He knew how thin her patience thread was. Forcing her to wait must be a fucking thrill for him.
Restless, irritated, and just a little scared, she was just about to go hunting for Kellen, when he came to her.
“Angela?” He always said her name that way, the Spanish way, closer to angel. It made her feel worshipped but always unworthy. Everyone knew real angels didn’t exist.
She spun the chair so she could see him. Too tall for a sub, he bent in the doorway, one hand curved over the lintel. The look on his face made her heart double-whump.
“Is everything okay?” Such a stupid question, every time somebody asked it. Of course something was un-okay. Else why even ask the question? Yet she had, of him, because of that look.
“Vallejo won’t be a danger to us going forward,” he said in a weary voice. “I am willing to guarantee that personally.”
“You’re sure? He’s wily.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. For one thing, I locked him back in the lounge. I also threatened him pretty bad with some shit he’s particularly scared of, but mostly, I think he’s just tired of being kept prisoner. Those UNAN detention blocks aren’t fancy living, and his captors haven’t been kind. Don’t mean he won’t get up to no good the first second we loose him upon the world, but for right now, I think he’s harmless.”
He crossed the module toward her. This wasn’t a big sub, and apparently, it hadn’t been built with more than one communications officer in mind. Little room, spherical, metal, covered floor to ceiling with electronics. There wasn’t another chair, so Kellen went to his knees in front of hers.
She couldn’t help herself. She reached for him, drew his golden head into her lap, and stroked it until she was halfway to weeping.
The answer to her earlier silent question hovered right there over his bent body. What must I leave behind? If this worked, if she kicked Zeke out of office and ended his secret reign of villainy, she had to become something not-her. Something alone and unassailable and made of authority.
Kellen was her weakness, had always been, and if she let the world know he existed, her enemies would use him against her. They would threaten him. They would use him to put her back into her box and make her shut up.
That weakness, the fault in a dragon’s scales, the dry spot on Achilles’ heel, was love. Love created loss. Love was baggage.
No wonder the mentors had broken them apart. No wonder she must do it again.
“You’re trembling like a guilty thing surprised,” he said, his voice half-muffled. “Cold?”
“Am I crazy or did you just whip out Wordsworth on me?”
“Definitely crazy, but then, you always been mad as a hatter.”
She smiled. “Loopy as a shoelace.”
His hair was fine and soft, even softer than Yoink’s fur. She could stroke it all day, every day. This could be her life.
What if they just ran away? Got a unit somewhere, made her digitally dead again, pretended to be the people they should have been, might have been, if no one else had ever intruded on their lives and destinies. Oh, she knew it wasn’t real; she knew why they couldn’t. In that scenario, the attacks would continue, people would die, and the both of them would be eaten from the inside with guilt.
But for half a second, a stolen frozen moment under the ocean and on the edge of uncertainty, she indulged the fantasy. It was pretty fucking amazing.
So fucking amazing she wanted to—needed to—share it. With him.
Turned out she could. Com room, right? She knew how to use one of those. She knew how to merge her thoughts with another person’s. Show him her feelings. Let him into her head. And at the same time, closet away everything he oughtn’t see there, shhhh.
Emotion casting was totally her wheelhouse.
She swept one hand over the communications board. The bulkhead separating the com module from the rest of the sub lowered, slowly. Hissed. Sealed.
“When we were out by the car looking at the ocean in the dark,” she told him, making her voice into a lullaby, “I watched you get into your dive kit. I watched your body in the moonlight, and you know what I couldn’t stop thinking?”
“That you’d better ought give a man his pride and look away when he’s that goddamned cold?”
“That somebody with a gift should carve your likeness. And I would put it by my bed and go to sleep every night, enchanted by such beauty. And I would never have a nightmare again.”
“Y’know, you can spout poetry till your voice goes, gal, but sayin’ a thing, even a real pretty thing, don’t make it true.”
“I know.” Her throat was so thick with tears, she could hardly speak. “I am a fantastic liar, though, and just once, I need to show you my best lie, my myth and fantasy. I need to make you believe. Please let me.”
• • •
He couldn’t read her mind, had never been able to, but right then when he looked up, he read her face clear as glass, the expression on it, like a book of fairy tales, a thousand free wishes scattered on the surface of reality. He couldn’t see the end of their story and didn’t want to. He could only see the beauty of it as it was. And also, he could give her the thing she wanted. He could give her all of him. He could give her his faith.
Tell me your tale, oh princess mine, and I’ll quest the world for you.
She pulled him to his feet, and he let her. A helm dangled from the ceiling, a psych-emitter contraption, and he let her secure it on his head. He let her unfasten both suits, first hers, then his, and peel away the smartfabric until their two bodies were bare and rippled like gooseflesh in the stark recycled air. He let her lay their clothes on the hard floor, a blanket to cushion their fall.
The communications room was close, and cold. But her hands were warm, drawing him down.
He felt those same hands from the inside, stroking his shoulder, the hard ridge of his clavicle, the wild percussion of his pulse. Warm and sweet as she felt to him, so he felt to her. Touch sensation poured from her fingertips into his skin, then cycled back, one loop connected end to end, that insatiable snake of desire, eatin’ its own tail.
“I never plugged in to a holoporn suite, even though of course I had one in my home,” she said, painting him with her breath. He could feel the brush of it, and her own urge to taste. Salt on her tongue, swallow of tears. “It seemed so wrong to fuck a stranger, to know what they felt with their hands without ever making an attempt to feel their reasons, you know, the imagery. Holoporn with psych-emitter reception only goes one way. It feels interactive, but it’s actually passive. Merely science, no myth.”
“Which is why folks still get themselves nekkid and together,” he said. “If you could science a thing like love, there’d be no hunting for it, and no wishing. No made-up might-have-been. Folks wouldn’t need to put all their souls into it.”
She moved over him, fierce. “I can make it more than science.”
He had no doubt. Just went on letting her.
With her hands, a molasses-slow loop of want unwinding between their bodies, melding one to the other. With her mouth, closing over his, sleek and hot, both victor and vanquished. And then lower, at his throat: taste of sweat and trace chemical detox, wet of her tongue, scrape of her teeth. The shiver of candy sucked against the soft palate too long, too sweet.
Kellen closed his eyes, no longer able to discern which touch was his and which was hers. It didn’t matter anyhow. He could feel her touch, touching him.
“You’re casting all these sensory inputs with that doodad in y’head,” he said, lying back against the floor, covered by the warmth of her body. “But I still only feel the surface. Guess there are limits to your science.”
She laughed low against his chest, her hand on his hip, moving inward. “Well, the porn stars don’t get the kind of training I did, and I haven’t really started yet.”
“Did yo
u sort of just tell me to hold on and enjoy the ride?”
“Possibly. You did say I was bossy.”
“Point.”
Her hand had found what it was looking for and sheathed him in delicious agony. He gasped, curling his fingers against her back. Still just the sensory input, but good God, so that was what it felt like. What he felt like, to her. Not just the stroke and friction and surge and ache, but the clasp of power, holding another person’s pleasure, literally, in the palm of your hand.
He inhaled, and desire filled his head, seeping into every part of him. Overwhelming desire, amplified on each feedback cycle, each body’s need consuming the other. He couldn’t contain it all, but at the same time needed more. Needed all of her. All of himself. All of whatever beast was both, and everything.
“Can you feel how much I want you?” she asked in a voice made of promises.
“Yes.” And he could. Feel it. Not a rhythm or a slide of moisture on her thigh. This was desire of a different sort, from her mind and memory and soul and hope.
Eyes slammed shut, but he could still see his own skin, wanted to hold it, feel its texture, test its heat. Wanted to push up into her, fuck her, be her, and simultaneously be invaded by her. He wanted to drown in her, drowning in him. Together. Same. One.
She moved atop him, fitting their bodies together, writhing until the hitch and glide, the heat and hollow, press and piston became one machine, working in perfect synchrony. And none of that shit was endurable for long. Not by either one of them.
Best part of this little science experiment she’d thought up? Was knowing exactly how close she tethered herself to the vast edge of ecstasy, and how easy it was to pull her right over into it.
“I love you,” she said, underlining her words with feeling, transforming them into revealed knowledge, cosmic truth. “I have loved you all my life and will never stop. Swears.”
Past, present. My woman. The best of me.
Her mind, her soul, her body, she was wide open to him, showing and sharing without compromise. No secrets could remain hidden in a surge this wide, this fierce. He knew her. Absolutely and completely. He had never done anything in this life to deserve what overcame him then, the flood of gratitude, of guilt and joy and hope and, yeah, that other thing, too.
Love.
He came, or she did, or they both did. Who even knew the difference at this point? Everything in the universe slammed together, the inverse of creation, coalesced, held for one hot second, and then imploded on a cosmic scream, narrowing and collapsing like a white-point star to this microscopic perfect moment of density.
“Shh,” she said, gathering her composure quicker than he could. “Whoa. I’m getting all these astronomical data points in my head. Hawking radiation and event horizons. Did you know you go deep-science at the point of orgasm, or is this surprising?”
“Had never really thought about it before,” he murmured. Their bodies slipped against each other when she laughed. She felt full and sated, and he wanted to wrap her up and hold her safe until the end of everything.
“I need to ask, while we’re linked like this, so I can feel your feels…” she began. He braced for it, knew what was coming. His body hadn’t caught up with his mind, though, so he didn’t tense, didn’t flinch when she said, “Why were you so sad when you came in here?”
He wasn’t anywhere close to being able to talk about it. Too raw. Too hurt. “Ain’t like you were bounce-house happy or anything. Swear to heaven you were just this side of bawling. So let’s talk about that instead.”
“No. I asked you first.”
“Yeah, but—”
Both their coms blanged like door chimes when the party starts. As Kellen’s was still tucked into the pouch on his dive suit, which was smack under his bare ass, the vibration was a mite fonky feelin’. Angela tapped hers first. Voice only, no vid. Small mercy.
It was Garrett. “Um, hello. I just got a relay communiqué from Heron, but then, I don’t know, it…it cut off. First words were something about a response incoming from the president, and then…shit. Just shit. I think…oh man, I think we lost the Pentarc.”
Chapter 16
“It’s gone,” Garrett was saying. “Shit. I’m not finding it on any satellite trackers or anything. Thermodrones are reading a massive heat signature in the area, but they’re still too far away for visual. It can’t be. I mean, there’s EMP shielding all over that thing. And alternate means of transmission. It doesn’t go dark. It can’t. I just… I don’t know what happened. Shit.”
“Now settle,” Kellen said, burring his voice to smooth out the sharp edges of Garrett’s fear. He felt the same panic inside, just couldn’t show it. Gone. How could something as massive, as permanent as the Pentarc be gone? “Chloe, you there too, honey?”
“Yes.”
Odd for her, a one-word answer. Odd and terrifying.
“Okay, I need you to help Garrett find the Chiba Station. The queen has all kinds of feeds, thousands of them suckers, satellites we don’t even know about. Now listen, she’s gonna be on the lookout for our home, our people. Let’s rally here. We need information, soon’s we can get it, but mostly we need to keep our own shit together.”
He was saying all these things like he believed them, but a part of him already didn’t. That same part knew a life, a mission, a moment this good wasn’t meant to last. He had dared to hope for a little more time, and that had not been wise.
He didn’t want to think of everyone in there, huddled beneath the hyperstructure. He didn’t want to think of them trapped, in the dark, when those spires came down.
But thoughts were sneaky bastards, acid bastards, and once let in, they tended to seek out a wound, pry it wider, and make it burn.
He didn’t remember standing up but realized he was when Angela pressed her body against the back of his, wrapped her arms all the way around him. Her face against his spine, like she was breathing for him, feeling for him. She wasn’t transmitting anything out of her emote rig right now, just white-noise hum. Comfort in soft bursts. A lullaby of soothing thoughts, like one of those Zen fountain doohickies Dead Fester hawked.
She washed her peace over him. Somehow, maybe by reaching through the psych-emitter link and tweaking his own brain. This woman was magic. Weird magic, sure. But his.
The communication board blurred beneath his hands. This wasn’t his forte. Fuck, where was that cat?
Tight against his chest, Angela’s wrist-mounted com buzzed.
“Yoink?”
“I am in the plane with Garrett,” the cat said. “A bad thing happened.”
Safe. Both his girls were safe. It wasn’t everything he needed, but it was something. He could put his hands in these holds and boost himself up.
“Sure has. Load up our blip board, little general. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
It took her several long, agonizing moments. Then, “The dolphins are bored. You’ll arrive in Puerto del Tampico in less than an hour, and can they go away now?”
“Give the pod our thanks,” he said. “And then scan up north, in the desert. See if you can find coyotes out near the Pentarc.”
More time. His teeth were wanting to chatter, but he wasn’t cold, or at least no colder than normal on this boat. But it felt like something core-deep had lost its heater, for good, and the chill spread, filling him up with emptiness. The only parts of him that lived were the parts touching her.
“Some coyotes, yes,” Yoink reported. “They are confused. Also, eagles.”
First good news he’d had so far. “Can they do a flyover for us, over home? Also, anybody among those eagles have a camera on board?”
“Maybe. I will see.”
Silence gnawed through the cramped communications room. The bank of lights hummed blue.
“Port in an hour,” he said. “We should get dressed.” But he di
dn’t move.
“Kellen,” she breathed against his back. “We will find them. They’re going to be okay.”
He wanted to reply. Couldn’t. All his energy right now focused on keeping his shit together. Not thinking of the tunnels, of the dark. Of the sick way the refugee camps had smelled in Texas after the storm, after the diseases took hold. Or of Sissy holding on to her boy, hours on and they’d both long passed. Cold.
Things falling apart. Chaos moving in. Once again, the rug pulled out from underneath him, peace and home sliced away like a fruit’s rotten part. A dead part. Here he stood through it all and couldn’t do a damn thing to stop any of it.
“And if they aren’t okay,” Angela whispered in that voice she had, the one made of titanium and cold fury, “you rest assured, my love, they will be avenged.”
• • •
“You look magnificent,” said Rafa, straightening the points of her collar, but even his voice was solemn. He knew what was happening, what the stakes were. Apparently Rafael Castrejon was something more than a pretty face after all. He’d been with her from the boat, from that moment she’d stepped off, and he’d been tireless. Someday she would thank him properly for this.
Not today. There just wasn’t time.
Cool black satin licked her legs, stirred by the air circulators on the landjet. Vidcasters clustered, maybe fifty in this car. Camera lights heated her dress until it burned her skin. Sweat pooled in the expected places, but she didn’t melt.
She wasn’t made of sugar. She sure as fuck wasn’t sweet.
She might look, as Rafa said, magnificent, but she didn’t feel anything approaching magnificent. She felt…nothing. Deliberately, cleanly nothing. She’d scooped out everything vital, everything worthy, everything real, and left it on a submarine docked in Tampico.
The nothing was important. People trusted people who felt things.
Today, she needed everyone to trust her nothing, the starkness of it. To feel its emptiness. She needed it to horrify the shit out of an entire continent of people, and she didn’t have much time.
Perfect Gravity Page 26
