by Elin Wyn
Many people recognized Vidia as we walked. No one recognized me, but I didn’t expect them to. I was much more of a behind-the-scenes worker.
Vidia stopped and spoke with anyone who wanted to converse with her. I smiled, nodded, and laughed when appropriate, so I looked like a friend, not a bodyguard.
We made our way toward the outer edges of Nyheim where the city had sustained the most damage.
The new buildings going up were stunning. The Puppet Master had advised the construction teams on the best materials. All the new buildings were made with a new type of eco-friendly carbon fiber. Tons of planters already filled with healthy green sprouts lined every available surface.
With a start, I returned my attention back to Vidia. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to become distracted.
“Who will live in these homes?” someone asked her.
“The original owners of the destroyed homes will have the first pick,” Vidia explained. “However, there will be more units than there originally were. Once the original occupants are taken care of, essentially city employees will be housed here.”
“Like you and your friends?”
“For the people who work day in and day out fixing roads, keeping the power connected, and directing projects that will make our city thrive once more,” Vidia answered smoothly.
“What about everyone else who’s lost their homes?”
“There are two more developments just like this one rising up within city limits,” Vidia explained. “We’re using this neighborhood here as a test run, if you will. Ideally, the balcony gardens will grow enough food to sustain each unit and the solar panels will provide an adequate amount of power. Within two years, I want every building on Ankau on its way to being as self-sufficient as these are.”
Her answer satisfied the people around her. As they fell into pleasant conversation, I scanned the surrounding area. Many people approached Vidia, eager to ask questions and talk, but there were many more who didn’t. People hung on the periphery, watching but never approaching.
Some people looked mildly interested. Others looked like they were burning up inside. I locked eyes with a man glaring daggers at the back of Vidia’s head.
He looked away but went right back to staring as soon as I turned my attention somewhere else. It didn’t escape my notice that his arm muscles were so swollen they almost tore his short sleeves.
I tactfully moved Vidia away from the area.
The man followed. He wasn’t trying to hide himself. With each step he took, his eyes never left the back of Vidia’s head. He wasn’t even aware that I was watching his every move.
“Sk’lar,” I murmured into my radio.
“Ma’am.” I fought a smile. Sk’lar had been respectful of my wishes to keep things strictly professional while on the clock. That didn’t mean it wasn’t funny to hear the K’ver who cursed the day I was born when I beat him at pool call me ‘ma’am’.
“Please deploy my alpha team to the location of my comm. I’ll stay in the area until I get confirmation that they’ve arrived.”
“Yes, ma’am. Is there a problem?”
“Not yet. Can you scramble an aerial unit, as well? Put either Tona or Skit in with your pilot. They’re both foaming at the mouth to prove that they aren’t a thorn in my side.”
“Yes, ma’am. Keep me updated, please.”
“Will do.”
I clicked off the radio channel and double checked that the GPS was working properly.
“Is everything okay?” Vidia asked.
“Noticing some suspicious characters,” I replied. “I’ve called in a few extra eyes and ears just to be on the safe side. Don’t worry, they know to keep it low profile.”
“You say that now.” Vidia rolled her eyes.
In the end, my point was proven. Once my alpha team was in place, I asked Vidia to point them out. She couldn’t.
We walked around chatting and checking on the city’s progress until the sun sank below the skyline. I insisted on escorting Vidia back to the apartment she shared with General Rouhr. He was waiting for us in the doorway with a stern expression.
“You couldn’t have kept me more in the loop?” he fussed at Vidia as he ushered her inside. He looked over his shoulder and mouthed ‘thank you’ to me before shutting the door. For a big, scary alien general, he was completely mushy over his mate.
My heart gave a little skip before I returned to business.
“Alpha team, you can stand down,” I said into my radio. My team members signed off, probably happy that their time was their own again.
I wasn’t far from my apartment. When I passed the bar where Sk’lar and I were now regulars, I debated going in for a drink but ultimately walked on. Maybe I’d give Sk’lar a call. I wanted to go over details from the interrogations.
Suddenly, a sharp pain exploded from the back of my head. I stumbled forward, desperate to catch myself on anything. My hands wrapped themselves around a light pole, but that didn’t do much to steady me.
Stars danced in my vision. I couldn’t orient myself. I had no idea where my attacker was or where they’d strike me next. When the second blow came to my ribs, I lost my grip on the pole and staggered.
Damn it.
I took in a shuddering breath and gritted my teeth through the pain. I’d been trained to deal with this.
In front of me was a dark figure. Their face was obscured by a heavy hood. They wore a bulky coat, distorting their frame. When they moved to kick me, I countered. Ordinarily, I would’ve been able to knock them off their feet. Instead, I just made them stumble a bit. I didn’t stop them from coming at me again. This time, I saw the glint of the blade in their hand.
The blow to my head had dulled my response time. I couldn’t dodge completely. Instead, I rotated my body, forcing their knife to miss any vital organs or arteries. I saved my own life, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like hell. I dropped like a heavy sack and lay very still.
Like I hoped, my attacker assumed I was too injured to do anything else. They ran away. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t make out any identifying details.
Once they were far away from me, I carefully grabbed my radio.
“Alpha team, I need an extraction. I’ve been attacked.”
I gave my location and carefully moved myself into a position that would do the least damage to my injury. My attacker had sunk the knife between my rib and my arm.
One side of the blade nicked the skin over my ribs, but the other side sank deep into the underside of my arm.
Based on the sharp pain when I inhaled, they might’ve cracked one of my ribs.
No way was that attack random. Hundreds, even thousands of people had seen me walking around with Vidia.
As I waited for help, several theories popped into my head.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about already.
Sk’lar
I had just landed the shuttle from a second consecutive supply run to Aurora. Fen had given me a small data disk of her notes from the brain scans, as well as a new configuration program to help make the brain scans better, at least that’s what she said it would do.
Security had been tightened in the last several weeks - with General Rouhr ordering that all governmental and military information that was classified and transported by either the Vengeance crew or the Urai be delivered to their respective counterparts in person.
I was to take it to the hospital and deliver it to Evie as soon as I landed. Being a delivery boy wasn’t something that I had ever thought my life would be, but over the last two days, that’s what I felt as though I had turned into.
At least it was better than spending every day wondering if today was the day the Xathi would finally kill me.
I took a small car to the hospital and went inside. I had to wait a little before getting to see Evie, she was in with a patient. Just under forty minutes later, she came out of the examination room, wished her patient a good day, and motioned for me to
follow her. She led me to a small laboratory where there were a few doctors, Mariella, and Tella, all waiting for us.
“Hope this doesn’t intimidate you,” Tella said when she saw my raised eyebrows.
“Ease up, Tella,” Evie said. “Fen called us, said you had something for us.”
I nodded and fished the data disk out of my pocket. “This has her notes so far, as well as a new configuration program for the brain scan device,” I explained. “She also told me to tell you that she wants copies of the new scans.”
“As always,” Mariella said politely. “Did she happen to tell you anything about what she saw or anything?”
I shook my head. “No. I think she realized that I wasn’t smart enough to get all of the medical jargon, so she left it all in her notes.”
“Okay,” Evie said. “Have you been to see Phryne yet?”
I looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
“Aren’t you and Phryne close?” Tella asked, putting a little more emphasis on the last word than the rest of the sentence.
“I guess,” I answered.
For a second, Tella looked at me like there was something wrong with me. Then her gaze softened as she told me, “She was attacked last night. Someone beat the shit out of her. She’s upstairs in recovery.”
“What!?” I snapped.
No one had told me. No one had contacted me. I had even flown a mission out to Fen and her people and back this morning, and no one had thought to tell me this?
The last contact I had had with Phryne had been when she was escorting Vidia through the city and needed a flyover to ensure security. That was just a quick comm, nothing more.
Evie nodded as she came over to me. “She’s in room twenty-eight. Go see her.”
I nodded a thank you to them and left the lab. Instead of waiting for the elevator, I took the stairs two at a time and reached the second floor in a hurry. I went to the nurses desk, found out that room twenty-eight was towards the end of the hall to my left, and made my way there, trying my hardest not to break into a run.
I walked in to hear Phryne’s voice at a level of annoyance that I thought was reserved strictly for stupid people. “Will you get the hell away from me? I’m getting dressed and getting out of here.”
“But you need your rest and another test to make sure that everything’s okay,” I heard a high-pitched voice argue back. I pushed the curtain to the side to see Phryne getting dressed, pulling her shirt down while a nurse was glaring at her.
I saw the bruising on Phryne’s side before the shirt made it all the way down.
White hot fury swept through me. Someone would pay for this.
But for now, my rage wasn’t going to help Phryne, so I put it aside.
“Screw tests. Screw doctors telling me what to do. And while I know you’re just ‘doing your job’,” she said as she raised her hands in the air and did the air quote motion, “screw you, too. I’m getting out of here. I have work to do and I’m fine. A few bruises are not going to slow me down.”
“I can’t let you leave without clearing it with the doctor first,” the nurse insisted, her high-pitched voice sounding far too much like a child’s to help provide any authority.
“Listen, lady,” Phryne said in a huff. “I’m leaving. You can’t stop me. The doctors can’t stop me. Look, as long as I’m not dying from some sort of infectious disease, I’m getting out of here, okay?”
The nurse looked away from her in exasperation and spotted me. “How can I help you, sir?” she asked, grateful that she had someone else to speak to besides Phryne. Phryne turned around, saw me, flashed me a smile, and sat on the bed to put on her boots.
“I was actually here to see her,” I answered, pointing to Phryne. “Is she giving you problems?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” the nurse answered. She quickly flushed as she realized that she’d said it out loud, looked back at Phryne, then shrugged. “She needs another day, she took a pretty bad pounding last night. We need to make sure that she’s okay.”
“I’ll try to talk to her,” I said quietly as I gently led the nurse out. “She’s not the ‘needing help’ type, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Uh-huh. Fine. If she ends up hurting herself more, I’ll take some satisfaction out of knowing I was right,” she nurse said as she left the room. With a shake of my head, I closed the door and walked back into the room.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t you start, too,” Phryne snapped.
I put up my hands. “Hey, I didn’t even know you were in here. Forgive me for checking on the well-being of a friend.”
She looked at me, then smiled a sort of apologetic smile. “You’re right. My apologies. You didn’t deserve for me to snap at you.”
“Accepted. Now, what happened?” I sat down on the bed next to her. The plan was to get her talking and hopefully talking long enough for a doctor to come in and order her to stay.
“There’s not much to tell,” she answered. “I was walking home last night when someone jumped me. Did a pretty good number beating the hell out of me,” she added on at the end with a slight smile.
“Did you get a look at them? I can chase them down and…” I started to say.
She interrupted me as she shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone,” she said angrily. “They got the jump on me and knocked me down. I’m not even sure if it was just one person or two. All I know is I got my ass beat, I’m pissed off, I’m tired of doctors and nurses prodding, poking, and messing with me, and I want to get out of here and back to my job. I’ll figure out who the bastard is that did this to me and deal with them.”
“Oh? How are you so sure about that?” I asked.
“Not sure, but I’m pretty good at what I do. I’ll figure it out,” she answered.
“Any ideas who might have done this?” I was starting to get angry, but since I couldn’t pin it on an individual person or persons, there was not much I could do.
That just ticked me off more.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “Probably one of those anti-alien freaks that’s pissed off at Vidia and the rest of us for being ‘alien lovers’ or some stupid thing.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?” I asked her, letting my frustration drip into my words.
“Excuse me,” she shot back. “I didn’t think it was all that important to let you know that I got my ass kicked. What would you have done if I did tell you?”
“I would have come here, checked on you, then searched for the bastard,” I said.
“Yeah, and you wouldn’t have found anything, so you probably would have taken your frustrations out on the first idiot to say something stupid to you,” she countered. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Now, back off.”
“Back off?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Back off. Leave it alone.” She stood up from the bed and took a step away. I stood up as well. “Look, thank you for coming to see me and making sure I was okay. I appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thanks. Now, I have a job to do and I would appreciate being allowed to do that job, okay? I’ll do what I need to do, you go do what you’re supposed to do,” she said gently as she put her hand on my arm.
“But,” I started.
She interrupted me with a kiss. It wasn’t a kiss that had any passion to it. I was pretty sure she did it just to shut me up. “Stop. I didn’t see them, so how are you going to find them, huh? Let it go. Okay?” Then she smiled and slapped me on the butt. “Look, if you’re really interested in helping me blow off some steam, you can help me get my frustrations out tonight. If not, then that’s fine, too. Bye.”
She left the room, leaving me to sit there. Did she just? I was confused, frustrated, and angry. I wasn’t sure how to deal with everything.
Phryne
Despite the fact that I’d gotten lightly stabbed, the last two weeks had been great.
In fact, it’d
been the best two weeks since the Xathi crashed through our sky and changed all of our lives.
Speeches, debates, and public appearances carried on as scheduled. Sk’lar and I collaborated to ensure a secure environment for Vidia to address the citizens of Nyheim.
In the end, my plan to use snipers armed with tranquilizers didn’t come to fruition, but Vidia had agreed to extra security staffing.
We made sure to keep a healthy mix of humans and aliens to drive home Vidia’s equality platform.
The real bright spot in all of this was that no riots broke out. I watched the crowds closely. Some people looked angry or disgruntled, but no one was brimming with insatiable rage.
Sk’lar and I normally went out for a drink after work twice a week. Now, as we sat side by side at the bar, was our fourth night in a row.
It’d become a ritual. It started out as a way to celebrate a successful public event. Now, it had become part of the daily routine.
And I liked it. Maybe a little too much.
“No matter what I say, stop me after the second drink,” I told him.
“You said that yesterday. When I tried to follow your instructions, you listed all the ways you could incapacitate me,” Sk’lar pointed out.
“I didn’t list all of the ways,” I rolled my eyes, “just most of them.”
Sk’lar laughed and shook his head. I found myself laughing, too.
I liked this. Whatever it was.
I certainly considered Sk’lar a friend at this point, but this wasn’t the same kind of friendship I had with Vidia. I wouldn’t reach out and touch Vidia’s arm when she made a joke, but I felt more than fine making physical contact with Sk’lar. In fact, I enjoyed all of our physical contact.
I liked the way his hands felt when they brushed against mine and the way he always stood close enough for me to smell him.
“It’s in your best interest to let me have more than two drinks,” I went on.
“Do you think I’m trying to take advantage of you?” His grin was salacious and way too sexy for his own good.
I didn’t put much stock into relationships. A committed partner was a liability in my line of work. If anyone wanted to hurt me, they could easily do it by killing my partner. As if that weren’t enough of a reason, it was hard to find someone who understood all of the quirks that come with a person who was raised in an orphanage. I didn’t think I had any quirks, but Vidia’s told me that I do on numerous occasions.
