by Jan Stryvant
Cruz snorted. "They mentioned something like that. That you won't sleep with them."
"Yeah, well, I already have two wives that I'm very much in love with, and while they're finally starting to grow and mature, I just can't take advantage of them like that. I'd feel like I was adding to the abuse."
"So when do you want me to start teaching you? And why?"
"As soon as possible, and I can't tell you any of it until after you've been infected."
"Why is that important?"
"I'll tell you after you've been infected," Stewart said with a grin.
"And I don't get a choice, do I?"
"Oh, you get all the choice you want! Just tell me which species, and I'll have someone in here pronto!"
Cruz rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant, and you know it, Stewart. I have to get bitten, or infected as you call it, and I'd like to know why…before you do it."
Stewart sighed and set the book down that he was reading. "I'm sorry, Rob, but I can't tell you. Yeah, it sucks that you don't get a say in this, that it's going to happen without your consent, but that's the world we live in now. I don't like having to do this, but I don't have any choice, and sadly, neither do you.
"But to be honest? I like being a werefox a hell of a lot more than I liked being human. And trust me; I had a lot going for me when I was human. I had money, power, hot slave girls, and a powerful ignorance of the world around me."
Cruz nodded slowly, "I'm starting to see that I've had a pretty powerful ignorance myself. Are we really fighting for the survival of the human race?"
"That and a whole lot more. The world will never be the same. I gave up everything when I came here, then I almost died, got infected, and other than Rachel and April, I don't have a thing. But you know what? I'm fine with that."
"So being a ly…" Cruz stumbled over the word.
"Lycan," Stewart supplied.
"…a lycan is okay with you?"
"Yeah, it is. I'm stronger, tougher, better stamina, harder to kill." Stewart shrugged. "I grew up around lycans. I was taught that they were no better than animals, and we kept them as slaves. My stepfather was even training me how to kill them, as well as anyone else who got in our way.
"Now? Now I am one."
"That must have been quite a shock."
Stewart snorted. "There's nothing like finding out that everything you know is wrong. But it's better to live in the light of a candle than to curse the darkness, right?"
Cruz nodded. "True, all very true. So you'll tell me once I've been bitten?"
"Fairly soon afterwards."
"Alright then. Well. if it has to be, then I want to be a fox, and I want you to be the one who bites me."
"I'd be honored," Stewart said, getting up. "Can I ask what made you decide on being a fox?"
Cruz grinned. "Julia, Kate, and Steff are all very partial to male foxes. I think even Elliana likes them. So I figure if I look anything like you after this is done, I might be able to keep them."
Stewart laughed. "Really?"
"If anything can make all this worthwhile, I'd say it's the four of them, wouldn't you?"
Stewart shook his head, still snickering. Grabbing Cruz's arm, he pulled him closer, then opened his mouth wide, he bit him and 'infected' him.
"I feel…cold…" Cruz said as Stewart released his arm.
"Better strip. You'll shift into a fox here shortly."
"And the reason I had to be infected?"
"Because you're going to be teaching me magic," Stewart said, grinning.
"But I don't know magic!"
"And that's where you're wrong. Now, hurry up and get out of those clothes before you ruin them when you shift. Then I've got someone I need you to meet."
Inangar Arms Factory
"Wendy, you got that firing control circuit ready?" Sean asked as he came over to her workbench.
"All finished. Is that the…?" she asked, motioning to the small, slightly irregularly-shaped, rectangular box Sean was holding.
Sean nodded. "If I read the documentation right, the beam should come out of the small round window at this end," Sean said and motioned to a small circular black spot that was on the smallest side of the box. It was off-center, closer to the longest edge on that side than any of the others.
"Doesn't it need to be focused?"
Sean shook his head. "I don't think so. The purpose of the barrel is to extend the range and the accuracy. That is, if I'm reading the documents correctly."
Wendy nodded and, taking the box, which was a lot lighter than she'd expected, she turned it over until she found the series of gold colored half-circles along the largest face on the box. They were all lined up on the center axis of the long side.
"Well, let's see if this works," she said and, placing the box on the pad she'd cannibalized from one of the machines, she used a few clamps to hold it into place on her test bed. Once that was done, she pressed the 'self-test' button on her little board that contained a disassembled firing mechanism. The machine that made the firing controls had been easy to fix, unlike the one Sean and others were working on, so she'd been ready for over a day now.
The light blinked, three short and fast, one long and fast, then three short, with longer spacing between them.
"That means it's good." Wendy checked the orientation of the barrel and made sure the space behind it was clear.
"Heads up! Testing!" she called out and then pressed the 'fire' button.
A thin blue line erupted from the 'window' and went about ten feet before it started to, well, pixilate was the only word Wendy could think of. She counted to five and then took her finger off the button, and the beam stopped. But not all at once; it was more like watching a stream of water being cut off.
"I think that just broke every law of physics I learned in school," Roxy said breathlessly.
"The laws of physics are different here," Sean pointed out.
"So I've noticed," Roxy said with a nod of her head.
"So all we need is for someone to grab a djevel and hold it in front of this thing," Wendy said.
"I'll go tell Mom," Estrella said and left the factory building.
"Any idea what the range is with a barrel?" Wendy asked. "Ten feet isn't going to work very well."
"Looks like fifty yards or so," Sean told her. "But that's one of the machines that's broken."
"That should be good enough for a test," Roxy said. "Not like we need a big djevel, after all."
Estrella came back in a moment later.
"Mom said they'll have something in a few minutes. Any chance you could move that outside?"
"Sure," Wendy said. "Sean, want to pick up that end of my workbench?"
Grabbing the other end, Sean lifted it up as he and Wendy carefully maneuvered the bench outside.
Kalif, Cali, and Peg came over then as Wendy tested the weapon a second time to make sure nothing had come loose while they'd been moving it.
"So, time to see if this thing lives up to our hopes?" Kalif said.
Sean and Wendy both nodded.
"Ten bucks says it won't," Peg said.
"Always the pessimist," Sean said with a smile.
"It'd just be too easy," Peg said with a shrug. "Besides which, if Mahk's people weren't using them, that means they didn't work."
"But he already told us they did work."
"No. He said they worked the first time. He then made excuses about why they weren't used the next time."
"Which is all rather curious," Roxy said.
"Yes, my Sister," Cali said in agreement. "I have noticed that when Mahkiyoc speaks of things not related to his own specialty, they are imprecise, and perhaps contradictory with our observations."
"You think he's lying to us?" Sean asked.
Cali shook her head. "No, my Husband. I think he is just too afraid to admit that which he does not know."
"I don't think he fears us, Cali."
"No. But I do think his ego fears finding o
ut that he is not our intellectual superior."
"Sounds like Professor Schmidt back at U of Reno," Roxy said with a snicker.
Sean just shook his head. "Oh, I hope not. Don't want to deal with another one of him!"
They heard a commotion then and, turning to look, Keairra, Jipouet, and Sasha had a 'wild' gnasher trussed up with some sort of rope they'd found here and were carrying it as it struggled over to the workbench.
"That was fast," Wendy commented.
"We've been letting this one live for a while now," Keairra said. "Ever since you told us you'd need one for your test."
"Well, just hold him in front of the table there," Wendy pointed, "and we'll see what happens."
Sean guessed that the gnasher had an idea that something bad was about to happen to it, as it's struggles increased when they positioned it in the correct spot. Wendy pressed the button then, and the blue beam came out and hit the gnasher, who was positively wild with panic at this point, its eyes staring at the beam as it hit its body.
And nothing happened.
"Bloody hell?" Wendy grumbled.
"Told you," Peg said with a disappointed sigh of her own.
"Move him around a bit, see if that matters," Sean told Keairra, who proceeded to do just that.
Several minutes later Keairra just pulled out her pistol, blew the gnasher's brains out, and tossed the body to the side.
"Well, that didn't work," Keairra said.
"Do you think it's because of there not being a barrel?" Wendy asked Sean.
Sean shook his head. "The barrel is just for range, according to everything I read."
"It would seem," Cali said looking from Wendy to Sean, "that our friend Mahkiyoc was correct about the weapon not working. He was just incorrect about the reason."
"Which means?" Sean asked her.
"That he will not know the reason for the failure."
"Makes sense," Wendy agreed.
"Well," Roxy said looking around, "we might as well move on to the gateway control and see what we can do there. No reason to waste our time here anymore, right?"
Sean nodded. "You're right. Let's get everyone and move, but…"
"But?"
"But how many other things has Mahkiyoc told us that aren't true?"
"Maybe I should question him?" Cali asked and gave her wings a little twitch.
"Is that a good idea?" Roxy asked. "He's afraid of you, now that you're always walking around with your wings out."
Cali grinned, exposing her now sharper teeth. "And that will encourage him to be honest, no? Plus I can sense his moods as well as everyone else's now."
"Just don't hurt him," Sean told her. "We still need him."
"Do not worry, my Husband. I know of many ways to get people to talk without using violence, or even threats."
"He's all yours then."
Walking back to the blockhouse, Sean found the First, while everyone gathered up their stuff.
"No luck?" he asked, looking at Sean.
"Nope. So it's on to the gateway control, and we'll see if that works."
"That should make Mahkiyoc happy," the First said with a wry smile. "The sooner he can get back to his 'home', the happier I think he'll be."
"I've been wondering lately," Sean said in a lower voice.
"Oh? About what?"
"A lot of things. We can talk about it later."
The First nodded slowly. "Well, let's get everyone moved."
An hour later they were back on the train and headed for gateway control, a trip that would take four hours. Sean watched as Cali deftly maneuvered Mahkiyoc into a conversation, though from the looks of it, he was the one asking her questions. Sean knew Mahkiyoc had questions about the permanent gateways, not unlike Sean and the First. The only one any of them knew about went to a realm that was linked to Cali's home by a long and circuitous path that was hazardous for djevels to travel.
It seemed like Cali was now willing to discuss what she knew about this with Mahkiyoc, which apparently appealed enough to his scientific interest that he had put his growing fear of her aside.
"Roxy, Peg, keep an eye on things," Sean whispered. "I think the rest of us are going to have a meeting."
"Okay," Roxy said and gave him a kiss.
"Hey! Don't forget me!" Peg giggled, and so he kissed her as well. Settling back, he noticed Estrella was already asleep, and the first pride was quickly following.
§
"So," the First said looking around. "What's the problem?"
"Peg thinks our friend has been misleading us," Wendy said.
"Misleading, or lying?" Keairra asked.
"Misleading," Sean replied. "She thinks he's just being dismissive of anything he doesn't care about. He knew the guns wouldn't work, but didn't know why. Because it's not important to him."
"I noticed Cali was talking to him?"
Sean nodded to Keairra. "She's going to see what she can learn about him for a change."
"Wouldn't it be funny if the person we've been putting all our trust in is the Inangar equivalent of a janitor?" Sasha said with a snort.
"I wish he was," Rowan grumbled from where she was sitting. "Then at least he'd have a better idea of the shape of things around here and how they worked."
"Huh?"
Everyone looked over at Rowan.
"I've been researching a lot about this place we're in, and the few times I got stuck, I went and asked him a few questions. The answers I got were confusing, to say the least. He's got the typical tunnel vision of so many academics. If it's not in his field, it's not important."
"What were you asking him about?" Sean wanted to know.
"The first was why they came here. He would only say it was a catastrophe that was destroying their home world and wouldn't say anything more than that. So I asked if he didn't know because he was born here, and he got a little flustered and told me that no one was born here. That all of his people had traveled here. So I didn't press the issue."
"Well, that sounds odd."
"He's a lot older than I am," the First said. "Maybe he just forgot?"
"They had some sort of a war," Rowan said. "I found it in the records after that. They fired off every weapon they had, and 'everyone died'."
"If everyone died, how the hell did they manage to create this place?" Keairra asked.
"Maybe the ones who are here got out before the end?" Estrella suggested.
Rowan shrugged. "No idea. I'm still looking into it. But I went back to look at something after you told me about the gun's failure today and I think I know why."
"Oh?" Sean, Estrella, and Wendy all said at the same time.
"Because of what happened, there was some rule made about not making any weapons that could affect any of the Inangar."
"But we weren't using it on an Inangar!" Wendy protested.
"Actually, you were," Rowan countered. "Remember, the demons that exist nowadays are descended from the ones that had been eating the Inangar. They have their demonic life energy and the energy of the Inangar; that's why they're as smart as they are now, and why the more powerful ones can do magic."
"So that's why the weapons won't work on them!"
"Are you sure about that?" the First asked.
"I found a huge record of a debate on it after I saw that," Rowan said with a frown. "They actually refused to repeal that rule so they could make weapons that would kill the new djevels. Apparently the Inangar ability to ignore reality and its repercussions is very strong in its administrative classes."
"What else did you find?"
"They appear to have had a very rigid class structure and best I can tell so far, is that your station in life depended on what your level of achievement was in your particular discipline. Also, some disciplines were held in higher esteem than others. For example, the people who studied wildlife, their versions of biologists I guess, were at the bottom of the pyramid.
"And because they worked outside studying the many samples th
ey'd imported here to see how they would adapt, they were the first to fall prey to the demons, and no one cared. It wasn't until one of their 'physicists' was killed that anyone took any action, and they ordered their 'engineers', the people who built and maintained everything, to deal with it. At first they were successful, and got rid of the demons. But when they went up against the djevels, the ones who evolved after consuming the biologists, as you saw, those weapons didn't work. So they didn't survive that fight."
"What about the ones who fled to other planes and sealed them off behind them?" Sean asked.
Rowan shrugged. "That was so long ago, I doubt any of them are still alive. Unlike us, apparently Inangar can be killed; we've seen that with the demons and the djevels."
"I thought they were supposed to be immortal?"
Rowan snorted. "The djevels are immortal, we're immortal, the Inangar are definitely not immortal."
"But Mahkiyoc is what, a million years old!" Sean protested.
"I have a theory about that," Rowan said. "Have you seen any dust around here?"
"Huh?"
"Dust, have you seen any. Estrella?"
Estrella pondered that a moment. "Now that you mention it, no. Oh, you could knock dirt on stuff and track it around. But I never saw any dust. Why is that important?"
"Dust comes from dying skin cells. Well, most of it does. I'm starting to suspect that in this place, on this plane, nothing dies unless something else kills it."
"Well, that would certainly explain why the Inangar came here," the First said with a chuckle.
"And that would mean Mahkiyoc's claim of the Inangar having transcended death are a lie," Sean said with a snort.
"Not a lie so much as an exaggeration. After all, coming here did allow them to transcend death, did it not?"
Sean nodded, conceding the point.
"Any idea how they found this place?" Keairra asked.
"Mahkiyoc told us they came here because of the gateways that opened so they could continue their studies into other planes," Estrella said.
"But he did say something about his world ending," Sean pointed out.
"Hmm, right, he did say that, didn't he?"
"Do you remember what he said?" Rowan asked.
