Astra: Synchronicity (39 page)

"Shut up already and grow a pair of
balls."

"What?"

"I told you to shut up. Are you dense too?
Should I add that to your list of irritating qualities as
well?"

"No, that's not what you said at all. You
insinuated I'm not man enough to go on this fool's errand with you.
This isn't a teenage dare we're talking about. They're likely to
kill us and not even think twice about doing it."

"Let me show you something," she said. She
retrieved the disruptor from under the mattress and brought it to
the table. After removing the bullets and the power source, she
disassembled it over the course of the next few minutes. Putting it
back together took longer, but she did it.

"Why in Astra would someone who helps design
robots in their spare time know how to do something like that?" He
curled his hands into fists. "Feels more like you're Xander's damn
bodyguard."

"Do you think I can hit the top of the
Capitol Building from here?" She glanced through the sight and
aimed it at the floor.

"200 yards with a 380 Prime?"

Amii raised her eyebrows and moved toward the
window. "Let's see."

He grabbed the weapon and slammed it down on
the table. "We're not on Pisa. Did you fucking forget that? Just
having that gun could land you in prison for ten years."

"You'd defend me, wouldn't you? I mean, with
my memory loss and all, there's got to be some way to get me out of
it. If you ever needed to."

"I was a prosecutor, not a defense
attorney."

She rubbed her cold fingers against her legs.
"Is that a no?"

His voice lowered to a growl. "Would you
sweet talk me the same way you did that loser in Quad Three? I
mistook you for someone who respected yourself. I guess I was
wrong." He turned toward a door on the north side of the room and
grabbed the handle with whitened knuckles. Magnius didn't even turn
back to look at her before walking through the door and slamming it
behind him.

She frowned and blinked in that direction
several times. Why had he stormed out onto the balcony? She hoped
he didn't intend to drop downstairs and violate curfew. Hundreds of
citations were issued every day, and many of those were to people
who worked unusual hours and hadn't yet gotten their ID registered
for clearance.

She picked up a green opalescent bottle
sitting in the middle of the table, and the glass sparkled under
the light. Nadine had dropped it off earlier but did not tell
either of them what it was. Amii broke the seal on the ground glass
stopper and smelled the dark liquid. The acrid odor hit her hard,
and she quickly turned her head away from it and coughed until she
was out of breath. Were they supposed to drink this or use it to
strip the paint off the walls?

With a few deep breaths to purge her senses,
she headed into the bathroom for a quick shower. The grime from her
day in the city disappeared down the drain, and afterwards she
dressed in a long cotton robe. She hoped to find him in the
kitchen, but he hadn't yet returned.

She walked to the balcony door and peered
through the window. Magnius sat in a wrought-iron chair with his
head in his hands as though grieving his shattered illusion of her.
She couldn't figure out why in this day and age of free sexuality
it mattered to him. Losing one's virginity was as basic as learning
to ride a bike and happened at roughly the same age. The art of
seduction had become another tool at her disposal to get by in this
unforgiving world.

And yet, she couldn't go to bed without
trying to make things right with him.

Amii cracked open the door and slipped
outside before shutting it behind her. She found the silence of the
street below unsettling because it felt like the Xuranians had
already won the war. The rustic street signals continued to flash
at regular intervals, unaware not a vehicle had passed by them in
several hours. She could smell the distant orange blossoms on the
balmy spring breeze, the rapturous fragrance slinking by in a wave
of olfactory pleasure.

"Yes, I walked out the wrong door," he said
without moving a muscle. "You don't have to tell me how much of an
idiot I am. I've already lost what was left of my dignity."

While she did feel sorry for Magnius, she
wished he'd stop feeling sorry for himself. But she couldn't help
him fix that problem. After all, that wasn't the sort of thing men
enjoyed sitting around talking about without being pissed drunk
first.

She glanced up at the clear sky. The stars
looked like glitter thrown against a black canvas. She loved the
fact they looked so alive. "I'm surprised the light pollution
doesn't block out the stars."

He stood and leaned against the thick stone
railing of the balcony. "They use special lights. They radiate
down, not up. But I'm not a scientist; I have no idea how they
work."

"Do you recognize any of the stars?"

Magnius pointed to a bright white star high
overhead in the sky. "Vega. I can't believe I've been away for two
months. Feels like it's been a year. But I guess I really don't
have much to go back there for anyways."

He turned to the northwest and pointed at a
bright yellow-orange star. "Canopus. When I was little, my mom told
me a story about how the star was the guardian of the two bears,
and it was kind of silly because there were no constellations in
the sky. Superbia doesn't rotate so the sun is always in the same
place. The three other companion stars always move around and a
handful of others bright enough to make it through. That was one of
them."

Amii twisted her lips as she stared at him,
wondering if the error had been his or his mother's. "That's
Arcturus, actually. Not Canopus, which is a white star, and we're
much too far north to see it in the sky."

"And I should take the word of a woman who
doesn't remember where she grew up?"

She flipped her hair back out of her face.
"Touché, Mr. Zoleki."

He smiled. "So then tell me, genius, where's
Sirius?"

She drummed her fingers on her leg while she
glanced around the sky. "I don't think we can see it from here…can
we?"

Magnius circled around behind her and put his
hands on her shoulders, turning her so they faced southeast. With
his left arm he pointed toward a blue star just above the far end
of the Capitol. She thought the home of the PAU would be more
menacing somehow, as though looking at the star would give a person
bad luck for a year. Instead, it seemed ordinary—bright in the sky
only because of its proximity.

His face hovered over her right shoulder, and
in the quiet air she could hear his breathing. A moment later she
caught a whiff of his earthy cologne. She could feel the rhythm of
her pulse throbbing in her neck driving her into an emotional state
she experienced for no one other than him. She turned toward him
and saw his mahogany eyes glisten in the incandescent streetlight.
Being so close to him brought on her instinctive desires, and
before she had time to consider her options, she kissed his
lips.

He'd resisted her last attempt to kiss him,
which she'd only meant to be a friendly gesture, but this time
Magnius didn't hesitate in his response at all. He grabbed her arms
and pulled her in toward him. The memory of their sensual kiss on
the
Schenectady
came flooding back to her, and she didn't
stand a chance against his lustful spirit.

She wrapped her arms around his head to fuel
his passion. To force him not to stop. His coarse beard irritated
her face, but she ignored it. She focused on the excitement his
touch gave her and how much she'd craved it since that night
together on Xur, where he'd turned her down. Right now, she had
control and making him lose it was all she wanted.

When Magnius pushed her up against the
balcony doors, she heard the glass crack behind her. To entice him
further, she let the robe slip off her shoulders and revealed her
naked body beneath it. Her exhibitionism surprised him, and he
grabbed her robe for a moment before letting it slip to the
floor.

"I need you, Amii," he whispered breathlessly
as if asking permission to make love to her. When her eyes
fluttered open, she expected to find that his were glowing in some
ethereal color, but they weren't. If she hadn't known any better,
she'd have thought he was normal.

Before she could reply, he hoisted her up and
perched her on the balcony railing nearest to the street. Without
breaking their passionate embrace, he parted her legs and pressed
his hips to hers. She found it difficult to balance on the
four-inch ledge, but she clenched his shoulders to brace
herself.

Their mad display of lust continued free of
inhibition. She longed to be penetrated right away, but instead he
built their passion to levels she didn't think existed. As he
kissed her breasts, her attention drifted northward, where she
spotted the slow approach of a police vehicle. It halted at a
stoplight fifty yards away and did not continue after the light
changed. It delighted her to give the officer the same secret
thrill she enjoyed while creeping through the bowels of the
Schenectady
.

The moment Magnius unzipped his pants, she
grabbed his hands and led him back inside the room. He turned off
the lights after they reentered and swept her off her feet on his
way to the bed. She wondered if sexual tension somehow related to
their difficulty seeing eye to eye. And really, there was only one
way to find out.

They spent another hour in the throes of
life's great scheme to sustain itself. Magnius was everything she'd
hoped for and more. He made everything she loathed about life melt
away until all she could think about was him: his lips, his hands,
his body, and the scent of wet basalt that had burned itself into
her mind. Part of her would always be captivated by him.

After their escapade together came to an end,
the two of them lied next to one another on the bed. Her head
rested on his shoulder, and his arms embraced her. She brushed her
hand across his bristly chin.

"Nothing happened last night," she said,
"with that man. I threatened to rip his balls off if he didn't
help."

He chuckled. "I feel honored. Really. It's
not every day a woman threatens to do violence to a scumbag on my
behalf." He took a deep breath. "Amii…I'll go to Xur with you. And
I'm not going to complain anymore or try and talk you out of it.
You believe in something so important to you that you're willing to
die for it. And as noble as it would make me to want to save
Lyneea…I'm not sure I'll ever be that sort of person. I don't know
how you and Xander ever got to be so close, but he's lucky to have
a person like you on his side."

"He said he was my father. I guess if we've
only had each other to rely on since he left the Palmer Institute
that explains everything." His change of heart puzzled her, but the
decision put her at ease. She touched her hand to the side of his
face and gazed into his eyes earnestly. "Thank you."

"I know this is going to sound like a
ridiculous question, but where did you get that tattoo?"

"What?" She froze like she'd just been told a
venomous insect landed on her shoulder. "Where do I have a
tattoo?"

He turned her around and put his hand against
her lower back to trace its outline. "I saw it on the
Schenectady
, but I didn't think too much of it. They're
common enough, after all."

Amii strained her neck and tried to catch a
glimpse of it but could not see it. "What is it?"

Magnius shrugged. "It looks familiar, but I
have no idea. You really didn't know this was here?"

"No, but now that I do…" She twisted her lips
as she turned again to try and spot it. "I don't like the thought
that I've been marked for life."

"Well, it's not like you've been branded with
someone's name or picture," he assured her. "And it's not some
frou-frou girly tattoo. It's a tasteful design. I like the retro
tribal flourishes. My father had something similar on his
shoulder."

She closed her eyes and pouted her lips. Just
when she'd grown comfortable with who she might be, she learned
something that clashed with the image she had of herself. Why did
she have to have another flaw? This had to be a poorly thought-out
decision of her youth because if she didn't regret doing it, she
didn't really know who she was after all this time. She'd forgotten
the romance between them, and the permanent mark on her backside
was all she could think about.

"Stop worrying about it. You have one of the
most beautiful bodies I've ever seen. And that should mean a lot
coming from me. Get some sleep." He kissed the back of her neck and
held her close before drifting off for the night.

She didn't think she'd find sleep with him
holding her like a teddy bear but it came, eventually.

***

Amii woke to the chirping of birds at dawn
the next morning. A shaft of sunlight fell across her pillow and
made her hair shimmer like spun gold. After she sat up in bed, she
recalled the previous night's romp with perfect clarity. But
something else had happened during the night that gave her pause
for reflection.

She dreamed for the first time since her
memory loss.

The content of the dream faded from her
memory during the time it took to recall it. She'd been on a planet
she thought was Pisa, yet the actual location did not seem
familiar. Farms stretched from one end of the horizon to the other.
Trees dotted the countryside in sparse groups. Horses gallivanted
through fields with other livestock animals. She doubted there were
many farms on Pisa anymore. In their brief encounter Deadhead
hadn't struck her as the agrarian type.

But she hadn't just been on Pisa. The images
had long since evaporated though, leaving her with only an odd
sense of curiosity regarding the experience. She wanted to go back
to sleep and see if another dream would surface, but those
prospects needed to wait until tonight.