Corrupted Power Pt. 01

"No, I- "

Karo was stunned. His stomach had dropped out of him, and he had that awful feeling climbing up his throat, the feeling of helplessness and failure that came when you truly hurt someone you loved.

He loved Orassi. He'd known her since they were little, had always been the best of friends. And it was only now that he was finally feeling like, and becoming, an adult that he realised how important she was. How great she was.

How much they could be together.

And now it had all clicked, and he'd finally gotten the kick he needed, she was rejecting him.

Orassi glared at him, but there was pain and hurt written on her face.

"What's changed, Karo?" she demanded. "Is it just the whore who made you realise you want me?"

"No, I - "

"What? Me offering to flash you if you had a fucking Persian wasn't enough of a hint? Or the time I came running after you dumped fucking Rita - which was still the fucking dumbest thing - to comfort you for your own self-inflicted pain? The fucking years of me being by your side without a steady boyfriend? What fucking changed?"

Karo gaped at her like a drowning fish.

"Or is it cos you're rich now?" she demanded, hugging the pillow tighter. "Now you have money, you can fuck me?"

"Orass- "

"Fuck you, Karo," she yelled, tears forming in her eyes. "I am not a trophy."

"SHUT UP!" he yelled, shocking both Orassi and himself. He climbed out of bed, ignoring the fact he was naked - and hard.

He grabbed her by the shoulders as she cried and couldn't help but shake her slightly. "None of that is true, Oras! Okay, yes I have taken you for granted, and Lisa made me realise that, but - "

"Oh," sniffed, pushing his arms away with one hand, the other still holding the pillow up. "The whore made you realise. And then you grab for me when they tell you to. Of course."

"That's not true!"

"Evidence states otherwise," she snapped. "Where the fuck are my clothes?"

"Orassi, please, let me -"

"Let you what?"

Karo growled in frustration as she pulled away from him and turned away, kneeling down to collect her clothes. His dick twitch at the sight of her petite, naked ass. "Let me explain!"

"Explain what?" she snapped, yanking on her panties - a thong that covered nothing, he noticed. "You're leaving. You've had twenty years to figure out your feelings for me, and I've had twenty years to move on from you. Maybe this is for the best."

Pain ripped through him, hard, and he sat down. "No...Orassi..."

"It is, Karo," she glowered, but tears streamed down her face. He hadn't realised she wasn't wearing a bra when they came to the club yesterday, but now he did as she pulled on her shirt. "You're leaving. I can move on from you. Finally."

"But...but I'm just...Orassi you organised this!" Karo finally snapped, a lick of anger flaring inside him. He glared right back at her as she yanked on her jacket. "You organised the joytoys! The strippers! If you wanted this to be about us why didn't you just talk to me? Why did you do all this?"

"To give you a good sendoff!"

"Then, when it makes me realise how much you mean to me, that I love you- "

"Oh please!" she snarled. "Love me? After a whore told you to fuck- "

"No, after she slapped me over the head with it!" Karo interrupted angrily. "After I watched you bounce on Dirk's cock, I realised that should've been me. This should all have been us, but you wouldn't do that! That would make you too vulnerable. You picked strippers and joytoys to protect yourself, Orassi - that's all you ever do!"

"How dare - this was all - fuck you, Karo!"

"Fuck you Orassi!"

She glared at him, eyes filled with hate, and hurt, and stormed out. Karo threw himself on the bed and screamed into a pillow.

Run after her you fucking dumbass! He yelled at himself. She's your best friend! She's god-damn fucking Orassi! You go and apologise for being an idiot!

She's being an idiot! He hissed back at himself.

Yeah, she is. But is this worth the pain you're feeling? That SHE'S feeling?

Karo sat up, staring out over the room and through the windows. From this angle, he couldn't see the dancers below, but knew they would be there - day and night cycles didn't matter too much anymore, with nocturnal genelines and most places open twenty-six hours. The club was always busy.

He thought back over their life. Orassi was like a sister, family as close as his parents. He called her parents mum and dad. He had consoled her through every breakup, though there had been precious few of them. She'd been there through all of his, far too many of them. She'd been a constant fixture in his life, one he'd checked out, fantasized about occasionally, but always pushed the thought away. Orassi didn't feel like that about him, and he didn't want to ruin what they had.

Except she did feel like that. And was too worried about ruining their friendship to make her own move.

Fuck...this was meant to be a celebration...FUCK!

"FUCK!" Karo screamed. He closed his eyes. He was done.

"Drone," Karo called. "I want to be hammered and balls deep in women till I have to leave."

"Understood."

*****

Karo blinked in the morning light, his eyes transitioning from the shaded interior of the spaceport to the bright sunlight of the tarmac. Alpha Centauri A glared above the crowd making its way along carefully delineated lanes to the intra-orbital shuttle, a plane that would circle the world a couple of times, going higher and higher, until it breached the atmosphere and docked at one of the orbiting spaceports. Spacecraft weren't built to handle atmosphere's of pressure - let alone the cost of fuel to break orbit - so small intra-orbit shuttles carried passengers up.

Karo had discovered that while Lacaille had paid for first-class tickets between the Centauri and Lacaille systems, they had only paid for regular tickets on a shuttle. That was fine, he wasn't going to complain - the trip only took forty minutes.

He stuck with the small crowd across the tarmac, his bag slung over his shoulder as cool air blew down his body from the cooling units in his jackets collar.

It had been a week since the club, since his fight with Orassi. Unfortunately, Karo remembered all of it - he realised the Drone was built to maximise customer satisfaction, so it would regularly spike his drinks with anti-hangover or memory-boosting drugs. So while he had been hammered, he remembered the night clearly.

While normally great, it meant he couldn't stop thinking about Orassi.

Karo had drunk a lot and fucked a half dozen woman, powering on with legal stimulants. But when he thought of the sex that night, he saw Orassi's back as she rode Dirk, or her ass as she got dressed. He saw her hurt, her tears, her anger and pain.

Karo shook himself.

This is for the best, he reminded himself for the millionth time. Orassi finally has the space she needs to get over me.

He climbed the stairs and ducked into the shuttle, finding his way down the crowded aisle to his seat. He stuffed his bag - the only thing he was taking - into an overhead storage and strapped in, a portly woman sitting by the window.

The trip was nothing fancy - Karo would've enjoyed it more if his mind hadn't been elsewhere. The longest part was the first orbit of the world, but shortly after weightless overtook them all. He heard several people retch, unused to zero-g. Karo was by no means a master - he'd only been in space a handful of times - but it was enough experience for him to hold onto his breakfast as his body pressed against the seat straps.

He looked past the woman out the window, over the green-and-blue globe of Alpha Centauri A Planet One - Centauri Prime, or just Prime. His homeworld. He'd never really been off-planet - he'd been in orbit before, but it didn't count. He could always see home, with it's three ocean-bordered continents and shallow ice caps.

He felt weird leaving. His mother had bawled her eyes out, though insisted he had to go. And that he needed to apologise to Orassi for "whatever idiot thing you've done now." His father, while not crying, had fully agreed with his mother.

He'd said goodbye to a few other friends - nothing so crazy as the night with Orassi - and gotten rid of the rest of his stuff. Lacaille Corp told him to only come with three days of clothes and small personal items. Mass was still expensive for space travel, everything you didn't need to move off-world shouldn't be moved.

He looked again at his home, a yawning pit of despair growing inside him. Would he come back? Should he?

Without Orassi...is there any point?

He shook himself again. No, he'd stay away, and they would both move on from this.

*****

"Welcome aboard Star Liner Aurora, Mr...Ri, is it?"

"Yes, Karo Ri," Karo told the attendant, holding out his ID.

"Welcome aboard Mr Ri!" the drone buzzed, hovering at eye height. "Lacaille system is third stop, we will be there in two days. Your cabin is up this lift here, sir, on deck B. There will be an attendant there to guide you."

"Thank you," Karo replied, nodding, and pocketing his passport. He stepped into the lift, barely big enough for two people - wasted space wasn't acceptable on a starship - and pressed the touch screen for deck B.

Moments later he stepped out onto a plush carpet in a small foyer of sorts. A beautiful man smiled and bowed slightly at Karo, his thick hair gleaming gold in the light.

"Mr Ri, welcome aboard the Aurora," the man said with perfect teeth. His eyes were a gradient of green to red, and his muscular frame was barely contained in the deep blue tunic and slacks of the crew uniform. Karo had no doubt the man had been gene-edited to be this good looking. "You're in cabin six, sir. Just down this corridor."

Karo nodded his thanks and walked down to his door. Once he had thumbed the reader, it slid open and he stepped into his first-class cabin.

It was still small, compared to a hotel room on a planet, but for a ship it was positively huge. A double bed against the far wall, the wall curved over it and showing the stars and planet nearby - Karo knew it was a screen and not actually a window, but the quality was so good you couldn't tell. The floor was carpet, and plush chairs sat arranged around a small table. The toilet and shower - Karo knew showers were considered an absolute luxury during space travel - were in a small alcove off to the side.

It was simple, but nice. Karo shrugged and tossed his bag on the bed and picked up the tablet slotted into the table. He tapped the 'AI' button, and a genderless voice sounded.

"Greetings, Mr Ri," it said. "How can I help?"

"What can you do?"

"It would be easier to ask me for something and see if I refuse, sir."

Karo chuckled. Fair. That answer had been programmed into all AI for the past century, otherwise he'd be here all day listening to the list.

AI weren't Karo's specialty, he was a drone engineer, but you had to learn a bit of AI to work on drones, since the two worked together.

"Uh, create a visual of yourself."

A hologram flickered to life on the table. It was about a metre high and showed a featureless humanoid body - basically a mannequin.

"Make it something easier to connect to," Karo ordered.

The hologram immediately changed into an attractive woman wearing the tunic and slacks of the crew, with auburn hair spilling down her back.

Karo had a sudden urge to make the hologram look like Orassi, but quashed it immediately. "Alright sweet. Let's uh...I dunno."

"Normally, people like to begin drinking."

"My kind of people!"

The AI smiled and clapped once. A holographic menu appeared before Karo.

"If I may recommend you enjoy your drink on the forward viewing deck, sir," she said. "Many guests quite enjoy the sight of leaving the planet."

"Good call, is there a bar there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent."

Karo quickly changed his shirt - he'd gone for comfort over looks for the trek here, but if he was going to meet other First Class passengers he wanted to be more presentable. Any of them could be working for Lacaille too.

Dressed in a smarter, collared shirt, Karo made his way down the corridor, nodding politely to the few other passengers he came across as he followed the signs to the viewing deck.

The viewing deck was actually a couple levels lower than Karo's room and in the core of the ship. Even on a passenger liner, the idea of a windowed viewing room on the outside of the ship was ridiculous, and visual screen technology was more than capable of fooling the human eye into thinking it was an actual window. It didn't take him long to reach it.

Even with space being costly and at a premium on a starship, the viewing deck was huge. A large dome, the screens covered the walls and ceiling seamlessly, making one feel like they had stepped out onto the hull of the ship itself. Karo looked up at the infinite expanse of stars and felt a moment of disorientation, blinking rapidly. He looked back down at his feet to steady himself.

The floor of the dome was littered with couches, and in the centre stood a circular bar. A dozen people, all smartly dressed, were already idling around, chatting or lounging. The men wore tailored suits or collared shirts, some sporting the southern chin-high collar style, while the women varied from shimmering, long dresses to veils and scarves artfully covering their body. Karo was by far the most underdressed.

He shrugged. He was an engineer, not a high-society man. He made his way over the bar and ordered some vodka from the drone before wending through the plush couches to find one near the edge of the dome. He sat back and looked up, staring into space and just relaxing.

Thoughts of home, Orassi, Lacaille, his degree...it all flowed through him as he stared out into space. Karo wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there when the stars began to noticeably shift, as the ship began to turn. The space station it had been docked at came into view on the far wall, a sliver of the planet below.

Adrenalin and fear shot through him. This was it. He was actually doing it.

He was actually leaving. He was going to work for the only completely independent company in the Cluster, a corporation so powerful it controlled its own star system. In a job so lucrative that working it for five years would let him retire comfortably - add another five and he could easily afford the NeverAge technology. He could live comfortably in a young body for a century.

I still can't believe this is real.