by K Alexis
The sound of rain sizzling as it hit a shield brought Mea back to the present. She had arrived in the middle of a downpour; yet, despite the heavy shower, women and men were loading and unloading cargo from berthed barges and ships. Each of the workers appeared to be covered in a transparent bubble, ensuring they stayed dry during their arduous tasks. Mea looked up and noticed she was in a similar predicament: an invisible barrier protected her from the rain.
A woman cleared her throat. "Do you have a permit for that?" she asked.
Mea shifted her gaze to the speaker who stood about two paces from the portal. She had blue tattoos that moved and danced across her skin. Although her physique showed signs of a well-regimented exercise regime, her face was lined and full of wrinkles, indicating how difficult her line of work must be. Some of them were especially deep, and made the woman's round face more closely resemble a half-oval shape. She was pointing at the portal.
"No," Mea replied. She could feel the tides of power shift around her as the gateway breathed in and out. Tath came with the exhalation. The archer's new cane clicked on the concrete. "Aw shit," she said, "fucking rain."
The woman looked back and forward between the two of them. "My name is Rui. I'm the Turiean for Aotearoa. Where did you transverse from?"
As Agra walked through the portal, he raised his hand to block the rain as if on instinct. "This is the kind of magic I'm talking about," he commented. "Who can Steh learn this from?"
"We came from Hamilton," Mea said. She adjusted her posture slightly. She wanted to be ready in case they had to attack. Scanning the laborers, she made a quick count. If everyone fought, it would be thirty-six to four. That was not an impossible victory if their interrogator was lying about being a Turiean. If Rui was one, however, the fight would be incredibly brief. The sentient heart of each and every universe bestowed immense powers upon those who it had chosen as its protectors.
"Hamilton?" Rui's face clouded over and her tattoos suddenly exploded into vibrant colors. Her gaze bore into Mea's. "You're one of the lost ones?"
Mea tensed. If Rui knew Mea was a Navigator banned, albeit temporarily, from returning home, the chance of the mage bluffing about her abilities shrunk to nil. "Yes, I'm a mutant … if that's what you're asking," Mea said, hinting that not all of her group members were aware of her true identity.
The portal breathed out its last gasp—spitting Steh onto the pavement in the process. From the corner of her eye, Mea noticed him stand up and dust himself off. He looked unimpressed. While he scrutinized the port, Mea could feel the air around them pulse with static electricity.
"Not my fucking hair again," Tath said. "Steh, did you do this?"
Rui's tattoos were running away from her face, running as far down her body as they could. Her eyes had lost their color and burned monochrome, as if a flaming star was about to break through. "You, boy," she shouted at Steh, overriding his mumbled reply to Tath.
"Yes?" he said.
"What do you want here?"
"To find passage to Ras Al Khaimah."
"And what else?"
Mea saw him flick his cards through his fingers, something he did when he was nervous. "I was hoping to have dinner too, if that's poss—"
"That's not what I'm asking about," Rui snapped, cutting him off. "I'm asking about your powers. What do you intend to do with them?"
Steh raised his hands as if in defeat, his cards floating away from him. "To be honest, as little as possible. However, if this grilling is because of my race's long history of maliciously using magic to hurt our enemies, I understand. I'd be more than content to stay outside the city limits if that would make everyone else more comfortable."
The static in the air slowly dissipated. Mea took it as a sign that Rui had grasped why Steh was evading the implied question about why a Starfire had arrived unannounced in her city. Only Steh and Mea knew each other's secrets, Tath and Agra had yet to guess them despite all of their years together. And she wished to keep it that way for as long as humanely possible.
As if to affirm Mea's conjecture, Rui said, "I apologize. I reacted and made a mistake. When we rebuilt, we promised this town would be open to everyone and anyone. I can't break that vow because I've got a feeling about a pakeha." Rui looked back at Mea. "Did old man Keri send you?"
"Kekeriwai? Yes," she confirmed.
"Then I'll need to talk to him about sending uninvited warlocks into the rebuilt district." Rui pointed to the jetties and the warehouses in front of the group. "You'll find plenty of people willing to accept passengers here. Most of them take credits, cors and dirs. Failing those, some are amenable enough to sell their services for rare metals. If you're lucky, you might even get passage with Elia."
Mea did not require Rui to motion toward the zeppelin, the group already knew who Captain Elia was. And like always, her airship cast a dark shadow over the berthed boats. Even the pelting rain could not diminish its raw impact.
"'Lucky' is not the word I'd use," Steh said.
"Then you can catch another ride," Rui replied. "Take as long as you like." She pointed over their heads and in the opposite direction. "The hotels are to the right, on the main street. If you enjoy imaginations, we have a theater that plays the latest memories collected by center dreamers. They're ethically farmed, in case you worry about that sort of thing."
Mea nodded and was about to thank Rui when the world faded and the harbor was replaced with an infinite wash of dark grey. The Turiean emanated a silvery glow that lit up the area in front of her. "Stop being a selfish git," she snapped. "You're a Navigator. Do your job. No pakeha Starfire is worth losing a family over."
* * *
TO SAVE MONEY, Tath and Mea bunked together in the same room. The owner had said it was refurbished and, for once, Mea believed it. The carpet was soft, white and wool. The bed linen contained no holes, and the Grinner projector worked without a stutter. Mea played with the device's dials, adjusting the size of the hologram it produced. After adjusting it to cover the entire wall, she changed the channel to a laid-back announcer who promised he would only play quartertone jazz. The hologram transitioned into rolling waves as a new track started, each crest moving in synch to the sounds.
Mea heard the shower turn off, and the tap turn on. Tath exited the en-suite, a toothbrush hanging from her mouth. "Unning wata," she said. She took her brush out. "Maybe Kekeriwai isn't so bad. I thought he'd put us in some flea-bag, dirt-ridden hell-hole." She went back to cleaning her teeth.
"He tried to kill us," Mea mumbled, dropping her Navigator-manufactured backpack onto the bed. It made the mattress' springs squeak in pain, reminding her she might need to store some of her less favorite books in Steh's portal.
Wandering over to the windows, she opened the curtains and stared out. Dusk had settled over Wellington; its crimson and orange hues illuminated the puddles and made them look as if they were like liquid candlelight. It was still pouring down outside, and she could hear the rain bouncing off the metal gutter above them.
"I had so much fuzz on my teeth," Tath said. "I think I committed germ genocide. You going to join me in being a mass murderer or not?"
"What would you give to see your mother again?" Mea asked.
"My mom?" Mea heard Tath huff twice before answering, "I try not to think about her. She used to make me chocolate marshmallow cookies. We had a secret family recipe stashed away detailing how to produce every ingredient: what type of plants to grow, how long every item had to be cooked—everything. It was the shit. It's what inspired me to read. If there was one good recipe, there must be more, right?"
Mea admired Tath as she limped over. The archer of their group was wearing a deep-cut bralette that highlighted her natural bustiness while refusing to make it the sole focal-point of her body. It contained no wires and was almost the same color as her raspberry knickers. There were only a few reasons for Tath to wear an almost-matching set of underwear in a new town, and Mea knew all of them involved her friend bringing
back a man, or woman, to their room … and their bed. She looked away as she felt her cheeks start to flush while thoughts of Tath's perfect body heaving and thrusting in the morning's dim light flitted across her mind. On the fringe of Mea's vision, she noticed Tath take in the scenery as she had done a moment ago.
"A lot," Tath said, answering Mea's question. "A fuck ton. Hell, almost anything. She's fifty-seven this year. How many more winters does she have? Fuck my dad, but my mom …" Tath wiped something from under her eye. "You? What would you give?"
"I don't know," Mea replied.
"You weren't close?"
"I made the choice to leave. I thought her philosophies were … wrong. Now, I'm not so sure."
Tath chuckled and put her arm around Mea. She pulled her close. Their skin touched, and Mea could feel how muscular her friend was but also how soft. "Shitty philosophies have never kept parents from their kids," Tath said. She smacked Mea's backside. "You want to see her, we'll go. Until then, bring those legs across the street and get some action. It'll make you forget about her for a minute."
A part of Mea wanted to rip her clothes off and change. Or, more accurately, rip her and Tath's clothes off before pushing them both onto the bed and seeing if her friend was as good as her boasts. Yet, she hesitated as her training had taught her to do. She was a Navigator and with that came the responsibility to consider the consequences of her actions. For example, the last time she had tolerated sex with a human, a man admittedly, it had ended with his head crushed between her legs in her moment of ecstasy. Like most men, he had not listened when she had told him to pull out and let her finish. Mea did not know if Tath's sexual fearlessness and hubris would allow her to be any different and submit to Mea's requests in the bedroom.
"I'd like to," Mea said, being honest for the first time. "I simply can't."
Tath shrugged as she pulled on an azure T-shirt that was sufficiently fitting in the shoulders but had been hacked across the bottom so it exposed her midriff. "Change your damn mind and all that," Tath said as she kicked her legs through a long white skirt. "I'll be the fake punk rocker in the corner pretending to care about their shitty cover band."
"Who do you think they'll play?" Mea asked, hoping to keep Tath in the room a little longer.
"Salvo Stores? Swim of the Platypus? I don't fucking care. Anything that gets my mind off this Navigator bullshit is worth it. They're fucking fairytales. Otherwise, what? You're telling me there are beings on Earth who can squeeze through a wormhole and start their lives anew whenever the mood strikes? And they come here, to this broken-ass planet, to live? To sell us magi-help texts like Pordan Jeterson and his eleven tips for practicing the occult bullshit? What the fuck does eating oysters have to do with the price of talismans? You're swearing that he's the real universe-balancing deal?"
"I saved one," Mea weakly added.
"See, that's the ultimate turd on top of the pile. It's got to be true, right? If Kekeriwai's real, and not a bogeyman my parent's cooked up to frighten me, then maybe they do exist. Maybe gods and Turieans as well. Fuck. And they all sit up in their aria-filled chambers and watch us burn." Tath picked up her purse, N-Comm, and key to the room. "I liked it yesterday when they didn't."
Tath shifted her focus to her N-Comm. It was not a standard-issue Grinner communicator and made that very clear with its larger size and bumblebee-yellow case. It peeked over Tath's palm when she held it and—unlike regular comms—showed no owner identification information when powered off. Mea assumed Tath had procured it from one of the many less-respectable sellers they had visited over the years. Privacy, in their business, could mean the difference between life and death.
Tath placed her thumb in the middle of the screen and waited for it to confirm her identity. Once done, she opened the chat app and started to write a message to Agra to say she was heading to the bar across the street. As it was a Grinner communicator, the message was comprised entirely of pictures and icons. No words were allowed. "What's your take on gods and Turieans?" Tath asked, still looking at the screen. "I've blown my load."
"You used to think mutants were easily disposable freaks until you met me," Mea replied, wishing to avoid an answer that might allude to her true heritage.
"I was twenty-one. Cut me a ball gown of slack." Tath finished her message and slid the N-Comm and key into her purse. "I don't know. We got our asses handed to us today. If those beings are really out there, I want fuck-all to do with them. We're low-effort vibrators for their power hole." Tath picked up her cane. "It's been a fucked-up day, M. Let's go make the last part normal. At least as normal as it can be."
Mea sat on the bed and started to take off her shoes. "This is normal. I promise to pretend to be sleeping if you bring someone back."
Tath raised her cane. "Why pretend? Why not join in? No guy I've ever met has suddenly clutched his morals because another bangable woman starts fondling his balls." She shook her head. "Think about it." And with that, Tath was gone and Mea felt the emptiness in her chest return.
She looked at her bag of books and glared at them. Unless she could take them back to her universe, they would forever stay words on paper—predictable and known. No matter how many times she re-read their pages, they would not change and would only continue to evoke the same feelings and emotions they had done on her first reading. Tath … Tath was living ink. She etched her story everywhere and anywhere she went. At least that's what Mea wanted to believe. She was not attracted to a human; she was attracted to a goddess.
Mea plodded into the en-suite and began to fill the bath. As the water rose, she stared blankly at it. Her reflection looked back. It was not a perfect copy as it was slightly distorted due to the light, but it showed her plucked eyebrows, black rectangular glasses and diamond face. It winked at her.
"I'm not in the mood," she said to Namet, her humanity counselor.
"Then you shouldn't be mopey and spacing out near still water." Namet blew at a lock of hair that was resting on her cheek. "You already know what I'm going to say."
"I can't keep burying my feelings forever."
Namet made a wry face and huffed at the strands again. Mea felt her reflection's breath flutter across her skin. "I was honest," Mea said.
"And the pub's still open," Namet countered. "But that's not what you want to talk about."
Mea sat on the toilet seat. "No, it's not. It's about Steh. He over-exerted himself today. There was no way of hiding it."
"Then tell them," Namet counselled. "Tell them that you'd rather let the Milky Way sizzle to a crisp than eliminate the threat and keep trillions safe."
"I'll never let him go that far," Mea replied.
"The Council hasn't changed its assessment, Meagh. He's a danger to all of your assigned universe's existence, and one day you'll be too distracted to stop him."
Mea swallowed and let the rage surge up and down her body. She could feel her eyes change from emerald to yellow and then back again. "So, you won't let me come home?"
"I wouldn't appear in a half-clean tub to tell you good news."
"And if I kill him?"
"After being cursed by Ristie, it's the Council's opinion you've suffered enough."
"Is that Mom's opinion?"
Namet went quiet. She blew at her hair once more. "She's on the Council."
"Then you can tell her I'm thinking about it," Mea replied.
Namet said nothing but disappeared with the news. Normally, Mea would have agreed to some minor change in her lifestyle, and then promptly ignored her humanity counselor's advice—anything to get rid of Namet and continue pretending she had made the right choice saving Steh all those years ago. However, after the last few days and her conversation with Tath, Mea had found the strength to be honest with herself: she did not belong on Earth. She needed to go home and see her mom and sisters. She belonged with her kind, not with a group of misfits in denial about Turieans and perpetual galaxy theory.
And if she timed it right, she would return
a heroine, not a pariah. Holding the Hemi ngèr novels aloft, she would be welcomed back as a champion for the Navigator cause. Forever she would be referred to as Meagh the Indefatigable, a traveler who had brought back one of the extinct series.
More so than the glory, Mea wanted to touch Hemi ngèr when the Navigator Council summoned her from the Canyon of Creation. She longed to be the first to lay with Hemi, to run her hands through the series' protagonist's hair and devour the woman's body as Tymph, Hemi's occasional lover, had done in all the books.
Mea felt a tinge of guilt about desiring two lovers at once: Tath and Hemi. If she brought them together, would they be willing to partner up to satisfy every need she had? Could the three of them become friends and transverse the universes together—bound for all eternity in mutual love and adoration?
The Council was correct: a day was coming, possibly soon, when Mea would no longer be able to stop Steh from exploding. If he had been able to control the Punch … if he could have found a way to restrain the leakage, her hand would not have been forced. It was not her fault she had to extinguish his spiritual essence. After all, she had gifted him ten more years of life. It was simply that her options had run out, and Steh had to die. All that was left to decide was if she removed him before or after finding the final Hemi ngèr novel, The Lascivious Consecration.
Mon, 20 Oct 65 P.C.T., 2:07pm: Junko [Channel 37A4R]
Your deductive skills are what makes you a great lover. But, no, you're not.
It's always the same problem: you keep getting caught.
2:35pm: Azra [P. Watcher 18034568X]
Well, you disappeared on me last mission.