1.
“Phillip, did you find Perez, yet?” The silent office shivered when Andrew Cunningham spoke.
Phillip replied simply. “If I found him, I would tell you.”
Andrew snorted irritably, and turned his head to glance out at his estate’s gardens two-stories below. It was night and the view was not as interesting as Phillip. Andrew liked his assistant better when he was humorous. As a rule, Andrew disliked inconsistency in behavior, but Phillip was probably less efficient when he was self-amusing than when he rumbled with concentration as he did now. Phillip had a good head for numbers but breaching the security of the Empire Sector’s Police Force was not an easy task.
“Just find him.” Andrew muttered, looking back at the paper before him and returning to his sketching. He knew Phillip would assume it was paperwork and Andrew wasn’t about to tell him anything different. It was Phillip’s eyes that gave him the most trouble. His eyes were his best feature, large and expressive as any woman’s eyes. Andrew could never capture those eyes.
“Hey, Andy.” Phillip said. “What’s twenty-one times four?”
Andrew looked up, noticing the light flicker of Phillip’s eyes. Phillip was asking to irritate him.
Andrew snorted with disapproval; he did not have a good head for numbers. He scowled at the pencil and the paper, then at the owner of the face he was drawing. “It’s eighty six.”
“Eighty four.” Phillip grinned, an impish smile that Andrew loathed at the moment.
Andrew snapped back, “You were not hired to teach me math.”
“Thank God.” Phillip chuckled and shifted back to the computer. “You hired me because I stole the rosette before you did, and I wouldn’t give it to you unless you hired me.”
“You’d never have gotten near the rosette, if we hadn’t breached security first.” Andrew glared at the rosette attached to Phillip’s computer. The ungainly golden sphere was his most prized possession, the first and only universal translator ever developed. “You stole it from me.”
“You dropped it into my hands.” Phillip chuckled. “Disoriented by the strobe alarms.”
“I was not disoriented.” Andrew growled. “I was deceived. And if you think-”
“Found him.” Phillip interrupted.
2.
It was Phillip’s fault they had to work together. Andrew had everything under control the night they broke into Stayton Labs. Three months of research and preparation to steal the rosette. His father had insisted that he work with a group on this mission, Sorcier’s best men.
Ice and Maloup had been perfect. Because of Maloup’s manipulations, the alarms didn’t dare speak when Andrew opened the door. Ice used the masking powder with a little more showmanship than Andrew would have liked, but he got the job done and he remembered the security code to turn off the rest of the internal alarms.
Andrew had used a grapple to climb up to the offices on the second story. Using the stairs would have triggered too many alarms. He remembered the opaque security case, the way the golden sphere looked purple until he held it in his hands and saw its brilliance.
The strobe alarms had disoriented him. He didn’t notice that there were two grapple hooks and he didn’t realize he was running towards the wrong one. He dropped the sphere to the figure below.
When the man caught the ball and took off running, Andrew realized immediately what had happened. “Ice! Ice, there’s a third man here.”
He saw Ice, misty and small, standing against the wall. “Ice! Stop him!”
“Sure, I’ll just tackle him and hold him down with my brute strength.” Ice scoffed back. “maybe he’ll sit nice and quiet until you come down to shoot him.”
Andrew didn’t hear the second half of Ice’s comment, roaring off the edge of the balcony. “I’ll kill you, thief. If you even show that rosette to a buyer, you’re dead. Dead!”
When Phillip arrived at his estate a week later, he used Ice’s identity card to pass the robots guarding the main entrance. The lanky man didn’t betray a knot of tension in his body, leaning against the door of Andrew’s office and saying glibly, “Promise not to kill me and I’ll tell you who I am.”
Andrew wasn’t certain what to make of the offer. “I won’t shoot you.”
“I don’t care if you shoot me. Promise you won’t kill me.”
“My word as a citizen of the Anglo Isle.” Andrew sat with his hands on the desk, already more interested in the clever man than he should have been.
“Phillip Froggs.” When the man casually tossed a golden ball in the air, Andrew regretted his promise. Even on that first day, Phillip had an irritatingly perceptive smile. “I’ll give it to you if you give me what I want.”
Andrew was not amused. “Most blackmailers send letters.”
Phillip was extravagantly bold. “Most blackmailers don’t want to work for you.”
3.
The Cunningham’s family volex was larger than the average ovular volex, capable of sitting ten on the comfortable benches that circled the inside. It was a lavish machine and Andrew chose it for that evening’s trip because of its opulence. The intersectoral police tended to ask fewer questions to a man traveling inside such a volex. And Phillip liked to drive the expensive model.
Andrew customarily stood to the right of the steering consol and as close to the front window as possible. That evening he paced about the large circular room, stifled by his assistant’s presence.
Phillip lounged in the plush chair in front of the driving consol, and checked the instruments every few minutes before returning to his idle self-examination while staring out at the darkness of the Atlantic Ocean.
Andrew grew more irritated as Phillip relaxed. Stabbing his hands behind his back and standing with militantly severe posture, Andrew stopped in front of the windows behind Phillip and growled over to his relaxed driver. “Maloup always stands when he flies at this speed over the ocean.”
“That’s because Ice is always sitting down.” Phillip laughed. “You can’t have two men pacing all over the place; it’s not aesthetically pleasing.”
“You’re not funny, Phillip.” Andrew replied, hiding a smile.
When Phillip lifted his shoulders and dropped them again with unreasoning grace, Andrew couldn’t tell if he was shrugging with indifference or simply settling back into his seat. His body was too soft and relaxed for the pressures of this night. It made Andrew tense. He paced closer to the consol to make sure their course was plotted correctly.
It was a mistake to wander so close to Phillip in repose. The consol told him only complex numbers and when he tried to remember how to read the coordinates his attention wandered. He ended up with his hands leveled on Phillip’s shoulders, “You shouldn’t be so sleepy, Phillip.”
“Why the hell not?” It was a drowsy reply. Andrew felt Phillip shift encouragingly into his hands and his fingers tightened skittishly. They relaxed as Phillip spoke. “Human beings were not meant to function this close to midnight without constant stimulation.”
Andrew hummed and slipped his fingers around the man’s neck. Phillip didn’t bother to flinch. Andrew was certain he was physically capable of strangling the man, but he wondered if he would be able to kill Phillip. He said quietly. “For people like us, midnight is the middle of the workday. Besides, it’s hardly six o’clock in the Empire Sector. I imagine Perez is just getting dinner.”
“You ought to stop that.” Phillip answered Andrew’s soft tone by sitting up and detaching the man’s hands. “Since we are in the middle of the workday.”
“I hate it when you’re right.” Andrew threw his hands behind his back as if to punish his entire arm for touching the other man and paced off again.
“Fine. You take the side that makes sense.” Phillip turned and dropped his arms over the back of the chair to ask him mockingly, “Wanna go in the back and fuck like breeders while the volex careens over the open ocean at speeds that would rip a person’s face off?”
“Just drive.” Andrew turned and went to sit in a small closet so that he did not have to look at Phillip anymore.
4.
It was Andrew’s fault they were lovers.
Andrew remembered the early evening light dimly reflecting off the leaves of his favorite roses. He had been tending to the finicky plants when Phillip came laughing down the path. He remembered the man’s derisive laughter. “A fucking garden? You’re your father’s best fucking assassin, Andrew. Assassins don’t garden.”
Thinking about it later, Andrew realized that Phillip would have lost interest in mocking him very quickly. Still, Andrew seemed to remember bearing a long barrage of insults, while patiently watering the roses, growing redder and redder with his rage.
When Phillip was holding his side and half-doubled, he laughed the last affront. “I never imagined I’d see you gardening. My mother wasn’t even girly enough to garden.”
Andrew wasn’t thinking when he stabbed his fist into Phillip’s chest. Phillip shuddered from the force, and when he collided with the wall behind him, his head snapped into the jagged bricks.
“Never call me that again.” Andrew didn’t care when the man slumped into the morning glories and tulips growing against the wall.
Phillip made no response and Andrew glanced back to his assistant as he knelt to pick up his watering can. He noticed the blood on the bricks and felt every muscle in his body weaken. “Phillip?”
This time Phillip moaned and opened his eyes.
Andrew crouched beside him in the dirt. “Are you alright, Phillip?”
“You hit my head really hard.” Phillip mumbled, rubbing the back of his skull. “I think I’m blacking out.”
“Well… don’t.” Andrew commanded, taking Phillip’s head in his hands and pulling the man closer to investigate the wound. “I didn’t mean to-”
“For Christ’s sake, I know you didn’t mean to.” Phillip shook Andrew’s hands away and sat up. “You never mean to do anything.”
Andrew drew back. “Well, I… I’m not very good at dealing with… I mean. Will you be all right?”
Phillip glared up at him, but immediately his features softened into something akin to amazement. “I’m okay, Andy. Don’t worry.”
The intimacy of the nickname washed through Andrew, and as he stared at the man he had injured, Phillip suddenly seemed like the most precious thing in the world. Andrew slipped his palm again into Phillip’s mouse-brown hair but he pulled him closer with a different intention.
When Phillip lifted his hand to stop the kiss, Andrew captured the resisting fingers and clenched them tightly. Their mouths touched, and Andrew was amazed that Phillip didn’t defend himself at all, protesting only with passive lips. Andrew soon warmed him to the attack and Phillip opened his mouth to invite a deeper kiss.
Andrew only let the kiss die away because Phillip shuddered with a sudden force that reminded him of sobbing. Phillip did not lift his head or open his eyes and spoke with a voice that was impossibly soft for the outspoken man, “This is only because Ice told you I like other men, isn’t it?”
Phillip’s reply wasn’t the invitation Andrew had expected, but it was not a rejection. Andrew dropped to his knees to kiss Phillip again and agreed to the convenient excuse.
5.
“Hey, Andy, stop sulking in the back and tell me who this Perez guy is.” Phillip called from the front of the volex. “I don’t even know what we’re doing on this assignment.”
“It doesn’t concern you.” Andrew leaned out of the closet to see him, and changed his answer when he saw the irritation flit across Phillip’s face. “He’s my old assistant.”
Andrew stood and returned to the main room of the volex when he noticed Phillip’s interest. “He left our employ when he was unable to locate the golden rosette. He found another job with our rivals in the Empire Sector.”
“Sounds like you two have a lot to talk about.” Phillip remarked with a morbid sarcasm.
Turing to the dark windows again, Andrew did not reply. Phillip didn’t approve of murder and he disliked it when Andrew spoke of it glibly.
Phillip spoke hesitantly. “You’re old assistant. Did you and him… did you and he… you know?”
Andrew was surprised enough to turn. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“I don’t know. He was convenient.” Phillip’s voice rose defensively. “Your relationships with men…I don’t know. I just figured it was a convenience thing.”
“Do you really think my standards are that lax?” Andrew muttered.
Phillip glanced around at him, his eyes narrowed almost glaring. “You’re telling me that our relationship isn’t based solely on the fact that I’m here and available?”
Andrew opened his mouth to argue, but instead scoffed and looked out the window at the water passing beneath them. “Why are we going so slow?”
Andrew could see the moon shining on each individual wave, patches of clean light freckling the gaping darkness. Phillip had probably been watching the waves as they passed. Andrew didn’t look away from the pristine water when Phillip sighed and adjusted the consol. Phillip probably wouldn’t talk to him for the rest of the night unless he had to.
The ocean below turned into hard jagged bricks of white and black and suddenly nothing in the world seemed beautiful.
6.
Killing Perez was not difficult, though he was meeting with several men from the Empire Sector. They were all rivals of the Cunningham family who Andrew was pleased to impress. Perez thought he had faked his death successfully, that he could share what he knew about the Cunningham family and survive. If he had been clever enough to stay quiet, perhaps he would be so fortunate. But Perez liked to think that he was smarter than the men he worked for. He imagined he was safe sitting on shoddy wooden crates being paid by the word to sell secrets.
Andrew stared at the man through his scope, the largest part of his thin laser. The weapon fell away from his eye when Andrew realized the man he was about to kill had thin light brown hair just like Phillip. He watched with his naked eye the metallic light from an overhead lamp drifting through the pale brown.
It had been early in their relationship when Phillip was still afraid to really touch him. Andrew thought at first the memory happened in the garden where all their early trysts had occurred, but he remembered the glow of a gas lamp and remembered that had been naked in his bed. Andrew had been sleepy, about to tell Phillip to go home, when he felt his lover’s tentative hand on his arm.
He glanced over at Phillip, seeing him in the pale light of the gas lamp. Most of his hair appeared to be a dark brown, clumped together near his head, but the strands that had been disheveled – and there were many that had been disheveled – took on a brighter color, nearly white.
Andrew remembered Phillip’s expression, too. The man was staring at his arm and the intensity of his gaze was surprising. When he looked up the disheveled hair formed half a halo around Phillip’s questioning face. “This is your family crest?”
Andrew sat straighter, flexing his arm to show the scar proudly. “Oh yes. I had a special brand constructed to get the layering right. It took four separate brandings. The first being the lightest layer, the second being the second deepest; just like they do in wood carving. But it’s as perfect a replica you can get in human flesh.”
Phillip pulled his hand away, his face twisting into a strange expression of awe and disgust. “You did it yourself?”
“I designed the brand and commissioned it, yes.” Andrew stated. “Most of the others in my clan settle for a less detailed imitation of the emblem, but I respect the crest enough to suffer.”
Phillip nodded and shrank away from Andrew and out of the bed. “I have to go home.”
That night, Andrew had not allowed him to leave.
It was the light mumbling of information, the shrill unmusical voice that could never belong to Phillip that reminded Andrew why he was crouched in the dirt of a dingy warehouse with a deadly weapon. He remembered his family’s tradition of honor, loyalty, and retribution and he could almost feel the sting of the brand in his arm. He pulled the trigger and walked away from Perez’s screams as the laser ignited a fire in his bloodstream.
Andrew left the way he came, through a window, and stopped only briefly to see the men from the Empire Sector pour water on the man who was already dead. His brown hair floated away from his charred head, lighter than ash.
7.
Phillip didn’t need to be told to leave quickly. “That was an awfully fast chat.”
Andrew realized he’d forgotten to put the laser away before he returned to the volex and muttered. “You don’t like to hear about death.”
Phillip nodded. “When it’s my turn, I hope you don’t use a laser. Looks like it’d hurt like hell.”
Andrew tucked the laser away. “It’s over fast.”
“So’s a bullet to the back of the head.” Phillip answered.
“Fire is the preferred manner of death to an Anglo.” Andrew refuted.
“I’m not an Anglo.” Phillip ended the tense moment with his emphatic reply.
Andrew stood in his usual place to the right of the consol close to the window. The ocean fell away from the rising volex. He sighed into the silence. “I don’t think I could kill you.”
“Nothing could make you give up your family.” Phillip stated. “You’d do anything for your clan.”
“On my word then as an Anglo and a Cunningham, I will not kill you.” Andrew turned to meet the man’s eyes. He was surprised that Phillip was not watching the horizon, but staring at the red carpet. Andrew added quietly. “He wasn’t my lover, Phillip. I’m being honest.”
Phillip nodded quietly, but there was something hollow in his nod. Andrew realized that Phillip wouldn’t believe anything he said to fill their current silence. Perhaps Phillip would never listen to anything Andrew said to fill such a silence again. Andrew turned again to stare at the open ocean, speeding toward him with a stone solidity that still seemed intent on swallowing them both.
8.
Phillip had jumped out of Andrew’s volex as soon as he had landed it and rushed in this small room to find his keys and go home. Andrew stole up behind Phillip when Phillip was searching for the keys to his own volex on the board of keys hanging in the volex-house. Phillip was trying to avoid him and Andrew was intent on thwarting his effort.
“Why don’t you stay a while?” Andrew wrapped his hands around Phillip’s hips, pressing their bodies close.
“No.” Phillip took Andrew’s hands before they could sink any lower and pulled them away. “I’m going home tonight.”
Andrew chuckled and shifted his grip so that his hands were coiled around Phillip’s wrists. “Of course you are. Just after a short stay.”
“No.” Phillip tried to pull his arms free. “I’m tired. I’ve been keeping up with you all day.”
“Never stopped you before.” Andrew pulled the other man against him again, this time holding his arms in a lock behind his back.
Phillip wrenched free, hurting his arms to escape the playful lock. Andrew stood back surprise at Phillip’s outburst. Then he sighed. “If this is about Perez, I’ll tell you again. He was disloyal to my family, selling secrets, and he had to be-”
“How disloyal is it to the family to be sleeping with other men?” Phillip interrupted.
“It’s not like that.” Andrew chuckled, and took hold of Phillip’s waist. “I’m just attracted to you.”
“Will you stop grabbing me?” Phillip threw Andrew’s hands away. “Would you father order you to be killed if he found out about me?”
“I don’t know.” Andrew answered with a choppy certainty. His resolve never faded. “But I will not let him hurt you. I meant what I said earlier and I mean it even if you leave.”
“You mean tonight.” Phillip muttered.
“I mean ever.” Andrew replied. “If you decide to end this, I’ll get Ice to fake your death. That’s all it would take, if you kept quiet, which I trust you to do.”
Phillip had no reply and Andrew turned away, uncomfortable with the way Phillip avoided his eyes. “If Perez had been smarter, I would have let him go and he didn’t mean nearly as much to me as you do. I wasn’t in love- I mean, I wasn’t his lover.”
Andrew shivered when Phillip touched his arm, just below the brand. It was a light touch, grazing up to his shoulder, something too gentle in the action to be anything but a giving. Andrew couldn’t remember a caress like that before, even from Phillip, but when he turned into Phillip’s kiss, he began to understand what made it so different. There was nothing in it that demanded. Nothing that possessed. It was something he could trust.
