The Saffron Malformation

by Walker, Bryan

  “I remember,” something caught in his throat. “That was when I knew, there was nothing the world could throw at her she couldn’t handle. Nothing that could,” but he couldn’t say the rest, because Sticklan Stone had proved it wrong.

  Amber held him. Then kissed him. Then wrapped her legs around him, nodded, and allowed him inside.

  It was the first time for both of them and it didn’t take long.

  Arnie eventually joined Rachel, Quey and Natalie at the table. His head was ringing and he apologized for anything he might have done, what that was, however, he couldn’t remember.

  There was no time to deal with his drunkenness so they moved along with discussing what to do next. Rachel got a location on east continent and directions. They’d head south through the waste until they came to a town called Breakers Bay. It was on the coast and there was a boat that would take them to the rail transport on Topaz island. Topaz was a luxury vacation resort with rail systems running to every corner of the planet. It was also much easier to get through unnoticed than Saffron City.

  “It’s the best plan we’ve got,” Quey said, sitting back with a sigh.

  Through the silence of the room they heard the elevator doors open. Ryla came through the hall like a leaf being carried by the wind. She walked over to the table and stood before them. “You scanned me,” she said plainly.

  Natalie glanced around the table then answered, “Yes. We needed to know… we needed to see what was inside you so we could get the shrapnel out.”

  Ryla stood tall, her fingers fidgeting in front of her. “And you saw… what I am,” she replied.

  “What you are?” Natalie asked.

  Rachel sat forward. “Near as I can tell you have some extra parts. Are you mad about this?” she asked, uncertain.

  Ryla shook her head. “They say when you’re trying to understand someone else, when you’re trying to understand something you don’t, the best place to start is on what they call ‘common ground.’

  There was a nod of agreement. “These extra parts,” Natalie began. “I’m just curious how they managed to get there.”

  Ryla sighed, shrugged and dropped her hands. “I don’t know. I can’t do it.”

  “Do you know how old you are?” Quey asked without looking at her.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Natalie said you’re probably older than we think,” Rachel clarified.

  She looked at Quey who did not return her gaze. “I’m seventy six.”

  The table took a moment to ponder this.

  “Why didn’t you say this before? Why did you let me believe…” he trailed off.

  Ryla was nodding. “All I told you was that I’m not a robot. And that’s true.”

  “No,” he snapped. “You told me you were a girl, that you were just strange.”

  She nodded. “I suppose I did. And I suppose you think that’s wrong. That I’m not a person who’s just a little different.”

  “You’re playing around with words. What did you think would happen if you told me?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied softly.

  “If you hadn’t gotten hurt would you have ever told?” he stopped but everyone could hear the ‘me’ that was meant to be at the end of his question.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Then why are we talking about this now.”

  “Because of the way things are. You deserve to know what you have with you.” She looked at Quey, “And you deserve to know. The hardware in my body…”

  “There’s a lot of it,” Natalie said. “From what I saw.”

  “Yes,” Ryla went on, “Well it makes things not work right. It makes it so I don’t understand. I’ve spent all day trying to learn and I can’t. I’ll never understand why if you’re sad you’ll get angry, and hurt everything around you or why when you’re angry you’ll sometimes have sex. I don’t know why people laugh at some things and not others.”

  “That’s not really the way it works, sometimes its sort of complicated,” Rachel began but Ryla spoke over her.

  “And I’ll never feel the way I’m supposed to.” Quey sat still, breathing slowly. The words clawed at him and the silence around the table deepened. “Not the way a human would. I’ll never be anything but awkward. I’ll never fit in and I’ll never understand. And maybe that’s why I didn’t want to tell you, any of you, because then I’d have to admit it. I’m not human.” Those three words seemed to torment her as they came out and when she loosed them a pair of tears fell from her eyes and caressed her slender cheeks.

  There was a torturous moment that passed silently as the people around the table tried to decide on what to do. “We should,” Natalie said, nodding her head away from the table.

  “Yeah,” Rachel agreed and they began to rise.

  “No reason for that,” Ryla insisted. “I’m done. I just wanted you to know that. That and I do… I like all of you. If you decide I shouldn’t go with you… I won’t.”

  “That’s not an option,” Quey said hollowly. “Blue Moon will come here, whether we leave or not.”

  She looked at him. “I’d be fine. If not here then somewhere.”

  Rachel glanced around and said, “You’ll be fine with us. We’re not going to abandon you because of something as silly as this.”

  “Of course not,” Natalie added.

  Ryla looked at Quey. He still wouldn’t look back. She felt that as a slight pinch inside her, but she’d had to tell them because Jacob was right. At least this way they knew the truth and her limitations. At least this way maybe he wouldn’t get hurt.

  “Do we have a plan?” she asked.

  They told her that as of now the only thing they were working with was to go to ground on east continent and try to figure it out from there. Ryla sat at the table, thinking for a long moment. “Arnie?” He looked over at her, his head still soupy from the night before. “Can you fly the transports?”

  Arnie glanced from person to person and shrugged, “Sure.”

  “We’re not back on this are we?” Natalie asked.

  Ryla shifted her hips, adjusting her weight. “Running buys us time but they won’t stop. They’ll go wherever they need to, torture whomever they need to, and eventually they will find us. It’s inevitable.”

  “What are you thinking?” Quey wondered.

  “What if we use this to our advantage.”

  “Go on,” Rachel probed, sitting forward slightly.

  “I engage the compounds full defense program and link the computer to a portable device. This place’ll keep them busy for days, weeks even.”

  “Weeks?” Arnie asked.

  “All three of your doom ships,” Quey began.

  “No. They would tear through those in minutes with the force they’d send here. But there are other things. Below the third basement,” she told him, meeting his eyes with a hard stare. “Things that think. Things that don’t die easy.” A chill passed through the room, everyone save Ryla seemed to feel it. “They’ll think we mean to stand here. They’ll send for more soldiers. Meanwhile we select the weakest base with one of Richter’s transports. We meet up with Rachel’s brother and use his men to help us break in and take it.”

  Everyone sat for a moment trying to think of a hole worth bringing up and glancing at one another to see if anyone else could find one. “It’s not a bad plan,” Rachel finally said.

  “No it isn’t,” Quey agreed.

  “What happens once we get the transport?” Arnie asked.

  “You fly us off the world,” Ryla replied.

  “What happens when they send shit to blow us out of the sky.”

  They looked at Arnie.

  “That’s the one thing, isn’t it? Even if we do make it to the transport it’ll take a miracle to get us off world alive.”

  “A miracle or a virus,” Ryla said. When she noticed she had their attention again she went on. “The bases have to communicate to one another, they need to be on the planet
ary network to coordinate anything. I intend to use the connection at whichever base we raid to shut the network down.”

  “That won’t last long,” Rachel said solemnly.

  “I calculate that if they begin repairs as soon as the network is sabotaged it will take between twelve and twenty minutes for them to be fully operational again.”

  Another set of glances. No one argued.

  “That’s cutting it close,” Arnie said.

  “It only take’s but one or two to break atmo,” Quey said.

  “True,” Arnie agreed. “But, I’d like to leave at a wide orbit. Seeing as how none of us have ever been to space, and given Rachel’s condition, I’d like to limit the G’s we pull.”

  Everyone agreed that was sound.

  Quey looked over at Ryla, he looked at her nose, the shape of her cheek bone and jaw line. He looked at her eyes and his heart lurched. She was beautiful, not just pretty, and he knew she cared for him, maybe even loved him in her own way. Whatever way that was. “Rachel, message your brother with the plan. Tell him we’ll need his people ready to go. Ryla, how long will it take you to get set here?”

  “A few hours.”

  He nodded. “Arnie, you gunna be able to keep sober?”

  He nodded.

  “We need you sharp,” Quey told him. “We leave early, as in with the sun,” he said.

  “What base are we going to hit?” Arnie asked.

  “We’ll have a great deal of road time between here and Breaker’s Bay to figure that out.”

  “Doesn’t even have to be on the east continent,” Natalie added. “We get to Topaz and we can get anywhere.”

  It was a good point and went noted.

  “Morning then,” Rachel confirmed.

  “Morning,” they agreed.

  “I’ll handle the kids,” Natalie said. “Tell them what they need to know and make sure they’re ready.”

  Quey chided himself silently. He’d forgotten the kids. What the hell were they going to do with them?

  Ryla was halfway to the elevator when he noticed her leaving. He was on his feet and after her as the others went their own ways. She was already inside with the door closing when he caught up to her.

  Their eyes met for the first time since he’d seen the scan of her innards and discovered what lurked within. After a long bit of ticks he leaned down and kissed her. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her against him.

  “Do you understand,” she began.

  “Not a thing,” he told her. “Not even me.”

  “So what then?”

  He shrugged. “What feels right.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Okay.”

  It was a cold reply. To her it was a decision that could go one way as easily as the other. When he stepped back the doors began to close. Just before they came together he thought he saw her smile.

  Quey and Ryla

  Morning came faster than any of them would have liked. Quey woke in Ryla’s bed, naked and still drained from the sex they’d had only five hours ago, after she’d finished programming the compound. She was sitting at the desk across the room, naked in the glow of her computer’s holographic screen, making last minute adjustments.

  They hadn’t spoken much at all the night before. He’d waited in her room for hours though he couldn’t tell you why. Perhaps part of him wanted to see her under the light of this new information he had about her, to see if knowing the truth would change his perception of her. Was she just running through a set of programming parameters? Of course he couldn’t deny the seedier side of why he was there. He had a desire she was quite good at satisfying and there was something appealing about screwing something that had screwed with you.

  Why didn’t she just tell me? He chewed on that question for quite some time until she’d finally come into the room. He’d watched her, the way she moved, the perfect elegance of her steps and the way her pale blue dress floated around her. He hated how perfect her movements seemed, as if nothing were ever an accident, as if every step was part of a well rehearsed dance. A person doesn’t move like that, he thought bitterly. A person missteps.

  The glare he watched her with began to fade as he traced her shape with his eyes and remembered how good those flawless movements could feel. Desire tickled in his groin and mixed with a series of other emotions. Frustration, and hurt feelings. She hadn’t trusted him with the truth. It made him angry and hard for her at the same time. Then she noticed him, lying on her bed. She looked at him for a long set of ticks before unzipping her dress and letting it fall to the ground. Her breasts sat high on her chest, her figure a slender curve that she accentuated by cocking her hips and arching her back. She looked at him and even through the dark her eyes pierced him. He rushed her, backing her against the wall, and looked at her intensly. The emotion behind his eyes was as unclear to him as it was to her. Finally he placed his mouth on her’s and she accepted his kiss and allowed his hands to grope her. There was something different about him this time, she noted. He wasn’t as gentle as he had been during past encounters. He was forceful and a bit rough with her, and strangely she found that this new experience was exciting. It seemed dangerous somehow, as if she had no control over what happened.

  He opened his paints with a swift motion and let them fall to the ground. They watched each other for a moment before he touched her breast again and gave its nipple a pinch. She tried to move but he grabbed her arms and trapped her against the wall and looked down at her body, analyzing it. Her heart raced and she remained still, waiting to see what would happen next. Anticipating. She didn’t know why she liked this, he was actually sort of being mean to her.

  His lips settled on her neck and he breathed deep. She smelled good. Her skin was soft. She was heartless and a liar.

  Her hands moved to touch him so he spun her around, used his fingers to lubricate himself with spit, then stepped forward and ran a hand down her back, giving her ass a slap. She looked over her shoulder at him, breathing heavy, and he shoved himself inside. She sighed as he entered and lubricated quickly as he gripped her hips and thrust hard. She braced her hands against the wall and made little noises as their flesh clapped together.

  Before he knew what he was doing he scooped her up, carried her over to the bed and threw her down onto it. She squealed with surprise and excitement. Quey pushed her legs apart and pulled her to the edge of the bed where he fucked her hard and for a long time, longer and harder than he’d expected. Each time he thrust into her he felt the knot of frustration in his belly gain a bit of satisfaction. It was short lived, however, as he couldn’t help wondering about her, second guessing every sound she made, every touch she gave him. She watched him, meeting his passion with her own, crying out or sighing, “Oh fuck yes,” or telling him how good it felt. Was that real? Any of the things she said. Finally he leaned over her and grabbed her hair. He looked into her eyes while their flesh came together like waves crashing on a beach. There was no talking then and he watched as her eyes fluttered and her body began to tremble. He saw her mouth working a silent, ‘oh,’ as her muscles pulled tight and he had to groan, tight as her hands were on his arms, she was tighter around the part of him that was inside. “Don’t stop,” she begged only twice before a spasm shook her and she groaned. After a cluster of hard contractions she loosened and fell limp beneath him. His thoughts and doubts gave way to something animal. He settled on her with need, meeting her eyes and throbbing inside her. She gave a tiny cry with each thrust until finally he pushed deep and had a spasm of his own.

  Afterward he collapsed onto her. She kissed him tenderly and stroked his hair. “I’m glad you were here,” she told him.

  He looked into her eyes and wondered about her again. He felt tense and wondered if it wasn’t a mistake to come here. There were so many things he didn’t understand about her and he wondered if he ever could. She was unique in the world and not very forthcoming.

  When he finally left her the sensation ran a tickle t
hrough his prick that was almost painful. It did something similar to her as both their orgasms had been mighty. He took a moment to look her over, his eyes lingering on her wounds, stitched closed and healing fast. A thought tried to form as he fell onto the bed beside her, but his mind was soupy so instead he touched her healing wounds lightly as she lay silent beside him. He felt the urge to go, to walk away and leave her. He told himself that’s what he’d do he just needed to lie down for a minute. It took less than that for him to fall asleep and it seemed an instant later it was morning.

  “We have to go soon,” she told him. He watched as she pulled on a long black skirt and a black long sleeve with a porcelain doll hanging from a noose on the front. The dolls face was cracked in a spider web pattern and missing small pieces here and there. It was snug on her and she smoothed it gently against her frame.

  “A little small, I think.”

  When she looked up she saw him watching her and explained, “It was Rain’s.”

  He nodded. She’d really meant something to Ryla, and Quey took comfort in that. At least he knew that was possible for someone to do.

  Quey dressed in his jeans and a plain black short sleeve.