He'd always been more gifted to shoe horses than to ride them, but when those
assholes blew through town, dragging a pretty, confused half-Injun squaw along
with her hair mussed half out of its braids, he was perched on the mayor's big
roan horse and giving chase before he could think twice.
The sheriff hadn't cared for a half-breed. So Blue decided not to care he'd become a thief. Besides, the sheriff's guns were kind of nice in his hand.
His datachip is malfunctioning again, the security protocols seesawing between shutting down even the internal programs so he ends up half-blind with no warning, and letting in every signal in the area. He has no money to get it changed, though -- not even enough to get it out. Sometimes he thinks the only reason he isn't blowing out the chip and his brain along with it is that him catching cop feeds is the only reason his gang has survived so far. Killing himself is one thing, but they need him, so he'll endure a little longer.
"Hello!" the pretty spaniel says in a soft voice. "Who are you?"
Blue startles awake, all his fur bristled up. He catches the snarl before it spills out of his throat when he realizes the pet dog is tiny, and alone. She's not posturing for dominance either. ... or for submission, but he's wary enough not to want to rectify that right now. ... Also, still injured. It hurts. He moved too fast.
Her pink nose wrinkles and she whines in distress, eyes on the blood seeping through his fur. He gives her a wary, confused look, ears flattened on his skull. Her ears are all floppy, with long wavy hairs. He doesn't know how to read the set of them.
A second later it's a moot point, because she's racing back toward the house. He throws himself forward to catch her tail.
The next thing he knows he's sprawled on his front in the snow and bipedal footsteps are crunching their way to him. He tries to scramble back into the wood shed, but it hurts again and he falls, only catching himself with one elbow before he hits the ground a second time. It pulls on his wounds. He glares up, fangs bared in silent challenge at the rifle--
-- no rifle. The man is just standing there, alone, chafing his arms against the cold, and staring at him in shock. Blue starts crawling back, inch by inch, still snarling, but then he remembers the shed is a dead end.
The whole garden is a dead end. The wall is higher inside than out. He's caught. He's dead.
"Lìadan, heel!" the man yells suddenly, but the little gray and white spaniel only throws him a disappointed look over her shoulder and keeps walking to him.
He growls, in confusion more than anger. Does she think she can take him, even now? His jaws still work just fine.
"Shh, shh, good boy," she says. He stares some more, ears briefly flicking back up.
"Lìadan, heel, he's going to bite you -- shit, shit, what is a goddamn wolf doing in my backyard--"
The spaniel huffs. "Hurt. Cold. Master get blankets."
"--hey there wait a minute."
"And food, too."
"Lìadan!"
She blinks at her master, and then she pats the wolf's head with her dainty hand-paw. He's so surprised he even lets her get away with it. "Good boy, see? Now master go, quick quick."
The human stares at them for a few seconds longer, and then, spouting a series of annoyed words under his breath, he obeys his pet's order. She turns back toward him and wags her fluffy tail, making a rainbow in the snow.
He was kind of supposed to throw her over his shoulder and swing back to his own ship, but when she looks up at him she doesn't look scared at all. He's not sure why he holds out his hand instead.
"Come with me," he says gruffly. It sounds like a request even so.
She smiles.
Then her Indian man attacks him from behind with a chamber pot.
Blue yawned, pulled a piece of toast from the toaster, and started munching away. The coffee machine was purring along, strange noise but nothing that would explode. He yawned again, rolled his head on his shoulders to loosen up the muscles, and glanced through the window. Outside, outer space kept being empty and black. Maybe he'd repair that coffee machine tomorrow.
When she's fifteen her sperm donor's Family summons her. They've seen the result of her tests -- she's not really useless as a psy, but for their purposes, nearly so. But as her father's daughter there are obligations owed to her.
"It'd get you an advantage as an escort, to know what men want." The interviewer eyes her critically. "You're tall. Good bone structure. Put some meat on these bones and you'd make a good living."
Kemmy snorts and twitches her head so that long locks of brown hair falls into her face, hiding her eyes. "Unless you could screen them to give me only the nulls, I'd be crazy before the end of the year."
"... I didn't think you were that bad off. The tests say--"
"My mother gave me tranquilizers. I could have had a serial killer in my head and not cared." She shakes her head, teeth gritted, feels a sick sense of relief when he swallows her lie and his mind goes dark with irritation and offense. Later, if he thinks on it again, he'll realize she would have been tested for drugs as a matter of fact, but now he believes her and he doesn't like it. "Listen, just drop it. You offered. I was the one who chose not to accept. The obligation is fulfilled."
Maybe she'll end up in a cathouse before long anyway. Ever since she started developing hips it started being more difficult to get mechanic apprenticeships.
She just doesn't want anything to do with the man who fathered her and his Family. And being gently encouraged to carry a child for one of her once-removed cousins to strengthen the bloodline is something she has no interest in dealing with. If she has a child, it will be for herself. Not like her mother, who had a child for a man who dumped her like yesterday's garbage.
She just hopes the lie was enough to make them lose interest in the idea of bringing her inferior genes back into the Family's fold.
Kem Sevag does not like New Ararat's schools. Kem Sevag does not like New Ararat at all. It's all so... clean. And open. He's never been agoraphobic, but under the giant transparent domes that let the sky show, he's tempted. But the worst is the people. They're almost all varying shades of brown and he's pale and kinda sallow, but that barely registers to him. They all worry so much about not being racist they keep going out of their ways to be too nice, which goddamnit he wishes they'd just ignore him instead. And they're all gene-cleaned. All "pure" and "unmodified." He'd never get a permit to reproduce on this planet. He's tainted by at least three different reconstructions.
But his stepfather and his mother have emigrated here, so he has to go to school here. And his stepfather is rich, so he goes to the good schools.
He's the oldest in the class by two years and he still feels like a moron. He's pretty sure his classmates share the thought.
He wouldn't care -- if only he could be sure.
They're all empty to him. All closed off and blank like walls, unless he's right in their space they don't even feel like real people to him. It creeps him out. And always so serene and blahblahblah meditate and process your emotions what the FUCK ever. Makes him want to break shit.
So one day he does. Picks up the remote control for the big white board and throws it. Crack.
There's like a flicker in the air -- the professor? The copper-headed TA? They're the closest. He zeroes in on them. Stares. Their faces are a little surprised, a lot disappointed. The old teacher looks almost sad but it's not like he can be sure, far as he knows the guy is lying his ass off to make him feel guilty.
He picks up something else.
"Kem, what is troubling you?"
"The fact that you're calling me Kem," he replies calmly, and breaks whatever it was he held.
Another flicker, here and gone. If it wasn't so empty here, hadn't been empty for so long, he would never have noticed. He's like a man lost in a caved-in tunnel for weeks; even muted starlight looks bright.
"That's your name," the TA replies, even before the teacher can open his mouth.
"Kem is my personal name." Break. "It's not for you." Break. Neither of them are stopping him yet, for fuck's sake he's seventeen and they're adults and why is no one stopping him? This time he snarls, too, and he throws his chair. Nowhere near close to anyone, though he's tempted. The students gasp and stare at him like a herd of cows. None of them even tries to leave. Are they all stupid? Suicidal? He picks up another chair and this time he wants to throw it at them, he does, he does.
Hand on his wrist. Anger to meet his own, to match it. Almost a voice in there.
Someone else.
Someone else.
He slugs the TA in the jaw, and follows him to the ground, and kisses him full on the mouth.
"Can I help you?" Blue asks, suspicious. The guy hasn't done anything yet, but with his warm brown skin it's visible he's not from around here. He's wearing expensive clothes and shoes he's going to get stolen in a hour if he keeps hanging out around here. Hell, anywhere that isn't his hotel.
"Ah -- are you a policeman?"
"... Cop. Yeah." Definitely not from anywhere close to here. Not even the planet has accents like that.
"Oh, good."
He sees relief on the man's face, but it seems -- ah, that's the problem. No echo, none at all. He's locked up like a Family treasury. What the hell is he hiding? Blue doesn't like this at all; his hand lands on his weapon. The man blinks, looking vaguely surprised.
"I'm here for the climate conference," he says. "I got kind of lost."
"Just a bit," Blue replies dryly. A spy maybe? "Let me walk you to the station."
The man starts frowning a little. "You don't have to, just point me in the right direction."
"Let me walk you to the station," Blue repeats without giving an inch, and he takes a step closer and looms. "I don't think you understand the danger you are in." He takes the excuse to catch the man's arm and tug him along and...
... Nothing. Still empty.
Blue has never met someone who could shield so well that even the shield disappeared. And even a null would resonate to the touch, even a tiny bit. He freezes for a second.
"... Hey, you can let go now," the guy protests, tugging his arm free. Still nothing.
Blue gets out his handcuffs.
"I can't believe you stole a fucking mermaid."
Blue lights up a cigarette and gives the scaly creature in his bathroom a long, jesusfuckwhatthehell look.
His roommate rakes his hand through short red hair and snaps back, "I didn't know the University had mermaids!"
"Ahh, so if they had one, you had to have one as well."
"No, if they had one, it was fucking illegal. Illegal, and immoral, and she was stuck in a tiny pool--"
"Ah, yeah, our bathtub is so much better."
Arun glares at him, but he looks more tired and stressed out than angry. A bit desperate too. Scared.
"Give it back," Blue suggests, expressionless.
Predictably, Arun explodes.
Blue likes it when it happens. It's always interesting. He's not capable of such emotional violence. He's a pretty subdued guy. ... he's capable of physical violence, though, which Arun isn't. Seriously, the theft of the mermaid probably strained his goody-goody boy's brain, no matter how ethically justified it likely was. So car chases? punching people? So not for him.
Blue doesn't care about ethics. And it's been a while since he stole a car.
He doesn't owe jack shit to Arun, they just share the rent and they always try to be gone because they don't get along. But the pearly-scaled mermaid looks so tiny and confused, huddled at the bottom of their tub and chewing doubtfully on their bottle of shampoo.
"Be right back," he says laconically in the middle of Arun's tirade. If they're going on a road trip to the sea, he's gonna need to steal a truck with good gas mileage, and that takes a little dedication to find.
He's not sure where they'll find a tub to put in the back, but he'll figure it out. So long as she doesn't decide to sing them to their deaths as a reward, he's ready to figure out a lot.
When Khiaw said "I don't want to make anyone jealous, so I'll have sex with all of you or none at all," it wasn't what Blue expected to happen. In fact he'd kind of assumed Khiaw had said it just for the reverse psychology effect, so they'd all go "nevermind" because there was no way Vartan and Lujayn would even consider it and Dhaval didn't even seem interested in sex.
From the faint, unsurprised smile on their Captain's face as a line formed outside of his bedroom, Blue had to revise his assessment of Khiaw's 'I'm always right' attitude. Seemed like it wasn't half as bluff as it seemed.