by Stone, Layla
When she woke up, she could barely move. Her muscles had atrophied. But she was whole, and Ansel had found a way to sneak her out of their mother’s lab.
He’d stashed her in a cargo hold, and after the ship had taken off, he’d moved her into a lifepod and programmed it to fly to Sennite. There, she was taken in by a female who’d taught her how to hide her Numan-ness in plain sight.
Three years later, Nara had left to pursue a career in design and never looked back. The female who’d taken her in sent bi-yearly messages when she needed something. Nara knew those messages were the Sennite way to show they were checking in, but Nara would have preferred that the Sennite tell the truth.
“Karr told us she died. Is that true?”
Veeda was dead? What was happening to the world?
Nara didn’t know what to think about that. “Did Karr tell you how she died?”
“A Federation captain found her lab.”
A Numan’s lab was sacred. For a Federation captain to have found it, she had to have made a mistake. But Veeda didn’t make mistakes. Then again, Veeda shouldn’t have been old and dying either.
Nara scratched her head. If Veeda was dead and had been withering before that, then something had gone wrong, and Nara’s mother’s experiment had failed. Which meant that Veeda was a failure.
“Veeda was a failure.” That…that changed everything.
Nara, Ansel, and Penner had been born exactly eleven months apart. Both of her parents had agreed to have three children. Not because they were a family, but as an experiment.
Her mother took DNA from all three natural offspring and created three perfect children. The idea was to remove the flaws that nature gave each of them.
Nara wondered if her mother knew how cruel her synthetic kids really were. Nara remembered all the times that Calum had poison Penner, and Ansel had to figure out an antidote.
Fynbar liked to design metal toys to stab Ansel, but Nara never remembered Ansel needing help mending a wound.
All six of them were forced to work in her mother’s lab, helping her with her other experiments. That’s were Nara had found that she couldn’t stomach blood, runny bile, and foamy white and yellow puss.
Her mother constantly told her and everyone who would listen what a failure Nara was and how disappointed she was in Nara’s weakness.
Nara only cried once. When Ansel found her that night, he’d told her that she was never allowed to cry again. She was never allowed to let anyone think she was less than she was.
Nara always wondered what had happened to Ansel and Penner. She never thought about the other three, but now that she had, she wished she knew if they were all dying or dead like Veeda was. If so, the universe was fortunate.
Looking down at the Flourg, Nara saw her in a new light. Paying close attention to the fluorescent lines, she all of a sudden became an object, not a living and breathing person. It was Veeda’s experiment.
Nara felt a surge of confidence.
The person on the bed had been created by a synthetic failure. Someone without a soul.
Nara observed it like she would a painting or a blueprint. Each one was art, and both held a reflection of their maker. It was like deconstructing a puzzle. “Where did you start?” Nara asked herself, trying to put herself in that monster’s size-fourteen shoes.
“Excuse me?” the thing on the table asked.
“Shut up,” Nara told it. She was thinking. The lines on the skin looked familiar. She unbuckled the rest of the restraints and told the subject to remove her long nightdress. When Nara stepped back, she finally saw it.
“You copy-catting fraud.” Nara was disgusted at Veeda’s lack of artistic originality. “A van Gogh? Really?” The lines on the subject’s skin swirled and sighed, reflecting the exact painting a famous artist from hundreds and hundreds of years ago on Earth had done. Veeda couldn’t have expected that anyone would notice, but Nara did. “I’m so disappointed in you.”
“Are you talking to me?” the Flourg said.
“No, but I am now. Put your hands up so I can see every inch of you. Veeda must have put an off switch somewhere. I just need to find it.”
11
Sweet Success
Shine was in his lab, watching a beaker of blood coagulate into a ball. He breathed heavily from his nose, upset that another experiment had failed. He moved to the next beaker half full of blood and picked up the mixture of chemicals to sprinkle on top. The thick, red substance began moving and separating. He dropped the applicator back into the powder and watched through the thick, clear safety glasses.
The blood didn’t separate per se, it just solidified into multiple shapes. Shine pushed off his rolling chair and stood up, feeling the lightness in his stomach. Was this it?
He waited another few minutes and then saw white residue around the edges of the shapes. Picking up a multifunctional tong, he dipped it in and pulled one out. The form was hard and a little cloudy, not shiny like a gem, but…still. It was precisely what he’d wanted.
He moved the little coagulated blood mass to his microscope and got a better look. It was solid like a rock.
I did it.
Shine leaned back. “I’m done.” The victory was well deserved. If he had a bottle of jubriaan, he would have poured himself a two-finger glass to celebrate. No, that wasn’t true. He didn’t drink jubriaan anymore. Not after the owner of the distillery had tried to kill him and Z.
Shine looked at the door to his office and thought about going over to Z’s to celebrate. But Z shared space with his new mate now, and Shine didn’t like being there.
The victory dimmed. Then he had a thought. What if I shared a drink with Nara? She didn’t have to know what he was celebrating, all she needed to do was drink with him.
He liked that idea. Until he doubted that she would like the bottle of whiskey he kept in his apartment. With all the thousands of alcohols out there, he was sure to mess it up, and she would likely ridicule him about it.
The victory was dead. Shaking off his fantastical thoughts of a triumphant drink with Nara, he put his mind back on work. Next was synthetic testing, and he already had the hollow android ready. Shine moved to the ammunition closet and pulled out an empty casing. Then he went back to his table, picked up the mixture, and took both the bullet and the compound to the Sierra Steel three-station press to fill the empty casing.
Filling and securing the bullet took all of ten seconds. Removing the projectile, he grabbed a basic three-shooter pistol and loaded it. He walked out of his lab and headed to the firing range that was two doors down.
Inside sat an empty shell of an android filled with blood and covered with fake skin. It looked perfect and was anatomically correct for a male his size. Lifting his arm, Shine held the pistol with two hands, aimed, and pulled the trigger slowly. The gun went off.
Shine set the pistol on the wooden shelf, grabbed the butcher knife, and walked towards the body. He counted in his head for exactly one hundred and twenty seconds and then stabbed the knife into the android to open the chest cavity. And there it was…bloodstones. Or at least what could roughly pass as a bloodstone.
The next part was cleaning the body, ordering more chemicals for the bullets, adding the pistol design to the Sierra Steel metal fabricator, and then hitting the gym. Shine usually worked out often, but after he’d lagged so long on his genie design, he’d stopped going.
His muscles were going to be sore. Thank Seth for muscle memory.
* * *
Shine sat in his lab after a shower, dressed in clean clothes. His chemical shipment had arrived, and he’d set up the mixtures and begun production. His legs shook, both bored and excited.
He wanted to go see Z, but he also didn’t want to. It had been months, and Z had not asked him to stop by, which meant that he was probably busy. Too busy with his new life.
Staring into the void of his white walls, Shine thought it looked pitifully empty. That’s when he remembered Nara’s powder
polymer. Standing up, he looked over at the samples of raw chemicals and materials he had. It was an entire wall, perfectly labeled, cataloged, and temperature-preserved.
First thing he asked himself was, what kind of material adheres to paint? He had to figure it out because the last thing he wanted to admit was that Nara could outsmart him in chemistry and physics. Good thing he didn’t have anything better to do right now.
12
Unbelievable
Shine should have been in a better mood. He’d figured out how to make bloodstones, he’d started production on the genie pistol, and he would get paid a large chunk of money soon. But he didn’t feel anything but frustration. Nara’s powder polymer was a puzzle that he couldn’t crack.
Arrogantly, he’d thought he could figure it out in a matter of minutes, an hour max. To his dismay, that did not happen. He was still clueless as to how she’d created the powder. And more importantly, if she’d designed it, why couldn’t he find it on the quantum network? There was no such thing available.
Which made sense because, if someone had told him about it, he would have assumed that they were lying. But the walls in his apartment stood as a testament to the fact that it was real.
He went home early to double-check the walls. Running a hand over the surface, he felt that it was smooth. Taking out a small knife, he bent down behind the bed and cut off a piece of the wall.
His Minky screen pinged.
Placing the sample between two small glass slides, he secured them in a holder and put it in his nightstand drawer.
Following the same procedure as all the days prior, he accepted the visitor and waited by the door. Nara and her escort arrived, the Demon activated their cuffs, and she walked in. “What’s wrong with your face? It’s all droopy.”
He exhaled loudly as he pressed for the door to shut automatically. “Nice to see you too, Nara. How was your day?”
Nara was in the kitchen when she answered. “I don’t know how to classify my day.”
“Did you make any progress on fixing the experiments?”
“Depends on your definition of progress.” Nara hopped up onto the counter, looking totally at home in his kitchen.
Moving past her, he wondered if she was the type of female who liked to drink when they were flustered. Shine opened the refrigerator when Nara said, “I know who experimented on those people.”
That got his attention. “Seriously?”
“Yep. And to be honest, I am so disappointed in her. She couldn’t even design her own creation, she had to use someone else’s. I mean, who does that? Amateurs, that’s who.”
Shine’s arm rested on the open fridge door, ignoring the cold air escaping past him. “Who did she duplicate?”
“I doubt you’ll know the guy. His name was van Gogh. A Terran painter.”
Holding up a finger, he asked, “A Numan duplicated a painting?”
Nara scoffed. “No. Why would you think that?” Not letting him get in a word, she added, “No, she made their skin look like a painting.”
Lost, Shine asked, “Define.”
“Veeda took a lot of people and turned them into walking, glowing paintings.”
He didn’t know why, but it sounded less than impressive. “Sounds lame,” he said.
“I know.”
Facing the inside of the cooler were boxes of food and cans of green Nebula energy drinks. Figuring that Nara probably wanted sleep after staying up for two days straight, he pulled out a Niffy and held it out to her.
Her upper lip curled. “I’m not in the mood for carbonation.” Nara slid off the counter and opened a cabinet. He noticed that all his medical supplies were gone, replaced by liquor bottles.
She pulled out a black bottle with a black and gold label. “This will do.” Pointing to another cabinet on the other side of the kitchen near the refrigerator, she said, “Hand me a glass.”
He paused, wondering if he should say something about her messing with his things. But he remembered that he had told her she could.
Reaching the cabinet, he opened it and saw three shelves of fancy glasses. A few long-stemmed ones, some short, fat ones, some rounded ones… “Which one?”
“The wine glass. Grab two if you want to try some.”
Without moving, he asked, “Which one’s the wine glass?”
“You uncultured Demon, I feel so sorry for you,” Nara said before stepping to his side and reaching past him. She got into his space, and Shine tilted his head to try and get a better sniff of her hair.
“Did you just sniff me?” Nara said, pulling out two long-stemmed glasses.
He thought about his answer, then just said, “Yes.”
“Why?” Nara moved back to the bottle, opened the top with a contraption he hadn’t seen before, and then filled the glasses half full. She handed one to him.
“Because you don’t have a strong scent. I wanted to know what you smelled like.” Shine took the glass and looked at the red liquid. All he could think about was that it had a much thinner consistency than blood.
“And now that you have, what do I smell like?”
“I don’t know. I still can’t smell you,” he said to the glass. He took a small swallow and let it run over his tongue. He’d expected a sharp bite like jubriaan, but this was smooth and kind of sweet.
He didn’t know if he liked it. He took another swallow and finished the contents. Setting the glass down by the sink, he said, “I’ve never been around a Sennite before, so maybe your race doesn’t have a unique scent.”
Nara spit up the wine she was drinking. The red liquid dribbled down her chin and onto her top and the floor. Shine opened a side drawer to pull out a rag, but there was silverware in there instead. He pulled open the one next to it, and it was full of hot pads. “What did you do to my kitchen?”
He stopped looking in drawers when he saw her reach into a cabinet to grab a small, grey towel. Cleaning herself and the floor, she held her wine glass. When she finished, she threw the rag into the trash and told him, “We had a deal. No comments on how I refurnished and reorganized your apartment. I did you a favor and spent an obscene amount of money on your ungrateful ass. So, shut up and drink with me or go watch another episode of Numans and their long path to demise.”
She wanted to drink with him? He almost smiled like a child. “You’re right, we made a deal, and I’ll drink with you.”
“Good, but I’m not sharing any more of my Paironnaise with you.” Reaching into the cabinet, she pulled out a clear glass bottle of amber liquid. “Here, you can drink quib. It’s a hard liquor, so sip it, don’t gulp it like you did with my perfectly aged wine.”
He held up the long-stemmed glass. “Do I drink quib in this?”
“You’re a savage.” She shook her head, but he saw a twitch at the side of her mouth. Getting in his space again, she moved so close, her chest lightly grazed his. When she backed up, there was a short, thick glass that looked like a stump in her hand. “Use this.”
“Drink quib from a stump glass. Got it.”
“That’s not what it’s called.”
She was still close, and he noticed that she didn’t pull back. She was purposely lingering in his space. Instead of commenting on that, he said, “I’ll make you a deal. Ready?”
Instead of answering, she reached into his pocket, shocking him as she grazed the side of his length.
When she pulled out his Minky pad, he waited for her to reply, but she didn’t. He watched as she did a search of the local restaurants, scanned the menus, and ordered two plates of food. He noticed that she didn’t change the account, so he knew he was paying for dinner.
That oddly made him happy.
Nara slid the pad back into his pocket then said, “Okay, I’m ready.”
The deal he had was momentarily forgotten. Instead, he wondered why a Sennite would dye her natural purple hair, blond. It was probably even more beautiful in its natural shade.
“Why do you dye your hair?” he h
eard himself asking.
“That’s your deal?”
No, it wasn’t. Shine stepped back and took the space he needed to think. “Tell me exactly what Karr needs you to do, in detail so I can help you, and I’ll take you to my lab and show you the latest pistol called the genie.”
Nara took a sip of her wine. “I’ve seen a lot of labs in my life. I’m not really excited to see any more.”
Considering that she knew a Numan, he believed that.
“But I’ll counter your deal with my own.”
Shine waited with a smug smile.
“I’ll—"
His Minky pinged, and Nara looked down at his pocket, then at his crotch. “You going to get that?”
He pulled out the tablet and saw that it was Z. He pressed reject. “Nope.” Once it was quiet, he said, “You were about to counter...”
“Who was that?”
“A friend.”
“And you didn’t take their call. Why not?”
“Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.” Shine took a sip of the amber liquid and felt the burn and bite, though it ended smoothly. He lifted the glass to his face. “This is really good.”
“Mm-hmm,” Nara said, acting as if she already knew. “How about I play you for it. You win, I answer any questions you have. You lose, you strip.”
Shine covered his mouth with a closed hand to keep the contents of his drink inside. He forced himself to swallow. Sennites were a female-run race, and the males were used for their bodies and little else. He hadn’t thought about that until now. She had been using her body to lure him in. “That’s an interesting trade-off. What game are you referring to?”
“Considering we’re on Lotus Adaamas, we can play permon.”
“Hard pass.” Shine moved from the kitchen, feeling better by the second. Whatever quib was, it was effective.