by Calinda B
No one replies.
I want to ask the same of him.
“I said, is there a problem here?” His face is a granite mask.
Yeah, buddy. It’s you.
I lower my head in case he’s a psychic mind reader.
“No, sir,” someone says timidly from the back of the crowd.
“Good. Let’s head back to Uni-Bosk Twenty-Three.” As if striking the last nail in my coffin, Thras turns to me and says, “Miss Borren, I’d like a moment of your time. Follow me, please. I’d like to speak in private after I get the others on task.”
I literally want to die. Like a paddled puppy, I slink behind Thras. I barely register the white and gray bleakness of the Aqua Dome Commerce Center bridge, leading us away from the woods—me, a dog on leash, and him, the controlling master. The bridge is nearly as vast as the woods, but far less inviting. We’re back in our bland, Uni-tone world.
We approach his office. My legs have a mind of their own, moving slower, my feet dragging on the floor.
The doors trap us inside, and he lets out a long, deep breath.
“Please sit,” he says.
I perch on a metal chair facing his desk like a bird about to take flight. Enclosed in gleaming white and polished metal, I feel like a lab animal. I study his office, waiting for him to issue orders.
One lone, tinted window looks out over the farm, where our team is preparing to work. Lights blink from a console on the wall, revealing diagrams and grids.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I chose you to lead our first experimental team.” He settles on top of the desk, mere millimeters from me, his face turning whitish-gray.
“Yes, sir, I do. You, uh…” I choke back the words. “You don’t look so well.”
I study him briefly. His green eye has flecks of black, while the dark iris is flecked with green.
Interesting. And beautifully intriguing, like an infinity symbol.
He squeezes his eyes shut. He takes another deep breath and opens them.
“I’ve led many people into battle. I have good instincts, and I didn’t get this far in life by not trusting them. I rely on them. And they tell me you’re honest and ethical.” He swallows, his eyelids fluttering.
I shrink inside. Reve would call it lacking righteous courage. “I don’t know about that,” I say. “Aren’t you being a bit presumptive?”
This has got to be a setup.
“Our first trial will involve pain and restoration research. There are two plant starters being cultivated in the greenhouse—Snow Hemp and Silbalda Volaticus.”
My eyes widen. “Sir, you know Sibalda Volaticus yields a volatile substance that can both harm and heal.”
“True,” he says. “What do you know of it?”
Is this a test of some sort? Is he trying to glean my knowledge? Does he know of my studies before the war?
“It all depends on the handling and preparation,” I say. “SV can kill if not used carefully.”
He nods, appearing satisfied with my answer. “But the Snow Hemp is a potent derivative of Cannibis Sativa. Early trials on planet Raxu, combining the two, showed promise in the restoration and damage of flesh, torn asunder by modern war devices.”
Like the damage from Butchers of Frozen Hell?
Hope blooms in my chest for my brother. I lean forward in my chair, like my wings are ready to spread, lifting me into the air.
Maybe this will help Reve.
“Did you live on planet Raxu?” I ask.
“Me? No.” Thras smiles. “That’s a planet for Humans.”
“And you’re not?” I blurt.
“What do you think?” He cocks his head, his expression challenging.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you are, sir.” And maybe I don’t want to know.
He strokes his chin, looking down his nose at me.
“I went to Raxu for research,” he says, side-stepping the question.” As you know, Cannibis seeds were taken from Earth when the last residents left the planet.”
“After a nuclear holocaust wiped the planet of natural resources in 3910,” I say, recalling the cultural history classes back in school.
Thras nods. “It’s been cultivated for over two-hundred years to prime potency as a pain reducer and mood enhancer. But you must already know that.”
“I have to dust my brain off to access my knowledge, but, yes, I do.”
“Why the dusting?” He flashes me an amused smile.
“War took its toll on us all. Our lives were rather brutal,” I add, offering a glimpse of the suffering my family endured. “It’s difficult to remember simple times when my mind is crammed with images of war.”
I try to be light, but my chest tightens, strangling my breath.
Thras eyes me, and then nods. “It did, Miss Borren. It took a toll on us all, not merely Humans.”
His entire demeanor forms frost.
Silence muzzles us for a few awkward seconds.
“Anyway,” he says, as if shooing away memories. “My team and I have been tending them separately for months. We need your expertise to graft one to the other.”
I let out a small gasp. In my studies, we were never allowed to touch SV. Only the scientists were granted permission. “Sir, do you think it wise to assign a task like this to someone as lowly as me?”
“Yes, Miss Borren, I have every confidence in you.” He winces and swallows again.
“Sir, I…” I shake my head. “But why?”
“Don’t ask so many questions,” he snaps. “This is a direct order.”
It’s like he slapped me. I flatten against the chair.
“Look. We all have our secrets, and our wounds from the war. No one here is immune.” He stares at me with a fierce gaze and then slowly stands.
I don’t dare ask him another thing. But then I notice a dark stain blooming on his black uniform, at the level of his abdomen.
“What?” he says. His gaze lowers to where I’m staring. He jerks, as if surprised. “Excuse me a moment.”
He steps smartly to his waste disposal room. When he returns, his uniform is clean and dry, no doubt whizzed through the sani-wash housed in his WD.
“This has to remain a secret, are we clear?” Even though his tone is softer, there’s no mistaking the intensity behind the request.
“What does?” I say. “I didn’t see a thing, sir.”
“If you don’t stop calling me sir, I’m going to feel like an old man.” The smile on his face seems genuine. “It’s Thras. I’m not that old. Twenty years and seven.”
“Okay, um, Thras.” It’s one thing to refer to him as Thras in front of my brother. It’s another thing to call him his name to his face. It unnerves me.
He purses his lips and studies me for a second that lasts far too long. Then he inhales slowly and deeply. Color returns to his face.
I avert my eyes, staring at my black and gray covered lap.
“Alright, then,” he says. “Let’s put you to work. And we have a deal, right? You’re sworn to secrecy, am I right?”
“Yes, uh, Thras,” I say, but this has got to be some sort of manipulation.
What’s all this talk of trusting me? And how did he get that wound?
He’s bound me to be beholden to him with his secrets, and I don’t like it one bit.
Chapter 8
By day nine, I’m sick of the Eleven. They suck my attention every moment of every day like a chronic, festering lesion. I see them in the cafe. I work with them, side by side, all day, every day. I clear their emotional gunk from my etheric being each night. How can I be sure they’re not visiting me in my dreams? One of them could be my night stalker.
Tonight, as I wade through the murk and gloom of others’ unconscious minds, the same cloaked male sits at my pond, stirring the same exquisite flower into life. He never lets me see his face. He always disappears. Then, either him or his accomplice appears behind me.
“Why are you here, Sakhi?” he whisp
ers in my ear, his fingers gripping a handful of my hair. His other hand strokes the tops of my breasts.
My fear is at war with my desire. I hate him caressing me. Each touch makes my belly twist with guilt, like I’m betraying my brother.
But I also love him touching me. His tender strokes send volcanic chills through me.
“Why are you here?” he repeats.
“I want…I want to get through this experiment and leave. That’s it.” I say, my heart pounding.
“No. Why are you here? Say it.” he says, insistent.
I want to turn around and face him before climbing on top of him, letting him enter me. I want to run from him, screaming, too. He’s a Meta, for gods’ sake.
But then the same thing happens every night: The snarls. The crashing figure.
I run, and then wake up, utterly terrified.
I sigh and make my sleep deprived way toward getting to work on time. Dressing is simple—we all have to wear the same drab garb, completely sheathed in protective outerwear, including eyewear.
In the greenhouse, I glance at the fake sunlight streaming in diffuse rays through the frosted glass of the greenhouse. It bounces off the gleaming whitish-gray Smuntine metal, mined from the depth of Lorn.
This enclosure is smaller than the ones used to produce food. It’s only about ten meters by three meters. Right now, it’s filled with failed experiments, including the Eleven. This Complex idea of getting along is a joke.
Kipp, a werewolf, approaches.
My stomach coils in knots of dread, as usual.
“Morning, Sakhi,” he says, his golden eyes glittering with mocking malice, as I bustle about the enclosure. “You’re looking fresh as new roadkill.”
He chuckles.
I’ve been using under-eye concealer lately. The dark circles of no-sleep apparently can’t be concealed, though. Today I can’t even fake pleasantries. Instead, I ignore him.
He steps aside, making room for me to pass through the greenhouse rows.
“It’s the job,” I say, fudging the truth. Are you the night stalker? “Have you seen Naazira?”
He makes a small purring sound in this throat. “Hell, yeah, I’ve seen Naazira. She’s crouched behind table sixteen.” He nods his head in her direction, a wicked smile plastered on his face. “I’d like to be crouched behind her, making little elf pups.” He pretend-grabs her ass and rocks his hips forward and back.
“Kipp,” I begin.
He puts his hands up in surrender. “I know, I know. No interrelations. Them’s the rules. But rules are meant to be broken. Want to know what I did last night?”
He cups his groin.
“Not really,” I say, eying the top of Naazira’s head.
“I broke a few rules,” he says, clearly not caring what I want or don’t want. He saunters away from me, laughing.
I shake my head. Besides having to manage a group of people I’d rather not even know, I have to deal with all the rampant sexual energy sizzling through the Eleven like wildfire. Every male wants Naazira. Or the succubus named Carissa. Or the witch named Synneva. It’s like trying to manage a Singing Barrel Launcher or a Whistling Plasma Device—two of the deadly bombs used in the P-Extinction war. And me? I want someone I met in a dream. I scoff, heading toward Naazira.
“Hey,” I say to her as I approach.
“Oh, hey,” she says brightly, her words muffled behind her protective mask. She stands. “Another dud.”
She holds aloft a dead plant.
“I see that.” I wrinkle my nose.
“Seen Thras this morning?” she asks.
“Not yet. You?” I take the plant from her hands and toss it in the discard bucket at the end of the table.
“Only from afar.” She grins. “We’re getting to know each other,” she whispers conspiratorially.
“How so?” I peer at a withered plant. “Any hope for this one?”
I pick up a trowel and rake the growing material surrounding the drooping leaves.
“Doubt it.” She wrinkles her nose. “And I’ve been seeing him outside work.”
The trowel falls from my hand.
As I stoop to pick it up, I say, “You know that’s against the rules.”
“Oh, we’re not dating or anything,” she says. “Only sharing a meal now and then.”
I open my mouth to speak but I don’t know what to say. How could she find him appealing? It’s like being turned on by an inanimate object.
“Good for you,” I finally manage.
“He’s so handsome,” she says, leaning against the table full of experiments.
“Uh-huh. I guess.” I pluck the dead leaves free from one of our many mistakes and pitch them into the bucket.
“He’s so dreamy.” She practically shivers.
“I suppose.” I pick up another graft study gone bad, grimace, and put it down.
“I think about him all the time. Do you think it’s mutual?” She looks like she’ll faint.
“Look,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “He’s got a lot of secrets. I don’t trust him.”
“Whatever,” she says, glancing at me as if I’m crazy. “Don’t tell me you don’t find him attractive.” She pokes me playfully. “Or aren’t affected by his charm.”
I pretend smile, thinking, Oh, I’m affected alright. What Meta has no emotional signature whatsoever?
I say, “Okay, I won’t.”
“I knew it.” She grins, looking victorious, and then turns her attention to one of the plants.
“Stop,” I say. “I was only kidding. To tell the truth he terrifies me.”
“What?” Her head lifts and she stares at me, mouth agape. “How could he scare you?”
“He’s too…too…I don’t know, too everything,” I say, swishing my hand through the air like I’m making suds.
Her head pivots toward a window. “Ooh. See him out there in the field? I’m going to go ask him a question.”
She practically pants.
I glance through the translucent door.
He’s standing in one of the Uni-Bosk fields, talking with one of the workers. The fake blue sky provides a pretty backdrop.
“What’s the question?” I ask.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out by the time I get there.” And away she jets, peeling free from her protective garb.
I almost laugh watching her primp in her black and gray uniform as she storms through the tilled growth mixture, dotted with tiny plants. She’ll be covered in fine particulate dust-like matter in seconds.
I can’t wait to get out of here and back to my dreams, but our plant grafting is proceeding slowly and needs constant monitoring. We’ve made several attempts at inosculation without success. The tissues of Snow Hemp won’t merge with the tissues of SV. The plants die. They wither on their stems. On one occasion, they simply burst into flames.
I thought this would be the answer for Reve’s pain. It galls me to cook for him each night and witness the agony he endures. Hence, I stand in the well-ventilated greenhouse, seeking answers. Yet I’m surrounded by nothing but rows and rows of a potted growing substance that yields nothing. I place my hands on my hips. I wish I’d dream something useful for a change, like how to graft two unlikely plant candidates.
“Don’t give up, Sakhi,” a team member named Daylon says to me, patting my shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.”
I flinch, whirling to face him.
Is he talking about the plants or the dreams? What does he know?
“I won’t,” I say, giving up another fake smile, hoping my face appears pleasant. I step as far away as I can without invoking suspicion, pretending to spy something fascinating in the dirt-filled pots.
Are you the guy stalking me nightly?
“Why do you do that?” he asks, sneering.
“Do what?” I ask, still staring at the soil filled pot.
“Flinch. Sidle away from me, like you’ll catch a disease if I so much as breathe on you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I stir the soil with a fingertip. “Didn’t hear you coming, that’s all.”
“Yeah, you do and yeah you did. This experiment…the Complex…” He waggles his finger between us. “We’re supposed to at least pretend to get along.”
“Come on,” I say, lifting my eyes to meet his. I grimace and rub my arms before I can catch myself. He’s not ugly. About six foot tall, muscular, he could be considered handsome, except for his eyes—they’re red-flecked brown. Besides that, there’s something about him that’s unsettling, though. Maybe it has to do with his Meta abilities. “You’re an incubus,” I say, hoping that explains my reaction to him.
“Right. Like that’s something repulsive. I am what I am.” The sneers grows more pronounced. “And you’re all lily white and pure. Are you thinking I stalk you in the night?” He steps toward me.
I back away. My eyes narrow.
“No,” I lie. “Nothing of the sort.”
“Good,” he says. “You’re not my type.”
His words lance me. It’s not like I’d want to be his type but the insult stings, nonetheless.
He lets out a sigh and drags his hand through his silvery hair. “Look, we’re all having a hard time here. Do you think it’s a party for me?”
“No, I…” I sigh, too. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know you. I know nothing about you.”
“Have you tried getting to know me? Have you tried getting to know anyone on our team? We all think you’re a stuck-up bitch. There. I’ve said it. What are you going to do? Head to Leader Dog over there?” He inclines his head toward the field, his reddish-brown eyes flinty and hard.
My face flames. How did painfully shy, “keeps to myself,” and responds politely turn into stuck-up bitch?
“No. In case you haven’t noticed, I avoid him.”
“Right.” Daylon barks out a laugh. “Uh-huh. I see the way he looks at you.”
“He doesn’t look at me any particular way,” I blurt, my face hot.
“Right,” Daylon says again. “Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, if you want to hear my suggestions about why the graft isn’t working, give me a shout.” He turns and strides toward the door. “Or not.”
“Wait!” I call, hustling toward his retreating back. “I do want to hear. I’m desperate for answers.”