The Superiors (8 page)

“You’re right,” Marisol said. “I can’t stand the sight of you. Leave, before I get so sick of you I make up an assignment just to get out of this godforsaken place.” She laughed in her crazy way. She’d said things like that hundreds of times before. But every time, Byron had the tiniest twinge of fear that one day she’d mean it. One day she would wake up and see the difference between them. As much as he loved her, there was that one awful thing about remaining with his pre-evolution wife—no matter how high he rose and what position of power he assumed, she would always remember his human existence.

Of course Thirds bowed before him, and scurried away in their pathetic manner at the approach of a Second. But even Seconds respected Enforcers. Byron had one of the most prestigious positions in the country, and everyone looked at him with awe and fear and respect. He had money and property, and gave his family everything they could want. Still, he knew that Marisol remembered. In a way, he was still a copy-editor’s assistant, and she, a model.

“Whatever you want, that’s what I want,” he lied. Although both he and Marisol had always been social people, thriving on the company and attention of others, she enjoyed crowds more than he did. Byron liked talking to people, not having his skull vibrated by the terrible noise that Superiors called music, or worse still, awful music leftover from humankind’s productive years. Humans had left some good stuff, but invariably clubs played utter swill like Snakebite. Marisol would expect him to enjoy himself while smashing his body against throngs of vile Thirds, most of whom didn’t have jobs or brains at all.

Thirds were expendable, useless. During the Hundred Year War, so many people had gotten killed all over the world that the countries had to stop fighting and build up their force of soldiers again. Hence, the Third Order. But the six countries in existence at the time of the temporary peace had decided they liked things as they were, and the fighting had never commenced. So the War had ended, and the world stayed divided into the six countries that existed then. All six countries had stayed at peace for a hundred years now. The unfortunate part was that every country was left with a huge number of soldiers with no purpose at all—Thirds.

They had been made for a job, and the job fell through. They should have been destroyed the moment their uselessness became apparent, when the government found out the War had ended for good. Really, Thirds were more pointless than sapiens. At least sapiens provided food in return for their pathetic neediness. Thirds didn’t provide anything, except a workforce of cheap, replaceable labor. Most Thirds obeyed the law, in their cowering, hopeful way. Byron had to give them that. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to do something as degrading as inspect incoming sapien food.

So maybe Thirds were useful, in the way that daylight was useful—a nuisance, and best avoided, but necessary for the running of the world as Byron knew it. Once in a while Byron would find a Third worth his ration card, like Draven, and he’d try to help the poor bastard pull himself out of the Third Order sludge and advance. He hardly considered Thirds Superiors at all. They were more like hybrids, something between sapien and Superior.

Only the ones who had special talents should have been kept around after the Second Evolution, the ones worthy of the Superior title. Not like the social riff-raff that hung around South End waiting to pick off saps the minute their owners turned their backs, or dose up on drugs that would get them high but never hook or kill them (unfortunately), or stay out all day and night dancing at the clubs and never going to work, selling their papers to illegals for money to dance and drink sap and bang one out in the back alley with another dancer whose name they wouldn’t remember six seconds later.

“Dancing sounds wonderful,” Byron told his wife. She rewarded him with a smile and a kiss.

“Good,” Marisol said. “I have a new dress I’ve been waiting to wear for a few years now.”

Chapter Twelve

Again it was many days before Draven went back to Estrella’s. He took an assignment in Las Vegas and stayed longer than he’d anticipated when he’d accepted the task. The extra pay he received for travel and inconvenience made up for his time away. When he returned, he dined with Byron and lost another game of chess.

“I was thinking, last time we played,” Byron said, drawing his finger along the touch screen on the table to move a rook to the next space. “Maybe you would like to dine with my family.”

“Yes, of course, I’d be honored,” Draven said quickly, hoping Byron hadn’t taken his questions as hesitation. He kept his opinion of children to himself, as well. He always feared insulting someone of the higher order.

“When do you have a night off again?”

“Four nights from now.”

“Very well then. We’ll play games and my children will tell you that you’ll never win.” Byron laughed, and Draven did his best, hoping the children wouldn’t tell him anything at all. Perhaps they wouldn’t even be there. Perhaps they had other little vermin to play with.

“I look forward to that pleasure,” Draven answered. He wanted to excuse himself, but he couldn’t until Byron signaled the end of the encounter. Draven itched to get a bite of Cali before sleep.

Byron excused his underling, and Draven slid behind the wheel and started the car before he’d finished closing the door. While on assignment, he had craved the familiar scent of Cali, the warm nutty flavor of her.

“I’d be interested in your opinion of them,” Draven said, smiling at her. He liked her cute manners and accent. “Perhaps after we get everything settled and I’ve eaten, you’ll be off work.”

“I will.” He went inside the impeccably clean office of Estrella, the establishment’s owner. She checked his file in the database and switched his employment, all of which took longer than he would have liked. Still, he’d wanted a new job for a while, and he had several hours before daylight. The familiar restlessness had set in after the raid on 28 Flavors, and even his assignment in Las Vegas hadn’t quieted his discontent. He wanted more excitement, better pay, less physical contact with sapiens—especially the distasteful kind of contact he’d had with the sapien prostitute.

On top of that, as a bouncer he would have easy access to Cali when he grew hungry, and he could enjoy her scent while he worked, inhaling her aroma the whole night. And he could admonish the man who fed on her so carelessly. He would remind anyone drawing from a sapien in his section to close the marks properly. It was just plain laziness not to spend the two extra seconds closing up. Only someone lazy or callous would leave marks like Cali’s at every feeding.

Draven passed from the bar section into the restaurant and glanced around in surprise, as if his eyes could tell him something his nose couldn’t. “Where is the sap I frequent?” he asked Cali’s bouncer.

The bouncer glanced at the bill and back at Draven quickly, raising his eyebrows. “I see that. She was sold to a place on the south side of town. The Sap Haven, I believe.”

“The Sap Haven? What was wrong with her?”

The bouncer stepped back to the wall and watched a man sit down at one of his tables. “I wish I could help you,” he said to Draven, not looking at him. “I don’t have that kind of information. But I’m sure you can get what you wanted from her in a place like that.”

Draven left Estrella’s. He had asked the bouncer at one time if he could rent Cali, so of course the bouncer would assume Draven had such perversions. And a place with Sap in the name was certainly not a reputable one. The closest thing Draven had been to was 28 Flavors, and that looked good compared to the kind of joint that operated in South End.

He sat in his Mert squinting to read the blurry address on the screen. He swung out onto the road and turned south. Minutes later he passed 28 Flavors and descended into the increasingly seedy part of town. South End had gained notoriety for its gangs, violence and crime, and no sapien chanced running away in that area. If one did, it never came back.

Draven had lived in the city for a good part of his Superior life, but he’d never ventured so far into the South End. He turned down a street and spotted the blinking neon that spelled out the bar’s name. The next building looked like a gang hideout, crumbling brick walls emblazoned with gang signs spray-painted on the building long ago.

Draven got out of his car, locked it, and glanced around before stepping into Sap Haven. He had thought Cali had it bad at Estrella’s, a nice restaurant. A place like this bought cast-offs from more reputable places—damaged or sickened sapiens, ones no longer useful to regular restaurants. Here, the saps wouldn’t have alcohol to clean their arms, or even a towel to wipe with. Every sap in a place usually had the same disease after a few months. An inspector could close down the place ten times, and another restaurant of the same type would replace it in a week every time, filling the same building and the same market.

The stink of diseased saps hit Draven as he entered through the blacked-out door. The restaurants in South End had a reputation for overdrawing sapiens but keeping them alive at all cost. He looked around at the crowded tables. The people in this part of town could only afford cheap sap. Draven felt sorry for them, having to eat something that reeked of disease. Only his ability to hold a job separated him from the Superiors in South End.

He made his way through the place, not wanting to inhale but knowing he could find Cali more easily by scent than anything else. He was relieved when he didn’t find her. He went to the door and found the lone hostess. One bouncer stood near the door, and none monitored the sap consumption.