Driven

by Megan Hart

  She moved out of his embrace and searched his face. "You can see me, can't you?"

  He nodded. "I can see you."

  All at once, tears she hadn't known were threatening spilled down her cheeks in a torrent. Until the moment she saw herself reflected in his gaze, she hadn't known how afraid she was he would have become like all the others--blind to her because of the mark of silence.

  She looked over his shoulder, but he was alone. "They let you come to see me?"

  Again, he nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. She saw him look at the tattooed tear, and his hand came up to smooth it with one finger. She captured it with her own and held his palm against her cheek for a moment, grateful for the warmth of contact.

  "They didn't make you get the mark?" she asked.

  She couldn't interpret his expression. His face worked as he tried to speak, but seemed unable to put his thoughts into words. Finally, he sighed and ran his hand over his head in a familiar gesture.

  "I got another inking instead."

  Confused by his expression, Linna stepped back. "You did?"

  Del wore a high-collared, sleeveless tunic of some silky material, hanging loose over trousers of the same. Now he pulled off the tunic and turned his back to her. His broad shoulders flexed and rippled. The new markings, gleaming with oil, covered him from shoulder to shoulder in an intricate pattern of curls and lines intermingled with six-pointed stars and small sunbursts.

  It was lovely, the most delicately done and fascinating tattoo she'd ever seen, but it left a bad taste in her mouth.

  "What is it?"

  He turned back to face her, and she saw that the tattoo wound over his left shoulder and ended just above his heart. "It's the tal al naggid. The mark of leadership. It means I'm a melek."

  Her breath hissed out of her like she'd been punched in the gut. "I don't understand."

  "My father died."

  "Oh, Del, I'm so sorry." Linna watched his eyes flicker at her words of sympathy, but his expression didn't change much. Guilt slammed her. Did Del blame her?

  "The seven days of mourning are over. There was an empty seat in the Council. I took it."

  Linna didn't know what to say. "They made you take it?"

  His smile was hard and more than a little scary. "You know how much interest my people have in allowing choice. I was given a choice. Take the seat or take the tal al parar."

  Her breath had hissed out before; now the bottom fell out of her stomach. "And you chose to become the Amanrabah."

  "No. Vardek has that spot. He took my father's place. I took his."

  "So you're working together? Side by side?" She began to pace the cell again, careful to keep to the wall so she didn't have to come close to him. "Can you trust him?"

  "He's my brother."

  She shot him a hard look. "The same one who tried to crash-land you in the jungle. The one who challenged you to a fight and was going to cut you into ribbons to prove his superiority."

  Del's face was implacable. "It's the way things are done here."

  "Well, the way you do things here sucks," Linna said. "Del, is this what you want?"

  His eyes flickered again, and again she couldn't read what was in them. "I told you, they gave me a choice. I made it."

  Linna touched the teardrop permanently marked on her face. "So what does this mean for us?"

  He broke his gaze from hers. "I was able to use my influence on the melekim to arrange for your passage Offworld. I'm sending you on the next flight to Glaroit. It's a planet similar in climate to Earth. They speak Universal. You'll have no problem."

  "Sending?" The word gasped out of her in a squeak she hated. "You're sending me away?"

  His jaw clenched. He still wouldn't meet her eyes. "You can't stay here. You can't work. You can't do anything."

  "And you can't do anything about it either." Linna crossed her arms. All at once she felt like icicles were stabbing her all over.

  He still refused to meet her gaze. "I can't. It's better this way."

  "Del, if I go away...if you send me away, you'll have to spend the rest of your life alone."

  "I know that." He made as though to run his hand over his head again, but arrested the movement. Everything about him got tense and still. Rigid.

  She saw the warrior in him again, and knew she had lost this battle. Just like in the trial, she was given no chance for defense, and just like there, she had none to give. She had lost him, and her heart broke inside her with a pain so fierce and sharp it made her gasp and put a hand to her chest.

  She fought the pain, tried to force it away. She couldn't. It seated inside her like a serrated blade sawing her in two. "Del, look at me."

  At first he wouldn't, but then he did and she was almost sorry she'd asked. In his eyes was something she had never seen before in all the time she'd known him. Nothing.

  She broke the wall of ice surrounding her and stepped forward. She took his wrist and put it next to hers so the inkings aligned. She touched the pattern, each part a half until pressed together to be complete.

  "Apart, these are only part of the design." She had to swallow heavily to force out the words. "Only together is the pattern whole. Just like you and me, Del. Apart, we're only half of the design."

  He pulled his arm away from her, gently but firmly, and it hurt more than if he'd yanked it away. "Don't do this."

  "Do what?" She couldn't stop the cry tearing from her throat. "Telling you the truth of how I feel?" She held up her arm. "This means something to me, Del. It's just as binding to me as any genetic mutation could be. Maybe more, since I chose you. Isn't that what's important to you? The choice?"

  "You had the choice," Del said.

  What he didn't say, but what hung in the air between them anyway, was, "I didn't."

  Linna's body went stiff, her jaw set, her eyes narrowed. "No, you didn't. Lunavoss and the lovevine chose for you. Maybe I chose for you...I don't know. But I do know I love you, and I have probably since the first time you offered to drive me home. You can't tell me there's nothing between us except chance and a maliciously given aphrodisiac."

  Through it all, he still said nothing, face stoic, arms at his sides. There was no hint in his face of the Del she'd known, the man who drove her home when her feet hurt too much to walk. The man whose grin could weaken her knees. The man who had trembled the first time they made love.

  Now all she saw was Delek Tennvic, the warrior.

  "You have some choices to make, Delek." It was the first time she'd ever used his real, full name. "And the seat on the Melekim Gadol is only one of them."

  "I don't have any choices to make," came his reply. His voice crushed her heart like a stone dropped on it.

  "Because you've already made them?"

  He didn't answer her. Linna watched him, looking for any flicker of expression, of emotion. She lost herself in the depths of his dark eyes, but where once that would have made her feel safe and cocooned, now she only felt bereft.

  "When do I leave?" she asked.

  "Right now," Del answered. "The sooner the better."

  She nodded and pushed past him to stand at the door, her back to him. "Fine. Let's go."

  There was one last moment when she thought he'd reconsider. When at least he'd kiss her one last time. She turned, desperate to see his face one last time, but Del was looking past her as though she weren't there.

  To him, she was already gone.

  All Del really wanted was to have something cold to drink, something warm to eat, and a hot bath to soak in. Instead, he got a lecture about coming to the dinner table with the sweat and dust of his workout still covering him.

  "Del's not interested, Ima." Vardek tore a chunk off his loaf of bread and stuffed it in his mouth, then washed it down with a swig of wine.

  Garzina turned to scowl at Del. "Of course he is. Delek, why don't you go get cleaned up and then you can join me and Vardek in the garden for dessert."

  Del looked down at his plat
e, his appetite suddenly gone. "I'm fine."

  "Delek," his mother repeated while Vardek laughed. "I think you'd be more comfortable...."

  "No, Ima. I think you'd be more comfortable. That's not the same thing, is it?" Del stabbed a forkful of meat and put it in his mouth, then pushed away from the table.

  He left the room to the sound of his mother's sputtering and his brother's laughing. It had been less than three weeks since he'd sent Linna away. It had been a lifetime.

  The door to his room opened and Vardek strode in, patting his stomach and holding out a cup of wine. "Here. I thought you might like this."

  Del looked at the cup, but didn't take it. "Like I'd drink anything you gave me."

  "It's not poisoned." Vardek sounded offended. He took a drink. "See."

  Del looked pointedly at the door. "Get out, Vardek. Go simper in the garden with Ima. I heard she's got a behshera all lined up for you."

  Vardek drained the cup and set it down on the table next to the door. "She does, and I've met her. Not interested. I like blondes."

  "Then why not do us both a favor and go find one?" Del stripped out of his dirty shirt and tossed it into the basket, then did the same with his trousers. Wearing only a pair of tight-fitting briefs, he went to the bathroom and began to run the water in the tub.

  "Where'd you send her?"

  Del looked over his shoulder before shucking out of his briefs and stepping down into the tub. "Don't you have something better to do?"

  "Better than looking at your ugly ass, yeah."

  But Vardek didn't leave, just leaned in the doorway and watched Del soap up and rinse off. "She's not dead, is she?"

  Del looked at his brother, and tried very hard to remember that once he'd been a chubby little boy with a shining grin. "Of course she is. That's what the melekim decided, isn't it?"

  Vardek cleared his throat, sounding so awkward Del looked up at him. "I just wanted you to know, Delek...I didn't vote for that. I didn't vote for them to kill her. I accepted their verdict of the mark of silence, but not of death."

  "The vote was unanimous."

  "It wasn't. But with Aba dead so suddenly, the Council voted to overrule me for the sake of getting you on the melekim. And I did vote for that."

  Del looked again at his brother. "Aysh katan, why should I believe you?"

  Vardek shrugged. "Because I'm your brother."

  Del snorted. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

  "Listen, Delek..." Vardek stopped, then started again. "You know as well as I do that the mark of silence is as good as a death sentence. There's no way a woman, especially an Offworld woman, could survive it."

  "I know that." Del sank further down into the water. "You think that lets you off the hook?"

  "I didn't want to lose my place on the Council," Vardek said seriously. "When I heard you were coming back and that you'd found a behshera, I knew they'd want to give the seat back to you. You're the older son. I'm just second choice and always have been. I thought if I challenged you and you took the defeat, they'd forget about trying to make you take your place. But when Linna broke the protocols, there wasn't anything I could do."

  Del got out of the tub and slung a towel around his waist. He towered over his brother, but Vardek didn't back down. He met Del face to face, no mockery and no sarcasm between them at this moment. "When I lost Kella, the only thing I had left was the Melekim Gadol. It was the only thing I knew how to do."

  "You're better at it than I am," Del said. "You kiss ass better than I do."

  Vardek grinned. "I'd be happy to help you learn."

  Del shook his head slowly. "I took the seat because I knew I'd be able to get her out of here. I couldn't watch her die if it went that far, and if I'd taken the mark of silence with her, I'd have been signing her death warrant as much as if I'd let the Council do it. So I got her on a flight out."

  "You don't have to tell me where." Vardek shrugged. "I don't expect this to mean much to you, coming from me, but...I'm sorry."

  Del knew it took a lot for his brother to admit it, and it wasn't nearly enough. But it was a start. Del grabbed his brother's hand and pulled him close enough to clap him on the shoulder.

  "Me, too, aysh katan."

  "If the melekim discover you sent her away after she got the mark, they're going to expect restitution from you, you know that. They're going to want to give you the mark. Maybe send you away permanently."

  "I know. And this time, you'll vote against me, won't you?"

  Vardek grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, then pulled him closer for a quick embrace. "I'll do what I can to help you, brother."

  "There, now." Linna tucked the blanket around the old woman's legs more securely and wheeled the chair into a bright patch of sunlight.

  It was taking her some time to get used to the seasons here on Glaroit. She'd arrived at the end of summer, and in the three weeks since she'd stepped off the shuttle, the days had grown cooler and the nights longer. She loved it. The way the sun looked when it rose. The sight of clouds scudding across blue sky. The feeling of rain on her face.

  Every day was a treasure, and she tried hard to appreciate every one of them, but although she loved her new home and her job as caretaker for Pansy Sarillakote, there seemed to be a dull haze over all the things that should have brought her joy.

  "What a beautiful day," said Pansy in her quavery, old woman's voice. "Thank you, my dear. You can leave me here. You go take your walk."

  "Are you sure?"

  Pansy nodded. "Of course I'm sure. You go."

  Linna bent to gently squeeze the old lady's shoulders, then set off down the curving garden path. The flowers were fading, but late summer blooms still nodded here and there. They smelled wonderful. She lifted her face to the sunshine and sighed.

  She'd found immediate work as a companion--a real one, this time, not a KMPN. She took Madame S. on walks, read to her, helped her dress and eat, and put her to bed at night. Linna was paid handsomely for these tasks, but she had nothing to buy with the money she was accumulating. She was provided clothes and a place to stay, but it wasn't a home.

  Which was more than anything money could buy anyway. Linna enjoyed Madame's company. She liked Glaroit, which was much like Earth must have been ages ago. She'd even made friends among the other caregivers who frequented the park.

  She was as happy here as she could have been anywhere without Del. The thought of him stopped her up short, breath caught in her throat. She swiped at tears and kept walking, determined to enjoy the sun while it lasted.

  She needed to cross a narrow street in order to get to the other side of the path leading in a circle around the garden back toward her charge. Traffic was light on the road, but she paused as she always did to look both ways.

  The small car rolled to a stop in front of her. The window rolled down.

  And he was there.

  "Need a ride?" he asked, the way he'd done so many times before, and Linna didn't need to ask how he'd found her, or why he was there.

  Del got out of the car and stood there, uncertainly, arms half open as though he wanted to embrace her, but was afraid to approach her. Linna saw the lines of ink on the inside of his wrist, the lines that completed her design, and she saw something else. An inked teardrop on the corner of his right eye.

  She didn't have to think twice. There'd be time later for story telling and apologies. Right now, all she needed was to feel Del's arms around her and his mouth on hers.

  "I sure could use one, yes," Linna said and put herself back where she belonged.

  Passion Model

  A NewCity Novel

  EXCERPT

  * * *

  The scent of sex is an aphrodisiac for some. For others, a reminder of last night’s drunken mistake. For me, it’s just part of the job.

  The crowd parted before me like the thighs of a LUV 180 at the sight of a twentycredit chit. I passed a number of Pleasurebots, but didn’t stop. I’d spotted the on
e I wanted the minute I walked through the Lovehut door. An early model PSSN-M, maybe an 02 or an 03, one of the first Pleasurebots to strut off the assembly line. The standard was blond hair and blue eyes, but this one was was a chestnut-haired, with eyes the color of mahogany. The muscled arms and taut abs looked factory issue, but the rest was clearly a custom order.

  Pleasurebots are gregarious by their programming and don’t keep to themselves, but this one stood along the wall, alone. He could’ve been waiting for someone, but any sort of offbeat behavior from a PSSN was enough for me to suspect something more serious, like a malfunction. I made my way through the bumping and grinding crowd, my hand ready to grab my stunner if I needed it. Some PSSNs have a malfunctioning ignition. You can turn them on, you just can’t turn them off.

  A man who rented a PSSN-F-02 in one of the older Lovehuts learned that the hard way. She fucked him to death. Since then, Howard Adar and the Newcity Ruling Council have had the Recreational Intercourse Operatives working heavy duty overtime to find the faulty models and haul them in for repairs. It isn’t always easy. There are certain men and women who will pay ten times the going rate for the thrill of risking a Passion Model with a busted ignition.

  It isn’t easy to convince a PSSN he or she needs to be fixed, either, not when shoddy repairs can put them out of commission for a long time. Sometimes, even forever. Passion Models can spot an R.I. Op a mile away, even out of uniform.

  Sometimes they run.

  This one met my eyes and let a slow, hot smile cross his perfectly shaped lips like synthetic butter on a hot cob of articorn. “Hello, officer.”

  “Operative GMMA 4121609.” I slid up my sleeve to show him the tattoo badge on my forearm. “Personal ID unit?”

  He spread his fingers in a mock-innocent gesture. “Must’ve left it at home.”

  I raised one eyebrow at him to let him know I wasn’t fooled. “You know you’ll have to come to the nearest inspection station with me.”

  In the glaring neon light from above the bar, his eyes looked dark as midnight. Blue and green swirls glittered from the flashing lights. He frowned.