by Amy DuBoff
“I should get going.” He tried to get up.
She stayed put. “Just a while longer.”
Ryan relaxed again. “A few more minutes won’t hurt.”
* * *
Ryan’s eyes shot open. Sun streamed through the open window—already well past dawn.
It took him a moment to get his bearings in the unfamiliar room. He glanced over and saw Raena still asleep on the couch next to him. Shite!
He scrambled off the couch, only pausing to look at the time on his handheld: 06:47. There was no way he’d be able to explain being gone all night. And if anyone caught him leaving the quarters of the newest Sietinen heir…
Raena stirred on the couch and then stretched as her eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” she greeted. “Wait, it’s morning?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stay. I must have fallen asleep—” Ryan tried to explain.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Raena replied.
That’s easy for her to say. She won’t get shipped offworld for this. “Please don’t tell anyone I stayed here.”
“I invited you. What’s the big deal?”
“I’m a servant here, Raena. Remember, I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
She laughed. “And like I said last night, that’s a stupid rule.”
“You might not have such social distinctions where you’re from, but the conventions are very clear here. I need to go.”
She rose from the couch. “When can I see you again?”
He hesitated. “I still don’t know how this would work.”
Raena frowned. “You’re ready to let some arbitrary social standing get in the way?”
Ryan crossed his arms. “I’m in a tough spot here.”
“So come to the TSS with me,” Raena said. “Neither of our backgrounds matters there.”
“Me in the TSS?” Ryan ran a hand through his dark hair. “That’ll be the day.”
Raena took a step toward him. “Why not? Militia is a good career path.”
“I don’t know…”
“Well, I’d like a chance to spend some more time together, to see what we have between us,” Raena stated, looking him in the eyes.
“You may be new to the dynastic lifestyle, but you already know how to speak your mind.”
Raena smiled. “Since you’re not saying what you’re really thinking, I figured I should speak on both our behalves.”
“I am speaking my mind. I can’t help being rational.”
“I still think you’re holding back.”
He sighed. “All right. The truth is that I would like a lot more nights like last night.”
“Me too.”
But first, I need to avoid getting killed today. “Really, though, I have to go.”
Raena gave him a slow kiss. “I’ll see you soon.”
Ryan tore himself away from her and rushed out into the hall. I never should have stayed overnight. This is bad—
He rounded a bend in the hallway on his way to the servant passage entrance and almost ran straight into Wil.
“Hi again,” the Sietinen heir commented.
Shite! Ryan froze. There was no escape. “Nothing happened!” he exclaimed in a panic.
Wil cocked his head. “With what?”
Of course, he doesn’t even know I was with his daughter all night. Ryan’s mind raced, trying to figure out a way to backpedal. “I, uh…”
“Where were you coming from?” Wil asked.
“My lord, I can explain—”
Wil stared at him levelly. “Were you with Raena all this time? I’ll know if you’re lying.”
“She asked me to stay,” Ryan blurted out. “I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up—” He looked down at the floor. “I’ll report the violation to my supervisor. I accept full responsibility.”
The Tararian lord stood in silence for several moments. “As far as I’m concerned, there was no wrongdoing.”
Ryan looked up slowly. “My lord…?”
“I know most of the highborn around here act in a certain way, but I grew up in the TSS. I think it’s absurd that you can get in trouble for talking to someone. If my daughter wants to talk to you, it’s not anyone’s place to stand in the way of that.”
He’s not upset? It took Ryan several seconds to find his voice again. “I thought for sure you were going to have me banished.”
“Banishment? Does anyone still do that?” Wil chuckled. “No, Ryan, far from it. In fact, I was going to ask you to join the TSS.”
“The TSS?”
Wil nodded. “Are you aware you have latent abilities?”
“No. That’s not possible…”
“It is and you do. You’re a year or two past when we would normally have someone join, but you’re still well within the window to draw out your potential. That is, if you accept.”
Ryan swallowed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“ ‘Yes’ would be a good reply.”
Train in telekinesis? That was never a future I’d considered. “I’ll need to think about it.”
“For what it’s worth, you’d be in the same cohort as Raena and Jason,” Wil added.
That would be fun until Raena decided that she wasn’t really interested in me and moves on to someone else. Ryan took a step back. “I can’t make a decision right now.”
“Of course,” Wil yielded. “Take a couple days to mull it over.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Wil smiled. “Please, the honorifics aren’t necessary. First name is fine.”
“I couldn’t!”
“I’m sure you can find a way to adapt.” The heir looked him over again. “You are quite an anomaly. How someone with your ability came to be in your position…”
“I don’t remember my life before this,” Ryan murmured.
“Well, regardless of if you want to join us in the TSS, I’d like to find out some more about your family. Do I have your permission to go through your file?”
“You don’t need my permission to access it.”
“It’s common courtesy to ask,” Wil replied.
Ryan nodded. “Sure. If you find anything interesting, let me know. It’d be nice to know where I was from.”
“Deal. And please do consider the offer.”
“Yes, my— I will.”
“Good.” Wil took a step in the direction he’d been heading before the near-collision. “Oh, and if your supervisor asks where you were all night, you can tell them I had a project for you.”
Dumbfounded, Ryan resumed his dash back to the servants’ quarters. Join the TSS as an Agent? Have a chance to spend more time with Raena… This can’t all be real.
He took the familiar, plain interior corridor to the stairway that led into the basement beneath the mansion. He’d spent his youth getting to know every inch of the hill on which the Sietinen estate was constructed and the underground development that was a fully functioning city unto itself. Like the other staff for day-to-day administration, food preparation, and maintenance, he lived onsite in subterranean quarters. Though many of the estate’s operations were automated or handled robotically, Tararian culture dictated a living person’s touch for many activities, so people like him had a long history of employment. He often wondered, however, if that cultural norm of being served a meal by a person rather than an android was instituted as a means of job preservation on a broad scale rather than a genuine preference.
Unlike the marble floors and airy breezeways on the surface, the worker levels underground were cast in polished concrete with utilitarian amenities. Ryan raced down the stairs and glanced at the holographic reader board of the day’s tasks as he entered the quartered housing for technical staff. Four maintenance requests had already come in and he should have claimed one of them. Shite, they’ll be checking in on me soon.
He raced toward his quarters to take a quick shower and change. Unfortunately, he needed to pass by the common room to get there. Being 07:00, a
number of people were gathered at the long bench tables for breakfast.
“Where were you last night?” Sophie called out from the nearest table.
She’s the last person I wanted to see this morning. “I received a time-sensitive assignment late last night.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Ryan turned away and continued down the hall. “I’m not doing this here.”
“You can’t keep avoiding me!” Sophie jogged after him. “It can’t keep going like this.”
“There was never anything to get going in the first place.”
Her glare bored into the back of his head. “So the last four months were nothing?”
“I told you I wasn’t interested in anything formal. I was very upfront with that.” He reached the door and palmed open the lock.
“I thought you were just saying that…”
Ryan stepped into his room. “I’m sorry if you feel otherwise, but this was always just a casual thing. I never considered you my girlfriend.”
Sophie crossed her arms. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
There wasn’t until last night. “I value your friendship, but clearly you’re wanting something that’s never going to happen between us.”
“I thought you liked me.”
Stars! I do not have the mental space for this drama right now. Then again, it’d been drama from the beginning. The entire arrangement had been a mistake he was too slow to admit. “I do like you and care about you. We’re just at different places right now, and I think it’s better we go our separate ways so you can find the deeper relationship you’re looking for.”
She stared at him with wide, pleading eyes. “But—”
“I’m sorry, Sophie.” He started to close the door. “Take some time to calm down and we can maybe talk later. Now, I need to get ready.”
“Ryan, please…”
“Sorry.” Ryan closed and locked the door before she could say anything else. Taylor had tried to warn him about her but he hadn’t listened. He hated feeling like he’d hurt her, but he’d been as clear as possible with his intentions and couldn’t control her turning it into something inside her head that it wasn’t in reality.
He rubbed his eyes and took several deep breaths to clear his head. Dealing with a crazy ex-non-girlfriend was the lowest item on his priority list for the moment.
Ryan set about getting ready for the day as quickly as possible. Drama aside, life must go on. The future path, though, just might be headed toward an interesting detour.
* * *
Stars! When I set them up, I didn’t think they’d spend the whole night together, Wil thought as he parted from Ryan and resumed his walked toward the breakfast patio.
The revelation did confirm that there was something genuine between them, however. Raena wasn’t the sort to fool around with someone, so she must have seen potential for something significant. All the same, he could tell from Ryan’s demeanor that nothing too serious had transpired overnight—at least not on a physical level. Wil had bigger things to worry about than two teenagers making out on a couch.
Still, maintaining a sufficient level of objectivity was easier said than done. On a conscious level, he was well aware that he’d been even younger than Raena when he first met Saera in the TSS. He also knew that experiencing a connection with someone was far from an enduring commitment and the could-be romance might go nowhere. All the same, he found a conflict brewing within himself as parental protectiveness faced off against a desire for his children to find happiness and fulfillment in their own lives.
If this guy is going to have a relationship with my daughter, the least I can do is figure out who he is. Based on the little Wil knew so far, Ryan was more than he appeared to be.
CHAPTER 15
The previous night seemed like a dream in the light of day. From the bizarre party to the new potential romance, Raena wasn’t sure what to make of all the events. This new life might be even more different than I imagined.
She showered and dressed for the day, selecting a breezy skirt and tank top that seemed well-suited to the temperate climate. While she was braiding her hair, she received a text message from her mother directing her to a patio one floor down where the rest of the family was gathering for breakfast.
Raena finished styling her hair and then proceeded into the main residential corridor. No one else was around, but the hall was filled with sunlight streaming in through windows in the cut-outs leading to shared terrace spaces at various points along the walkway. Sounds of singing birds carried on the breeze through open windows, and she drank in the peace of the place as she strolled toward the staircase. With the new day, anything seemed possible.
Her family was already seated around a large, rectangular wooden table on a covered patio beneath one of the terraces on the upper level. Cris and Kate were on the far side of the table reading text projected from their handhelds resting on the tabletop and her parents were sitting quietly on the left side of the table, absorbed in their own thoughts. Jason had apparently just arrived and was settling into a chair on the right side of the table adjacent to Kate.
“Good morning,” Cris greeted, minimizing the text on his handheld. “How did you sleep?”
“Pretty well,” Raena replied, figuring it best to leave out the part about staying up half the night and spending the remaining time curled up on the couch with Ryan.
“You survived the party,” Saera said with a smile. “It should all be easy going from here.”
Now I have new complications to worry about. Raena took a seat next to her brother. “It wasn’t that bad, thanks to all of you.”
Kate minimized the text from her handheld, as well, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe they’re so intimidated by us even after all this time. One look and they run the other direction.”
“In all fairness, your dagger-eyes can bring even the most battle-hardened Agent to their knees,” Cris quipped.
Kate swatted him playfully. “You know what I mean. That line between those with abilities and those without is still as firm as ever.”
“The irony being that almost everyone in that room was from an active genetic line,” Wil commented. “In another generation or two they’ll be the ones with the active abilities.”
“Hopefully a lot will have changed by then,” Cris murmured.
In the silence that followed, Raena scoped out the breakfast spread on the table. Two pitchers of juice were at the center of the table—one orange and the other red—surrounded by a bowl of fruit and several baskets of baked goods.
Raena stared at the pile of pastries on her mother’s plate. “Mom! A little hungry?”
“They’re really good,” Saera said with a slight flush to her cheeks.
“Uh huh.” Raena grabbed one for herself, finding it warm and soft in her fingertips. She set it on her plate and pulled off a small section of the flaky dough. The moment it touched her tongue, she flashed her mom a sheepish look. “All right, I get it.”
Saera made a flourish of vindication with her hand and then resumed eating.
“So Dad,” Jason said, grabbing some breakfast for himself, “a lot of people last night were talking about you like you’re some sort of legend.”
Wil inched back in his chair and looked down. “People say a lot of things.”
Cris and Kate exchanged glances. “He’s being modest,” Cris said. “He’s quite accomplished.”
“I did what I needed to do,” Wil muttered.
“So it’s true—about the independent jump drive?” Raena asked. “Whatever that is.”
“It’s an incredibly significant invention,” her mother cut in. “Your father cracked a code that no one else had been able to.”
“He was just about your age,” Cris continued. “The official design was finished shortly before he graduated from the TSS.”
“I can’t imagine graduating at sixteen,” Jason commented.
Wil nodded. “It feels
like that was forever ago.”
“What’s the independent jump drive?” Raena asked.
“It’s a navigation system,” Saera explained. “Sort of like the equivalent of going from a dial-up modem to having access to satellite internet in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, it’s a little more complex than that…” Wil said.
“How’s it work?” Raena questioned.
“After you’ve had about two years of navigation theory classes, we’ll get into that,” her father replied with a smile. “And believe me, there’s no way around it—navigation is the family business. You’re going to learn more about it than you ever wanted to know.”
“Right now, that sounds awesome,” Raena replied with a grin.
Cris eased back in his chair. “Oh, just wait.”
“I’ve always been partial to flying, myself,” her father said.
“Oh yeah, that’s way better,” Cris agreed.
Jason straightened in his chair. “And we can really start lessons when we get back to Headquarters?”
“Absolutely,” Wil said. “Many students have had at least preliminary flight training before coming to the TSS.”
“So wait,” Raena said, “you wouldn’t let us learn to drive a manual car but you’re totally okay with us flying crazy-fast jets in space?”
Wil smiled. “First of all, it was an irrelevant skill with the prevalence of self-driving cars. But the more compelling reason I resisted is because it’s much easier to learn maneuvering in three dimensions first and then go back to the two-dimensional perception needs of driving a car.”
“I can vouch for that,” Saera added. “The speed and maneuvering are completely different. There are some bad habits to break from driver’s ed. Then again, I was learning back before automated travel took over.”
Raena grinned at her brother. “I can deal with flight lessons first.”
“Definitely on board,” he agreed.
“Okay, so navigation systems study and flight lessons…” Raena began, “and then I imagine we have all sorts of remedial information to go over regarding culture beyond Earth.”
Her mother nodded. “Not to mention telekinesis training.”