“Funyuns, you say?” Zoi’ne said.
“Well yeah,” said Il’lyse. “You know what I’m talking about, right?”
“I do. I remember you blowing up the lot of them in my face when we were in that convenience store.”
That boy was Zoi’ne? Well, that was a definite twist that Il’lyse was not expecting. It surprised Il’lyse more than it should have, now that the truth was unraveling about the day that Soror Valide had visited Earth. She remembered, that day, pointing her gun at the young man and not wanting to kill him. She had simply wanted him to stay down and not interfere with the confrontation she was having with that spy. There were days like that when Soror Valide had felt merciful, and Il’lyse was grateful that her encounter on Earth was on one such day.
“That was you?” Il’lyse said. “I’m so sorry about that. We weren’t supposed to be there. That unstable wormhole was only supposed to help us get away from the Allied Peacekeepers. It’s ironic, I know, since we ended up boarding the same ship that had pursued us. The Lord and Lady messaged us to wait for the chance, and their signal, to ambush the Marslou. I’m glad I didn’t kill you then.”
“Do you mean the Fjorfolias?” said Tong-Chang.
“That’s their social name. They go by that one when either one of them enters the public eye.”
“Stars beyond, I have so many questions. I think, perhaps, I should tell you all what I looked up, and found, before we left the university.” She went to her bag on the floor and took out her computer. It was the same model that Il’lyse remembered, which didn’t surprise her, but it did make her smile. Tong-Chang brought it with her to the counter. “I copied some pages on here.”
“Pages from what?’ said Zoi’ne.
“I looked up an advanced book on the technical side of matter transference. It’s dry reading, and every engineer I have ever spoken to hates that book despite needing to know it from cover to cover. Textbooks, am I right?”
Everyone else snickered.
She said, “I looked this up after I shut down the power and those Hulda’fi died from sudden losses of half or more of their body mass. I then remembered about safety protocols that are in place for transporting people in general, versus teleporting women who are pregnant. For one thing, no pregnant woman should ever consider using it to terminate the baby, because it will certainly hurt her as much as being too risky.”
Zoi’ne folded her hands on the counter. Her full attention fell on Tong-Chang as she continued to explain.
“The short version is that there are extra matrixes that have to be put in place for pregnancies, which most of us were made aware in public school. What we were not told, however, was that the risks of failed precautions can result in either miscarriage or the fusion of D-N-Al. Similar precautions are taken for anyone who has been infused with the synthonectar for the first two weeks after the procedure has taken place. Now, Zoey, I remembered you saying once that you might have been injected with something prior to being transported to the Marslou. I looked at the pages relevant to all of this, and I wonder if you had something like that in your system when the incident occurred.”
Both Zoi’ne and Il’lyse looked at one another.
“It was an unrefined sample of genesis nectar,” Il’lyse said. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant. It couldn’t have been him, though. It couldn’t!”
“What?” said Tong-Chang.
“Tonny, was it him? Was it Chan-Yeol Fjorfolia?” Il’lyse braced herself for the answer, or tried to do so.
“Yes, it was.”
“No. It couldn’t be. He’s told us that he’s tied down there.” Her breath heaved, and her heart turned frantic trying to anticipate any lie. But this was Tong-Chang; she wouldn’t lie to her. Soror Valide had once thought the same of Lord Tunderek, and part of her still wanted to trust him.
“He used that falsehood on me, too. I wish he was. I’m sorry.”
Il’lyse pounded a fist on the counter. “Damn it! Why? This lie seems so obvious. I shouldn’t even believe in them anymore, but their words, their claims, grip me. Twice I’ve paid for it. If he were here now, would I dare pay for it a third, knowing what I do? Please tell me this is all wrong. I beg of you.”
“I can’t. Lyssa, were you impregnated by him too?”
“I think everyone was if this is the truth. I think, if you’d joined us when they tried to take you, your baby would have been reduced to genesis nectar, or worse.”
“What can be worse?”
“Fe’remene, or any Hulda’fi wearing a beak on their mask, could be smoking it as we speak. The nameless drug we were using was made from genesis nectar using other substances. I found out about this a week ago. I had no idea the Hulda’fi were actually making the nectar, let alone using it for this drug. I had no idea where they were collecting the tissue for it. There are hundreds, probably over a thousand, girls among the Hulda’fi. It’s a fraction of the scale seen before the alliance formed, but it’s still happening. The girls are still being used.”
“They have to be stopped.”
“I tried. I sabotaged the lab, and framed one of the other sisters for it, but I don’t know if it was a sufficient amount to do any real good. It didn’t even help me to earn back their trust or favor when I made sure to be seen as innocent on the camera. I don’t even know why I bothered doing that much. What have I been doing during the last two revolutions? I wish I knew. Cold, infinite beyond, it doesn’t make sense.”
Dasos, who had his arms crossed while he listened through this, said, “Admiral Fjorfolia is a powerful person, and so is his wife. The worst of it all is that every body of law enforcement will want you in their custody. I can try to get a recorder in here to make a statement, say that you are under my protective custody, but there is no telling what the Fjorfolias will do if all of this is true. I need time. I’m going to need time to think about this.”
He rubbed his head and walked to the couch, passing his things on the floor on the way so he could grab them. Dasos stopped when his line of sight reached an object that remained on the sofa. With a wince, Dasos moved the Hulda’fi suit to the far side of the furniture. Then he sat down and operated the wall monitor.
“I’m going to take my shower now,” said Zoi’ne, leaving the kitchen.
“Don’t forget about the laundry,” Il’lyse said.
“Damn it. Thanks, Lyssa.”
* * *
The problem with sitting down and thinking about what to do next was that the world still moved. Dasos loved playing games, especially Wormholes & Wyverns, but even then he saw the fickle nature of acting in turns, or taking time to think.
While he browsed the news stations, one of his sisters went into the laundry room to wash her clothes. Tong-Chang removed that suit from the side of the couch, and then grabbed whatever it was that sat on the floor by Dasos’s feet. His other sister sat across the room behind him, but the distance in his mind could not decide if the stool she sat on was a few meters away or if it was light-spans from his couch.
Two thousand people had been counted among the dead in the city of Trullwick alone. A hundred of those lost were at the university, including the dean, Mister Paen. Property damage extended throughout Trullwick that was estimated to cost it in the hundreds of millions in burras. No one was transporting in or out. Calls were limited between bodies of law enforcement.
“Oh no!” Il’lyse said, “Those assholes destroyed Arcadia.”
The track broken, one trolley had tipped and smashed. Three major buildings in town were demolished. When the image on the news moved to the Ginserei Embassy, Tong-Chang gasped. The front of the building was in ruin, and the rest was on fire with the available firefighters trying to put it out.
Meanwhile, a correspondent on the news mentioned that a shuttle that had been heading to Ginserei from Elysium IX had been lost. Its wreckage was found an hour ago.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it, but Dasos wanted to hit back at the Hulda
’fi with everything he had. He wanted them to feel what everyone else did right now across the entire galaxy.
A pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. His sister said, “I’m so sorry, brother. I should have fought harder. I don’t know if it would have worked, but I feel responsible for this.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said. He turned to see that Il’lyse had taken the towel off of her head, revealing her hair that went down to her shoulders, as opposed to Zoey, whose hair went down to the middle of her back. “I told you you’re home now.”
“If I hadn’t let Buska’vild fool me, then so much of this wouldn’t have happened. Of course, then we wouldn’t have met Zoi’ne, would we?”
“No, we wouldn’t have.”
“That crazy girl has grown on me,” Il’lyse whispered, “but don’t tell her I said that.”
“Zoey has that effect on people, like you did. I have no idea what I would have done if she’d grown up with the three of us.”
“By the way, Il’lyse,” Zoey said from her room, “Doctor Evrahn told me you still owe him that interpretive dance for his class assignment.”
“What now?”
Il’lyse snorted and chortled, trying to hold herself back, and then she burst out laughing like a crazed supervillain.
* * *
Zoey hummed to herself while she sautéed the slices of coyaturn meat with some garlic, red onions, and mushrooms. She added the basil leaves last before removing the pan from the heated portion of the stove. She had already prepared the dough with the best marinara sauce from the store that her dad could recommend and the cheese that she had handled earlier. Zoey grabbed the pan again, noting that the cheese had been added already, and she added half of the toppings from inside of the baking pan.
In the oven she had a special baking sheet that was meant for baking bread, for anyone who had a basic kitchen like she and Dasos had in their condo. She checked on the rising temperature inside the oven before turning to the counter.
Her sister watched her doing this with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.
“I think I got this right,” Zoey said.
“You think so, huh?” said Il’lyse.
“This is my first try making homemade pizza instead of the frozen ones found in the store. You’re sure there’s something like this on Elysium? I didn’t see this when I went grocery shopping.”
“Earth freezes them?”
“It freezes a lot of things. It’s convenient and helps keep certain foods for longer. I’m almost surprised I don’t see extensive frozen food aisles here, come to think of it.”
“Sure, I can understand that much, but this pizza of yours? Please tell me you don’t microwave it.”
“I . . . plead ignorance on that.” She placed the first pizza inside of the oven and set the timer.
Zoey tied the bag inside of the trashcan. It stood as high as her knee and was rectangular in shape. The condo building’s management owned it, like the one found inside every unit, so Zoey and Dasos had little control over the color of it on days like the last time they had gone out and grabbed an eggshell one from the contraption in the maintenance hallway. Tonight she hoped for one that didn’t need to be hidden in the compartment under the sink.
“OK, I need to take this out. The first pizza will be out of the oven in about ten minutes.”
“I’ll get it, love,” said Tong-Chang from the bathroom door as she walked out of it.
“Get what?”
“The pizza. You go deal with the trash and take your shower already.”
“Thanks, babe.”
Il’lyse shook her head in amusement. She was lucky that Zoey and Tong-Chang weren’t emulating how their parents talked to one another when they had alcohol in them. That might be too embarrassing, Zoey thought.
The trashcan wasn’t heavy, nor was it filled to the top for that matter, but it did have a few things in it that needed to go before the scent of it became unpleasant. Zoey carried the bin out of the door and walked to the maintenance hallway. She had thought that maintenance workers came through here when needed, and were the only people to do so, but her brother had shown her what to do with the garbage after she’d gotten confused and lost one day trying to find the dumpster downstairs.
It was underground, she had learned. Now, months later, Zoey knew to open the sliding, contracting gate and locate the system in the middle of the four-way hallway. Green lights and a sticker with downward arrows told her which box to insert the older bin. She opened the box and saw the instructions for handling this whole contraption. It came with a few warnings, including a limit to the amount of weight the box could hold, and a number to call if there was an issue with the machine.
The box also came with two meters. One read the weight of the trashcan after she placed it in the correct spot and position. The second meter gauged the capacity that remained for the dumpster below. Both seemed fine to her, so she closed the box and pressed the glowing yellow button on this side.
The mechanism carried her old bin down to the basement level, where it then flipped over and dumped the bin’s contents. Another box appeared on the other side of the machine in seconds with red lights and a sticker with upward arrows on the side. Once the motion stopped, Zoey opened the lid and pulled out the dark brown trashcan that was available from the four slots.
A sticker inside the lid mocked her, saying “Please take one and pass me along.” She closed the lid and walked away, back towards her brother’s condo.
She thought she heard footsteps as she closed the gate. Zoey looked around, but saw no one. She was continuing toward the door when the footsteps became louder. Zoey turned. Three men in suits and sunglasses aimed their guns at her. She could not see their ears beneath the caps they wore.
“Don’t move!” one of them said.
“Drop your weapon,” another said.
“It’s a trashcan,” Zoey said.
“Doesn’t matter. On the ground, now!”
A woman with a commanding voice said, “Hold your fire.” She joined behind them without a gun of her own, but Zoey knew this visitor well enough to feel like the other woman had taken a shot at her. “Stand down, gentleman. We don’t need another incident.”
[ 53]
Zoey crept her way into the condo, one foot after the other, with a grimace on her face. She didn’t want to alarm anyone about the number of armed individuals outside that had grown to a dozen men in suits. However, there was nothing that she could do about the other visitor other than try to deny her entry.
“What’s up?” said Il’lyse. Tong-Chang, too, looked her way.
“We have company,” said Zoey.
The other woman walked in behind her. Zoey saw her brother turn his head their way and stand, his mouth agape, when he recognized the person standing inside of the doorway. Clearing her throat, Zoey excused herself and walked to the kitchen to put a new liner inside of the trashcan. She looked back from her mindless task and listened with intent as the surprise guest closed the door and looked at everyone in the condo.
Her eyes fell on Il’lyse. “There are two of you?” Shungdi said.
“She’s the original,” said Zoey. “We call her Salsa Verde.”
“What?” said Il’lyse and Shungdi in unison.
Tong-Chang stormed across the room and slapped her sister. The sound itself was painful, and Shungdi’s ears sank. Shungdi raised a hand to her shocked face. The silence that followed, however short, was palpable.
“Don’t, ever, hurt him like that again,” Tong-Chang said while pointing a finger at her. “I will never forgive you if you do.”
With a nod, Shungdi said, “I understand. I’m sorry.”
“I thought you’d left already,” said Dasos. “For all I know you were on that stiern-boat that got destroyed during all of this discord.”
“I almost was. Part of it was because I stalled so I could read what Val’steen had written about your Wormholes & Wyverns campaign. Part of me want
ed to stay here and renounce my royal station as Tonny had, and make up for the way I had chosen to part ways with you. I contacted Father about a stupid thought I had, and, before I knew it, I had taken too long and missed my ride. Today when everything happened with these Hulda’fi, I knew I wasn’t going home, and I had work to do to make amends to the two people here who matter most to me.” She bowed forward. “Forgive me, lover.”
“Shungdi.” His steps were slow and soft. When Dasos had reached her he lifted her chin until Shungdi stood upright again. “I think we’ve all had enough apologies for one day. I think we need stop looking at our wounds for a moment and look at what we are going to do next.”
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