Hell, he’d been invigorated by the jump.
She folded her arms. “Weren't you stabbed, Merrick?”
“It's just a flesh wound,” he answered without a hint of a smile.
More Earth humor.
Beth wasn't laughing. “What the Hades was that back there?”
“That was diffusion, if you'd been paying attention instead of storming around like a female before her cycle.”
Beth wanted to gut him where he stood, but she jammed her hands on her hips instead. “I was not ʽstorming aroundʼ.”
Not too much.
Merrick cocked an eyebrow.
“Really,” he drawled.
“Yes, really. Ryan's tried to kill me… what? Twice?”
Merrick nodded. “But now we've got a gentleman's understanding.”
Oh, Principle, this is rich.
“I make him think that I have to suffer through our partnering, for the sake of some advancement… while trying to get in Daphne's panties…”
Daphne, the slut of Papilio. That should be easy. Beth scowled at him.
“You can't dismiss his attempt to murder me. I won't act for The Cause only to look over my shoulder for one of our own to disable me at a moment's notice.”
He took Beth off guard with, “Nice neck jab.” He grinned down at her, white teeth blazing at her embarrassment.
With supreme effort, Beth resisted putting her hands to her flaming face.
“Thanks.”
There was an awkward pause. “I've already been to Rachett.”
Beth's chin jerked up, meeting his gaze. “And?”
“I don't think anyone's going to be murdering anyone.”
His smile faded.
Beth stepped closer. “What?” Her eyes searched his face thoroughly.
“Sector One incarceration.”
She inhaled a sucking gasp. “How long?”
“Thirty.”
Thirty days in Sector One for a Reflective would be….
Merrick had been following the thought processes that flowed across her face like emotional water.
“Torture?” he said lightly.
She gave him a sharp look. “Yes.”
They looked at each other.
“Sorry?”
Beth shook her head slowly. “If it keeps him away from me, then it's worth it.”
An evil grin spread across her face.
Merrick quirked a brow. “What?”
“And… look at it this way—he can't be blocking your cock if he's not around, can he?”
Ruddy color spread up his neck, climbing to his face, and he frowned.
So, the unflappable Jeb Merrick could be embarrassed.
“Give the whore of Babylon my regards.”
“Daphne isn't a whore,” Merrick said in a low voice.
“I never said her name,” Beth replied, walking away.
Jeb stared after her, palming his chin.
He hated how she got under his skin.
There was no denying that if she had been male, he would not have felt compelled to protect her.
And therein lied the problem.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beth pulled out the slim, hard pulse, nearly the size of the playing cards the people of the Adlaine Quadrant used for poker. She pressed her thumb to the bottom center. The screen lit up, and she swept her finger across.
Jasper, Beth. Sector Ten Papilio.
Characters bled to the top of her viewing screen like green cream rising to the top of black milk then scattered across the surface. Those random symbols burst then coalesced into a single word:
Initializing.
Beth swept the word aside and thought her request.
She touched her thumb to the pulse dock pad briefly. The Brain Impulse Technology created a conduit between her thumb and brain, which allowed her thoughts to travel like the sensation of pain following nerve endings.
The instantaneous transfer was completely secure within the confines of her thumb-secure entry and unique brain signature.
The device was a new conquest built from old technology on Papilio. A small rectangle of nubby high-density polymer manufactured on Sector Three, its synthetic composite closely mimicked a natural polymer, so it could travel on the Reflectives’ person during a jump.
Each Reflective had been assigned one from the correct era to blend on jumps where pulse tech was in use.
Reflectives would soon be traveling to the sector that had created it second to Papilio. Reports had been trickling in that the tampering of Earth's adolescent population had become alarming.
The color threat for that sector had risen from orange to red.
The scientists would need to be stopped.
Gary and Joe Zondorae were men without honor. They did not seem to adhere to the motto that Merrick was so fond of saying: do not shit where you live.
If only he would take his own advice.
Beth glanced at her small screen. Seeing the answer, she released an explosive sigh.
Merrick will meet you at 01:00- Rachett
Beth hated the night shifts. They were almost like the healers who worked at the medical clinics that dotted so much of their planet.
Though sickness was rare because of Papilio’s medical advancements, prevention was a priority for their sector.
So many diseases of the sector they would soon visit could be prevented by simple but strict adherence to diet and, of course, the Inhibitor. If not for the built-in auto immune repression, the horrible diseases that had ravaged Sector Three would tear through Papilio as well.
Beth grimaced, thinking about cancer, arthritis, and other diseases caused by the body's own power wielded against itself. Many times, she had studied what life had been like before the Inhibitor's conception.
Beth shivered. There was no point of reference for those dark times, and she was glad of it.
Beth had some time before her meeting with Merrick. She thought her salutation to Rachett.
Her thumb lingered a few seconds after his terse reply.
Roger that—Rachett
In the end, she kept her comments to herself.
Beth felt beat up after her return from Sector Thirteen—Spheres. The unexpected engagement on the heels of her narrow escape from Ryan and being injured in the coliseum had been arduous.
However, Beth knew what it meant to be Reflective. Beth considered how many times Commander Rachett had said that battle, politics, and justice waited for no man—or woman.
Beth slid her pulse into the pocket at her left buttock of her navy-blue uniform. She carefully secured the hidden button by touch. The pulse was not something any Reflective wanted someone from a planet with lesser technology to get their hands on. It would have disastrous results, and it went against the prime directive of The Cause.
The Reflectives were not meant to advance the technologies of their sister sectors but to protect those who could not defend themselves from the technologically advanced sectors might use to exploit them
Beth had sufficient time for a drink at the local watering hole from where she hailed. It was the most anonymous spot in this quadrant. No other Reflectives would be caught slumming there.
Beth had spent her very-early childhood there. One of the only spots she had not been hated.
The ancient streets of the lower quadrant of Adlaine welcomed her. Cobblestones laid five centuries ago still remained, though the wear from a million treads had softened their hard edges.
Twilight bled across the landscape of rich-green rolling pastures and beautiful vineyards holding the promise of early summer grapes for harvest.
She imagined all the planets had the same view, though none left her as warm as this one.
Soft streetlights illuminated the steps before her. They snapped on as light escaped along with the day, and the night replaced it like a blanket of black velvet.
Beth huddled within herself, her thoughts deep and faraway.
She became aware
of footsteps behind her, and instantly, she gauged the distance between the door of the tavern and the person shadowing her.
She estimated that her safety net was too far away.
Beth stopped suddenly, and the footsteps did as well. Her eyes flicked to the tavern sign that swayed in the soft breeze of summer. She could just make out the outline of a butterfly in a puddle of light cast from one of the streetlamps.
Her heart raced, and she put one hand on her thigh dagger.
“Don't.”
Beth whirled, the blade in her hand.
But Merrick's was there first, the tip pressed just shy of breaking the skin underneath her jaw.
He tsked her. “Slow, Jasper… so slow.”
His eyes tightened when her palm gently squeezed his testicles.
She smiled.
“All right,” he conceded and stepped away.
Merrick scowled at her. “Not fair, Jasper.”
“Not so slow after all.”
They regarded each other for a pregnant heartbeat.
“I could have cut your throat.”
Beth cocked her head. “And—I could've been the ultimate cock block.”
Reflectives’ strength was renowned. Pound for pound, Beth was fighting an uphill battle against a Reflective male. But a non-Reflective would have had their hands very full.
Merrick placed his hands on his hips, brows pulling together. “I'm not looking. My timepiece has not assimilated.”
“Clearly,” Beth said in a droll tone.
Each Reflective bore an internal device that prohibited the thread of their one true soul mate from being plucked. It guaranteed five to eight years of service to The Cause. Then, and only then, would they be free to explore sectors where their mate existed.
No other Papiliones were ever a match for a Reflective. Beth had determined that it might be a way to ward off inbreeding. Because they were Reflectives, they alone within their world had the potential to meet their perfect match somewhere outside their own sector. The Reflectives needed that knowledge to continue on: that there was something more than just fighting, policing, and killing.
She walked toward the tavern, leaving Merrick to his own devices.
She would have her drink and meet him in—Beth studied the sky again, where Venus hung like a captured jewel in the ebony tapestry of the night—four hours. It was near oh nine hundred at present.
She had plenty of time before the jump.
Merrick could try to incite her and test her prowess, or he could tie on a drink or two.
Beth almost felt him decide as he slowly followed her to the tavern.
The lower quadrant wasn't known to support The Cause. Beth turned around and looked at her arrogant partner.
She couldn't imagine why.
***
Jeb followed Jasper, loathing that she’d managed to get the drop on him.
He could still feel her small hand on his nut sack, and he shifted his weight, watching her retreating back. The sensation had not been nearly as nice as when Daphne had rolled the same set of balls in her mouth before laying claim to his dick. Now, that had been… sublime.
It was too easy to forget that Jasper was Reflective. Her fluid and delicate movements were almost dance-like as she hopped the rough curb and opened the massive tavern door, a hangover of wood and pounded metal fasteners from medieval times. Even the weathered and dangling sign begged to be modernized.
The name mocked him; as did everything about this lower quadrant of Adlaine.
Babcock, the sign read. The old name was respected in this quadrant, though Jeb was not. Reflectives were feared here, and that was not the same as respect.
He tore open the heavy door, and it swung out slowly, revealing the dim interior, where a dozen pairs of unfriendly eyes latched onto him.
His uniform marked him as Reflective, and that was enough. However, Beth seemed immune, already knocking back a shot.
She'd been in the place for mere seconds. The bartender must have had it waiting in one hand, poised for her entrance.
She slapped the small glass down and flicked a finger at the rim, and Jeb’s ears pricked unpleasantly as Beth caught his expression and winked. The sensitivity of a Reflective's hearing was common knowledge.
With every gaze in the place fixed on his insignia, he stalked over to the empty stool beside her and sat down.
Jeb studiously ignored the audience.
“Nice local crowd here, Jasper.”
His meaty palms hitting the glossy surface of the wooden bar top, the bartender's attention shifted to Jeb,
He made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like muffled breaking glass. “Oh yeah? Ya fool… piss off.”
Beth put a hand on the bartender's forearm, her smallness easily engulfed by his size. His eyes held hers with kindness.
“He's rough around the edges, Jimmy, but not all bad.”
Beth looked at Jeb, and her expression said otherwise.
Jeb crossed his arms. “How am I rough?”
Beth cocked an inky brow, and again he was struck by how she did not look like the typical Reflective.
In fact, nothing about her was typical.
Jimmy chuckled, and Jeb’s frown deepened.
Beth patted his shoulder in condescension. “You just are.”
Adlaine was the most uncivilized, rude, dirty, and crude quadrant in a fifty-kilometer radius.
Jeb opened his mouth to say so, but Beth covered it with her hand, shaking her head.
“Jimmy, get my partner a drink,” she tossed out.
“Partner, is it?” He eyed Jeb closer. His scrutiny was heavy, like a lead weight.
Beth lowered her hand and said, her accent straining around the edges, “Yeah, he's my partner.”
They shared a look, and he spun the stool away from her mocking expression, facing the mirror that flung their images back at them.
Reflections.
Jeb swiveled back to Jasper, but she was gone.
Dammit all to Hades. He gave an angry scrub to his face and stood.
***
Beth whistled a melodious tune as she made her way past the house that had become her home when she was an infant.
She had not seen her adoptive parents in over fifteen years.
Morbid compulsion drove Beth to visit this place she could never return to, but like a small child with her nose pressed to the candy store window, Beth put her metaphorical nose to this small house with its thatched roof, convex windows, and rough-hewn door. She wished to belong there.
The centuries-old house sat anchored upon a slight knoll. Soft light glowed through the windows like eyes that saw only her.
A sigh of pure longing escaped the prison of her lungs.
Beth wanted to see it one last time before her first official jump. Even if those parents who'd loved her, albeit too briefly, never knew she stood outside their domicile in abject suffering. She could take a small measure of comfort in the memory.
She felt a little bad for ditching Merrick. But she’d needed to be alone. Nothing good came from witnessing private sorrow.
No other Reflective needed to know any of Beth's weaknesses. As far as they were concerned, the ones they could see were far too many.
She stared for another twenty minutes or so then turned on her heel to return to her own quadrant.
Barringer was the closest to Adlaine, but it was barely within required range of The Cause Headquarters. It was a good stretch of legs—a thirty-minute walk from where she stood in front of her adoptive parents’ house—but the fresh air would do her good.
Midway home, she took up whistling again, her heart somewhat lighter.
Whiskey burned pleasantly in her stomach. The fragrance of sweet autumn clematis filled the night with its weighted perfume, chasing the fresh night air.
Beth was pleased she'd been given first hold of the locator. She moved her hand over the smooth sphere and thought of how plentiful these were on Sector T
hree, where they had a different use.
There, people called them “marbles.” Curious moniker. Though she had never seen any with the surface necessary to jump, an unconscious smile lit Beth's face as she thought of the many intersecting things across the sectors.
Someday, she thought, I shall travel them all.
Not for torture, but for pleasure.
***
Jeb was pissed.
Every patron in the tavern stared at him as though he carried a disease from a different sector. He slapped the shot glass on the wood bar.
Then he looked Jimmy in the eye and said, “Thanks.”
Jimmy's brows dropped into a single bushy line of anger. That might've been because his thanks sounded curiously like fuck off.
And that was what he'd really meant.
Jeb slowly met every pair of eyes as he scanned the inside of the bar.
Nice first night with my partner.
He walked out the door unmolested. They would have been fools to try and overpower him. He could have escaped easily. The damn bar had an acre of mirrors—mirrors, for Principle's sake—lining an entire wall.
The fresh breeze drove pleasantly against him as he exited the dive and dusted the place off his boots, shedding the slum from his thoughts.
Jeb palmed his pulse. His was a more sophisticated version than Beth’s, but it was a necessity for a Reflective with his seniority.
He swiped his thumb over the dock and it sprang to life.
He kept his thumb depressed and thought the location of his domicile.
Jeb looked up. A panel below the streetlights opened. It was hidden invisibly within the ribbing of the cylindrical column that snaked up the housing, which in turn held the solar wiring that powered the bulbs.
A small mirror blinked back at Jeb like an unseeing eye. He turned his pulse communicator to face it.
His pulse initiated a narrow scope of light, which tracked the small reflective surface, and when Jeb could see it refract the light, he jumped.
The motion was very precise, like hopping on stepping stones.
To the casual observer, it would have appeared as though a thread of light speared the small mirror ten meters above the sidewalk before a man simply flashed toward that impossibly tiny window, only to disappear in a whip of iridescent sparks almost too rapid to track.
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