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Ability Out of Control

Author’s Note: So today I decided (almost at the last minute) to use something from my side project for the collaboration, a story detailing Alik’s childhood. This unauthorized side project came out of my obsession with Alik, and it is almost a novel in of itself. I do not know if much of it will surface in the finished version of our collaboration, but this fits mayhem, and it is Monday today, so here goes.

Ability Out of Control

He’d just set the whole place on fire.

Alik looked at his hands. With the storm passed, he’d done his best to practice getting rid of the energy, and he’d thought he’d started to understand—if he took energy in, he could purge it back out, sending it through his lamp or something else electronic, shifting it down the wire, getting rid of it. That discovery had helped.

He could manage his pain, manage the aches, as long as he was able to touch the electronics and rid himself of the energy he seemed to hold onto, and that was a relief. He was starting to understand what he was and how to use it.

At least, that had been what he thought he was doing until a few minutes ago. He had purged the energy before, several times, enough to make him think that he would not have trouble with it, ever, but what he had not thought of was that he’d done it in a rather controlled setting, only a bit at a time, and he hadn’t factored in his emotions, either. This might have been nothing more than the simple flickering of lights he got when he touched his lamp.

Except that was touching his lamp and sending the energy through the power line.

This time, he’d just touched the outer wall of the store, hadn’t directed anything with the energy, hadn’t even thought that he needed to, and the energy had flowed out without him intending it to, arcing across the building with a sudden ferociousness that had left Alik with nothing to do but stare as the building was consumed in flames.

He knew it could be worse—they’d finished the going out of business sale the day before yesterday and the remainder of the store’s stock that hadn’t sold was loaded on a truck yesterday, so that wasn’t an issue. They wouldn’t have to pay for what hadn’t sold.

He would have to check the papers to see if they still had insurance on the building. This could actually help them—they’d been told that the structure wasn’t one that people would want to buy, not as it was—no one had been interested in the month it was on the market, but now, perhaps, they might be. The insurance might even pay out, giving them something to start over with, something that could help cover their bills until they were able to sell the house. He knew they had to move, had to reduce their expenses.

He needed a job of his own, too.

He’d have to spend the rest of his life trying to atone for this mistake. He hadn’t thought he was capable of this kind of destruction, but he was. He had a feeling he could do a lot worse if he was doing it on purpose. He had not meant to do this, but that did not mean that he had not done it. He had.

He had destroyed the store.

The store that had stood for generations in that same location, the one that had been founded generations ago by the first Kallases in Holteshire, the one that had been passed down with pride from father to son until his grandfather had abandoned his family. The store that was his father’s greatest love, what he’d devoted his life to, the same store that he had poured everything into—that was now burning to the ground.

“Alik?”

He blinked, turning to look over at the person who’d called his name. Had he been seen doing that? He should have run, now that he thought about it. He should have left. They’d accuse him of setting this fire—and he had—but he didn’t want to go to jail for it. It was an accident.

Something worse than jail would await him, though.

He’d seen it. He knew exactly what would happen to him if he admitted that he’d caused this fire. He could see the tree, could feel the rope around his neck even though that part was not of his memories, only his imagination.

He’d get lynched.

He had said that he would fight back, that he’d kill them before they could kill him. He looked at the fire. Yes, he probably could do it, but he didn’t know how he’d done that. If he tried again, he didn’t know that he’d be able to do it.

“I thought your father was selling the store.”

Alik nodded. That was what was supposed to happen. They were going to sell the building and the lot. They didn’t have any choice. They had no way of starting a new business there. “He was. He is. He was. I don’t—This shouldn’t have happened.”

“I think you’re going to need to come with me.”

He looked at the sheriff. He couldn’t object—if he did, all he would do was incriminate himself, and if he did that, he would meet a tree and a rope and a fate he’d sworn wouldn’t be his. He could hear his sister in his head, telling him how much they needed him, and he couldn’t let himself get lynched.

“Come on, kid,” the sheriff said, pulling him away. “Are you trying to get yourself burned up? I know your family isn’t thrilled about losing the store, but don’t go getting yourself caught in that thing. You couldn’t save the store if you tried.”

Alik blinked. Had the sheriff actually assumed that he was there to put the fire out? He hadn’t assumed that Alik set it? Why not? Why wouldn’t he think that Alik had done this?

“Sheriff?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to keep you in my office for a while, Alik. I don’t know how long it will take them to prove that this wasn’t arson, but I hope they can, or you are going to be in a lot of trouble.”

by

Robots United

Author’s Note: Today I pulled out a scene I think most would consider pure ridiculous. My decision to give Alik a cat was a bit silly in the first place, I admit, but then I wrote this, making it… worse, I suppose.

I am not that good a person, I guess. This came from a weird personal conversation I had, which I should not admit to having, but I am that kind of crazy.

Robots United

Alik stopped in the doorway, frowning when he heard the half-squeak. “What are you doing?”

“Playing with the cat,” Enadar told him, looking up at his brother with a grin. Alik gave him a look in return. He’d known the cat was involved because of the noise she’d made, but what he did not know was what the youngest member of their family was doing to her.

“I don’t think she wants to play.”

“You do not have the ability to speak cat. You also can’t tell me you know what she’s thinking.”

“Yes, I can,” Alik said, tired of having similar discussions with his brother. He had ever since Robot had decided she was Alik’s cat and not a family one. She tolerated Malina, but she hadn’t been willing to be close to either of their parents and as for Enadar… Sometimes he was too much of a child still, at least in Robot’s opinion. “You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.”

Enadar lifted Robot up and studied her. “You can decipher her eyes. That’s it. That’s your secret method of communicating robot-to-robot. The laser eyes.”

Alik shook his head. “Give me the cat.”

“Just because she likes you best doesn’t mean I have to give her up the moment you walk into the room. I wasn’t hurting her. We were playing.”

“Playing what, exactly?”

“Did you know she’s ticklish? Right about where you are, too. Must be a robot thing.”

“Cats aren’t ticklish.” Alik took the cat from his brother’s hands, swatting them away when Enadar tried to recover the cat. “Don’t. I’ll overload you if you try and take her back.”

“You’re no fun.”

Robot jumped up onto Alik’s shoulder and bumped her head against his. He reached up to pet her, and she started purring.

“Really, she should fall off of you when she does that,” Enadar grumbled. He was correct. Even though Robot hadn’t grown much past the size of a kitten, Alik’s shoulder wasn’t a good place for her to perch, but she seemed to like it there—it was where she always put herself if Alik was standing. He could hold her in his lap if he was sitting or let her sit on his chest if he was lying down, but she only wanted the shoulder if he was up and moving. “It’s not fair she likes you best.”

Alik smiled. “I don’t tickle her.”

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Flowers in Your Hair

Today I managed to resume posting my themed snippets, starting with a Saturday song piece based off this song that I felt fit Enadar and Felise.

I have been listening to the Lumineers lately, and this is not the only song of theirs that reminds me of those two, or of others in the story because this fits them, too.

Still, this was what inspired the piece, so I went with this.

When we were younger we thought
Everyone was on our side
Then we grew a little bit
And romanticized the time I saw
Flowers in your hair
It takes a boy to live
It takes a man to pretend he was there

These are the parts that applies to many of the characters:

Cause it’s a long road to wisdom
But it’s a short one
To being ignored

And…

It takes a man to live
It takes a woman to make him compromise

That part should be done for Vred and Malina, too. Even Alik and Malina.

Kabobbles Sing Along is just what I think when I hear songs. I sometimes see images when I hear lyrics, pictures or movies in my head. Sometimes I relate it to stories. My interpretation of the songs and lyrics are probably nothing like their original intent.

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A Boy to Remember

Author’s Note: So it has been a rough month and a half, and I did not mean to stop posting my themed snippets so soon after announcing their arrival, but I wasn’t able to write or post or do much of anything through December. It was a very tough time, and I am only now getting back to where I feel almost capable of moving forward again. I think I am ready to try sharing the snippets again. Today is Saturday. That means a Saturday song.

The choice seemed simple when I sat down to post, having also overcome my dislike for the updated version of my site’s backend. I have been thinking for a while that this song suits these characters, and I meant to share this with my collaborator first, but I was impatient. Hopefully She will forgive me for sharing this with everyone before she sees it.

This is in part inspired by “Flowers in Your Hair” by the Lumineers.

A Boy to Remember

Enadar had never seen hair so red, so vibrant. The way the sun hit it was just right for the hew word he’d just learned. He liked it, but it was now forever linked to that fiery braid she wore, even if he did not want it to be. She was not supposed to be such apart of his life. Felise Revente was not someone he wanted in his life.

He was a dreamer, a bookworm. She wasn’t supposed to be a part of those dreams. He should have been able to sleep without remembering. Alik didn’t. Somehow the robot managed to push away every bad memory that should torment him, as though he felt nothing at all when he remembered those things he’d done, as though it was easy to pretend that his ability was always in control, that he was not a killer.

Enadar closed his eyes. He tried to think only of bursts of energy, of those blinding lights, of fireworks, and for some reason, vibrant red hair.

Every time he saw it, his reaction was the same. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to know that it was real. He needed to know that it was real.

Once he had tried to touch it. Once it was within his grasp. Once he’d made a mistake, and a glass of lemonade taught him never to reach for that light again.

Nothing could make him stop dreaming of it, though.

by

The Fair in Love and Romance

Author’s Note: While the weekend was ugly, I asked for prompts, and Liana Mir gave me this one:

“Men always want to be a woman’s first love – women like to be a man’s last romance.” ~ Oscar Wilde

I was thinking I’d need a book to answer it, but no, I didn’t need a book. I just needed two of my favorite characters to discuss it without discussing it.

Thank you, Effie and Garan. You’re good at this sort of thing.

The Fair in Love and Romance

“The football player has been asking for it ever since I came here.”

Effie shook her head, letting out a sigh as she carried the bowl over to the table, taking the cloth out of it and wringing it before she touched it to Garan’s knuckles. “Scott hasn’t played football since he was in high school, you know.”

“It was the one highlight of his pathetic life, and it did enough brain damage to him that it still fits,” Garan insisted, watching her work on his hand. He’d make some comment about Scott’s hard head being the reason for his knuckles getting scraped up like that.

“You’ve got ten times the training he does, Garan. It would never have been a fair fight.”

“What isn’t fair is that he was your first love.”

Effie snorted, putting the cloth back in the water. “Scott was never my first love. He was my first… boyfriend, I guess, but I never loved him. He was—everyone expected us to date, everyone thought we made a cute couple, and I think we might have, but I never felt the way about him that I thought I should, even as a teenage girl with supposedly out-of-whack hormones. It wasn’t enough. It was nothing like the soul-crushing moment when I thought you were never coming back to me, and I think we both know how well the hormonal attraction part of things works between us.”

He grinned, and she rolled her eyes, taking the bowl with her back to the sink. “Besides, if either of us has reason to be jealous, it’s me.”

“You? I told you that she wasn’t a love. Christie was just—”

“Not her. Jordan.” At Effie’s words, Garan tensed, and she leaned back against the sink, folding her arms over her chest. “You know I’m right. You were willing to fight for her, to die for her… to kill for her. I get to be jealous.”

He rose, crossing to her side, his bruised hand cupping her cheek. “In case you missed it, heroine, I just fought for you. I was willing to die for you before I knew you. And while we’ve never gone and counted the bodies, I think there might even have been some killing in there for you, too.”

She flinched. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. She didn’t like the thought of him doing that. Not for her, not at all.

He tipped her chin up, looking straight into her eyes. “When I met Stirn, I was in a bad place. It was just after the accident, and I wanted something to replace what I’d lost at the same time as wanting to die. It was messed up, warped good, and it got worse. What happened with her pushed me down further into the darkness, into a hole I never thought I’d get out of, and that’s not love. Love is supposed to make you better, isn’t it?”

Effie nodded. “That’s what they say. It’s also about accepting people as they are. Kind of conflicting thoughts, I guess. Or maybe it’s just that… You can’t become better unless you’re willing to accept what the past was. You can’t pretend it wasn’t there or didn’t shape you because it did. So expecting someone else not to have a past is stupid.”

“Helping them overcome it is beautiful,” he said. “Just like you.”

“Listen to you getting all romantic on me.”

He laughed. “There is no romance in me, Effie. I thought you knew that.”

“Oh, yeah? And what do you call all this?”

“Us.”

by

Heading Straight for a Fall

Author’s Note: So there were no snippets this weekend. It was not a good weekend for me, and I didn’t have much in me writer-wise. I was thinking of burning stories, editing made me want to cry when I didn’t want to burn, and one of the things I did write was a melodramatic piece where the character insisted he wasn’t going to die and asked someone to take care of his family if things went badly.

So… There was no Sunday silly in me. At all.

Fortunately, today is Monday Mayhem/Mystery, and so I have something for that, even if I seem to be stalled on what I had thought was my new story with Integrated Division.

It just took going for random music on my computer and deciding it was way past time I did something with “Diamonds and Rust” by Joan Baez.

Heading Straight for a Fall

You’re heading straight for a fall, she told herself, cursing the fact that she had picked up the phone in the first place. She knew that voice. She knew what it could do to her, knew how weak she was to that old familiar tone. She should hate him for that, but she hated herself for it more, knowing that he still had that power over her, that she still let him have it.

She’d thought she wouldn’t, and she would have said it was too late for it now, years out of the blue, with a call that came in the night without any kind of warning, the sort that compelled her to answer, thinking it was an emergency, and she supposed in some way, it must be—he wouldn’t have called unless it was—he wasn’t that cruel, and he’d been raised with better manners than that anyway.

“What is it this time?”

“Your specialty.”

“Something cold and cool yet brilliant as fire and twice as stunning?” She asked, sitting back against the pillows and closing her eyes as she played with her necklace. He would have laughed if he’d been able to see it. She was always a source of amusement, if nothing else.

“I don’t have time to flatter you tonight. I need to ask for your expertise. Nothing else.”

She shrugged. “Nothing else to ask for, is there?”

He didn’t answer that one, not that she’d thought he would. Whatever past they had, he’d wanted it dead and buried for a while now, though he had just as bad a habit of falling back into old routines as she did. That man could tease, and his eyes would sparkle blue as he did, making things just that added bit worse for any woman around.

Not that she let many others around. She didn’t do competition.

“You’ve heard the news, haven’t you?”

She snorted. “What use is politics to me? Or should I pretend I have any sort of interest in reality television and the stars that come from it? I don’t, you know. All I care about is compressed carbon. It is a beautiful thing.”

“Yes, I expect your terms would be quite mercenary, won’t they?”

“Always.” She didn’t mention that once she would have done it for free, that if he said the right words, she might go right to that place, laughing with him with the leaves falling and the snow with them, dancing around in the park when they were two young fools with no responsibilities, before the truth of what they both were came between them.

“Are your skills still what they were?”

“Darling, if one of us is rusty, it isn’t me.”

“Well, your tongue is sharp as ever,” he muttered, and she thought she heard him curse under his breath. She should, she supposed, put him out of his misery, admit that she knew what he wanted her to discuss, but she didn’t feel like making this easy for him. If she made it easy, they were like friends, and when they played at friends, they played at other more dangerous things as well.

The band on her finger still burned at the thought of him, and she’d have to remember to replace it before he showed up at her office. “You never did manage to refine my rough edges.”

“You were already hardened by fire by the time I knew you.”

“Don’t you ever tire of our game of puns?” She knew the answer—she wasn’t sure if it was the same for him, but she knew she stuck to them because they were safe. Talking of meaningful things brought them too close to what they’d never be again.

“Only when you make terrible ones.”

“Yours were worse.”

“I’m not the one who is a walking pun,” he said. “Or a lousy poet.”

She hung up on him.

by

Diamonds and Rust

This song is a favorite. And it has been asking for a story for years now.

And I could quote all the lyrics. I always sing along. And now I have a bit of something using this, which I am posting for my themed snippet today.

I love the opening.

Well I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call

This part gave me the opening bit of my latest snippet:

And here I sit, hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall

I included a bit that used both of these thoughts, and I am, I admit, absurdly proud :

As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin’s eggs
“My poetry was lousy”, you said

This part led to her having a memory of the two of them:

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
An’ snow in your hair
Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel over Washington Square

Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

I still really, really, want to use this part, though:

Now you’re telling me
You’re not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You, who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague

‘Cause I need some of that vagueness now
It’s all come back too clearly
Yes, I loved you dearly

And if you’re offering me diamonds and rust
I’ve already paid.

Kabobbles Sing Along is just what I think when I hear songs. I sometimes see images when I hear lyrics, pictures or movies in my head. Sometimes I relate it to stories. My interpretation of the songs and lyrics are probably nothing like their original intent.

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Assumptions and Appearances

Author’s Note: So today I went looking for something for a Friday Foible. I had no idea where I was going to find one. My characters do make mistakes, plenty of them, but usually there’s a lot of context around those things (or the whole story revolves around a particular mistake in some cases,) and so that left me kind of puzzled as to how to snippet something like this.

I searched my documents for “mistake,” and after browsing a few stories where the word came up, I picked this particular one from a historical fiction. Verity makes an assumption she shouldn’t when she meets the inspector, and it makes for an interesting dynamic between them.

Assumptions and Appearances

Verity knew herself to be ill-mannered, even disgraceful. She paced about the drawing room with agitation—no, excitement. A part of her had been wanting something like this to happen—not a murder, no, even she was not that perverse, but she wanted something beyond the dull existence of tea parties and beautiful gowns and her father’s suitors.

She had wanted something beyond Penbrooke for a long time now, something far greater than the role of her father’s heir. He indulged her, and she was grateful for it. She knew she would have been fortunate to have even half his forbearance and the freedom that came with it, but it was not nearly enough. If her father was more willing to spend time in London, even, where she might have more of a chance to do something, but he wasn’t.

She knew why her father had gone to retrieve the policeman himself, claiming his duty as the major landowner, but she knew that what he wanted was to interview the policeman, to send him straight back to London if he was found lacking.

She didn’t know why he got that role, as he had always said she had better sense and understanding than he did, and she should like to have been there when the inspector arrived to form an opinion for herself. She heard the carriage pulling to a stop out front, and she rushed to the window, peering through the curtains. She could see nothing from here save the back wheels.

She frowned, turning away with unfortunate timing, the door opening in time for her to have been seen prying. She pulled her skirt free from where it had caught on the chair, smoothing it down as she faced her father and the inspector. No, impossible. How on earth had this young man escaped his valet in such a state? His clothes were not cut to fit properly, done in a colour that did not suit him, and his hair was not styled.

Her father had lied, then? It was not the police he’d brought here but a suitor for her? Yet—he was in such a state as to make that nearly unthinkable. “Father, I thought you had gone to meet the policeman’s train.”

“Of course I did, Verity.” Her father used that old tone—a warning to stop whatever game she thought she was playing, but she played no game. He did.

“You cannot possibly expect me to—do you take me for a fool all of a sudden? What, were the clothes meant to trick me? You will not convince me that Lord Rathmore’s son is a policeman.”

“This is Inspector O’Hallaran,” her father said, but she saw new consideration in his eyes as he turned again to their guest.

“You are mistaken, milady,” O’Hallaran said, his eyes drifting to the part of her skirt that had been caught earlier. “I am indeed a policeman, and I have never had the undoubted pleasure of meeting Lord Rathmore.”

She looked at him and shook her head. She knew faces, and there was no mistaking that sharp brow, those clever yet stormy grey eyes. True, he did not share the expression that the baron did—one of a rather scandalous nature—but O’Hallaran was related. He must be—Oh. She’d made a terrible mistake, as usual. She flushed. Good heavens, she’d the bad sense to call attention to the fact that he was a by-blow.

She swallowed down her embarrassment and made herself face him with a cool and pleasant smile as suited the occasion. “I am certain that you wish to begin your investigation, Inspector. What can we do to assist you?”

He smiled, and she could see touches of the woman that his mother must have been, for O’Hallaran’s nose was not quite as angled as Rathmore’s, his jaw not as rigid. She noticed him fidget, thinking him possessed of a restrained vigour. Tidier clothes would certainly have revealed a fine physique. Was that because he was a policeman?

“I should begin by asking you and your father some questions.” O’Hallaran’s speech was beautiful, precise but tinged with with the barest hint of an accent.

“Please sit down,” she said, gesturing to the chairs. She knew she should sit next to her father, but she would rather not at present. Her father took the armchair, and she frowned—why did he force her to sit next to O’Hallaran? To punish her for her mistake earlier? “I suppose that this is—I do know that this is no social occasion, but you have had to travel, so perhaps refreshments are still in order.”

O’Hallaran sat down on the other end of the divan. He seemed as though on the brink of refusing—someone of his station ought to refuse—but he nodded instead, another smile coming to his lips. “Yes, please. Coffee, if you have it.”

“You are fond of coffee?”

He shifted in the chair, and when his eyes turned their attention directly to her, she felt her stomach twist. She was as lost as a foolish débutante at her first ball. “Rather say I am Irish and have not the same affection for tea as the English.”

She had to bite her lip to keep herself from reminding him that a part of him was very English. “Father does not care for coffee, you see. It is my vice, not his, and I am forced to import it rather against his wishes. Everyone advises him that it is not a proper thing for a woman’s delicate nature.”

“Is there much of you that is delicate?”

She shook her head. “I fear not.”

by

Talking and Traveling

Author’s Note: So here comes Thursday, the day with the theme of “Thursday Travels,” and here where I am, it’s a day where sane people are only out if they don’t have any other option. That is to say, it’s snowing and yesterday it was below freezing, so… Yeah, not the most fitting day for scenes about travel.

Still, I decided to share one anyway, the first I wrote for the collaboration, and I’ve edited it a few times since then, but it is special to me because it is the first scene of the collaboration. Well, until we move things around again, lol.

Talking and Traveling

“You planning on speaking at all during this drive?”

Not looking up from his book, Enadar gave a slight shake of his head. Talking wasn’t on the list of things that had to be done today, and he was sticking to the list. Organization kept him sane, even if his lists annoyed everyone else he knew.

“You know you’ll have to talk sometime today. You can’t avoid it all day.”

That got a glance toward the mirror, meeting his older brother’s eyes as they waited for his response, but he shook his head, returning to the book. He could avoid it for the day, could avoid it for a lot longer if he wanted, and that might be what he chose to do for the duration of this trip. Alik couldn’t make him talk, not if he didn’t want to, and he was more determined not to just to spite his brother.

“You are not going to spend the entire week not talking to any of us.”

He lifted the book, tempted to let it do the talking for him. Aimed properly, it would even stop the car, keeping them from reaching the destination he had no desire to see again.

“You’re not a child. Don’t act like one.”

He closed his eyes. Silence was still the preferable response. He could keep himself from reacting for a while longer, but if he was pushed, if he was provoked—he started down the list of things that calmed him, fulfilling each as he did.

One, deep breath. Two, count to ten. Three, repeat the deep breath. Four, remember that you love your sister. And your brother. Mostly. Five, repeat the first nine leaders of the territory in reverse order—no, he’d used that one already today, and he was sick of those names. He would skip that one and go to six. Recall a memory that always makes you smile.

Enadar frowned. That was a bit difficult—that was the point of it, getting him distracted and refocused—but he wasn’t sure he could find something that made him smile right now.

“Leave him alone,” Malina said, interceding like she always did, always would. Enadar didn’t know if it was because of who she was or her birth order or if any of that mattered. He shouldn’t be thinking about that, though. He had to keep to the list. “We don’t need to lose the car—and I would like to get there alive.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Anger flared up at Alik’s words. Enadar lost his place in the list, and then he lost his book. He studied his empty hands for a moment before kicking the front seat. “I hate both of you. You know that, don’t you?”

Malina sounded almost amused when she spoke. “Little brother is mad.”

“Yes, but little brother is talking again.”

Enadar didn’t know why it mattered so much that he talked. Alik had a thing about silence, about either of them withdrawing too much into themselves, and yet he was the worst of them at doing it—who knew what went on in that head of his most of the time?—so he had no reason to force them into interaction. Maybe it was that overinflated sense he’d gotten when he ended up head of the family—he didn’t just figure he was somehow the leader, he figured it made him responsible for them in all ways—mental and physical and emotional.

Alik didn’t know what to do with emotions, though, so that was a dumb choice to make.

“You didn’t have to push,” Malinda’s voice drew him back into the conversation between his older siblings. He’d missed something between the two of them. As usual. “Not everyone needs to talk.”

“And letting him glower is better?”

“I was not glowering. I was reading. Now I don’t have a book, and now I’m glowering,” Enadar said, using both of his feet to kick Alik’s chair. His brother grunted, but his grip on the wheel didn’t so much as falter.

With a frown, Enadar sat back. He watched Malina’s hands for a moment, trying to determine if the way she twisted them together meant she knew what Alik had been doing or if she was just thinking about where they were going and all that came with that.

Had Alik truly been focusing Enadar’s anger on him or was that just paranoia talking? Was his brother that crazy? Or was he?

by

An Investigation Gets Interesting

Author’s Note: So after deciding what I wanted for the Wednesday wardrobe piece today, I changed my mind about how much I’d shared on Monday for Monday Mayhem/Mystery, and I decided to repost to do the whole scene. Actually… I’m going to go with the the scene before it and the full scene.

An Investigation Gets… Interesting

“I think I’m going to bet on this new joint effort for peace being an abysmal failure.”

Pellton looked over at his younger teammate, tempted to laugh, though the situation was far from amusing. They needed peace, needed the joint venture to work, but they all knew that it was going to be difficult. Impossible, maybe, if one thought about it the way that Zenith did. Pellton could tell him to do all that he could to make it work, to give it every effort to help it succeed, but Zenith would do the opposite. Some would blame his age, though he was no longer a child, and the debate over whether or not he belonged on the team would start all over again.

“Your anger will not change our assignment,” Chuitanya said, glancing back over her shoulder. The Chular led them most of the time, their longer legs dictating their pace—not that most humans would be willing to let one of them walk behind them, no matter how much they wanted a joint venture to succeed. Her eyes thinned to slits before she turned away from the humans. Her scales caught the sunlight and changed colors to a shimmering, almost blinding green that had Zenith moving to shield his eyes from the glare.

“I’m not angry,” Zenith corrected, adjusting his coat as he spoke. “This kind of petty crime is a waste of the resources they’re always fighting about. The Integrated Division doesn’t have limitless funding or universal support. How many times do they spout that at me? At least once a week, isn’t it?”

Pellton shook his head. The resources they lectured Zenith on had little to do with money or approval. Their team was smaller than most, comprised of only two Chular and two humans, but they had things that no other team did all the same. That inequality created a lot of impatience that didn’t help when things were already strained in their office.

He was relieved to be out of it no matter what the reason.

“It’s a theft, and eyewitnesses said it was done by humans. That means that humans should investigate it,” Chutresh said, his scales shifting to a shade that matched his mate.

Zenith reached into his pockets, checking each of them, and shook his head when the object he sought was not there. “I hate that this place doesn’t have sunglasses. With those two around, it’s a wonder we’re not both blind by now.”

Pellton chose not to say anything to that. He didn’t know that he could—he didn’t have the same visual acuity as the other man, but reminding Zenith of that would only anger him. “This is better than being in the office, isn’t it?”

Zenith gave him a look. “Don’t say that like you wouldn’t be home with your wife if you had a choice. I don’t want to know what those two do on their days off, but at least you have a home and a family.”

“I have a choice,” Pellton said, keeping his voice as gentle as he could, not wanting to make an issue of it—they did well as a team despite the fact that none of them would have picked the others for their teammates. They might have agreed to work for the new division, but that didn’t mean that they had any say in how the division worked. “This joint effort is important to me.”

Zenith’s jaw tightened. “Sometimes I forget that you were born here.”

No one could forget that Zenith hadn’t been.

“We are close?” Chuitanya asked, trying to divert the conversation from that unpleasant topic.

Zenith closed his eyes, muttering the address to himself and pointing to a side street. “There. The house is the first on the right. On the north side of the street for you Chular.”

Chutresh started to hiss, but he stopped himself. They did not argue with Zenith if they could avoid it, and most of the time, they could. The human still did his best to provoke them, but then there was a great deal of unhappiness in him, and Pellton thought even the Chular could forgive him for his attitude.

“We must verify that this theft was truly done by a human. If it was not, then we do not need to waste any resources,” Chuitanya said, though suggesting turning this over to the regular Chular police force wasn’t the best idea, either, even if Zenith had objected to this assignment.

Chutresh stepped forward, using his reptilian strength to remove the broken door out of their path, and Zenith shook his head as he bypassed him, going to stand in the middle of the room. Pellton waited for Chuitanya to enter before he joined the other man.

“Where?”

“Do I have to do everything? The chair is broken. Why don’t you start with that?”

Pellton grunted. Just because the object had been knocked over sometime recently did not mean that what they wanted was there. Zenith could have narrowed their focus more than that, but he was in a mood again.

Kneeling down next to the chair, Pellton touched his hand to the back of it and came away with the distinctive feel of left behind genetic material, a sensation both familiar and disconcerting. He frowned, rubbing his fingers together, trying to be certain of what he was reading.

“What is it?”

One thing the Chular female could do—she seemed to always pick up on shifts in their moods, knew when something was wrong when they weren’t saying anything.

Pellton glanced toward Zenith and back at her. “I’ve got a human, yes.”

“Well, I guess we get to work this after all.”

“What is wrong with this human? You seem… concerned.”

“It’s… I’ve never seen this before,” Pellton said, because he hadn’t and he shouldn’t be seeing it now. He tested it a third time. Either someone had found a way to manipulate his modification, or the results were the same. “The human is an unmodified one.”

 

“Cullings were outlawed over a century ago.”

The words were hissed with reptilian displeasure, Chuitanya’s nostrils flaring and scales rippling as she spoke. She bared her claws, standing to her full height as she exchanged a look with her mate. Pellton turned away, not wanting to watch the two of them deal with her emotions the only way the Chular knew how. He was trying to work a case here, not get caught up in angry politics again. He wanted no part of that. He just wanted to do his job and get home to his own mate.

Days like this, he regretted agreeing to join the newly fledged Integrated Division, but he’d been around long enough to know that if change was ever going to happen on this planet, it had to be with both parties working together, regardless of past atrocities and broken treaties. This new investigative force needed to succeed, or they’d end up backsliding back to a century ago and the warfare that had led to this unpleasant situation in the first place.

So he pretended he wasn’t bothered by the Chular, and the Chular pretended that he was more than a living computer, and it almost worked.

“That doesn’t change what I’m getting from this,” Pellton said, rubbing his fingers together as his body processed and cataloged the genetics he’d found at the scene of the crime. Their thief was a man in his late forties with light hair and eyes, without gifts or shackles. “This guy was pure human, no alterations or modifications, which we all know is impossible.”

“Impossible because the Chular say they stopped, not because that is true.”

That made all of them wince—even if Chular winced in a way that didn’t look much like it to humans. Coming from their youngest member, it was a harsh critique, should have made both of the aliens angry, but no one could argue with the proof standing right next to them. Zenith was not yet thirty, yet he carried the bitterness of a man three times his age, the dangerously unhappy product of an illegal culling that ripped him away from his entire family and trapped him here.

“If someone has started culling again, we’re going to find them and stop it,” Pellton told the other man, touching his arm.

Zenith threw his hand off, eyes dark with barely contained rage. “Just because we stop them from getting more doesn’t do anything to help the people they’ve already taken, and we don’t even know that this guy knows anything about the ones that brought him here.”

“He got away from them without being modified,” Chuitanya said. “That is very rare.”

Zenith might have gone for her, but Pellton caught his arm again, looking the other man in the eyes, hoping to make him think and calm himself. “Don’t.”

The other man closed his eyes, breathing hard as he struggled to bring his emotions under control. Pellton did not offer any comfort or platitudes—those tended to have the opposite effect on Zenith. He did not pretend to understand what Zenith felt. He was third generation, born modified because his parents and grandparents were, not like Zenith, who’d been normal until he was culled. He did not know how he would react if he’d been in Zenith’s place, nor did he want to. His life had been good.

“I doubt you want to hear it, but they may take this man and any like him back,” Chutresh said, retracting his claws, making no move to get closer to their youngest member. “They are not modified. That is different from what bars you from returning to your homeworld and your family.”

Zenith hissed a curse in Chular, and the others flinched. They considered their language sacred, unlike the modifiers who had forced Zenith to use it and only it, despite lacking the right skull shape to reproduce the sounds the lizards made.

Pellton let go of his arm, turning to look at the Chular. He figured it would be better if they said nothing for a while. They had not been a part of what happened to Zenith, but they were a constant reminder of it. What they had thought might appease him did not—he would not have been comforted to know that those culled could return home, not when he could not, nor would it be enough to stop those who were culling in violation of the law—they could not give him back all that had been taken from him or undo what had been done to him.

“We can wait outside,” Chuitanya offered. “Would you prefer this?”

Pellton turned to Zenith. This was his decision. He did not care if they left, but the other man might. “Your choice. We’re going to need whatever you can get from here.”

Zenith grimaced. Half the reason he was still alive was because his modifiers hadn’t stopped with one upgrade—they’d pushed his body to its limit with them, and he was a better living machine than Pellton in all but one aspect. His way of learning genetics was too unpleasant to be used on a regular basis. Then again, Pellton sometimes thought that Zenith wouldn’t use any of his augments if he could avoid it.

“He wasn’t alone,” Zenith said, eyes closed, pointing to the desk. “The last time anyone was here before them was well over three months ago, based on the amount of dust and the life cycle of the insects around here.”

“Any idea what made them come here?”

“Near starvation, probably,” Zenith answered, looking over at the Chular. “You didn’t need me to tell you that. The fact that they weren’t modified means their cullers were either killed or arrested before they could modify them. They won’t trust your kind.”

“Hence the theft,” Pellton said. He touched the genetic marker left behind by the other thief. Female. Late twenties. He frowned when he failed to get more from the genetics. He had only experienced that one other time.

He crossed back to Zenith, taking a sample from him and frowning.

Chutresh and Chuitanya hissed with concern. “What is it? Why would you need Zenith for a baseline?”

Pellton ran his fingers over what was on the desk from the woman’s contact with it. She’d gouged the wood—and he should have had plenty to work with. Sample size was not the problem. “She’s not showing up—I can get a sense only that she’s female and in her twenties which shouldn’t be possible, either. Genetics carry the whole code.”

“Unless the code is so modified that it isn’t recognizable,” Zenith said. He shook his head. “I can’t help you with the analysis there. Except… maybe she’s a shifter. Their genetics tend to be in flux, so they’re harder to read, right?”

“Shifters do not have long life-spans. Can you tell anything of her? She may already be ill.”

Zenith looked to Pellton. “You want to follow them, or you want an analysis of what’s here? You won’t get both.”

“We should trail them while we can. This place isn’t going anywhere.”

The other man nodded, leaving the room.