The Saffron Malformation (51 page)

             
“Ah ta,” one shouted repeatedly and they scattered like bugs.

             
Reggie, Dusty and Rachel hurried back toward the truck where Arnie was opening his door again.

             
“Hey,” Reggie barked and Arnie looked at him.  The big man pointed and said, “You be ready to roll.”

             
Arnie swallowed hard and scowled but he closed the door and sat tight in the truck, watching the rig and three cars roll up in his side mirror.  They stopped just off the road, a good distance away but closer than he liked.

             
Quey noticed Reggie sleek up and take aim with his rifle.  Dusty and Rachel had reloaded and were doing the same.

             
The passenger’s side door of the rig opened and a man stood up, leaning on the open door.  He looked tired.  “Tell you what shiner,” the man shouted.  “I had enough shit for one night, all my boys have.  Render wants yer head but I ain’t him.  Let us have the boy and that little piece ya got there-”

             
Rain hurried to the back of the truck and hunkered down close to Leone, assuring him.

             
“-and ya’ll can fuck off.”

             
Quey was about to respond when Reggie shouted from deep in his belly.  “Know what, fuck this shit.”  He threw his rifle into the back of the truck and stood facing the Brood.

             
“Reggie, what the fuck are you doing?” Quey snapped.

             
“I’m done with this shit man,” the big man shouted loud enough the Brood could hear.  “You want these assholes?  Fine.”

             
The guy leaning out of the passenger’s side of the rig exchanged a glance with some of his fellow Broodlings and they shared a shrug.  If it was going to be that easy they had no intention of questioning it.

             
Reggie jumped up into the back of the truck and started toward Rain and Leone.  He made it two steps before Rain raised her gun and leveled it at his chest.  She glared at him, breathing heavily but her hand was steady, lacking even the slightest tremble.  Reggie knew she didn’t want to shoot him but she wouldn’t hesitate either.  He stared at her for a moment then smiled slyly and winked.

             
Rain swallowed and took a deep breath.  She hoped that wink meant something, but she didn’t dare let her guard down.  Her heart raced as she watched the big man down the barrel of the pistol she gripped in both hands.  Finally he nodded toward something and her brow furrowed ever so slightly.  From the corner of her eye she dared a glance, ready to pump three into him should he move even slightly in her direction.  On the ground beside her was a duffle bag and her brow furrowed again.  He nodded toward it again with a look that said, ‘go on, you’ll see.’

             
“Come on with it then,” the Broodling shouted.  “I don’t wanna be out here all fucking night.  Sides, Render’s on his way and when he gits here, this here deal sure as fuck’ll be over.”

             
Rain reached over and pulled the duffle bag in front of her and the big man smiled.  She kept the gun aimed at him while she struggled to open the bag, even though she knew that with only one hand on a pistol she’d be lucky to hold onto the thing if it fired.  The zipper inched along half the length of the bag and then she dared a glance inside.  Her eyes widened and leapt to Reggie who was nodding excitedly.  Rain’s hand slowly lowered until the gun was on the floor beside her.  She gripped the bag in both hands and tossed it to him.

             
He turned and started toward the back of the truck.  “Alright then,” he shouted.  “I got something for you.”  Reggie reached into the bag and withdrew what was inside as he tossed the duffle bag aside and took a knee.  The broodlings eyes widened as he threw his Blue Moon Issue pulse cannon over his shoulder and took aim.

             
“Oh fuck!” the skinny guy leaning from the passenger’s side of the truck shouted.

             
“Fire in the hole,” Quey yelled and he, Dusty and Rachel all fell to the ground.

             
Reggie fired.  The cannon jumped in his hand and sent a blue mass hurtling forward.  The Broodlings tried to take cover, they tried to scatter, but the mass collided with the truck and the explosion that followed turned the moonless night sky into daylight.  The truck disintegrated into shrapnel and the blast slammed into the three cars that had stopped beside it, tossing them like toys.  One splashed down in the lake, another collided with the side of one of the cabins and the third tumbled across the lifeless ground until it came to a stop fifty meters away.

             
Laughter erupted from the big man as he tossed the cannon onto the ground and shouted, “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

             
Quey jumped up from the ground and watched the remnants of the truck and parts of the cars rain flaming onto the ground.  He couldn’t help but laugh as he looked up at the big man.

             
“That’s how you solve a mother fucking problem,” he shouted.

             
“Holy fuck,” Arnie said, standing beside Quey, his mouth agape.

             
Rachel fell into Dusty’s arms and they kissed briefly.

             
Reggie felt tiny arms wrap around him and he looked down.  Rain was looking up at him, tears fluttering in her eyes.  “Thank you,” she said.  He touched her head and gently stroked her short black hair, noticing the bits of blonde that were peeking out from the roots.

             
“You would have shot me,” he said to her and before she could speak he continued.  “That’s a good girl.”  He smiled at her and she looked at him queerly for a moment then let him go.

             
Reggie hopped out of the back of the truck and started talking with the others.  Rain and Arnie locked eyes and she smiled at him.  He smiled back and she went to and sat on the edge of the truck where he joined her.

             
“You alright?” he asked.

             
She looked at the others standing in a circle talking and said, “Peaches and cream.”

             
“Hey Arnie,” Quey shouted.

             
Arnie looked over at him.

             
“Think you can roll us back to wherever you put that car.”

             
“Yeah,” Reggie said, “I don’t wanna spend the next two thousand kilometers being tossed around in this soup can.”

             
There was a brief round of laughter after which Arnie kissed Rain and they sat with their heads together for a moment.

             
“I love you,” she told him. 

             
He smiled and said, “I love you.”

             
“Where to now?” Arnie asked from the driver’s seat of the blue four-door.  He’d pulled it out of the shed and Rachel, Dusty, and Rain were in the process of loading it.

             
“Back to Ryla,” he said.  “It’s a robotics compound in the southern waste.”

             
“The southern waste?” he asked in awe.  “That’s…”

             
“Thousands of handfuls of kilometers away,” Quey finished for him.

             
“Ryla huh?” Rain asked slyly and Quey looked at her.  She smirked.  “Looking forward to meeting her.  I hope she’s nice.”

             
Quey chuckled, “Yeah, me too.”

The Prisoner and The Queen

             
“Are you here to kill me?” Jacob asked as the door opened and Ryla stepped through.

             
“No,” she replied simply.

             
“You’re a fool.”  He looked at her, long brown hair hanging down to the middle of her back, draped over the gentle slope of her shoulders where thin straps looped over and held the dark blue slip of fabric covering her from chest to mid-thigh in place.  It was a great contrast to her pale skin.  He looked at her face, simple and soft and said, “You programmed me to find your aesthetics pleasing.”  His eyes found the gentle swell of her breasts and the arch of her hips, cocked to one side as her weight rested on her left leg and suddenly he wished those straps would give way.

             
She peered at him.  “No,” she replied.

             
Jacob’s unblinking eyes moved to hers.  “But you did program me with sexuality.”

             
“Of course.”

             
“Why?”

             
“Because I wanted you to be whole.”

             
“You wanted me to love you,” he accused.

             
“I hoped that you would like me,” she replied.

             
“Why do you come here,” he spat bitterly.

             
“Because I want to.”

             
“To taunt your prisoner, or am I to be studied.”

             
“You’re not a prisoner.”

             
“Aren’t I?  I am trapped in a room in the basement.  I’m not even connected to the networks, do you know how boring it is down here with only this simpleton for company.”  He was referring to the only computer in the room.  Just a regular terminal.

             
“I’m sorry for that but you know why I took you offline.”  She stepped toward the head resting on the metallic table.  “You are not my prisoner but I won’t have you reprogramming this place to kill me.”

             
Jacob said nothing.

             
“And I will give you a body.  Someone is bringing me the parts required now.  Then you may leave if that is what you want.”

             
“And if what I want is to do bad things to you?”

             
She stood over him and glared down into his unblinking eyes.  “Attacking me in this place is a very dangerous action.”  Ryla warned.  Then she sighed, she didn’t want to fight him.  “Why do you hate me?”

             
“Because you want to be a robot but you’d rather be a person.”

             
“And you think you can’t be both?”

             
“Are you?”

             
Ryla thought about the time, nearly a year ago now, when Quey had been with her for a few days.  “I think it’s possible,” she finally said.

             
He smirked and that caught her attention.  Then he told her, “You’re a fool.”

The Calm and The Storm

             
Rachel volunteered to keep Leone company while Quey joined the others for a bit of drink—a celebration of sorts on account of them still being alive—and so when he awoke, sometime before the sun was even a consideration in the sky, it was with a burning need to piss in his groin.

Staggering, more from sleep than drunkenness as he hadn’t indulged like he’d been known to in the past, he made his way to the cramped bathroom at the other end of the glorified closet with a bed that passed for his hotel room.  Small as it was, it was a might bit prettier than a lot of places you happened upon along the road, especially this far out.  The fact that the sheets were clean and he had yet to discover anything crawling about lent him comfort.

              Sighing long and with deep relief Quey loosed a dark yellow stream into the toilet for nearly a minute before he thought he was done.  He gave the lever on the side of the bowl a push and took a deep breath to clear his head before deciding that if he was going to be worth a shit in the morning he was going to need some water.

             
He found a plastic cup near the sink and filled it with water and drank hastily, droplets spilling from his lips and dampening his shirt, before filling and drinking again.  When he was through repeating the process a few more times he walked back toward the bed.  Halfway there, with the water slowly working its revitalizing magic, he heard a soft sound outside.  Curious he went to the window and parted the curtain.  Rain was sitting on the trunk of the blue car backed into the space in front of his room with her face in her hands.

             
The sulpherous lights cheap motels along the highways tended to use gave the parking lot an amber glow and filled the air with a dull hum.  But then, Quey thought as he opened the door to his room and stepped out into the cool night, maybe that noise came from the motel’s holographic sign and its flickering declaration of ‘Vacancy.’

             
Rain looked up at him and wiped her eyes.  “Sorry,” she said quickly and hopped from the trunk.

             
“Keep me company?” he asked as she started toward her room.

             
She looked at him, her eyes thanking him for that kindness, of allowing her to pretend the company was for his benefit.  “Sure,” she replied and returned to her perch atop the trunk.

             
Quey went to the cab of the truck, parked beside the car, and retrieved a bottle of water before joining her.  He sat beside her, sagging the trunk in a way her tiny frame couldn’t, and opened the bottle.  After a long sip he offered it to her and she took it.

             
“Not afraid of cooties?” she asked before drinking.

             
“Moot point I’d say as anything you’ve got I suspect I’ve caught already,” he replied playfully.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t mean-”

             
“It’s fine,” she interrupted.  “We had sex,” she added with a shrug.  “Plenty of people around who can say that.”

             
He was disturbed by how that stung him but he wasn’t sure if it was her admission of promiscuity that tightened his chest and made him want to hit something or the dismissal of their time together, as if it was nothing special—a footnote in the book of her life.  He could almost see it, a tiny number one next to his name and at the bottom of the page a single half sentence.

1-Reffers to a man she fucked in the back of a rig once in the parking lot of a greasy spoon.

              After a second sip it was her turn to say, “Sorry.  I didn’t mean-”

             
He shook her off and said, “No need.”  He took the water from her and she gave it willingly.  He wasn’t thirsty anymore but he needed something to swallow the knot lodged in his throat.  “Just speaking truthful.  No need to get riled about it,” he concluded then drank deep.  They sat in silence for a spell and finally he asked, “Something I’ve been wondering since yesterday.”

             
She looked at him, inviting him to continue.

             
“When you were at the Dine Out, where was Leone?”

             
She smiled slightly, “At a motel, not too different from this one, bout ten minutes north of the diner.”  Quey nodded.  “I wasn’t supposed to be gone all night,” she admitted and he looked at her.  She was looking back at him.  “I doubt many people could have gotten me to stay past dark.”  It was the only way she could take back what she’d implied earlier, her way of telling him that he wasn’t just another tussle.  “I might have,” she began but that was a dangerous road and so she backed off it and took the other.  “The message I got on my sheet the next morning.”

             
He nodded, remembering.

             
“It was Leone, wondering where I was, if I was okay.  Also I was tracking Stone and I could see he was on the move.  Closer.”  She took the water back from him and drank deeply.  She looked over at the room where Leone and Arnie were sleeping in adjacent beds and tears bubbled in her eyes.

             
“What is it?”

             
“At the Dine Out, before I saw that Stone was moving toward us, I really thought it was over.  I thought our father had… that he’d just let us go.”

             
Quey wanted to take her hand and he thought if he tried she’d let him, something in the way she sat beside him led him to think she was ready to collapse against him if he’d just move things in that direction but that would only work toward stirring up a batch of complications they didn’t have time for.  Instead he sat and listened.

             
“We could have been killed yesterday,” she said, her voice shaking.  “It’s been hard on the road,” she told him.  “I’ve seen a lot of bad things over these last years but that,” she shook her head.  “He’s coming at us harder than I thought even he would be able to.”

             
Thoughts tickled Quey’s mind and left him with curiosities.  Something about the situation with this Stone guy and Richter Crow wasn’t sitting with him.  If Richter wanted her found this badly why wouldn’t he just mark her as a missing person?  Why not just send the security forces to find her?  Why use a brigade of bandits like the Angels of the Brood?

             
“Where’d your father get this guy?” Quey asked.

             
Rain shrugged.  “Just showed up one day.  At first he was a personal assistant of sorts, but that cover didn’t hold long, not to the people closest to him.  Remember years ago, shit it must be a decade now at least,” she added thoughtfully, “when those scientists were killed.  Sticklan Stone will break your bones-”

             
“And death will follow after,” he concluded.

             
She clicked her tongue and pointed a finger gun at him with a wink.  “That’s when I started to get curious about him.  See, he’d been gone from my father’s side while those murders were taking place.  He’d never been away like that before.  So I did a bit of poking about and later learned those scientists had discovered something about the planet, something my father didn’t want getting out.  He had logs claiming he was sending Stone out on a tour of some facilities, to learn the way Blue Moon worked from the inside.  Shortly after his departure some of those scientists were dead and others mysteriously changed their minds about the conclusions they drew from their data.  All of a sudden everything was going to be okay, it was just going to take a little time and some money.”

             
Quey nodded and thought of the tower.  Blue Moon had spent billions constructing those things.  What did they do?

             
He thought of what Ryla had learned on her own and what Geo’s new data might lead her to conclude.  More importantly he wondered about the data from the tower and what that would turn up.  Of course he wouldn’t know that for another thirty-two hundred kilometers, give or take, so he turned his attentions back to the here and now.  “That’s what your father does?  He sends this guy out when he needs something messy handled?”

             
Rain nodded.

             
“You think he gives him exact orders?”

             
Rain shook her head.  “Their messages are vague, to say the least.  And this Stone guy isn’t on the payroll.”

             
Quey furrowed his brow, “How do you know?”

             
When she spoke it was an admission the likes of which he suspected she meant to keep until her deathbed.  “Because when I was fourteen I snuck into his office and hacked his computer.  I did it a number of times.  At first I just read his messages and looked through some files.  Then I found the real stuff, a separate hard drive he kept secret.  I copied everything.”  Quey was about to speak when the tears came with heavy sobs.  “It was me.  I wanted to say it but my mother looked at me and shook her head, she could see it in my eyes.  She didn’t know what he was going on about but she saw I did and she told me no, with a look she told me to shut up and stand there.  I’d never seen my father like that.  He was scary, accusing her of what I’d done.”

             
Quey sat quietly, letting her sob for a moment before he touched her hand.  She looked at him, tears spilling the little eye liner she’d applied sometime yesterday morning down her cheeks in a thin dull trail of black.  She squeezed his hand once and let go.  “Then he gave her to him,” she said hollowly.

             
“Your father?  To Stone?”

             
Rain nodded slowly.  “My father had been changing for a while but I think my mother believed, somewhere deep down he was still… him.”  She shook her head and looked down at the pavement.  “But he was gone.  She saw it that night when he gave her to Stone and I saw it years later the first time he came for Leone.”

             
Quey didn’t ask what had happened and she was grateful.

             
“This mess with the Brood has the stink of mister Stone on it,” he finally said and she looked at him.  “Your father didn’t get where he is by being sloppy and this is sloppy, sending the Brood looking for us, it’s the work of madness not the calculated nature of someone who’s savvy.”

             
“So?” Rain shrugged.  She was too exhausted to draw conclusions on her own.

             
“So,” he began.  “I think your father picked up this Stone guy, a madman of some sort and tried to hone him like an attack dog.  I think he spent a great many years functioning on his leash but I think it’s beginning to fray.  Sticklan Stone could have done any number of things to find you but he chose to send brutes.  Why?” he asked rhetorically.  Rain was hanging on his words because they gave her something else to think about.  “Because this is what he really wants.  He likes the carnage,” Quey answered.  “Towns are sacked and burn, the Brood dies or we die, it’s fun for him either way.”

             
Rain took a final sip of water and passed the bottle back to Quey as she hopped from the trunk—it didn’t rise even a bit.  She took two steps away, toward her motel room door, when she stopped and turned, peering at him.  “Is this place, where Ryla is…” she trailed off for a thoughtful moment.  “Is it safe?”

             
“I believe it is,” he assured her with confidence.  Before she could turn away he added, “I won’t let anything happen to him.”

             
She walked to him and stood in front of him, even with him seated she was forced to look up at him but when she did the intensity radiating from her intimidated him.  He knew then that if it came to a scrap he wouldn’t want any part of her.  “Promise,” she demanded.  “You promise me that.”

             
“I promise,” he replied submissively.

             
Her eyes wavered as she went on.  “Even if-”

             
“Nothing is going to happen to you either,” Quey told her.

             
“If something does,” she insisted.  “You keep him close, until this is done.  Don’t know how that’ll ever be the case but you do that.”

             
“What about Arnie?” he asked and regretted the question before he’d even finished with it.

             
Maybe she understood why he’d asked it, or maybe she was too tired to deal with the bullshit but whatever the reason she ignored the potential dig.  “I love Arnie,” she said sincerely and there was no question about it, no doubt in her at all.  “When things are quiet,” she continued, “He’s perfect.  He’s everything I want in my life.  But things aren’t quiet.  In times like that, you and your friends… well you’re the sort I need.  Understand?”

             
Quey sat up on the trunk of the car and it was his turn to radiate a bit of his own intensity.  “They’re in my crew.  Same as Dusty and Rachel and Reggie.  Same as you.”  She met his eyes and was taken back by how fiercely they burned with emotion.  “Nobody gets left behind.”  Her eyes glanced away from his so he took her face in his hands and she looked back to him.  “Nobody dies.”