by D. J. Bodden
“I will stop her, Sophia,” Sathis whispered to the cooling stone. “I will restore you, whatever the cost.”
I CAME BACK TO THE table with the drinks.
“What did you bring me?” Thalia said with a raised eyebrow.
I handed her a tumbler. “Two-year-old corn whiskey aged in charred oak. Where I come from, they call it bourbon.”
“Where I come from,” she said, accepting it with both hands, “they call it Moen’etai. It means a small sunset.”
“That’s pretty,” I said.
She took a sip while I sat. “Are we being subtle again?”
I set my cider down next to my half-full beer stein and leaned toward her so I didn’t have to raise my voice over the crowd. “I do like the sound of your voice, but the word is pretty, too.”
Her eyes flicked to my lips, and a “moen’etai” lit somewhere in my gut. If I’d been a cat, I’d have been purring.
“Thalia? What the hell?”
Thalia and I both sat back and looked at the new arrival. He was Imperial, six foot one, with a strong, square chin and beefy build. His hair was short, black, thick, and curly, in a classic way that suggested he could have posed for Michelangelo, if the sculptor had carved a Goliath to stand opposite his more famous work.
“Thaddeus,” Thalia said, like she’d found something on the bottom of her shoe.
Thad. Of course he had a name like that. I killed my Charm spell, letting my Spirit regenerate back to full at three points per second.
“I brought you here, Thalia,” he continued.
“And I got bored.”
“That’s fucked up,” he said. “What’s the plan, keep changing partners until you’ve had enough to drink?”
The noise level in the Lion’s Tail dropped measurably as the singer paused mid-song and the people nearest us were drawn into the drama. I wondered what Halius would have done, listening to his hero get called a... Never mind, I’d never call a lady what Thad was implying. “Hey, buddy, there’s no—”
He stabbed his finger at me. “You shut your mouth before I break it. I’m having a conversation with my girl.”
Thalia’s eyes glowed, but I moved faster. It was reflexive, the product of hours of repetition in training not just that day, but my whole time in V.G.O.
I opened my mouth and shouted, “Will somebody throw this drunk asshole outside and keep him out?”
I’d been running Charm in the inn for at least two hours, which translated to a 12% increase in the chance of Illusion spells working. The effect exceeded my expectations. Everyone grabbed him. Dozens of hands shot out and hoisted Thad into the air. He bobbed up and down like flotsam on the sea, hollering and struggling, but he was swept toward the door all the same. The door opened. The door closed. End of story.
You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Still no quest update, though. I guess either these guys and gals rocked, or it didn’t count because people would normally do that under the effect of a Suggestion.
Thalia placed her hand on my shoulder. “We seem to have drawn some attention. I have a room upstairs. Shall we continue our conversation there?”
I hesitated for a split second. Thalia saw it and pulled her hand back, and everything was going to snowball into disaster when Sandra almost shouted, “Alan, say yes!” into my ear.
“Yes!” I said, standing up.
Thalia smirked and knocked her glass back before joining me.
The crowd cheered. The music started back up, and the singer sang “How Deep Is Your Love” by Calvin Harris except this time it sounded like a full production version. The crowd parted in front of us as Thalia led me by the hand to the stairs, and I got more pats on the back in that gauntlet than I’d gotten my entire life. It felt like I was there with fifty of my closest friends. The cheering surged as Thalia started up the stairs, and she waved at the crowd. The Accipiter on the stage gave me a wink, and I was surprised to see the rest of the band was sitting this one out, so I wondered where the music was coming from. Then Thalia was pulling me up two flights of stairs to her room.
TWENTY
SANDRA PULLED HER HEADSET off and slid her chair back. “All right, I’m calling it a night.”
“Not staying to watch the fun?”
She made a face. “I’d say let the man have his privacy, but sex sells. Record everything.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Jeff?” she said, yawning.
He turned to face her.
“It’s Sandra. I figure we’ve been through enough together tonight for you to call me by my first name.”
“Cool. Does that mean you’ll change Prince Charming next time he needs a new diaper?”
She grinned. “We’re not that close. I’ll be back in four hours so you can get some sleep.”
“Thanks,” he said, and turned back to the monitors.
Sandra walked through the testing bay toward the parking long. She had a go bag on the back of her bike; old habits died hard. She’d shower, grab something to eat from one of the vending machines, and go sleep on the cot she kept in her office. The hospital beds in Alpha Testing might have been more comfortable, but she wasn’t about to go to sleep alone in a room with a colleague, even if the man was married and scared of her. The best way to avoid misunderstandings was to never give them the opportunity.
Alan had surprised her. She’d always seen him as the quiet guy who’d stand up for himself if pushed but otherwise was happy to fade into the background. She liked that about him; he fixed things without beating his chest about it or demanding credit. What she’d watched on the monitors was a new facet—Alan as a person, maybe, instead of an employee—and she’d liked that too in a chills down her spine and flush in her cheeks kind of way. She’d wished she was Thalia, if only for a moment.
She put the thought aside. She had bigger worries. She needed to get Viridian back up and running for Os-Tech and the U.S. government without jeopardizing her position. They’d gotten some decent footage of Alan getting his ass kicked in training, and the carousing had been acceptable. Some time on the cutting table, along with a disclaimer that the footage was from actual gameplay, would make it great. It would take work, ego massaging, and a few white lies, but they’d get there.
He did have nice eyes, though. She smiled to herself. All work and no play wasn’t why she’d signed up for covert ops.
THALIA PULLED ME INTO the room and closed the door.
Nice room. White stucco walls, sloping ceiling, four-post bed. “So what—”
She grabbed me by the tunic, pushed me against the wall, came up onto her toes, and kissed me. It was a short kiss, her lips to mine and just a flick of her tongue while my hands found her waist, and then she slid away, flushed and smiling. “You were saying?”
“Nope. Not a word.”
She smiled again and moved over to the bed, untying the sash at her waist before throwing it onto the nightstand. She sat on the bed and started taking off her boots. “You going to join me or do you need an invitation?”
“I might like one.”
“Mmm,” she said. “You’re not that pretty.”
“That’s a lie,” I said, taking off my boots.
Thalia watched me from the bed while I tried not to fall over. I suppose I could just have unequipped them from my inventory page, but that felt like it would rob the moment of its necessary awkwardness. “What were you going to ask me, earlier?” she said.
“Do you come here often?” I answered, kicking off the second boot.
She looked me over, her eyes lingering at belt level. “Crossing my fingers.”
I swallowed. God, that voice. I walked over to her and said, “Help me with the shirt?”
She smirked and slid her fingers under the hem, gliding them up my chest and around my raised arms. Her hands were as warm as hot stones. She finished lifting the shirt over my head, and I stepped in and kissed her, pulling her to me. She smiled, her lips against mine. Her
mouth was as cold as ice. I pulled my head back and exhaled, my breath fogging in front of me. “That’s a hell of a thing.”
She grinned.
I gave her a small shove and she landed on the bed, giggling and crawling off to hug one of the pillows, giving me a view of how her pants fit. They fit extremely well. I felt kind of bad about it, actually, having two passengers along for the ride without her knowing it. I just wasn’t sure how I’d explain it without sounding crazy.
<<<>>>
Engage privacy mode: Yes/No?
<<<>>>
I blinked. Yes.
JEFF SAT BACK. HE STILL had the readings from Alan’s sensors, but his video feed was blank and the sound had cut out. “Well, crap. This job just got a lot less interesting.”
I LAY FACING THALIA on the pillows, my hand under her shirt, running my fingers over her ribs. “But what I meant was, what brought you to the bar tonight? I thought you’d be at your own place.”
Thalia made a small, discontented sound and wiggled closer, setting her head on my arm and nuzzling into my chest. “I found out a friend of mine passed away recently,” she said.
I hugged her to me. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged and started stroking my side. “It’s okay. I just needed a day off, away from the Terrace, away from... my other friends. I miss the Legion sometimes. The simplicity of it. I just couldn’t take any more bullshit today, you know?”
I put my chin on top of her head and squeezed her shoulder, gripping and kneading the muscles of her arm from tricep to wrist. “Not really. I don’t have a frame of reference for that, but I’m sorry, and I did get a little bit of a sense of how comforting the Legion can be playing cards with some squad leaders downstairs and training with Halius.”
“You know Halius?” she mumbled. “I like him. He’s always been nice.”
I felt my heart drop. I held the sigh in and double-checked to be sure. “Yeah, he’s nice. Remember that martini I brought you?”
“I hate martinis. You’re lucky I think you’re pretty.” She slid her hand under my waistband, over my hip.
I took her wrist and gently pulled her hand out of my pants. She looked at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, sweetie,” I said. “You were going to tell me why you called your bar Lot’s Terrace.”
“Was I?”
“Yeah.” I set her hand against my chest and hugged her to me.
“It’s an old story. I’m surprised you’ve never heard it. There was a city in the old days that was full of evil. People robbed, hurt, and killed each other every day. But there was one good man who lived there, and his name was Lot.
“One day, Gaia had had enough, so she decided to destroy the city. Tornadoes, earthquakes, fire from the skies, that kind of thing. But Cernunnos decided it wasn’t fair for Lot, so he sent a messenger to warn him of the destruction to come.”
I smiled. My mom had read me this story as a child. “I know this one. He fled with his daughters, but his wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.”
She looked up at me and frowned. “That’s not it at all.”
I kissed her forehead. “What is it then?”
“He told his family to get out of town. Then he warned his neighbors. He went from house to house, street to street. The messenger of Cernunnos pleaded with him to leave, but Lot shouted in the squares and went to see the leaders of the city. He was robbed and beaten, and begged the thieves to flee for their lives. Not many people listened, but a few did, though they were mostly foreigners. When he could do no more, Lot propped himself up against a boulder on a hillside with a skin full of wine and watched the destruction of the city, first by tornadoes, then by earthquakes, then by fire from the skies, until one of the fireballs ended his life. It’s a moral story about what a man owes his family and his State.”
“Hmm,” I said, stroking her back. “It’s not the version I learned, but I like it. I still don’t see why you called your bar that. This is New Viridia, not Gomorrah. It’s on a nice bit of land looking at the Heights.”
She nodded seriously. “What better place to watch the downfall of civilization?”
I smiled at her and stroked her cheek. She rolled over, pulling my arm around her like a blanket and pressing her back into me.
Was I disappointed she was blackout drunk? Yeah. And don’t make me out as some kind of saint; Bad Alan knew I had fifty witnesses who watched her pull me upstairs. Worse Alan knew she probably wouldn’t mind. But Plain Old Alan knows what consent is, NPC or not. It still felt nice to have her pressed against me, to smell her perfume and feel the softness of her hair. It had been a long day. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep.
ALAN’S SYNCH RATE WAS perfect. Must be having the night of his life in there, Jeff thought. He yawned, trying to figure out how he was going to stay awake for the next four hours. Some guys had all the luck.
TWENTY-ONE
I DREAMED OF FLYING again, like I had during character creation. I was fifty feet above the rooftops of New Viridia, the city sliding by beneath me, but I had my eyes up on the stars. I could actually see them, like I’d been able to at Pops’s house, or when I drove toward the Rockies on the weekends. I twisted, looking down at the city, and frowned. The streetlights, oil lamps hung from light poles, were going out one by one.
“Alan!”
I sat up, heart pounding. Where am I? There was a woman’s arm around my waist, a pixie cut of straw-blonde hair buried into my armpit. Did I know her? Had I gotten that drunk?
I took in the sloping roof, the rays of morning light coming in through the narrow window. The Legion. The Lion’s Tail. Thalia. She whimpered in her sleep, and I stroked her shoulder.
“Alan, I need you to do whatever it is you do to get synched again,” Sandra said. “Jeff’s still asleep, and I’m not cleaning you off if you puke.”
She sounded grumpy. Maybe she hadn’t slept well. I was having trouble giving a crap with how bad my headache was. Right. Waking up in V.G.O. sucks. I remember now. I slid out from under Thalia’s arm, trying not to wake her, trying not to fall off the bed onto my face. I took slow, steady breaths while grabbing my tunic from the floor, tossed it into my inventory, and equipped it to avoid having to pull something over my head. I unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway barefoot.
I didn’t drink enough to feel this bad, I thought, making my way down the stairs. My eyes were half closed, and I hugged my arms to my chest.
Spending summers on my grandfather’s farm, my world had extended as far as I could see. Sometimes, that meant the world was a ladybug eating an aphid on a flower stem, and sometimes I could see the sea from the branches of the biggest olive tree at the edge of Pops’s land. With the world pitching and rolling as I reached the first landing, I very much felt like the aphid and tried to make myself small. Hangovers shrink your horizons.
Another set of stairs later, I was back in the common room. There were a few legionaries sleeping the night off on the floor, or with their heads resting on tables. The bartender was polishing a glass, because what else is a bartender going to do at 9 AM until his customers wake up? Jag, the Risi from the card game, was sitting on a stool at the bar, hunched over something. He sat up as I slid in next to him. “Morning.”
“Mmph.”
“Ah,” Jag said. “Want some?” He was holding a small tin cup with a spoon in it.
“What is it?”
“Glorp. It’s a Risi field ration and hangover cure.”
I leaned over. The cup was full of what looked like runny peanut butter. “What’s it made of?”
“Crushed peanuts, honey, and a little salt.”
Yep. Peanut butter. God, the world is strange sometimes. “Thanks, but no.” I looked at the bartender. “Can I just get some bread?”
He set the glass down and put a cloth-covered basket on the bar in front of me. “It’s fresh.”
“How much?”
“On the house. Th
anks for taking care of Thaddeus last night.”
Jag looked over. “That was you, was it?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice job,” he said.
I lifted the cloth and the smell of fresh-baked sourdough filled the air. My mouth watered. “Thanks,” I told the bartender, grabbing one of the rolls. I took a bite, and the warm dough almost melted in my mouth. The food in V.G.O. was almost worth the wake-up. “Mind if I take two?”
“You’d better,” he said with a sly grin.
Well, who was I to spoil his fantasies of what happened last night?
I patted Jag on his very large shoulder and headed upstairs, leaving the Risi to his Glorp cup. I took another bite of bread, focusing on the taste, the feel of the floorboards beneath my feet, and the slight chill in the morning air.
“Can you do something about the black screen?” Sandra asked, gone from grumpy to outright annoyed.
Oh, right. A quick thought summoned the privacy mode prompt, and I deactivated it. “Is that better?” I asked, my mouth full.
“I’m not sure, but I can see,” Sandra said.
I frowned. “Everything okay?”
There was a pause on the line. “Your vitals are stabilizing. How do you feel?”
“Hungover,” I answered. “But food helps.”
“That’s good to know,” she said. I waited for a follow-up. When none came, I put it down to a long night of hopefully keeping me alive, healthy, and clean, and continued my ascent.
I was about to reach for the handle when Thalia opened the door.
We just stared at each other for a second. The light from the window hit her bare shoulder, giving it a soft glow. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she said.
“I brought breakfast,” I said, showing her the second roll.