Isolation

by Kevin Hardman

  “Nope, that was all you,” Vestibule insisted, shaking her head. “I bumped into Alita three times last week, and she never mentioned a yacht party to me once.”

  “Wow,” muttered Cat, giving Smokey an appraising glance. “Guess you are a smooth talker.”

  “No, no, no,” Smokey stressed, shaking his head. “It’s not like that. I have a girlfriend.”

  “And you may have a new one after this weekend,” Vestibule said with a smile. “Anyway, we ready to go?”

  “Go?” I echoed, glancing at my watch. By my estimate, we’d only been at this particular party about an hour. “Where to?”

  Vestibule smiled and then teleported us.

  ***

  Ultimately, we ended up going to three more parties, although we spent no more than an hour at each. Like the first shindig Vestibule had teleported us to, each of the following soirees had their own respective complement of celebrities. For the remainder of the evening, however, our little quartet generally stuck together. That said, being in costume meant that we typically stood out, which had its pros and cons.

  On the one hand, we were essentially welcomed at each venue, as our presence typically served to liven things up – especially Cat. Her elaborate costume was a hit with everyone and so lifelike that one guy actually went so far as to grab her tail to see if it was real. (That act resulted in Cat threatening to maul him to death, and she said it with such conviction that – had I not been reading her empathically – I would have sworn she meant it.)

  On the other hand, being the center of attention also meant that people were curious about us. Vestibule, of course, was a known commodity because of her modeling career. The rest of us were essentially no-names, which was fine with me. I couldn’t speak for the others, but I pretty much like my privacy, so I found myself ducking any and all questions of a personal nature, essentially sharing little more than my first name.

  Eventually, however, our night on the town began to wind down. We left the last party (which was still going strong) shortly after midnight, this time departing on foot instead of teleporting. In accordance with Vestibule’s instructions, the limo was waiting for us when we stepped outside.

  “Whew!” Smokey exclaimed as we piled into the back of the car. “Five parties in a row…that’s got to be some kind of record, even for a Friday night.”

  Vestibule and Cat looked at each other and started laughing.

  “Well, not a record,” Vestibule noted a moment later, “but it does get honorable mention.”

  Smokey merely nodded at this, silently recognizing the fact that, as a teleporter, Vestibule could pop up at a hundred parties in a single night if that’s what she wanted to do.

  “So what now?” Vestibule asked. “We can squeeze in a few more parties, or just call it a night.”

  Smokey gave me an incredulous look, and I knew what he was thinking. I had teleported the two of us to the West Coast for the costume party, but our original time zone was actually a few hours ahead. In short, he was probably starting to feel run down. (I, on the other hand, had merely tweaked my physiological functions, so I could actually go indefinitely without feeling tired, although I’d pay the price later when I switched my biological systems back to normal.)

  “To be honest, I’m a little hungry,” Cat stated. “I didn’t eat much at those parties.”

  Vestibule turned her attention to me and Smokey. “You guys up for that? I know a great little late-night diner.”

  I glanced at Smokey, not wanting to speak for him under the circumstances.

  “Sounds great,” he said, sounding more chipper than he probably felt.

  “Awesome!” Vestibule chirped, then hit a button on a nearby panel that operated an intercom for communicating with our driver.

  Fifteen minutes later, we found ourselves exiting the limo in front of a ’50s-era diner with expansive windows on all sides except the back, and neon lights running along the edge of the roof. Smokey and Cat hustled inside to grab us a booth while I waited with Vestibule as she paid the driver. (Truth be told, she merely took a computer tablet that the chauffeur handed to her and tapped the screen a few times, presumably authorizing payment and a generous tip.)

  As the driver pulled away and we began walking towards the diner entrance, I asked, “What do I owe you?”

  “Huh?” Vestibule muttered, looking confused.

  “For me and Smokey’s part of the limo ride,” I explained.

  Vestibule laughed softly, then said, “You’re sweet to offer, but you guys barely spent any time in that car.”

  “Still, it wasn’t free.”

  “Actually, it was,” she countered. “My modeling agency took care of the tab, so don’t worry about it.”

  I shrugged as I opened the door for her. “If you say so.”

  Once inside, we spotted Smokey and Cat almost immediately, sitting across from one another in a booth next to one of the exterior windows. Upon reaching them, Vestibule slid into the seat next to Smokey, which left me sitting next to her cousin. However, I’d barely gotten comfortable before a middle-aged waitress appeared almost out of nowhere.

  “Hi, what can I get you?” she asked in a dry tone. If she found anything strange about two Egyptians, a gangster, and a cheetah sitting in her section, it certainly didn’t show in her face (which remained expressionless) or her voice.

  “We’ve got a couple of newbies with us,” Vestibule stated, “so how about four of the house specialty, with fries and sodas.”

  “You got it,” the waitress said, then spent a moment getting each of our soda preferences (all of which she wrote on a small pad) before turning and walking away.

  “Well, that was weird,” Smokey remarked after the waitress was out of earshot.

  “What?” asked Cat.

  Smokey inclined his head towards the waitress. “You don’t think it was odd that she didn’t say anything about our costumes?”

  “I think you underestimate what counts for weird out here,” Vestibule countered. “This diner is a landmark, so you have people flocking here from all over the city, and some of them are coming from studio lots where they’re filming movies, television series, variety shows…”

  “And they’re all dressed for various roles,” Smokey added as she trailed off. “So she gets people coming through here all the time in zany outfits, and now she’s numb to it.”

  “Probably,” Cat noted.

  “Anyway,” I droned, turning to Vestibule, “what’s this house specialty that you ordered?”

  “Grilled cheese sandwiches,” she replied. “But they taste out-of-this-world delicious.”

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” I said.

  Vestibule raised an eyebrow. “You sound skeptical.”

  I shrugged. “Grilled cheese is grilled cheese. I mean, I like it, but I can’t imagine it being as dreamy as you describe.”

  “Care to bet on that?” Vestibule said, a sly smile forming on her lips.

  “What kind of bet?” I asked.

  “Just that this will be the best grilled cheese sandwich you ever had,” she replied.

  I drummed my fingers. “Taste is purely subjective. There’s no real way to measure whether it’s the best.”

  “I trust you to be honest and admit it if it is,” Vestibule replied. “So, do we have a bet?”

  “I don’t know. What exactly are we betting?”

  Vestibule opened her mouth to speak, but found herself cut off by Smokey.

  “I’m just going to jump in right here,” he announced. “No bets. You already hustled Jim once with the costume thing. I wouldn’t be his friend if I let it happen on my watch.”

  “Hustled?” Vestibule echoed, feigning offense and laying a hand upon her chest. “Moi? I’m just some ditzy airhead. Pulling the wool over someone’s eyes is outside my skill set.”

  “Hmmm,” Smokey droned. “That sounds like a prelude to me getting hustled.”

  This statement was followed by a cho
rus of laughter from all of us. Around that time, the waitress came back with our drinks on a tray; she swiftly distributed them, along with four bamboo straws, then quickly departed.

  “So,” Cat intoned as she placed a straw in her drink, “what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”

  Smokey and I exchanged a glance.

  “Well,” I began, “we really only came out for the costume party. That being the case, I guess we’ll have some breakfast in the morning and then head back home.”

  “Ix-nay on that,” Vestibule declared forcefully. “Smokey’s got a yacht party to attend, in case you forgot, and the rest of us get to tag along.”

  “And if you’re staying for breakfast,” Cat tacked on, “why not just come by my house for brunch instead?”

  Telepathically, I reached out to Smokey.

  he replied.

  I gave a mental nod.

  Telepathic communication takes place much faster than actual speech, so barely a second had gone by since Cat had asked her question.

  “Brunch sounds great,” Smokey said with a smile.

  Cat seemed delighted by the response and appeared on the verge of saying so, but didn’t get a chance.

  “Excuse me,” I muttered, pulling out my cell phone. “I’ve got a call I need to take.”

  Without waiting for anyone to respond, I quickly slid out of the booth and headed to the exit. Once outside, I put away my phone and strode swiftly to the back of the diner.

  As I had previously noted, there were no windows at the rear of the building. In fact, there was only a single door that led out to an area currently occupied by a couple of dumpsters. After looking around to make sure no one could see me, I floated up into the air and onto the roof of the diner.

  After waiting a few moments, I said, “You can turn off the stealth gear. I know you’re there.”

  For a second, nothing happened, and then the air about five feet in front of me began to shimmer and glow. The coruscation only lasted a few seconds, and when it was gone, I found myself facing someone wearing the armor of a Caelesian royal guard.

  The guard reached up with both hands and lifted their helmet, allowing me to see their face for the first time. It was a woman, with long, dark hair braided into a ponytail.

  Tucking the helmet under one arm, the guard inclined her head and said, “Highness.”

  Her greeting was a reminder of the fact that I was actually Caelesian royalty – something I honestly seldom thought about. However, I put that out of my mind and got down to business.

  “You wanted to talk?” I asked.

  The guard gave me a curious look. “Pardon, Highness?”

  “Well, you turned off whatever gadgetry or tech you normally use to block me from sensing you empathically,” I explained, reflecting on how I had suddenly picked up on Caelesian emotions while sitting in the diner. “That means you wanted me to know you were there, which implies that you wanted to talk to me about something.”

  The guard seemed to reflect on this for a moment, then asked, “Where is the princess?”

  “You know where she is,” I shot back tersely. “You’ve got her tagged, outfitted with a tracker, or bugged in some other way that lets you know her exact location twenty-four hours a day.”

  “The question was not meant for my edification, but intended as a reminder that the princess is your responsibility.”

  “Well, Myshtal is fine – I talk to her every day. She’s with my cousin Monique and having a great time.”

  “The welfare of the princess is not an obligation you can foist off on others.”

  “No one’s foisting anything,” I muttered angrily. “Myshtal has to develop relationships with other people. She can’t be under my wing all the time – it would drive her crazy, and even she admits that.”

  “Her sanity is not your concern. Her well-being is.”

  “Aren’t you people only like two feet away from her at any given point in time? Plus, you can track her within seconds to any spot on the planet. She doesn’t need me to protect her. You guys have it covered.”

  The guard gave me a wary look, as if trying to decide something. Finally she said, “Some of what you surmise is correct, but much of it is completely inaccurate.”

  “Such as?”

  “To begin with, we are not ‘two feet away’ from the princess at all times. Truth be told, we seldom set foot on this planet. The surveillance we undertake – which is generally limited solely to the princess’s location – is done from space. The only other monitoring we do is of her vitals, which we do to get an indication of when she’s injured, in danger, or in distress.”

  “Wait,” I muttered, frowning. “So you’re not always watching?”

  “We perform random visual checks, but otherwise we remain distant. We don’t watch the princess to see who she’s with, listen to her conversations, or anything of that nature.”

  “So,” I surmised, “you put actual eyes on the princess maybe every few days to make sure that she’s well and all your equipment is functioning properly, but otherwise you’re blind to what she says and does. What about me?”

  The guard gave me a confused look. “I’m not sure I understand, Highness.”

  “Do you watch me and track me as well, or monitor me to make sure I’m safe?”

  “No. We have no such mandates with respect to your person. Our only orders in that regard are to make sure you have not abandoned your charge.”

  “In other words, when you check up on the princess, you also scout around to make sure I’m close by.”

  “Or that you are not beyond a reasonable proximity for an extended period.”

  I crossed my arms. “I take it that’s what initiated this conversation. I’ve been too far from Myshtal for too long.”

  “Even with your talents, it will be difficult to protect the princess if you’re nowhere around.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “As I said before, Myshtal’s fine, but if anything happens to her, Queen Dornoccia is free to take it out of my hide.”

  “Rest assured, she will,” the guard declared. “And she may not stop there.”

  I gave the guard a concerned look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The princess is Queen Dornoccia’s great-great-granddaughter and her favorite. Should anything untoward happen to her, this world would find a battleship the size of a small moon parked on its doorstep in short order.”

  I simply stared at her for a moment, almost certain that what she’d said was a joke – except the guard wasn’t laughing.

  “Okay,” I finally droned after a few seconds, “this has been fun. Anything else I can do for you before you zip back up to your spaceship?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is,” the guard replied.

  “I was actually being facetious,” I declared. However, getting nothing but an expectant look in return, I groaned in exasperation and said, “Okay, fine. What is it?”

  “As I mentioned,” the guard began, “we can normally track the princess’s location, but there is a facility you frequent regularly that our technology can’t seem to penetrate.”

  I had a sudden intuition as to what she was referring to, but merely said, “Go on.”

  “Bearing in mind that this is for the safety of the princess, we have a device which, if placed inside the facility in question, will allow us to–”

  “Forget it,” I interjected, cutting her off. “No way am I bugging Alpha League Headquarters for you. Even if I was willing, you’d never get anything like that past Mouse.”

  “Mouse?” she repeated.

  “He’s the leader of the Alpha League, and the smartest man on the planet,” I explained, leaving off the fact that he was also my mentor. “He’ll find any kind of bug you plant before it even has time to send a signal.”

  “I see,” the guard mumbled, appearing to
reflect on what I’d said. “However, should you reconsider–”

  “I won’t,” I interjected forcefully.

  The guard simply stared at me for a moment, then inclined her head again. “Thank you for your time, Highness.”

  She put her helmet back on, after which the shimmering began once more. When it died down, the guard had vanished.

  Shaking my head in nigh disbelief, I teleported back down to the ground, then went back inside and rejoined my friends.

  Chapter 5

  In all honesty, it did turn out to be the best grilled cheese sandwich I’d ever had. (Apparently the restaurant owner had some secret process for making cheese that had been in her family for decades.) I realized then that Smokey was right: I had almost allowed Vestibule to hustle me for, perhaps, a second time. Obviously she was crafty, and I made a mental note to take no more bets with her.

  In addition to the meal itself, the company was outstanding. As I already knew from earlier, both girls were fun to hang out with, and that assessment was reinforced as we ate. The conversation was witty and stimulating – almost enough to make me forget my recent tête-à-tête on the diner roof. By the time we finished our food and paid, I was actually looking forward to brunch the next day. (Or, bearing in mind the time, later the same day.)

  After leaving the diner, the girls gave both Smokey and I quick hugs. A moment later, the two of them vanished, teleported by Vestibule. After confirming with Smokey that he was ready, I did the same for the two of us.

  ***

  We popped up in a two-story penthouse – a spacious domicile situated atop a high-rise of luxury condos. It belonged to my cousin Avis and was generally the place where I’d been staying of late when I was on the West Coast.

  The minute we appeared, Smokey stretched and yawned.

  “I’m beat,” he declared without preamble. “See you in the morning.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he began trudging up the stairs, heading for the bedroom he’d been given for his stay.

  In similar fashion, I went to the guest suite that had essentially become my room over the course of the last few weeks, although I teleported there. It was an oversized room which, in addition to a king-sized bed and private bath, contained a sitting area, a walk-in closet, and a study/library.