Living Proof (Tyler G Book 2) (4 page)

How that worked, he didn't know,
but it seemed right anyway. He was dead after all. A thing that had been
pointed out to him several times in the last day.

The idea kind of hurt. A big part
of who he was had involved the idea that he was alive, just like everyone else.
It hadn't been a huge issue for him either, since everyone
was
. True,
not the people he was with, or him, but almost everyone he'd ever met was just
a nice, normal, living person.

Tyler was alive, in his head. The
idea that he didn't need to breathe was almost insane to him. There it was.
After a long time, which was nearly an hour in a blurred kaleidoscope world,
they stopped outside of the Westfield Mall. Slowly, and with control, Ty was
lowered to the cement, right outside of the door on the far side of the place.
It was the entrance nearest the Yoghurt World, rather than the one he normally
used, down by the nail place and the power lifting gym.

Taking a breath, he noticed that
the others did the same thing, though neither spoke for a while just going in.
He waved at them.

"I should get in to work.
Hopefully it's not too late. I did let Zack know I might be a bit behind
schedule. I told him it could be a few
weeks
, so hopefully this will
work out all right?"

Bey smiled at him, his face
lighting up grandly.

"Very good, Mr. Gartner. If
I have something more for you, I can find you there?"

"Yep. I'd say call, but my
phone is at home. Later. I'll jog over when I get a break."

That, it seemed, was good enough.
Then, Bey had lived most of his entire life without phones.

Looking at the man, he smiled
back.

"Or, if you need me sooner,
just call it out, and one of the Alede will tell me. They're good that way. I
mean, I might have to bribe them with something, but you know, that's everyone,
and I can get cookies, right?" He was kidding, but Eve winked at him.

"A good point. I need to
write this up for the Council. I don't suppose you'd do one too? I can make
copies for you, if you will?"

That wasn't a thing he'd thought
of for himself. Did they need files on what they were doing? Outside of his
notebook, he didn't really have anything. Sighing, he nodded.

"I can do something. After
work? I get tomorrow off, so I can stay up all night doing that."

Unless something more fun came
up, like... Nearly anything. Ever.

If he'd wanted to do paperwork
all the time he would have gone to college. Though that hadn't really been the
reason that he'd chosen not to go. It was, in the end, just a money thing. His
mom was a waitress, and couldn't really cover it for him. So faced with either
not going, since he hadn't gotten any scholarships, even though he'd had great
grades, or building up loads of debt that might not ever be repaid, he'd opted
to just get a job. So far it had been working out for him, but there it was,
even without a white collar, he had to write for a living.

Not, of course, that he was
getting paid for the Coalition work. Hence not doing anything during work
hours.

His clothing wasn't great for the
bookstore, just being jeans and a t-shirt, along with running shoes and no
socks. That had been how he'd dressed for the attack from the kidnapping cult.
The funny thing was that he'd pretended to be asleep, but no one had mentioned
the fact that he'd had clothes on when they'd gotten there. It could have been
that they just weren't very smart, but they might have also have been
distracted, and amped up on testosterone and adrenalin.

Still, after pulling a name tag
from the back room, and fixing it to have his name on it using a little gun
from the shared desk in the corner, he clocked in. It was five in the evening,
which meant Ty was late, but only by a few hours. It was also Friday, which was
a busy day for the Alede, since they used the reading rooms along the left hand
side of the store to have sex with all comers.

Being that they were out now, and
everyone could if they wanted to know about them, do so the sex business had
picked up at times in the last weeks. They even had a web-page. It was mainly
porn, but that
was
a pretty honest way of explaining who and what they
were. It meant that a lot of people had come to the mall, and no doubt other
locations, in the last few months, looking for sex. Being that Humans tended to
think of Friday night as the time for that kind of thing, there were loads of
people in the store already.

On the good side, most of them
were willing to hang out for a while. There was no reason that people couldn't
buy some books while they waited their turn. Really though, they needed to get
a sign-in sheet going.

Otherwise the shy people were
going to be left out.
His
job would be in doing everything else, along
with Hiram, the manager, and Zack. The owner. They were both men, but very
different looking people. Hiram Stone was about forty or so, and looked a bit
hard in unguarded moments. He was a Mage, and was learning the healing arts.
Now. From the stories, most of his career had involved being a pretty hard core
criminal. Mainly preying on Humans.

Zack Hartley was different. He
looked about twenty-five or so, had dark hair, that was short and well brushed,
and perfect skin. His look was a little exotic, being half Asian. Probably
Japanese, since his grandmother, Lyn, was. They were both Greater Demons, but
not everyone knew about Lyn, who pretended to be a Mage, most of the time.

"Hey guys." He waved to
them both, being more casual than normal, since a lot of people were watching.
"We've successfully freed the children. It only took about four hours of
beatings and some light molestation to get it done." That was the part
that bothered him most. Not because Alan had liked him, but because the man had
done that, while clearly
despising
Ty.

Zack reached out, and patted his
shoulder, letting his hand linger. That wasn't about his boss wanting his tight
undead body, Tyler didn't think. Unfortunately. No, he was just picking up all
of the information that had made up his life. Probably to get an update into
what had happened while he wasn't there. Getting that he knew all of that, The
Line Walker winced.

"That's a bit messed up. The
plan will work. You should leak it online, in order to taint the perception of
people on the Christian right. Not that it's really needed. When you get done with
work you can write up that report in the back? It will be easier to send copies
that way. You should get your own computer when you save up enough money."

Hiram chuckled a little, but didn't
say anything about why. He just looked out at the floor, where there were lots
of men and women hanging out, waiting for their own chance to get laid. They
milled, and picked up books, but most weren't buying anything.

After a minute he pulled out a
yellow legal pad, and got a pen, then, without asking the boss if it was a good
plan, he waved it, trying to get everyone's attention.

"Hey! If you want an
appointment with one of the Alede, you need to sign in first." Then he
held the yellow legal pad up high. "I, however, am holding the list
hostage, behind the counter. If you'd like to get on it, you should come up
here. I'm open to bribes, or if you want something out of this, you can just
buy a good book. That will work, too. We'll call the names out. Thank you, in
advance." He waited for hostile muttering, or anger, but instead there was
a mad rush toward the front, with people just madly grabbing things off the
shelves. The man that got there first was older, and clearly more clever than
the rest, simply holding a fifty dollar bill.

"First?" He
had
a bribe, and Ty sold him a gift card for the store, rather than just taking the
money.

The man thought that was funny,
or cute, but didn't put him down for it, since Tyler kept control of the list,
and had to run with it to everyone that was making a purchase. Most of them. A
few people, a bit further back in the line, had just seen how busy the place
was and were there to shop, the crowd drawing them in.

Which was
awesome
.

At twenty names, Zack looked at
the list, and waved to the people.

"We need more Alede over
here, if they have the time? Or we could send people over there for you?"
He just spoke, in a conversational tone, and looked over at Pretty Plus. It got
three women and a very good looking man to walk out of the place, waving the
whole time. The man, who was in a very nice suit, was familiar. Robert, who was
the Assistant Ambassador for the Alede. Two of the women were ones that he
recognized, being girls that worked with him sometimes. The last one was special
seeming however, since she was dressed in yoga pants, and looked like a soccer
mom. A very young, and highly pretty one, but she wasn't anywhere near the
hotness level of the others there with her.

She saw him looking at her,
trying to figure her out, so she waved.

"Hiya! I'm Sally. I heard
that you were looking for some Alede? I was just visiting with some friends of
mine, so I don't know if I'm invited to the fun?" She spoke to him directly,
so he nodded, not caring which Alede serviced people. They had a lot of them,
after all. Sharing seemed like the polite thing to do. He knew that they seemed
to need to have sex about six times a day, in order to harvest the cast off
energy. Just doing the ones there at the moment, and it was early still, that
was ten each.

"That sounds great Sally.
Thanks for coming by. We need to find places for people. Um... Zack?"

"Side rooms, back room here,
dressing rooms over at Pretty Plus. That should be enough for now. I suppose we
could open the node room for an orgy, but I've been saving that for a special
occasion. Otherwise I won't get to use my own work space most days." It
was sensible sounding, and the Alede got it as a joke, laughing hard about it.
Sexily so.

Both tills were in constant use,
but someone had to start working the store and cleaning the side rooms, so he
ran to do that, knowing the others would get the idea. It was intense for a
while, since the numbers kept growing, almost like someone had put an ad in the
papers or something, offering free sex.

That got him to work faster, and
then, remembering a trick that he'd seen Palma, the Hsreth woman that ran the
cafe in the back of the place, he tried that. It was just about picking what he
was doing, mapping out what came next, and trying to flow from one thing to the
next smoothly, without pause.

He didn't get tired, so was able
to keep doing it all night long. For what was probably the first time he'd ever
seen at the place, they had to have the Alede take
breaks
, and Zack had
to go off through the node to another embassy, to trade out their people.

Luckily, things slowed down
eventually, at about three in the morning. He was in overtime, so didn't whine,
since the money would help if he wanted to ever get a computer or anything. The
whole place ended up being a mess, so he started right in on getting it cleaned
up, which took several more hours. Then he yawned, stretched, and went to the
back, in order to use the computer there, writing as fast as he could.

It still meant that it was nearly
seven in the morning when he was finished. His notebook was at home, with his
phone. No Alede had yelled at him that he was needed by anyone, so he decided
to call it good, and just go away. On the nice side, even though he hadn't
slept in days, he didn't really
need
to. More to the point, he was aware
now that for years he'd simply laid down at a certain time, and closed his
eyes. Then, when the alarm rang, if he had one, he'd gotten up and started his
day. Almost exactly eight hours later each time.

No real sleep had taken place. No
dreaming went on when he wasn't looking. Breathing, it seemed, was just a habit
for him, too. Even running, a thing that he enjoyed doing, was just him moving
from place to place, without it helping him in any way.

That was something that he'd
never tried. When he got home, Ty changed into shorts, a fresh shirt, and put
socks on, even though he wouldn't need them for comfort. Oddly enough, just as
he got out of the house, Eve and Ginger found him. That got him hugged, by both
of them, which meant that Ginger scowled at the other Vampire girl a bit, and
cuddled him closer for a bit, making a point of kissing him.

"
Mine
."

That got Eve to nod.

"Agreed. We're just friends,
so we don't have to fight for control of him. Honest. Going jogging?" She
waved at his clothing and shoes with a smile. "I figured that out with my
Sherlock Holmes-like inductive reasoning"

He didn't correct her and say
deductive
,
just assuming he was the one that would be wrong.

"Yep. I decided to try out
my zombie powers and run as fast as I can for a while. Supposedly I can't get
tired, so that should mean I can sprint full out for as long as I want,
right?" It probably wasn't the case, but the Vampires both seemed to think
it sounded reasonable.

Eve glanced around and shrugged.

"Neat. Let's run over to the
Fort? It's a bit away, but I have the time and want to see if things are being
set up correctly. Let's go?" She turned, and started running. Fast, but
not so much that he couldn't keep up. Really, with a bit of work he was able to
push a lot faster, into a true sprint.