The Deal (Crai)
None of the cephalons were responding anymore. It was...chilling, frankly. Never in her life had she not had access to at least one cephalon. At home they had three. Here on the Zariman they had one specific to their own dormizone. Whatever she needed, she could just ask, and the cephalon would make it happen.
Now, she had nothing.
Crai wiped her face on the back of her hand. Getting all teary wouldn't do anything helpful, not right now. And she wasn't going to cry in front of those things.
From behind the still locked, still transparent door, the metal thing that used to be mother screeched.
They had continued to change. Mother's face was all metal and gaping jaws and long teeth, and it went down her neck and halfway down her chest. Her hair was gone. The only recognizable part was her eyes. All across her face, cracks in the metal leaked an eerie blue light.
Father's face was still untouched. But both his arms and shoulders were metal, and they had grown longer. His fingers were fusing together into a single, curved blade.
They shambled back and forth for a while, and then they would seem to remember they were trapped, and would pound on the walls or the door. At first she was afraid they would break through, but now she was pretty sure they wouldn't. Eventually they gave up pounding and went back to shuffling around. They seemed barely aware of each other.
"Come on," she hissed at the hallway terminal. "Show me Halakko Perimeter."
The screen gave a half hearted flicker and then went fully dark.
"Lua be damned!" She kicked the side of the terminal. It didn't help.
She needed to go find Railin. He was in class while the jump happened, while she and most of the older kids were at home doing their independent studies. She thought, hoped, that Railin would have made his way home by now. Or contacted her some other way. Not that she'd had much luck with trying to contact him.
But she didn't want to leave her parents here, locked up, either. What if they went back to normal, and she wasn't here to talk to them? To let them out? What if one of them went back to normal but the other didn't, and then they got killed because Crai had locked them up together?
It felt impossible to decide. Go find her little brother, who might already be dead. Stay with her parents, who might be monsters forever now. The ship certainly wasn't operational enough to tell her what the hell was going on in any other parts.
What was she supposed to do?
"Aw, sweetie," someone cooed from behind her.
Crai spun around, raising the kitchen knife she'd started carrying yesterday just in case.
Inside her room, behind the door, both her parents were still shuffling around and scratching at the walls. Still inhuman. Still contained.
And someone who looked exactly like her was sitting, cross legged on the ground, with her back against the transparent door.
"You're worried about Railin, aren't you?" The copycat said, grinning. She grinned wider than Crai had ever seen anyone grin. "He's still alive. Holed up with his classmates. But not for long."
She took a step forward, raising the knife. "Who are you?"
That grin just got wider, and sent a wave of horrified revulsion down her back. It made her shudder, it made her want to hug herself and shrink back just to get away from that smile.
"Don't be so uncouth," the copycat sniffed. "Crude weapons, for someone of your social standing? For shame." She leaned forward, one elbow on her knee. "That little knife won't do anything to protect you, your brother, or the rest of the children on this ship. There's nothing you can do."
The knife was trembling in her hands. The, whatever it was, was right. Crai wasn't a fighter.
"I can do something about that, though. I can save them." She flicked two fingers at the door of the dormizone. "All of them. But you have to want it."
Crai gulped. It hurt to breathe, like the air was too thick and it was stretching her lungs too much.
"Can you save them?" She looked at her parents, still locked up inside her room.
"Heh. This isn't a negotiation, sweetie. One time offer." She held out her hand, palm up. "Yes or no. Let's shake on it."
The grin was still growing. Crai's sad little knife slipped between her shaking fingers and clattered to the floor.
"Going once," the copycat said, "going twice..."
"Yes!" She put her hand into the offered one, and shook.