He wrapped his arms around the giant, burying his head in the sage smell, Drake’s hands pressing him in close. “It’s all right, Riley…. We’re going to have us a nice supper, and this gloriously smelling birthday cake, and we’re going to make that big oaf of a man smile again, I promise you. Because this we can do. So how about you snap out of it and help me carry the plates and my best ever stew to that damn room with all them sad people in it, and then I’m going to have you run back here when we’re done with the stew and grab the cake for us, all right?”
He nodded, hoping Lancer and Loren were back by now.
Everybody was in the big room when they got there, Lancer looking calm as if whatever happened earlier was already forgotten. He was listening to something Laurel was telling him, tilting his head to one side, a small smile on his face. Loren was tapping his fingers on the table, not looking at anyone. Ella helped serve the stew and they ate amidst the usual chatter. He ate quickly, watching Drake’s face for a signal. Ella was just starting to put the plates away when Drake winked at him, and he excused himself and ran off to get the cake and the small plates and forks for everybody. He hoped it would be okay by Lancer that they did this. Drake met him at the door, blocking him and the cake from everyone’s view.
“I am a little rusty at this, but here goes. Lancer, will you please stand up,” Drake said.
He did, but he looked tense, face worried.
“Somebody hand Lancer a long knife. It seems he’s forgotten his somewhere today.”
Loren slid his knife over to Lancer on the table, Lancer looking even more worried.
“I haven’t done this in too many years to count, so forgive me if this isn’t any good.” Drake nodded to him to bring the cake out. He felt himself blush, all eyes on him, surprise all over their faces.
Drake’s voice crooned behind him, full of smiles: “Lancer Maxton is twenty-eight today, which to you kids likely seems old as dirt, but be that as it may, I think we owe this man a song.”
And he heard Drake start the song he hadn’t heard since the surprise party Trina and Brody threw him years ago, and not for many years before then, but they all sang, and Lancer was blushing every shade of red, keeping his head down, embarrassed.
He set the cake down right in front of him, and lunged at him, hugging him hard, and then picked up the knife and handed it to him. “You have to cut it, Lancer. It’s how this works,” he said and he beamed at him, everybody in the room smiling now.
Ams and Laurel walked over to Lancer, hugging him, making him blush, and Ella, too, and finally Brody got up, and walked over to Lancer, head down. He was whispering something to him for a while, something intended for him alone, Lancer shaking his head at him, making him stop talking, and then Lancer reached over and hugged him, and he knew that he was okay with the cake, and with what happened before, that he truly didn’t blame anybody for anything. Only Loren still seemed out of sorts.
Lancer dropped the first slice on a plate, and put it in front of the kid, putting his hand on his arm, making him look up. “Dig in, Loren. I want to make sure Drake isn’t trying to poison me with some strange herb he picked up in those woods.” He smiled at them, a full-on smile, one they’ve never seen on him before.
Loren took a tentative bite and then moved the cake plate closer to him. “I’m afraid this is definitely poisoned, my friends. I am truly sorry about that,” he said, and the rest of them ran up to him with their plates, loading their slices onto them, not bothering to use the forks that he brought.
Ams and Laurel ate with their hands, unabashedly licking their fingers, and smearing frosting all over each other’s faces, and laughing, openly, in that little kid way he’d only heard them do once before.
He stood there, not caring about his own slice of cake, watching them chase each other around the table, listening to their laughter, not wanting to miss any of it. He felt Drake’s arm around him after a while, and knew Drake was doing the same thing he was—painting this memory into his head, collecting every smile in the room and making it permanent, making it something that whatever happened tomorrow couldn’t change. Something that belonged in this moment. Belonged to them alone.
Stan walked over to the wall with the drawing on it and started wiping at the charcoal with a rag soaked in something, erasing the buildings and the houses and the little stick figures of all the people running to the fire. Nobody was laughing anymore, just watching in silence. And when the wall was clean, save for a few gray smears, Stan took a small piece of charcoal from his pocket and wrote their names on the wall, one at a time, all but his own. Everybody’s eyes were on him, trying to make sense of it.
Stan cleared his throat and fixed the button that was showing the curls on his chest. “I’m not much of a fighter, and I couldn’t use one of them guns to kill anybody, as likely as not, but I’m good at other things. I know now that nobody left me alive here on purpose. I was just stuck at my lab late and when they released the damn things, I was walking home, so I didn’t get any, is all. It was just dumb luck, is what I am saying. Point is, I’d like to come with you if you’ll let me.”
Brody walked over to him and took the piece of charcoal from his hand, and wrote Stan under all the other names on the wall, and in a little while, everybody was full of smiles again, the girls stuffing Stan full of cake, making him blush.
“I think we might just make it,” Drake whispered and walked away from him to where Ella was leaning against the window. He picked her up in his giant arms and spun her around over and over again, and then kissed her right in front of everybody.
The girls were giggling loudly, telling Drake to just marry her already. Drake turned around, looking at all of them, face serious. “I would love to, girls, more than anything in the world, and I will if she’ll have me, just as soon as we are done with that other thing we got to do.”
Ella beamed, not embarrassed anymore. “I’ll have you, Drake.”
Lancer got up and ran out of the room without saying anything to anybody, and he hoped nothing was wrong. The man was back in just a few minutes, face serious. He walked over to Drake and Ella, not looking at anybody else, and held out his hand, trying to hand something that was on it to Drake, only Drake was shaking his head at him, not taking it.
“I won’t need it again, Drake, I promise. Please, take it. I can’t think of a better person to wear it than Ella. She would have loved her.” He dropped what he now saw was a ring on a little chain into Drake’s giant palm, and walked out of the room.
And he knew then that whoever this woman was—the one who had Telan—was gone, has been gone for a long time. And that when Ams ran her hands through his hair like that, he was thinking of her, the woman he lost. That he likely hadn’t let anyone touch him since he lost her, and he hoped that maybe someday he would let himself again, would let himself get close to somebody.
He found him in his room, standing with his back to him, looking at the darkness outside through the little window.
“What was her name?” It felt important to know that for some reason.
Lancer turned. “Idris, Riley. Her name was Idris. She died when she had Telan, so they took him to one of the orphanages for Zoriner kids, only when he was a few months old, they could tell that he wasn’t all Zoriner, because of his eyes. The woman running the place called it in, and the nets did the rest. They gave me a choice if you want to call it that…. Take over one of the squads, and have the record wiped clean for him, for Telan, or watch him be put down. So here we are. Officially, he has a rare mutation that’s responsible for his eye color, and both his parents were killed in a mining accident. That’s everything,” he said quietly, slowly, and he turned away from him, hands behind his stiff back, staring through the window again into the empty dark.
He didn’t know what he could say to him, didn’t have the words for it. He walked over to him, Lancer not moving at all, and they stayed like that for a long time.
“I’ll find him for you,
Lancer, wherever he is, I’ll find him and I’ll tell him about you, and if he wants to then, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you see him again, I promise. I can go into any of those places, looking to adopt one of those kids once I turn nineteen, and that’s only a few months away. I can do it then. I’ll find a way, if you want me to, I swear.”
Lancer was staring at him now, eyes angry, not even trying to hide it. “You can’t. I’d give anything to see him, but you can’t. He can’t ever know about me. It’s the only thing that’s keeping him safe.”
He should have thought about that before he said what he just said to him, stupid of him not to have. He was right, of course. The kid couldn’t know….“ What if he didn’t have to know? Between Drake and Ella and me, we can get him out, adopt him, and I think I like you enough to keep you close, so you can just be a family friend. I don’t care what we call you to him, it won’t matter, but you can be with him then, you can see him again. We can make it work and still keep him safe, and give you back something you lost.”
Lancer shook his head at him. “I let him go, I had to. I can’t risk being anywhere near him. Promise me you won’t try to get to him. You can’t…. I know what you’re trying to do, and I am grateful for it, but he is safe. You need to let this go.”
Lancer had him by the shoulders, staring at his face.
“Okay, okay,” he whispered, and Lancer let go of him. He turned away, not knowing what else to say.
He was at the door when Lancer’s voice stopped him. “I am really happy I met you, kid…. You already did give me something I lost, is what I’m saying. I am looking forward to going to sleep and then waking up, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve felt that.”
He had his back to him when he said it, still looking out that window. “Happy bloody birthday, Lancer,” he whispered to the man’s back, and he could see a small smile on his face in the reflection, and it was enough.
14
Legacy
Sandra Groning, Manchester, April 14, 2123. (113 Years Prior)
She was surprised when he called her out of the blue, well after business hours. She was still at the lab, fully intending to spend the night there again. She couldn’t remember the last time she went home or had a hot bath and a homemade meal. She wasn’t tired enough to sleep, and something in his voice made her want to hear him out. So she gave him the address and went home, not saying anything to anybody.
She shoved the cauldron of stew Cassie made a few days ago into the oven to heat up and took a quick shower. There wasn’t enough time for a bath, but she stood under the hot water for long enough to let some of the tension go from her back and shoulders, letting herself relax for the first time in weeks. She dried herself quickly and dressed in simple black trousers and a square boyish grey sweater that hung loosely on her small frame. From everything she knew about Huxer, she didn’t want him to see her as a woman, just a fellow scientist. The man was a notorious playboy, constantly showing up in the papers with some new young beauty hanging off his arm, smiling whitely at the cameras.
She dabbed a bit of blush on her pale cheeks, noticing the few new stress lines around her eyes. It didn’t matter. She was past the age when seeing new lines on her face upset her. Jason didn’t seem to care the few times he kept her company through the night, rarely doing anything but holding her in his arms, silently watching her sleep, and when it did go beyond that, she always felt guilty about it the next day, as if she had wronged him in some way. It bothered her not a little that he stayed a bachelor through all these years, and she felt it had something to do with her, only he’d never once said anything to her about it.
The faint buzz of the doorbell made her jump. She threw on flats and flicked the lights on in the dim hallway on her way to the door. Huxer stood in the half-shadow when she flung the door open, a bottle of wine in his outstretched hand, a tight, surprisingly awkward smile on his face.
“I didn’t know what or if you drink, so I picked up this. It’s a dry red, and from what the clerk said, should be rather decent… I am afraid I don’t know much about wine.”
She relieved him of the bottle, watching him put his hands in the pockets of his black coat as if he didn’t know what to do with them, now that they were empty.
The wine smelled of oak, and a hint of smoke, and blackberries. Smelled of Fall to her for some reason, a pleasant crisp smell.
Huxer stood with his back to her when she walked into the small living room with the wine, his fingers curled around the windowsill, coat still on. She walked over to him and offered him a glass full of deep, red liquid, the lights cutting strange patterns through it. He turned, and she noted how pale his face looked, not at all like she expected, not the healthy smiling man in all the TV interviews and in the papers.
He took the glass from her, dipping his head in a silent thank you, his eyes cast slightly down, hiding.
“We’ve never been properly introduced, Huxer, and it feels strange to be sharing wine with someone I am not on a first-name basis with. Call me Sandra.” She offered him her hand, his blue-green eyes finally looking at her, wary.
“Darius,” he said in a hoarse voice, his hand squeezing gently, coldly around her fingers.
“The food will be ready in about fifteen minutes. So you might as well take off your coat, and have a seat. Whatever it is you need to tell me sounded like it will probably take a while.”
He seemed uncomfortable, hands shaking slightly unbuttoning his coat, nothing of the arrogant Huxer she always imagined. He wore a black turtleneck and a pair of black slacks, and there was something of old-movies vampire in the way he looked and the pallor of his skin, his eyes the only spots of colour on him.
She sat on the far edge of the old couch, kicked off her flats, and pulled her legs under her.
Huxer hung his coat on the back of the lone chair but remained standing, his wine barely touched on the windowsill. “Do you mind terribly if I smoke?”
She did, but he seemed to really need to, so she just nodded to him and pointed to the small ashtray Cassie used on rare occasions. She watched him struggle with a match for a few moments, thinking how odd it was for him to be carrying something as old-fashioned as a box of matches. Finally, it was lit, and the space behind him filled up with smoke. She didn’t mind the smell of whatever he was smoking. There was something soft and pleasant about it.
He was looking at some imaginary spot in front of himself when he finally spoke, his jaw set, voice measured, as if he were giving a rehearsed speech to an empty room: “I know what you probably think of me…. It doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks of me. I am a lousy person, but I am a good scientist. Whatever my personal reputation, my research is solid, always has been. I didn’t know who else I could talk to about this, don’t know anyone else who’ll understand it really… and I felt like I owed you.” He put out the cigarette, and picked up the wine, taking a few greedy sips, and finally sat down in the chair, still not looking at her. “There isn’t a good way to say this, especially to you, considering… I am really sorry about this, Sandra—” His eyes were cast down, his free hand fumbling in the pack for another cigarette, though the one he just stubbed out was barely half-smoked.
“Huxer. Sorry, Darius, I don’t know you enough to think anything of you. But whatever it is you came here to tell me, if it has to do with my research, if you found something, I need to know. I am a scientist, for God’s sake.”
A feeling of dread settled over her, watching this man struggle to speak. She knew she intimidated people, but not him, not the one person in the world who arrogantly proclaimed his own greatness from every place that gave him ink or air time. And he was good, better than anyone currently working in repro-gen.
He finally lit the second cigarette and she watched thin streams of blue smoke curl foggily toward the ceiling. He nodded just once and kept going, his tone neutral, controlled, as he rushed through it in one breath. “I found a way to turn the damn thing on, the
418/Mi2…. It has an internal timer of sorts, that’s how it regulates ageing after the female is through with childbirth. Anyway, there is a way to turn it back on, only you are not going to like it. At roughly six months gestation, in a body that wasn’t affected, the gene will turn on in the baby via symbiosis with the host. Basically, if we implant the embryo of a girl with the lapsed Mi2 into a healthy host, the process will reverse itself.” He quickly stood up and went to the window, pressing his forehead to the cold glass.
She didn’t need him to tell her anything more. She knew what it meant. She could almost picture the ones who still had money rounding up young and healthy girls from outside the cities, and keeping them in secret labs, making them pump out babies with their genes, so their bloodlines didn’t die out. And it would be even worse in the US. They’d round up all the Zoriner girls and just use them as breeders…. She shivered and hugged herself, pulling her hands into the sleeves of her sweater, wanting and not wanting to ask how he could have possibly discovered this.
Darius faced her after a while. He drained his glass in one long swallow, his face flushed, and looked her in the eyes, unblinking. “I am not that lousy a person, Sandra. I didn’t do what you think I did. I was on call at a repro clinic and the young woman they were treating, the one who couldn’t get pregnant was from the outside. No shots. We weren’t supposed to treat her, but we did. That’s how I learned. You don’t have to believe me on this. It doesn’t really matter if you do or not—”
The oven dinged and she saw him flinch at the sound. She ran into the kitchen and got out the stew and two good plates and forks and laid them out on the small table, and when she turned around, Huxer had his coat on and was standing by the door, hands in his pockets, eyes down.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 45