Everything else about her was an illusion.
She looked fragile, but was powerful enough to sling him up behind her on Mesmerize. Her speech might sound like any number of uneducated outlaws, but beneath that was a fierce intellect (despite her hard headedness). Violence was a way of life for her, yet just speaking to her, staring into her sparkling eyes, he’d found a deep well of compassion. After all, she’d bandaged him up, nursed him back to health, went out of her way to keep him from getting dead. He smiled to himself.
Then, to his horror, realized he was staring intently at the region of her body where legs joined hips. He pulled his gaze away. Fortunately, her eyes were still closed and therefore hadn’t noticed his wandering eyes.
“Just… uh… don’t forget to shut off the water. Don’t want to flood the labs, after all.”
“Oh, shit!” Aidele yelled lurching forward to shut off the faucet, water splashing over the edge of a nearly full bathtub. He turned to leave and shut the door behind him.
DURANTE RUMINATED DEEPLY as he walked down the hall thinking on everything they’d already been through. It felt like they’d been evading every murderous outlaw and Union soldier for years, when in actually it’d only been a matter of weeks. Yet, Aidele had been contending with this chaos for months. She just had no idea how deep down the rabbit hole it all went. Truthfully, he wasn’t entirely certain himself. All he knew was that Mr. Berricks was hellbent on getting the professor’s journal, and that, no matter what, they couldn’t let him get ahold of it. All that Professor Wilson had wanted was to change lives. Not see his work weaponized by the men of power.
A gravitational core… Gravitic warp… Oh the things we could learn using it! Durante walked around the ringed corridor heading towards laundry and sanitation just past the kitchen. I’ll have to memorize every detail of it. Study the whole journal while I’m at it. Maybe if it’s all in my noggin, we won’t need it anymore. Just destroy it. Ugh. Who am I kidding? It belonged to Aidele’s father. Do I really want to deprive her of that?
He walked around the bend looking into the kitchen. His stomach growled as he passed. Hope the pantries are stocked. After taking a nice, long hot shower, I’m going to devour something.
In the laundry room, he dropped the armful of clothing and Aidele’s coat onto a folding table and went to a shelf to pull down detergent and dryer sheets. He opened up the door to one of the frontloading washers, filled the detergent cup, and went about shoving her dirty clothes into the unit. Then stopped once he got to the duster. Huhn? Can a leather jacket be washed? …I’ll just put it on warm. It should be alright. He shoved it in as well then closed the door to start it up.
Durante paused thinking about the total plan on their (‘two-and-a-half days!’) trip. Stop by the labs, see if the professor had brought the gravitic core to prototype. Wash, eat, stock up on supplies, then head to Aquila Mons to seek an audience with the Council.
And hope they’ll take the warning about Mr. Berricks seriously. Aidele was convinced it was a Union ploy. However, he wasn’t as sure. He’d lived in the Union for years. The people on Earth were generous and compassionate. Happy with how the Union was being governed. Yeah, he spent most of his time living among the splendor of Pittsburgh, its skyscrapers often rising hundreds of stories into the skies, but he never saw any indication that there was some desperate push to invade the former colonies. It just didn’t make sense.
General Berricks, on the other hand, seemed just like the sort of man who wouldn’t let grudges go. Such as what happened with Tynella Kane a few years back. Durante had been stationed twice onboard a ship captained by Mr. Berricks. Currently the Invicta, but three years earlier, the Purveyor. It’d been a scientific run out to the Pheyton Range (the asteroid belt dividing Hinon from Jupiter and the inner solar system from the outer colonies of the Continuum). Mrs. Kane had been director of the Ram Collider Initiative, a project designed to clear debris in outer space. Given the detritus and old starship parts hanging in Earth orbit, a plan had been put into motion to better deal with the rising problem. There were already garbage scows roaming around in orbit, of course, but their ability to efficiently clear out hazardous materials was limited at best. So, the researchers working on the project thought, ‘Why not develop a technique utilizing electric colliders?’ These would be mounted on the bow of the ship and use Ram Colliders (Old military battle rams used during the war to disable enemy vessels) to incinerate the debris as the vessels they were mounted on flew through orbit.
However, to ensure accuracy, the Pheyton Range was chosen to limit civilian incidents in the testing phase. Durante was Second Administrator under Mrs. Kane during this testing. Mr. Berricks had grown furious over the lack of progress with the project. Mrs. Kane had informed the general that there was a problem with the interface and suggested returning to Earth to further research the containment nodes that allowed the Purveyor to generate the energy required to power the Ram Colliders. A regrettable issue had arisen while testing on small asteroids. The colliders would cause a power surge shutting down large portions of the ship, including life support (Durante had been facing similar issues with the Pylons Project. But had figured out workarounds and had, thus far, avoided serious scoldings).
General Berricks, upon hearing this, ordered her to reroute through secondary generators and boost power through the exchange coils. Durante hadn’t been there when this conflict occurred, but he’d heard this exchange had been on the bridge. It made the rounds as rumors because Mrs. Kane had straight up and loudly said, ‘No’, arguing that to do so would risk destroying the ship. Typically, in Durante’s experience anyhow, one could disagree with Mr. Berricks so long as you explained why. What Mrs. Kane had done was challenge him in front of the crew. And though he acquiesced to her concerns, he didn’t forget the slight upon returning to Earth. In fact, Mrs. Kane was removed from all research projects afterwards and was never employed in the sciences again.
The last Durante had heard, she’d been stripped of Union citizenship and, as consequence, grabbed a shuttle heading to the Continuum. No one that he knew heard anything else about her.
Durante looked around. He took notice of the ramp to his right where he leaned against the washer. The ramp ran down into the labs and he was sure what they were looking for had to be down there. In the interim, however, he needed to find Aidele a towel.
A HUGE SMILE was plastered across Aidele’s face as she walked into the circular rec room. Much like the lounge, there was a sunken depression with two steps ringed around it. Only this one took up most of the room. Two couches and two recliners encircled a holoprojector. Along the room length window, chairs, tables, and potted plants were found at random intervals. Behind Aidele, and along a back wall off the corridor to the bedrooms, was a billiards table and a game table filled with water. She’d never played it, but it had something to do with sunken balls and water darts.
She paused at the top of the two steps and stood there wearing just two towels. One around her body, the other her hair. To hell with clothes! She laughed and walked lightly to a couch and flopped down onto her back giddily. It was good to be out of her clothes and just lay about without a care in the world. There was nowhere else in the world she preferred to be right then. No thinking. No fighting. No shooting. No racing around in sticky, dirty clothing fleeing from malicious men looking to kill her. No focusing on sorrow and loss. Not for today.
Tomorrow maybe.
“Enjoy your bath?” Durante walked out of the kitchen drinking something from a glass.
Aidele wiggled her nose. Now that she was daisy fresh, she could smell his pungent odor wafting across the room. A soft laugh sat at the edge of her chest threatening to burst loose. It was a good thing they hadn’t run into anybody since their flight, she considered. They might’ve just turned tail and fled in disgust.
“Oh! By the Spirits! I feel fantastic!” Her smile broadened. “It’s nice not smelling like a garbage heap. Speaking of which…”
He quirked a brow and twisted a lip. “Right. About to go take care of that now. Before that, though, I just wanted to tell you I checked your… parents’ room. There looks like plenty of clothing in there. Maybe some of it will fit you? It’s the first room to the right just past the corner there.”
“All right. Sounds like a plan. Now hit the showers, soldier. You’re starting to offend my delicate senses.”
“Uh huhn.” He put his glass down on a countertop set into the dividing wall to the kitchen and started across the room and towards the bathroom.
Aidele chuckled and leaned back into the couch cushions in no particular hurry to go rummaging through her parents’ belongings. Time was flying quickly, she supposed. Though it had been months since her father’s murder, she could still feel the raw pain deep down, that crawling void of loss making it feel as if it’d been only yesterday. Now that she had time to ruminate over it, and since their weeks’ long slog was at least temporarily ended, her joyous mood was starting to sour.
“Ugh. Fine.”
She slung her feet to the floor, stood up. Then padded towards her parents’ room. The door slid open and she paused in the doorway as lights automatically turned on. There was one window on the back wall (more to the right of her than center) that was opaque. But as the lights grew brighter, it started to go transparent offering a view of the canyon beyond. To her left, she saw a wall length closet with four places where doors could slide back into the wall. By the wall to her right, a large king size bed, night tables to both sides of its headboard rising up replete with photographs and various odds and ends. Straight ahead and to the left of the quarter floor length window, were two massive dressers with one huge mirror behind them both.
Aidele ambled inward slowly, her head swiveling side to side at a measured pace. She was hesitant to be there, yet eager at the same time. Hoping to feel their aura surrounding her, recalling being in this room as a child. The smells of her father’s aftershave immediately washed over her as her mother’s laughter filled the air. Aidele could almost see her sitting on the edge of the bed, smile bright and loving. Tears stung her eyes.
Stop it! Her jaw clenched and her hands balled at her sides, arms rigid. Ya ain’ here fer that! Git yer shit tagetha!
There were photographs and paintings on the wall behind her and, as she stopped in the middle of the room, her eyes fell on one particular painting of Aquila Mons and the escarpment surrounding it. Glittering specs emulated the lights of the tall buildings barely peaking over the ridge, the artist clearly having taken pains to indicate the soft blue shielding network covering the great caldera playing host to the city itself. The sky behind it, an ominous red deepening into a dark orange at the top of the art.
Aquila Mons… That’s the focus. Find the prototype, get your ass to Aquila Mons…
She forced herself to walk across the room and paused as she saw a photo of herself with her parents and another of her mother as a young child, twelve or thirteen, standing between and in front of her own parents.
Grandfather… She pulled her eyes away and stepped towards a panel on a wall between two sets of the closet doors. Pressing her palm against it, the doors slid into the walls (two towards the supporting walls of the room, two into the wide wall in front of her separating two halves of the closet running the width of the room). To her right, the closet there was filled with her father’s clothes and belongings. The leftmost closet interior, her mother’s.
Damn, mom was a real clothes hog… Aidele screwed up her face staring at the whole left side that was stuffed end to end with her mother’s hanging clothes and the floor cluttered with boxes and shoes. The closet at home was like this too… Geesh, mom.
Her father’s side was significantly less stuffed. Mostly because he tended not to wear such a variety of looks. I’ll bet there’s something in here that’d fit Durante. She shifted a few items aside seeing pants and shirts right about Durante’s size. Ignoring it for a moment, she went back to her mother’s side and shifted through the offerings. There were several elegant dressings (including one sultry blue velvet number) and a whole section with dusters, jackets, and corduroy coats. Pants were in the order of: slacks, jeans, trousers, a few overalls, some culottes, and several leggings. The shirt selection included: blouses, camisoles, tunics, T-shirts, sweaters, and a strong selection of Wastelander button-ups.
Aidele ended up pulling out a pair of blue jeans and a denim button up. Holding them up to herself, she gauged they’d probably fit all right. She’d find out in a minute, though, as she laid the clothing on the bed and made her way to the dressers. She opened the top drawer of one closest to the closet and saw her mother’s clothing. The top drawer contained socks and undergarments. She found a long pair of tube socks (there were others, of course. Ankle length—which she refused to wear out of principle—dress pairs, frilly pairs, and some hosery. But the tube socks were most useful for riding). Tossing the socks on the bed, she reached back and pulled out a pair of cotton undergarments. Yanking them on under her towel, she found they were actually fairly comfortable.
Second drawer down, she found nothing but bras. An eyebrow shot up. That’s a whole lotta bras, ma.
She rummaged through and found one that matched the underwear then pulled the towels off from around her torso and her hair. She snapped on the bra, went to the bed, and finished dressing. The shirt was slightly snug and the jeans somewhat loose, but, otherwise, a decent fit. Afterwards, she decided to go looking through the drawers out of curiosity. the second dresser was as she figured: her father’s. Though, the bottom drawer of his dresser was full of more of her mother’s belongings: sashes, skirts, shorts, and… other materials of a more personal nature.
Oh my… way to keep it exciting, guys.
Aidele closed the drawer and checked the bottom two drawers of her mother’s dresser. The third one down contained a whole lot of T-shirts. She shook her head. On the bottom drawer, she paused. It was full of gloves.
“What the…?”
Thin gloves, thick gloves, rawhide, leather, frilly, silky, and work gloves of all types were stocked all the way to the top. They looked to be for both of her parents.
“Did you all just have a glove fetish?” She sighed and shut the drawer back. Then stood and placed the palms of her hands against her lower back and stretched. An audible pop filled the air.
After looking around the room further, she thought, I need to find Durante some clothes.
Footsteps echoed lightly off the carpeted floor as she marched over to her father’s side of the closet.
Let’s see… Nope. Nope. Nope. Y’know, he seems more like a dress man. Ah, yes. Bet this’ll work. She pulled out a pair of dark brown slacks, a white button up, and a black vest, then turned to lay them out on the bed. They should fit, I imagine. Hmm.
She turned to her father’s dresser and went to open the top drawer where underwear and socks were. She grabbed a pair of black dress socks and tossed them to the bed.
Now, boxers or briefs? Her brows shot up. Oooo! Boxer-briefs! Yes!
She grabbed a pair of dark blue underwear and laid it out on the bed as well. She smiled feeling satisfied. Just then, she saw Durante walking by holding his old, dirty clothes in front of him.
“Durante! Come hither fer a spell!”
He stopped and stepped back into view looking in at her. “Something wrong?”
“Nope. Nothing’s wrong. Stop standing there looking like a scared puppy and come in here. I’m not going to yell at ya.” He gave a smirk and started to step inside. “Wait. No. Leave that stank bomb out in the hall.”
“Uh… okay.” He tossed his clothes down and entered. “So… what do you need?”
Durante stopped beside the bed, his hand holding the edge of the towel wrapped around his hips and manly bits. His chest and body were pale, almost hairless. Were it not for the mop of sandy blonde on top of his head she might have thought him some strange alien hybrid with no concept of hair. S
he halted the frown coming to her face as the thought came unbidden that he was a Union scientist. Just keep you down in the hold with no sun or fresh air, don’t they? Bastards.
She noted he was staring at the clothes on the bed and she said, “Got you some clothes. Try ‘em on. See if they fit. I’m certain they will.”
A horrified expression crossed his face. “I… I can’t.”
“Sure, you can. Don’t worry, they’re clean, if that’s rolling around the noggin.”
“No, it’s not that,” he looked at her, mouth agape. “I… I just… it’s…”
She forced a smile. “Are you trying to tell me you’d rather run around naked with your little man slapping your thigh?”
“I… I can just wash my own clothes. Sure, they’re a little ragged, but they’re still—”
“Mah parents are dead, Durante.” A scowl crossed her face as her hands gripped her hips. “Ya won’t be disrespectin’ ‘em.”
Durante stared at her as if he thought she’d gone mad. “What… Why… How can you say that?”
Her scowl dropped and a look of sorrow replaced it. “Because it’s true. It… tears me up inside. But it’s past time we accept it. That I accept it.”
Her dark brown eyes bore deep into his own and he swallowed. “Well… I, I mean, I don’t want to be a constant reminder of what you’ve lost.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, jaw slightly tense. “I’ll never forget. Never. Everything is a reminder. Even so, we have a mission to complete. These clothes will just sit there gathering dust and mold. As such, we’re going to use anything and everything that will assist us in completing our task. Now, get dressed.”
Red Star Sheriff Page 30