“Okay fine.” Zurra rolled her eyes and sat back in resignation as Trahzi began inputting their names and basic background information.
“Aural type?” Trahzi asked.
“Indigo.”
“Birth constellation?”
“Venerex.”
“Current deity?”
“Hasufe the Aemorphous.”
“Blood type?”
Zurra grabbed her arm and pulled a chunk off with a gooey snap. “No blood.”
Trahzi sat back. “Hmm, there isn’t a selection for that. We’ll just put unknown.”
“Whatever,” Zurra said, reattaching it.
“What common interests do you and I share?”
“We’re both fighting over the same boy.”
Trahzi entered the answer, nodding as if it were a good thing. “What experiences have we shared recently?”
All humor left Zurra’s face, “You banished me to the shadow realm.”
Trahzi nodded as she typed. “I remember that.”
“Yeah, good times.”
“Favorite food?”
“Spam.”
Trahzi nodded and inputted her own answer.
Zurra sat up. “You’d better not be putting Zurinite souls in there.”
Trahzi shook her head. “No, Zurinite souls are very... runny.”
“What? Like runny eggs?”
Trahzi nodded. “I find that souls ripen with age, so the longest lived races are preferable to me, like Hanzi or Korrans.”
Zurra snickered. “I can’t wait to tell Ilrica about that. Trahzi, are you sure this isn’t just a waste of time? You and I just don’t have anything in common.”
“I think you’re wrong. To prove my point, we’ll answer the next question together at the same time. Are you ready?”
“Yeah sure,” Zurra said, the sense of competition ramping up her enthusiasm a little bit. “When are you the most comfortable?”
“When I’m with Gerald,” they said in unison.
Trahzi was pleased. “See, we have that in common.”
“That is not a good thing, Trahzi.”
As Trahzi went on with the questionnaire, Zurra found herself getting more and more into it. She loved talking about herself, and this gave her ample opportunity. What few details Trahzi gave up about herself were intriguing. In her spare time, Gerald had been teaching her how to knit, and carve wood. In a galaxy where everything was mass produced at massive factories, such arts were almost lost. The image of this all powerful demon making a doily made her chuckle, but knowing that she and Gerald still spent so much time together made her wickedly jealous, and she resolved to have Gerald teach her those things as well, if for no other reason than to make a better carving than Trahzi could and show her up.
“What is your favorite motion picture?” Trahzi asked.
“What race?”
“It doesn’t specify. Let’s say human, since you were raised there.”
“What genre?”
Trahzi tapped a few runes. “The test says it doesn’t matter, so long as we both answer for the same. Let’s say comedy.”
“Oh, definitely High School Musical. What about you?”
“Grave of the Fireflies.”
Zurra stared at her. “Are you serious? That’s one of the most depressing movies of all time. That isn’t a comedy.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, why would you think that... you know what? Never mind, next question.”
“Pirate or ninja?”
“Pirate.”
“Nope, ninja,” Trahzi corrected.
“It’s not that kind of test, Trahzi, there is no wrong answer.”
“The correct answer was ninja.”
“Then you’re doing it wrong.”
Trahzi scrolled to the next entry. “Flight or invisibility?”
“Definitely flight. You know, right? You can fly.”
Trahzi chewed on her black lips. “Actually, I think I would prefer invisibility.”
Zurra blinked. “Really? Why?”
Trahzi looked reluctant to answer.
“Well, come on, spit it out.”
Trahzi blinked. “You want me to spit?”
“What? No. I want you to explain why.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?”
Zurra folded her arms and waited for a response.
Trahzi huffed, then shrank down in her chair a little bit. “So I could hide myself. I dislike the way people look at me.” She looked around at the other delegates in the hall. “I can feel how much they loathe me. It reminds me of my mistakes. It is... disquieting.”
Zurra’s face lit up. “I know exactly what you mean. Like, I’ve always wished I could change colors as well as shape. Then I could become a picture or a plant and just hang out in the corner where no one would notice me.”
Zurra sat back and tapped her fingers together. “I thought it would get better when I returned to my own kind. But even here, I hate being looked at.”
Trahzi thought for a moment. “Perhaps you could make yourself into a tessa crystal statue. That kind of crystal is basically the same color as your natural pigmentation.”
Zurra brightened up. “Hey, that’s a good idea.”
She sat back, and suddenly found herself looking at Trahzi in a new light. “Thanks Trahzi.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling warmly as she scrolled to the final section.
“Do you feel a spark when I am around?”
Zurra furrowed her brow. “Spark?”
“That’s what it says.”
Zurra snapped her fingers, making a spark of electricity. “You mean like anger?”
“Not sure. It says here butterflies in the stomach, nervous energy.”
Zurra spun the window around. “Wait a minute. Is this a friendship comparability test or a boyfriend comparability test?”
“Is there a difference?”
“YES!”
Zurra deleted that final section. The window took a minute to compute the results. The screen went red and an alarm went off.
“It says here that we are frenemies,” Trahzi read. “I am unfamiliar with that word. Does it mean extremely compatible?”
Zurra smiled in amusement. “No, it doesn’t.”
Trahzi shrugged and pulled out a silver cable, plugging it into the back of her neck. She offered Zurra the other end.
“What are you doing?”
“Now that we are friends, we should synchronize our memories.”
“What? No!”
“But that is how I existed with the other Trahzi. We all shared experiences and thoughts in a single pool... at least until I was cut off.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never existed that way.”
“Then you should try it. Aren’t you the one who is always saying people should try new things?”
“Permanently altering my brain is waaaaaay beyond trying something new.”
Trahzi blinked. “I thought you didn’t have a brain.”
“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”
* * *
That night, Cha’Rolette looked on in frustration, her eyebrow twitching angrily as she watched Gerald and the woman who had crippled her interact so casually in the palace kitchen.
“Okay, Nikki,” Gerald said, sliding out the meat from the marinade tray onto the cutting board. “Just like we practiced, slow gentle slices.”
Nikki flipped out her glowing blade and swung, chopping the steak and the entire table in half.
“Oops.”
“That’s okay,” Gerald assured her, wiping the splattered sauce off of her face. “Next time we’ll try it without the disruption field on, okay?”
Nikki stared at her sword and powered down, so it would be just a regular blade.
“Here, while I clean up, you go boil the water for the soup stock,” Gerald offered.
Nikki walked over to the stove and tapped the heating element. “This is very slow,” she observed, looking
at it.
“It’s a lot of water to boil,” Gerald said, scrubbing up the spilled marinade. “Just give it a few minutes.”
Nikki’s arm blossomed open into a cannon barrel. “Plasma would be a much quicker means of heating the water.”
“Nikki, WAIT, NO!”
It was too late. She blasted the pot, vaporizing it, the stove, and half of the stone wall beyond it. The fire sensors went off. Hoses grew down from the ceiling and sprayed foam all over Gerald as he tried to smother the flames with his apron.
Ilrica saddled up alongside Cha’Rolette as servants and guards ran in to see what was going on.
“What have you done to my kitchen?” the head chef bemoaned.
“He’s teaching it how to cook,” Ilrica sniffed.
Cha’Rolette ground her teeth. It’s absurd. It’s like trying to train a chainsaw to teach kindergarten.
“And she has a chainsaw in her left arm.”
As Gerald wiped the foam off of his face and coughed, Nikki brought her hand up to her mouth and chuckled. It was such a sweet little sound, somehow her synthetic tones made it more adorable. Gerald couldn’t help but laugh along.
Cha’Rolette winced and the refrigeration unit next to her began shaking.
“Calm down, Duchess,” Ilrica teased. “She’s just a kid. She’s no threat to us.”
Gerald reached out and patted Nikki’s head. It made her so happy that she fell on him and hugged him about the neck.
Cha’Rolette snarled, and the refrigeration unit crumpled like a tin can.
“...but I’ve been wrong before,” Ilrica said, clucking her tongue.
Nikki leaned back so she could look right into Gerald’s wonderful brown eyes. As she took in his face, something flashed through her mind. Something familiar, something powerful, terrifyingly powerful. She saw people lying before her, screaming out for mercy. She saw hands raised, pleading for their lives.
She reached up and grabbed her head in pain. Images of blood and violence moved through her mind. She screamed and fell to her knees.
“Nikki, what’s wrong?” Gerald asked, steadying her.
“I... I remembered something...” she said, a little unsure. “It was... horrible. People dying... people crying... people hurt...”
Nikki looked up at Gerald, her face pained, confused, and afraid.
Tears formed in her lavender eyes. “What is wrong with me? Did... did I do those things?”
* * *
Gerald made sure that Nikki was fully asleep before he dared walk away from her bedside. It had taken hours to calm her down. Even now, her pillow was wet with tears, but Gerald dare not switch it out for fear of waking her.
He sat next to Cha’Rolette, who was indignant, her knee bobbing up and down angrily.
Gerald ran his fingers through his hair. “Duchess, I want to ask a favor of you, but I’m afraid you’re not going to like it. Nikki was mind-wiped by the Assassins Guild, but I think her memories from before are still in there. I want to ask you to draw them out.”
You’re right, I hate it. I didn’t come here for this. I didn’t fight my way back to the top; I didn’t struggle and sweat, just to watch you flirt with the freak who crippled me.
“I’m not flirting with her.”
Oh please, just stop it!
“Being nice to people is not flirting.”
It is the way you do it!
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Cha’Rolette slammed her fist on the desk, warping it. I know it doesn’t!
Cha’Rolette sat back, glaring at Nikki as she lay there in bed, sleeping uneasily.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to come back here and confess to you. I had it all planned out. SHE ruined everything. If it wasn’t for her, you and I would already...
“I know,” Gerald said. “When our hearts mixed I saw everything. I know how hard it was for you. And I know what I’m asking isn’t fair to you.”
Then why are you asking?
“Because in a lot of ways she really didn’t hurt you. A long time ago she was just a girl, kidnapped from her home, stripped of her free will, and turned into something else.”
Gerald looked at her sincerely. “You know what that feels like better than most.”
Cha’Rolette folded her arms. Yes, I do. That doesn’t make me any less angry.
“Think of it this way. Somewhere inside of her is the little girl that was taken so long ago. You can give that back to her. You are probably one of the best telepaths in the galaxy.”
“As if you would know,” Ilrica snickered.
They looked up and saw Ilrica sitting on the ceiling above them, eating some popcorn.
“How long have you been up there?”
“The whole time.”
It is true that Gerald wouldn’t know a good telepath from a hole in the ground...
“Hey.”
...But he’s not wrong either. Even so, Gerald, you don’t understand what you’re asking of me. There’s a reason why most telepaths won’t touch a mind wipe. It’s extremely dangerous.
“I don’t understand.”
Cha’Rolette rubbed her left hand, trying to uncramp it. Oh, how can I explain this in a way you’ll understand?
“I’ll go get the crayons,” Ilrica teased, tossing a piece of popcorn to Gerald.
Gerald threw the piece back at her. “Quiet, you.”
All right, what you are basically doing is dumping a jigsaw puzzle in front of me and asking me to assemble it into a functional psyche without making any mistakes. Imagine what will happen if I put even one piece in the wrong place.
“I imagine it would be bad.”
Now imagine that all the pieces are unlabeled, identical, and fit together in any combination.
“Like Legos.”
Cha’Rolette clucked her tongue. No, not like Legos. Put them together the wrong way, and her mind won’t tell her lungs to breathe, or her heart to beat, and that’s just basic functions. Personality, a moral framework, habits and preferences, a sense of humor, all of those are more complex by several orders of magnitude. And then there are her illegal cybernetics running throughout the whole thing like tree roots splintering rock. I’d have to link with her crystronics and alter them simultaneously along with her biologics, or else they will reject each other.
“Yeah, and this meat is an omega level hacker,” Ilrica added. “Even if she lowered all her barriers, there’s no way the Duchess could do it.”
Cha’Rolette tried to hide her irritation. Of course I could do it. That’s not the point.
Ilrica tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “It’s okay, you don’t need to be shy about it. All of us have things we can’t do.”
Stop it, I am a Ssykes, I most certainly can do this.
Ilrica leaned back and linked her fingers behind her head. “See, I don’t think you can.”
Cha’Rolette tapped her foot. I know what you are doing, Faolan. You are trying to goad me into doing it just to prove to you I can.
Ilrica cracked an eye open. “Is it working?”
NO!
Gerald, I’m not doing it. I’m not going to help her take you away from me, not after everything she did to me.
“Take me away from you? Cha’Rolette, have I ever led you on?”
She pursed her lips and looked away. No, you have always been a perfect gentlemen. You have made your intentions clear to me from the very beginning.
She turned back. But even still... curse you for toying with my heart.
“I’m not toying with it. I really am very fond of you. In fact, if I wasn’t about to become a...”
Ugh! Yes a priest, I KNOW! It’s that stupid religion of yours that is the problem. Can’t you just cast it aside?
“Cast it aside?”
Gerald didn’t know what to say. “But it’s who I am.”
Cha’Rolette pointed a finger. No, it’s not who you are! It’s what you’ve decided to become.
/>
Cha’Rolette turned and floated away. She paused at the doorway to look back. Ask yourself, Gerald. Are those robes really more important to you than I am?
She waited for an answer, but he had none to give. He hung his head low as she left.
* * *
Ullok and the ring of Bertulf held arms in the warriors’ grip, their chanting reaching a crescendo as the air in the middle was punched clean through, falling inward into a black windtunnel. The huntresses filed through, beginning at the youngest, then moving up to the oldest. Ullok nodded to the nearby Zurinite delegates.
“We shall return in the morning,” he said. Before he went through himself, he looked over his shoulder and saw something he had come to expect. Far away, at the edge of his hearing, Ilrica sat atop a ridge, watching them from afar.
Resolving something within himself, he held up his fist, indicating for her to draw near. Her ears twitched and she hesitated, but when he held his fist up even higher she jumped down and scampered over to him, nearly tripping over herself.
“Yes Aatuu,” she said in their snarling tongue.
“My clan and I are going out for a quick hunt, Ilrica. We have grown weary of the local herds. Would you like to join us?”
Ilrica nearly fell over. “Um... yes of course I would. But Faelan...”
Ullok rested his hand on the hilt of his kryssa knife. “Faelan may tell me who I may and may not induct into my clan, but she does not tell me who I may invite to come along on a hunt. As Alpha, that is my privilege and mine alone.”
Ilrica could not hide how happy she was. “It would be my honor, Aatuu.”
Ullok rested a hand on her shoulder. “No, it would be mine.”
He smiled at her with his strong gray eyes and she nearly swooned.
Gathering her wits, she jumped through the windtunnel, and suddenly felt like she had shrunk. The trees on this world were as tall as skyscrapers, each of their leaves as big as a house, dripping with poison. A bat-like creature with wings hundreds of feet across soared overhead like a vulture.
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