With You Under Any Sun
Faith Luna
copyright 2011 by Faith Luna
Smashwords Edition
www.faithinthemoon.com
This is a work of fiction. It does not represent any persons, living or dead. The places and events are imaginary.
All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Please do not give away copies of this book.
With You Under Any Sun
Copyright © 2011 Nix Winter
ISBN
Category yaoi, sci-fi, gay, romance, suspense, cop, medical, war, war crimes
Line art for cover by Sethron
Cover art and design by Nix Winter
Find me on the World Wide Web at
www.faithinthemoon.com
The order of stories:
With You Under Any Sun
A Blond American, Neat
Lace and Chains
A Table Like the Moon
Arthur Interviews Lanselet
Tahrir
Knocking on Heaven's Door
Cake and Sex
Knew You From a Dream
A Storm Without Kisses
Protecting Charlie
Trust
Snowman
Note:
So what do you want in your life? It sounds utterly cliche if I tell you that you can have whatever you want... just go get it. There are things we're never going to get. I can't time travel back to give Aristotle a solid punch in the nose. I'm not going to be twenty-three again without dying and starting over, which I very much do not want to do. There are some things in our lives that feel just as out of reach sometimes though. Whatever it is in your life that you want... if other people can do it, you can too. What I want right now is a safe place in the world and to be able to create stories for as long as I can imagine living. I have a really good imagination.
On the subject of pen names - I've had a few these last couple of years. Good Heavens. Sebastian Blade is the most successful of them, though from now on, I'm going to use Faith Luna. I hope you'll enjoy some of these stories! And if you do, please come follow my blog at www.faithinthemoon.com. The stories for all of these characters will be continued there, even faster with your encouragement!
With You Under Any Sun
"Happy anniversary," Jody whispered into Alin's ear. "You're the sexiest man alive."
Jody's voice warmed everything. That warmth made Alin feel like he was the center of the world. He shivered, rolling towards his lover. "Best seven years of my life. What's this?"
"Eight ounces of fresh squeezed orange juice, two servings," Jody paused. Alin's violet eyes watched Jody with a familiar combination of sternness and adoration. Jody smiled apologetically. "I brought you breakfast. It's Valentine's Day."
"Gonna be my Valentine," Alin asked as he propped himself up on one elbow.
Jody sat down, one knee bent. He set the tray where Alin could get to his breakfast. "I had this idea."
"Go on," Alin said. He smiled, black bangs framing his face. Pale skin, deep rose lips, twilight violet eyes, his coloring marked him as spacer bred. He reached right past the breakfast to caress Jody's cheek. "God, you're beautiful, Jody. I love you."
As obvious as Alin's spacer linage was, Jody's dark green hair, deep blue eyes, marked him as a Titan gestated boy. There was something in the terraforming that turned hair a deep forest shade of brown green. The blue eyes were just good luck, as far as Jody was concerned, as Alin seemed to like them. He caught Alin's hand, kissed his palm, sucked on the tip of a finger. "I love you too. So I was thinking, we'd both call in today, catch a shuttle to Maui, lay on the sand for hours, surf a bit, have some fantastic dinner, fuck each other till dawn, whine about the world all day at work the next day."
"Oh baby," Alin agreed, his hand slipping under the loose edge of Jody's boxers, up to gently take hold of his cock. Stroking encouragingly, he gave Jody a gentle tug. "Fuck me?"
"When we get to Maui. On the plane maybe. We'll get a suite. We haven't had intercourse in the air in years."
Alin traced his tongue over his lips, making sure that Jody was watching. Sometimes life had been hard for them. The wars had left both of them with days when passion was more of a wish than possibility. Even after they'd gotten married, there had been years of Alin working cases that took him undercover, took him off planet for weeks, even months a couple of times. Medical school hadn't given Jody time or spare energy either, but even during his residency, there had ever been any thought that their marriage wasn't where both of them really wanted to be.
"Now. Not Maui, not somewhere else. Here. Now." Alin said. He kicked a the sheet and moved the tray setting it on the floor at the foot of the bed. "Strip."
"Demanding little bastard," Jody accused affectionately. He slipped out of his boxers though. At twenty-five, he'd fought in two wars, been shot seven times, had scars on his body that even Alin didn't know where they were from, survived an abduction that nearly cost him all his memories and everything that made him who he was, made it through medical school, and as far as Alin was concerned, there was not a more beautiful human being any where. He moved with a taunt predatory grace. His body was lean, hardened in a lab by people who cared for him less than the gang Alin had run with on the streets as a boy.
"Yes, yes, I am," Alin agreed. His hair unbound, it fanned out over the white of the pillow like black ink. He reached up under the back of the headboard to pull out a tube of lube. "I know though, that you're not going to Maui. You're going into the ER where you always go. You'll be there until I get off work. If they weren't all scared of you there, they'd probably try to make you work regular hours."
Jody took the tube of lube and knelt between Alin's bent knees. He let the tube drop to the bed as he reached to trace his fingers along a jagged white scar across Alin's belly. "I do so much better work now."
"You were seventeen. Nothing fell out and everything still works. We can test that now with some really athletic sex, if you know you feel like giving me an exam."
It took a moment for the calculation and overriding logic to back down a bit in Jody, but Alin knew they were back on the same page when a slight hint of a smile lifted the corner of Jody's mouth. "We will go to Maui soon. You're going to retire and write crime stories. I'll take up family practice. I am tired of gunshots wounds."
"Me too, baby," Alin promised. His hard cock swayed a little as he rocked his hips, knees spread. "I want to feel you in me, spreading me open."
"I think maybe you should write romances too. I read one of those last week, in the waiting room."
"What were you doing in the waiting room?" Alin curled up, grabbed the lube and started applying some to Jody's cock. Stroking the cool gel over his partner's thick manhood. It had occurred to Alin more than once over the time that they'd been lovers, that he ought to be grateful that when the assholes who had created Jody as a weapon of war had been engineering him that they hadn't decided that a decent sized penis was more weight than they wanted to pay thruster power for. Carrying fuel to power a spacecraft, especially one designed for stealth and war made every ounce count. A prostate weighed about eight ounces on average and a penis another couple ounces. The fact that Jody had both did lend some weight to the argument that his handlers hadn't meant to completely erase his humanity.
That humanity clouded over Jody's eyes as Alin stroked him. "A patient said the book was good, but didn't know how it ended. Her copy was lost, but I had seen one in the lobby. I wanted to tell her the ending. She had sustained excessive damage prior to her arrival."
Alin froze, searching Jody's eyes. "Did you get to tell her the end of the book?"
"Yes."
With a deflating sigh, Alin flopped back on the bed. "Maybe we should take off for Maui. No dead people. No criminals." He flung his arm over his eyes, feeling more melodramatic than he would have liked.
Heat enclosed his softening cock, an expert tongue slowly circling around his head. Jody's suction was clinically perfect. There was no one who knew Alin's body better. Pleasure roared back to life. The mundane world might as well have fallen away as the two of them hit orbit. Jody's fingers insisted at Alin's entrance, teasing him into relaxation, though that wasn't hard. Thinking about Jody's cock caressing his sensitive passage tightened his balls, his belly, and he spread his legs, scooting down just a little. "Fuck me!"
Jody had always been faster and stronger. With the warm euphoria of sexual pleasure swallowing him, Alin didn't even realize Jody was moving until his lover had him in his arms. "You're everything," Jody said, voice deep, focused.
Alin slid his fingers into Jody's hair. He didn't have to explain the happiness expanding his chest. "Fuck. It's gonna be a great day, Baby."
<><>
Jody really did think about calling off, getting tickets to Maui, stealing Alin out of the Peacekeeper's office. He was still thinking about it when he parked his little brown car. Alin thought Jody's devotion to the hospital was as intense as Alin's devotion to peacekeeping was. Jody let him think that. It made life easier. Alin loved Jody as much as he loved peace and Jody had no desire to make his husband choose. In the wars, both of them had had too many choices taken away.
When Alin was ready, Jody would walk away from the hospital without a second glance. He'd take up family practice. They'd never spend another night apart. Even if it took a life time for Alin to put his demons to rest, it would be a life time together for every moment they could have.
Whatever demons Jody had carried out of the wars with him, he'd lost them the lab that had created him during the war abducted him after peace broke out. They'd stripped his mind of memories and personality, everything that had made him him, except for the memory of Alin. He only kept that because they couldn't pry the knowledge that Alin loved him out of him. They'd wanted a weapon and that's almost what they got. He did not remember killing them. He remembered running feral in a warehouse district until Alin hunted him down. He'd stolen a dog from the lab and named the dog Frenchie. He'd been a Peacekeeper as well before that and he really wasn't sure what De Gaule had been more upset about, killing his captors, stealing the dog, or naming the dog something reminiscent of her name, even if in a completely roundabout way. He never regained who he'd been. Alin put up with him anyway and at least once said the experience was an improvement.
Medicine was just what he did while he was waiting for Alin to come home.
Peace was what Alin did while he sorted out the darkness that love couldn't really touch.
The hospital elevator swallowed Jody and his thoughts. Until Alin came for him, he would put people back together as if that were the extent of the world.
He scrubbed in for rounds, taking great comfort in the simple and repetitive tasks. In his white coat, he stepped out onto the ward. Mission. He smiled, a carefully practiced smile, not the twitchy and shy smile he shared with Alin, but with a perfectly genuine seeming and human smile. "Good morning, Mrs. Anderson."
"Good morning, Dr. Mark," the woman said. "Did you get permission to kill me today?"
Jody decided to treat that statement like it was more than half a joke, which he found amusing, and endearing, as if that made them closer. "I still didn't put in the paper work. Besides, who would take care of your grandson?"
"You're a bastard," she snapped, all friendliness gone. She'd known before she was brought into the hospital who had killed her son and she'd made it perfectly clear how she felt about the young man who was her doctor. She'd been homeless, though, and the hospital had been perfectly willing treat her acute symptoms and ignore the chronic conditions that would kill her.
Jody decided it would be best to lower the presentation of friendly camaraderie. A much more genuine and cold, almost machine-like expression hardened his blue eyes. "I think to be a bastard, I'd have had to had at least one parent." He reached into his pocket, withdrew a small photo print of a boy with red hair and lost looking green eyes. He held this out to her. "His name is Jack. I found him on L1. He is a genetic match to both you and your son. There is a 99.4% chance that he is your progeny. This is enough by law to have his custody transferred to you. He has no other living relatives."
Rage burned over her and she grabbed the photo, attempting to claw him in the same motion. The rage paled as she looked at the photo, though. She didn't say anything, just stared at this lost little boy.
"He will arrive in three days. I have arranged an apartment suitable to you both. You are an accountant. You will have the surgery to repair your heart. You will work. You will take care of this boy."
"Who the hell are you," she spat, but she pressed the boy's photo to her chest.
"I am Dr. Jody Mark. I am the man who killed your son. I'm sorry."
"I can't pay for heart surgery."
"I have made arrangements with the War Survivor's Fund. You are not indebted to me in any way. Please sign the consent for treatment so that we can proceed." He held out the data pad and stylus.
She signed. He bowed politely, about faced, and continued with his rounds. Moving through his rounds with efficiency that did not win him friends, he found comfort in the mission-like amount of work being a doctor provided him.
During his court mandated meal period, he reviewed medical journals, which he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing, but he felt it was an acceptable risk. He spent thirty-two seconds observing a web cam pointed towards a Maui beach. He forgot to control his body language during the last eighteen-seconds of observation and smiled, the kind of smile that made his heart beat in a way that represented the connection between emotion and physical being.
An incoming message notification popped up on his data pad and he tapped to accept. Raw data from emergency crews scrolled across his screen at a pace fast enough to engage parts of his mind that had used the Merlin system. His eyes lost all semblance of humanity, scanning, lingering in places to send information back to the data system, triaging seventeen victims in under two minutes. Only two were close to death, a parent and a child, the same surgeon would be the best choice for both. He scheduled the child for surgery, checked on the parent's organ donor status.
His food, only half eaten, was abandoned. He had learned that he could not run in the hospital. He could navigate the traffic of hospital hallways even at his highest speed, but that speed severely disturbed his co-works. So he walked. He could walk a four minute mile.
"Mark!" The newest resident yelled as Jody rounded the corner, headed towards the emergency reception. "Don't run!"
In full mission mode, he assessed the woman, reviewed her education and skills from memory. His eyes narrowed very slightly and he came to a complete stop in front of her. Out of respect he explained, "Walking is defined as a progression of steps where one foot must always be in contact with the ground. I was walking. I am assigning you to OR Four. Expect juvenile victim, pneumothorax, dextro zygomatic fracture." He looked at her slightly confused expression and continued, "Stabilize the patient, expect consent for continued work."
She held up a hand, mouth open. "Who put you in charge?"
He focused on his data pad for a moment, fingers moving so rapidly and efficiently that her mouth was still open when he looked up. "I have transmitted my authorizations. I apologize for not previously advising. In cases of emergencies with more than five victims, the region defers to my triage recommendations. I am not your training physician, but your failure to establish an understanding of your working environment will be noted."
Now he needed to run, even though that broke his agreement with the hospital administrator. By the time he got there, six emergency transports were arriving. The front waiting room had been cleared as he'd requested. One patient after another, he directly scanned vital data and confirmed or amended treatment plans. Other doctors and nurses swarmed the victims too, but Jody moved faster, assessed faster, sometimes left the conscious victims more upset than before he'd triaged them, because he spared no effort at all for making socially acceptable facial expressions.
He scanned the data on one of the last victims, age in the late sixties, probable anti-aging treatments, unavailable medical history, even after a second request, which cost him three seconds. Burns tattered his shirt, mottled his skin. The very subtle and not sought for scent of chemical explosives registered in Jody's mind. His breath froze. Facial recognition kicked in a moment later and he gently took the man's face in his hands and really looked. At this point, he'd been slowed for maybe thirty-seconds and the activity around him began to slow as well. Facial reconstructive surgery, very good, but still leaving the slightest clues that allowed Jody's mind to peel it away to previous probable configurations, to compare to his bingo book from the war, something he hadn't even remembered that he had. The flashback nearly knocked him to his knees.
His gasp echoed through the room.
He lay in a metal ventilation shaft, silent, clothed only in tight black shorts, a skin tight green shirt. The interrogation room below him had the best security on the ship, at least of the places he'd considered extracting 005 from. This had not been his first choice for an extraction point. It was unlikely that 005 would expire during interrogation. Chances of preventing damaging information transfer would have been greater if he had destroyed the entire ship. The second best plan would be to extract 005 from the holding cell, but he had successful tapped their data stream and knew the plan would not return 005 to the holding cell for between twelve to eighteen hours.
The interrogator was a tall man, proportional, wearing a black uniform and a black water proof protective coat that fastened in the back. The air, even scrubbed, still smelled like burning flesh, urine, blood, and fear. Fear was instinctive. There was no shame in fear.
Emotionless blue eyes scanned the room as the man moved.
Restrained to the metal wall, naked, only the balls of his feet reaching the floor, 005 clenched his jaw and glared defiantly. Lack of clothing made it easier to assess his injuries, which so far consisted of extensive first degree burns from the heated metal instrument that the interrogator was explaining to 005. Electrical burns around his hips and shoulders suggested there might be minor muscular damage, but 005 didn't hold himself as if he had broken bones. In utter silence, 006 continued removing the grate the kept him from the room.
Then 005 screamed. The sound echoed through the interrogation room, ricocheted through the ventilation shaft, stripped 006's nerves free of programming until even less humanity remained. The grate tore like rice paper and he poured through the small opening bonelessly, body molded to his needs without regard to what was or wasn't possible. He snarled. Only at the dying end of 005's scream, when breath was too precious to spare, the interrogator heard that his sanctuary had been penetrated.
Animal instinct ruled his mind and blood in that moment, returning so vividly now, as if he lived the moment for the first time now, with a bleeding, sobbing Alin chained to a wall. Jody's body shifted, one shoulder slightly dipped, hands poised, ready to strangle or dismember. Slight air disturbance touched his ear and he blocked, knocking an arm away from his ear. Actual targeting sights aligned over his vision as he glared at Ann, his primary medical assistant. A voice he hadn't heard in years designated her as a non-combatant.
Alin's voice spoke in his ear, through the headpiece that Ann had just activated, "Mark! What the hell are you doing? If you needed to go to Maui so badly, you really shouda said."
"I recovered a memory," Jody said, finding himself Jody again, the Jody who was a doctor, who didn't remember the war, who wasn't a weapon of war, who was a husband, a house owner, who loved children and even wanted a child, he was just Jody. "He tortured you. I saw it."
"Wullll," Alin said, "That could be a few people. Those were shit times, Jody. Shelf it until I get there. Can you completely do that? You've got trauma victims, right? Can you work?"
"You always ask so many questions," Jody complained, curious fingers feeling the wet running down his cheeks. "Yes. I can work."
The hospital administrator, Sylvia Diego, beeped into the call. "So you say, you just threatened to kill a patient."
"He is a wanted war criminal. His real name is Herbert Sanders."
Alin hissed in his ear and Jody knew he was barely suppressing a string of curses.
"Are you absolute about this, Jody?" Diego asked.
"Yes. His injuries are not life threatening, but I believe this accident was caused by an attempt on his life. His arms are burned by a chemically triggered explosive."
"I'll get a couple teams down there," Alin said, calm as if he'd just ordered a beer.
"Acknowledged."
"Jody, are you absolutely sure you're safe to work? You've never recovered memories like this."
"I am okay to work, but I want a leave of absence starting tomorrow."
"Yeah," Alin chimed in. "We're going to Maui and we ain't coming back."
"Fine. Whatever. Get these people taken care of."
Jody touched his ear and closed the connection. The man who'd tortured Alin stared up at him. Jody stared back as if he weren't even there.
"Move people! You had your treatment plans before they even got here!"
Jody gave a nod. He regretted the five minutes that episode had cost him. If his patient died, he was really going to regret it. Valentine's Day lingered deep in his subconscious though, more meaningful than hatred for old enemies. It was time to go to Maui and not come back.
<><><>
Alin's feet were planted firmly on the ground, his motorcycle warm and grounding under him, but the terror and confusion in Jody's voice left the rest of him completely unsettled. The memory of Jody's first reply, the inhuman vicious logic turning Jody's loving voice cold as walking death, the memory of that voice clawed goosebumps over Alin's shoulders. The wars were over. They did not have permission to come back now. He gripped his handlebars with all his force, as if he could force darkness away from them. The wars had almost stolen Jody before he'd even met him. Those bastards who had kidnapped and tried to erase Jody's humanity had almost stolen him. Alin was not giving him back. Not now. Not ever. Jody was free, beautiful, full of kindness in his own bent way. Alin was pretty sure that Dr. Jody Mark might be the only person who could ever love him, had ever needed him in a way that didn't result in disaster. If anything happened to Jody, Alin would follow him into Hell, kick the Devil's ass and take his lover back.
It wouldn't work to call his precious doctor back. He'd told him to shelf the past and get on with surgery. Alin had to force himself to stop grinding his teeth. His lover, his husband, his soul was actively saving the life of a man who had committed war crimes, up close and personal war crimes. There was only one time in the war that Jody had specifically seen someone torture him. Humiliation, long stored away, kindled across his nerves. He knew exactly who was in the operating room with Jody. If he'd come across the bastard in a dark alley, while he had an alibi, and Jody would have had no reason to ever question him, he probably would have shanked the guy himself.
He hadn't meant to scream. The sound, raw and primal, tore out of him as he ripped his helmet off and threw it against the nearest divider. He leaned over his bike, arms folded over the gas tank, sobbing through the rage and emotion. They'd woke up this morning to a perfect day and he wished to all the gods that they'd run away, been far away from whatever the world had for them. They could go off planet. Titan was shaping up, he'd heard. They needed doctors and law enforcement. Panic hit as fast as the rage had, closing of his air, presenting a million ways in which their lives could go to complete Hell.
Forcing his breathing to go shallow and fast, to prevent the hyperventilation that was the undignified result of panic, he focused on a day when they'd both been safe and happy. He'd just come back from an undercover job. Jody was still a resident. He'd waited all morning for Jody to get out, for him to come out to the garden where he liked to meditate and eat. So there he'd been sitting on the base of this sculpture when Jody walks up, cool as if he hadn't been up for thirty-six hours, the sun in his hair, lighting his face, making his eyes as blue as summer, with this confident little smile on his face, that said they were perfect, that every thing was exactly as it should be. That was a perfect moment. Jody made everything perfect.
One fucking war criminal wasn't going to change that.
His helmet beeped with his headset, announcing an incoming call. The temptation to let it go to voice mail evaporated when he realized it might be Jody. With an easy strength, he jerked his bike up on the kick stand, dismounted and went after his scraped helmet. He pulled the headset free, tucked it in his hear and answered, "St. Grenis."
"When are you getting in here?" A terrified voice hissed.
Alin blinked. "Captain?"
"Get in here, St. Grenis."
"Uh," Alin hedged. He could quit. Right then. Make a clean break. Unemployment didn't bare any greater notice than peace had. "About that...."
"No, St. Grenis. There have been three murders, two assassination attempts, and an undisclosed number of threats. I need you on the job, unless it's you and your boyfriend pulling this shit off?"
Hatred at least was a cold and logical emotion, sometimes. "He's my husband and you have no grounds to accuse either of us. In fact," Alin growled as he pulled on his helmet and remounted his bike, "it's a federal crime. Jody and I are both covered under the Amnesty Decree."
"I get that you and he are all innocent now," Captain Pense snapped, "That decree was used as a hit list for people who weren't as popular as you and your boy." Speeding up he said, "I know that you and I haven't had the most cordial of relationships, but we've done good work, haven't we? Look, I need your help. I'll pay you."
Alin tilted his head, hands light on his handle bars, violet eyes narrow. Whatever was going on, it was bigger than just one dick resurfacing after the war. "I don't need you to pay me," Alin hissed, "The federal government pays me just fine. Don't fucking do anything until I get there."
"Of course," Pense said, a calm in his voice that Alin didn't like at all.
The call ended and he pulled back onto the freeway, fast, but not as fast as the mecha he'd piloted in the war. "Call: De Gaule One."
After a few rings, his real boss answered. "Alin," she greeted him, professional, preoccupied. "You're aware of the situation?"
"Partially. Multiple victims, probably collateral damage, one target survived. Jody's operating on him. He'll live," Alin said, changing lanes, and a cold 'for now' in his tone, "I need a deep background check on a Captain Geoffery Pense. He sounds guilty as hell and frightened."
"Isn't he your division chief with the locals you so love to work with?"
"Yeah. Can you spare someone to pick up Frenchie and take her down to the hospital?" Alin leaned tightly into the curving exit. "And security for Jody."
"He's the last person in the Federation that needs extra security or are you afraid he's going to kill someone?"
"He had a real flashback. Identified Herbert Sanders. I'm going back to the hospital as soon as I can, but I need to see what Pense knows."
"I understand." She did. Alin had made it completely clear multiple times in their history that where work conflicted with Jody's well being, work lost. "I'll get someone on Pense. His file should have raised flags."
"Thanks," Alin said. The call ended and he wished again that he could call Jody.
<><><>
Chaos reigned in the police station, but they parted for Alin as he strode through. He hadn't felt such fear directed towards himself since the wars. It just made him angry now, and if he were honest with himself, other people fearing him had made him angry then too. He didn't knock on his captain's door, just strode in and pinioned him with all the accusation he could summon. Self-righteous indignation was a little hard to pull off if you knew you were a reformed murdering bastard yourself. He kicked the door shut and only the bullet proof glass kept it from being so many sharp little shards. "What the Hell, Pense?"
The man was twice Alin's age and not someone who took advantage of modern medicine's longevity options. Stress' crush made him look three times Alin's age and Alin almost felt bad for him when he just looked at Alin as if the world were going to end any moment. Wide eyes, white knuckles, and every visible sign of impending nausea did not speak for either the man's innocence or how easy this problem was going to be to solve. "I should have gone in for the amnesty."
Alin's mouth dropped open. He grabbed the chair in front of his captain's desk and sank into it. "You were a monotheist."
Confusion flicked for a second over Pense's face, but then he nodded. "Yeah."
"Where? What? When?"
"Start of the wars. I was Earth First. I was in the Thai Action. I was," he said, jaw steeling, "a propaganda specialist."
"Writing pamphlets doesn't make you look like someone just ground up your soul."
"It wasn't pamphlets. We did things," he said, eyes on his desk, a hand reaching for a lacy valentine on his desk. "We blamed those things on the knights and on the Institute."
Alin went stone solid, life and time just not part of the world anymore. As if it would restore the world, he flexed numb fingers. He and Jody had been part of the knights, an anti-war group that hadn't been even remotely pacifist. "The reason for the Amnesty, the way it was done, is so that we know who we're working with. You killed people and blamed it on me, on Jody, or Trace, and you show up every day and tell me how to do my job? Do you still hate me? Are you still fighting the war?"
Pense tossed the blood red holiday card towards Alin. "I never hated you. You were never real to me. You were a teenager running around in a jet black ninja robot that could turn into a plane and come out of the water like whirling dervish. You were just a demon. I was doing what I thought God wanted me to do, that he'd comfort the victims in Heaven. I haven't been fighting or believing in anything for a long time. I'm ashamed of what I did. I'm sorry."
With calm fingers, Alin picked up the valentine. "You still would have been eligible for amnesty. Why didn't you go in?"
"This girl, she contacted me, said she could get me new papers, that no one would ever know. That it would be like I died in the war and I could be someone completely new."
"Did it work? Was it that easy?"
"After the Amnesty closed, she started extorting money and," he took a deep slow breath, "services from me."
"You sold out the police force to protect yourself?"
"Yes. Would you have done it?"
Head tilted, Alin's nose flared as he forced a deep slow breath. "I'd have done it for Jody."
"Read the card."
The card was rather gothic to say the least, antique paper, blood splatters darkened to a near black, lettering written in the same dark color. It read:
My husband would have been thirty today. I have securely planted enough explosive in the hospital and in three elementary schools to completely demolish them. If you alert either the hospital or the school, I will detonate the explosives. You will find a file in your inbox with the list of all the criminals who avoided Amnesty and of fifteen individuals who should never have been allowed Amnesty. At two-thirty today, you will hold a live press conference and release the names of the Amnesty evaders to the public. If all fifteen of the other criminals are dead by three o'clock, I will surrender myself and the triggers to all the explosives. If even one of them is still alive, I will kill a lot of innocent people. You, personally, killed my beloved. I'll give you until three o'clock to do as I command and see to your own death. It's more than you gave him.
Happy Valentine's Day,
Serena
"Who was her husband?"
"How should I know? I killed a lot of husbands. So did you. You have to assassinate the fifteen people on her list. I'll put a gun to my head and go to my God, after I do what she's asked, but most of those people on that list aren't going to. We can't let anymore innocent people die because of us."
Alin ran his fingers through his hair, pushing his bangs back. There was a time when Jody would have taken the path of lowest causalities and made sure that Serena joined them. Now he was a healer and would die before he caused death. Maybe that's who Jody had always been, underneath all the brainwashing and involuntary training he'd survived. Actually, Alin knew that's who Jody had always been, kind and loving, if too intelligent for his own good. An enemy as strong as Serena though, probably had Pense's office and the whole station under surveillance. "Transmit me the list."
Pense's eyebrow twitched in surprise. "Okay."
Alin stood, shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and glared. "If I don't see you again, I hope your God is more welcoming to you than I'm gonna be if I do see you again."
"Fair enough."
As he walked out, he really wanted to call Jody, run straight to the hospital, beg his husband to just come away with him, not tell him, just get him out of the city, far away from crazy violence. Doing that would be an unforgivable violence in and of itself. On his way back to his bike, he broke into a run, needing to be out of a building where he'd never been safe, no matter what he thought, running from the idea that maybe the best course would just be to carry out the hit list.
<><><>
Alin wanted to go straight to the hospital, buy a couple tickets off world on his way. He hadn't been born on Earth, neither had Jody, and there were just some days that the enclosed finite space of the planet felt claustrophobic to him. People who were born on the rock couldn't understand how a smaller habitat could feel freer and safer than a planet. He still owned his own ship. It didn't have a hospital for Jody to work at, but it was self contained.
And he knew he was done.
Merging into traffic on the freeway, everything seemed so very clear.
Problems were crack.
Mysteries a kind of soul numbing panacea to keep guilt from eating him whole, but he and Jody had both gone in for the Amnesty Decree.
They weren't innocent,
but they were absolved.
He smiled
very slightly
behind the dark face shield of his helmet.
Every doctor needed a good homemaker.
While he was done with the locals, he also had a real office in the Peacekeepers building. That was a secure building full of trusted people.
"Call: De Gaule One."
"De Gaule."
"I quit."
"Right now?"
"Yeah. No, let me send you what that asshole sent me, tell you what I know. Then I quit." His bike took over autopilot from the moment he stopped paying complete attention to the road. The inside of his face shield doubled as a monitor and his eyes clicked over the data, manipulating and sending stuff off to his former boss. "See those names? I hate them, most of them."
De Gaule murmured something as she went through the data he'd sent, the letter, the demands. "Then kill them for us."
"And then what?"
"You won't be held responsible."
"I kinda had the idea that you'd say that. Jody would hold me responsible though and he's more my moral compass than you are."
"Abandon your post and I'll charge you as an accessory," she threatened.
"You have people," he said. "Good people. Hell, I helped train a lot of them. You want to kill people because some terrorist says it's on the list, then you do that. You wave it all away with some keystrokes. You're going to waste your time and energy if you try to force me. I'm no good to you."
"Coward."
"As if the act of telling you to shove it up your ass didn't require every shred of guts I've ever had. I've done good by you, de Gaule. I didn't get up this morning planning to be done today, but I am."
"I won't tolerate you going freelance on this."
"You've got a timeline that's pretty tight there. If you're not going to do your job, people are going to die. You don't have time to debrief me."
"What about you doing your job!?"
"My job is to be with Jody. Think it through, ne? We can't be sure to stop the bombs. He won't leave the hospital unless everyone's safe. I won't let him die alone. Ciao, de Gaule."
She didn't call back. He understood that she understood. With his bike still pretty much driving itself, so all he had to do was hold on and mold to the movements, he set his destination to the external parking garage by the gardens. He ordered two dozen roses to be waiting for him in the gift shop. Then he shifted her out of auto pilot, broke the speed limit with his flashing lights on, sliding through traffic as if he could get up enough speed to break free of Earth's gravity.
There was a spring in his step as he slipped through the sliding doors into the emergency room. Ann pinioned him with a glare that she had completely learned from Jody. He grinned back, flippant and casual as he continued on his way towards the gift shop.
"Hold on you!" She shouted after him.
With a sigh, he stopped, then turned, hands on his hips, dark blue bangs in his eyes, hoping he looked as charming as he'd ever managed to look. "Hi Ann! Thanks for calling me earlier. I really appreciated that. You're the best assistant that Jody's ever had."
Pointing at nothing in particular, just gesturing out her frustration. "You mean I'm the only one that's lasted more than a week. I want to know what happened! Dr. Mark has always been... methodical, but when he saw that man he went," she paused, real concern on her face, which had gone a little pale. "It was like... like he wasn't completely human."
Alin raked his hair back from his face, which was tight, lined. "Don't ask him about this shit, okay? He's human. Trust me on that. He's always been human, but he had a bad time in the wars. Just be his friend."
"He is my mentor. I wasn't going to stop being his friend. I'd be honored to be his friend," she said, offended.
He gave her a wink, shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "You are the first one to last more than a week. That wreck this morning, that was pretty intense. You never know when something could happen. Why don't you give your family a call? Just tell them you love them."
She studied his face, his cheerful smile that lit up his eyes, reading him over as if she could get between the lines. "Is everything okay?"
He tilted his head the other direction, wiggled his eyebrows. "Sometime, we gotta sit down and I'll tell you some war stories. Then we can come to some understanding about what okay means."
She grabbed his coat, jerking him close unexpectedly, inappropriately powerful. "I've got my own war stories. You think I should go check on my family?"
He met her glare without stress, just a very slight smile to one corner of his mouth. "Yeah. You got kids in school?"
"Shit." She took a step back mirrored his cheerful smile back at him as she spread her arms out wide. "This is my family."
"Roger. So we'll do pizza next week. Jody makes a hell of a pie."
"That'd be nice. Now that you're here, I should cancel his appointments for the afternoon? Save those people the trip?"
"Sounds good to me."
"He's going to kick your ass."
"He keeps trying." Alin shrugged.
She stalked off. He hoped he hadn't told her too much, wished he could have told her more. De Gaule would do her job. There would be pizza.
The gift shop lady had to be well past ninety with blue silver hair and cunning little eyes that had always reminded Alin of a bat. "Hey Lucy."
"Have you committed adultery, Mr. Mark?" Those bat like eyes narrowed as she pushed the flower receipt across the counter towards him.
He arched his eyebrows, head tilting backwards as if he could look down his nose at her as he reached for the stylus to sign the receipt. "Can't a man just buy his husband flowers?"
"It's a traditional apology from a rat," she said, glaring more intensely.
He leaned over, elbow on the counter and smiled at her, a kind of dreaming and genuine smile. If he'd ever had a mother, well other than Sister Mary, he'd have wanted her to be like Lucy. "I love Jody," he promised, "I would never cheat on him. I doubt I could even get it up, not looking at a magazine or some cute person at work, nothing. He's the only one for me. He just had a bad morning and I wanted to bring him flowers. Is that okay, you think?"
She patted his hand, then gave his fingers a good squeeze. "You're just like my Richard. He died five years ago, you know? I didn't stop practicing medicine until after he died."
"I know, Lucy. Maybe he's watching over you now," Alin offered.
"Your Dr. Mark thinks I should take the anti-aging treatment, start practicing again."
"What do you want to do?"
Her own elbows on the counter, chin on her laced together fingers, a fine sheen of emotion in her eyes, she shrugged. "I was born before there were computers."
With a snort, he rolled his eyes, "What? When Arthur was king? You should take Jody's advice. He doesn't give bad advice."
"Yeah? About an hour ago, right after you ordered those flowers, he told me to go home sick and close the gift shop for the day."
"Did he now? I guess I'd better hurry off with those flowers. You should take his advice, Lucy."
"I'm not a coward," she hissed.
"Then you take the medical advice offered you. The world needs all the good doctors it can get."
"What if I just pulled the fire alarm and gave that advice to everyone?"
"Then a lot of people would die when they might not need to. Sometimes being brave means knowing what you can't fix."
He walked back behind her counter and took his flowers from the cooler. "Thanks, Lucy."
"Mr. Mark."
Whistling contentedly he took the elevator up to Jody's office, which was high enough up in the building that it ought to have meant some kind of status. At least it had a hell of a view. What it had was a better connection to the data stream and a private bathroom. He'd claimed it as a resident. No one had been willing to disagree with him. Maybe that was one of the benefits of making the headlines a couple times with great photos that really capture that look of crazed maniac. The other thing about the floor where Jody's office was was that it had never really been finished. That probably had something to do with the lack of dispute too. So there was this great big open space on the thirty-ninth floor that was supposed to be filled up with little half cubicles and people answering billing questions or something, but there was just Jody's office suite, the view, and a punching bag. The punching bag was Alin's, but no one had complained yet, so there it was privilege in the high world of those who had the gaul not to die.
The bundle of flowers in one hand, he knocked, and put on his brightest smile. Jody opened the door and their eyes met. Alin thrust the flowers forward. Jody grabbed him, hands on his shoulders pulling him close then arms around him as he pressed their lips together. Alin parted his lips, giving in to the intense, but less than civilized need in his husband. Tongues caressed over each other, over teeth, lips, everywhere, the most primitive form of data handshake humans had ever used, exchanging a rich stream of well being though such intimate touch. Jody's fingers slid into Alin's ponytail, pulling his hair free as he pulled his lover all the way into his office and kicked the door shut.
Roses hit the ground. Jody lifted Alin office his feet, buried his face in Alin's neck, scent, lose hair and Alin let him rubbing his back, fingering Jody's short still slightly damp hair. '
"Were you going to tell me?" Jody finally set him back down on his feet, both strong hands cupping his face as he studied Alin's violet eyes.
"I was going to start with like, 'So say there was this hypothetical bomb in the hospital and all... And, just hypothetically, say we couldn't find or stop the bomber, without potentially triggering some of the bombs in one place or another and well, so, like ... if that were the case, but you and me, we could just walk out together. Go have lunch, say at the spaceport, would you go with me?"
"Would you leave me here, if I asked you to, with all my heart?"
"You won't ask me to do that."
Alin understood then that Jody had probably been listening in on his secure communications for years, and really, thinking about it, there was no way that Jody won't have needed to know everything. It would be the only real way that Jody would have been able to let go enough for there to have been undercover missions. He had nothing to hide from his love, that Jody probably knew every secret he'd ever had and loved him anyway made the end of the world all that more something. Sharp maybe.
They kissed again, desperate and intimate. Jody took the kiss to a nibble at the back of Alin's neck, because he knew his husband loved that sensation and Alin moaned happily. The moan turned into clinging, arms around Jody as tightly as he could. "Forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive," Jody said. "De Gaule will find a solution."
"What if she doesn't?"
"Are you afraid to die?"
"A little."
"If you ask me to leave with you, I will."
"You'd never forgive yourself."
"There are three thousand four hundred and seventy six people, not counting that visiting hours just started. We could evacuate how many before the bomb was triggered early? And the schools? We're not the heros anymore. We're just the people who go to work and order take away."
"You don't eat take out."
"And you're the only hero that ever mattered to me. Do you want to have intercourse? I have the lubricant you prefer."
Alin laughed, arms out to his side, leaning back, trusting Jody to hold onto him. "Hell yes, Jody! Fuck me! Fuck the world! Didn't we fight a war so this stuff won't happen anymore?"
Jody swept Alin up in his arms and carried him to his desk, which was already cleared off and covered with a clean blanket. "Sorry. It might take all the time we've got for me to just fuck you."
"Make it a long fuck. I promised Ann you'd make her pizza next week."
"Mission accepted," Jody said with a very wicked grin.
<><>
Herbert Sanders woke in the recovery room. His arms and chest had newly printed skin. He'd survived a veritable inferno. He'd never felt better. He'd found Jody Mark - that meant the sinner Alin St. Grenis couldn't be far behind. God had used the devil itself to save him so he could complete his work.... His smile felt better than any smile in a decade. God was good.
<><>
Malory Broadwin had never killed anyone before. She was a too slender woman with a touch of silver at her temples, hazel eyes, and a wedding ring on a chain around her neck. Her hair had been a raven black once, or so Sean had always said. His father had been a mail carrier. He'd been a mail carrier too.
He'd been a muslim. She'd been Catholic.
Her father had sworn to kill them both on their wedding day. Instead he'd gotten completely toasted and slept with the new priest, who was completely male, supposedly abstinent, except for excessively plied with wine and Irish whiskey. It had been, in retrospect, a very, very good day.
They had ten years.
She got a degree in sociology from Oxford. There wasn't work in their town though, so mostly she just made him lunch every day and wandered with him on his mail route. Occasionally she'd get in a mood and work on a study of some sort, always with the hope that this one would be useful enough, get noticed enough, and she'd get a grant. She published a few times, but really, it was an awful lot of work and not nearly as much fun or joy as teasing Aman as he delivered the mail.
A research project was how she first came in contact with the Holy Church of the Unification. They seemed almost like one of those churches that start in someone's living room as a bunch of friends sit around talking about how they could get out of paying taxes by being a commune. Such a thing would only be possible in the United States any way. In the UK they were quite full up with Protestant and Catholics (despite the best attempts of each respective group), Druids and Muslims weren't far behind, but the point was that a new religion cooked up by someone with a video game controller in one hand and an energy drink in the other was hardly going get tax exempt status anywhere else.
It started as a quaint little faith. The end of world wasn't really the end, just a renewal. Salvation belonged to the chosen. Anyone could be chosen, if they had the means to be useful. If you weren't smart, useful, talented... you were turning your back on God. They claimed Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Buddha, Matsu, and Benzaiten. No one took them seriously. Malory did not get funding for her research.
Then they stole the cure.
It was the cure for the most devastating affliction humanity had ever known. A slow creeping affliction that claimed everyone, slowly broke down muscle, weakened bones, destroyed immune systems, robbed the skin of elasticity, the eyes of sight, food of flavor, stole sexual pleasure away - this affliction crumpled up the best and brightest of everyone, grinding them until they were ashes or moldering bones.
The cure....
Their prophet, bent and only half alive, took the cure on live webcast. The first day there was nothing. He promised them if they waited... had faith... they would see.
The second day he smiled brighter.
The third day his head was shaved of white hair and his beard grew in fiery red. Returning muscle broadened his shoulders.
One month into his transformation, the every person watched as he leaved towards the screen and declared that salvation came through one God only. One of the main problems with untested medical treatments is that they have unexpected side effects. Harry Sanders thought he was god, or at the very least the pure voice of God. He graciously allowed the rest of humanity twelve hours to acknowledge him the undisputed King of Heaven and Earth.
Quiet suddenly the Protestants, Atheists, and just about everyone else found they could get along with each other very well indeed.
The wars lasted four years.
During that time, her beloved mail carrier with his dark eyes and innocent adoring smile had been rounded up, given one chance to deny his god and and accept Sanders. His denial had earned him, what she had hoped was a quick and merciful bullet between his eyes.
She'd told herself that he died content in his love for his god and his wife, without betraying himself or suffering. Aman had never felt fear as far as she could have ever told. He loved her and they'd loved life.
The war ended. Harry died in a mecha fight that he had meant to destroy the Earth with, so that he could remake it. Jody Mark had fought with such speed and ferocity, beyond human endurance, and all humanity watched the last great battle. She'd watched.
His mecha fell back to Earth like Icarus, debris from the defeated god raining around him, as his mecha's wings tried to slow his descent. Great white angel wings of metal that turned red hot in the atmosphere. A slender black mecha, humanoid in shape, elegantly elfin dove towards the falling angel. The little demon mecha locked itself to the angel, sealing their fates together. His thrusters fired, fighting gravity and inertia. Once they were deeper in the atmosphere the little demon deployed thick black landing chutes. The wind grabbed them and nearly tore his shoulders off.
Vidbots tracked the two as they hit the sand on a Maui beach. Glass sizzled and popped around them and humanity held its breath. The demon styled dark elf mecha pushed off, staggered, fell to the sand, but out crawled a boy maybe not even old enough to be out of his teens. Violet spacer hair, but red human blood running down his face. Wearing his space suit, except for the helmet, he sprayed down the other mecha with fire extinguisher. He scrambled up and and forced the hatch on the angel styled mecha and pulled an unconscious and battered Jody Mark back into the living world.
As he held him, Malory knew that the evil had not killed love. Love was the strongest power. It felt to her, as if the whole world cheered. That was the world she thought they were creating. The world wasn't supposed to be run by evil people who would do anything to keep profits high and culture stable.
In front of her, on her desk a strip of lights blinked steadily. When each one went out, the bombs would be defused. And the government would be ruined. That was the most enduring goal. Aman did not die to bring a corrupt raft of vultures into power.
The world is unforgiving.
The first light went on her bank of life lights. The innocent man was dead.
She hated them. There was no law, no justice, just a lot of kids who thought they could make anything they wanted of the world!
The scent of smoke darkened her mood, leeching up from even darker memories. She felt a sharp flash of guilt for the death she'd caused. She turned towards the door, saw real smoke, not just acidic memory. In a blink there was Aman, not a skeleton, but Aman, a mail sack over his shoulder, his hand held out to her. She reached for his hand, her heart swelling with joy to see him.
It was as if someone tapped her forehead. For a moment she was falling backwards into her seat, but Aman kept hold of her hand and instead of falling backwards, it was just all the weight of sorrow and grief that fell away. It was as though she could breath for the first time in years. Aman pulled her close and beyond his arm, she could see two fully armored personal sized mechs. Before she could turn to look at where she'd been sitting, Aman's hand caressed her face. "Come deliver mail with me? The past is gone."