All of the delegates looked on, watching with baited breath as they ate their food. Gerald was mortified to have every eye in the room locked on him.
From his table in the corner, Ullok looked down at what he was wearing. “I would overheat in clothes, and the ruffling sound would make it more difficult to sneak up on prey. I prefer my loincloth.”
“As do I,” Accalia confirmed.
“Clothes? That’s rich coming from you,” Ilrica taunted. “The first day at school you walked through the quad naked as the day you were born. Poor old Professor Oberts nearly had a heart attack.”
Half the men in the room began searching the hypernet for any pictures of the event.
“I didn’t know that everyone would become so upset,” Trahzi defended.
“That’s because you’re stupid!”
“Stupid? Raise your hand if you knew how to speak four cycles ago?”
Trahzi raised her hand. Ilrica folded her arms and snarled.
An old man in the corner took a bite of popcorn and leaned over to his friend. “Ah, to be young again. I had girls fighting over me like this when I was his age.”
“No, you didn’t,” his friend shot back.
Ilrica turned to Gerald. “You’d rather spend the day with me, right?”
“No, you’d rather spend the afternoon with me,” Trahzi insisted.
“Just kiss her!” one of the people from the crowd shouted out.
Gerald pointed out in the direction of the sound. “Hey, no comments the peanut gallery, okay?” He turned back to the girls. “Look, we still have a lot of preparations for tonight, don’t you remember?”
“Oh, you indecisive little trog!” Ilrica complained.
“Yes, do not be weak,” Trahzi added. “Whatever happened to your desire to become Amazing All-Powerful Super-Muscley Manly Man?”
Gerald’s eyes went wide. “How do you know about that?”
Ilrica snickered. “Oh, Gerald, everybody knows about that. It was all over the school network.”
Gerald held up his fist. “Blast that Zuri.”
“So, stop being all wishy-washy and pick one of us.”
“I’m not being wishy-washy. I’m just being rational. Look, even if I did choose one of you, it would end very very badly.”
They raised their eyebrows.
“You are saying that being my mate would be a bad thing?” Ilrica asked harshly.
Trahzi created a sphere of plasma in her hand. “Do you know what the consequence would be for rebuffing my affections?” A few people ran out of the room.
Gerald held up his hands. “No. Geeeze. I’m not rejecting either of you. Just think about it, step by step. If I were to choose anyone but Cha’Rolette, her bodyguards would have me killed.”
“Tortured and killed,” Ilrica clarified.
“Yes, thank you. And if I chose anyone except Trahzi, she’d have me burned alive.”
“She already did that,” Ilrica quipped.
“That was an accident! And don’t bring that up, I still feel really bad about that.”
“Well, don’t bring up my age, fatty-meat, I don’t like to be reminded of that!”
“And I don’t even want to think about what Ilrica would do to me,” Gerald concluded.
Ilrica snorted derisively and folded her arms. “It’s okay, unlike her, I can be a patient hunter. You like patient girls, right Gerald?”
“Stop trying to get me to take sides in this, Ilrica, I’m not going to fall for it.”
Trahzi held up a burning fist. “What are you saying, Faolan? I can be patient too.”
“Are you kidding? You are the most impatient person I know. You banished that student from Timmeron to the shadow realm because he took too long in the frozen yogurt line.”
“He was asking for samples of everything! You don’t need to sample chocolate, it’s chocolate. Everyone knows what chocolate tastes like! Just order the chocolate! He was wasting my time on purpose!”
Ullok leaned in towards Accalia. “I do not understand this mating dance. Why does Dyson not simply grab her by the muzzle and force her to the ground in submission?”
“Because he will never be as skillful a lover as you are,” Accalia whispered back, blushing heavily.
“Look, I don’t mind if the three of us spend the afternoon together,” Ilrica stated. “She is the one being a problem here and trying to hog you all to herself.”
“Hog? Is that another fat joke?”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”
“Look, her waist is thinner than my neck, Ilrica, it’s really not fair to call her fat, okay?”
Ilrica put her hands over his eyes. “Don’t do it Gerald. Don’t be hypnotized by the jiggling globs.”
Ilrica realized what she was saying and turned to the Zurinite delegates. “No offense, of course.”
“None taken, OLD MAN,” one of them shouted back.
“Hey!”
“Get off,” Gerald said, freeing himself.
Trahzi tried to reign in her temper. “Look, I can be reasonable. The three of us can spend the afternoon together, but you were able to go on a date with Gerald, and I never had that chance, so we will need to even the score first.”
“How?” he asked suspiciously.
Trahzi blushed a little. “He must kiss me.”
Ilrica threw up her hands. “What?”
“I’ll allow her to come along with us if you kiss me for as long as your date with her lasted.”
Gerald’s jaw dropped open. “But that was a whole day.”
Trahzi stepped back. “That long? Are you trying to get me pregnant?”
Gerald furrowed his brow. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
Ilrica snickered. “For all we know it might be.”
Chancellor Torri leaned in to the person next to him. “Are these really the people who saved our planet?”
“Hey, try to show a little gratitude,” Ilrica snapped.
“I am grateful,” Torri said. “This is the most fun I’ve had all day.”
“So, will you agree to kiss me?” Trahzi asked as they turned their attention back to Gerald.
His seat was empty.
Both girls looked around. “Hey! Where did he go?”
All the people in the room pointed out the door.
“Hey, come back here!” they shouted as they flew off after him.
* * *
Zurra wandered the hallways and corridors. They were as empty as she felt. When she reached her doorway she saw a little present sitting on the floor, wrapped up with a hand-made bow.
Her eyes lit up. “Is this from daddy?”
She stretched out her arm and snatched it up, giggling to herself. “You remembered! This year you finally remembered!”
She tore open the colorful paper, revealing a deck of cards inside.
Zurra raised an eyebrow. “UNO cards?”
She lifted one up and realized that they weren’t really UNO cards. They were hand-made, each one carefully cut out of card stock and drawn in by hand. They looked so good that they seemed authentic at first glance. Whoever made these must have spent hours and hours on them.
She flipped the card over and gasped. On the back of the card, amidst the numbers and color, was a small hand-drawing of her as a child, playing in a sandbox.
She picked up another card. This one had a drawing of her playing tag, laughing happily.
Tears began to form in her eyes.
She flipped through the deck. Each card had a special drawing on it, a fond memory of her and Gerald playing together as children. One by one she went through them, her lip trembling. The time they found a seagull’s nest on top of the old conference center, the time she had gotten lost at the Traxx station and he had come out to find her, the first time he had made lime Jell-O for her and she had freaked out when he ate it, thinking it was alive. He remembered them all; he treasured those memories. He had spent hours and hours drawing out each on
e of them. This was more than a deck of cards, this was a diary of their friendship, etched forever into this deck.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she found a hand-written note from Gerald at the bottom of the deck. She tore it up without ever reading it.
“You stupid idiot!” she screamed, throwing the deck to the ground, scattering them everywhere.
Her legs gave out and she dropped to her knees, crying into her hands. “Stop being so nice to me! Just stop it!”
* * *
Ilrica flew in from the east hall, while Trahzi flew in from the west. Servants and robots scattered as they passed, ducking for cover behind anything they could.
“No sign of him,” Trahzi reported, hovering over a waste bin.
“He’s just one little human,” Ilrica complained. “How can he be this hard to track?”
“Can’t you follow his scent?” Trahzi criticized, placing her hands on her hips.
“Can’t you follow his scent?” Ilrica repeated, making her voice sound high and nasally.
“I do not sound like that.”
“Yes, you do, it’s very irritating.” Ilrica closed her eyes and sniffed around. “His scent trail goes right through here. He must have doubled back. I’ll find him first and we will go fishing.”
“I will slice into the palace network and check the security videos, and when I find him first, he will kiss me.”
“Don’t fry yourself on the attack barrier,” Ilrica warned.
“Please.”
The two of them flew off in opposite directions.
As the servants and robots came out from hiding, the lid of the waste bin tipped up and Gerald peeked out to make sure the coast was clear.
“This sucks,” he said as he climbed out of the bin. “I’m a normal guy being chased by two crazy obsessive superheroes.” As he set the lid back in place, he looked over and saw a cleaning lady staring at him.
Gerald chuckled nervously and plucked a piece of rotten noodle off his shoulder. “It’s an old trick I picked up back home. They can smell your scent amid the garbage easily enough, they just don’t like sniffing around in rotten food, so they often skip over it without checking.”
The cleaning lady didn’t move, just stared at him as if her were mad.
Gerald shrugged. “It works on the wild dogs packs back in Salt Lake City, I figured it was worth a try.”
As quietly as he could, Gerald made his way over to a service closet and hid himself inside amid the cleaning supplies.
There in the dark, with nothing else to do, he took out a small wrapped bundle and set it down on the floor. Using a vibro-mop handle, he unwrapped the bundle, revealing the portable vone Cha’Rolette had given him. He tapped the activation rune with the handle, then carefully began tapping out a message on the keyboard that appeared in the air. It took forever to type this way, one letter at a time with the mop handle, but he figured that the less physical contact he had with the device, the longer it would last before breaking. It was only a theory, but it was working so far.
She had never mailed him back. That was a bad sign. It meant she was probably hadn’t woken up yet. But he sent her the letters all the same. Back on Earth, he had visited Mr. Shane every day for years while he was in his coma. The doctors always said that even though they couldn’t respond, the patient knew you were there, and took comfort from it. The Ssykes men could prevent Gerald from visiting her in the hospital, but they could never prevent him from sending her letters. He believed that somehow, she would know that the letters were there. She could, after all, connect to her external memory wirelessly when awake, so maybe she was aware of them even when unconscious. He knew it was a silly thing to believe, but he believed in it anyway. It was all he could do.
He finished his afternoon letter to Cha’Rolette and hit send. The second the device beeped, two dark figures appeared behind him.
“Not too bright, sending out a message wirelessly,” Ilrica said grabbing his shoulder.
“Don’t you know we can instantly pinpoint the origin of a wave?” Trahzi said, grabbing his other shoulder.
“Hey guys,” Gerald said as he turned around, a large drop of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. “I, uh, I heard that there is this really good Sloi Crepe shop in town, that has the most amazing chocolate cream crepes. I was thinking we could go there together, my treat.”
“That’s a good start,” Trahzi said, her eyes on fire.
“And there’s a sweet cream shop next door to it. I’d love to get each of you one of their special sundaes. They call em the rackatoah. It’s supposed to be awesome. You sit in the center of a bubble while the sweet cream floats around you, orbiting like a little solar system with planets and rings. The toppings are a little asteroid field. You just reach out and gather together what you want.”
“Getting warmer,” Ilrica said, squeezing his massive shoulder a little tighter.
“And then we can go fishing up in the mountains,” Gerald said, swallowing.
“And then I want my kiss,” Trahzi insisted.
The two girls opened the door and dragged him out into the corridor.
“But guys. What about tonight? We have to get ready, remember?”
“We’re not talking about tonight until I get some chocolate in me!”
The cleaning staff looked on in shock as Gerald was dragged down the hallway by what looked like a demon and a werewolf.
* * *
Hunger finally won her over, and Zurra lifted herself up out of her bucket and wandered down to the dinner hall. When she went inside the lights were out, everything was quiet inside.
“What is going on here?”
She stepped in and reached for the light switch, but someone beat her to it.
The lights came on, blinding her. People started shouting.
“Surprise!” they yelled, as she shielded her eyes.
Her eyes adjusted, and she saw the most marvelous cake. Taller than she was, its five tiers rose up, decorated with white icing and strawberries.
“Happy Birthday!” Gerald shouted, placing a party hat on her head.
She was speechless.
Ilrica was there. She pulled on a firecracker and sent a rain of ribbons across the room. Trahzi was there too, blowing into a kazoo. Puppy Trahzi had a tiny little party hat on her head.
“Come on over, Zuri,” Gerald said, grabbing her hand. “Each layer is one of your favorite flavors. This bottom one is chocolate, the next one is rum-raisin, this third one is...”
There was a crack like a whip as Zurra slapped him in the face. Gerald’s head was wrenched to one side, his eyes shocked as he fell to the floor.
“Are you insane?” Ilrica yelled.
“Why did you hit him?” Trahzi asked, fire in her eyes.
Gerald looked up at Zurra. Tears were dripping off of her chin.
“STOP IT!” Zurra yelled.
“Stop what? It’s your birthday.”
Zurra wiped her tears onto her sleeve. “Stop being nice to me! Stop caring for me. Stop caring about me. It only makes things worse!”
Gerald sat up, rubbing his cheek. Already a deep bruise was appearing. “How does being nice make things worse?”
Zurra stomped her foot. “Because every time you are nice to me, it makes me feel terrible!”
“The blob’s gone bonkers,” Ilrica observed.
Trahzi tilted her head. “You’re not making any sense.”
Zurra pointed a finger at Gerald. “No HE isn’t making sense.”
Gerald couldn’t fathom what she meant. “How am I not...?”
Zurra grabbed him by the collar. “YOU! You’re supposed to be evil. You’re supposed to be this horrible vile thing to detest and loath. Something to put in crosshairs and pull the trigger! Something to execute for being a monster! You’re supposed to be the villain!”
Her grip on him slackened, and her head hung down. “You... you’re not supposed to be kind, and generous, and wonderful. You aren’t suppos
ed to be someone who rescued me when I was all alone. You aren’t supposed to be someone who gave me a home, and treated me like a real person, and not just as a freak...”
She looked up, anger in her tear-filled eyes. “What is wrong with you? You’re all wrong! You’re not supposed to be someone who comes and saves my life, even after I tried to have you killed. You’re definitely not supposed to be on the front page of all the news feeds. The hero of my people! Do you know how that makes me feel? It makes me want to throw up every time I look at it!”
Gerald was hurt. “I don’t understand. Any of this.”
Ilrica took a step towards her. “What is happening, Zurra?”
Zurra threw Gerald into the wall with a crack. The cake that he had spent the previous day making shook, the top layer toppling off in ruin.
“Don’t come near me!” Zurra screamed. “Never touch me! It makes me sick to my stomach!”
“But why?”
Zurra began to sob. Her whole body was trembling. “Because... because it...”
She covered her face with her hands. “...Because it reminds me that I’m in love with you.”
She collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. “Don’t you see? I betrayed my entire people by falling in love with you. And, then I betrayed you too. I hired the assassin to kill you.”
Gerald was stunned.
“You what?” Trahzi asked, her fist erupting in flame.
Zurra cried. “And even then, you still came out here to save me. I’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for you. My family, my people, they would all be dead. You saved them. I betrayed you and you still saved them.”
Zurra sobbed pitifully. “I’m a traitor. I hate myself!”
Gerald shook his head, pain in his eyes. “Zurra...”
She shook him off. “Please... just leave me alone. Stop being nice to me. I don’t deserve it.”
Just then, the door was thrown open and Daan Nathers ran in, looking out of breath.
“Boy, do you have bad timing,” Ilrica said.
“Turn on your wireless functions, right now,” he ordered. “Something terrible has happened.”
Everyone grew concerned. Ilrica and Trahzi switched themselves over, linking into the palace network, to find out what he was referring to.
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