by J. A. Huss
I sit and think for a minute. I don't really care what he looks like, that's not important. And as far as what he is, well, I don't even know what I am, so who am I to judge what he might be. I can't process it right now.
I get up and go sit next to him on the couch. "I don't miss the obvious, ya know. I'm just not interested in knowing certain things. Once it gets in here," I tap my head, "it never leaves, Lucan. It's there for good. So, if it makes my life more complicated and I don't need it to survive at the moment, then I ignore it and let the answers come to me in their own time. I'm extraordinarily patient in that respect."
I look up at him to see his expression. It's thoughtful. "I don't know what to think about all this, Lucan. I only wanted some freaking orange juice. I don't want to know all this stuff about you guys and I don't want to talk about it, or ask questions, or think about what it means." I exhale and shake my head. "I really don't."
"Well, you're a major player in the future of the Avian race, so it's your duty to know all this stuff, Junco. The time for running away is past now. You must stand up, accept what is true, and move forward."
I stay silent. I don't want to see the truth, I just don't.
"Did you hear my words, Junco?"
"Yes."
"And your response is?"
Just when he's getting impatient and about to say something I answer. "It never ends well, Lucan. Never." I search out his eyes and suddenly all the pushed-down pain just under the surface is desperately trying to come back up. "I'm tired."
He puts his arm around me and laughs. "Me too, Junco. But if we rest now, we lose. I've come too far to lose. And so have you." He tips my chin up so I am forced to see him as he speaks. "You've come too far. Either you take your stand or it all becomes meaningless."
I shake my head so his fingers lose their grip on my chin. "Yeah, I get it."
"Maybe you should spend the evening with Esta?"
I don't answer, but he pauses to think it through. "Yes, I'll have Ryse take you over to her when he has time. She's calm and rational," he looks down at me, "and can explain things better."
I don't mind seeing Esta, I think we have a lot more in common than I thought at first, but I hesitate. "I want to see Tier."
"I told him he could walk you to the training room tomorrow," he checks his vision screen, "today. He'll be here soon and you've gotten him all riled up, Junco. Be calm when you see him. And let's get rid of the girls today, we're out of time. Threaten to stun them with pulse rifles and then run fifty laps in the training room. That should put an end to it."
"What if they all agree to be stunned?"
He smiles. "They won't. Keep the ones who agree." He looks down at me and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Don't really shoot them, Junco. We're not going to do that anymore."
I let out a huff. "Sure, now you change the policy. It's a good thing you warned me," I say, looking at him as I get up, "because I totally would've shot them."
He shakes his head at me as I go back upstairs to get ready for the day.
I can hear them yelling as soon as I leave my room. And I'm a half-hour early. I jog down the hallway to the stairs and hop down, not taking care this time, and the steps sway wildly as I descend. They are in the living room and I burst in on them mid-argument.
Tier is poking Lucan's chest with a finger and I raise my eyebrows at this. "– that was not what we discussed. This is over now, Lucan."
Lucan nods to me and Tier turns. "Let's go, Junco, yer coming home with me." He takes my hand but my feet are planted to the floor.
"Wait, what's going on?"
Tier's eyes glow bright green and Lucan just stands there. "He was angry in this house with ya here, that is inexcusable, Junco. Yer not staying."
I resist again and take Tier's other hand. "He didn't do anything to me, Tier."
Tier shakes his head. "Ya have no idea, Junco. None. That being is forbidden." He looks over to Lucan now. "How many other times has it happened? Do you guys flip into it all the time, whenever ya get a little pissed off?"
He's right. I have no idea what they're talking about.
"Ya took her to the cages, ya left her there, and she felt so threatened that she had her weapon out and sliced through the couch as ya brought her back?"
He's enraged and there is no way I'll be able to defuse that anger.
Lucan exhales and smiles. "Tier, I assure you, she's far more dangerous to me than I am to her. I would never–"
"You'd never turn in front of her, that's what ya told me! But it happened!"
"She stays, Tier."
"No, she doesn't!"
Lucan shakes his head. "It's only for a few days, you have my word, Tier. It will not–"
Tier growls at him. "It will not, yer right. It will not, Lucan."
"I give you my word, Tier. It will not happen again. She had to see the children sooner or later, so it is done now. One less thing to do."
Tier pulls on my hand again and I follow him towards the elevator.
He punches the call button and the doors open.
"Wait, Junco." Lucan walks up next to me. "I have something for you."
I turn and he hands me a drink canister and then Tier pulls me into the elevator and the doors close. He exhales and raises his eyebrows at me. "Sorry."
"Are you allowed to talk to him that way?"
Tier huffs. "What's he gonna do? Kill me?"
"That's not funny."
He shrugs and gives me half a smile. "What's in the cup?"
I take a sip and laugh. "Orange juice."
"You can stay, he won't do it again."
"They why all the posturing?"
"Ya give him a little, Junco – he'll take it all from ya. Ya can't do that with him. He'll just keep asking and asking. Believe me, I know how it goes. That being is forbidden. They are not allowed to show us their rage. It's bad enough what he did ta ya, taking ya to the clutch like that. But ta do it out of anger makes it so much worse."
"OK, whatever. I don't want to talk about it anymore."
Tier calms himself with a deep breath. "Ready to go shoot the girls?"
"Lucan says I can't really shoot them."
"Well, maybe they'll get lippy and ya can justify one or two?"
"Nah, besides, I want Tessen to make it, let's not scare her."
He bumps up against my shoulder. "Tessen better make it, she's on my team. Ya can't cut her."
"I thought playing favorites was forbidden?"
He laughs loudly at this, a guffaw almost. "Junco – where the fuck do ya live?" He shakes his head at me. "The President is falling all over himself to make you happy, and yer telling me there's no favorites? He's gifted me so much shit I've got more power than most of the Archers under him. Favoritism is alive and well in the Avian world. And we like Tessen, right?"
I nod as I think about what he just admitted to me. "Yes, I like her."
"It's settled. Go in there and threaten the shit out of them, wink at the ones ya like and let the others walk out."
"Fuck, Tier. Life would've been so much easier with you in charge during Fledge. Ashur was so–"
"Ashur is a straight-backed piker, Junco. He's Mr. Follow-the-rules. Always has been. Don't get me wrong, when ya got me as yer captain, the XO had better be as rigid as he is, otherwise it'll never work."
"So what's that say about Braun?"
He shrugs. "Well, ya can't have it perfect all the time. Braun is very good at what he does. Munitions, strategy, fighting – that sort of thing. But we're too much alike to be one and two. Besides, we'll be back together next week. All nine of us. I'll be captain, Ashur will be XO, Ryse will be up and you'll be nine. And that will be perfection."
The doors open and we exit onto the training floor. "What about when we come back, what happens to your other team?"
He pushes me up against the wall and his hands slip to my waist. "We'll worry about that when it happens, Junco. Don't get ahead of yerself, it never works out the
way you plan, so learn to let it go."
I look up at him and smile. "God, I love you. You say all the right things."
He leans down and kisses me, his hands sliding behind to my back, and I tilt my head at his touch. "I love ya too, Junco. Don't ya ever forget that."
He squeezes my hand and walks off to the stairs to find his own training room. People say hi to him and I watch how attitudes change as he passes. How some avoid him, some look for his attention, and some bask in his glow. I stand there for a minute, just soaking up what's left of his presence. Basking in his glow.
Chapter Four
Ashur enters the training room just as I am about to address the shitty line-up of girls against the wall. He's got the whole team with him and each of them has a plasma rifle.
He waves me over and I glare at the girls from across the room as Ashur and I talk. "So, where do you want to eat lunch, Junco?"
I lean in conspiratorially and whisper. "I'm supposed to hang out with Esta and Ryse today, I think. Lucan wants Esta to teach me something about the myths."
Ash looks over at the girls and shakes his head. I see a few of them actually step back in fear and turn so they can't see me smile.
"I'll come along too, then it won't be awkward."
I turn back and nod my head at him as I eyeball the few wannabes who are still meeting my gaze. "What do you mean? Why would it be awkward?"
He puts his hand on my shoulder and looks back at the girls as he turns me around so they can't see us talk. "Oh, I guess you wouldn't know then. Right. Esta and Ryse have been," he stops, "together, you know." He shrugs. "So, you don't want to be the third wing, right?"
"Huh, that makes sense somehow. Ryse is into that mythology bullshit too, isn't he?"
Ashur exhales heavily. "Yeah, they're actually perfect for each other. She got her pheromones removed, did you know that?"
I shake my head. "No, I didn't. Good for her, that shit was so annoying."
"Yeah." Ashur turns us back around and raises his voice. "OK?"
I nod. "Let's shoot them then."
I watch the girls panic and begin whispering to each other as Ashur signals the guys to charge the weapons.
"OK, ladies, turn around and put your hands on the wall. Today's test is being shot with the plasma rifle. You'll have fifteen minutes to recover, and then you will run fifty laps in the training room."
Obviously none of them have ever been pulsed with a plasma because if they did, they'd know it takes you hours to recover from that shit and even the best smoke-free lungs on the habitat wouldn't have a chance delivering enough oxygen for crawling fifteen minutes later, let alone running.
They begin to protest so I play the first card. "If this isn't what you signed up for, leave. I can't even count the number of times I've been shot with a plasma so this is excellent training. Plus we get to see–"
The first girl cracks and walks out. "Oi!" I call. "You haven't even heard the part about the SEAR knife yet!"
They start yelling at me and I just smile. "Hey, if you don't like it, there's the door."
In the end there are only two left.
Two stinking girls.
Tessen was clearly warned by Tier because she didn't even flinch through any of my threats.
The other girl's name is Lili and she looks like she'd be equally at home in my princess room back on Earth or flying around on a wire at the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve holding a candle, she is that angelic.
I shake her hand, then remember she's probably never done that before when she looks at me, confused. "So, are you and Tessen friends?"
The small blonde girl scrunches up her face. "Who's Tessen? I thought you said you were going to shoot us?"
"Never mind, Lili. You're officially my new favorite. Welcome to the warriors." I wave Ashur over. "So what do you want to do with Lili then? Tessen is just gonna go back to Tier's team."
He shakes his head. "Sorry, Lili, you're going over to Monk in Justice." He eyes me with a small sneer. "He liked having a girl, it seems. Probably can't get the image of your naked body out of his head."
My face scrunches up at Ashur, but he just pushes Lili on the shoulder a little and they walk towards the door where Ryse intercepts them. I watch them talk as Ashur looks over at me. He nods and all three of them come back over.
"Junco," Ryse starts, "Lucan says I have to take you over to Esta. So," he shrugs, "let's go."
I look over to Ashur and he smiles a little too sweetly. "Monk's at a meeting with Lucan and Rache, so Lili and I will tag along too."
Lili gets to come now? Perfect. "Huh. Whatever happened to third wing, Ashur? You're such an asshole." I wave Ryse on and follow him out towards the trains.
Esta is thrilled to see me when we finally arrive at the museum almost an hour later. She barely notices Ryse, so I don't know what Ashur was talking about with the whole third wing thing. And Ryse, for his part, is so interested in the artifacts he hardly notices anything else.
"Junco?"
I turn and look at her, then smile at my sister. "Esta, I'm not really interested, but Lucan says he wants you to explain stuff about," I wave my hand to the hundreds of cylinder seals lining the walls, "all this stuff." There's quite a lot of artifacts and I don't recognize a single one and I've seen the entire private collection at the British Museum. "Where did you guys get it all? I mean, are these copies of what we have on Earth?"
Esta links her arm in mine and begins walking towards the wall. "No, Junco. We have all the important ones. We only left the broken ones, or duplicates, or ones made by inconsequential artisans, back on Earth."
I nod, appreciating the display. "Do you have any of Inanna?"
She beams down at me from her slightly superior height. "Earth has no true images of Inanna, or many of the others, either. We have them all. Here, I'll show you." She walks over to one cast hanging on the wall next to the cylinder seal that, when rolled on wet clay, can make the impression of images that can then be visualized. They make a repeating pattern if you roll the seal more than one continuous turn, so it's like a wallpaper border my grandma might have had near the ceiling in her bathroom.
Esta points to the figure in the middle of the scene. "This is Inanna, Junco." I study the woman who has inserted herself into my life with such force. Her hair is wild, her chest is bare of clothing, and her dress is lined with jewels. She has many weapons: spears, a knife, a bow with a quiver, something that looks like a pickax, and a wand.
A very small wand that she holds in her hand, her thumb near the top. As if she's ready to flick it on.
I point to the little wand. "What's that?" I look over at Esta and she's smiling so big she can hardly contain it.
"That's her lapis rod."
I nod. "Oh, OK. That thing she gave the first gatekeeper when she went to the world down below."
Esta looks surprised. "Who told you that story?"
I sigh at the memory. "Tier. When we were bathing in a hot spring back on Earth. It was a nice night. Before the nightdog ate my fingers, of course."
Esta stares at me, her face serious. "You have a lapis rod too, ya know."
My hand reaches into my shirt and I pull out my SEAR. "Is it lapis? I never knew that."
I hand it to Esta's outstretched hand. No one has ever asked to see it before. She palms it and flicks her thumb over the small imperfection in the stone but of course, it doesn't power on. It's coded for me and she's not done anything to try and fake my print like Aren did that last night on Earth. "You're Inanna, Junco."
I shake my head. "I absolutely am not Inanna, Esta. That is so much bullshit."
She just laughs. "Very close, if not."
I look around and find Ashur directly behind me, Lili is off with Ryse looking at something. Esta hands me back the SEAR and I look it over carefully. "It's blue, but I don't think it's lapis lazuli, Esta. It looks synthetic."
"It's not really lapis. I was kidding. But it is weird that you have a rod of power." S
he shrugs one shoulder. "I think it is anyway."
"So, I'm the killer then? Or what? I have to say, I really despise this myth. And if any of you were told your destiny is to kill people, you'd never want to hear about it again, either."
Ashur moves in closer to me and I look up at him. "It's all bad stuff, Ashur. I'm the outcast, I'm the evil one, I'm the killer, I'm the impure one. I'm tired of hearing it."
He squeezes my shoulder as Esta begins talking. "Junco, in my opinion, that is a misinterpretation. You see, the myth in the original cuneiform is marked off like this." She takes my hand and pulls me over to a long tablet filled with columns of ancient Sumerian. "This image," she points to a glyph, "has been translated as outsider or outcast. But it can just as easily mean shepherd or leader." She looks down at me. "I think it says you're the leader – the shepherd to bring us together. That's why you're always out front." She takes my hand again and leads me over to another plaque and points to a group of seven dots. Six of them are lined up like the six dots you see on dice. "You're this one." Her finger gently touches the single dot at the head of the group. "The leader, see?"
I nod. "OK."
"They're all like that, Junco." She takes me to several more and points to the group of seven, six lined up in two short rows, and the seventh out in front of them. "They've misinterpreted the myth. And while all of you think I'm not important in all this, I happen to think I can read them a little better than the rest of you for a reason. It's my gift. Like Junco has her warrior skills, I have the history inside me." She looks around to see what we think. "I can just read them. It's easy."
"So how did the Seven get on Earth? And where the fuck have the genetics been for all this time?"
She shakes her head at this one. "That, we have no idea. There is nothing that points to where the containers were hidden and none of the humans have ever divulged how they came to have them. We don't even know who started it all, or why they knew they had to."
I smile and feel a genuine love for Esta. "You're right, Esta. You're good at this. I bet we all have gifts. I wonder what Moju's gift is?" I'm lost in thought and when I look up Ryse is next to Esta and has his arm around her, making her feel important. I smile at them both. "Hey, have you ever looked at the cuneiform writing on the Fallen Archer church over at Fledge? I'd love it if you could translate that for me."
