“Thanks, mom,” Ainsley growled.
“Best you’re going to get,” Alik said stubbornly.
“I need to run Connexion’s response,” Yuri said. “Make sure we’re protected correctly. Specifically, protecting the trans-stellar hubs.”
“Agreed,” Ainsley III said.
Callum glanced at the little clump of Zangaris in mild surprise, but Ainsley himself didn’t seem bothered that his grandson was making decisions independently.
“Take Loi with you,” Ainsley said. “Make fucking sure those trans-stellar hubs are safe. You have total authority to protect them, any resources you need. Keep those bastards out of my company.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need to get to DC, right now,” Alik said. “Something this big, you gotta do it in person.”
“Of course,” Emilja said. “Keep me and Ainsley in the loop; we’ll coordinate our response with Earth’s globalPAC contacts. That should give us the political clout to have Sol’s Alpha Defense also brought up to critical alert status within the hour. Callum?”
“Yes?” He so nearly added ma’am.
“I’d like you to represent the Senior Council at Alpha Defense, please. Make sure they understand just how serious this is for everyone We can’t afford reticence.”
“Of course.” As Callum said it, Apollo was splashing a message from Eldlund across his tarsus lenses. I want to help. He looked over at his assistant, seeing the silent desperation behind the young omnia’s handsome face. “I’ll take Eldlund with me.”
That didn’t even merit an answer from Emilja; she just nodded in a distracted fashion.
“Danuta,” Ainsley said. “You go with Callum. Help apply some family weight on Alpha Defense.”
She nodded crisply. “Yes, Grandfather.”
Callum refrained from comment. With Loi accompanying Yuri, and now Danuta assigned to him, the old man was using family to oversee everything. Politics or paranoia?
“And me?” Jessika asked. “What about me?”
“What about you?” Ainsley said.
“At the very least I can advise.”
“Once—if—this happens, then your continued contribution to our assessment will be welcomed,” Emilja said.
“I understand. I’d like to remain here and wait for Soćko to recover.”
“You think he will?”
Jessika smiled slyly. “We’re quite resilient; he’ll recover. Hopefully in the next couple of hours.”
“Very well.” Emilja stared at Tral. “Escort her to the medical facility, but be ready to bring her back up here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll go with her as well,” Kandara said. “Just in case.”
“If that makes you happy and relaxed,” Jessika said.
“My dear, no one is ever going to be relaxed around you again.”
Callum stood up and exchanged a glance with Alik, who was also getting to his feet. Weirdly, he felt a surge of optimism, which he didn’t think was entirely down to the nark. “I hope you’re persuasive when you put the case to Earth.”
“You believe her, then?” Alik jerked an accusing thumb at Jessika, who was staring at him with interest.
“Until something better comes along, sure thing.”
A night of exuberant clubbing followed by plenty of sex he’d fueled with doses of zero-nark left Ollie’s drained body sleeping well past midday. He would have carried on sleeping longer but for the insistent piccolo tone Tye started firing into his audio peripheral. It woke him with a sharpness that was high on the bitter resentment scale.
“What?” He kept his eyes screwed shut, preventing the tarsus lenses from activating. The last thing he needed right now was bright neon graphics shining directly into his optic nerve.
“There’s a problem in the kitchen. A pan of callaloo is boiling over. Your grandmother is in her room and she is not responding to any alerts from the house network.”
“Oh, crap,” he groaned, and blinked, which switched the lens on. “Show me.”
The image Tye splashed came from a servez drone in the tiny kitchen downstairs. Callaloo was one of his grandmother’s favorite dishes, though Ollie couldn’t stand it. She’d been boiling the leaves in coconut milk before adding the printed lobster meat waiting on the oak chopping block. The gooey mess in the pot had boiled up like a primary school’s snazzy volcano science experiment gone wrong, foaming over the rim and flowing across the induction hob’s glossy black surface where it was solidifying rapidly. Thin vapor layered the air above.
“Bollocks!”
The hob should have shut down immediately, but its ancient sensors were shot. And the even older household Turing was only a G5, not up to real decision-making, especially when a human had put the pan on in the first place.
“Switch the hob off, and clean up all spillage,” he ordered.
“What about the food that was being cooked?” Tye asked.
“It’s no good now. Dump it.”
The image juddered as the servez rolled forward. It was an old Yanasi model, for which Tronde had printed new components while Ollie himself had tweaked the software, improving the feedback sensitivity of its manipulator arms. He watched as the pan was taken to the sink. Tye got the household Turing to switch on the waste disposal, and the blades started chewing down the ruined meal. A second servez began to clean the sticky mess off the hob.
“Is Grandma all right?” Ollie asked.
“Her medical feeds indicate she is awake and retains full physical capacity,” Tye told him. “She is accessing the Brisbane Bay soap drama.”
“Right.”
Brisbane Bay was one of several soaps that Grandma followed with religious devotion. Ollie relaxed his muscles as gloom closed in on him like a winter fog. He knew the exact conversation that waited for him when he got up—again.
When he turned his head he was looking directly into Lolo’s sleeping face. Sie was gorgeous. He’d never admit it to anyone in the Legion, but, yes, sie did look a lot like Sumiko. At night, hitting the clubs and bars together, everyone would look at hir with secret envy, and Ollie relished their longing. Seeing him with Lolo, they knew he was a playa. Sie was also randy the whole time, almost as much as he was; and when it came to fucking, that agile omnia body offered a great many erotic permutations. It would all be perfect if sie would just bloody stop talking about romance and where their relationship was going. Actually, if sie just stopped talking…
Lolo woke, smiling as sie saw Ollie studying hir. The happiness faded. “What’s wrong?”
That voice, sultry and concerned, was like a vocal caress along his thighs. Sure enough, when Ollie glanced down—smug that he didn’t need artificial help the way Tronde did—his morning erection was straining away urgently. “Nothing.”
“There is. I can tell. You’re upset.”
“Maybe.” Ollie wormed his hand between their bodies, groping a pair of Sol-class tits before sliding fingers down those long, flat abs to find the stiff shaft.
“Is this your answer to everything?” Lolo’s protest sounded very half-hearted.
“You know it is.” He tightened his grip. “And this means you’re the same. What was it you called it? Body honesty?”
“You’re lucky I’m male-cycling.”
“Huh?”
“I can’t get hard if I’m in my female cycle.”
“Really?” That surprised Ollie; he’d assumed sie was in hir female cycle, what with all the endless talk about feelings and crap like that. His fingers probed eagerly below hir balls, slipping into the folds of skin concealing hir clitoris. He laughed at the abrupt shudder of joy his brashness kindled in hir. “Turned on is turned on.”
“Ollie, please, you can’t just…”
His other hand stroked hir face, shushing hir as
he marveled at the silky-smooth skin. No girl he’d ever been with had skin that smooth. Tronde had once viciously claimed Utopials were trying to become elves. He may have had a point. The faerie were reputed to have a prodigious sensual appetite.
“I need this,” he said and started kissing hir. It was manipulative, but he didn’t care. Sex was a great way to ignore problems, and no way was he going to confide in Lolo. The last thing he wanted was earnest questions and sincere sympathy for his family situation. “Hey, I think I have a pad left.”
Lolo hesitated, hanging in the emptiness between shame and craving. “That isn’t why I’m with you.”
“I know.” Ollie fumbled around on the floor, pulling at the puddle of creases below the bed that were his precious purple trousers. He held up the remaining white hemisphere, enjoying the now somber expression before him—so very like Sumiko going into combat. Laughing, he pushed the pad down onto Lolo’s dick.
“You beast,” Lolo exclaimed as Ollie triggered it. But hir eyes were already watering as the zero-nark invaded hir erectile tissue. “That’s not fair.”
Smirking, Ollie told Tye to restart his sex playlist they’d been listening to last night. Sumiko’s husky voice oozed out of the bedroom’s pillar speakers, singing a power ballad from a couple of years back. “I love this one.”
Lolo giggled, a long, dirty admission of capitulation. Sie let Ollie’s hand steer hir head down his torso, skillful mouth nibbling and licking lovingly as sie went. Ollie lay back as the oral foreplay began, all thoughts of his demanding family scattering from the bright pleasure heating his blood.
* * *
—
At least the shower worked properly. So many things in the ancient little house on Copeland Road rattled along on the edge of functionality. Ollie let the hot jets sluice over him and rubbed a handful of lavender-scented shampoo into his hair. Then conditioner. Always two conditioner applications. He never understood why so many of his friends didn’t bother with conditioner. It was the key to making hair look great.
He spent nearly twenty minutes in front of the mirror, first using a blow dryer on his hair then carefully teasing in the oil and shaping the buoyant quiff into curving wings that came down over his ears. The red tint in his tips was still vivid, enhancing the look. Playa!
Peering close at his own image, he checked the forehead. Everything all right there for sure. He was way too young to have a receding hairline. That was just silly paranoia triggered by Bik’s taunts.
Clean, wearing a fresh t-shirt and expensive real-cotton jeans, hair flawless, he was ready to face the world, Lolo, his family—
Lolo was skulking in the bedroom, always on edge at the possibility of having to interact with an old-Earth-style family—especially this one. Utopial group families were so much easier, sie’d explained at boring length one night. Less expectation and criticism, more belief and encouragement. That constant stream of implied superiority always irritated Ollie.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Ollie said by way of greeting.
Lolo’s grouch deepened. “You just want me to go away now that you’ve fucked me.”
Yes. “No. I’ve got stuff to do, that’s all. Boring stuff.”
“I can help.”
“Lolo, seriously, you don’t belong in that part of my world, okay?”
“Are you going to steal something?”
“Oh, bollocks.” Hands on hips. Angry at himself for the stereotypical posture, but mostly angry at hir. “Why are you always so difficult?”
Lolo came over to him, arms going around his shoulders in a needy hug. “I’m not being difficult, I just don’t want to see you hurt or arrested…or worse. You mean everything to me, you know that. Those Legion people you hang out with are dangerous.”
Ollie looked up at the not-Sumiko face above his head. “They’re not dangerous to me. I grew up with them; they’re my friends.”
“You need new friends.”
“Not now I don’t. We’re about to make us some serious money.”
Lolo hugged him tighter. “You’ve been saying that for two months now. Just…be careful.”
“Sure. I’ll call you when I’m ready. We can go out clubbing again.”
“You only want to go clubbing so you can check out the hot flesh.”
“For fuck’s sake, listen to yourself sometime!”
“It’s true,” Lolo wailed.
How can sie possibly be in a male cycle? “No, it’s not. Look, just go, will you? I’m on the clock here.”
Lolo hung hir head. Eyes watered again: nothing to do with zero-nark this time. “You’re angry. And I know you’re upset about something. I won’t ask you what’s wrong, I swear, but promise me you’ll call.”
“Sure.” The next blue moon in a month that has a Z in it.
“Okay then.” A tentative smile. A last hug. And sie was making hir way downstairs, hunched over so sie didn’t bang hir head on the ceiling.
“Holy shit,” Ollie muttered as the front door shut behind hir. It really was tempting to end it right there and then, be done with the constant drama. But for all hir neuroses and neediness, Lolo was impressively hot and dirty in bed.
He sighed, checked that his munificent hair hadn’t been ruffled by those stupid hugs, and went into his grandma’s room.
Centuries ago, back when the house was built, there were no hologram screens bigger than the internal walls, let alone fully interactive stages. The house needed to adapt to belong in the modern world. Ollie had installed the projectors and sensors as best he could, turning half of the room into an interactive suite. But the stage area still looked like a ghost cube was squatting on the threadbare carpet, with the window shining through it.
Sure enough, Gran was sitting in the big armchair he’d gotten her a year back, just on the edge of the sparkling laserlight. She never used the interaction function, but did set the stage projectors at high resolution so the soaps played out before her, banishing the real world. Ollie scrutinized her for a moment. She’d put on weight this year—not that she was eating more, but she hardly ever ventured out of the house now. That lack of exercise was starting to trouble him.
Eighteen months ago, his grandma’s spinal osteoarthritis had progressed so far that she could barely move for the constant pain. It’d taken all the money Ollie had and then some, but he paid for Kcell treatments to the facet joints in her lower back where the cartilage had worn away. The operation was performed in a decent clinic, too, one over in Richmond. The alien replacement cells had worked perfectly, and the painful inflammation had subsided. But now she was becoming forgetful, and she was a lot quieter, too—nothing like the outgoing ever-cheery woman who had brought him and Bik up by herself after their mother had walked out.
“Hi, Gran. How you doin’?”
She happily presented her cheek for a kiss. “My boy, are you all right?”
“Sure.”
“I thought I heard you arguing with your new girlfriend, the tall one.”
“No. We’re fine.” Trying to correct Gran about Lolo’s gender was a universe of complications he wasn’t yet ready to venture into.
“Good. I like her. She’s very pretty.”
Ollie prayed he wasn’t blushing. “Yeah. She’s great.”
“But never marry someone that nags and complains the whole time. It wrecks everything.”
“Yes, Gran.”
She chuckled. “Oh, I know you don’t listen to me, my boy, but I’m right about that.”
“I know you are.”
“And don’t wait too long before you settle down, either. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I? I should have had children much earlier, and so should your mother.”
He squatted down beside the chair, studying her tired eyes. “Gran, did you start cooking some callaloo for lunch?”
; She frowned. “Goodness, is it lunchtime already?”
“It’s three o’clock.”
“I must stop watching all these soaps. They’re fun, but they do steal so much time away.”
“Yeah, but you like them really, so go for it.” Ollie smiled up at her, trying to bridge the gap between the passive old woman before him and that tough, determined person who had taught him how to code when he was barely a teenager, showing him routes onto the lownet. Maybe the change had come during his brief time at university, before he was thrown out for using the campus network to probe the defenses around finance houses.
“I’ll go and put some callaloo on right now,” she said. “You must be starving, poor thing.”
Ollie checked with Tye. The servez had finished clearing up the mess in the kitchen, and the utensils were all in the dishwasher, which was vibrating through its heavy-soil cycle. Inventory check: They didn’t even have printed food left in the fridge, never mind any of the natural vegetables Gran preferred. She’d forgotten to buy anything fresh. “I’ll get us a deliverez from Bembé’s. You like their chicken roti.”
“Oh, no, dear. They’re so expensive. Don’t waste your money.”
“S’okay. I’m flush right now, Gran.” More lies. He’d taken a loan from Jade (which the rest of the Legion didn’t know about) to help pay for her osteoarthritis treatments, which he was still paying off. That money cut deep into every take from the jobs Jade bestowed—and how bitter was that irony? But that was not a debt you ever missed a payment on, not ever. Jade had been very clear about that. She’d even played at being reluctant to arrange it for him, which gave him a scary notion of the kind of people whom he now owed. It meant he could barely afford to go clubbing anymore. But all it would take was that one big job Jade kept promising; then his dreams would be back on track. The new house, somewhere nice, which meant a long way away from Copeland Road. Somewhere good for his grandma and Bik.
He knew exactly what that would be; its image glowed like a jewel at the center of his brain, and Tye had permanent monitors scanning the estate agents for it. A place next to the sea, maybe some rugged Mediterranean coast (but always with a beach), a slick, clean, white cubist house that was mostly glass, with marble floors and staircases, and one of those swimming pools with the edge that meshed with the horizon. It would be in a town that didn’t have sink estates and gang kids hanging on streets. Grandma could sit out in the sun, which would be good for her, then in the afternoon she’d walk into town to meet up with a bunch of nice friends. Bik would go to the local college, a decent one—one where pupils wore a smart uniform with a blazer, maybe get himself on a sports team. A real sport, not bloody parkour. Then, when his little brother got motivated and grew the right attitude, university. It didn’t have to be Ivy League, but one where graduates could walk into any corporate job, or even be welcomed by a habitat or on a terraformed world. Then with family sorted, Ollie would open a club overlooking the beach—a fantastic club, where all the hot people would come to party at night.
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