“Shit!” She launched herself at Mia and cradled her as they collapsed, crying, to the floor. Words were too small, too faded in front of the ugly truth. They sobbed together for what seemed like an eternity of shared pain. “Let me come with you!” Sam clung to her with both arms.
Mia wiped her face, eyes still red. “No. This is something I have to do alone. You’re dead weight, anyhow.” She pulled a smile, spreading mascara on the back of her hand.
“But I’m the only weight you have.”
γ
“Jasper! Jasper, you have to get that!” Zoey barely came to her senses and watched him return to Earth and tap twice on his buzzing watch. He spoke in a language she didn’t while cradling her head to his chest as she caught another glimpse of swaying droplets. It sounded unlike anything she’d heard before, but still she made an effort to pick up on something. Anything. Uselessly.
The conversation was over in under a minute. There was the faintest something clouding his features and she couldn’t help but ask, “What’s wrong?”
He exhaled, gathering the right words. “Our Chancellor. The decision has been made, we’re ambushing Beck today.” Jasper avoided eye contact just like an embarrassed human would.
“I’m not letting you go there by yourself.” Her words came soft yet imposing.
He made the droplets return to the tub in a quick move as he stepped out and handled her a bathrobe. Zoey grabbed it and wrapped it around herself at meteoric speed, watching him wrap a towel around his dripping boxers.
“The Chancellor is not allowing you to join in.”
“I actually understood everything he said and it was all the opposite.” She spoke in a serious tone, watching Jasper’s blood drain from his face. The Chancellor had told him he needed all the help he could get, so getting the hybrids involved would be, again, their choice.
He knew she was about to get stubborn. “I won’t allow it. And since when do you speak Lenvin?”
“I don’t!” Her eyes were flickering at the realization she had the winning hand.
“So you just played me?” He was shocked to register her unmoved features and quickened his pace to the bedroom.
Zoey was quick to follow behind. “And I’d play you all over again! Look, this is not the time to be stubborn. Going in there with Mia and Lilou alone is suicide! Alex, you said it yourself, is not a soldier so he’d have to monitor everything. Gerard is a big man, but still, you’ll all be powerless in there! How are you planning to take out someone like Trenton Beck without risking Rufus’s life and your own?” He watched her crossing arms defensively.
“Zoey, we have strategy. This is not your war to fight!” He was firm.
“You heard Mia, I don’t need your permission as long as I have hers!” Feisty again. Because that was what she did and who she was without even realizing it.
“I won’t be able to protect you! You’ll be a distraction.” Trying to talk sense into her was futile. It exasperated him beyond words.
“Well it seems to me that I’m gonna have to be the one protecting you, given the circumstances!” There she was again, in full gladiator mode, and it scared the life out of him. Because humans jumped headfirst without even understanding the risks. Because staying focused on the mission instead of her freckles would be another battle he wouldn’t win. Because Lilou shouldn’t see him fail his first mission at the mercy of this…whatever it was. It would ruin everything, shattering his career and the hopes his parents invested in him. He wouldn’t allow it.
Jasper stepped into the bedroom and got dressed in a flash under her stare.
She couldn’t believe how stubborn he was, how he’d risk everything to keep her out of it. Sure, there was undeniable generosity in his actions, but this was life-or-death and she’d do anything to avoid the latter.
“I’ll talk some sense into Mia. For the life of me, please, please stay put!” He grabbed her face with both hands and pleaded. It was the only thing he could do and he was entirely at her mercy. He dreaded the feeling. Dreaded.
When did surrendering to his words become so easy? So easy that she had to fight with her whole self to go against his plea.
“No!” She grabbed his wrists and squeezed to make a point. “You should listen to your Chancellor!”
“Really? I think he’d have me terminated if he knew about us.” The way he said “us” made her lose focus a little.
“Terminated? What do you mean? As in dead, like Etienne?”
“I don’t know, Zoey. Members of the Alliance don’t get involved with beings outside the Alliance itself—it’s unheard of. There’s no protocol for this particular situation because it’s never happened. Why would it? We’re trained to coexist among you but we never come close to actually having a conversation with your kind. What for? We’re eons beyond your evolutionary stage and we’re here to observe, shield, and report. End of!”
She choked on her words. “But…”
“There are no buts. This is my first-ever mission as an ambassador and I’ve already failed. Look at me!” He squeezed her cheeks a bit harder and spoke with a mad flicker in his eyes. “I don’t know how much time I have on Earth, I’ve already been here for over six months and the Alliance rotates ambassadors from planet to planet. We work with different teams and face new challenges every single time. It’s supposed to make us better, more assertive. Look at Lilou, she knows exactly how to handle each and every one of us, she taught me everything I know about you.”
Reality hit her in the face. Not that she hadn’t expected some sort of a talk, but it felt good letting go of what-ifs and focusing on June and June alone. They both felt for each other—that was as clear as water—but whatever this was between them came with an expiry date.
“I promise I won’t be an obstacle in your professional growth, I just want to help. When the time comes, we’ll both feel better we’ve done everything we could—we have a better chance at Beck together than you do all by yourself. Lilou’s fabulous, but be smart about it!” She swallowed her pride and it tasted like fresh thorns in her throat.
“You don’t get it, do you?” He moved his hands to her shoulders. “There’s less than a 39% chance for you to make it out alive as it is. I’m not going to lower that percentage by taking you on board with this.” It had been eating at him slowly since he’d gotten to know her. “Shit, I can’t believe I’m doing this! Come here.” Zoey felt her palms sweating as he slid his fingers in hers. A second later he had portalled them both into Lilou’s room.
The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
“If two systems are both in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.”
“What the heck are you doing?” Zoey whispered at him frantically. They stood at the foot of Lilou’s bed. It looked like the bedroom of a home-alone teenager—three intersats spread on the duvet, along with candy wrappers left, right, and center. Books stored in perfect chaos on her left nightstand, half-empty glasses and mugs on the other, and Jazz curled up beside her, eyeing the two of them curiously. He yawned and got on all fours, arching his small back the way cats did, followed by a front and back leg stretch before he pawed his way closer.
“You’re making me risk everything! Happy?” Jasper whispered back.
Lilou’s eyes cracked open to an unusual sight. She did not move a muscle, though, as she wanted in on the bickering.
“Take me back this instant!” Zoey glared, tightening her jaw.
“This should be a no-brainer for you, given your earlier bravado. Stand up like a soldier if you wish to be one!” Jasper’s heart was racing, but came to a halt as he heard Lilou’s voice.
“By all means, I hope you at least got me coffee!” her sleepy voice came through. “What is it, like 5 a.m.?!”
Jasper portalled out and back in with a steaming mug, which he handed to her carefully as she steadied her back on a giant pillow, scanning them, still puffy-eyed, from a sitting position. Zoey swall
owed nervously as she waved sheepishly at Lilou. She wanted to stomp Jasper’s foot with the eagerness of an elephant but elegantly refrained herself, watching silent Lilou take two full sips.
“Lilou, I have a situation.” Jasper’s tone was serious.
Kill me now! Zoey’s face read as she rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath.
“I’m listening.” Two more sips followed.
Before he could start, Zoey cut him short. “Your Chancellor called and he thinks it’s okay if I join the mission and help you get Beck. Jasper’s being stubborn about it, but I know the consequences and I want to join—whatever it takes.” She said it without even blinking as she watched Lilou retrieve a flat chocolate bar from under herself.
“Jasper…” Lilou waved a hand, inviting him to participate.
“That’s not why I’m here.” He couldn’t look her in the eye.
“Yes you are!” Zoey anticipated where he was going with the sudden guilt fever.
“Shush, Zoey. If you want me to play Judge Judy, I need to hear both sides for proper arbitration.” Lilou propped her back firmly against the headboard. Jasper had no clue who Judge Judy was, but he did understand what arbitration meant and how it went down. And this particular case was not likely to end well for him.
“It’s a question of misconduct. I might have feelings for Zoey,” he blurted as Zoey’s mouth dropped in horror. “Technically, I’m your superior in rank but we both know that’s not true given your time in the field. I was chosen to be an ambassador due to my enhancements, not my experience, and you’ve been my mentor and coach since day one. I’ve never even seen another intelligent life form outside the parameters of the I.P.A. I was weak and I have failed everyone, I don’t deserve to be an I.P.A. ambassador. It’s in your hands if you wish to turn me in now, and I’m ready to face whatever the consequence.”
Lilou’s face remained unmoved as she took yet another sip. “Why did you come to me instead of turning yourself in directly to the Chancellor?”
Zoey’s pulse accelerated. Palpitations rippled in waves across her chest. “I did not turn myself in already because there’s no one I trust more than you to keep Zoey safe from all of this.”
“What makes you think I would?” Pokerfaced, Lilou listened carefully.
“I trust you. I always have. You abide by the code but still have your own opinions. And you were smart enough to go around the code to get your way and bring us here, for example.” June was Lilou’s favorite base on Earth—it was, however, off-limits ever since Etienne went feral because the Alliance could not enter a time loop without approval from the host. It had been a risk granting her the move after Etienne’s derailing, but she got it done before the new Chancellor took the lead.
Zoey, of course, had no idea what he meant and her eyes jumped from one optan to the other.
“This is not Zoey’s war and you have what it takes to keep her safe. I have no time to look for alternatives and she’s being…difficult!”
“That’s bull—” Zoey found herself frozen before finishing her sentence. She couldn’t quite tell who was behind it.
“You’ll get your turn, Zoey. I ask the defendant to proceed.” Lilou signaled Jasper to continue.
“I know you well enough to know you won’t stay behind with Zoey, but if you find it fit for me to still attend the mission, I am ready to give my life for it and I’ll fight with everything I got. The Chancellor wants us to ambush him today—technically, you have no time to wait for the Alliance to send you another ambassador and complete training. If I live past today, I’ll turn myself in. It’s forward, but I mean it.”
Zoey felt her skin burning under the layer keeping her in place. Her eyes were stuck on Jasper and she just wanted to turn back time, to take back everything she’d said.
“Noted. Zoey, I’ll unfreeze you under one condition—I’ll ask the questions.” Lilou restored Zoey’s body to freedom and she found herself afraid to move too much under Lilou’s sleepy yet uncompromising stare. “So Jasper has feelings for you. Is it mutual?”
She swallowed hard. “Very much, yes. But it’s not his fault, I practically harassed him ever since we got here!” Jasper didn’t know what had hit him, turning to look at her as if she lost her mind.
“Are you two aware of how ridiculous you sound at not even six o’clock in the morning, bickering over who’s gonna keep who safe? Oh, stop giving me that look, Jasper—some rules are made to keep your heart safe, you idiot, and you two have been more obvious than Ross and Rachel since we portalled here!” Zoey couldn’t believe her ears. “What would happen if every soldier or ambassador in our position fell for someone like this? You know we can’t commit—it’s the contingent nature of our jobs. Just like for humans, the forbidden only adds to the attraction and it’s happened to most of us—probably not Alex, though. What are you gonna do when the party on Earth’s over—write to her from another galaxy? Skype, maybe?” Jasper fell silent.
“We can worry about that after we get Beck.” Zoey felt positive.
“You’re not coming!” Jasper shot her a menacing look.
Lilou placed her empty mug on the nightstand beside four other equally empty coffee mugs. “And who are you to decide what she can and cannot do? If you want to join, you have my blessing, Zoey! As for you, have you ever heard of the K.I.S.S. principle? ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid!’” She couldn’t help but quote Judge Judy again.
“But…”
“Overruled. Case closed, the judge is low on caffeine.”
Jasper portalled Zoey back to her room in complete silence, his hair still dripping wet. He looked as if he was having conversations with himself, conflicted.
“We don’t have the luxury to keep fighting.” Zoey placed a hand on his chest. He took everything too seriously, like an overzealous intern. “You probably think I’m mad, untrained, brash, and you’re probably right. I didn’t get a chance to spend more time with Rufus but we owe it to him, and to Mia, to get things right. She saved all of us, so the least we can do is be there for her when she needs us most. What do you have to lose?”
“You.” he answered abruptly.
“You won’t! Plus, you owe me one, remember? The night we met we made a deal back at my apartment.”
“How could I forget?” Sarcasm hit again. “I do respect your wish. Strongly disagree, but I respect it.”
“You’ll just have to make do.” She flashed a smile, this time around interrupted by the vibration of her own kalenium.
“Hello?” A lot was going on this morning, it seemed.
Sam’s voice pierced through. “Zoey, I—shit, can you come to my room for a second?”
Panic rose in Zoey’s chest as Jasper landed her in Sam’s room.
“Do you guys come in a pack now?” Sam shook her head. She had not expected Jasper, of all beings. “You look kinda ruffled, man!” Sam eyed his surfer hair.
“And you look like your bikini isn’t dry yet.” he acknowledged, eyeing Sam’s two wet chest patches piercing through a bright green towel. “What’s the emergency?”
Mia came out of Sam’s bathroom all wrapped in a towel of her own. “Fuck it, I’m just gonna say it. Why can’t I get the fuck outta here? Why could you portal here and I couldn’t?” She scowled, defiantly folding her arms in resentment.
“What? You got errands to run dressed like that?!”
“Stop the bullshit, Jasper! I tried to portal back here from the swimming pool. It doesn’t work!” She was exasperated.
“And it’s not going to! Alex disabled the magnetic field for portalling inside and outside the time loop. Since Gerard and Aline are out, there’s no one coming, no one going. Only the host has access to portal freely right now, and you’re looking at him.”
Molten anger flushed Mia’s face as she clenched her jaw. “Bastard!” She could have been with Rufus now, she could have killed Beck already.
“Got somewhere to be?” Jasper raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t just
fucking sit around for one more day, I’ve had enough!” Mia roared at him, running on sheer frustration.
“You won’t. We’re ambushing Beck and getting Rufus today. Now quit the tantrum and get ready for breakfast. We’ve got briefing.”
Expectation outweighed anxiety for the first time in a long time.
Today…He looked too serious to be messing with her and that’s all she needed to know. Mia didn’t really care about specifics, nothing really mattered more than finally taking a step forward.
Zoey, on the other hand, felt a vortex swirling inside of her. “Were you in on this, Sam? Were you just gonna let Mia kill herself today?”
“Not you too, Zoey!” Mia urged.
Sam narrowed her eyes in response. “Maybe we just ‘zinged’!”
That was enough for Zoey to slap a palm over her forehead. “Maybe if your head was a little less in Hotel Transylvania and a little more anchored in the now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!” she snapped, poking her index finger in Sam’s direction.
“Blah blah blah blah blah!” Sam pouted, Count Dracula style.
Mia saw Jasper shrug in her direction, baffled at the ongoing conversation he couldn’t keep up with. “I’m not following. We good, Mia?” he whispered through the background noise of bickering women, not really eager to interrupt the drama between Sam and Zoey.
Her frown relaxed. “If you let me have a go at Beck today, yeah…we’re good.” She nodded back.
“What do you say we make an escape?” He winked.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
γ
“I thought humans enjoyed sleeping…” Alex arrived puffy-eyed at the breakfast table. They all looked like they were fully awake and had already finished breakfast.
“Sorry, Alex, we were hungry. But we did save you some pancakes.” Mia handed him a plate as Lilou poured coffee for both of them.
Lost in Amber Page 24
