by Bella Knight
“Damn,” said Rayne, as they went in to their own dinner. “You can sing, Fire. Haven’t had a word outta you except ‘I don’t wanna eat.’”
Fire glared at her. “I talk about other stuff.”
Alvitr also glared at Rayne. “Woman sold a bike today,” she said. “Give the woman a little respect.”
“And went at it with us,” said Rhodes. She reached over and held up Fire’s bruised arm. “We’ve got to fit this woman for greaves. Keep her from bruising her forearm.”
“Shit,” said Freya. “Yet another thing to order. Those medieval people…”
“The Society for Creative Anachronism,” said Chance.
“Whomever, they’re gonna think we’re performing at the Renaissance Faire.”
“It’s not just for Ren Faire anymore,” said Rhodes. “They’ve got a whole line of Valkyrie gear. Helped us measure out smaller stuff for us.”
“They’ve got a whole online page just for us,” said Chance. “Since we didn’t spend all our money on the last order, maybe we can find something cool.”
“Like armor,” said Rhodes.
“Or chain mail,” said Chance.
“Gotta order the stuff light enough to move around in,” said Freya. The girls ran into the house to take a look at the computer before washing up for dinner; the screen door slammed behind them.
“Bunch of bloodthirsty hooligans,” said Freya, grinning.
“And that’s the way you like them,” said Fire.
Alvitr snorted. “Keeping those two in line is a full-time job.”
“It is,” said Freya, opening the door for them all.
Dinner was shrimp, fish, and chicken fajitas, with lettuce, tomato, black olives, salsa, fresh guacamole, sour cream, and tortillas, washed down with fruit juice. Everyone ate as if they’d never seen food before, even Fire. She kept saying “present moment” over and over to herself, and kept reaching to unplug an imaginary cord. Alvitr and Freya noticed, and were overjoyed to see her eat normally.
They all went to do their studies, except for Chance and Rhodes, who were on puppy-training duty. Rudi completely ignored both girls and came and sat at Fire’s feet.
“Looks like you’ve been adopted,” said Rayne.
“And that you’re on duty,” said Alvitr.
Fire stood. “Looks like I’ll end up coding in my bunk,” she said. “Rudi, come.”
She grabbed a training pouch with toys, treats, a collapsible dish, and a water bottle, and she put it over her shoulder, and took the dog outside to train. Rudi loved to learn, because she got to play with Fire. The dog followed Fire’s every move, from training, to her nightly food, to a last piddle outside, to following Fire to her bunk. Under the bunk was storage, and on the right side, a bookshelf. The dog ran up the narrow stairs on the left side like a pro. Rudi curled up at Fire’s side as she leaned back on her propped pillows, swung down her desk, unfolded her keyboard, and slaved it to her tablet, and began coding. She barely made it past three challenges before she finally turned off her bunk light and slept, Rudi at her side.
Fire awoke when her alarm went off, and was stunned to realize she’d slept through the night, and that she’d actually needed an alarm. She stretched, and Rudi stretched as well. Fire laughed, and went with the dog out of the room, down the hall, and to the back door. Fire let Rudi out while she used the bathroom herself.
Fire fed Rudi kibble mixed with wet food, washed up, and started on the tiny muffin batter. She put the maple walnut and orange spice muffins in to bake. She made the coffee and the carafe of tea. Then she cooked bacon, then the eggs, and mixed up some yogurt and strawberries with some granola on top for the less hearty eaters.
Fire set the table, and had breakfast out in bowls and platters, mugs out and beside the tea and coffee carafes, and a sweating carafe of fresh-squeezed orange juice out before Chance and Rhodes tumbled out like puppies.
“You did our job,” accused Chance. “We were supposed to set the table.”
“We’ll switch that out for one of Fire’s other duties,” said a yawning Freya. “Coffee. Yum.”
The others tumbled out of their bunks, let the other dogs out and fed them, and ate the food until it was down to the last crumb. “Damn, girl, you’ve got some surprises up your sleeve,” said Rayne. “Girl can cook.”
“I can, can’t I?” said Fire. And, for once, she’d actually tasted each kind of muffin, the piece of crispy bacon, and yogurt she’d selected. A hint, a whiff of taste, but taste was there, nonetheless.
They learned from the little demons, Chance and Rhodes, at every opportunity, every little bit they could get. Freya was precise with a bike, always ready to go. Her daughters were learning her precise, concise way. Fire and Aldrnari knew that since Fire had less and less nightmares and was eating pretty much normally, Freya and the two little demons would be on their way as soon as their current bike was finished. The tiny wild ones got tiny little chain mail, Fire received her greaves, and Aldrnari ordered some too, and all four fought until Fire couldn’t hold her arms over her head.
They lay there, gasping, as the little demons attacked each other, chasing each other down the trails in the desert sun, the hammer-like light glinting off the chain mail.
“I can barely breathe, and look at them go,” said Aldrnari.
“I’m gonna need help washing my hair,” said Fire. “And, I’ve got to learn how to braid the side, but I can’t move my fingers.”
“I’ll help,” said Aldrnari. “After I make it into the shower. Wanna share? I can scrub your back if you scrub mine.”
“Before this supposedly safe compound was attacked, I wouldn’t have taken you up on the offer. I felt like dust that would blow away like my friends did in a firestorm. But, I’ve learned that life is fucking short, and I’ve got to move forward if I’m gonna survive.” She reached over, and grabbed the back of Aldrnari’s neck. “With your shield,” she said.
“Or on it,” said Aldrnari.
Aldrnari got on her hands and knees, then raised herself to the Warrior position, forward knee bent, the back knee straight. She moved her back foot forward, raised her torso, and stood up. Fire did the same thing, nearly toppling, but she made it up.
“Come on,” said Aldrnari. “We can use my shower. It’s bigger, and we won’t have puppies everywhere.”
Fire groaned. “I still have a session with the dog.”
“Shower first,” said Aldrnari. “You stink.” She dragged Fire toward the Rock House.
“Gee, thanks so much,” said Fire. “You smell of roses and sunshine.”
“You smell of cordite, and motorcycle grease, and chrome,” said Aldrnari. “And that’s the way I like it.”
“Oh, we’re being serious,” said Fire, attempting to put one foot in front of the other in some sort of order. “Then you smell like the wind, and metal, kind of like your guitar strings, and glass beads.”
“Glass beads don’t smell,” said Aldrnari, herding Fire into the great yellow door of the Rock Chicks’ farmhouse. She dragged Fire into the back shower.
“I didn’t think this through,” complained Fire. “No clothes.”
Aldrnari laughed. “I have enough clothes for four of us.” She turned on the water in the shower. “Get in.”
Aldrnari handed Fire a pouf, then ran back out. Fire attempted to soap herself up. Aldrnari came back with two tiny towels, two big towels, and a pile of clothes. She got in, and washed Fire’s hair, getting deep into the scalp. Fire moaned. Aldrnari then put conditioner on Fire’s hair, then washed her face with a mitt scrubber and minty facial cleanser. Then, she rinsed and used Fire’s brand-new pouf to clean Fire from head to toe.
Fire leaned back into the wall, exhausted. Aldrnari lowered herself so Fire could reach her glorious hair. Fire scrubbed it, then put on conditioner. She did Aldrnari’s back with the Valkyrie’s red pouf. Aldrnari groaned, then scrubbed herself off.
Their kiss was gentle, but it soon turned to flame. Neit
her Fire nor Aldrnari could remember who kissed whom, but it went from their wet scalps to their toes. They came up for air, rinsed, and kissed again.
Cold water made them turn off the water and scramble out of the shower. “Seven minutes,” said Aldrnari.
“Same as the military,” said Fire.
They put the small towels on their heads, dried their bodies with the big towels, and took turns drying each other’s hair and putting on aloe gel for the face, then body lotion. Aldrnari took out a packet of cobalt and silver beads, and first showed Fire how to do it, then braided Fire’s hair.
They kissed only twice more. “Enough of that,” said Fire. “I’ve got a dog to train and a bike to put together.”
They made it downstairs, took out sandwiches from the Wolfpack delivery service, veggie chips, and cherry water, and ate out on the picnic table. Rudi came over, and Fire went over to get the training bag, and did the training. Rudi loved every minute, because for her, it was play. The sound of the rock guitar wailing made Fire smile.
The bike was fun to put together, all in midnight blue and black, with the barest hint of crimson and gold, like the first hint of dawn. They all danced to the music, Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion and Springsteen’s Fire, and the band’s self-titled song, Inner Warrior, a rousing song with fiddle, bass, and drums, about one’s greatest enemy being one’s own mind. It was done in a skirl of rising notes and heat. The Soldier Pack putting together the bikes danced, hummed, and sang.
The bike came together under Fire’s hands, which had regained their steadiness with food and water. She drank from a canteen attached to her hip, and it had lime water with chunks of lime in it. Her phone dinged, and Rayne took over the assembly.
Fire went to see the orange-and-black tiger bike taking place at Freya’s station. Freya grinned as Rhodes and Chance fought over their opinion of the first Punic war, from 264 to 241 BC. Freya ordered them to do a 3D mockup of the war, using data from recent excavations of Carthage. They moaned, then began arguing about how to create the graphics. The soldiers piped up with how Carthage should have fought the battle. The din was deafening.
When Fire made it back to the house for a snack, the silence was incredibly loud. She ate a banana nut muffin and washed it down with a high-protein mint chocolate shake. She let Rudi out, played a little, and put on her Harley training segment, putting off accounting. She was doing bigger and bigger spreadsheets that took into account the data from multiple sources, and the numbers interacted with one another. One mistake and the whole metaphorical pack of data cards would fall. It made her nervous, anxious, and more than a little insane.
After twenty-five minutes of Harley training, Fire changed over the laundry, and buckled down to chase the elusive numbers. She got all of her numbers to balance, and sighed with relief. She sent the spreadsheet to Queenie, who had an eye for numbers. Queenie wanted to start her own antiques and Mardis Gras-themed “treasures” business in New Orleans, but she needed to fund it. Bikes were one way to do it, and she needed a business degree as well. It didn’t bother anyone that Queenie wanted to follow her own path; they all helped her with her business classes, and slipped her the bikes with the largest profit margins so she could get her business up and running more quickly. She could always work on bikes at night, and sell them if it was slow in her future New Orleans shop.
Fire put laundry in the washer, then took Rudi and Trey out for a walk. Trey was a busy puppy who needed his exercise. He was growing up faster than even Hammer, his brother. She listened to a small business management podcast on the walk, then she took out Dally and Princess. She took out Hammer and Peaches last. As the runt, Peaches looked tiny next to Hammer, but she was all heart. She followed her training very well, and would make a great support animal. She put the laundry in the dryer, and got started on dinner. Surprisingly, rice cookers made great cookers for pasta. She opened both of them and put in rainbow spiral pasta, chicken, fresh garlic, Italian spices, and a glass jar of pasta sauce into each. She put a load of laundry in the dryer, put more in the washer, and folded the load of towels and put them away.
Chance came in, showered, ladled out the food, and the others came in, breaking the quiet, in a mess of dog food and laughter over the state of each bike —four were almost complete, and two were done, except for the chrome. The girls were still arguing about how to do their project. After ice cream sundaes, they were sent to the table in the corner to code it out.
Fire checked off all her jobs. She was two days ahead, because she wanted real lieu days, not ones where she had to do stuff. The others agreed too, setting the jobs up so time off was real time off. She went back over her schoolwork. The rule was to work two weeks ahead, so if you needed sick time, or wanted to take a ride somewhere, or just wanted to not get out of your bunk, you could. Fire was nearly three and a half weeks ahead. She wanted to finish off her courses so she could jump into the next classes.
Fire took a bottle of water with her, and went out to the fence line. They’d repaired fences, set up surveillance, scoped out lines of sight, double-paned the windows, beefed up the security system, set up tripwires that rang alarms, and made it much harder for anyone to harm them. She leaned on the fence. Aldrnari came up with her own bottle, of spiced apple cider. They stood and sipped as the sun went down behind the mountain.
“Come to our show tonight,” said Aldrnari.
“Wish I could,” said Fire. “I’m damn near asleep right now.” They sipped some more. “I’ve got three lieu days,” said Fire. “We don’t use weekends, so that’s what we call them. We all have staggered days off, but we work ahead if we all want to do something together, to take a day off.”
“It just so happens that we don’t have a show tomorrow,” said Aldrnari. “Want to take a ride?”
“Of course,” said Fire.
Then, they kissed, as the last of the sunlight touched their fiery hair. Fire led Aldrnari up to her room. Everyone was lying on couches, playing games, coding, or watching Wonder Woman for the seventy-eighth time. The little demons were surprisingly quiet, working on their project together.
They slid into the pod bunk together. Fire had Rudi lay down on her bed under the couch which was under the pod. They moved slowly, as if each other would break, kisses moving lower. Fire took off the Aerosmith tank top she’d borrowed from Aldrnari, exposing her eagle which was breaking free of chains over her left breast, the wolf howling on her right.
Aldrnari stroked the tats. “Fine work,” she said.
“I got them each time I cycled back to the States for some downtime,” said Fire. “I’ve got my company here, on my bicep.” She showed realistic photos wrapped around her upper arm of four women in army uniforms, laughing. “The only thing I have left of them,” she said.
“I’ve buried friends,” said Aldrnari. “But, it’s different for you.”
“Let’s just…” said Fire.
Aldrnari took her time, getting to know the lines and planes, and softness and bitter hardness of Fire’s body. She stroked, sucked, nipped, went deep with her fingers. She made Fire rise up, come over and over, then back down, three times. Then, she held her close, and stroked the side of her hair that wasn’t in golden-beaded braids.
“I’ve got to go, love.”
“But you didn’t…” said Fire.
“Takes a lot longer than the time we have,” said Aldrnari. “Don’t worry, girlfriend. We’ve got nothing but time.”
“Take your clothes,” said Fire, pushing them into her hand.
Aldrnari laughed. “Keep them. I’ve got lots of shelf bras, T-shirts, and cargo shorts.” She kissed Fire again. “What I don’t have a lot of is you.” She stepped out, and walked down the pod’s narrow stairs, very carefully. “Goodnight, love. Sleep in; we don’t ride until after lunch.” Aldrnari looked down at the dog. “Go on up, girl,” she said to the dog. Rudi walked up the stairs, and into her mother’s arms. “Night, you two,” said Aldrnari.
“Love me, love m
y dog,” murmured Fire, then she slept.
Snow Mountain
Alo walked his way through the Crow Sun Dance in his mind, every step, as he walked the black mare, back and forth; giving her the exercise she needed in winter. They rode the horses, too, but not with the snow that deep outside.
He checked to be sure the horses had plenty of water that had no ice. The underfloor heating system was working, a version of the Korean ondol underfloor heating, with warm water traveling under the floor. The horses loved it. He double-checked the stall visually as he led the black mare back to her stall; he had cleaned it and put fresh hay inside himself, but he had to make sure. He petted the two alpacas, and they snorted into his hand. The rabbits were safe and happy in their “rabbit condo” as well. Alo checked on their food supply. They were only halfway through the fresh lettuce from the hydroponics.
He danced bits of the Sun Dance in the tunnel back to the house. Crow was a difficult language, but he was slowly learning the words. He went into the kitchen, washed up, and ate some of the soup that was waiting on the stove, a hardy chili, with a big mug of coffee. He cut up some wheat bread, heated it, and ate that too.
He sipped coffee while he checked the board in the main room. He had a few more minutes before he had to hike out to check the plants and dye work. The Wolfpack back on the edge of the Paiute reservation near Las Vegas had sent some incredible software over, along with a server and a good-sized computer screen. Orders came in real-time, and everyone could see the orders on their cell phones. The project management software on the other side showed who was working on what. It rotated, unless someone became particularly adept at something, or enjoyed it the most.
He hiked back through the tunnel to check on the food. Luisa was picking lettuce, little Sofia asleep on her back, to fill a food order. Alo grinned at Luisa, and checked all the trays, LED lights, and sprayers. He left Luisa harvesting black, purple, and orange carrots. Restaurants loved the differently-colored versions.