by Mattie Hope
"We'll get a mass spectrometry to confirm," said Rita, "but I think we've found our culprit."
"We?" repeated Zheng.
Maldonado looked between them awkwardly. "Uh, is there anything else you need from me right now?" he asked. "I'm gonna come and pick up the octopuses myself and bring them back to the institute, if there are no objections. Doctor Gershon's research was pretty much completed anyway. I'll be there within a couple of days. Rita, can you carry on looking after them until I get there?"
"I'm afraid not," said Rita. "I've got to get back to Earth."
"Don't worry," said Zheng. "I'll have McHale take care of it. She did a good job before. And it turns out she knows about as much about octopuses as you do," he added, looking at Rita.
Maldonado cleared his throat. "Well, I'm gonna get going, then."
"Thanks, Andreas," said Rita. "I appreciate your assistance."
"Yes," said Zheng, "thank you. I'll buy you a drink when you get here." He could feel the heat of Jax's glare on the side of his face.
"Not like that," he said, after Maldonado ended the call. Jax seemed somewhat mollified. "I can't believe the octopus did it after all. It's Murders on the Rue Morgue."
"What?" said Jax. Rita looked equally blank.
"It was a Poe story," he explained.
"A what story?" Jax asked.
"A story by Edgar Allen Poe? The nineteenth-century American writer? It turns out the orangutan did it."
"Huh," said Jax.
Zheng sometimes wondered why he'd studied human cultures so diligently when most humans didn't seem to bother. Of course, he knew the answer to that―he hadn't had much choice. Studying human culture was pretty much all Earth splices were given to do by the Fusion. Otherwise what was the point of them? They'd been genetically designed as ambassadors to the human race.
"Hey," said Jax, "does this mean the case is over? Can we―"
"We still need to do the mass spectrometry," said Zheng. "And…there's something I need to tell you both."
*~*~*
"And Callaghan basically told you to pin it on one or both of us?" asked Rita.
"Not in so many words," said Zheng, "but that was the implication. I was planning on telling someone over at Metro 1, but I thought I should do a quick background check on you first, and…"
"And it seemed suspicious," said Rita, nodding. "Fair enough. It wasn't exactly a bulletproof cover. I didn't expect to need one. I'm sorry it confused matters. Well, are you happy to leave it in my hands? I'm sure Interpol would be interested to hear that the Mayor of 4 was interfering in an investigation into the death of an Earth woman."
Zheng hesitated. He'd rather deal with it himself, but Interpol would have a lot more clout than any of his own contacts. Bringing down Callaghan was more important than his pride.
"All right," he said.
Chapter Eleven
Jax was on the couch when Zheng let himself in.
"Guess what?" he said.
"What?" said Jax.
"The mass spectrometry analysis came up positive for TTX."
Jax scratched his forehead. "Uh-huh," he said. "Like, the octopus did it?"
"The octopus did it," Zheng confirmed.
"Oh," said Jax. "Oh! You mean the case is over?"
"The case is over."
Jax cleared his throat. "So," he said. "Does this mean―"
"I just thought you'd like to know," Zheng interrupted him. "And I just…came over to see if you needed anything. And to let you know."
"Okay," said Jax. "You okay?"
"I'm…thank you for asking," said Zheng. He started pacing. "I suppose I feel restless. I never really thought that People First were behind Gershon's death, but they're still awful people. I don't like that they're getting off scot-free. Apart from the gunman, that is. That's one part of it. And then―if we believe Gershon, that octopuses are sentient, does that mean this was a murder? We can't legally try the octopus for murder, obviously, and I don't think we should, but…I don't know what to feel about it. Maldonado thinks Gershon was exaggerating. He thinks they're a very intelligent animal, but not truly sentient."
"Oh," said Jax. "I guess you got that drink, huh?" Not that he had any right to feel jealous or anything. He and Zheng weren't together. Not that having no right to feel jealous ever stopped a person from feeling jealous.
"Mm," said Zheng distractedly. "And then there's this mess with Callaghan. I hope we can trust Rita to deal with it without it coming back to bite me. As it were. I don't like it being out of my hands."
"Hey," said Jax, remembering something. "You never answered my question."
Zheng stopped pacing and looked at him. "What question?"
"Your―thingy," he said, gesturing to Zheng's prosthetic. "Why do you call it an arm, not an arm extender?"
"Oh," said Zheng. "That. It's…complicated."
"Well," said Jax, gesturing at his foot, "I'm not going anywhere."
He watched Zheng's chest expand as he took a deep breath. "Calling it an 'arm extender' implies that our upper limbs are arms. They aren't. They're wings." Zheng fluffed up the feathers there as he talked about them; probably unintentional, but it kind of pissed Jax off. But it was unfair, he guessed, to get pissed off with Zheng just because he wanted to touch him so much and he couldn't. That was Jax's problem.
"But I always thought you were supposed to call them arms," he told Zheng, frowning.
Splices couldn't really sigh, or huff, but Jax thought that Zheng would if he could. "Well, most splices are assimilationist," he said. "They have the idea that we should want to be treated like humans, as if there's something wrong with what we are. As if humans are fundamentally better than us; humanity, a status we should aspire to. I don't believe that. I'm in the minority."
Jax put his head in his hands. "This shit is too much for me to keep track of, all right? All my life I get told to say things a certain way, and now you're telling me it's all wrong?"
"Look, Jax, why don't you do yourself a favor and move to Metro 1, find yourself a nice, normal splice who just wants to fit in? Adopt some human babies or something."
"Move to Metro 1? Oh, sure, with the life savings I have burning a hole in my bank account? I can't even move out of the fucking tenements, Zheng."
Zheng looked away. "I thought you might―never mind."
"I might what?"
"I thought you might say something else."
"What am I supposed to say?" Zheng still wouldn't look at him. "Oh, let me guess―I don't want a nice, normal splice, I want you?" Yeah, seemed like he'd hit the target; it was a subtle thing, but the way Zheng's head moved, the way he shifted his weight―that was it. "Well, what if I do? I'm not in the habit of making a nuisance of myself to people who don't want me." If calling Zheng 'people' was all right. Who the fuck even knew?
"I didn't say I didn't want you," Zheng told him. "If you remember, I'm not even the one who picked a fight in the first place, the night at my suite."
"Please," said Jax, "I was supposed to just go back to business as usual after you accused me of―"
"I didn't accuse you of anything. You didn't have to―"
"You accused me," Jax ground out, "of, of"—he didn't know the word—"of just, of using you? Of wanting you just because I watched too much splice porn, or―"
"Fetishizing," Zheng said quietly, "is the word you're looking for."
"Right! Of having you as a fetish!"
"And I suppose it was my personality that drew you in."
"It was, partly," said Jax honestly.
"Come on. We barely had a chance to get to know each other. And anyway, you were drooling over me from the moment you saw me."
Jax had hoped he hadn't been as obvious as all that. But what the hell, it didn't matter now. "All right," he admitted. "It's called being attracted. If I went to bed with a human without getting to know him―which I have, by the way―would that be fetishizing?"
"That's different."
> "And then," said Jax, the thought only just occurring to him, "you make it seem like I'm some kind of asshole because I ask you take off the arm ex―the arm, and the―" He gestured at his throat.
"Larynx."
"―the larynx, because…because I'm treating you like an animal or something? Or an alien, or whatever, not human, and now you tell me you don't even want people to treat you as human."
"It's different coming from you," Zheng said, frustrated.
"Everything's different when I do it. I can't fucking win with you." Zheng didn't say anything. "How about if you'd explained some of this shit to me?" Jax asked him, suddenly tired. "How about if you'd just…given me a break? I'm just a dumbass small-time crook. Me and Kath and some of the other kids, we pretty much raised each other. We didn't go to school. We're lucky some of us even learned to read. I'm sorry I don't say everything perfect all the time."
"Look," said Zheng, "I don't think you understand what it's like to be created for a single purpose. To be emissaries between two groups, neither of which we really belong to. We're designed and raised to be as human as possible, but humans will never claim us. We're not human, but we're not anything else, either. We don't have our own culture to celebrate; we don't come from anywhere. We're outsiders everywhere. Our lives aren't our own. We're…disposable."
The truth was, Jax felt as if he knew a little bit about that himself. He was pretty sure most people had considered his ma disposable. He'd felt disposable himself, and he thought that Kath had, too, before she joined the Guard. What Zheng was talking about sounded an awful lot like being poor, in actual fact. And as for not belonging―he was gay and he lived on a Catholic station. He knew a little about that, too. But he didn't think it would go down too well to say so.
"If we do our job as ambassadors, the target species joins the Fusion, and we're not needed anymore," Zheng went on. "We're sterile by design. We'll die out unless the Fusion decide to make more of us."
The thought made Jax feel sick, so he pushed it away. He didn't know how Zheng could sound so calm about it. "They're the ones that made you," he said. "How come you're mad at us?"
"I'm not angry," said Zheng. "It's just about trying to figure out our place―"
"You seem angry."
"Isn't dismissing a group as emotional when they speak out about their oppression the oldest trick in the book?"
"The fuck should I know? Never had much time for books―"
"Well, maybe if you stopped playing up your poor-little-urchin sob story for five minutes and bothered trying to educate yourself, we could have a real conversation!"
"Wow," said Jax. "So this conversation is going real well."
Zheng actually laughed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I suppose part of me…resents having to explain things to you. I know that's not fair. I shouldn't expect you to just automatically understand my politics or share my opinions, when not even most splices do. It's just…tiring. Standing out, being an ambassador for my race. And then having to…I was going to say 'educate people,' but maybe that's not fair, either. I probably shouldn't characterize everyone who disagrees with me as being ignorant."
"Zheng," said Jax, "you know you're smarter than me, right?"
"Don't say that."
"It's true. You said I should educate myself, and maybe you're right, but even if I did, I don't know that I could keep up with you half the time. I'm trying, I swear, but I still can't always follow all the stuff you're saying. Same with Rita."
"I'm not sure anyone can keep up with Rita. That's not about intelligence; that's just about how fast she talks. And how often she changes the subject."
Jax puffed a laugh out of his nose. "Yeah, maybe. But still. I just don't want you to get your hopes up about me reading a book or whatever and suddenly being on your level. I might not be able to give you that. If that's what you need." He swallowed.
Zheng tilted his head. "Thank you for your honesty," he said, and Jax's stomach fell through his shoes, like the time the grav glitched out, until he continued. "But…I don't think I do need that. I have friends on 1 I can talk about politics with. Our relationship―if we have one―doesn't have to be about that. We can discover what it's about." He paused. "And…I know I haven't handled everything perfectly, either. Maybe sometimes…sometimes we get caught up in an echo chamber, and it feels like it's us against the world. Like if you're not with us, you're against us."
"I don't want to be against you," said Jax, and to his horror, his voice cracked. "I want to be with you."
"You know I can't stay here," said Zheng. "I'll be going back to 1 at the end of the year. Or sooner. I don't know what's happening with Callaghan."
Take me with you, Jax wanted to say. That was definitely pushing his luck, though. "We can cross that bridge when we come to it," he said instead.
"We still really don't know each other all that well," said Zheng.
"Well, here's how it works, you get to know someone by spending more time with them, and actually talking to them?"
"That goes both ways, you know," said Zheng. "You're the one that ran out on me."
"That's not exactly how I remember it," said Jax. "Anyway, I'm not going to be doing any running for a while." Zheng looked away. "Look," said Jax, "I'm not going to beg." He would, if it thought it would do him any good. "If you don't want to―"
"No," said Zheng. "I do."
He moved closer and reached out with the wing that didn't have an arm attached. He ran the tip of a primary feather across Jax's cheek.
"I want to," he said, running the feather softly across Jax's lips. "Let's give it a try."
*~*~*
They went to bed again that night, but it was completely different than the first time. This time, when Zheng reached to take off his larynx, Jax stopped him.
"You can leave it on, if you want," he said.
Zheng hesitated. "I actually take it off every night," he said. "I'm sorry if I made you feel as if it were some kind of special favor."
"Oh," said Jax, "right. No, that makes sense, of course you wouldn't sleep in it. I just hadn't thought about it, I guess."
"Would you like to take it off for me, like last time?"
Jax's hand twitched against the blankets. He really would. "Uh, no," he said.
Zheng laughed. "Are you sure?" he asked. "You just licked your lips."
"Don't you mind?"
Zheng paused. "You make me feel very…desirable. I like that."
"You didn't seem as if you liked it all that much," said Jax, before he could stop himself. He wanted to just start over, put their arguments behind him, but it was hard. He was still worried that he was going to fuck it up again without meaning to, and it seemed like he was picking his way through a minefield, sometimes. He might as well at least try to blow the ones he knew about.
"I know," said Zheng, settling down beside him on the bed. He lay on his front, legs curled up underneath his body. "It's…"
"Complicated, right?"
"Well, yes," said Zheng, not quite apologetic.
"Maybe it would be better if you left it on this time?" said Jax. "As long as that's all right with you."
It was strange—it had been so hot last time, just like in porn, thinking of Zheng as being kind of wild. When Zheng had shown off his claws—he'd been gentle, but there was no doubting what they could do. And the vibrations and rumbles in his throat that Jax had no way of being able to understand…The first time, it had been exactly like one of Jax's fantasies. Now, the thought of it just made him feel guilty. There was a lot he still didn't understand about Zheng, and he wanted to be able to ask him things, even if it seemed like the answers weren't always all that straightforward.
"Sure," said Zheng, obviously surprised. "I'll still take it off to sleep, but I can wear it while we're…"
"I don't know if I'll be up to anything like we did last time," said Jax regretfully. "Probably not for a while." The last time had been hard and fast and really amazing, but he couldn't fi
gure out how he was going to manage it again, with his leg the way it was.
"That's all right," said Zheng. "We can do other things."
Jax had watched a lot of porn, but the truth was, he wasn't actually sure what splices did, other than variations on what the two of them had already done. He knew porn wasn't necessarily realistic—he wasn't a total idiot—and he'd wondered about it, but he just really wasn't sure. It wasn't like Zheng could use his mouth on him. Vice versa might work, but he didn't even know if it would be safe for him to swallow. Would it piss Zheng off if he asked?
"What do you do when you're alone?" he asked finally, figuring that was safe territory.
Zheng tilted his head. "It's a little different for splices," he said, which wasn't all that helpful.
"I woulda figured," said Jax, "but like, how?"
"It's complicated," said Zheng, then laughed. Jax shoved him lightly in the side. "We have a sex drive, but the satisfaction we get from sex is different from a human orgasm. We don't really get much out of solo sex."
"You don't come?" asked Jax, bewildered. None of the porn he'd seen had prepared him for that. "Then what do you…get out of it? Do you even like sex?"
"Of course I like sex," said Zheng. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it. It's just…it's more like satisfying a craving. And it only really works with someone else there. You have to remember, we're not mammals. We were designed to be as close to humans as possible, but our physiology is just different. I suppose it has to do with theropod mating instincts in some way, although obviously we can't actually mate. Not productively, I mean."
"You're gonna have to give me a minute," said Jax.
"I know it must seem strange," said Zheng, "but I promise you, sex is pleasurable to me. It's just pleasurable in a different way than it is to you. It's like…a really good meal when you're hungry."
"I'm not sure how to take that," said Jax, eyeing Zheng's sharp teeth. Zheng snapped them at him mockingly.
"Or a drug," he added.
"Huh," said Jax thoughtfully. That made a little more sense to him. "So what…can we do? What works for you?"