Human After All (7 page)

“We can’t stay here. We’ll have to move on through to the Outers.”

“No.”

“Listen to me. I haven’t been able to contact any Jammerz with the linx Lady Alvera gave me. Without a haven, we don’t dare stay in the Inner City.”

“You said we’d find help here.”

“I know what I said. Don’t you think I want to make contact? If we had another option, believe me, I’d take it.”

“I will not voluntarily go to the Outers.”

“Spoiled T-bred,” Drue muttered before putting some steel in his voice. “Remember that request from Traffic Control we didn’t answer? You can bet Teesee has already sent someone, or some
thing
, looking for us. In any case, we’re a target, and I’d suggest we become a moving one, a quickly moving one.”

“I hope someday you get what you deserve for ruining my life.”

“If you want to make sure of it, just sit here. There’s probably a Teesee Armed Drone locked on to us already.”

“I hate you,” Jaymes said as he tipped the controls forward again.

“Fine, as long as you stay on this heading and don’t slow down until I tell you to.”

His heart growing heavier the farther they flew from home, Jaymes did as Drue said until they reached the first proximity buoy of the Inner City’s outer limits. The difference in the density of light between the Inners and Outers was dramatic. “I can’t,” the T-bred said, taking his hand from the joystick.

“We aren’t going to the Outers,” Drue said. “Just to the Fringe.”

“What? That’s worse. Fringers are pirates who care for nothing but profit.”

“Do you ever listen when you’re talking? Hasn’t your entire life been about profit? About earning enough capital to buy yourself? How are you any better than a Fringer?”

“If you don’t know the difference, it would be impossible to explain it to you.”

“There it is!” Drue said with satisfaction. “Any time you hoitys feel uncertain, you fall back on snobbery. The truth is there is no difference.”

“I’m sure you’d like to believe that, you—”

Whatever choice name Jaymes was about to hurl at the Exotic was lost to posterity when the craft rocked violently.

“Go!” Drue shouted. “Go, go, go!”

Jaymes pushed the throttle all the way forward. The Veetle lurched and froze as the air in the cabin filled with sound of turbos straining. “The Teesee drone has a tractmag unit,” he said unnecessarily.

“Punch it again.”

“We’ll burn out the…. Oh what does it matter?” Jaymes braced his feet against the firewall and pushed his head back against the tall seat. “Hold on,” he said as he once again engaged the emergency boost meant to aid pilots in avoiding collisions. At the same time, he changed the angle of the horizontal stabes radically. The Veetle skipped sideways, broke free of the skid, but continued to crab until it heeled over on one side and began to slip earthward. Jaymes and Drue had a glimpse of the drone diving after them before a cloud swallowed the Veetle. Tattered veils of diaphanous white rushed by as Jaymes did his best to regain control.

“I think you lost the pursuit,” Drue yelled.

“Shut up, you brain-wiped sperm-sponge! We’re about to die.”

“This thing is still in one piece, and I have faith in your self-interest to get us down in the same condition.”

“Useless clown,” Jaymes seethed as they dropped out of the towering cumulus into clear sky. He managed to wrestle the vehicle into a shallower trajectory over the unfamiliar landscape. “Where are we?”

“This is Greenrange. You’ve never seen the Grange before?”

Jaymes wrenched back on the throttle. “If I have, I don’t remember.”

“Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it? All that green?”

“So much ground without anything on it.” Despite Jaymes’s preoccupation with finessing the controls, the sweep of the undeveloped landscape demanded comment.

“Except for the grass and the trees, of course, and a little farther on you come to the collectives. Nothing but farms for klix and klix.” Drue twisted in his harness to look at Jaymes. “You seem to have calmed down a little.”

“Seem is a good word for it. I’m not at all sure I can land without crashing, but death is no longer quite as imminent as it was a few seconds ago.”

“I almost like you right now,” Drue said. “The ground looks soft by all that water there.”

“That’s a lake, and even softer than the ground.” Jaymes pointed the Veetle toward the large body of water.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Of course it is. We’re not really flying now. We’re in a guided fall. That Teesee drone took out our vertical stabes when it latched onto us.”

“You waited until now to tell me that?” Drue’s voice rose in pitch. “We’re going to die!”

“I almost like you right now,” Jaymes said. “And I don’t think we’re going to die. I can skip this ship across the water until it loses forward velocity. That should greatly lessen the damage when we finally stop.”

“Can’t you do that on the land?”

“Are you insane? Hold on. Here we go.”

The Veetle struck the surface at a nearly flat angle, bounced, skimmed several small waves, and made contact again. Jaymes and Drue were jerked about, but their harnesses kept them safe from injury as they skidded across the lake almost to the other side. One of the stubby winglets dug in and flipped the craft, bringing it to an abrupt halt. Jaymes stabbed a finger at the emergency screen, and the compressed air cylinders in the canopy discharged. The clear lustralume bubble blew away, and water rushed into the cockpit. Unbuckling his rig, Jaymes pushed off his seat and headed for air. Drue’s head broke the surface nearly simultaneously. Kicking strongly, Jaymes struck off for shore, turning after a short distance to see how the Exotic was doing, but Drue was nowhere in sight.

“Murd,” Jaymes cursed, treading water, hoping Drue would reappear. After several long moments, the T-bred cursed again and swam back to where bubbles rose from the wrecked craft. Already starting to shiver in the heat-stealing cold of the water, Jaymes dove. Below him, he could dimly see the paler tone of Drue’s skin as the Exotic sank deeper. Propelling himself downward, Jaymes caught hold of Drue’s wrist and towed him in. When they reached the shallows, Drue twisted free and waded in under his own power.

“You can’t swim,” Jaymes panted as he dragged himself from the water.

“You’re joking.” Drue flopped onto his back and gasped for breath.

Exhausted and chilled to the bone, Jaymes clamped his jaw and refrained from telling the Zot exactly how maddening he was. Instead, he concentrated on getting himself moving so he wouldn’t freeze to death. “We’re alive,” he said. “But we’re still in trouble. It’s getting colder as it gets darker, and we’re soaked.”

Drue got to his knees and levered himself to his feet. He turned in a slow circle, surveying the land in the failing light. “We need to go that way.” He pointed.

Jaymes rose slowly. “How far?”

“I don’t know in klix, but you can see lights coming on in that direction.”

“We’ll never make it.”

“You might be right. How’s that for irony? The highest paid Companion in the trade wandering the Grange like a pedigreed lapdog released into the wild.”

“Is that meant to be amusing? Because I can assure you it isn’t.”

“That’s better.” Drue gave the T-bred a teeth-chattering grin. “Maybe some of that fire will help keep you warm.”

“Vac-head,” Jaymes said under his breath. “Can you walk?”

Leaning on one another, Jaymes and Drue managed to stagger to the edge of the small forest before they collapsed. They crawled into a shallow cave formed by the tangled roots of a fallen tree roofed with a thatch of moss. Jaymes stifled his reactions to the feel and smell of the accumulated leaf mold as he put his back against the soft wall and drew his knees up to his chest. Wrapping his arms around his shins, the T-bred stared out into the gathering darkness.

“This is the worst moment of my life,” he said to the night.

“It’s still early,” Drue said. “Wait until it gets really cold.”

“Shut up, would you? Every time you open your mouth, things get worse.”

“Look, I know you didn’t sign on for this, but—”

“Sign on!” Jaymes’s head whipped around, and his eyes met Drue’s. “Sign on?” he asked in a softer voice. “You and your mistress illegally tampered with my template. You used me like a tool, and now I’m lost in the middle of nowhere waiting to die.”

“We needed a Companion for Lady Alvera’s plan to work.”

“You’re a Companion. Why didn’t she just send you?”

The Exotic mumbled something that Jaymes didn’t hear.

“What?”

“I wanted to do it,” Drue repeated. “I volunteered.”

“Then why was it necessary to ruin my life?”

“Because I wasn’t fine enough, all right? Alvera knew I wouldn’t catch the Deep’s fancy. The lure had to be Thoroughbred Class, top-of-the-line. There aren’t that many Companions with your model designation, and a fake would never stand up to scrutiny.”

“What was the plan?”

“Protecting Scion Londean has been Alvera’s only mission since I’ve known her.”

Jaymes snorted.

“You’re so smug, and so ignorant,” Drue said. “Let me acquaint you with a few facts that are going to astound you. Your friend Valens is…
was
much more than Londean’s Companion. Alvera had a hand in his training before she bought her contract and left Gentren. She didn’t put Londean and Valens together, but when she realized the Speaker favored her old pupil, she enlisted him in the shield she was building around Londean. She even made anonymous donations to Gentren to pay for Combat enhancements for Valens.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

A silence fell that was broken by Drue. “I’m sorry about Vale. I liked him.”

“So did I. Was protecting Londean worth his life?”

“Alvera believed Londean would change the world if he were President-General. Several things stood in the way, one of them being Londean’s reluctance to serve as head of the government. He believed wielding that much power would inevitably corrupt anyone.”

“So she had Vale whispering her words in Londean’s ear. She made him into a puppet just like she did with me.”

“No, she was only using you to remove an obstacle and a threat. D.P. Ampery would have made sure Londean never rose higher than Speaker, and he would have gladly given the order to terminate him, if Alvera hadn’t acted first.”

“She did all this simply to clear Londean’s path to the highest office?”

“She did all this so you and I would have a better future.”

“I have no future,” Jaymes shouted, startling Drue. “I killed a Citizen.”

“No, you executed a monster.”

Jaymes put his forehead on his knees and closed his eyes. He opened them again as images of Brandel Ampery strobed in his memory. Drue was right about one thing: the Deputy President was a monster. Jaymes had told the man so himself. However, that did not change the fact that Jaymes would be executed for murder if he were caught. And even if he were acquitted, what life would he have? No one would hire him now, and all his friends were dead. Images of Valens’s and Parry’s dead bodies flashed into his brain in vivid detail. A profound wave of despair swept through the T-bred, and he shivered with more than the cold.

“Come here,” Drue said, sliding closer to Jaymes. “Lean against me.”

“Why?”

“Because we’ll be warmer that way.”

Jaymes grimaced, but the Exotic was right. Putting an arm around Drue’s back, Jaymes pulled him even closer. “I think we’d actually be warmer without the wet clothes. I’m only wearing an overcoat as it is,” he said and then added, “Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Couldn’t have you running around in the stark. Thanks for saving me from drowning.”

“At least the wind isn’t blowing.” Jaymes changed the subject. “Maybe we could find dry leaves or something to cover ourselves with.”

Drue dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out a silver lozenge the size of his thumbnail. He rubbed his fingertip over one end, and it glowed bright orange. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “Let’s find some wood and make a fire. If we hang our clothes over the roots, maybe no one will see the light.”

“Don’t we want someone to find us?”

“Not necessarily. Hand me that branch.”

“J
AYMES
?”
Drue put a hand on the T-bred’s shaking shoulder.

“Let me sleep.”

“You weren’t asleep. You’re freezing your tookies off just like me. That fire might dry our clothes, but it can only keep one side of us warm at a time. So why don’t you give it up and come lie down next to me.”

“As long as you don’t take it as an invitation to intimacy. I wouldn’t come near you if I wasn’t afraid I’d freeze to death.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Prince.” Drue shook his head. “Invitation to intimacy? What kind of person talks like that? Oh, wait. I forgot. Pretentious hoitys talk like that.”

Jaymes settled himself on his side and didn’t flinch when the Exotic put an arm around him. Drue molded his lithe length to Jaymes’s back and put a cheek against the other Companion’s shoulder. After a few moments, Jaymes spoke.

“Isn’t your back cold?”

“We can trade places after a while, if you want to be fair.”

“I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“Fine, now be quiet and go to sleep.”

Drue waited until the sound of the T-bred’s breathing evened out before he relaxed. Pressing closer, Drue slotted his hard shaft into the sweet cleft between Jaymes’s firm ass cheeks. He didn’t mean to do anything more than arrange things into his preferred sleeping position, or at least that’s what he told himself as he cautiously slid a hand over Jaymes’s hip and down to his crotch. He was thinking how nice the T-bred’s hair smelled when Jaymes spoke.

“I’m still awake,” Jaymes said, just as Drue found his cock.

“How awkward,” the Exotic said, fingers moving subtly on the silky skin.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Jaymes pressed his buttocks into Drue’s crotch and dropped his head back against Drue’s shoulder. “We’re only doing this to stay warm, right? It doesn’t mean I like you or anything.”