Page 15 of Defiance
“Well I certainly wouldn’t want to intrude on the screaming,” Novak said, noting how Ezra’s tendrils started twisting up once more. He approached Mel and knelt down next to her. “Thank you for thinking of me today, sister. I look forward to meeting my nephews soon.”
“You’ll be here tomorrow, won’t you?” she asked, crestfallen. Novak’s tail curled up.
“Probably not,” he admitted, brushing his muzzle across her temple. He could hardly believe that she let him. The trust she afforded him felt sacred, but she just patted his knee with a soft, pale hand, kissing the air beside his cheek like it was nothing. “But I’ll return soon. A few weeks.”
“Alright. Stay safe wherever you’re going.”
Themidwaifshooed him away, fretting over Mel’s towel. “Come now, mamau, let’s try kneeling with your elbows on the sofa...”
Novak excused himself as Ezra stepped in to help and the door hissed closed behind him. He opened his comms and Imani’s profile rotated lazily in the corner. Heart in his throat, tongue as heavy as lead, he opened her message.
Imani Renatex, 11:52: We’ve put you on patrol tonight. You’ll start down at the river after sunset. Route and schedule attached.
He deleted the message as soon as he’d read it and stared at the lift in shock.
Charlie had said yes.
06
I left the clinic around sunset, so jittery that my fingers felt clammy and numb. Only one colonist had come by needing an antiseptic spray and I’d managed to launch the bottle out of my own hands twice. I’d somehow worked myself into a froth by pacing the clinic alone, reading dry papers from public journals on the internet archives to try to distract myself when instead it stirred up the butterflies in my chest.
Purely professional butterflies about salmonid spawning conditions and definitely not at all about the alien man I’d meet by the river soon.
As I hiked up the hill towards the tarmac, I took a deep breath and stretched out my fingers. I’d gone on a few dates after John by using a dating app. Most were duds, but a couple had been enjoyable. Those were the only ones I ever invited back to mine.
Novak didn’t have to be any different just because the whole thing was an arranged scheme. Imani said he wouldn’t even bring it up. I could swipe right if I wanted to or just let our sniffing rendezvous end there. No harm, no foul.
I nodded to myself, hitting a purposeful stride in the late day heat. It was just a blind date with my bodyguard. I’d print us some food, set up a place to eat on the riverbank, and get to know him. The familiarity of the ritual soothed my racing pulse as I leaned my head into the open maw of the hangar.
“Hello?” I called, catching my breath. The baritone lilt of a cello played inside, haunting the domed ceilings with muffled echoes. The stringed instrument, however, turned the corrugated tin into the stones of a cathedral. I closed my eyes, relishing the nostalgic weight of it in my ears, how it reminded me of the millenium of human legacy we’d left behind on Earth. I wasn’t well-versed in classical music, but the sound made my heart ache regardless.
I mustered some courage and rolled back my shoulders. Somebody was a fan of the classics, but definitely not the pilots or engineers. Every day with them was a feud between classic rock and indie pop. Imani had told me to talk to the security team’s biognostics after I was done at the clinic, and I couldn’t imagine I’d find them anywhere but here.
“Hello? Anyone home?” I called again, making my way towards the engineers’ lockers where overhead lights glowed through the cluttered industrial shelves.
Rounding the lockers, I came upon a lone black figure with wide shoulders. His spine cut a divot down the center of a back stacked in muscular facets and cable ports, and as he turned to face me, his hips whirred gently. He had five lenses rather than eyes, and each appeared specialized in some way, moving independently as they adjusted focal length and aperture. Two on either side and one in the middle of his forehead that ran on a track up the center seam of his mask.
No, that wasn’t a mask. It was his face.
“Ms Charlotte Halloway,” he said from a speaker somewhere in his chest or jaw. It was hard to tell when he didn’t appear to have a mouth. “I was told to expect you. I am Jharim.”
Jharim’s voice was smooth and commanding, if monotonous. Like Hannibal Lecter, the mixture of such an emotional instrument as the cello with his stoicism suggested someone who influenced the orchestrations of the universe,regardless of individual lives. His presence was monolithic, intimidating.
“Wow,” I breathed, finding it hard to draw in air under the pressure of his stare. “Yes, I’ve seen you on the village red.” The Europeans had taken to calling the playfield that rather than the village green. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants, feeling out of sorts. “Sorry. Afraid my manners are shot. You can call me Charlie, though. Nice to meet you.”
Jharim’s optics rotated thoughtfully as his facial facets arranged themselves in a vaguely human way with brow plates and the bridge of a nose. A jaw-like seam split his face in two where a mouth and ears might be. He blinked the two lenses set on either side of his face like human eyes. “Is this a more comfortable arrangement? Your vitals are elevated.”
“Feck’s sake, I’m sorry,” I groaned, ashamed of myself for staring. “However you look is fine. We just haven’t met properly and today’s been a bit of a shock altogether.”
He kept the new facial features, but didn’t bother to mimic blinking again.
“Ah yes, the arms master mentioned that you experienced a system crash this morning.”
I rubbed my forearm, remembering the distinctly naked feeling. The reasons for my visit hit me hard. Was I really doing this? The war I’d been waging against myself all day rose back up. I was a normal middle-aged woman, not some teenager with a destiny complex. I’d be full of shite to think I could pull off a clandestine mission.
But I was responsible too. All of us in Renata had a duty to keep each other safe. Rosy had violated that—maybe even sold my data along the way—and now the stakes were steeper. If I could contribute by being a glorified tourist, I had to take the leap and believe in myself.
Jharim looked at my chest right where my heart punched my sternum like a boxer. He tapped lightly on his casing, directing my eyes to the spot where his heart would be if he were human.
