by SA Payne
"We?" Will asked carefully.
"I don't know. Just, we." Rye sighed. "His name has been right there, on the tip of my tongue and I haven't been able to get it out. I'm not his son?" The truth was comforting, in at least a small way.
"Not by blood." Amanda confirmed.
"Don't some religious orders call their priests father?" Ichi asked, glancing from one of his friends to the other.
Will snorted. "Some, yes, but there's nothing priestly about this bastard. Lerman Security Limited is one of about four high level, freelance security firms. So skilled, so exclusive, they don't deal with people, they deal with governments."
"Will's being dramatic, they've worked with high end celebrities and the like but for the most part they deal with classified, never to be spoken of, behind the scenes work for large companies or
governments." Amanda corrected.
"Anyway," Will went on. "Lerman is one of the oldest. Talking top of the line, need someone to train your private army or kill your rival? They're who you call. Hell, they've run armies,
controlled cities, arranged accidents, you name it. Total mercenaries, from body guarding and
little work like that to guiding coups."
"Illegal things, like the Flossin guard?" Ichi asked, trying to understand.
"Not illegal." Will glanced to Amanda but she was keeping her mouth shut. "Flossin guard were a secret off shoot of the Fleet military, which is supposed to be illegal to do. Companies like
Lerman? Totally legal, they pay taxes for gods sake. There are loopholes in the law, one of their
workers could help slaughter two dozen people and if caught they just have to say opps sorry,
thought it was a staged fake, didn't know it was real people, not my fault. Or if they train a small army, opps, thought it was for personal security didn't know they were planning on over throwing
the whole colony. Loophole makes it very vague on the responsibility of companies like this, so long as the agent caught can justify, no matter how thinly, their actions, they're legal and safe.
There's never even been any arrests."
"And you think what? That I worked for this company?" Rye asked, glancing from one to the other and neither one willing to meet his eye.
"It's a high probability of it, yes." Amanda finally admitted. "Trouble is, their files are all sealed, locked up. We can't touch them. It gets more interesting though, Lerman is a growth company,
they've bought shares in a good three dozen different companies and firms. One of which, that
they own a majority share in, is Pets Living Companion Division. Not a single share in the other
division's of PETS, just the Living Companion one."
"So he did do this to me." He wasn't sure if he should feel better or worse and right now just felt queasy and numb.
"Looks that way, but Rye, if he had access to their labs, it would have been easy to work the
original modifications on you."
"And there's nothing else you can find out about him? Nothing about me?" He glanced away from those cold eyes and the memory of what warmed them up.
"Little more, he lives in the same building that Lerman owns and operates from, which,
incidentally, is in the same secure complex that Living Companions operates from. He doesn't
travel and he's the third generation Conti to run Lerman, his grandfather established it. Other
than that? Little else is in the public domain." Will added.
"Not married, no family?"
Will shrugged. "Not that we can tell. Trust me, Rye, there's no chance this man fathered you,
he's not your family by blood."
"Howard Conti." Rye tried the name out on his tongue. "Thank you, both of you, it's a start."
Chapter Twenty Three:
His vid screen was beeping, not the one in the main room only but all of them. Will snuggled
tighter against a warm body and curls tickled his nose, Amanda was wrapped in his arms, one of
his legs tossed over hers and he was too asleep to move.
"Answer it." She muttered and thumped his side, sleepily yawning.
"No." He pulled her closer.
She whined and elbowed him. "No one would risk calling me at this ungodly hour. It's for you."
"Meany." He muttered but untangled himself and sat up to flick the answer button and let the screen in the bedroom light up. "Yeah?" He nearly barked out and rubbed at his eyes.
"Will?"
The voice was so small, so shaken that Will didn't instantly know it and he had to drop his hands
from his eyes to peer at the vid screen. "Rye?"
"Oh, God, Will." He sobbed out, his eyes red. The normally empty, passive face was twisted up in tormented pain, tears streaked unnoticed down his face and even in the dim light of Rye's
apartment, the wild, broken look to his eyes was clear.
"Rye? What's wrong?" He reached back to smack at Amanda's leg but she was already getting up.
"I killed him." Rye groaned out. "It was me I killed him, there's so much blood! Oh, god, what have I done?" He sobbed.
"Rye? Rye?" Will's blood was chilled but the red head had wandered away from the camera's pick ups and left the line connected. "Oh, god." The healing cut on his hand ached. "I knew he took today too well, I knew it. I should have known it was just shock, oh, god, you don't think...?"
He turned to Amanda and a med kit flew at his head. Will caught it on instinct and the heavy
weight knocked some of his panic down.
"I don't think loosing your head will help. Keep it together and get moving." She snapped, kicking his shoes at him as she shoved her feet into her own.
He nodded and pushed his feet into the shoes. "It's just, Ichi, I..." He couldn't say it but he couldn't bare to lose another brother.
Will didn't need to put his fears into words. "I know, but we don't know anything and if Ichi's hurt sitting here won't help him." She knew, she knew all about the fears and loss that still woke Will up late at night.
There was no way either of them could walk to Ichi's apartment, Will took off at a dead run with Amanda close on his heels and both prepared themselves for the worst. The apartment door was
unlocked, which wouldn't have been odd for anyone but Ichi who locked his doors out of habit.
Inside the apartment lights were dimmed low but it was enough light to see by and the pair
hurried for the bedroom.
"Ichi!" Will called out as he hurtled past the bedroom door. "Ichi!" He braced for blood or cold flesh.
"Go away." Ichi muttered from the mound of covers in the center of the bed.
Will smacked the light switch and raised the lights all the way up.
The lump on the bed protested again and pulled covers tighter.
"Ichi? Are you okay?" Will pulled the covers from his grip and yanked them away. It exposed the body underneath, shirtless and in only a thin pair of sleeping pants and very much unharmed.
And very much pissed. "Will? What do you think you're doing?" He snapped awake, cold, and now frightened.
Seeing wasn't good enough. Will tumbled onto the bed, dropping the med kit and started to run
hands across Ichi. "Are you hurt anywhere? Are you okay?" He ran hands up over Ichi's scalp and felt no wounds and even went so far as to run hands across arms and legs looking for
injuries.
Ichi blushed bright red and pulled away, or tried to, but Will didn't stop groping him until he'd
checked all limbs. "I'm fine, confused, but fine. Stop that!"
Will nearly sobbed in relief and pulled the slighter man against him into a tight hug. "Oh gods, if you'd been hurt."
The hug startled him but Ichi sat blindly and allowed it. He locked eyes with Amanda who stood
to the side and didn't pounce on him. "Care to explain to me why your husband has lost his
mind?"
She sat on the side of the rum
pled bed. "Where's Rye, Ichi?"
"How should I know I was asleep!" Will started to pet his hair in a comforting gesture the way a parent would a child and it made Ichi's skin crawl. He hit at Will until he could push the other
man away. "Stop that and so help me if you start cooing baby talk I will hurt you."
"You're okay."
Ichi shook his head. "I am but it doesn't seem like you are. What's going on here?"
"Rye called us." Amanda answered since Will was obviously still scattered. "He was crying, upset, kept saying he'd killed you. That there was blood everywhere. Then he just walked away
and left the line open. We feared the worst and came right over."
Ichi slid out of bed and found his shirt. "Rye would never hurt me."
"Wait, he didn't say he'd killed Ichi, he just said I killed him, just him, no names." Will corrected as sense returned in the fading wake of cold fear.
"He has a reoccurring nightmare about seeing me in a pool of blood." Ichi pulled his shirt on.
"He's phobic that if he lets me care about him that something bad will happen to me."
"He must have had a dream, seeing Conti today must have upset him." Amanda glanced to Will and was pleased to see he was looking almost normal.
"He seemed okay about it." Ichi admitted and glanced around the room. Rye had come to bed shirtless and his shoes were still lined up against the wall.
"Doesn't mean it didn't freak him out. He's picking up your bad habits, Ich." Will muttered.
"We need to find him."
Will climbed off the bed and pushed Ichi back down. "No, stay here in case he comes back. I
think I know where he might be. Let me go get him."
"But..." Ichi protested from where he sat.
"Trust me, I know a thing or two about nightmares." He winked at the pair before slipping out, not wanting to have to explain more.
He stopped in the kitchen long enough to gather up some supplies and just to make sure
Amanda or Ichi hadn't tried to follow him. When he was sure it was all clear he hurried along to
the access hatch, popping the complicated latches by feel in the night dimmed hallway. The
lantern was inside, which didn't surprise him because he was pretty sure Rye didn't need the light
to move around any more than he did.
Will turned it on anyway, the moment he got the latch back in place. He knew it was a very bad
idea to startle anyone trained to kill, knew it first hand. It had been the primary reason he'd kept his distance from Amanda for almost a year after the surrender, until he was sure his nerves had
settled down. Even then, it had taken years more for him to be able to sleep without a weapon at
hand, something that Amanda hadn't understood but just accepted.
The twists and turns passed quickly and Will was sure he'd find his quarry when he heard a
sobbed breath be held and shakily released around a darkened corner. "Rye?" He called out, unwilling to do anything to spook the other man. "It's just me, mind if I join you?"
He crouched there but no answer came either way. "Well, I'm going to come over there." Will moved carefully, letting the light go ahead of him and he found Rye, huddled against the wall.
The red head was barefoot and shirtless. He was sitting cross legged and while his eyes were red
he wasn't crying any more. Balanced in one of his hands was a slender, very sharp, kitchen knife
but he just sat there, holding it. He didn't even look up as Will settled in across from him.
"Thought you might like some." Will said softly and pushed the small packet of tissues across the way with his foot.
"It was a dream, wasn't it?" Rye finally spoke, his voice low and broken. "I didn't hurt him, did I?"
"He was still sleeping like a baby. Scared me about half to death but Ichi's fine."
"I'm sorry."
Will shrugged. "Happens." He forced his shoulders to relax. "So, what's the knife for?"
Rye shook his head. "If I'd hurt him..."
"You didn't."
Rye just turned the blade around in his hands, the metal glinting in the dim light.
"You don't really want to. Well, that's bullshit, I'm sure right now the idea feels pretty nice. Finish it all before you can actually hurt him? Hurt him a little with your death and know he'll get over it instead of waiting and maybe really hurting him later? A little bit of pain to end a bigger one you don't want to deal with, an end that's easy and mostly quick?" Will spoke gently and earned a
quick glance up from Rye. "No matter how much you might want to right now, you won't in an
hour. Trust me, I've held that knife a couple times myself."
"If I'd hurt him..."
"You didn't. It was just a dream."
"Didn't feel like a dream!" Rye forced out between clenched teeth.
Will nodded and pulled the tab on one of the cartons of chai he'd picked up. It heated quickly in
his hand. "Here." He held the carton out to Rye and made the man either refuse the offer or put the knife down and accept it.
The choice wasn't an easy one. Rye set the knife down carefully, the metal making tiny clinking
sounds in that the unnatural wind carried away. The blade lay between the two men, within reach
of either but Rye took the chai and wrapped both hands around it.
Will nodded and pulled the tab on the second one. "Tell me about it?"
"The dream?" Rye asked but his eyes were on his chai.
"Yeah, Ichi said you keep having a nightmare about him being hurt. Was it like that?"
The dream had felt so real. "I don't really remember calling you, that feels like a dream, the dream feels real."
Will shrugged. "Mixed up in nightmares and waking, I'm not surprised. You dreamed you hurt
Ichi?"
"I didn't want to, I had to."
"Why?"
"I don't know, I had to. He was laying there, dead, in his own blood, his eyes were open, watching while..."
"While?"
Rye shook his head.
"You won't shock me, or upset me. While what?"
Rye just shook his head again. "Just a nightmare."
"Was Conti in it?"
"Yes."
"It's not uncommon for memories to mix with current fears in nightmares."
"Will, I think, maybe, it was from before I was like this, it felt different."
"That's good isn't it? If some of those memories are starting to slip into dreams that means
they're still there. Looks promising on you remembering more."
Rye shook his head. "What if I don't want to remember?"
"You don't want to remember?"
"I like my life now." He studied the carton of chai but it offered no answers. "I don't think I liked it much before."
Will sat silent and let the breeze ruffle around them while he tried to pick apart what Rye was
saying with what he wasn't saying. "I used to run with a gang." He finally said into the lingering silence.
Rye just glanced up, unsure where the confession was coming from.
"After my family died. Bare Earth took everyone of them in less than two years. That was
unusual but happened with some families. Everyone but one or two was taken in the first waves
of the virus, I was just the lucky one. I was fifteen, my village was, well, mostly gone to disease
and fighting and I joined a gang of Avalon kids." It seemed foolish now but there was safety in numbers, and someone to bury you when you died.
"That's where you learned to fight?"
"Yeah, rough and tumble Avalon style." He sipped at the cooling chai to wash the bitterness from his mouth. "I didn't like myself much, figured I was living on borrowed time like everyone else. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of. Eventually the group I was running with ran across someone
bigger and badder and those of us that su
rvived scattered. I ended up in the city, mixed in with
the docs that were scrambling for a cure because of my high level of resistance. That's how I
met Amanda, her mother was one of the top doctors, brilliant woman.
"See, though, I was barely literate, rough, rude, violent, anti-social, drunk half the time but they took me in. Wanted to keep their test subjects close at hand and well, I was used to fighting for
someone else. They fed me, I helped out, kept the building secure, that sort of thing. I showed an
aptitude for medical work, research, and Amanda, this stunning glowing angel made sure I could
read better, taught me enough to be useful as an assistant. They were pretty short handed, what
with people dropping over dead every wave and I was seventeen and horny and she was
stunning. I would have swallowed ground glass if she'd asked me to." Will laughed and glanced
to where Rye sat, silent, listening.
"Bare Earth took Amanda's mother in that last wave, as the vaccine was being mass produced.
The militia smart boys had an idea to get the Fleet out of our skies but it was a suicide run. I got picked, had no family, no reason to live, no worry about dieing."
"You agreed?"
"Of course." He nodded. "Nine of us smuggled up there and only four lived to touch Avalon soil again, five made it to the escape launch but one bled to death on the way down. Anyway, twenty
minutes before I was to leave, Amanda comes running up, sobbing her eyes out. Telling me I
had to come back, that I couldn't leave her, that she loved me. Me, the sociopath, Mr. Fuck-the-
world-before-it-fucks-you, she loved me. I mean I was hot for her but love? Not even in my
dictionary. She saw me at my worst, my absolute worst, saw and knew all the horrible things I'd
done and still loved me, even though I didn't love myself. Pretty powerful stuff, love. It's
something people like Amanda and Ichi don't hand out randomly and people like you and I have
to struggle to accept."
Rye downed the last swallows of the spicy tea. "You think my dreams are a metaphor? My fears
that if Ichi knows me too well it'll kill what we have?"
"I don't know." Will shrugged. "I work with immunology all day, not psychology, but it is a fear you've been holding in. Even if the dreams aren't stemming from it, that fear is getting mixed
