by D. N. Leo
Silence.
“Come on, I wouldn’t have access to your real identity if I weren't trustworthy.” He knew she was still shaking because of the incident in her control station, but silence was never his best friend, so he had to push.
“It’s not you.”
“That’s it?”
“We’ve been listened to.”
“Yes, I gathered that much. We were bugged. But I thought that was common in your intelligence business.”
“We bug people. Not the other way around, and not in my control center.”
“You can’t say there’s zero possibility that you are ever spied on.”
She turned and looked into his eyes. “The possibility of us being listened to by an adversary is zero. We can’t afford anything other than that. We have a traitor.”
“Right in your backyard?”
“No, right in our brain. I saw a shadow just before you came.”
The door of the house slid open, and a calm and collected man stood there, smiling at them. Michael had known what a butler was since the day he was on Earth, but even then, he’d only seen them in movies.
“Lyla,” the man said and smiled. “And this is your guest, Michael. Welcome.”
“Yes, Ryan, this is Michael.” Lyla gave him her coat. “Thank you,” she said absently and walked into the grand hall.
Ryan caught the look on her face and turned to look at Michael. Michael shrugged. “Tough day at the office,” he said and then followed Lyla inside.
A man stepped out from the darkness of a hallway. Lyla turned. “Cayson, what are you doing here?” she asked.
“It’s bagels night, Lyla.”
“Oh, that’s right. Thanks. Sorry, I totally forgot. This is Michael.”
Ryan approached. “Dinner is ready, Lyla.”
“Actually, I won’t be staying for dinner tonight, Lyla,” Cayson said. “I’ve got to go. Nice to meet you, Michael.” He scurried toward the door.
“You’re not doing anything silly, are you, Cayson?” Ryan asked.
“No, Dad,” he said and kept walking.
“What’s up, Ryan?” Lyla asked.
“Fifi’s parents rejected the wedding this morning,” he said.
“Cayson, talk to me! Don’t walk away!” Lyla commanded.
“It’s my problem, Lyla. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“You didn’t come here tonight just to bring me bagels, Cayson. What do you intend to do?” she asked.
Cayson waved his hand absently. “Forget about it. I’ve changed my mind.”
“You’re not going to Xiilok by yourself. You still have a contract hanging over your head. If they get you again, they won’t just break your leg this time.”
“They won’t take my calls. We were so close to getting married. Aren’t we entitled to at least a conversation?”
“I’ll go speak to the in-laws,” Ryan said.
“Wouldn’t those that have a contract on Cayson get you to lure him out if you go to Xiilok?” Michael asked.
“No, Xiilok contractors don’t work that way. They have their codes,” Lyla said.
Michael chuckled. “That’s the first I heard of criminals having codes of conduct.”
“Why did they reject you? Why now?” Lyla asked.
“They didn’t give a specific reason. They just said it’s best for Fifi.” Cayson paced back and forth. “How can it be best for her living in Xiilok? I promised I would bring her to Eudaiz, and I will. Why reject me? Why refuse us a life together? What have we done to deserve this?” Cayson pushed the door open.
“There has to be a reason, Cayson. What haven’t you told me?” Lyla followed him out to the front yard.
“Now even you doubt me, Lyla!”
“I don’t doubt your intentions toward Fifi. I don’t know much about her family, but I know you too well to know you’re not telling me everything.”
“Look out!” Michael pushed Cayson aside. A laser beam hit the wall behind Cayson. In the distance, the shadow of a man darted down a nearby street.
Ryan grabbed Lyla and pulled her inside.
Michael started to give chase, but Cayson caught him from behind.
“Let go! He’s getting away!”
“No, it’s a hater. Go inside.”
“Get off me. What if he wants to get Lyla?”
“No, he wants me dead.”
Cayson all but dragged Michael inside. He slammed the door closed, and Ryan engaged the secure lock.
“Are you sure he wasn’t after Lyla?” Ryan asked.
“Do you think I leaked her identity, Dad?”
“If not, why would someone be shooting at us?” Michael said.
“They were after me. They’re haters, and I’m a half-caste.”
“Cayson, I can’t believe you said that!” Lyla exclaimed.
“You’re embarrassed about your family?” Ryan asked.
“No, Dad, but I can’t stop people from hating me…from hating us because you married a human. I love you. I love Mom. But I can’t stop people—”
“True Eudaizians don’t hate. You know that, Cayson,” Lyla growled. “My parents are human.”
“No, Lyla. Your parents lived on Earth. But that didn’t make them human.”
“I’m a hundred percent human turned Iilos, so what does that make me?” Michael asked. “And for your information, I was a street kid, doing everything I could to survive, criminal or not. Ciaran turned me around, and now I’m in one of the highest ranks of border security in Iilos. True Eudaizians worship their royals. I know that for a fact. Eudaiz has a lot of enemies, but there aren’t any haters here.”
“You’re not from here. What do you know?” Cayson pushed the door open once again and walked out.
“That’s just a lame excuse. He’s hiding something,” Michael said.
“Ryan?” Lyla asked.
“It must come from Fifi’s family,” said Ryan. “Cayson never talked about their origins, apart from the fact they live in Xiilok. He never even mentioned where in Xiilok. He got upset whenever I asked.”
Michael shook his head. “So they might live in the shady part of Xiilok? Only the outlaws of the multiverse live there, and that means they would have drunk the water at the Well of Second Chances…and have those wormy eyes.”
“I’ve seen Fifi’s picture, though. She looks normal, but I can look her up,” Lyla said and entered her private computer room at the end of the corridor.
Michael followed. “Xiilok is independent of any system in the multiverse,” he said. “If you have records on their citizens, you’re the greatest data thief of them all, Lyla.”
“I don’t have Xillok’s information, but if Cayson wanted to bring Fifi to Eudaiz, he must have filed an application in the Eudaizian and the Daimon Gate system. And that migrant application is extensive. My best guess is that Cayson wanted me to check the system to see if there was anything wrong with the application.”
Michael nodded. “Judging by his reaction, I think he knows things have gone wrong. He might need you to do more than just check.”
Ryan shook his head. “I can’t believe my son even thought about asking you for that, Lyla. It will compromise the integrity of your system.”
“That’s why he changed his mind and didn’t ask,” Michael said.
Lyla narrowed her eyes. “There are only two possibilities that could cause his application to go wrong. One, our system is compromised. Two, he falsified information. I’m leaning toward the first explanation.”
“The shadow.” Michael nodded. “So someone is toying with your computer system, and that person messed up his fiancée’s migration application. Then just now, they shot at him. On the surface, it looked like a personal attack, but I have a feeling if they really wanted him dead, he would be.”
Ryan started to pace the room. “A decoy? Do you think they were trying to provoke something? Does it have anything to do with Lyla’s security? Because I’m going to report
back to Central right now, and Lyla, you need to move back to the Sciphil zone.”
“Give me some time, Ryan. I’ll look up the file first, and then I’ll make a decision. Please don’t report back to Central yet. I might be used as a decoy to cause a distraction for something bigger and more important.”
Chapter 4
Fifi peeked through a little hole in the door to the basement where she was being held captive to make sure the dark corridor was empty. She knew the routine of the guards by now—they would have gone for late drinks, thinking she was asleep. She pulled out a small spoon she had hidden, climbed on the bed, and worked on the screws around the small ventilation door to the room upstairs. She had loosened up two out of five screws the other day. She would finish the rest today. She was sure of it.
The thought that her family was out there, not knowing where she was, ripped through her like a tidal wave. She thought of Cayson. He would have had a heart attack if her family had told him she was missing. She hoped they hadn’t. She knew Cayson wouldn’t hold up well with no communication from her.
They didn’t live in wartime, but the multiverse wasn’t exactly at peace, and it never would be. She and Cayson’s inter-universal relationship didn’t help things, either. She wished things had turned out better, but they hadn’t. They had no choice but to be who they were.
She pushed harder at the screw. “Come on!” she muttered. Soon, the screw loosened, and the vent cover dropped down. She caught it, but at the same time, she heard the footsteps of the guards coming back.
She grabbed a bucket from the corner of the room and pulled the blanket over of it. Then she climbed up to the ventilation doorway and sat still. She could see the guard’s eyes peeking in through the cell’s tiny window. It was dark inside, and from his vantage point, she knew he wouldn’t notice the hole in the ceiling. When he closed the window, she started crawling through the narrow pipe.
After a while, she saw a dim light. She crawled out to a dark, muddy field—and then she recognized the place. She was on the outskirts of her own village. She needed only to cross a thin wedge of forest, and she would be home with her parents.
She squatted down and crawled along a low stone fence.
Then she saw a dim light on the ground. It must be coming from another cell.
Ignore it and go! her inner voice told her.
She sighed inwardly and returned to the light. A quick dig revealed a shallow basement, shallower than hers had been. At the bottom of the hole sat Linx, a five-year-old girl who lived next to her in the village.
“Fifi!” Linx called up to her, and the little girl’s tears started to fall.
“No, no…don’t cry. Shss!”
Linx nodded and kept silent.
Fifi looked more carefully at the bottom of the hole. It wasn’t a room. More like a shallow well. There was no door out from the bottom. They had just dug a hole and imprisoned the girl there. Linx was too small to climb up and out, and it was quite a distance from the village, so nobody would hear her even if she cried out.
“Cowards!” Fifi swore to herself. She didn’t even know who had captured Linx and her, or why.
Fifi tugged at the tree branches and tough vines nearby and lowered them down into the well.
“Can you grab on and hold tight?” she asked.
Linx obeyed instantly, and Fifi pulled her up. The girl clung to her, holding tight, and wouldn’t let go. Linx’s body shook with fear, but she didn’t dare cry.
“Don’t make a noise. I’ll take you home, okay?”
Linx nodded.
Fifi dashed through the forest in the dark with Linx in her arms, heading home. She went to Linx’s house first. The sooner the little girl was back with her family, the better. She put the girl down next to a small bush. “You wait here. Be a good girl, and don’t make a sound. I’ll go get your parents.”
Linx nodded.
Fifi looked at the sleeping village. She knew two families who wouldn’t be sleeping—hers and Linx’s. She followed the fence and rapped lightly on the door. It pushed open at her knock, and she let herself in. As soon as she set foot inside the living room, the stench of fresh blood engulfed her.
She didn’t need a light to know it was the smell of death. Her eyes adjusted, and in the dim light that leaked into the house via a small window, she saw the bodies, lying in a pool of blood.
She backed out and stepped on a small pile of fur—their dog.
She scrambled back to the front yard and ran back to Linx. She picked up the girl and ran. Reaching her own home, she rushed through the back door, not bothering to turn on the light.
There was no smell of blood here. She walked into the living room and then rushed toward her parents’ room.
There weren’t there.
Had they been captured at the same time as she? Were they still in the bush?
She rushed around. Linx was dead quiet. She hadn’t even asked Fifi about her parents. Maybe somehow she knew what had happened.
She rushed out of the back of the house.
This was Xiilok—a residential area. It wasn’t the part where the multiversal outlaws resided, but still, there was no authority here. There was nobody for her to call. She could maybe run to the brotherhood in the village. They had guarded the village for a long time. But what if they were the ones who had captured her and killed Linx’s parents?
She had been to places where they could have just asked for help and protection. But not here.
Linx started to cry, but she still didn’t ask Fifi what had happened.
Fifi ran until she was exhausted and then flopped down next to a large tree.
Linx looked at her. “Are my parents dead?” she asked.
Before she could come up with an answer for the girl, she saw some light flashing from the woods from where she had just come. They had started searching for her and Linx. She wasn’t sure she had the energy left to run.
Chapter 5
Lyla marched into the command center as if it was a normal day. Michael flanked her side, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“Is this necessary?” she asked.
“We agreed this is the best plan available, given the circumstance. So of course it’s necessary,” Michael said.
She smiled at Peter, the computer hardware technician, who walked past the entrance. “I mean your hand,” she said through her clenched teeth and put on another smile for Suzana, the data entry clerk downstairs. She was one hundred percent sure Suzana was staring at Michael’s hand on her waist.
“I’m playing the role, and you have to play your part, too. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time.”
“Couples don’t have to be this explicit. Don’t you think you’re overplaying it a bit?”
“This isn’t excessive at all, Lyla. It’s just the way a man shows care and affection to his girlfriend. It’s barely more than common etiquette. I’m trying to be a gentleman here.”
“You must think I’m an idiot, Michael.”
“I know you’re not. You think you’re expected to be smart because of your DNA, so you can’t afford to make a mistake and be seen as an idiot. Relax, Lyla. If you want to acknowledge a part of your human side, then let me tell you, humans are irrational. And guys like me, they’re mostly idiots. But that’s okay. We’re human. We make mistakes. We’re not perfect.”
“My father never makes mistakes.”
“I’m talking about normal human beings, Lyla. But for your information, your father does make mistakes. I saved his ass a couple of times.”
“Really? So how old are you?”
“Now you’re hurting my feelings. I came here from the past, remember? So age is irrelevant. At least it is in my case.” He grinned at her.
A man walked out right in front of them and looked Michael up and down suspiciously. “What’s up?” he asked. “Can I see your Pass?”
“Oh, here you are. I’ve been looking for you.” Lyla pushed Michael’s hand away and smiled at the
man. “Marconi, meet Michael. Michael, Marconi, my deputy.”
“Oh, this is the man in charge!” Michael reached his hand out for a handshake.
“You have a Pass?” Marconi asked again.
“Of course.”
Lyla pulled Marconi aside. “I need a favor,” she said.
Marconi frowned. “Michael doesn’t have a Pass?”
“He does, but we’ve been dating for a while, and I haven’t told my family. I’m taking him to see them today. He’s from Iilos, and we’ll use his Pass for the Daimon Gate.”
“I didn’t know your family lives in the Daimon Gate.”
“You know now. Please…I haven’t applied for leave. It’s going to be a surprise…and…”
“You need this off the record.”
“Yes.”
“Lyla, can you do this next week? We should apply for leave properly. What if something goes wrong when you’re away?”
“That’s why I’m asking for your help.”
“Doing it off the record is difficult. If something happens, I won’t be able to command without authority.”
“You’re right, but I only need a day. I can put in an express authorization if it’s okay by you?”
Marconi shifted back and forth on his feet.
“Come on, I’ve never asked for a favor before.”
He sighed. “All right. Is there anything major I should know?”
“No. I’ll leave Zin here. And he’s trying to be a mermaid. Just so you know.”
“Your robot is crazy, Lyla.”
“He’s a learning machine. He learns from me…so what are you saying?”
“Nothing. Sorry.”
She gave him an electronic authorization pad. “Here you are. Are we all good?”
“One day only. Promise?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
Michael stepped in and kissed her on the cheek. Then he grinned at Marconi. “Thank you. This means the world to us.”
He led her out of the control room. Outside the building, she hissed at him, “You kissed me.”