by Jucha, S. H.
“Understandable,” Renée said sympathetically. “I was close to that reaction the first time the hive rushed at us atop the cliffs of Libre.”
“I recall,” Alex said, chuckling. “Hopefully we’ve frightened Henry to the point where he will confess all. We need to understand what’s going on here. How are these people getting planetside without documentation? Their intentions are dishonest, of course. But exactly what are they up to?”
“I’m sure the twins will have answers for you in the morning. Now, come, my love, I want to test Mickey’s new invention.” Renée gestured to a seat on the couch. A small table at its end held thé and a plate of food.
Alex removed his jacket and shirt before he sat down. Renée had a preference for his bare chest when she snuggled against him, as she did now with a mug of thé in her hand. “A new vid, as well?” he asked.
“Of course,” Renée replied. She had developed an insatiable appetite for ancient and modern New Terran vids, a style of entertainment not found on Méridien or anywhere in the Confederation, for that matter. After Renée’s liner, the Rêveur, was rescued by Alex, she asked Julien to collect the vids to aid her in mastering Sol-NAC, the language of Alex’s people, and much of the nuances of the more evocative New Terran women. To Renée’s delight, she uncovered a huge cache of her favorite entertainment during the Harakens’ time at Sol’s Idona Station.
Renée waited until Alex settled back and laid an arm across her shoulders before she threw a leg over his lap and settled her head against his hard-muscled chest. Then she signaled the vid monitor, which rose off the wall and floated toward them.
“Mickey and his team are installing anti-grav frames on vid monitors?” Alex asked, flabbergasted.
The engineer, Mickey Brandon, and a number of his people were responsible for copying the Nua’ll’s dark travelers and producing the Swei Swee–shelled travelers the Harakens built and sold today. Since the production of the first series of travelers for Haraken, Mickey and several others had formed a company and were producing an endless variety of new anti-grav products.
“Marvelous, isn’t it? You can watch a vid or media reports from any position, anywhere!” Renée exclaimed.
“Any position, anywhere?” Alex asked, frowning.
“Never fear, my love,” Renée said, tilting her head up and kissing Alex’s cheek. “Nothing will ever interfere with you keeping this woman’s attention in our bed.”
Renée had divulged their secret to only one person, her best friend, Terese Lechaux. She had approached Terese because of the woman’s medical expertise, when Renée discovered one night during her lovemaking with Alex that he was utilizing the ever-growing power of his implants to create a feedback loop between them. Each knew, at any one moment, what pleased the other. The revelation had Terese salivating for more information, but Renée politely demurred from communicating the more intimate details.
Taking a sip of her thé, Renée maneuvered the vid monitor to a position level with their eyesight and locked it in place. Then she cued her new vid, a parting gift from Nikki Fowler, the Idona Station director, and settled back to watch.
-2-
“What do you know about these people?” Amelia asked her friend, Christie.
“Not much. That’s why I think we have to check them out. I’ve heard Étienne and Alain are searching for what they call interlopers, visitors without ID. This may be them,” Christie replied.
“Didn’t you say that your brother thought they might be dangerous?” Eloise asked. Of the three close friends, two Méridiens and one New Terran, Eloise Haraken was the most conservative of the three young women. It certainly wasn’t Christie Racine, Alex’s sister, who fancied herself a detective of anything untoward in Espero. The third young woman, Amelia Beaufort, was game for any adventure that Christie could stir up. Despite Eloise’s reservations about some of Christie’s ideas, she was determined not to be left out of a new experience.
“Dangerous to us? I don’t think so,” Christie retorted. “What are they going to do … mess with the president’s sister? At worst, I think they’d throw us out for asking too many questions.”
Christie led her friends down a narrow side street, which ended at a building’s blank wall. Frowning at her friends, Christie rechecked her information, ensuring she was in the correct location.
When Amelia intercepted the beam, the blank wall in front of the girls disappeared, revealing a club’s inviting entrance lit in shades of blues and purples. The club was concealed by a holo-façade, and, curiously, the establishment’s name wasn’t in sight.
The three young women adjusted their clothing, adopted charming smiles, and strolled through the club’s generous double doors, which slid aside at their approach.
“Good evening, fems, I’m Lacey. Welcome to our club,” a New Terran woman said in greeting. She spoke passable Haraken, but her accent indicated she was definitely new to the planet. Moreover, the woman’s shaved and heavily tattooed scalp, adorning an attractive face, marked her as an oddity among Harakens.
“Club?” Christie asked, letting the question hang in the air.
“Our club,” Lacey replied with a smile. “May I offer you fems some stimulants before joining the party?” She waved a small med-injector pistol enticingly, her smile growing brighter. “It will make your experience all the more enjoyable.”
Despite several attempts to pump information from Lacey, Christie and her friends found her to be tight-lipped about the establishment, and the girls chose to join the party without partaking of Lacey’s offer of stimulants.
Two heavy, soundproof doors, leading to the club’s interior, slid aside, and a wall of music struck them. The deafening sound saturated a dance floor packed with gyrating bodies. Laser lights strobed the club, and holo-vids painted scenes on every surface — walls, ceiling, and floor.
Most of the young people were Librans, noticeable by their slender builds and genetically sculpted faces; a small number were local or visiting New Terrans. That the music played over speakers may have been for the visitors’ benefit, since they were without implants.
But the threesome found the scene confusing. Haraken young loved to link their implants to synchronize their dances. The intricate, extemporaneous maneuvers were difficult to perform but satisfying to the dancers and viewers alike. It was one of Christie’s favorite aspects about her implant. Looking around, the girls noticed that not a single group dance was taking place.
After the girls entered the club’s dance floor, Lacey touched her ear comm and signaled her boss. “Dar, we’ve got a big problem … snoopers are here.”
Dar hurried to the front desk with Trembles, a massive New Terran, who acted as the club’s bouncer.
Lacey played the vids of Christie and her friends for Dar. “These three,” she said, tapping the screen with a long, blood-red fingernail, “are asking way too many questions.”
“Questions aren’t bad, are they?” Trembles asked dubiously.
“They are if they want to know about the club, about me, where I came from, and how long I’ve been on planet,” Lacey replied.
“Where are they now?” Dar demanded.
Lacey switched her monitor to the cam pickups in the club and changed viewpoints until she located them.
“Hey, they’re not dancing,” Trembles said, leaning over Lacey for a closer view of the monitor. “But, they are some nice-looking fems.”
“Dar, I tried to get them to take some of our twitch, but they weren’t having it,” Lacey said. “Stop drooling on me, Trembles,” she said, elbowing the bouncer in the ribs.
“Give me a closeup of the New Terran’s face,” Dar ordered, a sick feeling forming in his gut.
Lacey worked to get an unobstructed front view as ordered, but the girls were moving through the crowd, looking closely at the dancer’s faces. They stopped to observe two girls, whose wraps were missing, and Lacey got her shot, froze the image, and enhanced it for Dar.
“Of all the bad luck,” Dar growled, slamming a fist on the table. “That’s the president’s little sister, and she and her friends are recording everything in their implants like Terran Security Forces at an accident scene.”
“You want me to throw them out, Boss?” Trembles asked, hoping he would get an opportunity to be intimate with the fems.
“No … it’s too late for that,” Dar said. “So, what’s your guess, Lacey? We got trouble or we got opportunity?” Dar asked. He trusted Lacey’s instincts, even though she was known to be impulsive and had a hard taste for fems herself. The latter was evident in the way in which Lacey’s eyes constantly flicked toward the image of the president’s daughter, a big, curvy specimen with chestnut hair.
“I don’t smell adz trouble; I smell amateurs. I say we take ’em,” Lacey said, her pink tongue tracing the edge of a lower lip.
“Yeah, let’s take ’em,” Trembles agreed.
“Just take them? The president’s sister?” Dar asked with incredulity.
“Sure, Dar. We take them, get them off planet, and spread the word about three fems who were abducted by Mr. Blue’s people,” Lacey said, punctuating her suggestion with a raised eyebrow. “Remember, this place is comm sealed. Whatever they’ve seen is still in their cute, little, techie heads.” Lacey could hear Trembles snicker behind her, and she smiled herself.
“Oh, nice. I like it,” Dar said, softly clapping his hands. “We get rid of the problem and lay the fallout at Mr. Blue’s door. You’re a wicked woman, Lacey. I knew there was a reason I kept you around despite the headaches you cause me.”
“Boss!” Lacey retorted, pretending to be hurt.
“Stop gawking you two. Patch them, and get some crew to carry them out as soon as they go down. I want them off planet tonight.”
Christie, Amelia, and Eloise separated to cover more of the club’s dance floor, trapping images in their implants of the young people, staring into space and twitching awkwardly to the music. Christie and Amelia picked up several teenagers off the floor, who appeared to have passed out, and propped them against a wall out of harm’s way. Their breathing was shallow but steady.
Eloise started to search for her friends, but she felt dizzy. Her legs threatened to collapse from under her when strong hands suddenly grabbed her arms, and she was hauled from the dance floor. Eloise tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t move and her tongue felt thick. When her legs gave out completely, she was dragged along by her arms.
A heavy door slid aside in front of her, and Eloise was dropped unceremoniously on the floor just inside the room. She glimpsed her two friends not 3 meters from her, their heads covered by metal-mesh bags, before one descended over her head.
* * *
Tatia sat across the card table from Julien, who projected his infamous poker apparel, a croupier’s cap with its green, translucent brim. She once teased Julien that his cap would catch fire from the heat of his processing power as he sought to calculate whether Alex was bluffing, but the SADE calmly reminded her that it was a virtual hat and his processing crystals were in his chest. “But I take your meaning, Tatia,” Julien had added. “Our friend’s play does challenge my analytics.”
Mickey completed the foursome, and he carefully watched Alex’s face, trying to guess the strength of his president’s hand when Alex froze in mid-play.
Mickey and Tatia sensed their security apps swept away, and they were connected in a comm call with Cordelia; Katie Racine, Alex’s mother; and Julien. It had been awhile since Alex had intruded on their implants in this manner, and it was usually only under dire circumstances. The SADEs shared the same capability, but for reasons of their own, they chose not to exercise this capability.
“What?” Tatia mouthed quietly to Alex.
Julien immediately contacted every other Haraken SADE, who began an intensive search to locate Christie.
The thought chilled Alex. There were three ways to still an implant signal. Alex discovered the first method when he rescued the derelict ship, the Rêveur. The Méridiens were forced to search cabin by cabin, room by room, for their dead. An implant used the brain’s heat to run its programs, and those frozen in vacuum had no heat.
A second possibility was a blocked signal, but Harakens didn’t create structures capable of doing that. At least, none that Alex knew. A final possibility, Christie wasn’t anywhere in Hellébore’s system, but that seemed highly unlikely.
Renée took this moment to walk into the room with a tray of food to fuel the three heavy-worlders, only to discover the game halted and Alex pacing, never a good sign. She looked at Tatia, who linked her into the conference comm.
Tatia turned to fetch her coat only to have it tossed to her by Renée, who was familiar with Alex’s abrupt actions. Tatia grinned, nodded her thanks, and raced after Alex and Julien.
“Where are we going?” Tatia asked. She barely strapped herself in when Alex swung his personal grav-transport in a hard semicircle and shot toward Espero.
“We’re going to have another chat with Henry, our new, best friend,” Alex replied.
Tatia said.
Julien added, hoping he would not witness the demise of a human at Alex’s hand. His own emotional programs were in heightened hierarchy. That someone would harm a member of the Racine family seemed the height of provocation. But his real worries were the actions Alex might take to regain his younger sister, whom he adored, and whether his friend could live with his conscience afterwards.
