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Four
The worst thing about it was the pain.
The pain of being remade. Of being torn apart and put back together. Of having your insides ripped out and something else put back in. They told Alice that it would make her better. Faster. Stronger. When the months of physical therapy were over, and the wounds had fully healed, she learned that they were right. And she hated them for it.
But hate was a part of the training. Resentment gave them the fire to push themselves to the brink and keep going.
It got easier. But Alice still dreamed of those early days. Of going to bed hungry and sore, wondering what kind of parents would bring her to the doorstep of such a place, and then just leave her there. If she had parents at all. She remembered the pain and anguish, the loneliness. The endless sparring and simulated combat. When she first started menstruating, Alice thought she had ruptured something internally from all the fighting. She thought she was bleeding internally and was going to die.
Miss Cheshire laughed at her, calling her a weak, silly girl before sending her off to the auto nurse for some tampons and a crash course in human female physiology. Alice had been so embarrassed, and she had one more reason to hate her teacher.
But the pain is what she remembered as she returned to consciousness. She was lying on the floor of a cage. Her tongue tasted like metal. The air smelled of antiseptic and machine lubricant. Her weapons were gone, her guns and vorpal sword jammed into storage webbing across the narrow corridor from her cage. Next to her, bolted to the floor by giant electromagnetic clamps, was the sleeping Jabberwock, snoring soundly.
Even unconscious and vulnerable, it was repulsive, even nightmarish. Alice had never seen anything quite like it. She reached for it through the bars of her own cage, when a mechanical bleep startled her. Twisting around, She saw a short, squat, box-shaped robot standing outside her prison. A faded red stripe wrapped around its midsection, and green telltales flashed along its body. Where the head would be on a person was a screen, on which was projected a poorly rendered three-dimensional approximation of a human face wearing a dull expression.
“Can I help you?” Alice said petulantly.
“She’s awake,” said the bot. It turned with an awkward duck waddle as another robot entered, looking almost identical save for a blue stripe that wound around its middle. “Good. Sarge was afraid they’d killed her.” The blue-striped robot turned to address her. “Who are you?”
Alice glared at them, her eyes narrowed to slits. “You first, bot boys.”
“Very well,” said the bot. “I am Tweedledee.”
“And I am Tweedledum,” said the first bot in a falsetto sing-song voice.
“How nice for you,” said Alice. “Where am I?”
“You are aboard the Snark,” said Tweedledum.
“That’s an unusual name for a ship,” said Alice.
“It’s an unusual ship,” said Tweedledee.
“With an unusual crew,” added Tweedledum.
The two bots glanced at one another before reciting in unison, “The the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes. A thing, as the Bellman remarked, that frequently happens in tropical climes, when a vessel is, so to speak, snarked.”
They shared a volley of mechanical chittering that sounded like a faulty condenser but Alice took to be their attempt at laughter.
“Great,” she said. “Everyone’s an entertainer. Hilarious. Now will one of you please let me out of here.”
“No can-do,” said Tweedledum. “The Sarge wants a word.”
“Well then get his ass down here, then,” said Alice. “I’d like a word with him as well.”
The two little robots looked at each other, as if unsure what to do, before sauntering off. Alice watched them go, looking closely for any security protocols that might hinder her from getting out of here. Her cochlear implant chimed.
“Alice? Are you there?”
“Dodgson?” she whispered, wary for listening devices in or near her cage. “Where are you?”
“I am in pursuit of your ship,” said the AI. “I’ve been monitoring your vitals since we landed at Crispin’s Menagerie. You were drugged. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Alice. “Now come and get me.”
“I’m afraid that will prove difficult. The Reaver ship is quite large and powerful and, as you know, my offensive capabilities are limited. But I am giving chase and should be near your position in a three hours and seventeen minutes.”
Alice groaned. “So what you’re saying is that I need to be ready to come to you myself. Where is this tub headed?”
“A planet known as Perdition.”
Alice grimaced. She had heard of it. The tiny moon had an unsavory reputation even among assassins and thieves. “Well, at least now we know what they wanted the Jabberwock alive.” Perdition was also home to a black clan, anything goes fighting arena, where worn out, decommissioned mechs battled it out for money until there weren’t enough left of them or their pilots to continue. But sometimes other things were allowed into the arena. Living creatures forced to fight and die. Alice glanced at the poor Jabberwock snoring loudly next to her, and actually felt a frisson of sorry for the pitiful creature. What the Reavers had in store for it would be ten times worse then what Alice had been sent to do.
“They really know how to put the word ‘final’ in final exam, don’t they?”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” said Dodgson.
Alice shook her head and sighed. “Just come and get me. Stay in stealth mode. When you reach Perdition’s orbit, contact me. I’ll be ready.”
Her implant chimed once more as Dodgson severed the connection. “I don’t know how,” said Alice to the sleeping Jabberwock, “but I’ll be ready.”
