5. Shadows of the Past

It wastrue that Lupo had been a soldier. It just wasn't true that that had anything to do with his presence on the reincarnation ship. He had completed his military service nearly a decade before the outbreak of the frontier wars. He'd been almost thirty-four when he was forcibly uploaded to the resurrection ship.

The mysterious alien incursion into human space had only just begun when it happened. Right after the war started, his then-boyfriend and co-conspirator concocted a wild plan. Bartholomew had been a criminal for as long as Lupo had known him, and he'd always done his best to overlook that part of their relationship. And yet, after concluding his military service, Lupo found himself dragged right into Bartie's life of crime as a ship pilot and sometimes thug.

At first, they'd just run stolen starships, hijacking small vessels from haulers in transit and selling them to fences in the seedy outposts endemic to asteroid belts across the settled worlds. Over time, their wealth had grown, and so had Bartie's greed. When he stumbled across information about the existence of a pirate group that had managed to hijack a freighter promising immortality, he became obsessed with the idea of making it his own. He was a collector of rare and obscure artifacts. And the idea of being immortal appealed to him more than anything.

"You've got to get on board with me here," Bartie urged Lupo as he showered.

They had made love all afternoon, and Lupo rolled his eyes under the weak trickle that drizzled from their old ship's crappy plumbing.

"I told you I'm not letting you slice my brain to pieces so that you can turn us into fucking robots," Lupo moaned for the hundredth time. Lately, this was all Bartie talked about, and it was getting beyond old.

"But you're the only one with the hacking skills to get past their security, Lupo! Imagine… immortality! Why don't you want that?" Bartie argued, as he always did.

"You realize that to scan your consciousness, it has to slice your brain apart like deli meat, right?" Lupo inquired, genuinely unsure why his partner didn't seem to get how horrifying that idea was. "And who's to say it even works?"

"It's not like you're awake while it happens, though," Bartie protested.

"How do you know?" Lupo asked, turning off the water and spinning around to grab a towel.

But what he saw caused him to freeze, paralyzed. Bartie was holding a stun pistol, and had it pointed right at him.

"Bartie? What the hell are you doing?" Lupo cried, raising a hand to shield himself.

"Sorry." Bartie shrugged. And then he blasted Lupo with the immobilizer.

Lupo seized, his vision fading as he collapsed. He barely felt it as his head cracked on the stained tile floor. Blood began to puddle around him as Bartie knelt down to inspect the damage.

"Doesn't look like anything important got damaged there. Alright, up we go. You'll forgive me eventually. Everyone does."

Lupo passed out.

When Lupo came to he was strapped to a table in their ship's little living quarters. The neuro-link device Bartie had spent a fortune on was strapped tightly to his head. The connectors were cold against his scalp. Lupo's eyes bulged, and he began to scream, the crusted blood on his face cracking as the sound escaped his lips.

"You fucking bastard! Take it off! Take it the fuck off!" Lupo shrieked.

His restraints were tight, though—tighter and more secure than he could fight against. His naked back felt cold and numb against the surface of the stainless-steel table. His mind spun with fear and rage.

"I promise you this will be worth it," Bartie said somberly, appearing in view and fiddling with the helmet's control.

"I'll never forgive you," Lupo started. "What the hell are you even thinking?"

"Get me that ship and we'll have the rest of forever learning to forgive each other. I love you. I know you'll find your way back to me." Bartie kissed him on the cheek.

"Bartie, stop this!"

But Bartie ignored him. He fiddled with the holo, and Lupo felt the machine on his head begin to prod and probe at his scalp.

"Bartie!" he protested with the last of his strength.

But he couldn't resist. Suddenly, he felt exhausted. And heavy. And he found he could only half care as the machine whirred to life and began to carve into his brain.

To Lupo's horror, he realized that you were awake while it sliced your brain apart after all—at least at first…

When Lupo decanted, he remembered immediately what had just happened. From that moment on, he was confident of one thing and one thing only: he was getting revenge.

Like Auren, Lupo had been strapped to a chair in an empty cell. And like Auren, he'd been tortured. But unlike Auren, Lupo knew how to hack into his new body's software and hardware without the pirates being any the wiser for it. And he'd done so right away. He'd created an uplink between his mind to the reincarnation vessel's data hub, and piece by piece, he copied himself into it, keeping his bandwidth usage so low that their datamaster never picked up on his presence until he'd fully backed himself up. As it turned out, it would be his copy's home and prison for the next five years, until the pirates intercepted another cloned signal he felt he could trust: Auren.

For a time, Lupo had the uploaded version of himself to keep him company in the cell, and the two made pleasant conversation even as the pirates gave up on waiting for the bounty that would never come and dragged him to the airlock, preparing to blast him into space, where he would likely suffer for countless millennia. As they prepared to launch him, he thanked the backed-up copy for its company and its act of mercy as it entered a kill command to his hardware.

Promise me you'll get even with him for what he's done to us, Lupo implored himself.

I promise, the copy assured him. Be at peace, friend. And with that, yet another version of Lupo had ceased to exist.

It was the copy of the copy that Auren had eventually downloaded into the body sitting here now, telling him the truth about the story he'd gotten himself caught up in.

"I understand if you want to get off at Thestle, or I can take you wherever you want to go once I'm done with what I've got to do there. If I don't come back, the ship will be yours," Lupo finished.

Auren was sprawled out in the semi-circular dining booth, staring out its domed glass viewing ceiling, apparently processing what he'd just heard.

"So you've died three times now…" the young man marveled.

"Technically, I've only died the one time—when Bartie sliced my brain into pieces."

"And this Bartie… he's on Thestle?" Auren asked cautiously.

"He was. I can't know until we get there," Lupo said.

"Well, you have my word that I'll do whatever I can to help you. Though I'm not sure what my word is worth anymore, not after Vesperion."

Auren looked at Lupo from across the dim booth. His face was youthful, wolfish. His big eyes and soft lips were a blend of masculine and feminine, and Lupo—perhaps a little drunk—felt himself blush as he took him in for what felt like the first time.

"I imagine your word is worth quite a lot," Lupo mused, eyeing the other man intently, enjoying this stolen moment in their far-flung corner of the universe. It was nice to not be alone after all this time. "Auren, don't you have people back home? Where was it again, Obila? I thought that place was supposed to be nice," Lupo said, whistling as he imagined the world-spanning city.

"Just a brother. I miss him. It's been over a year now since we saw each other," Auren said sadly. "Hey, I think I'm gonna go get some sleep. I assume the ship will wake us if there are any problems?" he asked abruptly.

Lupo noted that Auren's eyes had gotten glassy when he'd been forced to speak about his brother, and he realized that he'd accidentally struck against some raw feelings.

"It will; I'm keyed in to the sensor array," Lupo assured him. "And hey, I'll get you home to your brother. I promise."

Auren smiled weakly as though not fully believing him.

"I'd like that," he said. "Goodnight, Lupo."

And with that, he left.

"Buona notte, bel diavolo," Lupo whispered, already missing Auren's company. He sighed, then decanted himself a final glass of wine and slid back into the booth.

Bartie was haunting his thoughts, as he had been for so long. But there was another specter there now, too: Auren. And his presence was like a counterweight to the trauma Bartie had inflicted on him. Lupo rested his head against the backrest and let the face of his handsome companion float through his mind.

Lupo wasn't sure how long he slept there, sitting upright at the booth. He'd knocked over the wine at some point and spilled it all over himself. He looked curiously at the stain—red as blood—then dragged himself to his feet and stumbled toward the dormitory.

Within, he was delighted to find that the high-tech bunks each possessed a privacy screen, a window, and a little holo-terminal for games or shows or browsing the net. The dorm was meant to house the rest of the crew. For now, it was his alone. He hopped onto a bunk, rolled onto his side, and stared out into the dark void of the starfield. Surprisingly, it didn't take long for him to return to a simulation of sleep, albeit without the comfort of dreams.