The knocking sound drove itself into her ears. 

“Shut up,” Haseul groaned. “Don’t make this more of a hell than it already is.” 

“It’s time for a walk.” The door slid open, parting to reveal a woman with long black hair and a face that barely emoted. 

“Do you have my fingers?” Haseul lifted her right hand, the one that still had the first two fingers missing. Her left hand was missing the middle two and her thumb. 

“We analysed them,” Hyunjin shot back. “I’m not about to let you pick your way out of this cell or send your location to Eden.” 

Haseul tried to put on a little pout. “But you deprived me of my prosthetics.” 

She frowned at her. “One of them has a blade hidden in it.” Then she walked over to her and heaved her up.

Haseul groaned. “Fingers or not, I could still take you.” A lie, because Hyunjin looked like she’d been training all her life. 

“Did you want to have a good dinner?” Hyunjin asked, brushing off her fine clothes and giving her a crooked grin. “Or would you rather have the slop we save for rations.” 

“No,” Haseul croaked. “Not the slop again.” She’d thrown up for the better part of yesterday morning. “I don’t hate you.” 

“Good.” Hyunjin clapped her hands. “That’ll help you loads where we’re going, so keep it up.” 

She frowned at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She looked at her hands, which still hadn’t been bound. “Where’re we going?” She felt cold. Was this the day they’d finally figured out what they’d do? Was she going to be launched into space? Sent straight to the sun? Forced to crash-land on one of the moons? Stranded on some random island on Aphrodite? 

“Relax,” Hyunjin’s expression actually softened, “you might have a job.” 

Haseul gaped at her. “So I’m picking up garbage, right? That’s what you make your prisoners do? Or is it dust gathering in orbit? I’m a good dust collector.” 

“First,” Hyunjin raised a hand, “shut up.” She put down a finger. “Second, we don’t make you pick up garbage here. That counts as slave labour.” The next finger went down. “Dust collecting requires training that you don’t have. You may not be the worst pilot, but you need actual skill for the dust.” The other finger went down. “And third, this's a job that’ll need your skill and knowledge. We’ve got a virus.” 

She couldn’t believe her ears. Putting a computer in front of her was the worst idea for these people. She’d get out word to Sooyoung and then be well on her way for a good break-out. 

“Don’t worry,” Hyunjin winked, “I’m not letting you in a good thirty metre-radius of an actual comp. This’s a different type of virus.” 

“I don’t do machines,” Haseul said. “That’s outside of my training.” That wasn't actually a lie. 

Her lip curled. “By that logic, you couldn’t handle any interface.” She grimaced, probably thinking back to why Haseul was here in the first place.

Haseul smiled. “And I really can handle those, eh?” She elbowed her side, before dancing away as the guards around them stiffened. “So is that the job?” She couldn’t help but laugh. “The royal entourage has you for its guns, that little devil manning the helm, and the pretty one for everything else? But no mechanic?” 

“We have one,” Hyunjin growled. “Just drop the thing with the machines. That’s not why you’re needed.” 

“I’m gonna need you to tell me what exactly you need me for, Kim,” she clicked her tongue, “I’m a busy woman out here, stranded in space.” 

“You’re on a well-defined route to Aphrodite,” Hyunjin said through gritted teeth. “And you’re going to do what she tells you.” 

She. Right. 

Because Haseul had had the luck of being detained by the royal guard instead of general security. Then she'd been put onto a different ship, one that held one of the most powerful people in the galaxy. 

That was probably one of the only reasons Haseul had for being scared. That, and the potential threat of an execution. Or being shipped back to Earth. 

“Yes I will,” Haseul nodded, “unless it’s firing on my base. Won’t do that.”

Hyunjin’s fists were clenched. 

“What’s taking you so long?” It was Heejin, someone who was almost too pretty to be ‘just’ an underling to royalty. She put her looks to good use, being one of the spokespeople and maybe even a diplomat in some circumstances (at least when Aphrodite was trying to be diplomatic). 

“She’s being insolent,” Hyunjin replied.

Heejin’s expression softened into a sweet smile. “Because she knows how to push your buttons. I told you you shouldn’t have been the one to be responsible for her.” 

Haseul was slightly surprised that the girl would even mention that. It was just more information. 

Then again, maybe that was intentional. 

Hyunjin rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t holding her hands in fists anymore. “We’ll see if she does it.” 

“Bet you five signals she runs out screaming.” Heejin sent Haseul a little grin. 

Hyunjin straightened. “Bet you ten she manages it.” 

Haseul looked between them. 

Then Heejin chuckled, sending Haseul a wink. “She’s got faith in you.” She put her hand on the dial by the door. “So just be very clear that whatever you see in that room, if you tell someone, we’ll either wipe your memory completely, or sentence you to garbage duty in Kepler.” 

“So you’re saying that if I walk in there,” Haseul trailed off, nodding at the door. 

“You’ll come back out,” Heejin replied. “But you’ll just be sworn to secrecy now.” With a dazzling smile, she pushed the door open.

Then Hyunjin shoved her into the room. 

Haseul’s jaw dropped when she actually saw it. To say she hadn't expected it was an understatement.

On the far end were windows to reveal the route they were taken: the endless expanses of space with an asteroid drifting off to the side.  

A massive set of computers stretched out over the room and across the walls. There was a huge harness to the side. It looked like it was supposed to hold an armour suit, but it was empty. On the floor were prosthetics, but they were covered in a grey type of armour. There were two arms and two legs, plus a helmet. What did they need that for?

“Oh wow.” Haseul went over. Was the queen a tech lover? Somehow, that made her less intimidating. Also more threatening at the same time. 

“Nice, isn’t it?” 

She jumped, whipping her head around. Then she gasped. 

The queen stood off to the side, hands folded. She had long orange hair and wore a deep blue suit. “Hello, Dr. Jo.” 

Haseul grimaced at the title. “You know who I am?”

She waved her hand. “I do.” Haseul’s face appeared on the screens, as well as many lists. “Might’ve found your file as well. Well, technically Hyunjin put it together.” 

Haseul couldn’t move. The queen of Aphrodite, well, the southern half of it, was here. She’d known she was on the ship, of course she had, but it hadn’t been her plan to meet the woman. And the ship was massive. 

“I’ll admit, I’m still struggling to understand why exactly you came here of all places.” The queen went over to one of the computers, setting her hands on the keyboard. She didn’t type anything, but the screen flickered to something else. “And why you didn’t take very much.” 

Haseul frowned, squinting so she could see what was there. 

“You can come closer,” said the queen. She nodded to the door. “I can guarantee you that neither Heejin nor Hyunjin will step in.” She looked back to the computer. Her brow then furrowed and she closed her eyes. 

Haseul went over, slowly, eying the two at the door. Hyunjin looked a little nervous. Heejin was calm. 

When she got a metre away from the queen, she stopped. She’d never met a royal before, but instinct told her to keep her distance. 

Then she looked at what was on the screen. Her heart sank. It was the trajectory of her trip here, including the stop at the coast where she’d smuggled herself up to the cruise ship. There was also a list of what she’d taken from said ship. 

“No one else has these,” the queen said. Her brow had smoothed over again. “I’m not threatening you, only telling you that it’s no surprise that you’re here, or even that I am.” 

The queen had been an unexpected arrival. It’d worked in Haseul’s favour at the time, because they’d held a massive feast. She'd nearly gotten away, but when she'd reached her shuttle, Hyunjin had been waiting for her. 

“You’re telling me you planned this?” Haseul asked. “That you’d arrive, I’d get caught, and then you’d bring me here?” She looked to the doors, then the other two. No weapons had been drawn yet. 

“I told you,” the queen said, raising her hands. “I’m not threatening you.” Her left eye had caught the light of the screen weirdly. It was shining. Her skin was also covered in faint scars, including a pretty large one on her neck. Haseul almost hoped it’d just been an ugly surface-level cut, because otherwise she didn’t want to think about what this particular queen had gotten mixed up in. 

“Then why am I here?” Haseul took a few steps back. “You kept me there for two days.” She didn’t mention that it’d been surprisingly comfortable for a prison cell. And the food hadn’t been terrible either, except for when she'd pissed Hyunjin off. Accidentally, of course. 

“We needed to see if you were being followed. If there’d be a rescue within the first day.” The queen shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been worth the risk if your friends had come for you.” Then she sighed, leaning against the desk behind her. She massaged her temple. “You’ll be free as soon as you help me. Even if you can’t, there’ll be an escape pod ready.” Her eyes shut. 

The screens started to flicker. Haseul saw diagrams appear and then disappear, followed by footage from the ship itself, and then of Aphrodite. Then it went back to the information on Haseul. A lot of information. 

Hyunjin and Heejin both stepped away from the door. 

Haseul walked backwards. She looked around for a weapon, anything she could use. 

Except the two girls went to the queen instead. 

“You shouldn’t have touched it,” Hyunjin said, pulling her away from the computers. “And turning them all on?” 

“For dramatic effect,” the queen muttered. Then she groaned, holding her hands to her head. “I need them off.” 

Then the screens all went out. The queen cringed, before relaxing. 

“Give her back her things, Hyun,” the queen said, still massaging her head. 

Heejin brushed past Haseul and went for the wall, turning the lights on. 

"She's a risk with these things on," Hyunjin said. "There's a recording chip on each of them too." 

The queen waved a hand. "I'll know if she switches them on." 

Hyunjin handed Haseul a box. Inside were her own prosthetics. 

One by one, she secured them onto her knuckles, feeling a small buzz in her brain every time one attached. She’d lost them in the accident. Now she had fingers that gave her an incredible grip, and hid a great many surprises, courtesy of Chaewon. 

Haseul felt a lot calmer with complete hands. She crossed her arms, hoping that she wasn’t giving away the fact that she was starting to feel really terrified. “What the hell was that?” 

Heejin raised a brow. “Do remember who you’re in the presence of.” 

“What was that?” Haseul repeated. “Were you doing that?” She shot Heejin a pointed look. “Your Majesty?” 

“It was me,” the queen said. She lightly tapped her head. 

Haseul froze. A brain-computer-interface. To about seven computers. With no wires? No helmet? Not even glasses? “Is there a chip malfunction?” She wouldn’t have thought a queen would let someone put a hugely experimental technology in her head. Especially if there were side effects. Haseul had tried it with a chip and immediately regretted it. She’d also gotten bouts of dizziness for a month afterwards. 

“Not a chip.” The queen straightened. “It’s me.” She gently pushed past Hyunjin and went over to the harness. 

“Was it a surgery?” Haseul asked. “Your people developed some cutting edge mastery and you were the first for it?” 

“In a way.” The queen picked up an arm, turning it over in her hands. “It might be easier to just show you. Then we can go through the technicalities later. When this spell of mine’s over.” She waved at her face. Her left eye was still glowing. Even without the light of the screens. 

I'll know if she switches them on.

“Uh,” Haseul stammered, “Your Majesty, I don’t—” 

“You should probably be calling me Viian,” the queen chuckled, “if you end up agreeing to this.” She put the prosthetic arm on the table. “Because I need your help.” She sent her a surprisingly reassuring smile. "Though I should ask first, the work you did, on neural networks. That was all legitimate, correct?” 

Haseul grit her teeth. "It was in the beginning." She clenched her fist, the metal of her fingers digging into her palm. 

"And what happened after with Eden, also legitimate, correct?"

She tried not to look surprised. She probably should've expected the queen to know about that. “Not legal, but I didn’t cut corners for it. Not for something like that.” They'd saved the detours for things that wouldn’t cause severe brain damage. 

Viian smiled. “Good.” She put her hand on the back of her shoulder. There was a clicking sound, followed by a whirring one. 

And then the queen’s arm slid off of her body. 

It left a bright collection of wires and connections Haseul couldn’t really name. When she looked closer, she swore she saw that the small loops were dark red. Was that blood? And was she actually seeing a part of the shoulder blade? Or was that metal made to look like it? 

Haseul stared as the queen picked up the prosthetic arm and aligned it with the connections, before putting it on. Now she had an armoured arm. 

“Most of my body is synthetic,” the queen said. “It has been for about five years, which includes my brain.” She tapped her head, before pointing at her eye. “We were at negotiations with Kepler and someone took the opportunity to place a virus in my head.” 

Haseul felt dizzy. Did this mean the queen wasn’t the queen? Was she a robot? Android? Something else? 

“And what’s that got to do with me?” Haseul hated how shaky her voice sounded. 

Viian looked sympathetic. “You're planning to build a synthetic life-form, aren't you?” 

Haseul shook her head. She prayed this was from the queen’s hopefully freakish processing power and not from actual intel they had on her. On the others. 

“I know what was stolen,” Viian continued. “I know you’ve sent it to your people. And it’ll get there safely, not one ship following it.” She fixed her with a look. It wasn’t intimidating, but Haseul still felt small. “Whatever that project of yours is, you’ll finish it. No one’s going to interfere with it.”

“It’s not a project,” Haseul shot back. 

Hyunjin frowned at her. In her eyes was a warning. 

Viian only shook her head at the girl. “My father did the same thing,” she said. She put a hand to the side of her head again, letting out a small sigh. “I was caught in an explosion, an assassination attempt.” 

Which wasn’t all that uncommon. Ever since the fiasco with the Earther princess, revolts had been more frequent. 

And apparently, one of them had been successful. 

“Enough of my body was still intact, so they managed to salvage what they could to create this." She waved at herself. "The information in my brain was also largely preserved. Thanks to your research.”

Haseul winced. “That’s a few years old.” 

“Might be a surprise,” Viian shrugged, “but very few have been able to replicate it, even less with actual success.” She waved at herself. “I’m unlisted, naturally. No one was supposed to know.” 

Haseul looked at Heejin and Hyunjin then. Heejin was wringing her hands, looking at the queen with very clear worry in her eyes. Hyunjin was looking at Haseul, her gaze unreadable. 

“Except for me?” Haseul reached for one of the chairs and sat down. Her head was still spinning. 

“Except for you.” She nodded. Then she flinched, as if the movement had hurt. “You’re trying to do the same for someone else, aren’t you? Someone you lost?” 

“I already hooked them to the software,” Haseul said. “They’re the voice of our ship.” 

“So you’re making the body?” 

Haseul almost stopped talking then and there. It wasn’t exactly illegal to do. If you didn’t get caught, you could practically do anything in the Coruscant system. 

And the queen was an actual android. That threw legality right out the airlock. 

“Trying to,” Haseul nodded, “you had skin reconstructors here. We needed those.” 

“And you’ll need my schematics,” Viian replied. “I’m one of the only working synthetic lifeforms that can live in some parallel to a human.” 

Heejin stiffened then. “You can’t show her how.” 

“I can,” the queen said. “If I’m trusting her not to destroy me, I can trust her not to spread that information around.” She looked at Haseul, sending her a light smile. “I can, can’t I?” 

Haseul stared at her, then she looked at the arm, then the harness. The queen was an android and she was asking her for help. 

Aphroditans were tricky. As with everywhere else in the universe, some of them were very preoccupied with rising up the ranks. Queen Viian didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go except for the whole of Aphrodite, but nothing of the last years had ever suggested that the southern hemisphere wanted to take over the north. As for the Earther disaster, the south had had no role in it.

A part of Haseul felt like she could trust the queen. Maybe she’d been blinded by the whole ‘I’m an android’ reveal, but maybe all she really wanted was for Haseul to just get that virus out of her head. 

Then again, there was also the possibility that the queen would just imprison her again afterwards, keeping her around in case another virus came. Haseul would need a backup plan to get out of it just in case. 

If she managed to get access to their computers, or even her gear, then she’d have a way out. 

Haseul couldn’t say no. The queen was the answer to the problem. Whatever Haseul learned here, she’d be able to get it back to Sooyoung. And Hyejoo. 

“I’ll do it,” Haseul said. “And you can trust me.”

The only acknowledgement that got was Heejin transferring over the five signals too Hyunjin. Viian just leaned back against one of the monitors, smiling softly. 

“Thank you,” she said. “Hopefully it works.” 

“What happens if it doesn’t?”

Viian grimaced. “Well,” she detached the armoured arm again, setting it on the table, “if I really start to malfunction, I’ll step down and shut down.”  

“Step down?” Haseul frowned. “You weren’t elected.” 

The queen gave her a look. “I’m not about to leave this planet in the care of corrupted software.” She handed Hyunjin the armoured arm. Heejin had already retrieved her real one. “We’ve checked to see if any of what I’ve done has changed since that virus was placed, but it hasn’t. Heejin thinks it’s corrupting the software first, breaking it down enough, so that it can either be vulnerable to another attack, or I shut down completely.” 

“Oh.” Haseul’s voice came out as a croak. 

“Indeed.” Viian nodded, her smile growing slightly. “No pressure.”