Corralling my baser urges, I asked, “Lock magic?” Tess had told me once that she could override any lock. Maybe I’d finally know how.
“I’ll show you.” The quick smile she flashed me looked stiff around the edges. What could she possibly have to be nervous about? Especially with me?
Asher covered a belch with his hand. “Did Raz give you that unidentifiable shit for dinner?” He grimaced, looking suddenly green around the gills. Another burble rumbled in his gullet.
Fiona pretend-retched. “That was worse than usual. We bring them stuff, and they thank us by giving us the expired crap nobody wants anymore. Raz is going to be sorry when all the Nightchasers feeding his Mooncamps are dead from food poisoning.”
“I swear it was regurgitated rubber coated in sludge.” Asher laid a hand over the center of his chest, looking like his dinner was about to come back up.
“Don’t think about it,” Fiona said sharply. “Engines. Cocktails. Puppies!”
Asher frowned at her. “What are you shouting about, Fi?”
“Just trying to distract you.” Fiona shrugged. “This hangar already stinks enough without you throwing up all over it.”
“The hangar doesn’t stink.” Tess leaned forward and sniffed. “That’s Frank.”
Frank danced in on a boxer’s shuffle and gave Tess a light shove. “I am captain of the Unholy Stench.” He grinned at her. Tess laughed.
I held very still. It was an actual physical effort not to touch her myself after that, not to hold her hand or put my palm on the small of her back. Tess hadn’t introduced me as anything other than her navigator and mechanic. I didn’t know what she wanted her friends to think, and it wasn’t my place to decide for her. Now, I just had to convince my male body of that when it was operating more on a Club rival, claim mate level.
“The stink comes from flying through the shit of the Overseer.” Caeryssa’s sharp features twisted in distaste. “He crapped out the Dark Watch, and now his excrement is literally all over the place.”
“Speaking of that unholy stench,” Frank said, “did you guys see Novalight’s latest transmission?”
“No… When was it?” Tess’s eyes filled with wariness. “We’ve been lying low and out of touch for the last few days.”
“Yesterday, eighteen hundred hours, u-time.” Frank pulled a hand-sized tablet from his pocket. “Now you can all get ready to vomit,” he added with zero humor in his voice.
He went to his recordings and tapped on the latest entry. The Galactic Overseer’s face filled the screen. Brown eyes in a square, unforgiving face stared straight out from the tablet at us. Short brown hair hugged his scalp like a helmet, accentuating the brutish cut of his chin and his unanimated, robotic appearance. Honestly, a well-made robot probably had more feeling than he did. All this man cared about was his own aggrandizement. And holding on to power.
“People of the eighteen Sectors,” the Overseer began from what looked like his home office. I glanced at Tess as she watched. Her blue eyes had gone glacial, as cold and hard as an ice-coated planet. She crossed her arms. Her chin jutted forward.
“In a continued effort to protect you and keep this era of peace and prosperity thriving, I have decided on a new measure of human and family recognition. Never again will a kidnapped child be lost forever. An accident befalls you far from home? With my new program, your loved ones can always find you. You’ve forgotten your code to a little used bank account? A simple scan can verify your identity. From newborn to fourth age, every citizen of the galaxy is to be assigned a new galactic identification number. Your GIN will be encoded into a tiny microchip specifically designed to flow harmlessly through your bloodstream. It will be in constant motion inside you. No nefarious person will be able to lock on to it or cut it out of you.”
“Unless they slit your throat and drain you,” Fiona said with a snort.
“Only officially issued GIN scanners will be able to read your microchip or locate specific signals across the Sectors. This is your galactic government protecting you. From near or far, we can find you.”
Tess’s mouth popped open on a gasp. She glared at the screen in utter disgust, two hot spots of color flagging her cheeks with fire.
“No fucking way,” Jax ground out. Merrick echoed that, his jaw ticking.
“That’s what we’ve been saying since yesterday,” Frank muttered.
I shook my head, not quite believing the Overseer’s new measure. It was the equivalent of branding the entire population of the galaxy. For life.
I glanced at Mwende. Shock blared from her expression, her eyes almost apocalyptic with anger. She obviously knew nothing about this, which meant the Overseer had gone rogue, setting a major scheme into motion without consulting Bridgebane.
“Over the next six universal months, your local Dark Watch will be rolling out a program to issue every galactic citizen their new GIN. This is not the same as your birth record or Sector ID number. Everyone must get their GIN. Anyone found without a GIN six months from now will be automatically arrested and imprisoned.”
“That bastard, stinker, shit-faced… Argh!” Fiona growled. “Babies… Kids… They won’t have a choice! They’ll grow up and can literally never go off-grid.”
“Your lifelong security is of the utmost importance to me. I will protect you from those trying to take this hard-won peace away from law-abiding galactic citizens like yourself. Anyone not willing to claim their GIN is a criminal. Those criminals will be found, incarcerated, and forcibly put to work for the greater good.”
“Holy shit.” Tess turned to me, anguish graying her face. “A needle into every vein in the galaxy. This whole thing is orchestrated to gather blood samples and track anyone who meets his criteria.”
Fuck. She was so right. The Overseer was searching for A1 blood, and these new GINs would lead him straight to anyone who had it. Once his plan was in motion, it meant a staggering potential for super soldiers.
“Why would he want that many blood samples?” Nic asked.
Novalight started talking again before Tess could answer. The asshole loved to pause dramatically and stare at the camera, his dark eyes beady and menacing.
“Connect now to projectyournewgin.gxy to find your local GIN center and choose a convenient time slot for your injection. Parents and legal guardians must make appointments for their children and charges. Spacedocks will be provided with traveling GIN units. Anyone without a permanent residence is required by law to request an appointment at the location of their choosing. Select the Temporary Visitor option. You have exactly six universal months from this day forward to claim a galactic identification number. Anyone found to be noncompliant six months from now will be hunted and arrested.”