HONEYSUCKLE

1: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

I'm sending this out after it's already done. I'm sitting in my

hotel room now, waiting for the police to arrive. They should be

here any moment. I'll make this quick.

I'm setting the record straight. I did some bad things. But, I

wasn't alone in doing them. I want you to know that. Whoever you

are.

Six months ago, my ship docked at the Cilix outpost on Europa. It

was some kind of cruise ship. The budget kind.

It was my first time in outer space. I was young, I wanted to see

the solar system. I was naive. I probably deserved what happened

for even stepping foot on a cruise ship in the first place.

I got to see outer space alright. The starry heavens above. It

wasn't much. There were vast stretches of nothin' and long periods

of hypersleep, interlaced with brief jaunts on exotic-but-desolate

locations scattered throughout the solar system. I felt like

nothin' when I was out there too. I felt like a nobody, like what I

did didn't really matter. Sort of the opposite of how you imagine

space feeling. There was no glory, no majesty, only air-conditioned

resorts, and they didn't even look all that different from the

resorts back home.

The people were different, sure. People in those places live like

there's no morals, no governments. Mostly because there aren't any.

I'd like to say that I did what I did because I was a simple

Earth-boy corrupted by these outlying societies, but that's not

true. I've always had a tendency to flirt with the wrong side of

the law. I want to be clear though, nothin' I ever did back on

Earth ever harmed anybody. I was small-time. That changed on

Europa. It changed with a woman.

I first saw her on the second day of our one-week stop at Europa.

She looked like the real thing. Beautiful, young, smelling of

honeysuckles.

I soon found out she wasn't the real thing at all. Far from it.

She was an android. Her name was Judy.