by J. L. Hilton
Genny chuckled.
“Don’t laugh,” Hax said. “Seriously, I have lasers.”
“’K… Well, you prolly know there was a major colony incident in my block, and I—”
“Yeah, your bracers are shredded. Lemme see.”
She pulled them out of her bag and tried to hand them over, except that he wasn’t real. He was a full-body 3D holographic simulation, and her arm passed right through him.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t feel a thing.” The Hax-sim looked her up and down. “Which sucks at times like this.”
“Hey!” yelled another Hax in the corner. Instead of spiky orange hair, his head was covered in electric blue braids. “Keep your pixels off of bloggirl.”
“Just because I’m not real doesn’t mean I’m not horny,” said the Hax-sim.
“I should dial down your libido setting.”
“But then I wouldn’t be like you,” said the Hax-sim.
“True,” agreed the other Hax. “You know, the great thing about having sims of yourself is that whenever you argue, you’re always right. Lol.”
The blue-haired Hax stood in front of a huge window that stretched from floor to ceiling and about ten feet across. It looked like a live feed of the colony. Only it couldn’t be a live feed, because standing in the center of the thoroughfare was a clanking robotic troll, billowing black soot. And in front of the troll was the Mysteria incarnation of Hax, an ancient Chinese-style warrior in glowing orange armor, red feathers on his helmet, and carrying a sword of flame. When Hax moved, his incarnation mimicked the movement, as if it were a shadow cast on the wall.
“I’ve got a new data key for you,” said the blue-haired Hax, pointing at a nearby table. The gaming incarnation on the wall also pointed. Then he swung his arm, and the incarnation swung its flaming sword at the iron troll.
“Do I need one?” Genny asked.
“You do to get into Area 51.” Hax dodged and rolled to the side, his incarnation escaping a burst of hissing steam from the troll’s mouth.
Genny knew that Duin lived in block R-51 because she’d called him there several times. But she had never been to his compartment before. And no one else knew about Duin’s dinner invitation. “How do you know where I’m going?”
“Dur, bloggirl. I don’t need a status update to know wassup.” Hax jumped to his feet. “Only question is… Yah!” His sword sliced through the metal troll like a white-hot welding torch. “Are you going to upload a vid to the Glin biology files?”
“You’re a perv, Hax,” she replied.
“Me and twenty billion other humans. Seriously, you turn on the netcam tonight, you’ll be the number one blog in the universe. Forever.”
“Are you going to fix my bracers?”
“Leave them. Ow!” The troll landed a heavy punch and Hax’s incarnation fell to its knees.
“When should I come back for them?”
“I’ll find you.”
The troll grabbed the warrior and chomped down on his head with teeth like a bear trap. Light, rather than blood, poured out of Hax’s incarnation.
“Damn,” she said in sympathy.
Hax shrugged, which made the crumpling headless corpse shrug. “Phoenix knight. He’ll resurrect in a few minutes. You want a shirt?”
It wouldn’t be her first choice in clothing, but at this point, she had to take anything she could get. She grabbed one out of a crate.
“’K, thanks. Why do you have all these Mysteria shirts, anyway?”
“Noob swag,” he said. “With each new account, while supplies last. Operators are standing by.”
“You prog Mysteria?”
“Ta-da,” he said, waving his hands in the air like a performer. Then he grew serious again. “And I have a lot of work to do. Hax will show you out.”
He turned to the wall and crouched into a fighting stance. His phoenix knight, head intact again, also crouched.
“’K, thanks.”
He didn’t turn around, but he waved. The incarnation also waved. “Bye.”
When she reached Duin’s block a few minutes later, she used her new key to enter his private hallway. It was similar to her—now destroyed—hallway except that the wall didn’t seem to be working. And instead of LEDs, the ceiling was covered with more of those little glow balls he shared with the children. Several crates and odd piles cluttered the floor. One pile looked like a person, but she didn’t get close enough to find out.
The data key would let her into his compartment too, but he didn’t know that, so she lifted her hand to knock on the door. Before her knuckles touched metal, it opened.
“You are here.” He waved for her to enter. “I heard you in the hallway. Come in, come in.”
The smell was what she noticed first. As Taya predicted, Genny got used to the feculent odor of the colony. But, walking into Duin’s room, the contrast was so abrupt, it reminded her how much the rest of the settlement stank. In here, the air was crisp and dewy, with the faint scent of curry.
Duin had changed out of his damaged suit into something like a toga, but umber-colored and embroidered with complex patterns. Some of the threads glimmered in the light when he moved. “This is different,” she said, touching the fabric where it draped over his shoulder. Her fingers drifted to the lustrous, exposed skin of his neck.
He took her roaming hand in his, kissed it, and returned to preparing the meal. “It’s called a bava, woven from long fibers of a bav plant.”
“On Earth, only rich people can afford organic textiles. Everyone else wears synthetics. You would make a lot of money if you exported it to Earth. Do you know how to make it?” Genny wouldn’t be surprised. He seemed to know everything.
“No, no, I never learned. There were always many bava weavers. Now…” He waved his hands. “As with so many things. Gone. Lost. Dried up.”
She looked around his compartment. It had the same layout as hers—berth to the left, table and Asternet wall to the right, kitchen corner, storage closet on one side of the back door and a bathroom opposite. But his bed was buried under a mountain of blankets and pillows, which spilled onto the floor. Little tufts of unidentifiable plants were tucked throughout the room. The table was covered with a clutter of objects. And there were papers everywhere, across the table, on the floor, shoved in the shelves, even stuck to the walls.
The wall displaying his Asternet access was as cluttered as the room. In the overlapping windows, she identified Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings, the United States’ Declaration of Independence, diagrams of early Industrial Era inventions, various mythological creatures, weapons schematics and several religious symbols. “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” was playing in the background.
Duin shoved a stack of papers aside to make room at the table. Fascinated by the rustling sound they made, Genny picked one up to examine it. The sheet was a golden color, with fibers running through it, and covered with little splashes of color. “Is this Glinnish? I saw similar symbols on your translator.”
“Yes, see here.” He ran his finger down, reading in columns from top to bottom. “It says, I will arise and go now, for always night and day, I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
“What is that?”
“One of your poets, Yeats. I’m translating it, to share with my people. It describes how I feel here in the colony. When I stand in the thoroughfare, I still hear the water of Glin in my heart.”
The way he stood, wrapped in his bava, Genny thought he looked like one of those marble statues in museum simulations. Even with his gray-green skin and strange eyes, the intense, melancholy expression on his chiseled features seemed ancient and wise. She reached out and touched the hand he held over his heart. Duin put down the paper and placed his other hand over her own heart. They stood there like that, looking at each other, for several seconds, listening to each other’s heartbeats
, feeling each other breathe.
When Genny closed the distance between them, he said, “Here, I have something else to show you.”
He took her to the back door of his compartment. It led into the area that would have been the garden in Genny’s block. But Duin was on the bottom level of the colony, without access to natural light. Instead, his garden area was full of those bioluminescent orbs, like the ones in the front hallway, casting ethereal shadows throughout the chamber and causing the misty air to sparkle. Everywhere she looked, she saw bits and pieces of hundreds of different Earth objects—wires, circuits, furniture, wheels, sparkling pieces of glass, chains, pipes and tubing—assembled into works of either art or science, she couldn’t quite tell. Portions of the walls were covered in fabric, mechanical parts or knick-knacks, in bizarre combinations. She could hear water gurgling, and an intermittent, musical chime.
“Look, look. This is the water clock I built. Those are all of my extra water tanks over there. Here, I put in a fish pond. You see, I did not eat all of your tilapia. And I’ve been experimenting with steam-powered machines.” He pointed out various contraptions. “I’m also working on an orrery of this star system.”
“When do you sleep?” It was a legitimate question. He spent most of his time with her or with Mose’s children. Or so she’d thought.
“Whenever I am tired. What’s most exciting is this.” Duin held up an object that looked like a crude cutlass wrapped in barbed wire.
“Kick ass. What is it?”
“It’s a way to extend the range of my zap.” With a lunge, he jabbed at the air. Bolts of lightning danced along the length of the weapon, snapping between the prongs that bristled along the length of the blade. “Now, if I could figure out how to extend my zap by three hundred feet, not three feet, that would be useful.”
He chucked the zap-sword onto the table. It made a heavy thud, rattling everything else on his work bench.
“Where did you get all of this?” Knowing the Glin perspective on ownership, or lack thereof, she had to wonder how many of these things would be considered stolen.
“In the recycling blocks. Or lying around.” He swirled his hand in the air. “Now, the potatoes should be mushed severely enough for you.”
They returned to his compartment, where he set out a platter, a bowl and a dull knife, all carved from the bones of a labbud. They were covered with beautiful patterns that represented various plants and creatures on Glin.
“Tib carved them. Tib is my second descendant. There were more dishes, but these were all I could find after the Tikati came.”
“I wish I could take vids of them, they’re beautiful,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll have my bracers soon. We should try to get a device for you, too, so you wouldn’t need all of this paper.”
He served her mashed potatoes, lentil curry and bananas. None of which he shared. He watched her with a contented smile while she ate.
“Aren’t you going to have something? We think it’s rude to eat in front of someone else.”
“It makes me happy to watch you eat, to know that I have provided something you need.” He laced his fingers together, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands.
“Well, stop it,” she laughed. “You’re making me feel weird.”
He activated the tabletop keyboard. “Then I’ll update the blog. There are thousands of emails to answer, discussion threads to address. We haven’t posted an update in hours.” He opened several more windows on his busy wall. “I’ll help you compile a database of the people who sent donations and you can use one of your mass-mail permits to thank them.”
“No.” She set down the knife, which she’d been using like a spoon to scoop up potatoes.
“No?”
“I’m done, Duin.”
“You haven’t eaten much.”
“I’m done waiting.” Genny got up from her chair and moved into his lap. With one hand, she slid the bava fabric off of his shoulder.
“Oh.”
There was another hunger. With relentless lips and hands, they consumed each other. She didn’t just want, she demanded him. Genny removed her clothes and Duin wound the bava around them both, cocooning her against his bare skin as he held her in his lap.
“I don’t know much about Glin anatomy,” she reminded him.
“I do have an advantage. There’s a deluge of information on the Asternet about human mating.”
“It’s called porn, Duin.”
“And it’s very helpful. Though there are some things I don’t understand.”
“I’ll teach you anything you want to know.”
Duin closed his eyes, reveling in that blissful sentiment. Genny kissed his eyelids, his lips, his throat. His hands moved over her legs, and then between them. She moaned.
“You are wet everywhere.” His tongue ran over her skin, tasting the pathways beaded with sweat. The more he touched her, the wetter she became.
Straddling his lap, she slid onto him and could feel him throbbing inside of her. With each pulse, he grew until he filled her completely. She moved, and his response was ecstatic. But just as she was reaching her fall, he stopped her, grasping her hips and holding her to him.
Grinding into her, he made her forget any intention she might have had to explain or ask or compare their sexual differences. Words fled, unneeded. They pressed together into one being, one heartbeat, one mind, one soul. It was the most powerful feeling she had ever experienced. She was falling into him, even as she drew him into herself. Waves of pleasure washed through her.
She didn’t know how long they stayed together, it seemed like forever, until the last shudder subsided. And they remained together for a long time, even after. Still sitting in the chair, still wrapped in his bava, she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Is it like that every time, for Glin?”
“We call it merging when mating goes beyond the physical act. But no, it doesn’t happen every time. That was very…unusual.”
“I still feel like you’re inside of me.”
“I am.”
“It’s detachable?”
The shock in her voice amused him to no end. “Great Ocean, no,” he said, trying to stop laughing so he could explain. “Glin have thicker blood. Other fluids are thicker, as well. I suspect it’s yet another adaptation which Dr. Geber could explain to you.”
“Oh. But it will come out eventually, right?”
“Eventually, for Glin females at least. Or that’s going to be an interesting visit to the med-block. Are you worried?”
“No, not really. I feel… I don’t know. Safe. Right. For the first time in my life, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. Isn’t that odd?”
“Not at all,” Duin said as he held her. “What matters is what you think of yourself, J’ni. That’s always what determines your fate.”
Chapter Eight
“Duin? It’s Blaze. You there?”
He was, with J’ni beside him. The colonel’s voice woke her, and she sat up enough for Duin to pull his arm out from under her and leave the bed. He wrapped the bava around himself and activated the netcam.
Duin checked the time on the wall. “Good afternoon.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Genny, would you?” The question was mere courtesy. The officer hadn’t shifted in yesterday, after all.
“Yes, I think I can locate her.” Duin glanced over his shoulder.
“Good. I need to talk to the two of you, in my office. Now.”
“I’ll collect J’ni.”
Blaze’s window disappeared.
Duin turned to the bed. J’ni peered at him over the top of a large, embroidered pillow.
“’Lo,” he greeted her.
“’Lo, Duin.” The way she spoke his name sounded different. There was a sort of sigh in it that made him want to ignore the colonel and stay in his compartment with her for the rest of the day. Duin sat on the bed and ran his hand down her back. She rolled ont
o her side, exposing even more places for his hands to explore.
“You are fuzzy. Like a neep.”
“You mentioned neeps before. Is that a kind of fruit?”
“It’s a worm.”
“How romantic. Shall I compare thee to a wiggly worm? Thou art more fuzzy and invertebrate. That’s exactly what Shakespeare should’ve written.”
“I’m sure he would have, had he been a Glin.” Duin laughed. There was a promise in her flesh, in the warm rivers of blood that rushed under his touch, in the passion that surged in her eyes. He knew, without a word, that this moment was a storm waiting to break as soon as they returned to his compartment.
She kissed him and climbed out of bed to get dressed. Duin had not repaired his wallump suit yet, but he had a vest which covered the damage. As for his injury, there was only a faint scar.
A short while later, they were being escorted through the military zone by two Airmen. Duin greeted them by name. “Hello, Mirek. Rachael.”
“Hello, Mr. Glin,” said Mirek.
“I’m from Glin,” he explained, as he explained every time he visited the military zone. “It’s not my name.”
They entered Blaze’s office, and the two Airmen took sentry positions inside the door. The colonel gestured for Duin and J’ni to sit down.
“’Sup, Blaze?” J’ni asked.
The look on his face was stern. “After what happened to your block, you are being ordered to return to the Solar System. For your safety and ours.”
“What? No! Why?”
“Ordered? By whom?” Duin demanded. “Who has the right to control her?”
“INC,” she answered. To Blaze, she said, “Does J.T. want me to come back? Will they let me bring Duin?”
“It’s not INC,” Blaze said. “It’s the U.S. Security Department. You’re being taken to Titan.”
Water filled her eyes and her voice rose to a stormy pitch. “Titan? You mean the Adiri Detention Center on Titan. Oh, my god. Did you tell them I’d been attacked? Did you tell them that we were almost killed in the explosion? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
