by Reagan Woods
“If you had that the whole time, why didn’t you break it out before?”
His response was an absent grunt. The thick meat was still a ragged mess, but the cuts began to stir vague memories of supermarket meat sections.
“That’s a handy tool,” Fran muttered. “I’ve gotta get one of those.”
“Never happen,” Silex retorted without looking away from his task. “This is part of my personal collection. It is likely the only one on your planet.”
She snorted. “And you just happened to have it handy? Please. I’m sure the other hunters carry them, too.”
“Maybe.” He rolled his shoulders before diving back into his task. “Probably not.”
Chapter 16
Silex knew his dismissive attitude would anger Francesca. She wasn’t a female accustomed to being ignored when she wanted something.
And she wanted something.
Since she hadn’t reattached the respirator – which she was either using to deter conversation or genuinely believed protected her from his alleged pheromones, he assumed she was trying to decide how to approach him. He was tired of waiting.
As predicted, his cavalier attitude provoked her. Fran reached out and caught him by the wrist. “Don’t do that!” She growled. “You’re always fucking doing that.”
He stopped, deliberately deactivating the energy knife before rising to stand. He kept his eyes on hers as he drew the blade over his filthy pants leg to clean it. “Doing what?”
“You act like I’m a waste of space if I’m not panting after you,” she seethed, holding her ground as he towered menacingly over her diminutive form. “I am not just a convenient hole to dip your wick in! You can have an actual conversation with me – maybe tell me why other hunters wouldn’t carry such a tool.” Prudence demanded he ignore the fact that she gestured more at his crotch than the knife. “Hell, you might even tell me what the fuck it is!”
He tilted his head, an Earth gesture he found helped with concentration, and sifted through her words for salient content. “I’ve never ‘dipped my wick’ in your hole – and that’s a filthy colloquialism, so I’m unclear where this hostility is coming from.”
“Christ.” She closed her eyes and jerked her head as if shaking off a blow. “I’m trying to point out that I’m good for more than a quick fuck.”
Understanding dawned. Her change of tactics intrigued Silex. After all this time, she’d decided to try talking instead of using her body to bargain and she was angry that he hadn’t embraced her plan immediately. This could be an interesting new game. Should he let her think she controlled the board, he wondered, or should he make things difficult for her?
“I wouldn’t know if you were good for any kind of fucking,” he pointed out logically, deciding she’d never be convinced if he acquiesced to her machinations too easily. “I’ve never had the assumed pleasure.” He added a leer for good measure.
Francesca narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders as she stepped closer, the light of challenge glinted from her brown orbs. Her slim finger drilled into the middle of his filthy chest. “I know what you’re doing,” she gritted out. “And I don’t love it.”
Silex wouldn’t have repressed the smirk even if he were able. “And I know what you’re doing,” he replied evenly, eyes meeting hers intently as he flicked her impertinent finger from his chest. “So, we can play games, or you can drop the act and tell me what you want.”
Her sharp intake of breath was the only indication he’d surprised her as the hand that had been prodding him slowly lowered to her side.
“Fine.” She let her breath out in a low hiss of annoyance and took a measured step back. “I need to get into and out of the LA Camp undetected. As much as it pains me to say it – and it really, really does – I need your help to do it.”
“Is that all?” He scoffed.
“Not by a long shot,” she answered baldly, fists clenching at her sides. “I’m looking for my sister. If – no - when I find her, I intend to break her out.”
He snorted out a laugh before sobering at the intensity of her stare.
She appeared convincingly earnest. Desperation clouded her delicate features. But Francesca was a practiced liar. “You’ve never been open or honest with me before, Francesca,” Silex replied carefully after a few beats. “Why would I trust you now?”
“I’m telling the truth,” Francesca answered, her posture relaxing as she held her arms out with the palms up. “I’ll answer whatever questions you have, do whatever you want me to, but I need in that camp, Silex. I need you to help me find and retrieve Margot.”
“What makes you think your sister is there?” He ignored the dark delight that shot through his black heart at her reluctant acknowledgement that she needed him. He couldn’t get caught up in her again – not like he had back at Camp Three.
Her expression went blank, but he recognized the anxiety in her eyes as she answered, “I understand my methods have caused a lot of…tension between us in the past. I’d like you to hear me out before you lose your temper.” She stopped expectantly.
Silex pressed his lips firmly together and gave a grudging nod of agreement. He would not overreact to whatever she had to say. Outwardly.
Satisfied, she continued, “I traded for information.”
His lip curled of its own accord as what she was saying dawned.
“Oh, don’t act like you’re some squeaky-clean saint. You’re just as depraved as the rest of your brethren. And, asshole, you owe me,” she spat, pushing back into his personal space. “I wouldn’t be in this fucked up situation if it weren’t for you. You blocked my path out, my path to Margot every time I got close.”
“You’re saying this is why you kept after Dorit after I’d warned him away,” Silex growled, the jealousy he’d worked hard to deny for so many months threatening to snap his control.
Francesca’s chin jutted defiantly. “He had access to the Earther DNA database, and he was willing to trade until you started sticking your nose in. Goddamit, Silex, quit dicking around. What’s it going to take to get you to help me?”
“The truth,” he answered, seizing the opportunity before he fully acknowledged what he was agreeing to.
“I’m telling the truth!” She shouted, the sound echoed as she stamped her foot against the slick floor.
He pinned her with his most ruthless stare. “Any question I ask, whenever I ask,” he clarified. “Those are my terms.”
Her pink mouth gaped before she recovered. “And I thought I’d bumped my head hard,” she muttered quietly. “But whatever. Fine, I accept your terms,” she said in a frim voice. She reached with one small, callused hand and caught his before pumping it up and down. “When do we leave?”
Chapter 17
The need to get inside the LA Camp was an electric buzz under Fran’s skin. She knew Silex could sneak in. In fact, it was likely already his game-plan since the direct approach had garnered such disastrous results. She would have preferred they get right to the plotting. Silex insisted on finishing the task at hand before he relayed what he knew, but he intimated that they would begin staking out Camp Two in earnest the next day.
Rather than allowing her to return to her brooding, he broached the topic nearest to her heart. “I understand you want to reunite with your sister,” he began. “But why would you risk so much, such a dangerous trip across the desert, with nothing more to go on than Dorit’s vague information?”
Briefly, she thought of her respirator, of keeping this alien male at arm’s length however she could. The mulish set of his jaw told her putting barriers up so quickly after reaching their agreement wouldn’t help her cause. She hoped the tangy scent of blood and the unromantic atmosphere would overwhelm whatever chemicals caused her to want to bang him like a drum.
“Family is everything,” she answered quickly, resting her chin on her knees as she watched him work. Her life as a purveyor of sensitive information had taught her not to give too much of hers
elf away. Answers to personal questions were best met with generalities or trite sentiment when they couldn’t be avoided.
He paused in the act of slicing a long flank steak to look at her. “Don’t trifle with me,” he advised stonily. “Try an answer with some depth.”
“Before things between the Western Central Government and the Pan-Asian Union got so out of hand, there were local, urban militias,” Fran began and Silex turned back to his task.
“The militia in these parts – mostly ex-cons and gang members - was ‘recruiting’. That’s what they called it when they forced young boys from their homes, slapped guns in their hands and turned them into killers,” she continued bitterly. “Dad was too old to attract much interest from the fighters. He’d been an actor – an aspiring one, anyway – before things went to shit.”
“Like in the – er – cinema?” Silex paused. She read the uncertainty in his eyes despite the limited light.
“Yeah. Exactly like that.” If he wanted a deep-background answer, she’d be as descriptive, and tedious, as possible.
Talking about it took her back. A wildfire raged in the nearby forests, urged on by the relentless Santa Anna winds, so lung-scorching smoke added to the misery of the day. Fear-laced sorrow had hung heavy in the burnt air.
“Dad and mom both worked as grounds keepers for the local magistrate by this time. With the summer heat and the winds picking up, they started work before sun-up and finished before the temperatures became dangerous. Hollywood and Broadway had become more legend than reality, but we still had theaters that played special features.”
Back then, before the war had become a global nightmare and when close encounters with aliens only happened on-screen, public schools were open year-round. During recruitment, tensions between protective parents and the militia ran high.
“Anyway, GoGo was young and very sensitive. My dad thought it would be smart to pull her out of school for the day, so she didn’t see her friends getting hauled away.”
“Dad had worked on a project right before Hollywood quit making new movies. It was called Joy of My Heart and it probably would have been the role that made him famous. We thought it was a sign when the theater across town announced a matinee of Joy on recruitment day.”
It had seemed just the thing to get the family out of the heat and chaos of the streets for a few hours of cool air, and an escape into a prettier, less tragic world.
“The movie ended. After the splurge on admission, there wasn’t money for public transportation. It was okay though, because we still had enough daylight to make it home before curfew. We didn’t count on one of the militia men losing it on the people in the streets.”
She’d never forget the distinct pop, pop, pop of a steel gun. Never. It was different from the hiss of a laser or the crackle of a stun.
“When he started shooting into the crowd, I jumped on Margot,” she continued tonelessly. The unforgettable feeling of concrete grit biting into her skin, the stench of bubbling asphalt and the sound of her young sister’s sobs were as fresh in her mind as they’d been that day. While the horror was as real as it had ever been, she didn’t have any more tears. There were too many tragedies under her belt to cry over these old wounds. “When the noise stopped, I jumped up and dragged Margot away. There was nothing to be done for our parents and the gunman was reloading. It was…horrible. I’ve been looking out for her ever since.”
“Wait,” Silex interrupted, his face a mask of incredulity. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen – I turned eighteen the next week.” He’d wanted truthful answers. She hoped that the unvarnished truth of her story would touch whatever passed for his alien heart. It wasn’t that she wanted his sympathy. No, he could keep his sympathy. She just wanted his help.
“To borrow a phrase, that’s fucked up,” he said, sitting down heavily on the hard rock next to her. “What did you do?”
“I went to the magistrate and tried to file a complaint. The incident was covered up, though, and they wouldn’t even give us our parent’s bodies.”
“For the burial,” Silex nodded, his lips rolling into a flat, disapproving line.
“My family was Westernized enough not to practice most of the traditional Vietnamese mourning rites - although they’re cathartic. Still, it would have been nice to have something, some place, to go to mourn,” Francesca explained, aware that most of the CORANOS aliens believed burial was an unsanitary custom. “Instead, I got an invitation to join the clandestine services – or else.”
Silex sat silently, his empty hand clenching and releasing in a slow rhythm. The silence was a welcome relief.
It took time and effort to push the painful memories back into the mental box where she kept them. Still, she didn’t have time to wallow. Too much was at stake.
“I’ve answered your question as honestly as I know how. Time for a little reciprocity. Tell me what we’re doing tomorrow.”
His bald head swiveled slowly until those oddly-light, blank, metallic eyes came to rest on her face. “That’s not how this works,” he said coldly, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “You’ll help me pack this meat into the coolest part of the cave, we will eat, and then we will retire for the evening. Leave tomorrow to me.”
“You don’t have a plan,” Fran surmised, watching intently for a tell, for some sign of his thoughts as he pushed up and stalked away. “We’re winging it.”
He continued back to the neat stack of meat he’d made without taking the bait. Silex was keeping his plan for entering the camp, whatever weakness he intended to exploit, close to the vest. He wouldn’t be swayed by an answer, a story or a taunt.
Chapter 18
Rappelling down the cliff would have been ideal, but they didn’t have the equipment. Silex was convinced there was a better way down than the path they’d chosen to ascend thanks to Tom’s speedy navigation of the treacherous surface. To Fran’s surprise, he was proved correct when they found a more stable route of descent in the pre-dawn darkness.
“I can’t believe we didn’t see this before,” Fran muttered before clenching her little flashlight between her teeth and following Silex over the edge. Her fingers immediately became scraped and bloody – a problem he didn’t have thanks to the gloves he’d produced from the depths of his pack. He probably didn’t have any dust in his eyes either thanks to the goggles he constantly wore.
Below, Silex muttered something about one of them being too focused on getting her way. Ignoring his sulky commentary, she continued to follow him down the rockface.
He still hadn’t said what he intended once they hiked back to LA, but Fran couldn’t let his reticence ruin her day. This was going to be a great day, the end to all her gut-churning worry about GoGo. She had no intention of leaving the Camp without her sister in tow – no matter what the big alien said.
The trek back into the vast city was hard-going, but they were fresh and healthy this time. Now that Silex knew the drone operators weren’t friendly, he’d set some sort of alarm on the fancy bracelet he wore to alert when one drew near.
“Where’d you get the wrist decoration?” She asked, walking closer for a better look in the strengthening light. He hadn’t had the fancy bracer back in Texas Territory.
“It’s just a little something I picked up,” he replied, not-so-subtly turning it away from her curious stare.
Fran went back to scanning the debris along the side of the ruined road for possible threats.
“Where’d you get the blaster?” He asked, referring to the alien-made weapon that even now rested snugly in the built-in holster of her black pants.
She continued her threat assessment. “You’re the one who insisted on truth,” she reminded him. “You shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”
Silex grunted but didn’t insist. They continued the trek in a tense silence as the sun rose higher in the sky.
A familiar outcrop of rock – the landmark she’d been scanning for - came into view. �
�Around the next curve, we’ll drop off the road back into the ruins of the city.”
He gripped her elbow, a silent request they stop for a moment. She arched a look at him before turning to study the sky. Surprisingly, there had been zero drone activity. That seemed unusual after yesterday’s constant fly-bys and it made her itchy.
Noting the direction of her gaze, he said, “If they’re watching us, they’ve found another way to do it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she replied tersely.
He stepped closer, his grasp on her arm turning into more of a lingering rub. “They likely have listening stations in the city proper,” he began in a voice so low she had to strain to hear him. “Before we get there, I need to know: how did you know to down the drone and abandon the hover platform?”
“I’ve always had good ears,” she whispered back. “It’s a professional asset. The whistle, more of a high-pitched whine, from the incoming missile told me it was a WCG SureShot – not an alien weapon. We were the only thing around that resembled a target. I was afraid your people had engineered the SureShot to change course based on external data, so I killed the only source I could see and got us off the platform.”
Silex’s eyebrows shot up over his shades. “You’re certain it was a Western Central missile?”
“Yes. The ones you guys use don’t sound like anything we have here.”
“Why didn’t you share this information before?” He asked.
Fran narrowed her eyes at the implied criticism. “Volunteering information is no more in my nature than yours.”
Lips flat with displeasure, he released his hold on her arm and abruptly turned away. “Let’s go.”