Sylor

by Elin Wyn

  “That’s good,” I said. “It’ll be nice to be able to walk around wherever we want to, and to get food again.”

  He chuckled as he took a bite of his ramen. He had taken me to a little place close to where I had shown him the way underground. With the tunnels open now and food getting through, this ramen place had begun importing food and had quickly become a local favorite.

  “How are things going with Sabre?” he asked as he bit into a dumpling, immediately hissing and sucking air in. I could see the steam rising. I hid my smile behind my hand as he suffered through the bite. “I should have waited another minute before trying that.”

  I nodded and quickly put another bite of ramen in my mouth to hide my humor. However, I was not to be left out of the insanity. I bit down and must have bitten down into a bit of pepper, a bit of ridiculously hot pepper. I started breathing heavily and coughing. I reached for my drink and gulped it down, barely quenching the lava that was destroying the inside of my mouth.

  When I was able to breathe and talk again, Sylor was laughing so hard that he had started hiccupping. That made me laugh.

  Things had gone so well last night that I asked him if I could spend the night. He not only agreed, but he said that I could move in, have a permanent –sort of—home. I say ‘sort of’ because if the vines came back, or something else attacked, we would most likely move. But that was beside the point.

  Sylor had asked me to move in with him. I was elated. I had never had a real home before. Yes, I lived in the underground and usually slept in one place, but it was never a place that I really wanted to go. Sylor’s home, no matter what it looked like, I wanted to be there simply because he was there.

  He had brought me to his home, a small place that was a twenty-minute walk from Rouhr’s offices. It was the first house you came across when you came to the housing area, a little green place with a fence around the front yard.

  It was a bit empty inside. There was furniture, but nothing personal. It was very…boring. We made love last night, and after he left for work this morning, I went to the underground to find some things for Sylor’s home.

  The one thing that we were good at under the surface was adaptation. We could adapt and change anything to fit what we needed it to fit. Sylor was sort of the same way. He took apart four rifles to create his new dart gun, then took the remnants of the four rifles and created a new sniper rifle for his friend Tu’ver that shot farther. The guy was simply an engineering freak.

  So, I scoured the market and people’s ‘collections’ for things that I thought Sylor would like. Weapons, parts, remade tools, anything that looked like it had been modified and changed, even if it didn’t work anymore. I called in favors, opened up credit, and bought whatever I could and had some of the guys help me deliver it all to Sylor’s house.

  I spent the next several hours putting everything around the house, using them as decoration, trying to create a bit of a flow from room to room.

  When I was done, I went to my meeting with Topan to discuss the harvesting and growing Maymoss. It grew in one of the caverns we were connected to. The cavern was lit by some sort of glow-in-the-dark stalactite that produced a semi-pleasant blue light. The blue light helped the Maymoss grow nice and thick. We used Maymoss for just about everything. It was used to make blankets, it tasted good so it was used as a vegetable in our stews, and carpeting since it seemed to grow everywhere. Some people had even started to cut some from the cavern and sort of plant it around their booths or on the streets.

  That evening, I returned home—god it felt good to say that—and realized that I had beaten Sylor there. I decided to raid his kitchen and make him a dinner to go with his new toys. I was in the middle of making dinner when the door opened. I rushed out of the kitchen to see Sylor’s face.

  I don’t think I had ever seen anyone look so happy, or surprised, all at the same time. My own cheeks began to hurt as I smiled at his joy.

  “What is all this?” Sylor breathed. I could barely hear his words, but I could sense what he was asking.

  “I wanted to make you feel more at home,” I said as I came over and kissed his cheek. “I wanted to thank you for everything.”

  “What did I do?” he asked, not looking at me at all. He was still smiling and staring.

  I put my arm around his lower back, it was all I could reach, and held him close. “You helped me get out of my own little hell and find my way. I have a home now, and I have a family. It’s all because of you.”

  He looked down at me then. “Am I part of that family?”

  “I would like you to be,” I said quietly.

  He smiled. “I would like to be, as well.” He bent down and kissed me as I craned my neck. While it hurt my neck to stretch for that long, the sensation of his powerful arms wrapped around me while his lips engulfed mine made the pain worth it.

  “You have always been strong, Nesta. You just needed to get away from Odeon and discover your own abilities,” he said as we broke apart.

  “Thank you,” I said as I hugged him. “But I don’t think I’ve ever known what it means to really feel safe until now. You make me feel safe.”

  “And you make me feel as though I belong,” he responded. I shot a look of confusion at him. He chuckled. “I’ve always been the odd one in my family. I’m actually the smallest male, and the weakest. That’s why I turned to technology, it kept me away from my family and their incessant need to prove everything through strength. It’s why I speak the way I do.”

  “I love how you talk,” I said. “I’m sorry about your family.”

  “I’m not. They made me strong, and I’m honored to be able to use that strength to make you feel safe,” he said. “What is that smell?”

  “Ah!” I shouted and rushed to the kitchen. I hadn’t burned anything, but my sauce had boiled over. Sylor helped me finish making dinner and we had a pleasant evening. After dinner, he walked all over the house, inspecting everything. I’d noticed something about him. When he was really excited about something, his left hand twitched. I was happy to see his hand twitch a lot.

  The one thing that he spent the most time with was a piece of prosthetic. It was something that one of the men down below had made to use as both protection and as extra power when he was digging. It fit over his arm, and he had modified it with several weapons and a small energy shield. The shield only lasted two seconds, but it was still there.

  I could see his eyes twitching back and forth as he studied it. “This is incredible,” he finally said with a breath of awe.

  “I’m glad you like it,” I said, proud of what I had done.

  “I love it. It’s beautiful.”

  It took me a moment to realize that he’d said it’s. Then, without realizing what was going to come out of my mouth, I said, “I love you.”

  He grabbed me and my feet left the ground.

  “I love you, too,” Sylor said.

  I couldn’t reply. His mouth was covering mine and his tongue danced circles with mine.

  I could feel his hands unbuttoning my pants. I straightened my legs as he pulled them off. His huge hands began to caress my ass before slapping it.

  I yelped in pleasure and pain.

  It took two seconds for Sylor to rip my panties off. Then he lifted me up.

  My pussy hovered above his face.

  He brought me closer to his mouth like a toy, and stuck out his tongue.

  That strong tongue, with its deft muscles, began to lap at me.

  “Oh fuck,” I moaned, as my eyes rolled back in their sockets.

  “Let me show you how much I love you,” Sylor chuckled and forcefully pushed his tongue against my clit. He rubbed it back and forth over and over until I couldn’t feel my legs.

  Still, I managed to wrap them around his torso.

  Sylor began eating me with gusto.

  As waves of pleasure began to cascade through my body, I lost all control of my limbs. Sylor held me up and continued to flick his tongue.<
br />
  I came.

  Over and over.

  Before I blacked out from the intense waves of pleasure.

  That was a marvelous way to be told someone loved you.

  Sylor

  Leena and Tella were working as fast as they could to produce the synthetic Phokite, and I made sure that their efforts were used quickly and effectively.

  Every case they brought me or sent to me, I used within only fifteen minutes.

  And within seven to ten minutes of every shot taken, the vines started withering, dying, and coming down. Now I wasn’t killing vines in only one place, either. I was attempting to be strategic, so I was shooting vines in various places around the city.

  It made sense to have multiple openings in case the Puppet Master started doing something more dangerous than sending down its tendrils. With multiple openings, people would be able to escape no matter where they were within the city.

  It was a smart decision. The pieces of vines that fell, depending on condition, were then taken to the labs to be studied.

  The other thing that had been sensational during the past three days was that none of the vines had grown back. The tendrils were still acting as they had been for the past several weeks, simply invading buildings and feeling around.

  No one had a notion as to what the tendrils were looking for, but we were starting to not care anymore. We had a way out.

  Of course, the non-optimistic members of our force had brought up something that was extremely important. The Puppet Master was still alive and we still didn’t know what it wanted with us, or what the Puppet Master itself was.

  Tella still had some ideas that it was an ancient creature, but we were unable to figure out how ancient.

  As I fired off my last round into a vine on the north side of the city, Karzin approached me. “Afternoon.”

  “Sir. How are things?”

  He went “Eh,” and gave me a slight grin, something I had forgotten he knew how to do before Annie came into his life. “A lot of people are very happy that we’ve finally found a way out of the dome. Even more are happy that we’re getting rid of the vines.”

  “But?” I asked, sensing that he was going to tell me something leaning towards the negative.

  “There are a lot of citizens, a few guards, and one of the members of Team Three that are terrified with what the creature has in store for us next. They’re scared that this is just the lull before the storm, so to speak,” he explained to me.

  I nodded in understanding. I partially agreed. The fact that the tendrils had not resorted to attacking or defending, that the vines had not attempted to regrow, and that nothing else had happened since the first vine had been killed…it was a perplexing and frightening thought.

  “They might not be wrong,” Karzin said, echoing my thoughts. “There might just be something to what they’re saying. Whatever this creature is, it could just be biding its time, getting us into a false sense of safety before it obliterates us all.”

  “Well,” I said, “there is something to that. Whenever we attacked this thing before, it always seemed to either heal itself or block our attempts. Nothing worked against it. Suddenly, this has worked.”

  “Good point,” Karzin said as we started walking back towards the offices. “What are you thinking?”

  “What if Tella is correct?” I asked. “What if this is an intelligent creature and it truly is playing a game that we’re woefully unprepared for?”

  He snorted. “You really think this plant is that smart?”

  “What if it’s not a plant?” I countered. “What if it’s some sort of beast that can control vegetation?”

  He looked at me as we walked. “You really believe that?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not completely sure as to what I should believe, to be honest.” We rounded a corner and passed by the local ramen shop. I had come to really like ramen. It was a simple meal, and with my metabolism, it was more of a snack than a meal most of the time. “Let’s stop in here,” I suggested, turning into the shop.

  “Really? You’re hungry?” he joked as he followed me in.

  “I find it comforting. Helps me think,” I answered. “Good afternoon, Nafam.” The owner of the shop, a skinny man with slightly slanted eyes, dark skin, and a sweaty bald head, nodded at me and quickly wiped off the small table he was near. He pulled a stool back and smiled at me. “Thank you,” I said as I sat at the stool. Karzin joined me.

  “This makes you feel better?” he asked as he sat.

  “That it does,” I answered. I looked at Nafam. “Two orange sodas, if you please, and…what’s the special today?”

  “Of course,” he said, then quickly yelled something in a language I did not know to the back. He turned back to us. “Today’s special is Luurizi with chicken dumplings and vegetables.”

  “Sounds good. Two please,” I said. Nafam went to the back while his daughter, a small girl of maybe thirteen, brought out our drinks.

  “Damn,” Karzin said. He had made a practice of trying to use human vocabulary more often. “These are some big drinks.”

  They were, at that. Nafam had come to recognize my tastes and knew that I always ordered the largest drink, a cup that numbered more than sixty ounces in size. I shrugged. “As for whatever the Puppet Master is, I don’t have enough information to hypothesize.”

  “But, just for the fun of it, you think it’s a creature that controls plants.” He didn’t phrase it as a question, but I knew he was asking.

  “At least I think I do. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. What about you? What do you think?” I asked over a sip of my soda.

  “This is good,” he said as he took a drink of its own. “As for me, I just think it’s a dumb beast or plant of some sort. It might have some intelligence, but it can’t be as smart as us.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “The Xathi were.”

  “That’s a different story,” he said.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes,” he said brusquely. “The Xathi were created to adapt and that adaptability made them intelligent.”

  “Who says this isn’t the same way?” I asked as I leaned back to leave room for Nafam to give us our bowls of ramen. “Oh, that smells good.”

  Karzin sniffed his own. “What is that smell?”

  “It’s either the Luurizi or the onion pepper he uses. It takes a little getting used to, but it tastes fantastic,” I answered. “Try it.” I dove into my ramen with zeal. Nafam was a genius at taking something as simple as broth, noodles, and meat and turning it into a fabulous meal that satisfied your hunger.

  Karzin tried some. I watched his eyes go wide before he, too, dove into this meal.

  There wasn’t much conversation over the next twenty minutes as we finished our first bowls and then worked on our seconds.

  When we were finished, Karzin leaned back in his stool, put his hands on his stomach, and moaned in pleasure. “You were right,” he said. “Now I know why you eat here so often.”

  “I told you,” I smiled. “Look, whatever the Puppet Master is, it’s something that we’ll deal with. We always do. However,” I said quickly as Karzin started to speak. “I’m hoping Tella, Leena, and the others in the labs can give us more information when they’re done. Then we’ll decide on not only what to do, but also about what this is.”

  “You’re right. You going back for more toxin?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, one more round, then going home.”

  “Ah, Nesta there with you?” he smiled.

  I chuckled in embarrassment. “Yes, she is.”

  “To think, the two of us with our own humans to love. Did you ever think it possible?” he asked as he finished off his soda.

  “Never,” I admitted. “There was never a day after we crashed that I thought I would have feelings for anyone from here.”

  “And yet, now that we have them, I can’t imagine having a day without them. Can you?” he asked.

  I smiled as I p
aid the bill, leaving a nice tip. “Despite the fact that Nesta and I have only been ‘together’ for a few days, it seems like a natural fit, like a part of my own body.”

  “That’s how I feel,” he said. “Tell you what, give me the dart gun. I’ll kill the next set of weeds. You go home and surprise your woman. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

  “For the first time in a very long time, I believe that I will take the early time off. Thank you,” I said as I handed over the rifle. Karzin headed off towards the lab, and I jogged home, plans for a surprise dinner running through my head as I went.

  I wondered how Nesta would react to me greeting her at the door naked.

  Epilogue: Nesta

  It was the end of the week and there were only a couple dozen vines left. Anyone that had wanted to leave, had. The people that wanted to stay were still here, working on creating a way to start rebuilding…again.

  I had been staying with Sylor for about five days, and I decided that it was time to take him to meet the people I had grown up with. I proposed the idea to him at breakfast and he agreed. I took him down and introduced him to Topan, Joe, and several of the others that were helping me make Sabre legitimate.

  We spent the evening eating and talking. “No, no, don’t tell him that story! No,” I pleaded as Topan pulled Sylor closer. He was threatening to tell one of the more embarrassing stories of my life. Everyone was laughing about it and Sylor was smiling.

  “It can’t be that bad, can it?” he asked me.

  “Oh, it’s bad.” I turned to Topan. “Don’t tell him, please.”

  He winked and laughed.

  “Don’t do it, or I’m gonna tell about how you made a mistake with that woman,” I threatened, my eyebrows going up and down rapidly.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “In two seconds,” I responded.

  Sylor cut in. “Oh, now I have to hear both stories.”

  “No!” Topan and I said simultaneously. The entire table started laughing. Old man Sam actually started coughing as he laughed.