“Fine, fine. How low?”
“Low.”
“Like this low?” she asked, crouching while sticking her ass in the air. “Or lower?”
“Lower.”
She attempted to do this and ended up faceplanting.
Roman rested for a while, occasionally disturbed by the noises Celia made as she cleaned. He was also bothered a few times by Casper, who was trying to get Coma to play around with her.
“Come on, it’s called Who Can Stab Who First? I’ll even give you a ten-second head start!”
“I will crush you,” Coma said repeatedly.
Eventually, Roman figured they would go out to at least get some fresh air and some dark hair dye.
He extended his palm to Casper; the tiny doll crawled up into his hand and went straight to the pocket of his shirt.
“Remember, low profile.”
“Whatever, whatever,” she said, thrusting her hips at Roman. “I’ll behave.”
Once Celia and Coma joined him at the door, Roman locked up and made his way to the first floor.
“Good morning,” the lady that ran the inn called over to him. “There’s tea available if you’re thirsty, dear!”
“Morning. And thanks.”
“It’s nice to see you ladies too,” she told Celia and Coma.
Coma was maskless for the time being, her dark hair in a side ponytail rather than her normal pigtails, which better matched the simple peasant clothing she wore. Celia was similarly dressed, although she’d made some adjustments to her outfit, including adding a shawl she’d found in one of the room’s closets.
“It’s great to see you,” said Celia, “and I promise I’ll return the shawl.”
“Did you find it in the room?” The woman laughed. “That means it isn’t mine to return. If you like it, keep it. Anyway, I won’t talk your ears off over here. Can I help you find something today?”
“Actually, if you can just point me in the direction of either a place to get my hair cut or a general store, that would be great,” said Roman.
The woman told him politely that the town wasn’t large enough to have a salon, but they did have a general store, which was just two blocks down. If he wanted someone to cut his hair, she could arrange for one of her cousins to stop by.
“No, I’ll just visit the store,” Roman said as he stepped out of the inn.
It wasn’t difficult to find the general store.
There were people coming in and out of it with supplies, from food to tools and other construction items such as planks, cans, paintbrushes, and cleaning items.
Roman kept his eyes mostly on his surroundings as he made his way inside.
He couldn’t help but feel like someone was watching him, as if an attack would take him off guard if he wasn’t careful.
“This place is so quaint,” Casper said in a sarcastic voice. “It’s like the world has regressed fifty years. How cool is that?”
“I like it,” Celia told the tiny doll as they moved past a checkout counter to a series of wooden shelves, the entire store looking like it was in low supply.
There was a charm to the village that sort of reminded Roman of some of the outer establishments of Centralia, the ones near the Southern Alliance border where people went to vacation in the woods.
At least they’d used to look like this.
With new condo developments and the need for more housing, many of those green spaces had been turned into mixed living developments, the developers promising to keep a natural appeal to the places but failing to live up to their promises as the suburbs crept in, along with more high-rises as land became scarce.
It took him a few minutes, but eventually Roman located the toiletry section, where he found a single packet of dark hair dye.
“This will have to do,” he said, handing it to Celia, who quickly flipped it over to review the instructions.
“Is there anything else we need?” Coma asked.
“Ahem. Clothing for Casper would be nice,” the tiny doll said.
“You already have clothing that fits you.”
“And why isn’t she wearing a mask?” Casper asked Roman, referring to Coma. “I don’t like her without a mask. Her red eyes bother me. Let’s get her a mask.”
“Quiet,” Roman said under his breath.
“Let’s go back outside. I want to look at trees, and the nature, and the fat birds. There are lots of fat birds out there, I can hear them.”
“Um, sure,” Roman assured her.
They paid for the hair dye and left without any other supplies.
Rather than go straight back to the inn, Roman took a walk around the village, becoming better acquainted with it as Casper commented on just about everything she saw.
The village was about the size of the outdoor shopping center in central Centralia, no larger than two square kilometers, and even that was being generous. There was an embankment above the western side of the village, leading Roman to believe it had mostly been built closer to sea level.
There were a lot of trees though, many with their leaves now missing, a few still puffed up with reds and oranges the likes of which Roman hadn’t seen before in foliage. It wasn’t like this in Centralia where green trees turned brown quickly, their leaves swept away by the wind and straight into gutters or other crevices where they stewed.
As he continued to tune Casper out and moved through the village, Roman wondered where Nadine was, figuring she was likely in one of the homes or establishments.
He didn’t know how she’d convince someone to lead her to the rebels, but he knew she could be quite persuasive.
Even so, it didn’t look like it was going to be an easy task. The place was too quiet, the people keeping to themselves, fixated on their shadows, the sun bearing down on them even though it was cool out.
Back at the inn, Roman followed the directions on the hair dye packet, Celia offering to help him with it.
“This is going to look very strange,” she said once the paste was applied. “You’ll look more like Coma’s brother than Roman Martin.”
“I always wanted a brother,” Coma said.
Casper laughed. “No you don’t; you want a nice younger sister, like me!”
Roman went to the restroom to look at himself in the mirror, seeing she had also made sure to cover his sideburns. She had done an excellent job of spreading the blackened paste through his hair.
Following the directions, and ignoring Casper, Roman waited thirty minutes for the dye to take effect.
Once it was done, he went to the shower to wash it off, Celia volunteering to join him.
The doll got undressed and Roman did the same, their bodies grazing against one another as they moved to the shower.
Roman sat on the edge of the tub as nude Celia washed the dye out of his hair, its dark colors mixing with the water and swirling down the drain.
From there Roman moved to the shower proper where Celia soaped up his back, the doll trying not to get her hair wet.
“It takes so long to dry,” she said as she let him take the brunt of the hot water.
“I get that.”
He ran his hand along the contours of her body, yet again amazed at how real she felt.
He’d done something similar to Nadine the previous night, and there really wasn’t much of a difference.
Celia moved closer to Roman, his eyes naturally falling on her erect nipples. She started to clean off his shaft and he let her, relaxing even more as steam billowed all around them.
Once they were finished, Roman let his hair air dry.
And about an hour later, he went into the restroom and was startled by his own appearance, not recognizing the dark-haired man in the mirror.
He had to laugh.
Roman had been on the verge of attacking himself upon seeing his reflection.
It was several hours later before Nadine returned, the Eastern spy momentarily startled by Roman’s dark hair.
“I thought w
e were going to dye it together,” she said.
“Celia saved you the trouble,” Roman told her. “Anyway. This is it. Me with black hair.”
“It does go better with your orange eyes…”
Seated on the couch, Roman deactivated Casper before she could make a snarky comment. He placed the tiny doll in his pocket and moved aside a bit to give Nadine room to sit.
“Well?” he asked her.
“I tried some of my normal tactics; no one was receptive.”
“What are your normal tactics, if I may ask?”
“If I told you…” Nadine shrugged, crinkling her nose a bit. “I guess it really doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s mostly a style of talking to people—no matter what country they live in or who they are—in a way that makes them feel like they’re being listened to. We were taught to show kinship with the goal of getting more information from people without coming off as if we’re prying.”
“How does it work?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than this, but I can give you somewhat of an example. Let’s pretend you’re a clerk at the general store.”
“Okay.”
Nadine cleared her throat. “I was looking for the hair dye. Do you happen to know where it is?”
“Um, aisle four,” Roman said.
“It sounds like you’re busy.”
“No, I’m not busy. Just putting up our new shipment,” Roman said, falling into a role he had learned at the bodega he’d worked at when his powers had been stripped away from him.
“Putting up a new shipment?”
“Yeah, it just came in.”
“It seems like there’s a lot coming in these days.”
“We’ve been selling more supplies than we normally would, mostly because…”
A grin stretched across Roman’s face.
“See?”
“And perhaps that would have been the moment I told you about more people in town because of the rebels, or just said something about more people being around, elaborating further.”
Nadine confirmed this with a nod. “And from the information you have given me, I would then continue my journey into finding the person I’m looking for. But, unfortunately, the people of Outer Haven have either been trained against our intelligence-gathering methods or they simply aren’t buying them. Anyway, it was a day of a lot of mirroring and running around in circles.”
“Would you like something to eat?” Celia asked. “I can go downstairs and request that dinner be brought up.”
“That would be very nice, thank you,” she told the redheaded doll.
“Thanks,” Roman called out to Celia once she reached the door of their room.
“She really is sweet,” Nadine said after the doll had left.
“She is.”
“And I can see the usefulness in having her around.”
“I’m glad. Because I’m not planning to get rid of any of them, including this one,” Roman said as he patted his hand on his front shirt pocket.
“My least favorite, but I suppose she can be helpful as well.”
“Sometimes. So what then? What’s next?”
“You mean, if I can’t find anything about the rebels?”
Roman nodded.
“If that’s the case, we may just have to go to the border on our own and risk a crossing. I know some places it would be easier, which is why I chose Outer Haven in the first place.”
“We could just go underground,” Roman suggested. “If we started far enough away from the border, I could make a tunnel connecting to the other side. I don’t know exactly where we would come out, but we could deal with that when we arrive.”
“That’s not a bad idea. And I’m sure I can think of a few others as well. Either way, we will get there, we’ll meet with Eli and Lisa, and then we’ll move to our final destination.”
Roman and Nadine locked hands, Nadine turning to him.
“I can’t wait,” Roman told her earnestly.
They ate another hearty stew, Celia sitting and chatting with them about their plans for after they lived through all of this, both of them vague mostly because they didn’t know.
The main focus was making it to the other side; what happened after would be handled then.
It turned out to be a pretty nice evening, Coma taking a seat and relaxing some even though she couldn’t really enjoy food or beverages.
Nadine called down for a local apple wine, which tasted more like cider to Roman than wine.
Now experiencing a slight buzz, Roman was the first to lie down on the bed, his hands behind his head as he started to drift off.
The next thing he knew, Nadine was whispering his name, Roman blinking his eyes open and sitting up to see several men standing in the room, all with black masks on their faces.
“Not another move,” the largest of the men said, pointing his wrist guard at Coma.
Roman pressed his tongue against the inside of his lip as he sat up.
His combat doll was within striking distance of the masked man and would easily be able to engage him.
“You haven’t really thought this through, have you?” Roman asked as he started to reach out, grabbing hold of all four of their hearts.
“We were told someone was asking about us, and we are responding,” the largest of the men said.
Roman assumed they were rebels, all the men wearing dark fatigues. And from what bits of their faces he could see through their masks, the men were unshaven, wild looks in their eyes.
“Nadine?”
“Go on,” she told Roman.
“I’m going to make this very simple for the four of you. Right now, I have control of all of your hearts. If you don’t think this is the case, try me,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a growl. “Lower your wrist guards and take them off. Hand them to her. Then we will talk.”
“Why would we do something stupid like that?” one of the other men asked, stammering. “Y-you’re not telling us what to do!”
“I don’t want to kill any of you, nor do I want to break your equipment, because you may need it in the future. But this is your last warning. All of you will be dead in an instant, and then I will animate your bodies and have each of you jump out the window and dig your own graves. Maybe I’ll have you skull fuck one another too.”
“You don’t have that kind of power…” the first man said, but the tone of his voice told Roman he was aware this type of ability existed, much more aware than the other three men behind him, who were still pointing their weapons at Celia, Coma, and Nadine, each of them showing various signs of apprehension, from the occasional shake to the man whose eyes were wide with terror.
Coma’s arm morphed into a blade. “Enough,” she started to say, Roman’s combat doll interrupted by Celia, who stepped up to the rebel aiming his wrist guard at her.
“This is unnecessary,” Celia said firmly. “We were looking for you so we could join you in crossing the border. It’s as simple as that. We know more or less of what you’re up to, and none of us are really affiliated with any government organization now.”
“Come again?” their leader asked, eyeing the beautiful redhead curiously.
“Both of our governments—the Eastern Province for her, and Centralia for the three of us—are actively trying to hunt us down,” Roman explained. “So, we have no real alliances any longer. We just want to get across the border.”
“What if we have an alliance with our own government?” one of the masked men asked. He was a tall fellow with broad shoulders, a nasty look about him even if he seemed a bit apprehensive. “Turning you over to them could be an advantage for us…”
The man’s wrist guard snapped off his arm, formed legs, and scurried across the floor as his clothes began to tighten.
The man fell to the floor, attempting to tear his clothes off before they could suffocate him.
“Stop!” their leader said, hesitation in his voice. “We get it. I get it. You have the power, don’t
you?”
“I do,” Roman said. The animated wrist guard stopped in front of him, its top end lifting like the tail of a scorpion as it paused before his feet.
Their leader lowered his wrist guard, the other two doing the same.
“Glad we can come to an understanding,” Roman said, letting up on the man who was being suffocated by his own clothing.
The rebel stood and angled his shoulder away from Roman, embarrassed.
Silence stretched across the room, Roman still ready for anything but slowly relaxing his grip on the men’s hearts.
Finally, their leader spoke. “I believe Marcus will need to speak to the four of you.”
Roman could tell that at least one of the rebels was unsure of this development and wanted to protest.
But the rebel in charge pressed on.
“Our teleporter will be here soon. Please pack any belongings you would like to bring.”
“We don’t have much,” Nadine said, satisfied with how that had turned out. “I’m glad you saw things our way. While I don’t like to threaten people, nor does Roman, it would have been a very bad choice on your part to engage us.”
“Maybe,” the man said under his breath.
“But might I make a suggestion?” she continued. “Next time, how about knocking instead?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Exemplars and Wrist Guards
A teleporter took Nadine, Roman, and Roman’s dolls to a location deep within the woods. The canopy shrouded just how large the encampment was, the moonlight barely able to get in.
There were lights strung from the canopies of the trees, giving an orange glow to a number of white tents, some with the square footage of a two-bedroom condo.
Roman saw rebels milling about, male and female, some as if they were on duty and others more relaxed. The rebels all wore dark fatigues similar to the four men who had appeared in the hotel room, their rankings indistinguishable.
They were led to one of the larger tents in the center, where one of the rebels went inside and spoke before returning, telling them it was fine to go in.
Roman entered the tent with Nadine and his dolls to find a man sitting at a table, a map of the border laid out before him. The rebel leader had broad shoulders and a sharp beard twisted off into a knot. There was a hint of youthfulness to him, overshadowed by a dire look in his eyes, eyes that told Roman he’d been through quite a bit.
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