Walking back toward her apartment, Fennimore fell into step with Elora, but said nothing more. When they neared his door, she said, “Have fun tonight, Dirk.”
Elora suppressed a smile when she caught a little hitch in his stride.
The next afternoon Elora returned to the apartment looking a little dazed. The experiment hadn’t been painful. She’d breathed into a gas mask twice, then Monq said, “That’s it.”
“You sure? I don’t think anything happened.”
He smirked. “Okay. See you later.”
Elora shrugged as she started to get up. She made it as far as a crouch and sat back down. Hard. “What the hell, Monq?”
He chuckled and did a little jig. “It works!!” She gaped at him with a mix of confusion and betrayal. “You’ve grown used to wearing a superwoman suit, my dear. The gas just took it away from you, as it would any visitor from your dimension of origin. If you ever have to function under the effects of the Equalizer, you’re going to need to make some adjustments.”
“Adjustments? I feel like I’m seventy years old.”
Monq cocked his head. “How do you know what seventy feels like?”
“I have a good imagination. This isn’t going to work. If I was being attacked I wouldn’t be able to defend myself. Or my family. Or my friends. Or anybody else for that matter.”
“Sure you could. You’d just be reduced to the same physical resources as any other woman. You still have your angry martial skills.”
“Angry martial skills?” She stared. He nodded. “Do you mean mad skills?”
“Whatever.”
She shook her head and mumbled to herself, “Who would have ever thought I’d be correcting somebody on pop phraseology?”
“And! You’re still you.”
“And that means what?”
“That means it’s just another challenge. You’ll find a work-around. It’s what knights do.”
“Right. How long will this last?”
“That’s part of the experiment. I need you to call in as soon as you no longer feel the effect so we can log it.” She moved toward the door, a lot slower than usual. “Don’t forget.”
“Oh! Like that’s possible!”
“Good to see the sarcasm is unaffected.” He didn’t look up from his monitor to see the withering look he got in response.
She trudged home feeling heavy and dejected. That last part was resented in the worst way because she knew she was feeling pissy and spoiled and didn’t like the way either one fit. Monq was right. She’d gotten comfortable in her role as semi-invincible. So this is life as a mere mortal. She chastised herself for feeling entitled to the privilege of extra strength and speed.
Ram was holding Helm above his lap and laughing while the baby did a tiptoe jig on his da’s thighs. He looked up when Elora came in. “Somethin’ wrong?”
“It takes a little getting used to.”
Walking over, slowly, she reached to pick up the baby and give him a smooch. And almost dropped him.
"Great Paddy! This child weighs a ton!"
Ram snickered. “’Tis the word on the street. Never thought to be hearin’ it from you though.”
She sat down on the sofa next to Ram with Helm on her lap, looking thoughtful as she jiggled him. “You know…” her eyes cut toward her mate, “all the way from the lab I’ve been trying to find an upside to this predicament.”
“Um-hmm?” Ram leaned into her side and nuzzled her neck below her ear, as if he knew what she was thinking.
“Monq calls the chemical the Equalizer.”
“Uh-huh,” he said absently as he continued nuzzling.
“And I was thinking that we’ve never made love as two ordinary elves.”
He drew back and looked into Elora’s eyes with an expression suddenly grown serious. “Ordinary elves is it? Ordinariness is no’ possible for you, Elora. Do you no’ know that? No’ even if you put a paper bag over your head.”
“Please tell me that’s not a fantasy.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “No. No’ at all.”
“Thank you for the lovely compliment. Back to what I was saying; aren’t you curious about what it would be like? I think I might enjoy no restraint, not having to worry about squeezing too tight or raking my nails down your back.”
Rammel’s pupils dilated as he went instantly hard, making his eyes look navy blue. He searched her face for less than two seconds. “Call Elsbeth.”
“She’s got plans.”
“Cook’s always askin’.”
“It’s early enough in the day that she might have a couple of hours.” Rammel grinned. “You call her. I’ll get a diaper bag ready to go.”
After a lengthy experience of sex with native Loti strength, Rammel bore the marks of no-holds-barred fucking and reveled in every one of them.
“Great Paddy, would you look at me, woman?” Ram turned his naked body first one way and then the other while he admired himself in the full-length mirror. “I’m shredded. If I ever get you without your extras again, we will be trimmin’ your nails first.”
“I hear your words, but they’re bouncing off that smile.”
He laughed and sailed through the air then bounced on the bed next to Elora. “Aye. Will suffer pain for your pleasure any day.”
She leaned up on an elbow and looked down at him, then lowered her head to place a kiss in one of the valleys of his abs. Since he was relaxed and not aroused, he was ticklish. He tried to roll away, but she held him down without effort, which immediately drained away the fun.
Elora looked at her watch and sent Monq a text. Three hours, seventeen minutes.
Ram pulled up to his elbows. “What’s wrong?”
She turned back to look at him.
“I clocked three hours, seventeen minutes that the gas was effective on me. I was just sitting here wondering what would happen if that wasn’t enough time to… take care of things. And I was thinking about sending Monq another text asking if there is enough Equalizing gas in the system to deliver a second round.”
Ram reached out and ran his fingertips down her spine, which gave her a pleasant shiver from head to toe.
“You’re worryin’ the thin’ more than you should. I’m gettin’ there is wisdom in precaution to a point. But the chance of Jefferson Unit comin’ under attack? Dwellin’ on it is just silly. ‘Tis why we live here, you know.”
She turned and grinned at him. “Oh. Is that why we’re here? I thought it was for the free and plentiful babysitting.”
“’Aye. ‘Tis a nice perk and one we shall miss when we leave.”
CHAPTER 5
Stagsnare Dimension
Archer had looked at the equation from every angle. A thousand times. He couldn’t solve for the unknown because he was missing a critical factor. His superiors wanted results immediately. Nothing new about that. When had they ever said, “We want results. Take your time.”? The face that the puzzle was missing essential pieces was irrelevant so far as they were concerned.
He sighed, turned over, and looked at the bright LED display on the alarm clock, the only light in the darkness. Sleeplessness had been more rule than exception for a long time. He spent his nights tossing, turning and cursing at himself. At the moment he was engaged in his usual nocturnal pastime, staring at the clock that mocked him. Time. It was his biggest problem. Because he’d run out of it.
The Council had decided that a second expedition would be launched to find the escaped Laiwynn royal. It had been less than three months since the last had claimed the lives of twelve young healthy Ralengclan males, each of whom would have been an asset to the gene pool. They were officially classified as MIA rather than KIA, but if anyone thought there was a chance that they’d survived, they weren’t optimists. They were fools.
Of course there were a few detractors who were cynical enough to realize that MIA meant not having to pay the families death benefits. Bastards.
Politics followed its normal course of
bureaucratic ineptitude and rewarded the idiot in charge of the senseless debacle, Lt. Rothesay, with a promotion to Council membership.
Although Archer had no proof, he had theorized that a "placeholder" was required for each life signature in a particular dimension. He wished he could claim authorship of the idea, but the truth was that there was an obscure reference to something of the sort in a fragment recovered from Monq’s journals.
If the princess had survived the trip to another dimension – and there was no proof of that - she would theoretically have gone to a dimension where two conditions were met: a life signature matching Monq's and a "placeholder" for her. In other words, someone who matched her unique life pattern, but was deceased.
The Council had been in far too big a hurry to explore that possibility. When the first team failed to return on the appointed date, or any thereafter, Council members had decided to grant Archer three months to better prepare for the next trip.
Archer had tried to impress upon them that, if his theory was correct and he sent someone to a dimension where the matching life signature was occupied, they would simply cease to exist - as in vanish or disappear. The idea of that had chilled him before. After having been instrumental in wiping out the lives of the entire expedition, his conscience was bruised and constantly throbbing. No doubt the root cause of his insomnia.
Truthfully, the additional time had done little to change anything. He continued to cling to the original premise of his working theory, but the reprieve of three months had rendered nothing in the way of new evidence. Just guessing, guessing and more guessing.
Archer wasn’t into guessing. Scientists pride themselves on dealing in facts. Nothing was more uncomfortable than playing parlor games with cosmic operations and yet that was exactly what he found himself doing.
Without the benefit of reliable data and replicable results, there was nowhere to turn except to gut feeling. His mother’s intuition had been fodder for inside family joking that bordered on ridicule, but that intuition was also typically unerring in a way that had been disturbing to a budding young scientist. There was an effect without an explainable cause.
The chasm between physics and metaphysics was not easily bridged because adherents of each were passionate about their dissimilar beliefs, not to mention that both sides were convinced that they were “right”.
Still, he found himself hoping, to gods he didn’t believe in, that he had inherited a little bit of his mother’s intuitive gift. Another crop of young lives depended on it.
Of course, someone was in line to feed the universal constant of sacrifice, but at least that sacrifice would be on the part of nameless, faceless young men who had no connection to him and their nameless, faceless mothers, wives, siblings, friends and maybe children. He wouldn’t again make the mistake of engaging any of the probable victims in conversation as he’d done with Rystrome. He would send them on their way without so much as making eye contact. Better for everybody that way.
While he lay in the dark alone, wide awake and staring at the red LED light on the clock, thinking about the course of events that he would put in motion the next day, he tried – hard - to not focus on the likely outcome of the mission.
He blamed himself for the entire thing. Himself and his big mouth. If he hadn’t revealed that he’d deciphered the code Monq had used to map the Laiwynn’s destination, he could have claimed – honestly – that the search was infinitely hopeless, a grain of sand in the Sahara. But he had reason to believe it was narrowed down to less than twenty possible destinations.
When he began to make out gray stripes on the ceiling, it meant first light was streaming past shutter slats. It was a relief of sorts. He could set all hope of sleep aside and move on. So he threw off the covers, grateful for an excuse to get up and fill the silence with noise and other distractions.
He showered, shaved, pulled on clothes and made his way to work. That meant opening his apartment door and walking fifteen feet to his main computer. He’d taken over the basement complex that had formerly belonged to Thelonius M. Monq. It included a well-stocked study-library, a large lab and a bachelor apartment that was comfortable and stylish in a medieval minimalist way. He’d been given a generous allowance to make changes, but found that the setup suited him as it was. So the allowance had been funneled into a scholarship program for Lt. Rystrome’s children. That was why Rystrome had volunteered – to get the money to educate his children. Archer shook his head and then shook off thinking about that.
He glanced at his watch. One hour until commencement of the death parade. That wasn’t the official name of the project, of course, but it’s what he called it in his own head. Before his assignment was complete there were going to be a lot of corpses. It was inevitable. And it was a waste. All the lives that would be cut short, all the squandered potential, just for a dubious seek-and-destroy with one inconsequential Laiwynn girl as the target. One who most likely died in her escape attempt. What a gigantic waste of resources! He didn’t agree with it, but was powerless to stop it.
One hour to get breakfast before the countdown. After checking in with his system, he opted for coffee only. He could always eat when and if his appetite ever returned.
Archer had lined up twenty sacrificial lambs except that, unlike ancient tradition, they weren’t lambs and they weren’t healthy. They were men who were walking around in bodies that had medically-established expiration dates. Yeah. Terminal illnesses.
The new Ralengclan government made deals with the guys. If they survived transport and returned, they’d be given the opportunity to serve their clansmen in a legendary way. The new offer was that, either way, the families’ circumstances would be elevated to a state of luxurious security. Archer’s superiors hadn’t been happy about coughing up funds for the program, but he’d played the old we’re-better-than Laiwynn card, which usually turned the key in the lock. And, truthfully, he’d been surprised by the number of volunteers.
Right on schedule the first walking dead was escorted in. The guy was tall, fortyish and lean in a way that suggested either illness or a very hard life. Maybe both. His cheeks were gaunt and the skin around his eyes was gray, but he was upright with an alert gleam in his eye that looked out of place with the rest of him.
Archer offered his hand out of courtesy and motioned for the man to sit for final instructions.
“I know you’ve been through this many times, but just to be sure, let’s go over it once more. When all motion has ceased, step outside the device and run the locator program exactly the way you practiced. Don’t linger. Don’t walk around. Don’t spend time looking around. The transport is programmed to open and readmit you in three minutes. Turn around and get back on the machine.
“If the light is red, you will automatically proceed to the next stop and repeat. If the light is green, board the transport and push the big green button. You’ll return immediately.
“If all goes well, I’ll see you back here shortly and we’ll have a drink. Questions?”
The man – his name was Tarriman – just shook his head no. Archer started the tumbler rotating and motioned the man to enter. Unlike the pre-experimental version that had taken Elora Laiken to another life, the new transport was equipped with a smooth titanium lining that remained both stationary and stable while the tumbler moved around it.
When the tumbler was whirring so fast that it was no longer visible without mechanical apparatus, Archer closed the door and nodded to his assistant to enter the countdown sequence. As the panel slid to lock position, his eyes locked with Tarriman’s. He’d sworn he wasn’t going to look any of them in the eye, but when it came down to it, he couldn’t treat the poor devil like scrap metal. The least he could do for the guy was give him the respect of looking at him as he sent him to his fucking useless death. If Archer had been a gambling personality he might have held onto some hope of seeing Tarriman again, but he was too well acquainted with the odds to let himself go there.
The
prospect of sharing that drink depended on Tarriman making it to the dimension where there was both a placeholder for his life signature and a version of Elora Laiken Laiwynn whose anatomical makeup matched Stagsnare biology and whose presence had not been detected earlier than two years before, to be confirmed by the biolocator. Of course it was possible. They just might have to go through a couple hundred termies on the way to bingo.
Ninety-six minutes later, the transport “docked” with a roar and a power surge before the whirring of the tumbler slowed. Five people waited with eyes glued to the panel door: Archer, three assistants, and Rothesay. It slid open with a hydraulic-sounding hiss. Empty. The compartment was empty.
Rothesay turned away throwing Archer a menacing look like it was his fault and strode toward the exit while barking out two words. “Tomorrow! Again!”
Archer stood looking at the empty cylinder, feeling as tired as a man who had never slept once in his whole life. He hadn’t expected to see Tarriman again so he couldn’t explain the sudden onset of bone-crushing weariness. He heaved a sigh and gave a simple order over his shoulder, “Notify the family.”
Number 17
By the seventeenth day, Archer was in the throes of his predawn ritual, staring at the LED light on his alarm clock and thinking about how he would go about committing suicide, if he should ever decide to check out. He wasn’t serious. It was a game, albeit a morbid one. Just something to occupy his mind, a way to fill the hours of silence and loneliness while trying to elbow guilt and remorse aside.
Archer hadn’t had a day off since the death parade began. By the time they reached the eleventh guy he’d stopped asking their names. It was easier to think of them as numbers. He worked harder at not making any kind of connection with them. He didn’t shake their hands. He didn’t look in their faces. He ran through instructions like an automaton and pointed to the tumbler.
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