“I really don’t know, Jet,” he said, sighing. “I mean it. But he’s fighting a war. He can’t tell me everything. He can’t tell you everything, either...and I know sometimes he presents no-win choices and plans for any contingency.”
Jet remained silent, folding her arms in front of her, but Anaze’s words had infuriated her. In fact, they’d probably made her more angry than anything he’d said to her since he dragged her out of the Palace that first night to tell her he’d arranged for her to be captured by the culler ship.
“You are not concentrating again!” Alice snapped, bringing Jet’s mind back to the present. “You nervous? Is that what your problem is?”
On anyone else, the question might have sounded sympathetic, even concerned.
On Alice, it sounded closer to a full-fledged insult.
“...You be a lot more nervous once you get in front of those cameras and real, live weapons being flung at your head...ready to cut off your arms at the shoulder...!”
Once again, Jet wanted to ask Alice where she was from, but again, the woman held her hand up in the signal that they would re-start the program from the beginning.
Just then, Laksri showed up, standing against the observation wall in the gap between the small mountains of fake scenery. Jet found herself looking around at the topography, maybe to avoid catching Laksri’s gaze, and as she did, a light bulb went off in her head.
Dead in the absence of the virtual reality signal, the landscape had a near-symmetry to it, an almost inescapable logic. How had she failed to see it before?
Before Alice could finish signalling the program to begin, Jet blurted, “Wait. Is the terrain the same? In the real version...is it exactly like this? Or different?”
Alice gave her a shrewd look, her eyes shifting sideways.
“Why you ask me that?”
Jet shrugged, but her eyes continued to scan the room, memorizing its contours. “Well,” she said finally, once she was fairly sure she had the map in her head. “If I could keep my bearings, I would know the real boundaries of the arena...along with all of the obstacles, and...”
Alice chuckled, and Jet fell silent.
“Smart mammal,” Alice said. “I knew there was a brain up there somewhere,” she added, tapping Jet’s head with her knuckles. “You think you can keep all that in your head and still manage to not get yourself dead with spears and whatever else?”
“I don’t know,” Jet replied honestly. “But it can’t be much different than memorizing cave routes in the dark, right?”
Hands on her hips, Jet glanced at Laksri, almost without her willing her eyes in that direction. The Nirreth was staring at her, too, and something about the look in his dark eyes brought a faint flutter to her belly and chest. Shoving the feeling down angrily, Jet looked back at Alice, pursing her lips.
“...I could try it, right?” she said.
The woman nodded, her eyes once more shrewd.
That time, when Alice signalled the simulation to start, Jet’s mind let go of everything, and everyone. She let go of Alice herself...of Laksri...of Ogli and his temper tantrum earlier that day...of Richter and his scheming...of Anaze, who had once been her best friend, the person she’d trusted above everyone, even her own family.
Instead, she focused on the map in her mind of the arena’s terrain.
“Go!” Alice commanded.
Before the word finished echoing in the long space, the landscape burst into life around Jet’s eyes and ears and even under her feet. A high, snowy mountain appeared, stretching above the entrance to an ancient-looking temple in the shape of a human’s sandblasted, bare skull. Giant Nirreth, twice the size of those in the room she’d just left, leapt out of the opening of the skull’s mouth, the skins of prehistoric lizards hanging on their broad, muscular shoulders, their long fingers gripping clubs with sharp flint knives dug into the ends.
Jet watched warily as they came closer, but instead of trying to figure out which of these was a real Nirreth and which a virtual projection, as she normally would, her mind focused on the map of the cave’s contours beyond what she could see in the simulation itself.
That time, when she moved, she knew exactly where she leapt.
Despite Alice’s skepticism, she even managed to hold onto that awareness when the weapons started flying at her head.
“That was different,” Laksri said, as Jet exited from the changing rooms. He looked at her, appraisal in his flecked eyes. “It is different, yes? What you do?”
“What did I do,” Jet corrected without thinking. Still, she smiled as she said it, still glowing a bit from Alice’s praise, the first real praise she’d received since she started the training.
Anyway, those words were probably the most friendly and casual Laksri had spoken to her since their stinging night a few weeks back.
“What did you do?” Laksri said carefully.
Jet smiled in spite of herself. She could almost see him trying to memorize the words. He’d been trying harder with English lately...maybe because Jet was more likely to point things out and correct him than Richter.
No surprise there, really.
It was still strange being around the tall Nirreth. Nothing had happened between the two of them since that night, but Anaze still slept in Laksri’s quarters along with Jet, and in Laksri’s bed, along with Jet. Jet felt a little bad that Laksri had lost his bed in this whole arrangement...at least she did until she remembered that this had never been her idea in the first place.
Even so, well after the venom and lingering empathy and whatever else had worn off, it had been difficult for Jet to stay as angry at Laksri as she would have liked.
For one thing, Laksri himself had been openly apologetic from the first time they’d spoken afterwards...which happened to be pretty much the only time they’d spoken alone about anything since. They’d been in the same exact hallway as where they stood now, in fact, only Laksri pulled Jet into one of the nearby cubicles before she could speak.
Again, before she could collect her thoughts, he had launched into a formal request for her forgiveness for his, as he put it, “lack of judgment and self-control.”
Jet ended up stuttering out some kind of acceptance of his apology, and that had pretty much been the end of the conversation. Laksri opened the cubicle doors for her, bowing a little, and offered to take her to dinner. It hadn’t come up between them since. That had been a full day after she woke up in the room to find him missing, so she had to assume that he’d been with the Royals all that time, and that he’d managed to come out of it without being thrown in jail, assassinated, or being forced to hand her over to Ogli.
Even so, his manner around her continued to be courteous to the point of stand-offish.
Looking up at him now, she found herself thinking about what Tyra had said, about Laksri being ‘hot,’ and also about the fact that he might be able to help her in the Rings.
Ignoring his previous question, she said, “Did you and your pal arrange a human coach for me? To keep me from having a Nirreth one, like would normally happen?”
Laksri’s eyes registered a faint surprise.
“...Because that’s the rumor,” Jet added, her voice more accusing that time. “That you did it. That you paid off someone on the Board. Maybe offered a good rate on some long-shot bets on me...?”
Laksri’s skin seemed to change shades slightly, growing a bit darker.
“Yes,” he said finally.
At her silence, his voice shifted to a more subdued tone.
“It is normal, for the trainers to sting,” he explained. “To take their charges as mates.”
“But wouldn’t that have given me a huge advantage?” Jet pressed. “In terms of learning the courses? Training me in how to beat the arena? Or even just nailing down the million or so rules, for that matter...?”
Laksri’s face grew inscrutable.
“Do you know the Rings, Laksri?” Jet pressed again, harder that time. “I’ve only got a few more days, but
I thought...” She trailed, but she could see from Laksri’s eyes that he knew where she was going with this. “...Well,” she said, feeling her cheeks warm slightly. “I could use the help, is all I’m saying. I heard today that more contestants get killed by the judges after the first fight than any other. I figure I need anything that might give me an edge, right? Impress them well enough that they might think I’d be good to keep around? Especially since they’re already going to be biased towards me for having a human trainer...”
Laksri continued to look at her, frowning slightly.
Jet got the feeling he was hiding a fair bit of his reaction, though, at least on his face, since his tail was flicking around behind him in slightly more predatory arcs. After another, longer pause, Laksri shrugged, his eyes fixed studiously on the door behind her, as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. He exhaled in a longish purr.
“What you say...it is true,” he admitted. “The first match, it is very significant.” He sounded out the word carefully, glancing at her. “I have been somewhat...concerned. About this. It is partly why I come here. It is partly why I am trying to assess, realistically, how you might fare in these Rings...what I might do to help.”
“So you’ll help me then?” Jet said, feeling her shoulders relax.
He gave her a sharper look. “We did not do so good with this before,” he reminded her, his voice warning. Giving one of those slightly trilling sighs, he made a gesture with his hands that Jet couldn’t easily interpret.
“...Still,” he added, his voice more business-like. “Richter has said, I have been realizing...” He paused, as if suddenly remembering where they were. “...That we should probably be seen again, since it must be clear to the Royals that you are still attached...”
Jet reddened at this, angered a little by the warmth that crept up her neck to her face. The fact that they’d discussed this without her didn’t help.
Still, she kept her voice as business-like as his had been.
“Sure,” she said. “Whatever. So maybe it can serve both purposes, you mean?”
“I am thinking that,” Laksri said slowly. “...Yes.”
Once again, Jet couldn’t help noticing that his English really was improving. At the same time, she knew she was likely distracting herself from the real issue here.
“So...do you know much about the Rings?” Jet said, her voice a bit more pointed that time.
After a faint pause, Laksri made another of those head-inclining nods.
“I do,” he conceded. Lower, he added, after glancing up and down the corridors, “...I was in the Rings, once.”
“You were?” She stared at him in surprise. “When?”
Again, his expression grew cagey. He glanced around where they stood a second time, as if already fearing he had said too much. Then he motioned politely down the hall, in the direction of the residential segments, and his room.
“Perhaps we should eat first?” he said politely. “We can come back for training later, do you not think? When the area is not occupied...it will be easier for you to concentrate.”
Hearing the warning woven into his words, Jet only nodded, once again wishing she had the faintest idea of Richter’s and Laksri’s actual game plan.
She’d promised Anaze when all of this started that she could follow orders, and even go along without knowing anything, as long as they didn’t do anything that made her question them too deeply. She wouldn’t kill anyone, for example...not without a damned good reason. She also wouldn’t do anything to betray the skag towns, much less bring harm to her own family. They’d jerked her around some, but Jet had to assume Anaze communicated her message to his father, because she definitely got the impression that he was being more open with her than was usual for him, in spite of anything.
Even so, being so far in the dark was maddening.
She understood the need for them to retain some protectiveness around the final plan, and knew she was in a potentially compromised position as a possession of the Royals themselves. Even so, she had no idea what their real endgame entailed, other than the more abstract concept of “freedom,” both for the common, non-royal Nirreth, and for humans. But for all Jet knew, freedom could mean a planet with Richter in charge (she shuddered at the thought), or one where Laksri’s people had elections instead of a king, and attempted to rule over the colonial planets more benignly...say with integrated Green Zones, or with Green Zones made especially for humans, at least until the planet was truly livable once again.
Jet found herself thinking about all of this again, all the way back to Laksri’s room, maybe at least partly to avoid thinking about the other, meaning her and Laksri’s proposed plan for the evening. In any case, they must have been talking longer than Jet realized...or else her training ran longer than usual...because when they returned to the room, she saw Anaze stare pointedly at the wall clock in the main living area, right before he motioned towards a table laden with food, most of it the human-compatible variety.
“I ordered,” he said, blunt, without getting up from his seat.
It struck Jet suddenly that Anaze had made sure that food was waiting for her every time she’d left Rings training for the past two weeks.
She found herself wondering if he’d been trying to head off another of those dinners where stung Jet was paraded around on display as Laksri’s possession, or ‘trinket’ as Richter put it. Jet honestly didn’t know if the feeling that possibility evoked in her was closer to appreciation or irritation...maybe because she couldn’t fully make out Anaze’s true motives in this whole mess either. Anaze and Laksri already circled one another like the mangy, stray dogs that fought over territory around skag town in Vancouver. Only the dogs had to fight for every scrap to eat and every piece of dirt to sleep on...so those fights, Jet actually understood.
With Anaze and Laksri, she had less sympathy.
Laksri was slightly more subtle than Anaze, in terms of his hostility...but only slightly. He had a tendency to bare his teeth perceptibly at Anaze when the human tried to insert himself between Laksri and Jet, and also whenever Anaze made a point of announcing when he was off to bed, usually with a somewhat proprietary nudge for Jet to do the same.
So far, Jet had managed not to blow up at either of them, but only by a small margin.
This time, when Anaze gave her a hard look, the faintest hint of accusation in his eyes at their lateness, Jet only rolled her eyes. She found herself tempted to grab Laksri’s tail though, or put her arm around him, just to get Anaze to back off...or maybe to get him to yell at her openly at least, and stop being so passive aggressive. She’d already had to elbow him off her a few times when she woke up in the middle of the night, although he claimed he’d put his arms around her in sleep, not on purpose.
She’d also said snide things to him a few times, mostly while they were getting ready for sleep, but her words seemed to go through Anaze as though she hadn’t spoken.
She supposed he thought he was protecting her...or told himself he was, anyway...but it still irritated her. It irritated her more, of course, because she’d far rather that someone told what was really going on than have any one of them ‘protecting’ her––especially since every one of them seemed more than willing to throw her under the bus when push came to shove.
After all, it would be her risking her butt in the Rings in four days.
Not Anaze, and not Laksri. Certainly not Richter himself.
Sitting on one of the standalone chairs, mainly so she wouldn’t be directly next to either Laksri or Anaze, Jet glanced at both of them before picking up a glass of cold apple juice from the greenhouse and chugging it down.
The apple juice at the Palace tasted like pure nectar; they chilled the amber-colored, sweet-smelling liquid to the perfect temperature, and seemed to use only the finest of apples for its creation. She’d grown almost addicted to the stuff, especially right after training, and would give just about anything to be able to share it with her m
other and her brother, and some of her other friends back at the skag pit. It was better than anything she’d ever eaten or drank growing up, for as far back as she could remember.
Grabbing what looked like a chicken sandwich off the middle tray, she placed it on her plate and began loading up her dish with steamed vegetables spiced lightly and glazed with some kind of lemon-wine butter.
By the time Jet got her plate full, the other two had sat down as well.
Jet knew from Anaze that each of their basic dietary habits and preferences had already been documented somehow by the kitchen, and that they continually updated that information following every meal, based on how each item performed in their system.
Therefore, she knew that the long, dark-red slab of meat with the charred edges and the strange-looking flower plant with the purple bulbs and green, noodle-like things all belonged to Laksri....just like she knew that the second chicken sandwich, the one that had cheese in it and red peppers, as well as the other half of the vegetable dish, belonged to Anaze.
Anaze got some kind of blood-red juice instead of apple, and Laksri had his usual Nirreth drink, what he jokingly referred to as ‘lizard beer.’ Jet had noticed he had a tendency to leave out the ‘skin’ part when using the derogatory name for Nirreth; it might have been even funnier if Anaze hadn’t been such a killjoy whenever Jet laughed at one of Laksri’s jokes.
Even so, she glanced at Laksri’s meal and gave him a small smile. Holding up her hands in the shape of rough claws, she growled at him, pawing the air.
Laksri looked at her, his eyes and face completely blank...
Then he burst out in the most real-sounding laugh she’d heard from him since that night a few weeks earlier. It came out as a low rumble, down in his chest, ending in a loud snort and more of those rumbles. Jet found herself laughing as well, almost without meaning to, but when she glanced at Anaze, his face was stony as he looked between them.
“What?” he said finally.
Jet pointed at Laksri’s plate, still smiling. “He’s eating dinosaur.”
“Lots of Nirreth do that,” Anaze said coldly, still looking between them almost angrily. “So what? Do you have to act like a kid about everything, Jet?”
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 25