by Chogan Swan
Amber turned to stare at Ayleana. “Come here and stand in front of me. Don’t extend your springheels either.”
Ayleana stopped leaning on her bike to stand and face Amber. Her dark eyes were a touch higher than Amber’s golden ones.
Amber put her hand around Ayleana’s forearm. “Damn girl!” Amber paused for a moment, thinking. “Okay. We try then. But what does this say, right down here? That’s your language, right?”
Ayleana smiled. “It says, ‘It will be fissionous’.”
Amber stared at her.
Kest chuckled. He’d heard the word before.
Chapter 42 — Border Crossing
Dusk was falling by the time the three teen-age boys who came for the bikes made it to the rendezvous. Kest dropped the rear foot pegs and slid forward on the seat so one of them could climb on behind him while the other two hopped on behind Ayleana and Amber. Ayleana had run her tail down the side of her right leg, but hadn’t bothered to hide it. Kest supposed the idea that it might be part of her was just too strange for her rider even to consider.
After a few minutes weaving through the side streets of Douglas, they came to the drop-off point near C Street and International. They shut off the motors, and Amber gave the new bike owners instructions on how to operate them. When satisfied they might not kill themselves—at least from her neglect to mention something—she wished them luck and walked to where Kest and Ayleana waited, studying the wall. Down the street, the boys waited with the bikes to be sure the incursion was successful.
Ayleana turned to Kest. “I’m going to throw one end of a rope over with the other end tied to me so you two can control your descent down the other side. I know you can drop and roll, but I don’t want to take a chance on a sprained ankle.”
Kest nodded and hefted his pack. When Amber reached them, they all walked south toward the border. Kest doubted anyone would try to interfere. Homeland Security wasn’t looking for Americans fleeing to Mexico. They were too busy chasing the propaganda against Native Americans the government was spinning at the orders of Deep State alliances.
Based on the performance of their vehicles against the relatively weak EMP mobile mines Tiana had been using against them, their vehicles were most likely junk now. Their 'boots on the ground' were now probably in the military trying to fill the shoes Native Americans had left behind when the military had turned on them.
“Okay,” Ayleana said. “Are you two ready?”
At their nods, she grabbed two duffle bags of supplies, ran to the fence and dropped the duffels. A moment later, the monkey’s fist knot sailed over the fence, and Ayleana waved to Kest.
Kest accelerated through the short run-up and jumped, putting his right foot into her hands. He grabbed the rope near the top of the fence as he flew up as though he’d bounced hard on a trampoline. The boys holding the bikes gasped, exclaiming in quiet awe. Kest slid down the rope and looked around. Someone was supposed to be expecting them, but anything could happen.
A moment later, Amber was at the top of the fence. Ayleana had almost thrown her over. Kest grinned, impressed that Amber merely snagged the rope as she came over and slid to the ground. Kest stepped forward, waiting for the duffle bags to sail over the fence. Those followed Amber like milk follows cookies. Kest got to the first, breaking its fall while Amber got the second. Ayleana cleared the fence with a safety vault as if it was only six feet tall instead of twelve. She picked up a duffle bag and slung it over her shoulder.
Kest picked up the other. “You packed the bullpups in here too?”
“You never know when you’re going to need firepower,” she said then sniffed. “Well, that’s unexpected. But I’ve located our ride.”
“Where is that?” Amber said, hurrying to catch up to them.
Ayleana nodded to the stadium wall in front of them. “Over that fence in center field I believe.”
“You can see through walls now?”
“Smell travels around them.” She put her bite tip in her mouth and sucked.
Kest could hear the hydration pack contracting as she pulled on the liquid inside.
“But how would you know it’s in center field?”
“Because that’s where I would land a chopper,” Ayleana said—perhaps a bit too patiently.
“And that’s our ride because...?”
“Because Tiana is inside.”
A short block later, they came to an open gate that led into the stadium. A security guard, armed to the teeth. Waved behind him to announce their arrival then turned back to them. “Bienvenidos a Mexico, amigos,” he said with a short bow.
“Gracias, Señor,” Kest answered, echoed by Amber and Ayleana.
Amber stepped up to him with a smile, took his elbow and began chatting with him in a genteel Castilian accent as they strolled to where the chopper sat. Kest smiled. He wondered how long it had been since she’d had the chance to charm a man in one of her native languages.... Not that she needed to say anything.
Tiana was suddenly there, hugging Ayleana. Kest took Ayleana's duffle bag and followed Amber and Juan Diego. Amber had gotten his name and marital status from him right away, but she continued to be charming in spite of his devotion to his wife.
Juan Diego introduced her to the other officers stationed by the chopper while Kest stuck his head in the chopper and asked the pilot where to stow the bags.
After showing him, the pilot introduced himself as Davy, “Davy Jones, believe it or not, which is why I’m not in the Navy anymore. They wouldn’t assign me my own locker... said I already had one.”
Kest groaned in appreciation.
“You hang with those two, Kest? Damn! Ain’t they a handful.” It wasn’t a question.
Kest laughed. “You have no idea.”
“Well, maybe a little,” Davy said with a grin. “Amber and I go way back. Aylie, good god! Look how tall she is.”
“Pooberty hit her hard,” Kest said deadpan.
Davy whistled long and low. “You got that right, brother.”
Amber, finished saying goodbye to all her new admirers, stuck her head in the chopper. “Davy! How they hangin’ dude?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Fine, be that way. I’ve got this sweet young thang in the back seat anyhow. Where are we going?”
“All I got is coordinates, same as usual.”
“Well?”
Davy rattled off coordinates. Tiana bundled Ayleana into the back where a cot was laid out. Kest turned to watch. Tiana had evidently said something to Ayleana that had her preoccupied. Tiana handed her a very complex and expensive looking headset. Ayleana put it on and lay down.
Tiana started undressing her, but turned to Kest as she worked and mouthed, “thank you”. Then she pulled a curtain across the cabin. That was worrisome. The nii cared nothing for bodily privacy. He told himself it was just that they needed to avoid distraction for meditation or something, but the uneasiness persisted.
Kest turned and saw Amber looking at the curtain, deep in thought. She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, after reading his expression, then closed the chopper’s sliding door and sat next to him. “Kest, you and I need to lower these bench seats and lay down for some rest. I wouldn’t turn down an offer to trade back rubs either—though really it’s my ass that’s sore.” She bent and put her forehead on his, pitching her voice low. “She’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter what it is. I’ve seen Tiana, fucking resurrect people. And Aylie is a long damn way from being dead.”
She put both her hands on the side of his face. “And so are we.” She kissed him, long and sweet.
Kest returned the kiss, drinking in life.
Still alive. Still breathing.
Chapter 43 — Flying in the Dark
The slap slap slap of the rotor blades, the wind rushing along the sides of the cabin and the sound of Amber’s heart beating beneath where his cheek rested—pulled Kest deep into the dreamworld.
Though part of him k
new he lay on the bench cushion—legs and arms tangled with Amber’s—the dreaming part rode the nose of the chopper, hurtling above a dark world where humans became monsters and devoured those who remained.
Kest startled awake to find Amber watching him, eyes calm as the center of a hurricane, and his mind and body filled with a thirst to close with hers. Amber leaned into him and his mouth received her lips like a drink of water. Her arms tightened to pull him closer, and though the rotors slowed and gravity said they were coming to Earth. They both held on—clinging to each other as if they could cross the boundaries of body armor and skin to become one if only they had time.
They climbed out of the chopper to a meet a salty breeze, cool from its journey across the Gulf of California.
Puerto Peñasco.
Kest breathed, savoring the air, and looked around. A few window lights shone along the oceanfront beneath the hovering full moon that poured a glistening trail across the softly rippling sea of pre-dawn calm
Tiana opened the curtain and came out of the rear of the chopper. In her arms, she cradled Ayleana like a child and stepped from the deck as though she held no burden at all.
Amber and Kest waved to Davy, pulled their bags from the cabin and followed Tiana across the sands that mixed the desert of Sonora with the beaches of the gulf. Behind them, the chopper’s motor made slight noises as it cooled in the breeze. Kest hadn’t realized his free hand had sought and found Amber’s until it she answered with a squeeze.
Jonah and a security team met them before they’d taken more than twenty steps and led them to the hotel’s side entrance. Tiana and Ayleana disappeared down a hallway. One of the team—a woman Kest had seen before but didn’t know—guided them down another hall and up a stair. The woman glanced at their hands, still locked together, and opened the door of a room, holding it for them as they maneuvered through with the bulky duffle bags.
Amber motioned for the woman to wait and pulled the remaining cooler from her duffle. “Please take this to Tiana and refrigerate it,” she said. “Tell her it’s all there was left.”
The woman nodded and left with the cooler.
Kest, already working through the fasteners on his body armor, left everything on the floor in the far corner and walked to the bathroom.
Hopeful, he chose the double shower instead of the jet tub, knowing the hotels used solar heating for the water; he was not disappointed. When Amber joined him, he moved aside for her to enjoy the spray and soaped her back, kneading her muscles as much as washing. Amber turned to hold him while he continued to rub her shoulders as the hot water streamed down on both of them in a blessed, cleansing flow.
Kest leaned back to see her eyes closed and he guided her hands to the safety rail. Then, he turned off the water and soaped her body with gentle, thorough attention to every part, from her scalp to the soles of her feet. When finished, she did the same for him and turned the water on again to rinse them both.
Though the shower was hot, they were both shivering when she turned it off. Amber pulled a towel from the rack inside the enclosure and dried him, blotting the water from the wind-burned sections as he returned the favor.
“Come,” she whispered and stepped from the shower, looking back to be sure of him.
Kest followed, and when she threw the coverlet from the bed, he lay beside her on the clean sheets.
Amber turned him on his back and moved on top. “We have time now,” she said as the moon shone through the window and the stars sang behind her.
And for a time, the world they’d ridden through and the world he’d dreamed of—one and the same—retreated.
Chapter 44 — Early Meeting
The smell of coffee and Amber’s absence from his side woke him. Kest looked up to find her, still gloriously nude, standing at the open balcony door, looking at the gulf in the morning light and sipping from a white ceramic cup
“Hey,” he croaked.
“Hey,” she said, coming back to the bed and offering him the cup.
Kest took it, cradling it in his hands like treasure as he sipped.
Amber looked up as the door rattled in its frame from a knock. After looking through the peephole, she opened it, letting Jonah in.
“I trust you slept well,” Jonah said, accepting her hug. “You might want to get dressed soon, we have a meeting with the president of Mexico in about two hours.”
“That never showed up in my calendar. Did you get that memo, Kest?”
Kest cleared his throat and took another sip. “I didn’t turn my phone on for the update this morning.”
“Well, I did, and it wasn’t there. And anyway, I don’t have any clean clothes.”
Jonah grinned. “If you’d left the dirty ones outside, they’d have been clean and folded now.”
“And leave my only uniform out of my control? Ha!”
“Haven’t bothered to look in the closets have you?”
“Nope,” Amber admitted with a sunny smile. “But I will in about an hour. Is Aylie doing alright?”
“Tiana says she’s out of danger,” Jonah said. “I don’t have any details I can give you.”
“She is our family, you realize.”
“I will still leave the details for her to share.”
“Ok. I’ll see you in about ninety minutes then,” Amber said, walking to the door and opening it for him.
“Gotcha.” Jonah left, moving fast, so he wouldn’t be caught in the door as it closed.
Amber turned to Kest. “Now what shall we do for the... Next. Eighty. Minutes?” she said, stalking catlike towards him. “I KNOW!”
Kest put the coffee on the table next to the bed just in time.
~~~{}~~~
Amber adjusted Kest’s tie and smoothed the conservative, charcoal suit from his shoulders to his waist. “Well, you clean up just fine, señor,” she said. Her own classic suit was somehow both conservative and sexy. The sexy coming mostly from the perfect fit to her body that didn’t hide either muscle or curve.
Kest checked the mirror. “I get it that you could have a perfect fitting suit waiting for you here. Tiana would have your measurements, and of course she doesn’t forget. But how does mine fit like this.” Kest raised his arm to show the perfect cut of the coat’s sleeve and shoulder.
“Come on,” she said. “I know Tiana has seen you naked, and I’m sure she knows the exact dimensions of every part of your body.”
Amber brushed her fingers across his zipper by way of clarification.
Kest colored, and she laughed. “Most likely, she had this suit made for you months ago. It’s funny how much she likes clothes, because she never even wore any before she came here.”
Kest considered. “It’s communication. Non-verbal. Maybe it’s like the scents they manufacture in their society.”
“Interesting theory.”
“What am I saying now?” she said, unbuttoning the second button of her blouse.
“Um. If we don't go right away, we’ll miss the meeting?”
“Exactly,” she said, patting him on the behind as she walked to the door.
“Your suit looks fantastic from this angle,” he said.
Amber turned to grin at him and opened the door.
~~~{}~~~
“Bueños Dias, Señor Presidente,” said Kest, extending his hand. The president shook his hand, greeting him and moving on to shake hands with Amber. Kest needn’t have worried about the impression he’d be making on the president. Unless she was on duty, standing next to Amber was the next closest thing to an invisibility cloak when men were involved. Kest relaxed and looked around, wishing he could ask Tiana about Ayleana.
What could be wrong with her, anyway?
When they’d crossed the border, she’d seemed fine, except for the quantities of blood she’d been consuming.
Oh!
His mind started down new paths, until he realized there was no telling where they led, and he returned his attention to the here and now.
&nbs
p; “Sorry, could you repeat that? I’m having trouble getting my mind to switch to Spanish,” he said—in Spanish—to the cultured woman who had asked him something about music. Kest smiled at her and shook his head in embarrassment. This time he caught the question about the music in Fight for the Future. After admitting that his part in that production had been about performance and feedback to Ayleana rather than creative, he answered and agreed with her that the work was impressive.
The woman smiled. “Did you know some are saying the movie may have been a factor in the devastation in the US?”
“In what way?” Kest bounced back, realizing now the question might not have been entirely about the music
“Come, Señor Tashquinth-Avsar,” she replied. “There is no need to be coy—”
“I’m sorry, Kest,” Amber interrupted. “I should have introduced you to Maya Rodriguez, section head of CISEN, she reports directly to their Director. Maya, I’ve often wondered if we’re related.”
Kest grinned.
Maya chuckled. “Yes, there are so few people named Rodriguez in Mexico, surely there must be some connection,” she said.
“Maya, you realize there’s an intelligence briefing after breakfast, don’t you?” said Amber with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting such a northern North American approach from you at breakfast. Would you like to talk about music?”
“I’m sorry, Señor Tashquinth-Avsar,” Maya said, touching his arm in apology. “In my excitement at meeting you, I’ve overstepped. Please forgive me.”
“De nada,” Kest said and smiled.