Chaos Quarter (34 page)

“Wonder why they don’t come near the base,” Rex muttered.

They turned at his voice, caught off guard by his silent arrival.

“Take a look at the magnetic fields around this place,” Jake spoke.

Rex shifted the vision in his artificial eye. A hundred yards from the base, a wall of energy arose from the ground, most likely an electrical fence buried a few inches down. Rex turned to Jake, cocking his head.

“How is it I surprised you? I gotta imagine you got other sensory trinkets in there that blow us away,” Rex spoke.

“I do,” Jake said with a grin. “But it seemed bad form to ruin a good sneak-up.”

Rex laughed and shook his head. He turned to the others.

“Well…” he began, holding for drama.

“Get on with it,” Chakrika shot.

“We have jobs, we have salaries, and we’re on vacation,” Rex spoke. “If you’re up for it.”

Lucius stared at him uneasily.

“They have no concerns regarding my background?” he asked.

“Concerns, yes, plenty,” Rex spoke. “But apparently not enough to put a hex on the deal. You’re probably the first Europan noble who has
ever
been allowed in.”

“Second,” Jake spoke. “You guys let in one just after the war.”

“Now I know that wasn’t in the ship’s computers,” Rex spoke, “You downloaded our networks?”

“Your networks? God no!” Jake said with a scoff. “Too much security on them. Just the public Wikis. You have any idea how large Commonwealth servers are?”

“So if I extend this invitation to you, can I trust you to play by our rules and not use your…
enhanced
abilities to take over the ship or anything like that?” Rex asked.

Jake rubbed at his chin and replied, “Can I trust you not to use your superior strength and martial skills to take advantage of Second or Chakrika?”

Rex felt a bolt of indignation and then beat it down.

“Point taken,” he conceded.

“Good,” Jake spoke. “It’s not like I have any place to go back to anyway. There are worse people to work for than Terrans.”

Rex nodded and looked toward the rest.

“I have a son to provide for,” Lucius spoke. “And I doubt any locals will be looking to hire a Europan.”

Chakrika looked at Quintus, then at Lucius.

“I’m not leaving him alone,” she spoke, motioning to the baby with a nod. “Or his father.”

He looked at Second last. She stared at him with her usual vacant stare.

“Second?”

“Yes?” she asked.

“You with us?” Rex asked.

Her brow creased in confusion.

“Of course I am with you. We are all here,” she spoke.

Rex sighed to keep himself from laughing.

“Do you want to stay on my crew?” Rex spoke. “Whenever they give me another ship.”

“Oh,” she spoke emotionlessly, pausing to think. Her eyes fixed on her feet, tracking back and forth as she thought.

“I feel…unease when I think of being alone,” she spoke. “But most people live alone. I’m not sure what actions I should take.”

“Do you feel better if you think of yourself with us?” Rex asked.

Another long moment of thought followed.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Then come with us,” Rex spoke.

“In what regard?” she asked.

“As a crew member,” Rex replied.

“Will that require servicing you—”

Rex grabbed her forearm, leading her a few steps away from the rest. He supposed it was a moot point with Jake around, but felt compelled to, anyway.

“No, Second. Nobody will ever treat you like that again,” Rex spoke in a low voice.

She nodded, the memory of it clearly screwing with her underdeveloped emotions.

“But I will still be obeying your orders? Is that not required for the successful functioning of a vessel?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And this is different from my position as second to the ambassador?” she pressed.

“It is. You get to choose, Second, whether or not you’re willing to follow orders. And you can leave if it no longer suits you,” Rex explained.

He could swear he saw a tear forming in her eye.

“If I left where would I go?” she asked.

“Wherever you want to go,” Rex replied.

“I…I do not want to go elsewhere,” she spoke. “I think. I don’t understand how to make sense of it.”

“Then stay with us, until you figure out how to figure it all out,” Rex said.

She glanced down at her arm. Rex realized he still had a grasp of her forearm. He released slowly, tucking his hands into his pockets. When he looked back up, the hints of a smile graced her face.

“I’ll go with you.”

…
in the end, what may be the greatest strength of the Commonwealth is that it’s a place you can live with some semblance of normalcy. Sure, you get the normal problems you face in life, but only the normal ones. You don’t live as an underclass to self-declared nobles, you’re not forced into the strictures of a faith you don’t share, and you don’t have to trumpet the supremacy of any one culture or ideology or whatever. A person is free to be what they were always meant to be: themselves.

-Lecture given to students at New Michigan Institute of Technology by Professor Alejandro Ross, NMIT Recorded Lecture Series—Volume XXVIII, 2498

Her head hit the pillow beside his, sweat streaming down her forehead. Her breath came hard and quick, the glow of pleasure still diffusing warmly throughout her body.

“You learn fast,” Chakrika said.

“Well, you are
very
vocal,” Lucius replied.

She glanced over at her husband, who was staring devilishly at her breasts, watching them rise and fall with each breath.

“
No
,” she laughed. “We’re getting something to eat before we go again.”

He trailed his fingers up to her sternum, tracing casual circles on her skin.

“Room service again?” Lucius asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, then smiled mischievously. “But order quick. Rex’ll be back in three hours.”

“Mmm,” Lucius mumbled, kissing his way up her side. “Ambitious…”

She stopped him with a hand on top of his head.

“Come on,” she spoke. “Call ‘em.”

He slumped his head on her ribs and pouted playfully. With an over-the-top sigh, he rolled onto his back.

“Computer, get me room service!” he ordered.

A menu projected above his head.

“We’ll need some oysters, chocolate, champagne—”

“Strawberries!” Chakrika interjected.

“Strawberries,” Lucius repeated. “And some of that fluffy bread from earlier.”

The projection flashed for a minute of two, no doubt checking their earlier order to figure out what “fluffy bread” was. After a moment it flashed the words “Order Confirmed, Ten Minutes Please” above them, then vanished.

Lucius rested his head back against the pillow.

“Ten minutes…hmmm,” he spoke.

“Get your robe,” Chakrika laughed, smacking him lightly on the chest.

She got to her feet, retrieving her robe and tying it on. Pausing at the mirror, she ran her fingers through her hair, defeating some of the tangles. A pair of arms encircled her waist.

“You’re not wearing your robe,” she spoke as if lecturing an incorrigible child.

Lucius said nothing. He moved one hand up her left forearm to her fingers, stopping just below a plain silver band. Before yesterday Chakrika had never heard of giving rings for marriage; her people certainly hadn’t done it. But she treasured it anyway. Lucius had been intent on buying her one with a diamond that would’ve cost him pretty much everything he had, but she had reminded him of Quintus and cautioned him to get something more affordable. Rex had instantly chimed in and said that if Lucius didn’t marry her, he would. Lucius had laughed, Second had glared at Rex possessively, and Chakrika had wondered what the joke was.

Lucius brought her hand up to his mouth, softly kissing the ring. Chakrika felt chills run through her body. Being with somebody who loved you was certainly different than anything she’d experienced. Never, in her years, had she ever run across a man as concerned with
her
pleasure as his own. As Lucius’s hands slid lower, cradling her hips through the thin robe, she again felt a rush of intoxication.

“Lucius…” she purred as he kissed her neck.

“Yes, love?” he replied.

“It said ten minutes,” she spoke futilely.

“It is probably more like eight now,” he replied between kisses.

“It’s not enough time…”

He paused his ministrations, resting his forehead against her head, inhaling the scent of her hair.

“Computer, please instruct the kitchen staff to leave our order outside the door,” he spoke.

She smiled broadly, spun around in his arms, and attacked him.

* * *

“See, Quintus, that is a seagull. They’re white and they fly and they don’t taste very good,” Rex spoke.

Quintus blinked at the seagull as it picked through the grass for crumbs left by other vacationers. It didn’t hold the boy’s interest for very long. Rex bounced the kid on his knee a few times, getting a small smile.

“That animal does not obey your commands?” Second asked. She was stretched out in a chaise lounge beside him.

“No, he’s wild and free,” Rex replied.

“He has free will as well?” Second spoke.

“Uh…don’t know. He acts freely, but he isn’t really sentient so…mostly goes on instinct I think…who knows,” Rex tried to explain.

Second said nothing. She just stared at the bird as it swallowed the remains of a french fry.

“Now Little Quint, your Aunty Second is going to be a little bit strange, but I expect you to run and play with her anyway.”

The baby stared at him and then shifted his focus toward grabbing Rex’s index finger.

“Hello,” Second spoke to somebody in the distance.

Rex turned to look, spotting a young man checking Second out. He could understand the man’s interest. Second was radiant in a silver and blue bikini she had purchased after two hours in one of the hotel shops, spent trying to figure out what her emotions were telling her and how that corresponded to making a decision. In retrospect he probably should have pushed her toward something more modest.

Caught off-guard by Second’s greeting, the man turned beet red and scampered away.

“He left,” Second spoke, watching the man disappear into a crowd in a nearby pavilion.

“You embarrassed him,” Rex spoke.

“Fear and shame at being caught in a behavior unapproved by society,” Second recited from memory. “I did that to him?”

“Yes.”

“I thought greetings brought about positive emotions?” she asked.

“They do. But he was looking at you in a lustful way, and men hate getting caught when we do that.”

Second’s brow furrowed in concentration. She looked down at her body as if examining something she wanted to buy.

“But this body—
I
was grown to be sexually appealing to male primitives,” she reasoned.

“Yes, but in ‘primitive’ societies, most of them anyway, it’s considered impolite to reveal that lust so…
openly
,” Rex spoke.

“I do not understand,” she spoke.

Rex sighed and bounced Quintus twice.

“See Quintus,
strange
. But we like her anyway.”

“Am I supposed to have sex with that man?” Second asked.

Rex choked, startling the baby. Quintus didn’t seem to mind it though and flashed his work-in-progress smile.

“
No,
Second,” Rex spoke.

“But doesn’t lust imply—”

“You only have sex with people you care for, if
both
of you want to,” he spoke, praying something shiny would distract her.

“Oh,” she spoke and paused to think. “Does that mean we—”

“No!” Rex reacted, a bit too quickly. Male parts of his mind were already imagining naughty things. The forcefulness intimidated Second. She shrank back on her chaise.

“No, uh, it isn’t just something you throw out to anybody. Usually you’re in love with the person,” he managed.

“An intense emotional connection with a spiritual component,” Second said. “Have I felt that yet?”

“I don’t know, Second,” Rex said, knocking his head against the webbing of the chaise. “It’s not, uh, something that—”

A peal of laughter, no doubt mercifully sent by the Goddess Venus herself, interrupted his stammering. Children squealed as behind them, Jake rose to his feet with a playful roar. A bunch of small kids fell to the grass, others hung off his metal limbs. Parents sat nearby, equally as fascinated with the cyborg as their children were, but not nearly as fearless.

“OK, you little punks, I gotta take a break here. You’re wearing me out!”

The kids moaned, disappointed, then dispersed to a nearby playground. Jake stomped over.
Something shiny
, Rex thought with a silent chuckle,
Thank God!

“Hello Jake,” Second said emotionlessly.

“Hey. How’s everything over here?” he asked.

“Should I have sex with Rex?” Second asked, completely earnest.

Rex choked again. Jake stood stunned for a moment.

“Uh…something I should know about?” Jake asked.

“No,” Rex replied, then rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly. Comprehension ran across Jake’s face.

Jake smirked and said, “Left to look after both kids, eh?”

Second looked around, trying to find another child. Rex closed his eyes and sighed and held Quintus up. Jake took the child into his arms and rocked him playfully.

“That woman is looking at you,” Second spoke.

Rex opened his eyes. Not ten yards in front of him, a very familiar woman stood near the edge of Hartell Sound. One arm cradled a newborn. The other clasped the hand of an out-of-shape, squirrelly-looking man. A small girl, four or five years old, ran circles around the couple. The woman’s eyes met his and went wide with fear.

“That was not a look of lust,” Second asked.

“No,” Rex said, watching last year’s bed-partner quickly move away. “That was something else.”

He got to his feet, stretching his legs.

“Jake, watch the kids. I’m going for a beer.”