“Max.”
“You know it’s true, Kal. Show me the bike, Blue. I’ve been saving for one, but they are impossible to get your hands on in good condition.”
They ambled out the front door with Howl yipping excitedly, leaving Kali alone and surly in the hallway. She headed to the kitchen and on the way unpacked a new suspension unit from the utility room. Kali set the palm-sized disk on one of the pedestals standing in a divot in the corridor wall, and locked it in. Holding the flowers above the silver unit, she slid a finger over the glass button. A shimmering beam of blue light collided with the ceiling. Letting go of the flowers, Kali keyed in they were from Blue to her and admired them, warmed he had bought them for her.
She summoned Howl back into the house and locked up.
Max punched her a wave and jogged across the street to his house. From his doorway, he pointed at Blue and motioned “I’m watching you,” with two fingers.
The front door shut slowly, Max kept them in sight the whole time.
Kali smiled brightly. “Ready to take off?”
“He is protective of you.”
“So?”
“Were you honest with me about your feelings for each other? The way you act–” Kali turned and stomped back to her front door. Blue tried to grab her hand, misjudged the violent swing of her arm, and missed. “Wait.”
“No. I’m not into this. It’s a shame, but you’re jealous over nothing, so we’re done.”
Blue used his long-legged stride to overtake her and block the door. “I apologize.” She tried to step around him, but he moved with her. “Honesty isn’t appreciated?”
“The problem isn’t mine.” Kali scrunched her face up. “Don’t try and make out like it is.”
“Then why react like this to a simple observation?”
Exasperated, she fisted a hand at his collar and moved him aside. “Max never lets a girl disrespect me when they question my place in his life. That’s why we left so suddenly last night. Christabella got jealous. Not that I’m surprised, I did warn him to go by himself. I’ll not betray him by letting you do the same as she tried to.”
“Clarifying you’re not in love with Max is a betrayal to him?”
“Don’t twist my words. I told you what was between us, and you obviously don’t accept that.” She shook him and he swayed. “I’m not becoming more attached to you if you’re going to behave this way. There would be no point.”
“Maybe there isn’t. Haven’t made it off the curb, and it’s already clear you’ll always take his side over mine. I understand. You’ve been together a long time.”
“We’ve been friends since we were old enough to crawl, but what you’re saying isn’t true.” Her eyes narrowed. “There are things we disagree on.”
“Like?”
Kali could have thrown in his face that Max was firmly against this date because of their difference in social standing, and that she had defended him, but that would be mean. She wasn’t into mean. “This conversation is stupid. Max will always be by my side. And yes, I do choose him if this is what I can expect from you.” She stared him dead in the eye, because she would not be repeating herself. This was the second argument she’d gotten into within the hour and she was not impressed. “You can’t be that into me if you misinterpret protectiveness from a friend as something else … if it makes you pull away before we start getting closer.”
She let him go and swiped her OmniLock to go back inside.
Blue crossed his arms over his chest, looked down and away.
The stab of jealousy he’d felt when he saw Max pull Kali close, so casual in his affection because he did it all the time, grew ugly when Max kept mentioning how close they were. He suspected her friend was irritated she was interested in him. Blue wanted Kali badly, and the thought she secretly held more than familial love for Max turned him stony. He had enough complications in his life then to add a female who didn’t return his strong feelings. He should have known she’d refuse to put up with his brooding. Her directness was one of the things that attracted him.
When Blue’s eyes lifted, they smouldered, because he began to think of other things he liked, like how she tasted when she kissed him.
“I want to explore you, this thing we have. Now I have the chance, I want nothing in the way.” Blue hesitated. “Wanted you a long time. My silence wasn’t bred of disinterest.”
Kali opened the door and sighed as she did her thing. “I don’t like games when it comes to emotion. There is too much of the fake to deal with already. I want something real.”
“My heart races at the sight of you. How real is that?”
She pulled the door closed for the last time. Mimicking Blue, Kali leaned back on her heel. Her body flushed with heat at the idea of him exploring her, but she kept her guard up. “You’ve felt this all that time?”
His jaw worked. “Was afraid if you saw my face you’d react like everyone else.”
After seeing two distinct reactions, attraction and revulsion, she didn’t ask for an elaboration.
Was she was being played? Some males were clever like that. They confused you until you didn’t realise your man wasn’t brooding, or complicated, he was just an asshole.
Making a small noise, she stepped closer, and peered into his face. “You will respect me, as I will you. No more tortured, jealous behaviour. It’s attractive for five minutes then gets old. If you’re unsure of me, ask, and accept what I say. Lying isn’t a habit of mine. Understand?”
Blue leaned in, the faintest of smiles curving his lips. “Absolutely.” He slipped his hand between them palm up. “Start again?”
Mad to be so fiendishly enamoured, Kali ignored his hand and slung a leg over the FloBi. Slipping on a black helmet, she slammed the visor down to obscure her eyes. She was charmed instead of wary, but it didn’t mean he should know that.
Kali leaned back; fidgety hands gripped the seat as she waited.
Blue grinned.
11.
Igor was bored. The trance music pumped from the eight-foot speakers into a crowded room stuffed with sweaty bodies waving glow sticks and sucking shots of vodka from the navels of working girls.
Hands crossed over his butch chest, Igor was the youngest bouncer at the underground club, and at six foot eight with over two hundred and thirty five pounds of solid muscle he was the one nobody messed with either.
His white-blonde hair was shaved close to his head, and his cold eyes raked down possible troublemakers. Those who fell under his gaze quivered in fear, and inched past as if he were poisonous. His blank expression and absolute stillness made people think he was brawn, and no brain, but they would be wrong.
There were things in Igor’s mind the finest minds in the galaxy struggled to comprehend.
He wasn’t sure how he came to be like this. He wanted nothing more than to blend in with his brethren, to drink illegally fermented alcohol, and sleep with fun girls, but his mind would not allow him that freedom.
He was pushed to learn, compelled to seek knowledge. At least he had been, the urge had stopped. Igor was relieved, because he no longer felt as if something was right around the corner. Whatever he’d been waiting for had turned that corner.
“I needs take piss,” he drawled to his comrade in his native tongue.
It was an illegal language, the Alliance recognised one language, but with so may Colds this quadrant the mother tongue was spoken freely. The words passed from generation to generation, to keep something of their culture alive. His ancestors had been forced to accept Treaty10, and forgo political and cultural independence, but the people did so with great reluctance.
His comrade nodded his approval and adjusted his positioning.
Igor walked through the surging club, not bothering to shoulder people out the way; they bounced off him like water from a rock. Reaching the back exit, the door slid open, and he stepped into the cool night.
He soaked up the wild woods, pulling his snood to cover his ches
t and head from the extreme cold. He stamped his booted feet and tugged on fingerless gloves. The nightclub was located deep in the OutRim, making it easy to dispose of the bodies of those who could not handle their narcotics.
He sensed the presence of his companion and held out his hand.
The leopard padded from the shadows to meet him, crushing snow beneath her paws. He had seen those delicate claws rip the flesh from a man’s back with nothing but a listless swipe. A long scar ran across her sleekly feline face and cut through her right eye, now a milky, sightless orb. She blinked; her good eye winked like a topaz star. Her thick coat, heavier and wilder than a normal leopard, was brilliant white and spotted with deep brown rosettes.
His fingers splayed over her head and rubbed affectionately. She had been with him for many years. “Come, Natalya. Walk with me.”
He rolled his shoulders and strode into the trees, knowing she would always follow at his side, and so mindful of where his boots fell.
The blue dark was beautiful to Igor. He wished he’d been born feral, a baby left to fend for itself in the wild. To be raised by wolves, or bears, and Mother Nature would have crafted him into an even stronger warrior than he was now. He sighed, a warrior without purpose.
He stopped and smiled at a night flower blooming by his ankle. Igor crouched in the black soil to brush calloused fingers over the soft purple petals. He inhaled the delicate scent the flower released. An innate peace that only came when nature surrounded him stole through his hulking body.
Natalya lay beside him and purred as he ran his hand down her spine.
They stayed like this for some time until Natalya’s tail thumped the ground and she tensed. Rolling onto all fours, she hissed. Her ears lowered along with her body until she was crouched, ready to attack.
Igor expanded the boundaries of his mind, seeking an intruder in the dark.
He sensed nothing.
“Natalya?”
Red light shot from the sky and haloed him, trapping him, a crushing pressure that froze him on the spot.
He lost time, drifting in a void.
The next time Igor focused, there were bright lights overhead. A tinkling pinged in his ears, and the bitter smell of minerals prickled his nose.
Fuzzy, indistinct shapes stood over him with their backs to the light. He couldn’t work out if the humanoids limbs appeared overly thin and pale because of his perspective, or because they were formed that way.
It was cold. That was because he was naked. His back pressed into a rail thin chair in a reclined position. There were thick cuffs around his neck, ankles, and wrists. Thicker bands secured his hips and chest.
Had someone found out what he could do and taken him to experiment?
Where was his Natalya? Was she safe? Would these beings harm her?
Goosebumps broke out over his skin, and Igor tried to send out a sweep of psychic power to assess the room. He was met with a blockade. It was like trying to push his body through solid concrete.
He couldn’t send power, but he could receive, and he picked up hundreds of telepathic touches happening all around him. The purity of the connection and its vastness was overwhelming.
Thousands of minds screamed for help.
Instead of being swept up into the hysteria, tempting as it was, he looked deeper, burrowing under the mindless shrieks until he found them, the ones that held him, calmly sending and receiving thoughts. The transition was like swimming from turbulent rapids into a placid lake.
The tinkling noise continued in the background, but a louder mechanical whirling jerked him back into his mind.
Gleaming brightly, a metal arm swooped from overhead, and hovered in front of his face. Igor just made out a black dot, moving closer. He began to struggle in earnest. His head was immobilized, strapped with metal. His body pinned by a heavy weight. The needle moved closer to his eyeball, the black dot got closer and closer. Afraid he’d injure himself, he held his eye still and felt the give of his cornea as it bent back then popped forward. The needle punctured his anterior chamber and drilled through his pupil.
The black dot retreated and popped out of his eye, the tip glistening with residue, and the metal arm swung away.
Igor’s chest heaved and his stomach muscles cramped, the ridges of his abs sharply defined as they tightened. His eyeballs wheeled as he tried to see if anything else was coming.
Six needles replaced the first and whirled forward with frightening intent. One headed for his throat, another to his torso. The other needles were out of his line of sight.
He was wrenched to the side, his cheek pressed into the cold metal headrest of the chair.
Dozens of points of pressure burned over his body, the most frightening at the base of his skull.
Rows upon rows upon rows of people had needles being stuck into the back of their heads, and into their bodies. Igor shook. Blood ran in a thick rivulet down his back and dripped onto the floor. The needle breeched the base of his own skull the same time another did the girl strapped down in front of him.
Pain scratched his mind. They tried to get in. He fought the invasion of his mind with everything he had. He was strong. A warrior. The bombardment of his senses amplified until his ears and nose bled. Igor ground his teeth together until he couldn’t stand it any longer. His body convulsed from the pain. Eyes rolling into the back of his head he roared.
Millions of voices rushed in and told him things that couldn’t possibly be true.
Then silence.
12.
Laughing, Kali bit Blue’s finger instead of the candied apple he dangled overhead. The apple’s texture was firm and crunchy, the taste crisp, and tart. She was draped over his lap, and while her butt was on the floor, her legs and arms were all over him.
He chuckled. “Do you bite people often?”
“Only when they withhold my food.”
She grabbed the apple and nibbled on the segment he’d cut from the whole. Kali offered him the other half, and he parted his lips. Sliding it onto his tongue, smiling when he flashed his sharp teeth in a wicked grin, she studied him.
They created cosmic chemistry. Being with him was easy, but the sexual tension had her on edge.
“Do you hand feed girls often? Charm them with your odd ways and ingenious trysting locations?” She motioned to the half eaten supper scattered around them on the blanket. They were in a metal scrap yard, an old, abandoned one judging by the thick layer of grass and weeds that covered everything. Blue had led her to a clearing in the middle and showed her a wonderful view of the starry sky. Skyscrapers were darker shadows with twinkling lights in the distance. Large rusted vehicles were overturned onto their sides, and other bits of unidentifiable junk sunken into the ground with small bushes and plants growing through open doors and glassless windows.
It was all grassy green, grunge brown and discoloured gray. A cooling breeze brought the heavy smell of earth, remixed with a metallic tang. The fusion was mysteriously endearing. Nature had tried to reclaim the heap since it was not allowed to flourish anywhere else.
Kali wasn’t worried about radioactive waste. She’d seen a sign that declared the ten square mile radius as a SafeZone.
Blue had even pointed out the beginning of the OutRim, and that had given her a thrill.
“You did a great job here,” she pushed when he only blinked at her. “I’m quite wooed.”
“I searched the IntraWave on courtship. I have a list in my head.”
She reached for another segment of apple, but Blue beat her to it. They had a bit of a wrestle until she gave in and ate from his fingertips. The hard sugar coating stuck on her lip, and she licked it clean.
“I’m curious.” Kali fed him another piece of dessert. “What else is on this list?” He was quiet for such a long time she wondered if she had embarrassed him. She touched his jaw, smiled when his prism-like gaze wandered to her. “You spaced out.”
Blue’s fingers slid across hers. “I like you,” he said qui
etly. His brows plunged together as a dark look came into his eyes. “I researched all day. The ritual of HiCaste and what is expected.”
“You look concerned.”
He gave her a considering look. “You aren’t.”
“Should I be?”
“Someone like you wouldn’t be.”
“What do you mean someone like me?”
Blue tipped his chin. “HiCaste.”
“So I’m HiCaste. Why would us having a relationship not worry me?” Kali was getting flustered. “Wait. Why am I worried in the first place?”
“Are you genuinely unaware of what people would say? Especially if they saw us like this.” Blue brought her hand up in his. He was spellbound by their difference in skin tone. “You wouldn’t be accused of punching above your weight. You must have noticed the looks we got last night.”
“We’ve had a miscommunication. I don’t judge by birthright or by how much credit someone has in the bank.” Kali slipped her hand from his and placed it on her lap. By reminding her of what was expected of her as a HiCaste female, he’d made her feel awkward. “I don’t expect to be judged by those things either.”
“And genetics?”
“My parents won’t expect a match by genetics alone,” she said confidently. “I’m free to be with whoever I want. I have no marriage contract or betrothal agreement. If I did, I wouldn’t be here. I’m not that kind of girl.”
Blue exhaled slowly. “You are a Loklear.”
“Yes.” She hesitated. Kali was beginning to fear he would stop seeing her if they went too deeply into this, but honesty was necessary, and maybe if he had a better understanding of her origins he wouldn’t worry. “I’m adopted.”
He blinked. “What?”
Blue didn’t socialize in the HiEco circles she did. He wouldn’t understand what an outcast she was. “I didn’t stutter, I was adopted. Not that it matters, or is any of your business. That is why you shouldn’t feel like you’re,” Kali made quotation marks in the air, “punching above your weight.”
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