Corrupted Power Pt. 02

Hi all, if this story seems familiar, please see my note on Part 1!

Hope you enjoy, no sex in this part but there is some nudity and flirting.

If you'd like to see AI generated renders of the characters, places, etc., please check out my DeviantArt (awalters060), no account or any nonsense needed to view them.

Hope you enjoy, and leave a comment!

By the end of the trip, Karo was sick of the Aurora. It was a beautiful enough ship, but it was clearly designed for these short-haul travels. The recreation options were limited, and there was only so much time one could spend on the viewing deck watching the lights of FTL travel. He'd tried chatting to a few other people but it was pointless, and the gym was laughably small. At one point, out of boredom, he'd wandered down to the economy class area and realised how spoiled he was. There was no individual cabins, just corridors with bunks in the walls, and no shower facilities. The Aurora could carry several hundred people in Economy, and while it was extremely uncomfortable, no trip ever lasted more two days for an Economy passenger - they legally couldn't book a longer trip without taking a break at stations. First Class were allowed up to a week before needing to get off the ship.

Karo didn't know if he'd be able to last a week without a friend or someone to talk to. But thankfully he didn't need to.

He walked down the airlock corridor with a half dozen others, the only people leaving in Lacaille on this trip. They were all well-dressed, and two were younger, nervous-looking girls - graduates like himself, Karo figured.

They reached the airlock and were waved off by an attendant, taking their first steps onto Lacaille's main station, Moros. Karo couldn't help but gasp.

He'd seen Moros from the outside as they'd approached - a large, bulbous cylindrical core with four rings placed at equidistant spots. Dozens of drones and small craft zipping around it. It was huge, but in space scale could be difficult. Inside was a different story.

It was huge.

The airlock didn't open on another corridor, it opened out into the ring, a kilometre in diameter at least. The far side, the inner wall of the ring, was made up of buildings and walkways, all cuboid and rectangular yet sleek and stylish. A suspended glass tunnel hung suspended by anti-grav in the middle of the ring, a train shooting through it as he watched. Beneath the floating train-tunnel was a park, with elegant trees - both holo and real - and a river, fed from waterfalls that fell from above. Karo stared at the nearest waterfall - it poured down in a perfect sheet, splitting smoothly into a perfect crescent that ringed the train-tunnel yet didn't touch it, before pouring down elegantly into the river.

People were around, but nowhere near as many as Karo expected. Some were walking, or riding open-air hovercars. A few couples and small groups wandered by the river on the lush, dull red grass. Drones were far more common, zooming around above or trundling past on skids and wheels.

The cost of this place would be insane, Karo thought. The amount of water in the river, the antigrav for the entire track, the large buildings with windows and terraces, and the plants - and this was one ring! Of four! What the hell did they have the central cylinder?

There were two men waiting for them - one man stepped forward and shook the hand of a passenger, and they peeled off with the four non-nervous girls. Clearly employees, or something. Karo focussed his attention on the smiling, red-skinned man that was waving.

His clear jacket was edged in a soft glowing blue light, over a black tank top and white, shimmering slacks. His bald head was tattooed with tribal designs, and his teeth were a little too sharp - whether it was personalised gene-editing, or necessary from his homeworld, Karo didn't know.

"Welcome, welcome, graduates! I'm Yan, how're you all going? Good trip?"

Karo and the girls nodded. They looked more overwhelmed than he felt.

"Good good! You all look a bit stunned, very normal, especially after the trip here," he laughed. "So, I'm Yan, like I said. You must be Karo, our new drone engineer graduate?"

"Yes sir," Karo replied, shaking his hand.

"Yan is fine," Yan smiled. "Jess?" he asked the girl next to Karo, a pretty girl of Asian descent but with deep blue hair.

"Yes si - Yan."

"With Finance, nice, nice, and that means you're Riley, with our AI department?"

The last girl looked to be around Karo's age, late twenties, with a sharp face and piercing red eyes. Her hair was shaved on one side, revealing cyberware implants, but otherwise she was nondescript.

"Nice to meet you, Yan," she shook his hand.

"Well, I am so glad you're here! It's nice to see fresh faces, gets dull around here," he winked. "Come with me! I'll show you to your quarters and explain how everything works here."

He set off along the path - and Karo realised it was a path, not just bulkhead or a deck. The path was slightly raised, and took them away from the airlock and around what appeared to be warehouses and storage bunkers built into the outer wall of the ring. Their shoes clacked on the white material.

Is this fucking marble? He thought. Did they import marble into space for a fucking path?

"So this is Ring One, the bottom ring," Yan explained. "This is residential, essentially. Almost everyones homes are here, as well as some clubs, bars, stylists, that sort of thing. Ring Two, next up, is Agriculture. Our farms, sea, food labs, all there. We don't grow actual food of course, we have our own protein-rich crop that can be printed into just about anything with any flavour. So all food here is perfectly balanced in nutrition, whether it's ice cream or a steak. Eat what you want!"

Karo blinked in surprise. What? How could that be true?

"I'm sorry, Yan, you said sea?" Jess stammered.

He grinned over his shoulder. "Blows everyone's mind, that. There's plenty of water in space, what with all the ice asteroids, but collecting it can be costly. Yet we have a sea - it takes up a third of Ring Two. LacGrain is great, and it does a real nice fish, but some of us wanted actual seafood, and LacGrain doesn't quite do sushi. So we built a sea."

"Oh," Jess squeaked. Karo couldn't blame her.

"Anyway, Ring Three is Engineering, that's where you'll be a fair bit Karo and Riley," Yan continued as the path took them onto the park and over a bridge. The bridge wasn't even solid - it was a dozen steps, all suspended on their own anti-grav. Karo stared down at a bio-luminescent Koi fish swimming underneath it. "Air-lock hangars for hauling in and processing asteroids, drone works, all the fun toys. Ring Four up top is power, life support, all the less fun stuff. Main work, offices and the like, and the execs residences are in the trunk, the centre cylinder."

By now they were across the bottom of the ring, and their path flowed into a wider one that ran the front of the residential area. The buildings here on the lowest terrace seemed to all be shops, stylists, bars and the like, but they weren't very frequented.

"So all these businesses here are company-run by our Entertainment and Culture department. We hire seasonals, as we call them, to run them. Prices are kept fair and reasonable of course, they're here for staff recreation not to make profit. We import things from all over the cluster, and only keep seasonal's on for about six months. Exception is the gene-mechanics and doctors and the like - the corp pays them very well and houses them here with us as full employees.

"Now, no wonder you're wondering how we can afford all this," he grinned over his shoulder again. "We have a bit over a thousand staff - tiny by even large planetary corporation standards. Yet we own a star system. The trick is mining - we mine the asteroids and moons here for materials and manufacture things of the highest grade. Why doesn't everyone do this? Well they do - but those other corporations have to do it in national space, paying taxes, competing, following rules and regulations. The founders of our corporation settled this system as a company a century ago, and the canny bastards got it recognised. So now exist like this - all profit belongs to the company, no shareholders. No competition. An entire system of resources and, most importantly, space. Never underestimate the advantage of space."

Karo's head was spinning. A company of a thousand employees...no wonder they needed so many drones. But they were only mining, which didn't need much non-automated control anyway...and all profits belonged to the company...

"So if all profits belong to the company, who decides where they go?" Riley asked.

"Upper management," Yan replied. "But everyone can voice their opinion, and our Board is elected by the employees - so if the execs start skimming too much, they get removed from power. Never needed to do it though - there's only so much money anyone needs.

"Speaking of, we store your pay here, in the bank vault on Lacaille three. We recommend new graduates invest half of their pay in the major Index funds of their home nation, but what you do with the other five mil is up to you."

Karo coughed, and Jess glanced at the other two. Riley spoke up.

"Uh, our pay is five mil - which is plenty, of course!" she added hastily. Yan stopped and turned, frowning.

"No, new grads are ten mil," he said. "Hmm, must have been a mistake on the contracts, I'll get that fixed."

Karo's head spun again. His pay had just doubled. For no reason more than a clerical error.

"Sorry about that!" Yan clapped his hands, then led them up a set of anti-grav stairs. "Things slip through the cracks, even here. Anyway! We like to room the grads together, hope that isn't a problem - Moros is big and scary when you first start, so you can go through it together. We normally move you into your own apartments in about three months, or earlier if you ask. Here we are."

They had reached a terraced walkway, and stood before small, green-grass courtyard with an elegant silver holo-tree. The courtyard was open on one side to the walkway, and the other three sides to the walls of a house. Yan led them past the tree and through the sliding doors.

It's a luxury home, Karo thought.

Ultra-minimalist, with no furniture, but as Yan gestured panels hovered up out of the floor to form seats and a bench. Part of the wall slid open to reveal the cooler, and another panel slid out to create a benchtop. The benchtop itself broke open further as a sink and faucet slid out.

Jess and Karo gasped. Riley just stared around in shock, as Yan grinned.

"Welcome home, grads! Whole place is run by an AI, so if something isn't right, let it know. It'll learn. Bedrooms are that way, bathroom that way. Everything else you need is here. Drones can deliver anything you need, just order it from a tablet or computer or with the house AI. You'll all have emails about start times and where to go - should be next week, we like to give you a week to settle in and explore. Make sense?"

They all nodded, staring around at the anti-grav couches, tables, screens, everything. Yan grinned.

"My number is in your corp phones, you'll find one on each bed. Any questions, anything at all, call me! I'll also send you invites to events and catchups over the course of the week, so you can get to meet people. But otherwise, this is where I leave you! Any questions?"

They all shook their head, rather numbly. Yan grinned. "Have a blast, grads!"

And he stepped out of the house, leaving the three newest employees of the most powerful and richest organisation in existence to stand awkwardly in their shared home.

Karo broke the ice.

"Vodka?"

*****

"Holy shit, are you serious?" Jess demanded, eyes wide. Riley was howling with laughter.

Karo wiped a tear from his eye in mirth. "Yep. Gassed the whole class."

"How did you get away with it?"

Karo grinned. "Self-destroying drone, of course. Blew itself up."

"No way," Riley gasped. "You flew a drone into a lecture hall with a stink gas canister and blew it up, and nobody traced the signals? What the hell security is Centauri running!"

"Oh they tried, but due to my, uh, excellent engineering skills, the signal was lost in the haze of gas."

"So...you mean the fact you fucked up and the tank blew up rather than spraying softly is the only reason you didn't get caught?" Jess laughed. Karo chuckled and nodded as the girls laughed as well.

"Oh god you're lucky," Jess gasped, calming herself enough to take another drink.

"So I got a question for you, Centaur-boy," Riley said.

"Centaur-boy? Is that what Earthers call us?"

"Mhmm," Jess nodded.

"Since we're both normal people from Earth, and you're basically an alien, we hear all sorts of things."

"Well first of all, it's Centaur-man ­," Karo corrected her. "And what nonsense have you heard?"

"That you guys are way more liberal," Riley said. "With like nudity and drugs and stuff."

"Oh yeah," Karo nodded. "Compared to Earth, I hear we are."

"But like, what does that mean," she pressed. "Like in daily life?"

Karo shrugged. "I dunno, it's normal to me. I mean, before I left I went to a club and stayed up for a full day on stimulants, does that count?"

Jess gasped. "Legal stimulants?"

"Yeah, you get them at the bar. Those plus the anti-hangover and memory-boosters let you be drunk for a day without any problems. Had... had a blast." His new roommates clearly heard the drop in his voice as thoughts of Orassi swirled within him.

"I wonder if you can get them here?" Riley wondered. "Could be fun to just party for a day."

"What, the three of us?" Jess snorted. "That'd be a real good look for our new jobs."

"I doubt the corp would care," Riley replied. "What were the name of the stims, Karo?"

"We just call them wake-up."

"AI! Can we get Centauri wake-up here?" she yelled to the house.

"You can, but Corporate regulations prohibit its use for work related purposes. If you are struggling to meet deadlines or quotas, please speak with your supervisor. Would you like me to order some Centauri wake-up for recreational use?"

"Hell -" Riley began.

"No!" Jess shouted over her with a laugh. "Riley, we haven't even been here a day! And you already want to have a drug-fuelled party?"

"Ain't no way to get to know someone better," Riley replied.

"Oh I disagree," Karo said with a grin. The buzz was hitting him, and these girls were...really cute. In a lot of ways.

"Oh? Some weird Centauri thing?" Riley asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Pfft, I hope not," Karo scoffed. "We ask each other questions."

"Oh that's boring."

"Oh wait, like twenty questions?" Jess asked.

"Close. Want to make it interesting?" he leaned forward. "Here are the rules. You must answer a question truthfully - without obeying that rule, the game is pointless. So you gotta want to play. Don't like a question? Just don't answer it. Don't lie, just don't answer."

"And what, we take a drink each time we don't answer?" Riley asked.

"Nah, we'd get hammered too quickly," Karo replied with a wave of the hand. "Or we'd never drink. Gotta make it interesting. Any question you don't want to answer costs you a piece of clothing."

"Oh you sly motherfucker, you just wanna see us naked, do you?" Riley grinned.

"I just want to get to know you," Karo replied easily, leaning back again. "Whether I see you naked is really up to you."

He eyed the girls. He was certain Riley would be down for it, judging by the looks she'd been giving him. Her dark brown hair crested over her head and down to one shoulder, her cyberware gleaming in the light. And her sharp face wasn't unpleasant - those red eyes were certainly captivating. Her body was slender, a bit on the skinny side, and her breasts were small under her tank top. But those legs...they seemed to go forever.

He shook himself as he realised he'd been staring, and Riley cocked an eyebrow.

"Sure you just want to 'get to know me', Centaur-boy?"

"Yeah, you two can play," Jess said, leaning back into the corner of the couch, eyeing the two of them. "I'll happily watch."

Karo gave a half smile. "Well it's either you're fun and challenging, or I see you naked really quick. My money is on the latter."

"Ooh, challenging me?" she threw back the rest of her drink. "Count your clothes, cos if we're doing this we're doing it fair."

"Shirt, jacket, slacks, underwear, socks. Five."

"Shirt, slacks, socks. So lose two items, Centauri."

Karo's dick twitched and Jess gasped as Riley gave him a lazy smile. Karo grinned back and stripped off his socks and jacket. "So three strikes and you lose? Gonna be a quick game."

"Jess, since you're not playing, wanna grab us drinks?" Riley asked her. Jess nodded and hurried over to the benchtop, pouring out some more drinks.

"I can't believe I got the job of a fucking lifetime, and my two fellow graduates are about to play truth-or-strip in front of me, on the first fucking day," she sighed.

"It's either this or the drug party, Jess," Riley said with a smile.

"Or we could just talk and get to know each other like normal people."

"Weirdly, this isn't the first time I've gotten to know someone like this," Karo chuckled. "It's not a common way to break the ice on Prime, but it's not rare either."

"You can go to your room, Jess, if you want."

"Fuck no, I want to see you two fight it out," she replied. "It's clearly gonna be interesting living with two massive egos."

"I don't have a massive ego!" both Karo and Riley said at the same time, then laughed.

"Alright, ladies get the first question," Karo gestured.

"How gallant. Let's go easy on you. What's your deepest fear?"

"Being lost in space, slowly dying of asphyxiation, within sight of a station but too far to rescue," Karo replied promptly, causing Riley to blink. "Come on, that was easy. The point of this game is to win."

"Alright smartass, your turn."

"Deepest, most true desire."

"Like I wouldn't answer that!" she scoffed, but Karo wiggled a finger.

"Not your dream. Your desire. The thing you never tell anyone because it reveals the sort of person you wish you were and regret you aren't."

She sat back, thoughtful. "Hmm, good point... fuck you, Karo."

"Maybe later."

Jess snorted.

Riley narrowed her eyes. "Alright. I want to be the most powerful woman on Earth. I don't want to be the President or Secretary General, I want to have enough money and enough lovers to influence continents. All from my penthouse skyscraper, with the best body mods and the freedom to straight up murder someone, and still be untouched by the law."

Holy shit, Karo thought.

"Holy shit," Jess said. Riley grimaced.

"Alright. My turn. What's your greatest, deepest desire, Karo?"

He knew it had been coming, and last time he'd been asked this he'd refused to answer. Did he do so again now? He was going to live with these people. But maybe it was time to be honest, to reinvent himself.

He looked hard at Riley. She cocked her head. "What, you asked me a question you don't want to answer yourself? That's not very smart."

"I..." Karo took a deep breath and a swig of vodka.

Then set down his glass and took off his shirt, tossing it at Jess. She squealed and Riley laughed.

"I let my desire to win get the better of me, shouldn't have asked you that," Karo admitted, sitting back. "I knew you'd ask it back. Alright. My turn. Hmm."