Outlander Terminal couldn’t be that different from Orem, I told myself.

We were founded by pirates, for Void’s sake. Nothing could be more outlandish than that.

I was wrong.

When the doors opened, we stepped from the docking bay to the station proper. I pulled back in shock.

The noise, the crowds everywhere, spilling through the dim corridors. Lights flashed on signs in the distance, and yells and hoots echoed down another corridor.

And some of the people... weren’t people at all. A woman sauntered by, silks carefully arranged over her deep blue skin, leaving her whip-like tail free to coil behind her. A man passed the other way, green and yellow stripes winding up his arms, and scales shimmering across his face.

I tugged at Xander’s arm until he bent close enough to hear me. “I’ve never seen people so extensively modded!”

He cocked an eyebrow, and I blushed. “Regular people.” That wasn’t making it any better, dammit.

Xander tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow, and we made our way through the swarming crowds. “It’s all just decorative. Lots of gene splicers set up shop here. No restrictions or regulations.” We passed through one intersection, then turned at the next. “And you don’t need to shout. I can hear you, just fine. My mods aren’t decorative.”

Someone grabbed my ass and I whirled. Silver lines traced intricate patterns on dark skin, high cheekbones and lavender eyes drew attention the the man behind me. The effect would have been lovely, but the leer twisting his lips spoiled it all.

Xander pulled me closer, somehow became bigger, his presence filling the corridor as people scrambled to get away. “Apologize to the lady,” he growled. “Now.”

The pretty boy was oblivious. “Get a grip, guy,” he shrugged. “It was just a friendly little pat. Not like she doesn’t have enough back there to share.”

Crap.

“Xander, we have things to do, right?” I squeezed his arm, hoping to distract him.

He just loomed over silver-boy. Time to bring out the big guns.

“Can we find a hotel?” I barely breathed the words, trusted he’d meant what he said about his hearing. “I’m ready to finish what we started on the shuttle, aren’t you?”

With a jerk he looked away from the potential victim, his golden eyes drilling into mine..

Tempting fate, my tongue ran over my lips. “Priorities,” I whispered.

“Right. Priorities.” He swept away, carrying me with him, the aura of barely suppressed violence clearing our path.

The further we went into the station, the more the crowd thinned out. Fewer flashy signs beckoned from every corner.

Xander noticed me looking about.

“This street is where you find the best of the splicers. They don’t have to advertise.”

“So they could give us stripes or spots or horns,” I joked.

“The person we’re going to see could, yes. But we don’t want anything flashy.”

We turned another corner, and he continued. “Tobias says Themis lab recruits workers from an old mining town on the surface of the colony. It’s doubtful anyone desperate enough to take the job would have the extra creds for something showy. Or extra creds at all.”

“Desperate enough for the job?” That didn’t sound good. “What are they being hired for?”

“Remember, you’re the one that wanted to come along.” Xander shrugged, rolled the tension off his shoulders. “Themis is at the top of a mountain, deep in an unsettled mountain range. Helps isolate things.”

“Isolate them for security?” I stopped to look at a wall of engineered pets, fluffy feathery things in a rainbow of colors. But before I could step forward for a better look, with a snap all of their heads swiveled towards me, fixing me with one unblinking eye each.

Well, maybe not so cute.

“For security, sure. But the primary reason for their isolation is if an experiment goes bad. The damage is contained.”

Oh. That didn’t sound particularly great, either. “What are they recruiting workers for?”

“There’s always shit-work to be done. Cleaning, hauling, you name it. Things some brainy researchers aren’t going to want to do.”

I chewed my lip, thinking. “I’ll establish back histories for us once we get there. Even if it’s for shit work, surely they run background checks on anyone they hire.”

“And that’s why you’re here, babe.”

I kicked his ankle lightly. “Surely not the only reason?”

“Well,” his hot gaze sparked a heat I could feel to my toes. “Not exactly.”

I blushed, looked away, ready to change the subject. “How do you know this place?

“There’s a guy here Doc’s traded notes with, sometimes supplies. He’s not as good as her, of course, but should be able to handle cosmetic changes. I trust him not to mess with her more significant work.”

“No, this entire place. A chaos zone.”

“Babe,” he looked away, scrubbed at his hair. “The Pack has been a lot of places, done a lot of jobs. Doc didn’t have a problem sending us out to pick up parts for her, or renting our services for extra credits.”

He looked even more uncomfortable. “We haven’t always been the good guys. I’m pretty sure we’re the good guys now, though. Maybe.”

That was worth more than just a kick to the ankle. I stretched up to kiss him. “You saved us from The Star. You’re cleaning up Orem. You freed the people at the Compound. You’re heroes, didn’t you know that?”

The look on his face was sheer terror. “Nope, I’m the clown. Not as far to fall.”

We stopped in front of a darkened storefront, no windows, just a sheen of silver rippling down the walls. “But now, I’m the guy taking you to this magical shop.”

No doorway opened for us. We passed through the wall, and a cold shudder carved through my spine. But before I could complain we were into a cavern of wonders, stranger than any legend.

Holos flickered around me, changing color and shape with every moment. I stumbled as I focused on the closest.

“That’s me!”

Taller, skin wrapped in copper strips, hair transformed to a writhing mass of metal. But still me on the holodisk, rotating slowly.

Before I could wrap my mind around the transformation, the image shifted, and now I was shorter, thin and spindle-limbed, with deep green skin. I barely noticed, eyes fixed on the black wings displayed wide above.

I reached towards them, and Xander tucked me against his side. “It’ll shock you.” He gave a wicked grin and leaned down to whisper “And that’s my job.”

Goofball.

On his other side, a similar projector ran through variations of his shape, copper, then winged, furred then horned. He cocked an eyebrow. “See anything you like? We can come back after the job is done.”

I shook my head. “Nothing I like better than you now.” I craned my neck to look behind him as his image morphed into a squat, gray distortion. “Maybe that one.”

He whirled. “What? Which?”

At his accusing glare, I shrugged, teasing. “Guess you missed it.”

Ignoring the displays, he strode deeper into the shop. “Nurack! You’ve got company!”

“Just flip through the display until you find something you like,” a thin, querulous voice called from the back of the shop. It echoed slightly, as if the space were far larger than it appeared.

“You don’t usually put off Pack business with a fancy brochure.”

A yelp and a clatter came from the dark end corners.

“Pack business?” The voice sounded farther away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Old man,” Xander rolled his eyes. “What if I told you Doc’s back? Would you know what I was talking about then?”

A flurry of sounds and then footsteps came towards us. But were footsteps were unsettling somehow. The gait strange. Wrong.

And when he came into the light I stifled my gasp.

An old man, so ancient to be almost shriveled. Gray skin that could’ve been any color when he was young, eyes covered by a set of lenses that protruded slightly. He hung suspended from six thin metal limbs, his own legs swinging limply below.

Two more metal appendages waved over his head in agitation, fine tipped claws clicking and clacking.

“Connor? Is that really you?”

Xander shook his head. “Wrong guess.”

“Xander then. She shouldn’t have made your batch so similar. It’s confusing.”

I had so many questions. But that would have to wait.

“But you said she’s back.” The old man moved his fingers and the metal legs stooped down, swooping him to hang in front of Xander.

I could see where they were fused to a plate running down his spine, cutting through the white lab coat he wore.

“Word on the dark web is Doc was taken.” He hissed the words. “Killed.”

Anger might have shaken his body, but his appendages kept perfectly still.

“We got her back.” Xander gestured to me and I stepped forward. “And she’s happy and working. This is one of her new patients. Doc fixed her Karda’s Syndrome. I’m sure if you sent her a message she’d trade some hints on how she did it.”

“Really?” With disturbing speed Nurack faced me. With three skittering steps of the appendages he hung before me, waving down and up as if examining my legs.

I stepped back, uncomfortable.

“I’m so sorry.” He cocked his head to the side then extended one hand in apology. “Professional enthusiasm sometimes gets the best of me. Are you well?” His shining legs carried him higher and he looked behind me.

“There’s a wound on her shoulder. Why hasn’t Doc fixed it?”

“Doc would’ve if she was there when it happened,” Xander growled. “But if we could all sit down and talk for a minute, I might be able to explain everything.”

“Of course, of course. Come this way.”

As we passed behind another holographic screen, Nurack tapped on his sleeve. With a solid sounding thunk the illusion wall at the front of the shop shut behind us.

“We don’t need unexpected visitors,” he explained.

“Can I see that?”

He cocked his head. “What, my dear?”

“Your coat!” I stared, fascinated. It looked like regular fabric, but surely he had used it to control the building, the displays. Like a tablet woven inside the sleeve itself.

He laughed. “No, I’m sorry, my fault for not explaining. It’s not the jacket, you see,” he pushed the sleeve back from his wrist and with a thrill I saw what he had done to his arm.

Not a prosthetic, not exactly, but he had laced bone and muscle with circuits, transmitters, tiny pieces of wizardry that he could use to control the shop and, I assumed his enormous legs.

“That’s amazing,” I breathed.

“No babe.” Xander’s tone was short, but amused. “I can barely get you off the tablet. I don’t think having a commstation as part of your body’s a good idea.”

“But imagine what I could do with that!”

“I am. Trust me.”

Nurack balanced on a pair of his arms and used the others to pull forward chairs for us, remove scattered tablets from a table and in a surprising twist of normalcy, put the kettle on for tea.

“Now,” he said settling into a chair that was obviously his, adjusted for his own enhancements. “Please sit down. And tell me all about Doc.”

“Better yet,” Xander countered. “Why don’t I give you the coordinates to contact her, and we can move on with our business for the day?”

The man nodded, then sniffed. “It’s for situations like this I removed my tear ducts. Hot moisture, always steaming up my goggles.” He tapped one bulging lens. “You tell her, that if I could cry, I would, to hear she was back safely.”

“I didn’t know she meant that much to you,” Xander said softly. “She never mentioned you had that kind of history.”

“Not like that! Void, young people and their hormones.” A final sniff. “Her mind is what I would miss. All of that beautiful, clever madness.”

Xander shot me a look and carefully, discreetly, I kicked his ankle.

“I’ll send the message. But for now, we’ve got a job, and need a bit of a change in our looks. Nothing radical,” Xander warned, “just different from what we have now.” His jaw set. “Be careful with her. Don’t mess with what Doc patched, got it?”

Nurack raised both his hands and front set of spidery appendages. “Of course not,” he chided. “I might take a peek, but I wouldn’t touch a strand of code. If you didn’t kill me, Doc would. And to be honest I’m more afraid of her.”

Dismissing Xander he turned to me. “Now, my dear, what would you like? Grab one of those tablets and I’ll walk you through options for hair color and texture, skin tones, eye shades…”

Xander broke in. “Not her eyes. Don’t change her eyes.”