Humans Only: A Jake Dani Novel (Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Book 2)

by Victory Crayne

  That one I preferred not to answer.

  She dug out lobster meat with her tiny fork.

  We spent the next hour going over old memories, aided by the lubrication of the wine.

  Time glosses over the bad memories and turns the good ones into gold. We talked about our walks on the piers, the national parks, and the walks arm-in-arm from one street lamp to another.

  We laughed at being surprised by a street gang on one of our walks. They popped into view brandishing knives. But I had time to pull my gun out. She searched in her purse and pulled out a .38 Special. We pointed them at the gang leader, whose eyes opened so wide we could see the whites on his dark face. It was obvious he had not expected our response. He turned and ran away, followed by his three compatriots.

  We laughed afterwards. Recalling the memory brought grins to both of us.

  When the waitress came for our dessert orders, we both declined. Then the waitress pulled out her digital pad and handed it to me. The bill. I handed it over to Gancha.

  She put her comm next to it, she scribbled her name on its surface, and paid for the meal with her credit card.

  I figured she had one of those black cards with no credit limit.

  We moved out of the booth and she raised her shawl to cover her shoulders as we walked out into the cool air.

  We didn’t say much as I drove her home. Of course, her hand in mine said a lot. From time to time, she squeezed mine.

  When we arrived at her gate, the guard let us in right away. Apparently, Gancha’s comm had broadcast her ID to the computer there.

  I stopped in her driveway with its arch of red brick. She stayed in the car while I went around and opened her door.

  Was that a deliberate show of leg?

  She stood and came close to me.

  “Fraternizing with the boss is not a good idea,” I said with a smile.

  She grinned. “I’m a woman with active hormones. You’re a good looking guy. What could be more natural?”

  She had a point. Besides, it had been too long for me.

  We entered her home with my hand on her waist.

  The side door opened to the kitchen. Off to my right was a small pantry where one door stood open to show rows of canned goods and a few boxes.

  Her kitchen had a black-topped island. The whole ambiance yelled luxury and convenience. A small family room stood beyond it. On the right was a short hallway. As I looked down it, I could see stairs on the left. To the right was an immense formal dining room, complete with high-back chairs upholstered in black leather and a long rectangular table. A chandelier hung above the table. The only things missing were glass-doored shelves with stacks of dishes and it would have been a perfect old English dining room.

  Gancha came up to me as I felt her body on my hip. She looked up into my eyes as she pressed her body to mine. Her eyes stared at my mouth.

  What a signal.

  I took the hint, wrapped my arms around her, and pressed my lips on hers.

  That led to one thing after another. She was right. This was natural. Dogs do it. Bees do it. And we humans love to do it too.

  Later, in bed, she looked into my eyes. “I’m serious, Jake. I’m ready.”

  For what she didn’t say and I wasn’t about to ask her to clarify.

  So I kissed her again.

  The second time was even better. We both knew we wanted it and we took it.

  #

  On my way home the next day, I debated about dating Gancha.

  Had she really changed?

  People don’t change that easily unless driven by powerful forces. Like fear of death. She said she was afraid of being arrested and sent back to Earth to face certain execution or spending time in a cage, both of which she hated.

  Could that be enough to force her to change?

  It’s amazing how facing death can clear your priorities.

  She was also getting older and had expressed an interest in having a baby by me. That’s a lot of change. Could she settle down to raise a child?

  For that matter, could I?

  And what kind of child would come of our joining? Being both half-Bingers, it was likely the boy or girl would be a half-Binger. It could be a normal child or a full Binger. Which meant a lifetime of discrimination, right out of the womb.

  But I had survived and so had Gancha. Its parents would be brighter than average, which was always a plus.

  I’ve got to stop thinking of the baby as an ‘it.’ I would have a boy or girl, not an ‘it.’

  Then it dawned on me.

  I could become a father again!

  If Gancha came on board as part of my spy team, how would that affect her? And me. But Leanna was part of my team and that didn’t affect me very much.

  Come to think of it, would the two women fight? Leanna had Vincent now. Would that be enough to make a difference?

  This is a lot to think about.

  #

  Gancha thought over her conversation with Jake. One positive of having a crime empire was the cash flow. That was very good indeed.

  But, and this was the gotcha for her, if the cops ever arrested her for anything those below her in the org chart did, they might check with Earth and find an open warrant on her─for murder. Since murder would trump anything they had, they would send her back to Earth. And that would be a death sentence. Or a lifetime in a cage. Both of which she hated with a passion more than life itself. She’d rather kill herself than go back to Earth. Very few people faced such strong choices. It certainly cleared her priorities.

  So she had one decision. Sell her remaining crime empire. That would mean going legit.

  Hmm, something new to consider. Could I stay within the law?

  Well, if she went on ops for Jake that might satisfy her need for an occasional adrenaline rush.

  Then there was the whole idea of a romantic relationship with the man of her dreams.

  Yes, something to consider.

  The next day, Gancha made up her mind. She tagged Jat Keepen.

  “Whatcha want?” he asked.

  “How much would you pay to buy my share of the drug trade?”

  “You sellin’?”

  “Just checking.” She knew from experience that being too eager would mean a lower price for her goods.

  “I dunno. Let me think about that. What do ya want?”

  “Three hundred twenty mil.”

  “Ouch! That’s steep.”

  “Think it over,” she replied. “You could make that up in a couple years. Sooner─if the flood of immigrants keeps up.”

  She disconnected from Keepen and placed three more tags to the other crime bosses in Zor. One of which was interested in her gambling businesses.

  Two days later, she got a tag from Keepen.

  “Your price is a bit steep. Can you come down?”

  “Nope. I’ve got other nibbles.”

  “Okay.” He paused before adding, “I can handle your price.”

  “Told ya,” she replied.

  By the end of that day, she had sold off her gambling interests too. She used some of the cash to buy legitimate businesses. Even a bank. She had to smile at that one. Many years ago, she had robbed a bank in broad daylight in Santa Claus, Indiana.

  When she paused to ponder what she had done, a cool five hundred million plus sols sat in a string of Certificates of Deposit, while another hundred million in stock provided an average income of one and a half million sols a month. Selling Venisio’s house and buying this one had netted her a half mil. The profits from her legit businesses came on top of that.

  With her house paid for and a part of her income set aside for housekeeping, she smiled at herself. She wondered what her crime boss grandfather would think of her decisions, but he was gone now and not part of the picture. Life was for the living and she was busy looking out for herself.

  Birds do it. Snakes do it. Even insects do it.

  Without a conscious thought, Gancha busied herself cleaning
up her life. And building a nest.

  Chapter 13

  Alena spent the two hours before her next class thinking of how to get a sample of mercon DNA for her experiments. First she needed a cab, so she tagged one. When the autocab arrived, she inserted her student ID credit card for the student discount. Once inside the cab, she gave instructions for her destination, “Franken Mall.”

  Like many college students, she wore a short tight orange skirt with black hose. To complete her outfit, she wore a green long-sleeved sweatshirt bearing the logo of the Rockets, the University of Zor basketball team. The colors matched that of the University. Her reddish-brown straight hair fell over her shoulders.

  The cab delivered her to the curb outside Omar’s Department Store. She walked through the department store, ignoring the robots who tried to get her attention. At one time, she had to step around them. They seemed to be everywhere.

  “We have a wide assortment of purses. Some very affordable,” said one female bot with many purses hanging from both arms.

  Once inside the open space, she went first to the directory. The mercon restaurant was on the ground floor. She looked for an escalator since she was on the second floor.

  Happy music echoed from the walls.

  Is that a version of Jingle Bells?

  The smell of baked dough hit her nostrils. She looked to her right to see a bagel shop.

  Many women, with children alongside, walked the halls. Here and there she spotted a young couple. She wondered how they could afford all this. Most of the shops catered to the wealthy.

  Off in the distance she spotted an escalator going down.

  Even on the escalator, she found herself subjected to advertisements on the overhead vids. “Buy this at Omar’s,” “Buy this at Franken’s,” “Enjoy a break at Kindell’s Ice Cream Parlor. You deserve it.”

  No mention of price, of course. If you had to ask, you didn’t belong here.

  When she got to the ground level, she turned to walk back toward the mercon restaurant. According to the directory, it was along her left side. She looked for the sign.

  As she walked, another fembot wheeled up to her.

  “Care to try a makeover? It’s free!”

  She ignored the bot. Then she saw it. The mercon restaurant was two shops away. With a line outside.

  Rats.

  A glance at her comm told her she might not have enough time to stand in line.

  So she walked into the mercon gift shop next door and proceeded deep into the store to get beyond the gawkers who waited out their time to get into the restaurant.

  The smaller “people” behind the counters had dark skin. Much like those from the sub-Sahara parts of Africa. The mercons were bipedal and thus stood on two legs. They heard with two ears on the sides of their heads but from the long black hair on those behind the counter she couldn’t see their ears.

  From the length of their black hair and the bright colored capes they wore, Alena assumed these were females. She had heard that women were chosen for sales jobs because her own species thought they were less aggressive. Too many memories still remained of the warlike males.

  She could see a resemblance with the napes, but these mercons were taller.

  The most striking feature on their faces were their noses of long slits. The slits started wide just above their small mouths but got narrower as they rose up between the eyes. All the clerks wore plugs in their noses. Alena had heard they had a great sense of smell and that most human odors were offensive to them.

  Seeing one of them with nose plugs made her conscious of her own body odors. She had taken a shower this morning but that was five hours ago.

  Would I offend them?

  Not wanting to take a chance, she stayed away from the edge of the counter as she approached one mercon standing with an assortment of ornaments behind her. The first thing to catch Alena’s eye was a doll with dark long hair that flowed almost to the doll’s waist. It was marked “75 sols,” a princely sum for a student. But she had to get her hands on that hair.

  Also from the Net she learned that mercon dolls were made of native materials and used native hair. Which meant mercon DNA.

  “Can I show you something?” ask the clerk with a slight accent.

  Taken aback by the flawless speech in her own native tongue, Alena paused. “I’d like to see that doll there.” She pointed. “Do you have one that human customers haven’t touched yet?” It took two tries to get that across to the non-human clerk.

  The mercon went to the back room and came out with three dolls.

  “These were all made by one woman in a village in the mountains,” she added. “And I assure you, no human has touched them.”

  When Alena saw black hair on all three, she could hardly restrain her excitement. Without touching them, Alena pointed to one and said, “I’ll take it.” She handed over the credit card from her dad.

  “Gift wrap?” asked the clerk with the same accent.

  “Please,” replied Alena with a nod.

  All the better to protect it from contamination.

  In the autocab, she wanted to touch her new possession but realized she couldn’t until after she had run her tests.

  She resisted the temptation until she got back to her science lab. There she put on a lab coat, white sterile gloves, and a face mask. With great care to avoid letting her precious samples touch a non-sterile surface, she spent hours analyzing the mercon DNA. When the results perplexed her, she repeated the entire experiment with fresh clippings of mercon hair.

  #

  Alena pondered her next problem. She didn’t want to use her own DNA because of her Binger ancestry. That might reveal too much, especially in this climate of bigotry. She much preferred to use tissue from a pure human.

  You’d think getting samples of human DNA would be the least of my problems, surrounded by non-Bingers as I am.

  But she didn’t want to reveal her reasons. Would anyone agree to give a few hairs if they knew their identity might be published in a paper someplace, especially a controversial one?

  She considered this problem one night while sitting on the toilet. Two humans slept in beds nearby. All she needed was a few hairs. Like from a hairbrush.

  Just like that, the solution to her problem popped into her head.

  Sometimes Mrs. Albert used the second sink in the guest bathroom to brush her hair. Right within five feet of Alena was the solution. After washing her hands, she went into her own room to get a plastic bag. She returned to the bathroom and pulled out a pair of metal tweezers from her own drawer and sprayed them with an ethyl alcohol mist. Using the tweezers, she pulled three long hairs off the translucent brush used by Mrs. Albert. She wrote “Mrs. A” on the outside of the bag.

  When she crawled back into bed later, she reviewed her next problem. Getting nape DNA.

  That evening, after dinner with her two hosts, she stayed in her seat at the dining table. The professor often returned to his university laboratory for his own research.

  After he left, Alena realized her opportunity. She recalled a saying from her reading. She couldn’t remember who said it. Actual difficulties can be overcome. It was only the imaginary ones that sometimes couldn’t.

  She left the table and went to her room to get a pair of plastic gloves, which she stuffed in one pocket of her skirt. Then she returned to the dining room and spoke to Mrs. Albert.

  “I left my notes in his office.”

  With that, she climbed down the stairs to the basement lab of Dr. Albert.

  Even though her notebook was in plain sight on the professor’s desk, she went to his glass case and glanced up at the stairs. The sound of running water greeted her ears. Mrs. Albert was washing the dishes.

  Returning her gaze to the glass case, she stared at four dolls and a knife in a sheath that Dr. Albert said he received on his last expedition to the nape reservation on Braco.

  With one more nervous glance at the stairs to make sure Mrs. Albert was
n’t coming, Alena rushed to the front of the professor’s desk. She opened the right side second drawer and saw the red box. With care, she brought the box to the surface of the desk and removed the lid. Inside was an assortment of keys. She studied the tags on them until she saw the one labeled “Doll Case.”

  After another quick glance at the stairs, she heard only the sound of running water and the occasional clatter of ceramic dishes.

  Alena reached in so as not to disturb the other keys and took the one she needed. She stole quietly to the case and used the key to open the sliding lock. She pulled the glass door aside gradually so as not to make a sound. Then she remembered her surgical gloves and put them on. She pulled out a doll and with strong fingers, broke off three of the long black hairs and held them up by the ends. Carefully, she placed the hairs in a plastic bag from her pocket and sealed it. With shaking hands, she used a black pen and wrote “N” on the outside of the bag. She placed the bag inside her skirt pocket.

  Then she returned the doll to its original position, slowly slid the glass door shut, and removed her gloves. After locking the case, she returned the key to the same position in the red box, making sure to slip it under the key above it as she had found it. She replaced the lid and keeping the box level, put it back into the desk drawer and shut it.

  Alena stepped around to the front of the desk, picked up her notebook, and clutched it to her chest. Turning on her heel, she took one more look at the hobby case. This was the closest she’d get to real napes in months, maybe ever.

  Only then did she relax. She proceeded up the stairs.

  Mrs. Albert stood before the kitchen sink.

  “Want to lend a hand?” Mrs. Albert asked.

  The older woman looked down at the plastic basin of soapy water. She was old-fashioned in that she did her dishes by hand.

  “Sure,” replied Alena. “Give me a minute.”

  Alena set her notebook on the dining table and proceeded into the kitchen. She tried to calm herself as she dried each dish and placed it in the cupboard. It would not do to drop one out of nervousness.

  Chapter 14

  That night it was hard for her to get to sleep. When morning finally came, Alena pulled on orange hose and added a brown tight skirt, and a white long-sleeved top. Then she rushed to the Science Building.