by Vivian Venus
After a few hours of walking, Daggen crossed over a rocky plateau and made his way down a sandy dune towards the crash site. The ground was blasted and disturbed in a long trail where his ship had hit the ground and slid to a stop, and he walked along until he reached the end where a large boulder sat. He took his pendant off, wrapped it around his hand, and then touched it to the side of the rock which sent a shimmer like a ripple in a pond across the stone surface. Then it morphed, revealing its true form: a large grey oblong disk wedged partially into the sand. He slipped the pendant back around his neck and then touched his finger to the side of the ship, drawing it around in a precise and practiced movement like he was writing with his fingertip. There was a hiss and hum, and an entrance opened on the side of the ship. Daggen walked inside.
The control deck was a circular domed room that took up most of the ship, save for the living quarters. Daggen sat down in the pilot’s chair that sat in the center of the room, and a holographic control panel materialized in front of him. His fingers danced over it as he initialized the startup procedures. There was a low hum as the systems kicked to life. “Begin diagnostic procedures,” he announced.
The computer confirmed. “Beginning. Hull damage minimal. I have taken the liberty of self repairing the hull to satisfactory levels. Thruster damage, moderate. I will require your support.”
“Sure, no problem,” Daggen said. “How long?”
“An Earth day or two, depending on you. Were you able to find what you were looking for, Master Trys?”
He smiled slightly. “More or less. Has there been any contact from home?”
“No contact from home.”
“Hm. Interesting. I would’ve thought I’d have received an official notice of my breach of protocol.”
“Typically one will be contacted by an enforcer first.”
“Ah. Okay, well we better get started. Wouldn’t want anyone wandering onto the crash site.”
“Affirmative, sir. I will begin prepping for repairs.”
Daggen slid out of the pilot’s chair and walked to his living quarters, which consisted of a small bunk area and a desk. He carefully placed the water bladder and head lamp onto the desk. He looked at the hat, turning it over in his hand and feeling the feel of the fabric on his fingers. He hesitated for a moment, and then lifted it to his nose. He closed his eyes as he was surrounded by her scent. He sighed, and put the hat down. The fantasy was nice while it lasted.
The next morning, Ryn sat outside her camper and smoked a cigarette. She had just finished breakfast, simple eggs and frozen sausages cooked over the tiny gas camping stove she had. She usually didn't smoke, but she found herself doing it occasionally in times of stress or when she wanted to forget about something. She had picked up that habit after the big breakup – he had hated smoking, and she ended up doing it just to spite him. Stupid, she knew, but it made her feel better. Now she found that she couldn’t get her mind off of Daggen. He was weird, probably crazy, but there was something about him that intrigued her, and not just that he was really attractive. Something about the way he had looked at that painting of hers, the one she made after she found out she had been cheated on. Not only had he noticed the one painting that everyone seemed to ignore, his reaction to it showed plainly on his face. She saw that he had understood it. Which was more than she could even say for herself.
The thing she was missing. She didn’t know how he could’ve seen that. She wished she hadn’t been so dismissive of him when he had asked again about it. She wondered how he knew.
Ryn smoked half and flicked the butt into a tin can and squinted at the horizon. The sun was just barely out in the desert sky, but the day was already getting hot. Hell, it hardly even cooled down at night. “Christ,” she muttered, and walked quickly back into her camper, grabbed the keys to her truck off of the table, and then walked outside. She didn’t know if it was that she felt responsible for him, or if it was something else, but she found herself driving her truck away from her camp, her eyes locked on the vague outline of Daggen’s tracks in the sand.
She had gone for a few miles now and not spotted one sign of him. It was nearly impossible to follow his trail with the sand and dirt shifting so often, and eventually she couldn’t see them at all. She stopped the truck and got out and looked around, cursing under her breath. His footprints probably had been covered up by now. Then she spotted them – faint as they had been nearly blown away and covered, but they were there. She leapt into the truck and sped off in their direction.
Daggen worked tirelessly. He had tossed aside the shirt that Ryn had given him, his face and chest beaded with sweat and streaked with grease and dirt. The heat of the desert was unforgiving, but his body was acclimatized now and he wasn’t affected like he was when he had first crashed. Hot, sweaty, but not dying of dehydration and delirium.
“Hydro spanner,” he said. A robot, which had emerged like an amorphous blob from the side of the ship, produced the tool out of its body which immediately hardened as it reached Daggen’s fingers. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” the robot said, an extension of the ship’s computer. “My diagnostics indicate you have made excellent time with the repairs. At least ninety percent complete.”
“Good. Once I finish with this we’ll test the aft thruster and see if we can lift the ship out as is. Finish the rest of the repairs out in orbit.”
“Very well.”
Daggen finished with the tool and without looking, tossed it back to the robot where it melded into its body. “Let me get the tricaster now. Forty width, fusion powered.”
“Yes, sir. Sir? I am detecting a visitor approaching rapidly from the east.”
“The enforcer?”
“No, sir. Human. A female.”
Daggen moved out from the ship’s engine and stood up, wiping his hands with a rag. He could hear the sound of an engine in the distance and a cloud of dust rising up.
“Concealment and cloaking advised.”
Daggen didn’t move. He had a feeling he knew who it was. At this point if she saw the ship, it wouldn’t matter. Her memory of the encounter would be erased regardless of what or how much she saw, so the result would be the same. He put his hands on his hips and waited.
“Concealment and advised,” the computer warned again, and the robot moved back and melded its body back into the ship. The hull shimmered and changed to look like a boulder again.
“Dammit,” Daggen said, “I didn’t say to cloak.”
The truck roared over the top of the sand dune and came to a stop, the sun glimmering brightly behind it. He squinted and raised his hand to shade his eyes. The door opened and the driver stepped out. He could see the curves of her figure silhouetted by the sun’s light. She was wearing a simple tank top and tight jeans that hugged her curves, and looked amazingly sexy.
“You’ve been here all night?” Ryn shouted out. She made her way down the sand dune to him, and he found himself grinning stupidly. “Why are you smiling like that? Are you high right now?”
“Miss me?” Daggen said.
She snorted. “You’ve gotta be high.” She looked him up and down, trying not to stare at his well built muscles that were glistening with sweat and streaked with oil and dirt. “You lost your shirt again.”
Daggen rubbed the back of his head. “I suppose that tends to happen to me.”
Ryn suddenly felt awkward, unsure of what she was doing there. She had found him, he was alive, now what? She cleared her throat. “I just, uh, wanted to make sure you weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere. But seriously, you were here all night? What are you doing out here?” She looked around. “No, don’t answer. Okay, this time I’m taking you back to town and you have no choice.”
“I appreciate you coming to check up on me, but I’ll be fine, really.”
“You’re standing next to a boulder in the middle of the damn desert!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got the things you gave me. In there” He gest
ured with his thumb.
Ryn looked, but all she saw was a big red boulder. The guy was crazy. “That’s a rock, Daggen.”
“It’s not a rock, it’s my ship.”
“Daggen…”
He grinned. “You want to see it?”
“It’s a rock.”
“No, it’s my ship. Watch.” He pulled off his necklace and wrapped it around his hand, and then touched it to the rock.
Nothing happened. Ryn stared. Daggen looked confused. He touched his hand to boulder again. “It’s the computer, he must’ve… Override, release cloaking,” Daggen hissed.
Is he talking to that rock? Ryn thought.
“Override,” he said again.
Ryn sighed and grabbed Daggen by the arm. “Come on, let’s go. I’m going to take you to town now and get you some help.”
Daggen, his face burning with embarrassment, followed Ryn to her truck. “It’s not normally like that, you know,” he said.
“Okay, okay.” She opened the door and pushed him inside, and then walked around to the driver’s side. She started the truck, threw it in gear, and roared off towards the road.
Daggen looked over his shoulder at the boulder that was his ship. He shouldn’t be leaving like this, but something told him that Ryn wouldn’t have left until she had him in the truck. He looked over at her. She had put a pair of dark sunglasses on, and her dark brown hair was fluttering wildly in the hot desert wind. Who was he kidding? He was thrilled to be around her again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ryn pulled off of the dirt road and onto the paved two lane highway going into town. As she did she stole a glance at the man sitting in her passenger seat. His eyes were soft and intelligent and they looked out the window, scanning the landscape as if he were reading it like a book. He was dirty, rugged, like a mechanic or a construction worker off of a hard day’s work, and she couldn’t help but sneak a little look at his shirtless form. She scolded herself. She had sworn off men. Guys, especially ridiculously handsome ones like Daggen, were nothing but trouble. Once she dropped him off at the hospital, which is what she should’ve done the day before, she would go back to painting and to her life.
She drove down the main drag towards the small town hospital, when something caught her eye. She had passed by Gretta’s art gallery, and saw that one of her large paintings that she had for sale in the front window was no longer there. If someone had purchased it that meant she had made the biggest sale she’d had since she had moved to the desert. She slowed the car and made a u-turn, and then pulled up in front of the gallery. “Give me a second, okay? I just need to run in here and check on something.”
Ryn got of the truck and walked into the gallery. Daggen unbuckled his seatbelt and got out, stretching his arms and looking around. So this was a human settlement? It was far more interesting than he had ever seen in his studies in school. A man walking a four legged animal that sniffed at Daggen’s leg strolled by, and he smiled and nodded at the man and looked down at the creature with interest. The man pulled the leash and went on his way down the street. “Wow,” Daggen whispered. “It’s all so real.”
“Gretta,” Ryn called out cheerfully as she shut the door of the gallery behind her. “Gretta, it’s Ryn!”
Gretta’s voice came out from the back of the gallery. “Oh, Ryn! I wasn’t expecting you in today!”
“I know, I just happened to be in town and I saw the big painting sold, so I stopped in.”
Gretta hurried out from the back. She was bespectacled with short white hair and a gaudy sequined outfit and cowboy boots. Ryn gave her a warm hug. “What an amazing coincidence, honey,” she said. “The man who purchased the painting just showed up today. Matter of fact—” she leaned in close to whisper, “he’s in my office right now.”
“Seriously?” Ryn straightened her shirt. “I wish I was more presentable right now.”
“He said he knew you,” Gretta said. “From before you moved here?”
“Huh. Really?”
“Yes ma'am. Said his name was Greg Parson? Come on back, I’m sure he’d be happy to know you stopped in…”
Greg Parson.
The name echoed in Ryn’s mind, and she felt her body go numb.
Him.
Why the hell was he here? How did he find her here? Jesus, she did not need this right now. She needed to get out of there, right now.
“Oh, Greg,” Gretta said. “You’ll never guess who’s here?”
“I heard you two talking.”
Greg stepped out from the back room, buttoning the cuff of his tailored suit jacket, shit eating grin on on his face. “Hey baby. Miss me?”
Ryn seethed. “Fuck you, Greg.”
Gretta covered her mouth in shock.
“Hey. That’s no way to greet your old manager is it?” He walked up to her, adjusted his watch and then casually thrust his hands into his pockets. “Man, that painting I bought there is a real beauty. So different from that pop art shit you were doing before, huh? Never thought you’d be into plein air. Leave it to your skill to make something so pedestrian marketable.”
“I don’t want your money. The painting isn’t for sale anymore.”
“Oh, come on, Kathryn. I’m sorry about what happened between us, alright? I love you, and I love your work. Think of it as just a regular customer purchase.”
Ryn felt a surge of anger. “Just like when you ‘bought’ all my show work and destroyed them when you started representing that new girl? What happened to her? She didn’t sell enough for you?”
“You’re right, I might’ve been a bit rash. Thought it was the best thing to do to make way for the new. But I can see that I was wrong.”
She seethed. “You burned all my work. Right in front of me.”
“Look, baby, I’m sorry. I’ve got this new gallery deal for you, it’ll be huge in town. Multi-millions in sales for sure.”
“Fuck off, Greg. You’re never touching me or my work again.”
His eyes narrowed, his expression turning dark. Ryn felt a shiver of fear as she remembered that same look from the night she found him destroying all of her work, just the day after she walked into him fucking that new girl in the back of the gallery.
“Listen, bitch,” he grunted. “You may not care about the money that’s at stake here, but I sure do. It’s my fucking business, you understand? My fucking business. Your work is going into my gallery, whether you like it or not, whether I have to buy every single fucking piece you put for sale.”
The front door opened. Gretta, who had been standing frozen to the side, took the opportunity to try and interrupt the moment. “Hello, sir, come on in.”
“Is something the matter, Ryn?” Daggen stepped next to her. Her face was strained and pale, like she was fighting to stay composed. He touched her shoulder and she flinched. “Is everything alright?”
“I…I’m fine,” she said, her voice choked. Her eyes were intensely locked on Greg.
“Huh,” Greg said, “Who’s this joker? Your boyfriend?” He laughed. “He always walk around without a shirt?”
Daggen moved in front of Ryn, squaring up to Greg. “Forgive me but I don’t think that she wants to talk to you.”
“Daggen, you don’t—”
He held up his hand. He could see that she was upset and frightened, and he wasn’t going to stand for that even if it meant breaking more protocol.
Ryn was afraid of where this was quickly headed. Greg was unstable and would not back down from starting a fight; he did MMA in his spare time and loved to be able to whip it out whenever someone was “disrespecting him”.
“Daggen,” she whispered, “Please, don’t.”
“It’s okay, Ryn,” he said. “Nothing will happen to me.” He smiled politely. “Now, I suggest you leave her alone.”
“Or what?”
“You’ll get hurt.”
Greg laughed. Then in a flash he lashed out and swung his fist and made contact with Daggen’s face. Ryn screamed,
and Gretta gasped.
Greg’s expression shifted from intense anger, to intense pain. His fist was connected solidly to Daggen’s jaw, every bone in his hand broken. Daggen stared at him, his head not shifted one inch from when the punch had connected.
“F-fuck, my hand!” Greg shouted, holding his mangled fist. Daggen took a step forward and Greg fell backwards onto his behind.
“I think you should leave now,” Daggen said.
Greg scrambled away without looking back. The door to the gallery swung shut.
“Oh, my God,” Ryn said, grabbing Daggen’s arm and looking at his jaw. “Are you hurt?”