Everything sparkled.
Two staff were walking out smiling, pushing a wheelchair with the doors hissing open to let them out, as if this were a normal day. Talk about well-trained. Smoke from the burning vehicles drifted across. The fighting hadn’t quite reached here but they must surely fucking know? Behind them were Smorg and Jocelyn, clomping across the polished atrium floor. Following Smorg and Jocelyn were three molloks, stern expression, check, sweeping coats, check. Sexy if terribly narrow in their vision of fashion.
Above, a shuttle descended from the low clouds. The s’kar markings filled her with joy as a message scrolled across her retina.
*Thought you could use some help, Thorn. We are late it seems. They wouldn’t allow us to land.*
Baldor. She smiled.
*Better late than never.*
Led had noticed them also but he turned to her and bent over her, and in those final moments she realized he meant to kiss her.
It wasn’t to be.
Fellen Zed appeared behind Led. Her all-caps message would’ve hit Led’s retina at about the time her expression also warned him.
He turned, rolling across her vision, tentacles flaring, drawing his guns, raising them in tentacle and hand.
The blast of Fellen Zed’s weapon was that of something powerful. A hand cannon, of a sort.
Her mind and eyes had time to see the needle blueness blossoming, coming for her.
Too late. Too late.
And Led stepped in front of her. The shot rocked back his head, spraying blood and no doubt worse that she could not bear to contemplate.
Fellen had aimed at her, because she was the threat?
The thrassian looked shocked and disappointed for all of a miniscule sliver of time. Then Smorg threw the wheelchair at him. Jocelyn speared him with a rod plucked from gods knew where, and an anti-ship laser blatted down from the shuttle and turned him into ashes, dust, and pulverized thrassian.
Her?
She collapsed to her knees sobbing over this man she’d said maybe to, when he’d deserved so much more.
They pulled her away, dragged her off him, really.
When she, stony-faced, explained in a monotone the direness of her circumstances, they offered her stasis while the surgeon decided on her case. She couldn’t care less at that point whether they decided never to wake her again, and she agreed.
More details were extracted from her before stasis was induced.
With Led’s blood still spattered on her hands, she told them everything they asked her.
Her mother would pay if they asked her for their fees.
She wished to have the conflicting s’kar genes altered to become siren or as fully so as much as was practical.
Sleep would be blessed, especially dreamless sleep.
They might wake her, one day.
But her heart was dead. Truly dead.
Chapter 25
The day they woke her, she remembered how she’d had her heart torn in two before she recalled anything else. A sad day, and yet she listened, kicking her legs where they dangled over the end of the stasis bed.
Led was nowhere to be seen among those saying hi, of course. Though she did look for him, still hoping. Jocelyn and Smorg were there. Bob Stardrake turned out to be a white-toothed, well-toned, golden-haired boy of a hundred and two, who obviously sampled his own wares.
The salient points sank in despite her feelings of being made of cardboard.
Her siren genes were now integrated. She wouldn’t have full siren functionality, but would be able to attract males more than normal. Bonus points – she was no longer considered a biohazard and all current warrants for her arrest and detainment on homicide or other charges had been withdrawn, except for the ones on BART.
Small drawback – she must, by galactic law, get a siren tattoo on both arms if she wished to reside outside of a siren enclave. But it was gorgeous, according to Bob, and designed by an avant-garde tattooist. She smiled briefly.
Food was given to her – important when she’d been under stasis for so long and with so many genetic alterations done to her body.
They had rescued Led from death.
That made her sit up straighter at the breakfast table, with her spoon dripping cereal and snoggle milk.
“What?” Could this be true?
“He was dead but not quite absolutely dead,” Bob explained brightly. “Absolute death is a little fuzzier ever since we developed advanced data retrieval from defunct brains. He is in stasis now, and they have found an earlier copy of his persona on COG 101. That, combined with what has been taken from the mollok brain framework, means he should be 99.99999 percent intact once everything is merged into a new synth brain.” His smile widened momentarily, teeth shining. “The one drawback is that this will take some time to accomplish.”
“Oh.” Fuck, fuck, fuck-a-trons. This was too much to take in. Hope was doing a dance, a muted one, because he’d emphasized some time. “Clarify some time. Please?”
“About, ahhh, five to eight years.” He rattled on, “He’s had a similar procedure before and it took about five point two years. So. The molloks are paying for it, of course. Suckers. Haha. Made a pun there.”
She eyed him, scowling mildly. How had Bob survived for so long?
Eight years to repair Led?
How could anyone wait that long for someone to return? Could she?
“So now.” Bob clapped his hands together. “You can get on with life! And your mother paid for it all. No outstanding bills!”
Her first act in her new life was to not throat-chop Bob. He was a little irritating. Instead she thanked him and moved out of the Stardrake Private Genetic Hospital ASAP. Then she freed Smorg and Jocelyn of any obligations toward others apart from the normal ones any society expected. That is, she set them free.
Then...she went adventuring.
She perfected her fighting skills, because it seemed wise, and Led would have approved.
She found a partner and tried out sex in a few thousand combinations.
She found the best man ever – though man, as an accurate description of what he was, was probably inaccurate.
She fell in love.
And she married him. And she knew it was the right thing to do, considering everything. No one should judge her. Jocelyn and Smorg went to the wedding, and Doctor S did indeed attend and pose as the marriage celebrant or vow master. He got quite the kick out of that.
And every year she returned to the hospital on COG 101 to check on Led’s progress.
Eight point four years after his death, she woke him with a kiss.
Chapter 26
That kiss had been a spectacular way to awaken. He could taste her lips. Thorn had kissed him.
He was alive. That was even more spectacular because he remembered being face-rammed with a bolt from a weapon fired by Fellen Zed. That whole day was there in his memory.
“I didn’t die?” he asked her after they had him standing, if wobbly. The room was very white and clinical, and he’d been lying on a stasis bed. That piece of equipment was used for both journeys through space and complicated healing procedures.
“Not quite.” Thorn smiled and took his hand. “Come outside so we can talk.”
By the time he reached the balcony at the end of a white corridor, his co-ordination had improved. A male mechbot nurse assured him he would regain all functions and skills, before leaving him with Thorn. They were two stories up and the planet below was breathtakingly beautiful.
Or perhaps it was his long sleep that’d left him vulnerable to beauty.
He looked to Thorn. She seemed changed. More confident? The female had always been one of the most solid and confident women he’d ever met, and so...
That bothered him.
There were no new lines on her face but she was young. Her stance though, she looked perfectly balanced and ready to kick out his teeth, if he’d been an opponent. She’d had time to learn new martial skills.
/> How much time? He wasn’t ready to hear yet.
Led sat down on one of the comfy red-cushioned chairs. The arms were made of a golden twisted timber. Thorn sat in the one opposite.
“Where are we?”
He nodded past her shoulder, at the towering forests, at the flocks of blue, crane-like birds wheeling across the green-blue sky. They seemed shinier than anything with feathers should be. Beyond them were mountains carpeted with milder blue, and faint wisps of smoke where something larger than the birds, and more humanoid, flew in multi-winged mechanical craft.
“COG 101. Isn’t it amazing? The molloks donated terraforming to the planet. Doctor S helped them salvage their terraforming code from your brain once he knew of their plight. It was damaged when you were shot.”
“I see.” The molloks were a rather generous race. “And Fellen Zed?”
“Killed by my friends. A laser from above. The s’kar were allowed to fly just in time to see what happened to you. Led...it has taken a while to fix you. They used a copy made by Doctor S, but I’m told you should have full memories, except for a few things in the distant past.”
“Good.” He drew in a long breath, let it out, and regarded her, this girl with the long white hair. So familiar, so dear to his heart, yet so incalculably strange.
She wore a black catsuit that must be a replica of the one she’d worn that final day. A girl with intricate red tattoos snaking down her arms.
“How long?” he asked, his lips compressed, his heart still.
“A long time. A very long time.”
Damn the gods above.
“I’m a level-three million, goddess-mage-mekinja with an army of minions.”
Say what? Society had clearly moved on and developed whole new terminology. A fucking long time then.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve had all those adventures?” And there he’d been figuring he was the prince going to kiss the princess and keep her. It was not to be. Sadness hovered nearby.
Instead, she’d kissed him awake.
“I married someone.” Then she shook her head and did an upward eyeroll before rapidly adding, “I can’t do it. I can’t. He wanted me to string you along, but I can’t. I’ve been in LoL almost the entire time you were healing. It was easier to reconstruct you in there, and so...I dated you, had fun, partied and we went on adventures, yes. I married you, Ledderik, only I call him Led.”
“Uhhh.” He blinked. What did this mean?
“So you can’t be Led anymore. You’re Rik.”
Stunned, he nodded. “Okay.” Hope, hope was rising like a gigantic balloon let loose from a hand. “You married me in LoL?”
“Yes. But... In reality we have not even dated. You’re not off the hook.”
He leaned back into his seat, squashing it, trying to absorb what this meant. “Give me a spokmin or a decade to figure this. How long was I under?”
“Eight point four years.”
“I see. Wow. Last time it took less. Lord Zarblu arranged it.”
He’d married her. This was about as astounding as anything could get to be. “But I don’t get to be automatically your –”
“Uh-uh. No way.”
“Then...” He sat forward and found her hand. He stroked the back of it, marveling at the weight of it, her softness, and the perfect lines of her mouth. He almost felt jealous of his other, virtual self, Led. “I will be Rik from now on. May I ask you for a date, Thorn?”
“Of course, you may.” She smirked. “The answer is yes. Where? The cafeteria here is pretty bland.”
“Hmmm.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet, then drew her to him and fitted his arm about her waist, remembering the last time he’d had sex with this teasing minx. “I remember touching you before, and tentacles, lots and lots of tentacles.” He kissed her lightly, absorbing the scent of her, pleased at how pliant she was, how willing.
“I remember those very well.” Her lips curved and she pressed her fingers into his biceps, kneading him there. “The LoL center on Lura said they’d give you free loaners, within reason. A mollok for example.”
“You had this planned.” Minx for sure.
“I did. I admit this. The one thing I told Led I would never do with him was tentacles. Those are your realm.”
“I suppose I cannot punch that bastard.” Unless he went into LoL. “I have a lot of sexual catching up to do. This first date will be long and arduous and probably involve you being upside down and screaming while you come.”
He felt her shiver and narrowed his eyes.
At which point he glimpsed something moving at ground level. Two bots that he recognized, and following them were three smaller, skipping and chortling, toddler-like ones.
“Did I just see Smorg and Jocelyn with three children? How is that even –”
“Don’t ask. Do not ask.” Thorn leaned in and bit his nipple area and growled.
Which was when he realized he couldn’t be in his original body and down below was not normal...exactly.
“What am I in? What body?”
For once he yearned for a mirror.
“Ohhh...” With her forefinger, she circled where she’d bitten, breathing warmly on him, then caught her lower lip in her teeth. “Well. Um. They gave me some choices, annnnd the doctor was happy to oblige a few modifications.” Her tail curled coquettishly about his feet.
Her breath had penetrated the wet cloth of his shirt. He leaned down to smell her, and twisted locks of purple and black swung across his face.
“Thorn...”
Disposing of Tiana
This occurs before the beginning of the BLADE story
“Our love of life shows in mysterious ways,” the purple nixnix bug wisely told Ledderik. Wisely, of course, because nixnixs always sounded like that. His vestigial wings fluttered as he sucked the koos-koos liqueur from the glass with his purple flexible proboscis.
So much purple and red in this dim room – in lights, reflections, on the steel and the stone walls – like swimming in juice.
Ledderik nodded and resisted scratching his neck, his crotch, or the armpit of his organic arm. The nixnix enjoyed their philosophy and theorizing. Freud would’ve had a great time studying them. Nevertheless, watching all their insect parts move in that jittery manner made him itchy, especially when seated across from one with only a low, if wide, steel table separating them.
“We have a deal then?” He sipped from his own little glass, grimaced at the taste.
Koos koos was made from the ground-up petals of a flower only found on certain moons. It reminded him of pickled sewage.
“Yes, we do.” It click-clacked a few of its many jointed limbs. Fourteen of those at least, last he counted.
They moved about so much it’d triggered his predatory instinct. He’d had to resist skewering them to the table with his dagger. Those sprouting from beneath table level were tentacle-like in flexibility, though covered in chitin.
The deal was done. A weight lifted from him. A weight arrived.
Conflicted and homicidal cyborg – that was he.
Centuries of life, with the last hundred being under Lord Zarblu’s careful mentorship, and yet now he was masterless. Also angry, annoyed, and ready to kill someone...several someones. Not good. Zarblu would be disappointed, but he felt so terribly adrift.
Violently adrift.
Zarblu had left but gifted him with a female human to torment, a sxsynthflesh cock, and a talking sword. The exchange was a poor one. His value as friend, assassin, and skilled advisor, had added up to a pitiful hunk of overly verbose, sharp metal, an artificial cock, and Tiana.
He’d thought them friends.
Ledderik resisted grinding his teeth, brought his wandering attention to heel.
The deal was done.
If a nixnix didn’t go through on a deal as promised, the galaxy would likely implode. This was partly why he’d chosen to finalize his last-of-life dealings here, with a nixnix. He wasn’t specie
sist despite his aversion to their physical form.
He’d never thought he’d be the type to go with last-of-life.
Never ever. But life felt weary and dismal. Hundreds of years weighed on a cyborg.
What person with any respect for themselves would regard a cock as a reason for life?
Okay, a few, a few would be dancing on this table and fucking everything in sight, just not him.
Before Zarblu had caught him and made him re-think, dealing death had been his reason to exist.
Dust motes sifted across his vision. The wall-long opening must make cleaning this place a bitch.
Outside was a magnificent red-and-gold sunset. Beyond the window ledge was a half-a-klick drop to desert level. In here the walls were almost black and the red-emitting, overhead ceiling lights were far above. A cheerful room décor.
He grinned.
Macabre was in.
Tiana entered, bearing a tray full of tiny fleshy snacks and with a tablet tucked under her arm. The translucent fabric of a mandarin-colored dress flicked at her bare heels. Her breasts looked luscious and rounded, her nipples were perfectly outlined, and her hips...Ledderik raised a brow...fertile. The dress made love to her with every see-through thread.
Clearly, good taste in human female fashion was another nixnix trait.
He’d briefed her on the possibilities if she chose to stay then left her to discuss this with the nixnix. A day had passed and already she served him better than she’d ever served Ledderik.
He eyed her, pondering the glow on her face. For a treacherous, family-betraying nemesis she looked happy. He’d been meant to sexually torture her, if nicely.
Her sister, Mila, wanted him to, so did Lord Zarblu.
He couldn’t be bothered.
Before his sxsynthcock was attached he’d have happily tortured her, thrilled at it. Now? It seemed too menial, too obedient for a cyborg thrown away by his master.
Here, dog, have a bone. Have a dick. Pat the head of the hound then walk away.
For a second he was tempted to simply murder everyone in the room and go. The old Ledderik would have done so, smiling.
Blade (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 3) Page 17
