The Saffron Malformation (78 page)

             
“Sorry to disappoint you.”

             
“I want you to know something,” he said, agitation twitching across his face.  “I hate you.  I really do.  I’ve killed a lot of people but I’ve enjoyed doing it to very few.”  He glared into the screen.  “I’ll never enjoy any as much as you.”

             
“Why don’t we just skip the pleasantries and get to why you called?”

             
He sighed.  “I got men comin.”

             
Something in Quey shifted, a side of him that was a pure focus of anger and determination came forward.  He glared at Render with the eyes of a gladiator when he said, “And I’ve got shit in here you can’t imagine.”

             
Render swallowed hard.

             
“You know what’s going on with this planet?” he asked.  When Render didn’t answer he added, “You will.  You and everyone.  So you bring your men and do as your told like a good little lap dog.  And while you’re at it ask yourself who the fuck you are anymore.”

             
With that Quey hung up and threw his sheet.  It skidded across the floor and cracked against the far wall.

             
“You okay?” Natalie finally asked after a long silent moment.

             
“No,” Quey replied, then added, “Lets get to work.”

Chase the Rain and The Storm Might Get You

             
Arnie slept like shit the night after Rain ran off and the brood showed up.  Sometime near two in the morning he managed to close his eyes for what felt like a handful of seconds but turned out to be nearly four hours.  When he came around he ached and his mind was weary, but he couldn’t sleep any more.  He was wide awake and agitated with worry.  It swarmed through his belly and trembled in his limbs and made him rather annoying, he discovered at breakfast when the others exchanged glances and stopped talking to him.  He wasn’t going to be of any use to them, formulating their plans and watching out for the broods next move, so he decided to head back to the basement and the simulator.

             
A few minutes after starting the program he began to feel calm.  Inside the simulator there was a situation he could control.  When it came to piloting a vehicle, any vehicle, he could be of use.

             
A thought occurred to him and he ended the simulation and backed out to the vehicle select menu.  He scrolled through until he came to a menu for land vehicles.  He programmed a scenario involving motorcycles, cars and even a rig.  He gave them guns, then he gave himself a car.  It was a car very similar to the ones he’d seen in the compounds garage—the one’s the Once Men had been driving when they’d first run Quey’s rig down over a year ago.

             
When a wave of nausea swept over Rachel she said, “I just need to lie down for a while.”  After that she left Quey and Ryla alone.

             
The room was silent save the delicate sounds her slender fingers made as they danced over the keys.  He watched her hands, then her arms, how they rested on the desk, and finally her shoulders and neck.  He knew it was the wrong time for what he was feeling but as he watched her face he couldn’t help it.  They hadn’t been alone since that time on the sofa and he’d been craving her ever since.  The feeling of her, the way she moved, it was unbelievable.

             
His fingers caressed her thigh through the deep blue of her mid length dress, then moved to the hemline and found flesh just above her knee.  She sat strait in her chair, staring constantly at the holoscreen before her, fingers never missing a beat.  Quey watched her as his fingers lingered at the edge of her lap.  He wasn’t sure if she’d even noticed his hand on her until it began to slide toward her inner thigh.  As his fingers crept under the fabric of her dress her legs parted slightly.  His heart leapt to a gallop and he slowly caressed her from thigh to groin.  That was when the typing stopped.  When he looked up he could see her looking through the holoscreen at nothing in particular.

             
Plastic wheels rolled roughly across the tiled floor as Quey pulled her chair closer and settled his lips against her neck.  She smelled clean and a bit like summer, fruit and berries and a subtle hint of flowers and it spun him up into a frenzy.  He touched the tender folds of flesh between her thighs—Ryla owned no underwear it seemed—and rubbed gently until his fingers were slathered in her secretions.  Then he settled on the tiny nub he found above her opening and she sighed.  She reached over her shoulders and gripped his head in her hands as he ran his free hand up her belly and cupped her breast.  After a time she quivered violently in her chair and he could feel her spasm and then his fingers were soaked.

             
“Not here,” she told him when he moved to take her and led him into the lounge where she pulled a latch near the top of the doors, locking them.

             
She came at him with a hunger that matched his.  Ryla had used boyfriend to break her seal sometime around her fifteenth year, and though the robots skin was softer and more tactilely pleasing than plastic, it was no substitution for flesh.  As Quey entered her and she gasped it almost made her laugh.  She’d been saying that forever, ‘you can’t do skin.’  It was something she’d read in her fathers notes, a set of words she’d been taught and never questioned, never experienced for herself, not really, until now.  Now, as her body quivered from another burst of delight brought on by the sensation of skin inside and against her, kissing, touching and fucking her, she understood how true it was.

             
He touched her cheek and lifted her face until their eyes met.  As she looked up at him looking down at her another sensation filled her, one that wasn’t completely physical.  The way he was looking at her, into her…

             
She felt… scared, she thought, but she liked it.

             
He kissed her gently and that was it.  She was put to ease.  She settled back and enjoyed allowing him enjoy her.  Afterward they lay together for a long time, naked in each other’s arms.  “I’m worried about Rain,” she said.

             
“She’ll be fine,” he tried to assure her.

             
“You love her,” she said matter of factly.

             
He wanted to shake his head and assure her that wasn’t the case.  There was no basis behind it and no reason to think on it at all.  Truth was they’d had a lovely evening once so many moons ago he’d need fingers and toes to count them all.  While he was on the road he’d looked forward to the conversations he’d have with Ryla.  He enjoyed her company and he was glad to have it again.  He could have said all that and more, given his gift with words, but he didn’t want to lie.  Least of all to her.

             
The truth was if even a week ago Rain had come to him and said, “Take me.  Take me and Leone and run us far away and never look back,” he would have done just that.  She never would though, that was a fact he’d forced himself to come to terms with.  He wasn’t sure where he stood with Ryla or what they were just yet and so now wasn’t the time for such talk.  Still he needed to say something.

             
“Rain will always be special to me,” Quey admitted.  He looked into her eyes and added, “I don’t love her though.  Maybe once I thought I could, but it’d never been given the chance to go that far.  And maybe it took me a while to realize…” he stopped.  Ryla didn’t need all his fancy verbiage.  She was a woman of directness who liked things strait and to the point.  “When I was on the road I was always on the lookout for a reason to call you.  I missed you out there.  Found I thought about you from time to time, if I saw something that reminded me of you.”

             
“I occur to you?” Ryla asked.

             
He smiled and chuckled a bit.  “You do at that strange one,” he told her and tapped her nose.

             
She smiled at what she’d once considered an insult but now found she rather welcomed as a term of endearment and settled against him peacefully.  “I don’t know how this works,” she admitted, a bit self-consciously.  “Everything’s moving so fast and in new directions.  I don’t know what to make of it.”

             
“Then take your time and don’t make anything of it just yet.”  She settled against him, her thin frame entwined with his.

             
It didn’t feel like long to them, lying naked on the couch, arms wrapped around one another, but it must have been hours before there was a gentle wrapping on the door.  “Hey, uhh,” it was Reggie.  “Anyone in there?”

             
Quey and Ryla shot to their feet and dressed with haste.

             
“Oh yeah,” Quey shouted, “We were taking a break.”  Ryla was dressed first as she only needed to throw her dress over her head and straiten it.  She hurried to the door as Quey finished pulling on his paints and unlatched the door slowly, buying him time to finish putting himself together.

             
When she finally pulled the door open she found Reggie outside and waiting.  “Something wrong?” she asked.

             
“Arnie’s all worked up.  Wants to talk to us.”

             
“What about?” Quey asked.

             
Reggie shrugged, “Won’t say but I can guess if you can’t.”

             
Quey nodded thoughtfully.  Rain.  This would be about her.

             
As they emerged from the lounge Arnie came through the doors.  “There you are,” he blurted.  Before Quey or Ryla could respond he asked, “Do any of the cars in the garage work?”

             
“No,” Ryla replied simply.

             
“How long would it take to repair one?”

             
“They are damaged beyond a reasonable threshold, their best function now is as spare parts.”

             
“But they can be fixed,” he insisted.

             
“What’s this about?” Quey asked.

             
“It’s about if we can get one running, with a few modifications, I can drive out of here.  So is it possible?” he asked Ryla.

             
After a thoughtful moment she replied, “Yes.”

             
“And how long would it take?”

             
Quey interrupted, “We can’t divert any-”

             
“Six hours,” Ryla offered.  “With minimal disruption of other repairs,” she added, looking at Quey.

             
“And you could soup ‘em up a bit, make them faster, bigger engine, manual transmission?”

             
“Yes,” Ryla replied.

             
“Good, then we do that and when it’s done the three of us’ll go find Rain.”

             
Quey blinked and looked to the boy, “The three of who?”

             
“You me and Reggie.”

             
Quey glared at him.  “You understand why that can’t happen right?”

             
Arnie stared back at him.  “Look, I think it might help.  I mean we’re sure to draw some of the Brood off with us.”

             
“And what?  You think they’re just gunna follow us and forget all about this place?”

             
“Of course not but Ryla’s ships-”

             
“Might not be ready,” Quey finished for him.

             
Reggie watched the exchange, keeping his tongue to himself.

             
Arnie sighed, “Well we have to do something.  She’s one of us, what did you call it?  One of our crew, we can’t just…” he trailed off and Quey could see in his eyes that he didn’t know whether to be pissed off or devastated.

             
Quey nodded.  “She is, Arnie.  But the brood wasn’t here when she left.  It was clear sky’s and she could have asked any one of us for help and sure enough we’d have given it to her.  She chose to go her own way and you should know she did it because she didn’t want us following.”  It was Quey’s turn to sigh.  “I mean to do something about this, but,” he trailed off thoughtfully.

             
Arnie looked up at him.

             
“I know it’s hard,” Quey told him, “but she’s a tough girl and on this we’re just going to have to trust her to take care of herself.”

             
Arnie took a long time to process what Quey had said.  When finally he was done he looked up and said, “Give me the car and I’ll go myself.”  Before Quey could say no he added, “If something happens to her and I don’t at least try, I’ll never forgive myself.”  His head sunk and took his shoulders with.

             
Quey looked at the young man standing before him and saw he meant what he said.

             
“We should at least try,” Ryla said softly.  Quey looked at her and she added, “She’s my friend.”

             
Finally Quey took a long breath and said, “She has over a day’s lead on you.”

             
“Yeah.  Across hundreds of kilometers of strait road,” Arnie said.  “She’s in Reggie’s piece of shit—no offense,” the big man shook it off.  “She’d be lucky to break a hundred and seventy.  If we can get an engine together that pushes three fifty, four hundred, we’ll catch her.”

             
“Woah!” Reggie was taken back and tossed his hands in the air.  “At that speed a stone in the road’ll send you tumbling to your final resting place.”

             
“I can handle the driving,” Arnie grumbled.

             
“I believe you,” Quey assured him.  He turned to Ryla and asked, “Six hours?”  Ryla nodded and the other two followed.  “That’ll put your start at mid-afternoon.  Try and rest as much as you can,” he told Arnie.

             
After a nod he said, “Thank you,” and went toward the elevators.

             
Ryla went to the computers to begin a rebuild of one of the Once Men’s cars.  “You okay?” Quey asked.  When she didn’t answer he added, “I’m worried about her too.”