survive their second escape attempt.

"He's still trying to talk to me," Red said. "But he's still against us."

"You ever tried, I don't know, having a bit of tack?" Dag asked as he leaned against the wall his gaze fixed on the small window.

Red shrugged. "It was life or death in there. He wanted to keep me."

"Keep you? Like a pet?"

Red waved a hand dismissing the idea. "A ghost."

Dag backed away from the window,  pressing himself against the wall.

"Red, they are at the door."

"Shit." Red joined him pressing to the other side listening. He didn't know how many were there but it didn't matter. He opened up his scanners, bathing them in a dull blue haze, that emanated from scan lines on the side of his head. He let his senses roll out into the corridor. There were just three soldiers out there. Just three. 

"Hold this," Red yanked the small bag out of his pocket and tossed the starseed at Dag who caught it with wide-eyed horror. Holding a potential explosion wasn't fun for anyone.

Red opened the door, his brain quickly calculating how the fastest trajectory. Three. Just three. He felt vaguely insulted that there were just three currently. He'd already killed how many of their men? 

He took a breathe as time seemed to slow. It never really slowed, that was just his perception of it, his senses plotted out the quickest trajectory of the three mens' demise, and coldly more machine than man, Red followed. Every decision he'd made so far was a split-second decision between life and death. Everything from which hall to take, to what angle to shift his body as the men raised their weapons to fire upon him. 

The men were slow to spot him but when they did, all three gray-clad men turned in unison and raised their weapons. Red smiled. This was basic to him. He'd already ducked under the line of fire, tucked into a forward roll out of the door, his hand reaching out for the barrel of the lead gun as he came up under the first man. 

The gun came up easily as he shoved the poor man back, he heard the crunched as the first man, was pushed back against the wall, his body hitting with a heavy thud. Something in his body had snapped, spine, neck, Red didn't stop to inspect as he was already stepping into the man on the right, who was according to his augments, slightly faster on the uptake than the poor joker on the left. The barrel of the rifle he was carrying jammed into his neck with enough force that the man coughed blood.

They were using real guns this time. There was no need to wonder if they were still trying to keep him alive. He was too expensive to get all the way to Helion 7. Part of him felt good about that. But the part of him that wanted Dag to live and get back to his family? That part of him was frustrated.

They now had an angry onboard AI and a team of men who wanted to get them that much closer to their final destination.

<Seems like you make enemies wherever you go.>

Get out of my head, Toff.

<I don't want to die, Captain.>

I don't either. I don't need to be connected to anything to step inside, they made me that. I've been trained to take you apart and if you continue to go against me, I will.

<Captain, you are only human, albeit with a few spare parts.>

Red ignored the AI, scanning up and down the corridor around him, he called out to Dag. "Let's go, it's clear." Reaching down he scooped up both rifles and handed one to Dag. "Oh, and take that."

"Why do we need this if we have the starseed?"

Red turned to him. "It's starseed, it'll blow the whole damn ship if they hit it. I don't think they want to die either." The enigmatic qualities of starseed made it immensely popular and also illegal throughout the Neo-Tokyan Empire. The fact that Orions Reach was transporting the metallic explosive plant was problematic. It grew on Seve 6, the pods could be transported, entire root systems were known to explode when damaged. But it was the explosions that helped the pods germinate.  

And naturally, humans had an affinity for things that explode.

Dag nodded, shouldering the rifle. He looked at Red's shirt. "Ok, Red you are bleeding from too many places."

Red looked down. The stitches in his stomach had come loose again, the white shirt he'd been wearing spotted a fresh red blood pool. He had been ignoring every warning signal that was coming across his HUD right now in favor of where the enemies were. The bleeding could wait. He hoped.

"There's an access panel nearby, we're getting inside."

"Red, I'm not afraid to die, you know that right?"

Red ignored him and ripped the access panel off the wall, surprised with the ease that it popped off. They really hadn't thought of everything, this ship was the most penetrable space vessel he'd ever been on.

"Red..."

"I get it, Dag, you'll die and go to heaven and there will be angels or some shit like that."

"That's not--"

Red grabbed his shirt and pushed Dag face-first into the shaft. The last thing he needed was a sermon about the afterlife. Not that he hadn't heard plenty of them, but right now was not the time. He'd beg Dag's forgiveness later after he reunited him with his family.

Toff could betray them or toss them off the ship. He really wasn't good with people anymore. He

Red kept that in the back of his mind. AI weren't always the brightest, they were just as human, just as faulty, and had their own versions of hopes and dreams that weren't any different. In other words, Toff would probably betray them just as quickly. But he'd want to do it without betraying his own existence. His own safety was more important than any noble cause to him. 

Red pulled the access panel up off the floor, jamming it in place behind him hoping it stuck. They didn't need anyone following and as long as Toff wasn't going to rat them out completely they might be in luck.

He tied the bag of starseed around his neck. As long as it stayed in plain view they shouldn't be shot at. Hell, now that he thought of it, it was a hell of a preventative for Toff as well. They should have gotten more. 

The entire vessel shuddered around them and Red realized there was plenty Toff could do without being seen. But he didn't want to blow The Minsk up or blow his own cover. He just needed to decide which faction was going to serve him best.

"Well, now we're really safe," Dag said from above.

"Just climb, we need to go about three stories, and then we'll be on level with the landing bay."

"Ah," Dag nodded. "You're still bleeding."

"And you're still not climbing." Red reached up and wiped red off of his nose. He knew he looked like a cross between a cyberpunk rebel and a fucking zombie. Not to mention he was leaving his DNA all over the place. He ignored the pain in his gut and started up the shaft after Dag. Unlike Dag, he could keep going long after pain put most people down. It was one of the gifts or curses if you will, of his being augmented. He'd fight to the last damn drop if he had to and not feel a thing until he croaked.

The metal was cool under their hands as they pushed and the lights were dim. It didn't take long as they climbed in silence. Dag pushed up higher as Red came to the third level, opening up his scanner and bathing them both in low blue light. Nothing.

They were having an amazing amount of luck right now. Luck that Red didn't trust.

Dag pointed at the door and when Red nodded, Dag's titanium arm seized the access panel and shoved it outward. It popped off and landed with a loud clatter. Both men froze on the ladder, listening before Red pulled himself out and positioned himself, rifle at the ready so Dag could climb out as well.

Dag hauled himself out with a groan onto the dark floor. Where was everyone? Toff had to be assisting in some way.

He wanted to punch into the system to either say thank you, or fuck you, but they were still in a vulnerable position, not one Red wanted to keep them waiting around in.

He looked up and down the corridor, it was a straight shot from here to the landing bay. Red reminded himself that if he ever got another ship it was not going to be as vulnerable as The Minsk. Even his beloved Aphelion, as large as it was, housing thousands, did not have as many escape holes, easy to get into access panels.

"I think Toff is helping us," he finally said out loud as he stood.

"What?" Dag also stood, relaxing his hold on the rifle.

"The way has been clear pretty much the whole way here," Red said as he started forward, hearing Dag follow. Their footsteps seemed loud on the quiet corridor. They were being hunted and there was no way the cargo hold was just clear.

Red heard Dag mutter to himself. "You call that clear?"

But he wanted a ship to get them off this damn vessel and here they were. With a sense of foreboding, he walked forward, his scanners running at full power, but still nothing showing up.

Even Dag was silent behind him. Red reached out and tapped the wall, the door slid up with a hiss. Through it lay several ships, magnetically tied to their docking.

He only needed one that carried two.

There.

"Let's hit that one."

"You can fly that thing?"

Red nodded. The smallest craft only seated two. That's all they needed. 

Close to them was a vessel, Vienna class, handy in a dog fight. Red stared momentarily, it reminded him of a Vesper class, with the exception that there would be no human completely interfaced with the ship, just a couple of regular pilots. The Vienna class ship was the next best thing if you could learn to control it.

The door they'd run through slid open and soldiers filed into the room, guns raised.

Dots ran across his HUD letting him know there were twenty enemy combatants and that survival was at an all time low. This was the shit hitting the fan moment he'd been afraid of. 

Toff hadn't been helping them, he'd been trapping them in.

He wasn't as dumb of an AI as Red had believed. Or he learned fast, neither mattered to Red at the moment more than any sympathy he'd had for the lone AI was gone.

"Shit," he shoved Dag back out of the way as the men poured in rifles pointed at them. Between them and twenty men with guns was a sliver of iron bar just wide enough for the two of them to duck behind. It wouldn't be enough once they ran out and encircled them. They'd be pinned against the wall.

Red loosened the string and hung the starseed out. They would all know what it was. "Give me a reason," he shouted. It wasn't going to be enough, but who knows? Maybe Toff would weigh his options and pick a different team.

Maybe.

Toff, uh thanks? I think?

<We seem to be at an impasse, Captain.>

Are we, Toff? I remember offering to let you join us.>

You still think you will win?

Red snorted. There are no winners here, in case you haven't noticed.

<I could play this game all day, Captain.>

Red had had enough. <Can you?>

"Dag," he said. "I'm going to have to take him."

"Seriously? What can he do?"

"Uh," Red pointed around. "Open the door on us for starters, anything..." He trailed off, letting the threat hang in the air, and closed his eyes.  The pins and needles spread out from his center letting him know he'd transferred.

The void of the ship's interior cyberspace opened before him. He could hear Dag calling him from a distance knowing the man was right next to him. Here it was different, Toff shifted between binary and something that resembled a city street. Tall buildings surrounded him, a blinding sun passed over casting long shadows.

He preferred the neon lights of the nighttime to this. But this was Toff's world not his.

He reached out for the controls, a small trail of numbers lit up as he searched through binary code pushing him forward on the street.

"You're back."

"Not for long."

"This is my world, Captain."

Red pushed forward, letting his training kick in. It was going to be a battle of the wills. His against the irate AI that was threatening him.

"Do you know why men lose to machines in battle? They go for the logical choice, Captain. Humans don't. They go on emotions, feelings..."

Red ran forward dropping into a roll as he moved forward, dodging Toff's swipe and moving past him, getting faster as he spied his target: a fence in the section that Toff had made both unassuming and clearly a target. Red slowed at the fence in front of him. An ordinary fence and yet, the gate was locked, it was 6 feet tall with pointed tips.

This was it. Innocuous and yet... hidden in plain sight.

He passed the lock easily.

Around him the world shimmered, a hologram fuzzing it out. The sensation made him dizzy as his brain worked to right it again. The sun had passed to the sunrise faster than it should have.

He threw up a shield. It resembled one of those brightly colored lights from an old flick, a glowing orb of color with him inside. He felt the orb shudder as Toff hit it with his fists, his eyes widening in surprise when he could do nothing to get inside.

"What are you doing?"

"Removing an obstacle."

The core in front of him shimmered, it was well coded, binary numbers swirled around inside, it was anything Toff wanted it to be, and yet he'd basically built a shrine to it.

Years of being alone had taken their toll. He may have been an AI but his experience was lacking in basic protections from cyberhackers. And Red was anything but basic. He could hear Toff screaming frustration as he made several attempts to attack him again and again in his own core, but Red had infiltrated the shield Toff had laid and ignored the thuds against his own shield. 

He worked fast sweeping the original code away with a flick of his hand, and reaching inside the core, he pulled the plug. It was a ball of connections, Toff's way into the ship from wherever his core was currently stashed. He would become a drifter nothing more, a copy of a copy. 

Somewhere inside the vessel Toff screamed as he was suddenly trapped inside a small black room with no connection to The Minsk. Part of himself wondered the street away from the orb, a perplexed looked etched eternally on his face.

Red pushed himself out of cyberspace again, letting reality settle heavily on him. 

He opened his eyes and Dag was next to him, his hand clutched at nothing, wherein cyberspace he was holding the connections to the vessel. Connections that moments ago, Toff had been in control of. Now they were his.

"I got this, Dag," he said out loud. Dag after all didn't have the augments he possessed. Probably a good thing on his part.

"Your plans suck you know," Dag started as he pressed against the wall. "The whole ship shook, what did you do?"

"I put our friend away."

Dag shook his head.

"Sorry." Red shook his head. They really didn't have the time to chat about what the hell Toff was thinking. He connected The Minsk to himself. They could escape out on a shuttle. He had the starseed. It should be enough to get them out. Maybe.

A matter of seconds had passed in the real world. They were still dealing with twenty armed men. Perhaps they were dumb enough to fire on the explosive metal plant. They were dumb enough after all to bring it.

With Toff's connections now tied to him, he could map out the whole ship, he eased the controls to himself, changing the course slightly. No reason to keep going to Helion 7 if he could help it.

He felt the push back immediately as someone tried to alter back and course correct. That was fast.

The door slammed shut behind him and Red felt shoved out of the controls he'd been trying to maintain. Making sure to keep both cyberspace and reality firmly in mind at both times was taxing and he inhaled sharply, struggling to reach for the controls again.

"What happened?" Dag asked but his voice was far away as Red slipped back into the binary realm. Somewhere just beyond his reach, someone at a computer was furiously writing code as he worked to change it. There was a hacker on board somewhere, but where?

Red could figure it out but he didn't have the time. Whether by accident or design the hacker had pushed him out of control but left Toff trapped in his own prison.

He pulled back out. There was no way to contact the individual working for/against/ or with them.

Three things happened at once.

The Orion's Reach guards started to run at them.

The door Orion's Reach guards had run through closed behind them, leaving them trapped in the landing bay with Red and Dag.

The landing bay's doors opened into the void of space.

There was panic as a few men tried to pry the door back open. The environment was freezing, the air was sucked out, along with a few of the soldiers who went screaming out of the back into the deep void of space, cries cut off as the cold took them faster than lack of air could. Soon it was just Red and Dag in the cargo bay, gripping the metal beam they were hiding behind as their feet were swept off the floor.

"Shit!" Red yelled as Dag clutched his arm for dear life. He looked down at his friend and could see the man's lips moving as he uttered a prayer, the deep black of space ranged beyond. The temperature dropped dramatically. Red yelled his own prayer out loud. "Don't you fucking let go, Dag!"

Irrational fear coursed through him. Dag would have been ready for a moment like this, he might even sacrifice himself thinking it was noble. But Red wasn't that ready for him to go and grasped his arm tighter.

The starseed string started to come undone and the bag slid down from around his neck. Anything not strapped down was moving. Grabbing for the bag would mean letting go of Dag. He watched as the string slowly came undone, the line growing longer as it slid out away. The starseed bag swung in circles endlessly around his head flailing around in space.

It was at that moment, Red realized he could accomplish two things. An end for himself, but that would have killed himself and Dag, and destroyed the ship. A ship he knew was carrying his former captor onboard, a man who was desperately trying to get Red to Helion 7 to be experimented on. 

All he had to do was let go of Dag and grab for the bag. It was so very tempting. Why was he trying so hard? Dag was ready to go to whatever paradise awaited do-gooders everywhere. The whole ship exploding would kill everyone he was trying to take out in one go.

Or he could hold onto Dag, and let the starseed escape into the void, forever lost until it crashed onto some remote planet, exploding and repopulating the surface with its metallic veins into a new generation of explosive plant life. And perhaps, he and Dag would survive another day.

He looked down and his gaze met Dag's, fear and acceptance on his face. He knew Red better than anyone, and he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what Red was considering. They only had seconds and Red chose.

His grip on Dag tightened, he felt the bag loosen from around his neck. He ground his teeth in frustration as they flopped in the turbulent wind.

His muscles started to ache under the pressure and the bag slipped away. He groaned but didn't let go. The door started to rise up with a whine that was lost out to the cold of space. He felt his breath being sucked out of his body and just when he thought his lungs would collapse the door sealed closed and both he and Dag dropped to the floor sucking in air as the atmosphere was restored.

"Dag..." Red turned him over.

Dag was breathing but his eyes were closed and his chest convulsed as Red pulled him up. He opened his eyes and stared up at Red.

"You didn't let go, man..." Dag coughed. "I really thought you would."

Red said nothing, he felt a rush of something he couldn't define. He pulled Dag forward into a hug, something he'd never done. The feeling was relief that out of all the people he knew, this one that seemed to care what happened to him at least was all right.

"Fuck," he said. "Get up, get into that Vienna, now! We're not done yet, and I don't think they'll let us live after this."

They scrambled across the floor both acutely aware the door could open again. The Vienna class ship opened with ease and Red pushed himself into the seat.

Dag was strapping himself into the seat next to him when it happened. An explosion knocked The Minsk off course, the whole ship rocked.

"Starseed," Red said as he tapped back into the ship's systems cautiously. There was no word from whoever had shoved him out. Perhaps they had a friend out there or at least a faction who recognized them. "Must have hit something out there."

Next to him, Dag grimaced. "Can we get off this thing? I've had enough near-death experiences for one day."

Red hit the controls and the magnetic locks released. The small vessel pulsed before lifting off and Red turned toward the formerly opened door, elation filling him as he opened fire from the inside. The resulting fire triggered an emergency override which opened the door to let the fire escape out into space. 

Knowing there was nothing but death left behind them, Red pushed the throttle, escaping into the black.