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1.

Gagé sat in the corner of his vast apartment, huddling against the wall of his cage.  The hunger was gone now.  He remembered a distant time with snow on the ground and weeks without food.  The worst was the first week and then everything was numbed after that.  He would not go to the window.

Sorcier still returned every week to see if he was dead.  The elevator had a new set of DNA now and Gage was trapped on the sixtieth story.  He lifted his hands to his head and groaned, feeling more present and less dizzy when he felt the sharp points of his shaved hair beneath his fingers.  He wondered if his hair would grow back before he starved.  He would not go to the window.

He hadn’t convinced himself yet that Sorcier had not drugged him.  He was not parallelized, but he was hallucinating.  He had been alone for days now, even Panya who used to sit on her balcony and call up to him and talk with him had vanished the day after Alik fell.  He would not go to the window.  Occasionally Gagé would open his eyes and one of the girls would be there.  Iris looking gaunt and destroyed, worried and nervous as she’d been when he questioned her about Jack’s involvement in the computer breech in the Cunningham estate.  Jack came too, still despising him, though now when she spoke she accused him of crimes that were really too obscure for Jack, misuse of the English language, a blatant disregard of masculinity, something about hair too long.  He reached again for the flowing hair that was no longer there.

Sarah was nice when she came.  She didn’t tirade about Christianity; she sat beside him and spoke of God with a calm intelligence, the way Alik spoke of Islam.  She may have converted him if she stayed long enough, but the image of Panya always drove her away, in spite of his best attempts to keep her there.

Panya was cruel, because Panya was kind.  She looked at him sadly but rarely spoke.  Gagé was never able to expect what Panya would say, and when she was a hallucination she was mute.  That didn’t mean much.  Panya never needed words before; she did not need them now.  She was the only one that ever made him crawl towards the window.  He had always been afraid of heights and when they had talked from their balconies, she had never known that he was lying on his belly with his hands over his eyes.

The room was terribly cold because the broken window let the chill in.  A breeze slipped through the quiet now carrying with it a loud humming sound like a volex.  Gagé had heard many at this altitude, usually patrons of La Masque leaving.

This hum grew louder and louder until it was hovering nearby.  Gagé opened his eyes, seeing the egg shaped thing hanging outside one of the balconies.  It was a police volex.  This was an unusual hallucination.

Gagé had no doubts it was a hallucination when Alik appeared on the deck of the volex and skated down until he could jump onto the balcony.  He was not wearing his glasses, but the skin around his eyes was red and swollen.  Gagé smiled, because Alik’s eyes were as he had always wanted them to be, a dark dark brown.  They scanned over the apartment and then fell on him.  Gagé smiled and Alik stood stunned and looked at him. “What has he done to you?”

With the girls he could never speak.  He could never answer their accusations, or defend himself against their questions.  Only sit in silence.  With Alik he discovered, he could speak.  He decided to be warm. “Oh, it’s nothing as traumatic as all that, Alik.  He cut my hair.  He left me here to die.”

Alik looked at him without understanding. “You have to speak in English, Gagé.”

Gagé blinked, trying to negotiate the request. “You have beautiful eyes, Alik.”

“Morgan insisted I get the surgery before I went back to work.” Alik came to him extending his hand. “Come on.  We have to leave.  We all thought he would kill you.”

“Too easy.” Gagé waved him away. “Now, you.  You are supposed to be dead.”

“That’s right.  How could you know?  Sorcier sent all the girls in the Preferential Lounge away and that must mean Panya too.” Alik crouched besides him. “Panya heard you and Sorcier arguing that day.  She heard the fight and she caught me when I fell.”

“No.” Gagé shook his head, without lifting it from the wall. “Panya doesn’t like you.”

Alik touched his shoulder. “Gagé, you have to come with me.”

Gagé jolted at the touch.  He laughed slyly as if he had just discovered a secret joke. “Oh, you’ve got a lot more real.  And you have such beautiful eyes.  But really you must go away.  Bring Panya back.  I don’t want to talk to you.”

Alik squinted with confusion. “Are you drugged?”

“Panya is so sad.  I really ruined her.  She was so happy.  I wonder if it comes from swimming all the time.  I gave her back her fins and her gills.  Did she escape?” Gagé mumbled and rolled his palms over his eyes. “No, of course not.  She still comes here.  Don’t send Panya.  Send Jack.  Jack despises me.  I can deal with that.”

His fingers ran along the short stubble at the top of his head, his fingers still groping for a texture other than prickling flesh.

“Jack is in the volex.”  Alik took his hands and tried to pull the man to his feet. “Come on.  We’ll go and see her and take you to a hospital.”

“No!” Gagé pulled his hands back, wrapping them around his knees and holding his body violently. “I’ve told you before!  I won’t go to the window.  I will not die that way.  I want to sit here and starve and when he comes to see what happened to me, he will know and my hair will keep growing and growing after I’m dead and it will fill the room and when he comes in the shine of it will blind him and then he will fall out the window.”

Alik knelt close to Gagé, his strong arms bowing around the small body. “I’m going to take you away from here.  To Walter Morgan.  You can help us find Sorcier and stop him.”

“I wish I could kill you.” Gagé whispered, not seeming to notice the man was lifting him off the floor. “If he found your dead body here.  He would let me out of this damned tower.”

Gagé curled his arms around Alik’s neck when Alik carried him towards the window.  He whimpered in a language Alik didn’t understand. “I won’t move a muscle then I won’t wake up on the balcony looking down.  I know I won’t.”

Alik did not reply climbing out of the balcony and into the volex with Gagé.  Jack gasped in shock, her mouth falling open. “Holy shit.  Is he dead?”

“No.  When Sorcier closed down La Masque, he left him in that room.” Alik moved through the center of the volex and brought him to the back room before Gagé began speaking again.  Gagé wouldn’t want anyone to hear his ramblings. “Bring us to the police hospital in the Victorian Sector.  I pretty certain he’s drugged.”

“Morgan’s gonna love this.” Jack chuckled.

Alik said nothing, kneeling with Gagé on the floor of the volex, and covering Gagé’s eyes as the vehicle shot into the open sky.

2.

Alik stood behind Gagé in the interrogation room.  Three days had passed and the intersectoral refugee station had given Gagé a good dinner and a better place to sleep.  Morgan was probably regretting their decision to give Gagé the rest now; there was never a time when Gagé was more himself.

“Monsieur Morgan, I don’t know what else I can tell you.” Gagé folded his hands casually behind his neck and he spoke smoothly. “I don’t know him by any other name.  I don’t know the way to his house in the German Territories or if he still lives there.  I don’t have any way to communicate with him.  I can tell you nothing, except what he looks like and what he has ordered me to do.”

Alik had at first been mildly interested in watching Morgan’s interrogation skills fail.  Now he was just worried by it.  Morgan slammed his hands against the fake grains of the table and scowled at Gagé. “Listen, boy.  I don’t like liars.”

“It is a good thing then, that I am not lying.” Gagé replied, then tipped his head back.  His hands shifted forward wringing around his bare neck, missing his scarf. “What else can I tell you… Sorcier speaks fluent German, but with a poor accent.  He speaks French like he was born in the Parisian Sector and English like a Victorian.  Though I have heard him speak like some from the Anglo-isles.  He does that pretty good, too.”

Before Morgan could resist the statement, Alik suggested. “If one of his parents came from the Parisian sector and the other-”

Morgan didn’t want to hear, interrupting with his mocking assessment. “If he was a twenty-two year old from the German Territories, more likely.”

Alik groaned.  Morgan hadn’t made much a secret that he thought Gagé was Sorcier, which seemed both impossible and highly plausible at the same time.  “Morgan, I think we need to take a break.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Morgan puffed bigger, taking it as in insult. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“I wasn’t saying-” Alik couldn’t place what was wrong with Morgan’s temper.  This was not a good time to slip. “Can I see you outside?”

Before Morgan could grumble out the door, Gagé said. “Monsieur Morgan, how is Iris?”

Morgan turned to face the man sitting at the table, his hands balled ready to strike.  Gagé seemed not to notice. “I would have asked Jack, but I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.”

“She’s in hiding.” Morgan answered bitterly. “Edward Cunningham is looking to kill her, on account of you, I’m sure.  Thank you kindly for asking.”

Morgan exhaled angrily and reached for his communicator. “Please escort Refugee 839:501 to his cell.”

Alik noticed Gagé stiffen and look at the floor. “He’s a refugee, Morgan.  You have no legal right to hold him here.”

“I have enough evidence from your police reports, Alik.” Morgan replied, coolly. “To hold him here for an indefinite period of time.”

“Do I have a phone call?” Gagé asked.

Before Morgan could reply, Alik handed him his own communicator.  He thought it was suspicious the moment the device had passed into Gagé’s hand. “Who are you going to call?”

Gagé dialed a number and then handed the communicator to Morgan. “Iris will have something to say to you, Monsieur Morgan.”

Morgan’s tight frown slipped into a nervous worry and he snatched the communicator in time to see his daughter’s coquettish face flash on the screen. “Daddy, are you being a stubborn ass again?”

Alik gripped the back of the chair Gagé was leaning casually in.  “What are you doing?”

“Iris?” Morgan spoke loudly into the communicator, holding it arms length away so he could get a clear picture of her. “What’s the meaning of this?  Where are you?”

Gagé leaned back in his chair and said quietly. “I know you have good intentions, Alik.  But I like to have a back up, just in case.”

Alik looked up at Morgan and listened to the sweet honest voice on the other end. “Well, I’ll tell you simply, Daddy.  I’m sitting outside in a boat with a very tall dark woman, and a certain exiled Anglo and his lover have set up a series of explosive around the base.”

“You found Andrew and Phillip?” Alik demanded.

Gagé nodded. “Sure.  Phillip’s a good friend.  We were better friends before Sorcier put a price on his head.”

Iris continued on the communicator. “The explosives will go off taking down one of the walls of this outpost, and then the tall dark woman will come inside with poor little me in tow.  I’ll be a hostage, daddy, and since you will follow all the proper hostage procedures, you will have to negotiate a civilian’s life for a refugee’s freedom.  Now of course, you could be an ass and reveal this little prank of ours, but then you’re really doing a great deal of harm to your family’s good name.  And your poor wife will be furious with you.”

“Iris, I do not approve of this line of behavior.” Morgan’s face was red and blustering.

His daughter went on. “The other option, of course, is for you to be a reasonable man and to release Gagé into the care and custody of two most trusted undercover officers, Jack and Alik.  I do hope you don’t make us blow up the base, daddy.  It would be a very terrible and embarrassing thing to have to live with.”

“I… I… damn it.” Morgan snapped the communicator shut and then thrust it at Alik.  He glared at the two men. “You’ve totally corrupted my daughter.”

“It was her plan.” Gagé shrugged. “I wouldn’t dream of pushing you into a situation as sensitive as this.  I’ve always admired your work with both Sorcier and Cunningham.  I think you would get a lot more done if you abandoned the paperwork, but… that’s just my opinion.”

Alik smirked. “Perhaps we should bend our principles for the greater good.”

Morgan glared harder, but picked up his communicator and spoke into it. “Cancel that order about the refugee.  He has representation and shall be released.”

Gagé pushed out his chair and stood.  He did not look at Morgan as he left the room, waving his hand in command. “We will be stopping in the New Orleans Sector, Alik.  I need a new scarf.”

3.

In the Quineten Sector, some faceless place in the middle of the American Continent, it was still mid-day.  Iris walked from the kitchen of her bland house, carrying a pitcher of tea and a glass full of ice.  Gagé stared out her living room window, watching the tall rows of corn quivering in the wind.  She came to stand behind him and he said casually. “This is a lovely house, Iris.  But there’s nothing out here but corn.”

“Oh, it’s a terrible place.” She gasped and laughed. “Not as bad as the Victorian Sector, mind you.  But still rather awful.  I like to walk around naked during the day and see if anyone notices me.  Do have some iced tea?”

Iris was masking her nerves with a shoddy attempt at humor and when she offered Gagé a glass of ice tea, Iris knew that he saw through her bravado.  He smiled and said. “Of course, Iris.  How could I resist such a charming hostess?”

Gagé sipped the tea like a fine wine and stroked his fingers over the white and blue silk scarf twining around his neck.  He was thinking.

Iris was quivering. “So… who shall I expect at this little luncheon today?”

“This is good iced tea.  Actual tea poured over ice.  Most people still use powders.” Gagé took another sip.  Then sighed. “Alik and Panya, of course.  He should be back any moment with her.  It will be good to see Panya.  Phillip Froggs, you remember him, the accompanist.”

Iris smiled and tugged at her hair, pulling aggressively at a knot. “Of course, no one can play an omni like Phil.”

Gagé nodded agreeing. “He will be bringing Andrew Cunningham.”

Iris felt a wave of weakness pass through her and set the iced tea down. “Who?”

“Andrew Cunningham.” Gagé repeated.

“When you said he had set up explosives at my father’s base I thought you were joking.” Iris said, moving to a chair and sitting down.

Gagé shrugged. “Well, he did not set up any explosives, but he will be here today.”

“His father has been trying to kill me, you know.” Iris’ voice cracked and she gripped the arms of the over-stuffed chair hard. “I hope you know that.  And I hope he isn’t planning on…”

“He’s no danger to you.” Gagé filled in the gap when she faded. “Andrew hasn’t been able to step into a civilized sector for months because his father and Sorcier have hired men to kill them.  Phillip too.  It’s very risky for them to come here.”

“That’s so funny.  How those two work together.  Sorcier and Edward Cunningham, I mean.” Iris laughed, but not with humor. “Sorcier has a hit out on Jack, but it’s really Cunningham that wants her dead.  She’s still doing work for Cunningham.  Can you believe it?  The man asked Sorcier to kill her so he could keep her working until she was killed.”

Gagé nodded quietly. “They do that often, actually.”

Iris sighed when he spoke, dropping her head into her hands and accidentally allowing a tiny squeak of despair escape. “This is not what I wanted, Gagé.  Not what I expected at all when I left the Victorian Sector to work for you.  God, I hope there’s a way out of this.”

The man did not turn to face her, staring out the window.  He said something, perhaps a quiet apology, but Iris did not hear him and she did not ask him to repeat what he had said.

The front door of the house suddenly banged open and Jack called into the house. “Guess what, Sweetheart.  We’ve got some interesting company.  Looks like a Cunningham.  Do you want me to shoot him or are we expecting Anglo-trash?”

“We’re expecting him.” Iris replied, and stood to soothe her dress. “Just brandish the gun a bit more to let them know that they are welcome.

4.

Jack sat next to Alik tipping back in a chair and picking her teeth with her nail.  She looked around Iris’ kitchen at the strange assortment of people and decided that Alik was probably the only one she could trust.  She loved Iris, but the girl was a little shady at times.

Gagé was standing looking over something he had just written. “So then what we have is simply this.  Alik and I return to the tower early Tuesday and wait for Sorcier to return.  Panya will be stationed below in the volex decks to give us warning and keep in contact with us, since it’s too easy to see us in a computer if we use actual communicators.  Jack will be using a computer to find Edward Cunningham and track his movements, while Phillip and Andrew follow at a distance.  Iris sitting safely beside Jack, of course.”

Iris huffed angrily, not pleased by her role.  Jack was mostly to blame for her exclusion and Jack said to her kindly. “You already done your part by gettin’ Ice here.”

She seemed appeased by that and didn’t argue.

Gagé went on, ignoring Iris’ protest. “The most important moment is just after Sorcier is captured.  Edward Cunningham must also be captured.  If it doesn’t happen quickly, Cunningham will learn something is wrong.”

“I’m not worried about the timing.” Andrew stated. “But I want to know why we’re capturing and not killing.  Giving them to Morgan won’t help anyone.  They can both escape.”

Gagé didn’t lift his voice. “You do what you like, Andrew.  I’d prefer not to kill him.”

“I believe I have a different preference.” Andrew stated and pushed out his chair and stood ending their meeting. “We have a plan.”

Jack scoffed and looked over to Iris. “I’ll betcha money Andrew screws this up.”

Iris said nothing, noticing that Gagé had heard and was watching Jack with narrowed eyes.  Jack noticed too and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Come with me, Andy, and we’ll work out the details of this computer stalking.”

5.

Gagé leaned against the counter staring out the tall windows of La Masque’s sixtieth floor.  He only felt comfortable watching the clouds swirling around when he felt that counter rooted firmly beneath his elbows.  He heard the elevator doors open and listened for any sound from Alik.  Gagé heard nothing until Sorcier stepped out of the elevator.  He did not lift himself away from the counter until the man stood in front of him, blocking the light of the setting sun.

“My goodness, Gagé.  Are you still here?” Sorcier smiled to mock him.

Gagé stood casually. “Of course.”

“Getting awfully thin.” Sorcier remarked, coldly looking over his body. “I would have thought you would try to float away by now.”

“I’m afraid of falling.” Gagé replied.

“It’s not the fall that kills you.” Sorcier grinned. “It’s the sudden stop at the end.”

“How old are you, Claude?” Gagé noticed the gray in the man’s neat beard. “You’re getting awfully old.  Maybe you’ll die before me.”

“I doubt that.” Sorcier stepped forward and ran his fingers over the white and blue scarf wound around his neck.  Sorcier’s tone was less mocking. “Where did you get this scarf, Gagé?  I never saw it.”

“Maloup used to mail me scarves.” Gagé answered. “I remembered I had hidden this one under the floor.  I thought it went well with my eyes.”

“It does.” Sorcier mused. “That’s why I love the German Territories so much.  You all have such lovely blue eyes.”

“I like dark eyes.” Gagé shrugged and then sneered. “Not sickly green brown like yours.  I like dark and Arabian eyes.”

“Maloup had no eyes.” Sorcier scowled.

 “You’re right.  He didn’t.” Gagé smiled, pleased that the man was jealous.  He took a step closer to the man and glared close to his face. “But if he did, they would be beautiful eyes.  They would be dark, and rich, and large.”

Sorcier didn’t notice that Gagé had taken the gun from his belt.  But he reached for the empty spot when he felt the sting of a tranquilizer at the back of his neck.  He probably turned quickly enough to see Alik standing up from his crouch behind the bed.

Gagé didn’t move when Sorcier grabbed his neck, folding his hands around his throat and squeezing as if he could kill him in that instant.  He simply stood still, the gun behind his back waiting for the drugs to take their coarse.  When Sorcier slipped away, Gagé took a deep breath and then dropped the gun into the near by wastebasket. “Call Panya, Alik.  Have her dial Phillip with the good news.”

6.

Phillip lowered the communicator attached to his volex’s consol and turned to Andrew. “That’s it.  Gage and Alik have Sorcier.  Time to get Cunningham.”

Andrew nodded but said nothing.  Phillip piloted the volex towards the fourth floor of the Cunningham family estate. “Jack says he’s been in his office for the last hour and a half.”

Andrew nodded again and took a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.   Attacking my own home.”

“Just go in and shoot him with the dart Alik gave you.” Phillip suggested, locking the volex into a hovering mode outside the fourth story windows. “Gagé is right.  We don’t have to kill him.”

Andrew uncapped the safety on his laser gun, making a small clicking sound that seemed to fill the entire volex. “He didn’t have to try to kill us either.”

From the deck of the volex it was easy to shoot out two of the windows, while Andrew shattered a third by breaking into it.  Phillip clearly saw the desk and the pile of papers fluttering in the sudden breeze.  He saw the wheeled chair before the stately desk.  He even saw an elaborate woodcarving of the family emblem hanging on the wall behind the desk.

What Phillip did not see was Andrew’s father.  The office was empty.  He took the volex out of its idle hover, the moment Andrew scrambled back on board.  Before Andrew even had the door completely sealed, Phillip had led the volex away from the earth and the ancient family estate, pushing the machine to its highest speeds.

Andrew looked up at him. “This could be a problem.”

7.

Panya stood at the foot of La Masque’s private elevator and smiled when she saw Gagé.  He dropped Sorcier’s hand which he had used to open the door and returned her smile and said to Alik. “Panya will carry him, Alik.  You have to drive.”

Alik didn’t have the option of arguing before the woman grabbed the limp body and slung him over her shoulder.  Gagé followed her when she turned and walked towards the docking bay where their volex waited.  Gagé looked nervously at the man over her shoulder when he heard the communicator in the volex ring.  Alik rushed towards the sound, but Panya continued plodding along evenly.

Gagé stopped her from bringing the man inside the volex, pausing to listen to Alik speaking into the communicator. “Andrew, do you have him?”

The man’s face wrung with fear. “What do you mean he wasn’t where Jack said he would be?  It’s not possible-”

“Panya bring him to the backroom.” Gagé pretended to be listening to Alik and waved Panya towards the back of the volex.  He watched her open the door to the engine room.  She could not read well enough to understand the word ‘danger’.

Alik growled louder into the communicator. “Why would Jack lie to you.  Andrew!  You paranoid, bastard.  Calm down and talk to me.  We will find him.  Just get out of there.  Meet us in… yes.  Quineten.”

Panya lowered Sorcier inside the room and looked over at Gagé, her face warm and friendly. “He be safe here?”

“Yes.” Gagé nodded. “He’ll be safe there.  Come out and sit inside with me, Panya.”

Alik was yelling now. “She wouldn’t lie to you, Andrew.  And we’re meeting in Quineten.  There’s no place else… Damnit, Andrew just be there.”

Panya flinched and moved closer to Gagé protectively when Alik slammed down the communicator.  He growled. “Edward Cunningham wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”

“That was the only variable.” Gagé sighed. “This is not good.”

The engine fired angrily when Alik started the machine. “They can go into hiding again.  We’ve got Sorcier.  That’s all I care about.”

Gagé nodded, and said quietly. “Good.”

Panya giggled and pressed her face against the glass, watching the ocean flicker past them as Alik maneuvered away from the shore and out into deeper waters.  On the ocean, he stayed in the water, conserving fuel and moving relatively slowly towards the Quineten Sector.

“Alik.” Gagé shifted in his seat. “Won’t we have to fly to the Quineten Sector?”

“We’ll have to get off the water eventually.” Alik replied, grumbling because his mind was on other matters. “But not just yet.  Don’t worry.”

“Why not start now.” Gagé suggested. “Get us there sooner.”

Alik glanced around. “You hate flying.”

“I know.” Gagé stared at the carpeting.  “But I think it’s a good idea to fly now and get there sooner.”

Gagé closed his eyes and pressed farther into the couch, when Alik fired all the engines.  Gagé was unnerved by the choking sound the machine made as it began to rise.  He heard a muffled clatter behind him and asked Alik. “What is that noise?”

“Sometimes driftwood gets pulled into the engine room when the pumps drag in water to cool the engines.  It interferes with the thermal thrusters.  But don’t worry.” Alik shrugged and pressed something on the consol. “The heat will destroy whatever it is.”

Gagé sighed with a great relief and dropped his head back against the wall. “Good.”

8.

The volex crushed a new pattern into the corn, but Gagé stayed in his seat.  He listened as Andrew climbed onto the machine, chattering and swearing. “Where’s Sorcier.  He may know something about my father.  We can get the information out of him and capture my father before he ever finds out we have Sorcier.”

Alik pointed inside the volex. “He’s in the backroom.  I’ll get the antidote for the tranq.”

Gagé still didn’t move when Andrew rushed in from the deck of the volex and dove into the small curtained off room at the back.  Andrew returned to the main room of the volex after only a minute. “Where is he, Ice?”

“He’s not there?” Gagé glanced around. “I told Panya to bring him to the back room.”

“God damned women… Panya!” Andrew stormed onto the deck shouting. “Panya!  Where is this damned Sorcier!”

Gagé closed his eyes, imagining the tall woman towering over the corn, looking up in shock, when he heard her speak in her deep vice. “Panya put Sorcier in room at back.”

Phillip had more patience than Andrew. “Panya, go on up and show us.”

Alik was getting nervous. “He’s not in the back room.”

“Damn it.” Andrew growled. “If he was in the back room, wouldn’t I have found him?”

Gagé glanced out the window, watching Panya climb into the volex.  He stood to follow the others onto the deck, hesitating to let Iris and Jack follow directly after Panya.

Panya led them to the back of the volex and pointed. “Panya put man in there.”

“Panya.” Alik’s eyes grew wide. “That’s… the engine room.”

“Gagé said to put him in room at the back.” Panya stated.

“No, Panya.” Gagé stood in the doorway between the interior and the deck. “I told you to put him in the backroom.  In here.”

The woman rolled her dark eyes and groaned. “What difference?  Panya put him here.”

“What’s the difference?” Alik pulled open the door. “That’s the fucking difference.”

Iris’ scream was the most immediate reaction, but she muffled it by turning into Jack’s shoulder.  Phillip dropped back against the railing and cried. “Jesus God Almighty!”

Gagé walked down the deck to them and stated coolly. “I guess it wasn’t driftwood.”

Panya stared into the room, her eyes dark and swirling.  She opened her mouth, but only odd sounds emerged.  Gagé didn’t look at the heap of burned flesh and bones, when he patted her arm. “It was an accident, Panya.  You misunderstood.”

Jack rubbed Iris’ shoulders comfortingly. “The bastard deserved it anyway.  But we can’t get to Cunningham now.”

Andrew was surprisingly silent, staring at the charred body.  He knelt besides the ashes and Phillip muttered with disgust. “For Christ’s sake, Andy, leave it alone.”

When Andrew picked something shining around the bones of the neck, Phillip leaned closer to look at it. “That looks just like…”

“I think it is.” Andrew stared at the gold in his hand and rolled up his sleeve.  It fit neatly into the family crest branded in to his arm. “It can’t be though.  This emblem is carried by the leader of the clan.  He’d only pass it onto his heir or…”

“Have it taken from his dead body.” Gagé finished, glancing off into the sky. “You don’t look much like your father, Andrew.  He had red hair.”

“I take after my mother.” Andrew stared at the corpse and tucked the crest into his vest pocket. “Sorcier was the same man as my father?”

“No wonder their businesses were so interrelated.” Jack crossed her arms. “He must’ve had a tunnel or a passage from his office into a volex bay and gone to La Masque from there.”

Alik kept his eyes fixed on Gagé. “This turn of events ought to interest Morgan.  We’ll bring the DNA.  See who got toasted in my volex.”

“I’ll call him.” Iris slipped away, holding her hand over her mouth as if it were the only thing keeping her from screaming again.

9.

Walter Morgan groaned into his hands and lifted his head only to glance through the glass at the man sitting calmly at the interrogation table. “How can he possibly be so calm?”

“Who knows?  He probably sees this as an elaborate game.  He’s waiting for us to make our next move and thinking about all his options.” Alik rubbed his forehead.  It was his eyes that hurt, but he had discovered that rubbing them did not help. “He probably knows he’ll survive whatever we can throw at him.”

“We know that Cunningham is dead.  We don’t know if Sorcier is.  We know that Cunningham’s DNA was in the elevator to the sixtieth floor in La Masque.  We don’t know if Cunningham is the one who put it there.  We know that this man probably killed Cunningham.  We don’t know if it was on purpose.” Morgan paced before the pane. “I don’t know if this man is a clever villain or a justified victim.”

“Is it possible to be both?” Alik wondered.

Morgan sighed heavily and sat down in a folding chair across from Alik.  He stared at the man across from him for a long moment not really noticing him and then stated suddenly. “That surgery for your eyes… It went well.”

Alik looked up and said. “What?”

“Your eyes.” Morgan explained. “I never got the chance to tell you.  One can hardly tell their mechanical.  And it’s good to see your expressions for a change.”

“I don’t mind it.” Alik shrugged and looked back at the glass.

“Retributive justice caused that problem for you, didn’t it?” Morgan asked. “Something about seeing another man’s wife in a compromised state?”

“She was naked.” Alik replied. “But the law could never prove that I’d done anything more than look at her.  They let her husband chose my punishment being the one most affected by my crime.”

“They gave you the benefit of the doubt?” Morgan rubbed his chin.

Alik scoffed. “They had no proof.”

“Well.” Morgan glanced at the man behind the pane and sighed. “Neither do we, really.”

When Morgan opened the door to the interrogation room, Gagé sat straighter and folded his hands on the table.  The officer was calmer than Gagé had ever seen him and said as he sat down. “You really ought to be more nervous.”

“I am nervous.” Gagé replied, his expression undented by worry.

Morgan straightened the papers he had brought in. “Refugee 839:5…Damn those numbers… Do you acknowledge I am talking to you?”

“Sure.” Gagé shrugged. “I’m sure I’ve been called worse things that Refugee-8395-damn-those-numbers.”

“If you count the name Gagé among them, you’ll have to change it when you leave here.”  Morgan tossed the papers down before him.

Gagé looked down at the papers and then up at Morgan. “You’re giving me an identification card?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “My last name is not Sorcier.”

“You can change that to.” Morgan was pleased to see the man’s surprise and uneasiness. “Though I would suggest you claim the titles under Sorcier’s name first.  He owned La Masque and an unfinished building project in the German Territories.  God knows what he was building, but since the man left no heirs and no one seems to know of his existence but you, they’re yours to claim.”

Gagé pressed back into the chair as if he’d been stabbed. “I don’t… you have a record on him that you want to pin on me.  And if I sign this, you will have legal proof that I am who you think I am.  That’s what this is about.”

“If you want to think of it that way, that’s your prerogative.” Morgan replied and waved to the door. “Sign that paper and you’re free.”

Gagé didn’t touch the pen.

Morgan leaned on the table. “I’ll be frank.  I don’t want to lose track of you.  In a refugee sector, you’d be very easy to lose.  With an identification card, I can track your movements.  I’ll have your DNA on file.  Giving you an identity makes it easier to capture and convict you if you commit another crime.”

“And if I don’t?” Gagé smirked.

“Then I have the satisfaction of having released an innocent man, don’t I?” Morgan answered and rubbed the back of his neck. “Now sign the paper.”

Gagé hesitantly reached forward and took the pen.

10.

Morgan stood just inside the doorway of the Intersectoral Police Base, watching the newest citizen of the Parisian Sector through the glass door.  When he heard his communicator ring, he pressed a button and put it to his ear. “I’ll be back inside in a moment.”

“Daddy, it’s me.” Iris’ voice cooed in his ear.

Morgan pulled the communicator away from his ear and opened the small device to see a picture of his daughter.  He recognized Jack’s apartment behind her and sighed from relief. “I thought you might be on the boat just off shore ready to create a hostage situation.”

“I hope that didn’t influence your decision.” Iris laughed.

“I sent him on his way.” Morgan looked through the glass door again.  Gagé was waiting an escort to the Parisian Sector. “I imagine he’ll be making his way back to La Masque.”

“Oh me, too.” Iris stated. “He’s already called to ask if I wanted my job back.  Can you believe it?”

“I believe it.” Morgan nodded. “I hope you’re right about this one.”

“I was right about Jack,” Iris replied.

“You were right about Jack.” Morgan nodded, and sighed. “And you were right about Andrew Cunningham becoming the leader of the Cunningham clan.  And you were right about Phillip Froggs being his assistant.  I hope they don’t make any business arrangements with this Gagé fellow.  I had enough trouble with Sorcier and Cunningham when they were one man.”

“I don’t think you have to worry, Daddy.” Iris stated. “Gagé is really a sweetheart.  I’m sure of it.  Besides, I’ll still be at La Masque and I can find out anything you want to know.”

Morgan chuckled. “That’s my girl.  I never had any doubts that silly Victorian sensibility would hold you down.  I knew you’d end up in the law like me.”

Iris replied. “I didn’t end up in the law like you, Daddy.  I’m a lounge singer.”

11.

               Gagé returned to La Masque from an ingrained habit, though he nearly did not recognize the building when its lights were out and its windows were dark.  The distance between walls seemed too long for one floor to connect them, yet the corners seemed too close for the number of people that usually swept the place.  The bar was empty, the dressing rooms were uncluttered, and the Preferential Lounge was completely dark.

               After fumbling with a lighting box hidden behind a mirror, Gagé found the lights for the stage.  He was surprised to see Panya sitting at the edge of the stage. “Panya?”

               “Oh, hello Gagé.” She smiled.

               “How did you get in?” He asked, walking towards the stage.

               Panya shrugged as if she did not understand the question. “Panya sleep on stage, then heard Gagé open doors.  Panya want to see how things turn out for Gagé.”

               He looked at her through narrowed eyes.  “You’ve been looking for the gills and the flippers.  They’re in my office.  I’ll get them for you and you can go home.”

               “Panya no looking for those.  Panya want to see how things work for Gagé.” She smiled again, broader this time. “Besides Panya want to see other places before she goes home.”

               Gagé nodded, still distrusting her. “You’ll need to speak better English for that.”

               “Then Gagé teach better English.” Panya said with a roll of her eyes and an obvious smile.

               “I suppose I could do that.” Gagé felt awkward in the normal moment.

               “Panya will sing for you, because Panya’s singing melts Ice,” She leaned off the edge of the stage, closer to him and whispered. “And that’s better than burning in an engine room.”

               “You knew exactly what you were doing when you put him back there,” Gagé stepped away from the stage.

               “I knew what you were doing when you told me,” Panya replied.

Gagé waited for her next move, ready to run from the stronger woman.  She surprised him by smiling and jumping off the stage. “Let’s get Panya’s shoes and vests.  Panya will do deep swimming.  Panya will teach Gagé to swim, maybe.”

               Gagé watched her warily. “You’re… you want to stay here and work for me, still.”

               Panya nodded. “Sure.  Panya would like room closer to water.  Maybe down hall from Gagé.”

               He smiled faintly. “I can arrange that.”

               “So,” She asked again. “Did things turn out good?”

               He nodded. “I’m pretty certain things turned out well.”

1.

“Well, Maloup, Officer Jefferson over there caught you in a bar.” Officer Walter Morgan said as he pointed to the other officer sitting next to the door.  Morgan tilted back in the only comfortable chair in the interrogation room. “That’s a crime in your home-sector.  A sin, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I’m not a very good Muslim, Morgan.  I don’t kneel when I pray.”  The criminal removed the dark glasses framing his face.  His eyelids were sunk too deep inside the socket, shriveling to fill the place where his eyes were missing.

Morgan glanced away from the disturbing view of the criminal’s vacant eye sockets.  The other officer had a more visceral reaction. “What the hell happened to your eyes!”

Maloup’s face turned sharply to the sound of the voice but he spoke with absolute casualness. “Oh, they were gouged out.  By my government.  I was caught witnessing a naked woman.  Good thing they caught me then.  Hate to think of what I would be missing if her husband had stumbled in ten minutes later.”

“Oh, they would have just killed you.” Morgan glanced over to his fellow officer who was suddenly having difficulties sitting still. “You can leave, Jefferson.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get to Mecca either.” The criminal replaced his visual aids.  There was an electronic beep when they found their ports again. “They won’t let me near the sector.”

The other officer left and Morgan sighed. “You need to find a new way to get my attention, Alik.”

“When I let you arrest me, Walter, I’ve got a reason.  I expect to be brought to see you.  I don’t come here to play cops and robbers with your paper-boys.” Alik reached into his jacket and threw a small disc at Morgan. “I don’t want this case.”

Morgan caught the disc and pressed a button to unfold the dense object into a file he could read in his hand.  “Must you begin every report this way, Alik?  It’s rather dull.”

“I’m serious.” Alik replied. “I don’t feel right about this case.”

Morgan read the notes in the file and ignored the man who’d delivered them. “Did you get DNA from that Ice character yet?”

“No.” Alik said. “The man is neurotically clean.”

“Or he knows people might be looking.” Morgan snorted. “He’s probably a harmless lackey.”

“You never saw him do business.” Alik replied.

Morgan startled at something new in the file. “He’s attracted to other men?”

Alik nodded and said. “Ice is a very careful man.  He avoids that section of La Masque like the plague.  But every so often, he thinks I lose track of him and that’s where he goes.”

“What a perfect opportunity.  No doubt the only reason he has any shyness about it.” Morgan straightened in his chair. “Use that against him, Alik.  I don’t suppose you’re a bad looking chap so long as you keep those glasses on your face where they belong.”

“No.” Alik shook his head. “I’m not comfortable with that sort of thing.”

“Doesn’t Allah preach tolerance?” Morgan scoffed.

“You’re an asshole, Morgan.” Alik sneered. “I don’t like that kind of policing.”

Morgan asked aggressively. “How many people has this man ordered you to kill? Eleven?”

“Twelve.” Alik sighed. “This month there was that scientist.  Harriet Eastman?”

“The one who thinks she’s discovered Atlantis?” Morgan nodded. “She was terror getting into witness protection.  She actually thought we were part of a conspiracy to hide some new sector she discovered.  Absolutely insane.”

Alik said nothing to conflict with his opinion. “Actually the number was thirteen.  There was a girl whose step-mother wanted her dead.  Ice doesn’t usually do petty things like that, but the girl delivered communion to Mrs. Eastman, so it was convenient.  Ice is playing a little game with her.”

Morgan lowered the file. “A game, Alik?”

“He told me to sink the boat with her on it and then if she got to the land I was to bring her to him.  I brought her to La Masque with me.  I should have brought her to you.” Alik sighed again. “The step-mother wants her dead because they used to be lovers, if that explains Ice’s motives at all.”

“It doesn’t.” Morgan looked at the file again and then back at Alik. “I know you are a man of strong moral faith, Alik.  That’s why I trust you as an undercover, but this man has ordered the deaths of the twelve people.  And views the life of a thirteenth as a game.”

Alik sighed. “I know.”

Morgan set the file in front of him and left the room.  He paused in the doorway a moment to say. “Perhaps now is a time, when we should bend our principles for the greater good, Alik.”

Alik sighed again and picked up the file.

2.

“Tonight is his last night here.” Ice took another sip of his champagne and gestured to the man playing the omni-piano. “Phillip is going to work for the Cunninghams.”

Alik looked across the Preferential Lounge at the musician sweating before his instrument.  It was hard to fit the musician into any other role. “What a mistake.”

Ice hummed, disagreeing. “I think it will be worth our loss, just to watch the drama.”

“I mean he was making a mistake.” Alik replied.

“Oh, of course.” Ice chuckled. “The man’s a fool.”

“Are they all like toys to you?” Alik phrased the question disinterestly. “Or just the ones leaving to work for Cunningham?”

“Toys?” Ice smiled at the idea. “One breaks toys.  They are a collection.  But I own nothing.  Everything here is Sorcier’s collection.  I’m just the piece he’s had the longest.  You ought to know that.  He hired you to make sure I stay here.”

“I’ve never even spoke to Sorcier.  You hired me to be your bodyguard.” Alik protested.

“Have I ever had a need for a bodyguard?” Ice pointed out snidely. “Sorcier knows if he pays someone to shadow me, he will always know when I go missing.”

“Do you go missing that often?” Alik answered.

Ice narrowed his eyes at the man. “You know I don’t.  Now stop taking advantage of the fact that I am drinking or I’ll have to find you an alcohol substitute and take advantage of you.”

Alik was certain there was a threat somewhere in that statement, but he said nothing to bring Ice’s attention to it.  Alik glanced to the stage and the dark woman draped in green and blue silks.  He was used to seeing the tall woman out of costume when she would wear nothing but red.  Alik didn’t understand her wordless vocalizations, but she was Ice’s favorite. “Sounds like you’re the same as Panya and that Victorian girl?  Part of a collection.”

“You’ve been talking to that Jack-girl again.  It’s sad how that turned out.  Between Panya and Sarah I mean.” Ice remarked, not answering the question, leaning on his arm and staring at the performer. “I really thought Panya would help Sarah open up.  She’s a great singer though.”

“What about Iris Morgan?” Alike asked.

Ice dropped his hand and rolled his eyes over to Alik. “What are you getting at, Maloup?”

The name reminded Alik of his assumed persona and he grumbled. “Nothing, I guess.  I just remember the trouble you went through to lure her here.”

“Going to a few of Andrew Cunningham’s balls is hardly trouble.” Ice took another sip of his champagne. “And I didn’t lure anyone.  I gave her what she wanted.”

Alik saw Ice’s slight grin. “It’s not my fault what she wants leads to certain demise.”

“Like with Phillip.” Alik suggested.

Ice glared this time. “Phillip came to me.”

Alik wished for his own drink, then lifted his eyes and wished he had never tasted alcohol.  He asked. “Do you give all people what they ask for?”

“Only the ones it would pain me to lose.  So you’re safe.” Ice laughed sweetly.  He added just as insultingly. “Why?  Is there a girl you want nearby?”

“I don’t…” Alik paused only a moment. “I don’t really like girls.”

Alik didn’t miss Ice’s darting glance of surprise.  He saw the pale eyes drift down his body, but said nothing.  Ice returned to his champagne, seeming indifferent. “Interesting.”

3.

Alik did not enjoy hanging in the air sixty stories above the hard grey streets of the Low Parisian Sector, but he liked the idea of falling much less, so he continued climbing.  Ice’s window was less than three feet away now, not much of a climb considering the nine feet he’d already managed.  This building had been designed to make it difficult to climb from window to window.

Panya was still standing on the balcony below, red as a bloodstain against the white stucco of the building, her arms crossed.  Alik wondered if she would care if he fell.  He muttered. “This is nothing a man passionately in love couldn’t do.”

It was nothing Alik couldn’t do, but still he turned to the east for a moment of silent prayer when he felt the thick metal of a balcony beneath his feet again.  He pushed open the sliding glass to Ice’s apartment and found it opened easily.  He’d expected a lock.

The apartment was enormous, occupying the entire sixtieth floor.  A sense of vast emptiness lingered across the polished suite, though the space was filled with expensive luxuries.  The only source of light came from outside the windows at the far end of the apartment.  Alik couldn’t tell if it was light from another building or the moon, but it lent a pale sheen to everything in the room.  The bed could have been a giant’s footstool, raised on a platform in the corners farthest from Alik.  Inside the bed, the tiny blonde man was asleep, lost inside the grandeur of the room.

The crimson of the bed swallowed Alik’s view as he walked towards him, but Ice never seemed to get any closer, only more detailed.  Ice didn’t possess his cold edge when he was asleep.  The man’s pale skin was marred only by the deep shadow cutting from his collarbone into the curl of his bare shoulder.  The room seemed very hot to Alik suddenly.

When Alik settled at the edge of the bed, he was surprised that Ice awoke.  Ice, as still and calm as he was during his waking hours, filled with a deference and a melancholy that Alik had never imagined, and as he spoke, he coiled deeper, each muscle tensing as his arched body tried to become a full circle. “Claude, I was not expecting you tonight.”

Alik sat a moment in stillness, overwhelmed by the uncertainty in Ice’s voice. “Is that Sorcier’s first name?  Claude?”

The circle snapped into two straight lines as Ice startled and sat up.  His features were wide and naked, unmasked by the pastels he usually wore.  It made his eyes and mouth softer when they melted into the rest of his face. “How did you get up here?  Maloup?”

“It’s me alright.  My real name is Alik.” The moment Alik said his name he realized he might have kept it a secret. “And you have about twenty balconies out there.  I only have to take the elevator to the fifty ninth and climb one.”

Ice recovered from his shock and tugged the blanket high on his waist, seeming merely uncomfortable. “I’ll have to install locks.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” Alik dropped his hand on the bed to the other side of Ice’s waist.

Ice had no reply, glancing down at the dark hand, dazed to see something so foreign next to his thigh.  Alik absorbed the closeness, noticing for the first time the small discolorations where the red of Ice’s blood pumped closer to the surface of his translucent skin.  He was not wearing his scarf and his neck looked bare and vulnerable without the delicate silk.  The man never seemed more human or more delicate as when Alik took the tilted chin in his hand and directed the man’s face towards him.  Ice refused to turn the pristine blueness of his eyes away from the corner of his bed, as if he were reluctant to acknowledge the kiss about to happen.

Alik didn’t care, pressing their mouths together and counting it in his favor that Ice closed his eyes.  Ice’s tense shiver spread contagiously though Alik.  The tremble of an aroused body was exciting, and Alik slipped into the kiss with more naturalness than he would have liked.

Ice remained still, clenching his eyes shut, even when Alik pulled back.  He said something shakily in a language Alik did not speak.

Alik kissed his cheek lightly, mocking him. “I don’t speak German, Ice.”

“You should go.” The whisper, neither translation nor protest, chilled the room.

“No, I shouldn’t.” Alik kissed him again, surprised by how easily it happened.  He continued plying the other man’s mouth, until Ice’s hands slipped down his arms, shifting from rejection into welcome.  Alik’s mouth traveled away from the warm, panting lips he had uncovered and found the curve of Ice’s neck. “Do I call you-“

“Gagé.” He interrupted with a voice too warm to belong to Ice and he shivered with honesty.  “Sorcier named me Gagé when he took me out of the German territories.  I know it’s not my birth name, but I don’t remember what I was called before.”

“You must have been very young.” Alik noticed the shadow he cast over the slender man’s waist. For the first time, Alik remembered the cruelty in his seduction and trembled. “When Sorcier took you here I mean.”

Gagé lifted his eyes, then his hands, his arms, and his body, until he had rolled Alik onto his back and half-covered him.  His chill returned with a sardonic remark. “I doubt you came all this way just to talk to me, though.”

Alik reached up and caught the hand creeping beneath his shirt.  Gagé looked into his face, his eyes cool and wary.  Alik released his hand and gently touched the man’s arm.  Gagé shook again as Alik spoke. “I came here because I wanted more of you.”

He would have said more, but Gagé commanded suddenly. “Take off your glasses.”

Alik caught himself telling the truth again. “They’re visual aids.  My eyes were… I was blinded when I eighteen.”

“What did you do?” Gagé crossed his arms and leaned on Alik’s chest.

“I… I saw.” Alik hesitated stumbling as he lied. “I was caught staring at another man bathing.  It was not my first offence.”

Gagé nodded with a distance that may have been disbelief. “Laws.  What can you do with the stupid things but break them.”

Alik had his own smirking reply, but Gagé said quietly. “I was seven, I think, when I met Sorcier.  I really ought to remember.  You’d be surprised at what you forget when you are trying not to remember.  My father was priest and the leader of a small mercenary village.  I’m pretty sure he was fighting to keep the Germanic Territories from becoming an extension of the Parisian and the Berleen Sectors.  It hardly matters.  We were very simple people.  One winter, our search for food led us into a garden where the winter turned into the summer and the food was so large and strange it had to be magic.”

“An environmental dome with a genetically engineered garden?” Alik suggested.

“Of course.” Gagé shrugged. “But we didn’t know that.  It was in the section of the territories that spoke French so we called it Maison de’la Sorcier.  All winter we stole from that garden.  Then one day, Sorcier himself descended from the heavens.”

Gagé dropped his head into his hands, against Alik’s chest and laughed bitterly mostly to himself.  Alik realized this was probably the first time Gagé had ever told this story. “He was in a dirty volex.  But we had never seen one and we thought he had the power to kill us all.  My father begged him to allow us to repay him.  Sorcier was probably just amusing himself.  He asked for my father’s first born.  He didn’t change his price when he saw me.”

Alik shifted tensely, more intimidated by the man’s stillness and silence than he had been by their kissing. “I had no idea…  Does he climb up here, too?”

“Oh, no.” Gagé replied, laying his cheek against his hands. “He takes the elevator.”

“That only opens with DNA.  One person’s DNA.” Alik protested.

Gagé shut his eyes. “And why do you know this, Alik?”

“I…” Alik froze.  He had expected a confession, a startled reply, but he’d forgotten who was whispering to him. “I had Jack find out.  Before I found out you had a balcony I could climb.”

When Gagé hummed and lifted his head, Alik wondered if the other man could feel his heart rate quicken and detect the lie.  Gagé said nothing either way, reaching behind his head to untie his hair, which was as ever bound in his casual ponytail.  His hair fell around his face in seductive golden strands, hanging beyond his shoulders and there was something in his faint smile that caused every muscle in Alik’s lower body to clench itself tighter in shock and resistance.

His fingers did not feel the same resistance and Alik twisted his hand through the curling golden ends. “I never knew you hair was so long.”

He was ready to kiss Gagé again, when he felt the man’s hands on his belt sliding out the knife Alik kept there.  It felt like his insides pulled towards the knife, trying to take it back, and then dropped heavily back down into a perfect stillness. He thought he had removed all his weapons.  He wondered how Gagé had found out about his deception, but he did not feel he was in a position to ask.  He braced himself for a stabbing.

But instead of killing him, Gage stretched part of his hair down in one hand and cut through the strand with the knife. He tied a knot in one end and handed the curls to Alik. “Sorcier makes glove-tips with my hair.  The DNA opens the elevator and keeps him secret.  It will keep you a secret, too, but you can’t use the elevator tonight.  It would not be an equal number of trips and he would know…”

“I’ll leave the way I came.” Alik took the knife and the hair from Gagé and pushed them both into his belt.  He reached his hands around the man’s slim shoulders again, but Gagé swiveled away suddenly, sitting up and turning his back on Alik.

“Good.” Gagé tied his hair back again. “I’ll see you in the morning then.”

“What?” The word stumbled out in Alik’s surprise.  It felt just as genuine to him, when he grazed his hands down the other man’s slender back and held him at his hips. “Why?”

Gagé had trembled fiercely at the contact, but his voice was cool. “Because I asked you to.  Now go away.”

Alik thought of several clever and seductive phrases he could have used against the small man sitting at the edge of the impossibly large bed.  But the distance in those pale eyes was so foreign to everything Alik knew about the man that Alik left him untouched.  He forgot later if he said anything before he left or if he just sank into the darkness the way he came.

4.

Three days and a warrant arrest later, Alik sat across the interrogation table from Walter Morgan, who was pacing with a report under his arm. “I haven’t seen you in a long time, Alik.  I’ve been worried.”

“At least you can get proof of my depravity any time that’s convenient for you.” Alik muttered.  “I never realized it was this easy to get arrested.  Did the DNA come back yet?”

“He’s twenty-two.  A solid Aryan, so it’s perfectly logical that he came directly out of the German Territories.” Morgan rattled of details. “He has a remarkable tolerance for Amp 16.  Interesting drug choice, isn’t it?  A desire to be paralyzed and hallucinate?  I’ve only met a few offenders who abuse something like that.”

“You sure he’s abusing it?” Alik remarked. “Sorcier may have drugged him in the past.”

“Amp 16 is the drug of choice for child molesters.” Morgan seemed disinterested and continued reading the report.  “He is not on file in any intersectoral base, which means he is not a citizen of any sector, and if he is arrested shall receive immediate deportation to a refugee sector or to his home territory.  Oh, and he has an iron deficiency.  Tell him to eat more meat the next time you see him.”

“I’ll do that.” Alik scowled.

Morgan sighed. “He’s too young to be Sorcier.  You have any idea how much that irritates me.”

“He knows about Sorcier.  He just hasn’t let on yet.” Alik replied. “I think he might know about me.  But I have no proof and he hasn’t said anything outright.”

“He doesn’t seem like the type that would.” Morgan hummed. “Can you ever get him to talk about Sorcier, do you think?”

Alik nodded. “It’s possible.”

“The slippery bastard.” Morgan dropped into the chair across the table, and leaned his head on his knees.  Alik looked at the man, his body a large fleshy pyramid, compact and certain.  Gagé would have looked different.  His slender chest would have coiled away as if reluctant to touch the rest of his body, a ball with part of it chewed out.  Alik had been thinking about Gagé and his body more than he wanted to admit.

“He could have killed Sorcier and adopted his name.” Morgan suggested.

“He’s not Sorcier.” Alik protested. “He’s Sorcier’s prisoner.”

Morgan raised his eyes. “Are you so sure?”

Alik hesitated and sighed. “This case is killing me.  I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“Be sure of this.” Morgan pointed to the report on the table. “The man’s a skilled manipulator, possibly a murderer with extroverted and sociopathic tendencies, and he lacks the ability to acknowledge the value of human life.  You said that yourself.”

“Yeah well, that was my first reports.  I’m not so certain anymore.” Alik sighed heavily. “If I can get him to identify Sorcier, to work with us, will you give him citizenship to the Parisian Sector?”

Morgan shook his head ‘no’, then changed his mind and said. “If you need that leverage to negotiate with him, fine.  As a personal favor, no.”

5.

The elevator to the sixtieth floor did not play music and Alik always felt impatient waiting for the doors to open.  The journey upwards could not have taken more than a few minutes, but the elevator did not have the usual hum of operating machinery and its movement was nearly imperceptible.  It was an eternity before the doors slid open.

The elevator opened to the kitchen area in the apartment and tonight Gagé was perched in front of the counter facing the elevator.  Alik laughed when Gagé startled, surprised enough by his unexpected visit that he dropped his fork and turning as white as the penne he was eating.  Gagé recovered instantly, smiling with close-lipped embarrassment and tapping a napkin against his mouth.

Alik invited himself in. “Sorcier gets that reaction every time he come up here?”

“Only when he is unexpected.” Gagé cleaned off his fallen fork. “You didn’t tell me you were coming to visit today.  I have already eaten most of my dinner.”

“I already ate.  La Masque has great pork chops.” Alik swayed over to the counter and leaned on the polished green surface. “You should try it sometime.  Get some iron in your blood.”

“Iron?” Gagé smiled vaguely.

Alik stiffened when Gagé hummed as if a suspicion had been confirmed, then awkwardly climbed onto the stool on his side of the counter.

Gage didn’t seem to notice Alik’s awkwardness.  He twirled the pasta on his fork and glanced up sweetly. “So you are visiting, but not for dinner.  I wonder how you expect to be entertained, since you will not drink with me.  I have nothing else.”

“You have yourself.” Alik replied.

“Oh, so bold today.” Gagé responded with a mocking smile.  Alik realized there was not a barrier between them beneath the counter when he felt slender fingers on his leg and Gagé lowered his pasta-woven fork. “I don’t think I want my dinner any more.”

Alik coiled with nervousness but his expression didn’t change. “You’re letting me be bold.  Something must have changed between you and Sorcier.”

“You like to talk about Sorcier.  I wonder why?” Gagé melted away from the stool, and walked across the broad plane of the apartment.  Alik swallowed hard when he realized Gagé was heading towards the bed. 

Gagé stretched his arms over his head so that the narrow strings of his muscles tensed beneath his shirt. “I think you’re jealous of Sorcier and you’re trying to demean him by seducing his lover.”

“I think you hate Sorcier and you’re trying to demean him by seducing me.” Alik followed him and roped his arms around Gagé from behind, capturing his slender body as much to respond to the alluring gesture as to keep Gagé away from his bed.

Gagé hummed again and leaned into Alik, closing his eyes and dropped his head back against Alik’s shoulder.  The intimacy stunned Alik and he didn’t move when Gagé tucked one hand around Alik’s arm and lifted his other hand to the back of Alik’s neck.  Alik was crippled with the desire to either put some distance between himself and the other man or close the spaces between them.

Alik was caught off guard when Gage murmured against his neck. “So strange.  That we’ve both been so very intent to seduce the other just to spite Sorcier, but the actual seduction has not yet occurred.”

The moment slipped into a tense silence.  The banter taught Alik what he wanted and it kept Gagé at a safe distance.  Alik drew his arms tighter around Gagé feeling the muscles in his chest that strung his ribs together.  He noticed Gagé writhe and tightened his arms to make the slight man more uncomfortable.  “Maybe it’s because you keep avoiding me.”

“Don’t I have good reason too?” Gagé spoke with an even serious tone.

Alik rarely heard that tone from Gagé; it was his way of concealing anger.  Alik wondered if that some tone might hide fear too.  He squeezed tighter, until Gagé lowered both his hands to Alik’s arms to try and dislodge his hands.  Alik whispered harshly. “You hate him, don’t you?”

“No.  I love him passionately.” Gagé purred with sarcasm, but didn’t forget about escaping.

Alik released him suddenly, expecting him to play coy again, but Gagé turned to face him, pressing closer and casually stringing his arms over Alik’s shoulder.  The movement was abrupt and more intimate than before and his tone was inescapable. “But I tire of talking about Sorcier.  I’m tired of talking in general.”

There would be no early exit tonight.  Gage had made the decision.  It was a small burden lifted from Alik and when he kissed Gagé, he was only worried that Gagé would suspect his sudden eagerness.  This close, things felt fabricated, too forced.  Alik wished it was as easy as their first kiss.

Alik knew Gagé felt his prickling discomfort.  Gagé was not the kind of man who missed things like that, but he was the kind of man to neglect to mention them if it suited him.  Or to remedy the problem if he chose.  When Gagé pulled their lips apart, it was to rebuild the kiss on Alik’s neck.  His fingers skied across Alik’s chest pressing over the muscles beneath his shirt, testing his body’s resistance to touch.  Alik shivered at the delicacy of the touch, the body, the man.  When Gagé led him to the bed, he did not protest.

With Gagé pressed beneath him, moving his pale hands over his bare chest, Alik allowed the barriers of a lifetime slip away.  He kissed the pale abdomen nestled between the waves of a white blouse and the pale silk scarf that was always tied around Gagés neck, encouraged the swift gushes of arousal to suppress the squirming nervousness in his stomach cause by another male body.  He focused instead on the floral perfume, the slender bones, the quiet voice.  The gentleness of the kiss drowned under waves of a deepening violence.  His teeth gnawed at the pale flesh.  His fingers gripped tighter, scratching between thin ribs as if to tear the delicate body before him open and feast on whatever may have been inside.

“I had not thought Maloup would come back.” Gagé spoke softly, but still Alik startled.  Not because of the name, but because of the voice.  The floral perfume suddenly masked a male scent and the slender bones were too close to the flesh when the calm tenor was speaking.

Alik looked up at Gagé, looking down at him with pale watery eyes.  He was more vulnerable than he was used to and he wasn’t bothering to hide it.

“I’m sorry.” Alik slipped his hands, gentle again, to the front of the other man’s trousers.

“You can stop.” Gagé said, laying his hand across Alik’s and pushing away.

Alik jolted his face upward again, and Gagé sighed.  He lifted a hand to twist through Alik’s dark hair and he said, quietly. “I wanted to see how far you would take this.  How far you would go for this mission.  But I changed my mind.  It’s very irritating, Alik.  I think you’ve given me a conscience.”

“What are you talking about?” Alik shifted back onto his knees. “What mission?”

Gagé turned to look out the window, and then squeezed his eyes shut and replied. “I know you work for Walter Morgan.  I knew it when you first came to work here.  Maloup’s record was perfect; he was an overly careful killer.  But you… you brought that girl from the Vatican to La Masque when I gave you the option of killing her.  Maloup would not do that.”

Alik dropped his head between his braced arms, but before he could put words to his thoughts, Gagé continued. “I knew you were not attracted to men from the start.”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?” Alik demanded harshly.

“I did.” Gagé answered.

Gagé carefully shifted so that he was farther away from Alik sitting up.  Alik never replied, jumping from the bed to find his removed shirt and escape quickly.  Gagé didn’t make a move to prevent him, but spoke after a moment. “I was going to get some sort of revenge by making you go through with it, but you’re too good at acting.  Do they train you for this?  Were you specifically sent here because Morgan knew I-”

“No.” Alik interrupted him venomously. “Morgan would have sent someone with his face intact if that was his plan.  The bastard.”

“You know, I’m not going to tell Sorcier about you.” Gagé read Alik’s hurry perfectly. “I’d like to stay neutral in all this.  I have more to gain from his arrest than anyone.”

Alik hesitated, looking at the man casually reclining in the large bed watching him. “Then you’ll help me?”

“No.” Gagé laughed. “Not a chance.”

“Why not?” Alik lost his temper, when Gagé shrugged his shoulders listlessly. “How can you be so casual about this?  Don’t you realize that you’re almost his prisoner?”

“There’s no almost about it.” Gagé replied.

“If you don’t like it, escape.  I can help you.” Alik stepped closer in his appeal. “Morgan can keep you safe until Sorcier is destroyed.  You can start a new life outside of La Masque.”

Alik stepped back when Gagé replied coldly. “Why?  What have they got out there that’s so good for someone like me?  Are you going to steal me away to a castle with a tall tower and take care of my every need, Alik?”

“No.” Alik grumbled deep in his throat. “No, I won’t.”

“No.  You won’t. ” Gagé repeated simply.  His voice darkened with bitterness. “I won’t talk to Sorcier about you.  And I won’t talk to you about Sorcier.  And you will work here until it is convenient for you to leave.  But most importantly…” Gagé turned away. “You won’t come up here again.”

Alik began to protest, but he found that nothing he tried to say made it to his mouth.  Eventually, he stepped towards the elevator. “This wasn’t my idea.  I didn’t mean to hurt-”

“Don’t be stupid, Alik.” Gagé scoffed. “Just go away.”

Alik reached into his pocket and pulled out the strain of hair Gagé had given him.  He pressed it against the elevator’s pad and the door opened.  He intended on dropping it inside as he left, but the golden strands remained tangled in his fingers and followed him down the elevator in his pocket.

6.

Alik stood in the elevator leading to Gagé one last time.  The note Gagé had sent still fidgeted in his hands as Alik read it again.  The writing was clean, and neat, and childlike, but the message was vague, exactly what Alik expected to see from Gagé.  He had wasted no time getting into the elevator this time and as the silent still machine brought him higher, he wondered if it was wishful thinking that made him believe Gagé would talk to him honestly about Sorcier.  He tugged at the collar on his shirt, wondering why the elevator took so long.

A dull thumping sounded from somewhere over his head.  He twisted the blonde hair between his fingers, looking at the golden sheen and wondering why the locks were so smooth and cool.  They looked like they should be warmer.  The thumping grew louder, banging into a more desperate and repeated sound.  Alik stepped into the corner of the elevator, far from the slit where the door began to open.  He pushed the hair into his pocket.

The pounding sounded at his side, and it hovered there next to him for a moment.  The elevator doors opened and Alik jolted into the wall behind him when Gagé suddenly hurled himself into the elevator.  Gagé did not notice him at first, his eyes focused in a wide expression of dread that Alik had never seen inside his room.  Alik snapped his attention to the apartment, but saw no one there.  The pounding had stopped. “Gagé, what the hell is going on?”

The wildness of Gagé’s eyes settled on Alik, heavy and mute.  His expression shifted from desperation into an intense despair.  Gagé opened his mouth to speak but before Alik heard a word something black swung into his face and broke the right side of his visual aid.  Half of his vision blurred into static.  He lifted one hand to cover the broken side of his visual aid.

He saw his attacker for a brief instant.  Sorcier was taller than he expected.  His hair was a dark red and he wore a neat trimmed beard.  Alik grabbed the cane as it swung towards his other eye.

Sorcier wrenched the cane back and when Alik would not release it, pulled him out of the elevator.  Alik stared hard at the face he was seeing through a blur of static black and white and real color.  His eyes were green.  His face square.  About fifty, but in extremely strong shape.

Neither was able to win the cane.  Alik struggled to think of how to break the stalemate and get away from this room and the trap laid for him.  Sorcier did not give him time, abruptly releasing the cane and darting forward to grab the glasses on Alik’s face.  Alik’s world plummeted into darkness.  He gripped the cane in both hands and swung at the space before him, but he could no longer find Sorcier.

Alik felt a hard tug as Sorcier grabbed the cane, but he could not tell where the other man was until a booted foot rammed into his thigh.  Alik’s hold on the weapon broke and before he could draw another breath, the cane was shattering around his head and shoulders, hitting too hard from too many angles.  His attacker seemed infinite, and Alik could only back away from the blows, stepping forward only to stumble for the weapon, or to grab at Sorcier and find only air.

He heard nothing from Gagé and he did not know the room well enough to know how close he was to the window.  When it was Sorcier’s hands pushing him back and not the cane, Alik realized the window would not catch him.  He fell without a sound.

1.

Panya bobbed in the ocean, miles from shore and perfectly calm.  Streaks of green, red and brown striped her hair clumping in the water like seaweed.  The woman in the boat who had promised to take Panya onto the boat for a ride was no where in sight and the boat was gradually going under the water.

Panya gurgled into the salt water. “The boat-lady lied.”

The boat kept sinking, but Panya watched unconcerned.  She lifted her chin out of the brine when she saw a different lady covered in black kneeling in the water.  A stream of red flowed behind her, damp, long, and brilliant.  This lady, red-cloth lady, was prettier than the boat lady.  Panya swam closer, her eyes so close to the water that foam clung to her eyebrow.

Waves lapped over the boat and a white flower floated past Panya’s face.  Her eyes darted towards it, then her hand as she snapped the flower below the water to keep.  After a few minutes she lifted the flower and began to push it into her knotted hair.

Panya watched as the water pulled around the ship.  She had seen this before and was not alarmed.  She smiled when the red-cloth lady began to dance.  She was singing too, but the song stung Panya’s ears and was not as graceful as her waving arms.  Panya worried when the woman disappeared below the waters.  She was not wearing any gills.

As Panya dove under the waves her bare legs and brown flippers replaced the red and green hair.  She swam beneath the waving currents of the surface until she could wrap her arms around the woman sliding into darkness.  The red-cloth lady was heavy and her black skirts billowed like the fins of a delicate fish.

The red-cloth lady made an ugly gasping sound when she broke the surface and sagged back into Panya’s arms.  Panya didn’t care about her ugly voice, she cradled her face out of the waves, amazed by the pale features.  She pulled her own seaweed hair away from the woman’s face and stared at her as if seeing for the first time.

2.

“Hey, you over there.” Panya held the red-cloth lady tighter when she heard a man’s voice.  She did not trust the fishermen, but this man was no fisherman.  He was in an air machine and his mouth was dropped in surprise. “What the hell are you?”

“Panya.” She answered with a voice deep and smooth. “From Atlantis.”

Panya could not see his eyes because he was wearing dark glasses.  He reached out his arms and commanded. “Give that girl to me.”

“No.” Panya protested, holding the woman closer and sinking far into the water. “Panya will keep red-cloth lady.”

The man reached out his hand. “Get her head out of the water!  You want her to drown?”

Panya kicked her legs harder and pulled the red-cloth lady out of the water again.  She looked at the woman’s dark clinging hair and brushed it away sadly. “Drown…”

She swam over to the edge of the air machine and lifted the woman out of the waves.  His hands reached down and as Panya held her towards him he ripped the black cloth weighing down the red-cloth lady’s body.  Before he could untie her cap, the woman moaned and Panya gasped and pulled her back. “Red-cloth lady is awake.  Panya keep now.”

In the water, the black fabric fell away and left her body smooth and glistening in Panya’s arms.  Panya lifted the edges of the red cloth around the pale body as if the sheen would burn her.

The man in the air machine said, “You can’t keep her.  She’ll drown.  She’s not… not like you.”

Panya considered and then lifted the limp body towards the man again, memorizing the curve of her spine. “When red-cloth lady is better, Panya can see her again?”

The man pulled the woman into the air machine and then panted and stared at the woman swimming before him.  Panya narrowed her eyes distrusting the look of awe. “Man in air machine bring red-cloth lady back when she is better.”

The man pointed to the misty distance of the shore. “See that port over there.  Meet me there tomorrow at this time.”

Panya nodded. “Panya wants to keep her.  Man will bring her back?”

The man in the air machine laughed and shook his head amazed. “I’ll bring someone to help you.  His name is Ice.”

She nodded again.  “This is good.  I will speak to Ice and he will help me keep red-cloth lady.”

Panya flipped away in the water, swimming deep.  She touched the white flower in her hair to make sure she still had the pale reminder and she smiled at the amazing kindness of the land people.

3.

“When does Ice bring Sarah to see Panya?” Panya dropped the dice onto the sand next to her head, splashing the water at her elbow.

“I’ve already explained, Panya.” Ice leisurely sat in the shade of the craggily rocks, one hand draped over his raised knee. “She wouldn’t survive in the water.  Just like you wouldn’t last out of it.”

Ice’s tone lightened. “And just like I won’t survive in this sun.  Maloup.  Will you bring that bag I packed?  I left it under the seat.”

Panya looked over her shoulder at the man who drove the air machine.  She wasn’t interested in his grumbling and turned back to the dice.  “Sarah will love me.”

She rolled a two and a four and then clapped and pointed. “Look!  Snake eyes.”

Ice regarded her roll and then said. “No, that’s a two, Panya.  Snake eyes is two ones.”

Panya snorted, sweeping the dice back into her hands. “Sarah will still love Panya.”

When Maloup dropped the bag on the rocks next to him, Ice casually reached for a bottle of sun block inside. “I could bring you to her, I suppose.  But no… never mind.”

Maloup had been stepping back towards the volex, but he hesitated to listen.

Panya was even more interested in the casual remark, jolting her naked torso out of the water, sliding on the mud. “How!  Monsieur Ice have way for Panya leave water?”

Ice waved his hand, ushering her back.  “Not yet.  So go back in, Panya.  You don’t want to dry up and burn.”

She slammed her hand on the stone. “Ice will say how.”

He did not say anything uncapping the bottle of sun screen and dropping it like an expensive cream into his hands.

Panya gurgled back to the water and muttered. “Please, Monsiuer Ice will say how?”

“Such a change won’t be easy.  Going from a water person to a land person, is not easy.” Ice leisurely rubbed the sun screen over his hands, petting it against his cheeks as he spoke. “I’ve already had to make arrangements with Sorcier.  He’s a very powerful man, but he’s also very dangerous.  I wouldn’t want to work with him if I had the choice.  He could get you settled on land.  And, of course, there’s payment.  Sorcier won’t make a change like that for free.”

Panya reached under the water and pulled out a plastic bag. “I do more swimming for you.  I forgot to give today’s swimmings.”

Ice looked into the plastic bag at a handful of pearls, considerably more coins, and one beer can.  He handed the bag to Maloup and said. “You could not swim for us if you were to live on land.”

Panya’s voice melted into the waves. “How pay?”

“Perhaps you could waitress.” Ice shrugged. “Do you sing by any chance?”

Against her dark smiling lips, her teeth looked like the pearls she had brought to him.  She pulled her waist out of the water again. “Panya will sing for Ice.  Ice will melt to hear Panya sing.”

The man straightened a bit curious if she realized her own wordplay.  He decided that she did not and added cautiously. “And you have to make her love you.  That’s part of the contract.”

“Or Panya goes home?” She wondered.

“No.  You stay with Sorcier at La Masque.  You can’t leave.” Ice reached into the bag, Maloup had brought over and pulled out a slender paper. “I have it all written here.  Can you read English?”

“Better than Panya speak English.” She reached out her hand.  She did not read too far before she said. “Give pen.”

Ice held out a pen. “Why don’t you consider it overnight and-”

“I want my Sarah.” Panya elbowed her way on shore. “Give me pen.”

Maloup leaned against the stone and muttered to Ice. “That was easier than you thought.”

Ice shifted his eyes to the tall man. “I never said it would be difficult for me.”

Panya signed the contract and climbed out of the water. “No one on land wears gills or fins.”

She pulled a scaly vest away from her neck and shoulders and threw it onto the rocks, then bent forward to pull at the brown flippers that clung to her ankles and feet.  Ice picked them up and put them into his bag. “I’ll save these for you.”

“Panya notice boat lady, and Sarah, and Ice, and Mal-person all wear fabrics.” She crouched on the rocks, and struggled to stand.  When she felt her feet firmly beneath her, she waved her hand commandingly. “Panya will take Mal-person’s for now.”

Maloup scoffed at the suggestion until the woman walked up to him, seeming very sure of her feet.  She stood taller than him and was nearly as broad.  She wasn’t prepared to back away from her request. “Panya will take Mal-person’s for now.”

Ice slung the bag over his shoulder and walked towards the volex.  He patted Maloup’s shoulder as he passed. “I never said she wouldn’t be difficult for you.”

4.

Panya shivered at the cold air, still wearing the clothing she had taken from Maloup.  She was humbled into silence by the tall rooms and glittering hallways, by the people dancing and talking, and mostly by the quiet surrounding the dark hall Ice had lead her too.

“Miss Huntington?” Ice knocked on one of the walls. “Sarah, are you in there?”

Sarah answered, muffled. “I’m in prayer, Gagé.  Come back later.”

“Who is this Gagé?” Panya whispered.

“No one.” Ice scowled and then called back to the bodiless voice. “I brought you a roommate.  Come meet her.”

“I’ll have no roommate.” Sarah replied, starkly.  The lock on the door rattled.

“Ah, but she’ll have you; her first mistake.” Ice laughed. “We found her in the water.  Praising no one for her rescue.  A desperate optimist in need of conversion.”

“Gagé, stop trying to belittle my beliefs. “ The door opened.  And there stood Sarah swathed in luxurious black cotton from her neck to her ankles.  Her hair was unbound and her red cape hanging beside the door.

Panya swallowed her tongue when she saw her and stepped behind Ice as if the slight man could possibly hide her.  She was far taller and broader than he and her shrinking body looked like a background for his pale distaining look.

Sarah nodded politely to Panya and held the door open wider. “Hello.”

“She won’t give you trouble.” Ice promised. “But try not to damage her.  She is wonderfully happy as a heathen.”

Sarah stepped out of the doorway to allow Panya to shuffle through. “I’ll pray for her soul as I pray for yours, Gagé.”

Ice hummed and closed the door.

Panya took a seat on the floor, tired of standing.  She crossed her legs, flapping her knees and getting used to the feeling of sitting.  She smiled up at Sarah who had lifted a hand to her mouth and was studying her. “Are you really a heathen?”

Sarah seemed to like the idea, so Panya nodded.

“Come sit up here.” Sarah sat down on the sofa and patted the cushion as an instruction. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I am Panya.” She moved to the sofa, giggling when she sank into the cushion and pulling her knees against her chest and rocking from side to side.  She remembered Ice’s advice and lied. “Panya is from the Caribbean Sectors.  We grew coconuts.”

5.

Panya stared hard at herself in the mirror as she wrapped her costume, a sea-green piece of cloth, around her dark body.  She had not covered her chest when the door to the dressing room opened.  Panya glanced over, unflinchingly immodest as another performer entered. “Hallo, Monique.”

“My dear Panya, you’re positively naked.” Monique laughed, acknowledging her as the other performers did, by treating her like some oddly communicative pet.  Monique swept by her to hang up her dark cloak. “You really ought to dress inside a booth.”

“More flowers come.” Panya nodded to the bouquet on the vanity.  “Always people sending flowers to Monique.  Why?”

Monique  laughed at the question and stopped before a mirror to toss her curling blonde hair. “Because I’m irresistible.”

“People send flowers to show that they will not defend against you?” Panya recognized a lily in the bouquet and touched the petals.

Monique stepped before her to take the bouquet, the top of her head slightly below Panya’s shoulder. “My dear naïve Panya, men send flowers as a sign of their interest in doing battle with a woman.  It’s a declaration of affection.  Not one I have any intention of returning.”

“A declaration of affection?” Panya watched the lilies as Monique dropped the bouquet, vase and all, into the nearest garbage can.  Panya held her costume at her waist and reached into the garbage to pick out a handful of the lilies. “So people gives flowers to people they love.  Panya loves someone, so she gives someone flowers.”

“I should like to see the man who receives flowers from you, Panya.”  Monique giggled and reached behind her to untie her corset.  She struggled and waved Panya over to help. “If you want some flowers wait until after the show; you can take all you want.  Now come help me out of this corset.”

Panya tucked the sarong in at the waist and came behind Monique to unlace the corset.  Monique continued. “When a woman is in love, all she has to do is kiss the gentleman.  If he kisses back, he’s in love… or at least interested.”

“Kiss the gentleman.” Panya’s brow furrowed with confusion. “Monique, please, explain gentleman, again?  Is Sarah is like gentleman?”

“Oh that’s so much better!” Monique sighed the corset away. “Now what does Sarah have anything to do with anything.  Oh that’s right.  The withering plum is your roommate.  She’ll have to deal with your gentleman callers, Panya.  I’m sure she expected them.”

“Panya is confused.  Doesn’t want gentle Man callers.”

“Well, gentle or not.  What sort of men you want isn’t really my business, Panya dear.”  Monique turned around the room, looking for something.  “Where did I put my costume? Oh, I never brought it out, did I?  How silly of me.”

Panya tried again. “Monique, a gentleman sends flowers to a lady.”

“Of course, they do.  That’s where I get my flowers from, Panya.  You’re talking in circles, dear.” Monique yanked her cloak back over her dress and held it tight over her loose underdress. “No one can tell I’m not wearing the corset can they?  I must find my dress.  We’ll talk after the show.”

Panya took Monique’s arm to stop her. “What happens if gentleman does not kiss back?”

Monique looked up into Panya’s eyes for a moment, her lips falling apart in a sort of daze. “You’re serious aren’t you?  About this love thing?”

Panya nodded, gravely. “Panya is very serious and in love.”

“Well.” Monique glanced down Panya’s body, still naked except for the sarong that was slipping. “A woman like you might as well club him on the back of his head and drag him off.  I mean it’s all a question of type, really.”

“A club on head?” Panya hummed in her throat. “That sounds hurtful.”

Monique corrected herself at once. “No.  I didn’t mean to actually do that.  Panya, my dear creature, you are very pretty and very… exotic.  Any man who doesn’t kiss you back is a fool and you shouldn’t waste your time on him.  After all, a person either loves you or they don’t.  Simple.”

Panya worried when Monique hesitated and she didn’t know what ‘exotic’ meant.  When Monique had bustled out the door again, the room seemed quiet and nervous.  Panya looked back at the bouquet in the garbage and returned to picking out the lilies.

6.

“Panya brings Sarah flowers.” Panya swayed into their apartment.  After the show, she had returned to the clothes she was comfortable in, the loose baggy kind, like Maloup wore, but she had not taken off the make-up because Ice told her the glitter made her pretty. “A declaration of affection.”

“Oh, how thoughtful.” Sarah looked up from the book she was reading, an ancient text about Christian Martyrs.

“They is lilies.” Panya sat down on the couch besides Sarah.

“My favorite flowers.” Sarah smiled and took the flowers Panya aggressively held out to her.  Panya watched Sarah set the flowers into the stand beside her, dropping them into the vase with the same energy that Monique had used to throw her bouquet into the garbage.

Sarah said. “You’re a wonderful friend for bringing them.”

The couch squeaked as Panya fidgeted.  She was going to kiss Sarah, she just didn’t know how.  Panya leaned closer, withdrew again, raised her hands off her lap, and dropped them back again.

“Panya, darling, are you feeling ill?” Sarah noticed Panya’s unusual awkwardness and lifted her hand to Panya’s forehead to feel her temperature.

Panya resisted the mothering tone and took Sarah’s hand in her own.  Sarah’s eyes, glazed from the reading, opened wider, her lips parted but spoke no words.  Panya squeezed her hand tighter and closed the space between them.

The kiss felt almost accidental to Panya.  She was reminded of suddenly discovering the surface of the water, when she thought she was swimming downward.  Sarah’s lips, chapped with the taste of a colorless balm, were as sweet as the unexpected breath and felt welcoming.  Panya sighed into the kiss, and still clutching Sarah’s fingers in her right hand, lowered her left hand down to Sarah’s waist.  Sarah’s blouse felt deceptively cool, but when Panya slipped her hand beneath the cotton, Sarah’s skin was warm and seemed to reach back towards Panya’s searching fingers.

Sarah’s nails suddenly pierced into Panya’s hands and Sarah jolted away, standing, as if she had seen something dirty and wanted to leap onto the nearest chair to keep it from crawling on her shoe.

Panya sank when she saw Sarah’s dread.

They either love you or they don’t.  That’s what Monique had said.

7.

“Panya what are you doing here?” Ice sat down beside Panya.  Her large frame slumping over the counter made this bar the darkest in the low Parisian Sector.

“La Masque should carry Atlantis’ wine.” Panya tilted a tall vase of wine in one hand.  Her face was drawn tight so the tears would not fall. “Sarah doesn’t love.”

Ice glanced away from her hardened jaw. “Oh… I see.  Well, Sarah is a troubled individual.”

“Shut up, Ice.” Panya took a drink from the slender vase of wine and glared harder at the mirror stretching over the bar. “Ice hates Sarah.  She is religion.”

Ice said nothing and the silence continued until Panya scowled. “Stupid differences in people up here.  He, she.  Tall, short.  Womans are short and thinners and palers, yes?”

“Well…”Ice glanced at their reflections. “Not necessarily.”

“Panya is not much of a woman, but she is too much a woman for Sarah.” Panya’s long moan of anguish may have been a word in her language.

Ice averted his eyes. “Panya… there may be another way.  Not for you and Sarah.  But to get you home in Atlantis.”

Panya looked over at him, the tightness of pain relaxing slightly.

“When Sarah first came here, she witnessed a crime.  We don’t think she’ll do much about reporting it and even if she did it’s not likely they could tie it to anyone, but Sorcier does not like chances.” Ice spoke carefully to make sure she understood. “Sorcier would be very grateful to anyone who removed that problem.  He might even null your contract.”

“Sorcier wants Sarah to die?” Panya said.

Ice nodded. “He would null your contract if you killed her.”

Panya did not speak for a long moment. “Up here.  People’s houses are broken into sections?”

“Do you mean the sectors?” Ice asked.

“Which sector is Sarah?” Panya nodded.

Ice shrugged and answered. “The Vatican.”

Panya drained the wine from her glass. “Sarah has fancy to make merry.  Man she enslaved too.”

“I think you mean fiancé. “Ice corrected. “Marriage isn’t slavery.”

“It sounded like slavery.” Panya muttered. “This fiancé is in Vatican place?”

“Most likely.” Ice replied.

“Panya will bring him to Sarah and he will take her home.” Panya looked over at him and met his gaze. “Then Panya will come back to La Masque.  And Panya will stay in La Masque.  Like she said.”

Panya left the bar before Ice could offer any negotiation.    He did not watch her leave.

8.

 Ice rarely came to the shows in the Preferential Lounge.  He trusted those girls to know their price and he was never disappointed by their performances.  He sat at the table closet to the accompanist, a man of passing elegance who could play the omni-piano as if it were an entire orchestra.  Ice did not speak to the musician until the instrument poured out a sound that reminded him of sailors, seas, and mysteries.

“Is Panya singing next?” Ice wondered, only able to see the half-naked girls in the wings huddling beneath the blue and white sheets that make up their costumes. “How has the audience liked her lately, Phillip?”

The man cast Ice a look that told him conversation with taxing to a musician at work.  The dancers fluttered in shock when the music became simpler, a light-noted play on the melody that the girls had not practiced.  The accompanist replied. “Her music has changed, but the audience likes her as much as ever.  I never really liked abstract songs until I worked with Panya.”

Ice nodded indifferently. “Panya has that effect on people.  She doesn’t even know it.”

Phillip noticed the man’s unusual pensiveness. “I liked it better when she sang happy songs.”

“We sing best what we know.” Ice shrugged and sat back when Phillip’s reply was to change the settings on the omni-piano and return the music to its swelling heights.  The dancers were relieved and found their cues without difficulty, sweeping onto the stage in their white and blue sheets, emulating the shrinking swirl of the ocean.

Panya entered from the mid-center stage, a drifting siren draped in pearls and reeds.  The tall dark woman belonged on a different stage, but this stage, even with all the frail dancers swirling around her, belonged to her.  Her song was about loss, but the vocalizations were in a language that no one else in La Masque could speak.

But Ice, his hands folded and trembling on the table, heard every word.

1.

The streets of the Grecian Sector were always hot, even the small markets that bordered the dark ocean and had a slight breeze to cool the shoppers that lingered in the mid-day quiet.  People here moved slowly and wore loose hanging garments, when they wore clothing at all.  Only one woman walking down the street defied the airy garments.

Sarah Ruth Huntington cared little for the citizens of another sector or their customs.  Her smooth face ironed into a frown, stretched tighter by her strict bun.  The black dress buttoned from ankle to neck trumpeted her foreignness to the Grecian sector more than her pale skin and light eyes.  A red cape flowed over her shoulders, a dark crimson burden dragging in the dust.

Nothing on the street moved when a man in a volex hovered down to the street and came beside her. “Hey Sweetheart, need a ride?”

Sarah Ruth Huntington turned toward the driver hanging off the front deck and controlling the volex by remote.  She pulled the red cape thrown off her shoulders onto her head to hide her face as she replied. “No.  Thank you kindly, sir.”

“It’s awfully hot to be wearing all those clothes.” The man leaned closer to her.  He was not wearing the customary robes of the Grecians, just a pair of loose linen pants that gathered about his ankles and hung lasciviously low.  “You must not be from this region of the world.”

“In the Vatican Sector we believe in covering the flesh,” She replied, answering and rebuking in the same breath.

“This isn’t the safest sector for a girl like you.” The man laughed at her, reaching out and trying to take hold of her cape, but in a bored swat, like a young dog pawing at a small cat. “We’re all heathens this close to the equator.”

She pulled the red cape closer. “I shall fear no evil.”

The man leered. “Maybe you should.”

Sarah stopped and turned to look at the man.  He wore dark sun-glasses and there was something blacker behind his gaze as if he didn’t have eyes.  She repeated stoutly. “I shall fear no evil.”

“What’s a girl from the Vatican doing out here anyway?” The volex landed with a light puff, purposefully light as if to contrast the loud thud it’s driver made when he jumped off the deck.  He walked beside her and touched her cape. “I’ve never seen a girl from the Vatican with a red cape either.”

She jerked the cape back defensively. “It signifies that I am a messenger to other sectors.”

“A dispensable girl, huh?” He chuckled. “Must be a sinner.”

Sarah didn’t refute the comment. “I am delivering letters and communion to my grandmother.”

“That scientist you visit every week isn’t your grandmother.” The man replied. “She’s a politician with your misplaced sense of religion.”

“How do you know that?” Sarah demanded.

The man merely shrugged. “It’s common knowledge that there’s a scientist working out there.  I’ve seen her and she doesn’t look like you.”

“All people are related through God.” Sarah defended her lie. “And I’d rather have a misplaced sense of religion than follow a religion that allows its followers to tread about half-naked.”

“How do you know if you’ve never tried one?” He laughed, amused. “I’ll walk you to the dock.”

Sarah walked faster away from the sauntering height and power of the dark-skinned man. “It’s not proper for a man to escort a woman he does not know.”

“But we’re all related through God.  Think of me as your brother.” He lifted his hand to his sunglasses but did not remove them. “You boat doesn’t get here for another hour?”

“Half an hour.” She replied quickly.

When the man laughed this time, the sound growled out of his throat. “Why not look through the shops?  Bring your grandmother some flowers.”

His suggestion made her more wary of him than ever and when she turned her harsh eyes to glare at him, he explained with a smile. “I’m the florist’s brother-in-law.  I see you out here every week.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes, debating the plausibility of the man’s words. “I’ve never seen you.”

“I’ll bet you never saw the florist shop either.  You miss all the beauty of this street.” Sarah’s body steeled when he pinched her shoulders and steered her towards the shops. “Take a look.  Catch the second boat out to sea.”

Sarah broke away from his hands, the hood of her cape falling to her shoulders.  For a moment, she stared at him with a wild angry gaze, but then she stood straighter her temper cooling in the heat of the sun.  She looked off to the florist’s shop and turned in that direction. “Thank you for your kind advice, sir.”

She fled the encounter and stumbled into the shade of the floral stand, distancing herself quickly from the man and his wolfish smile.

2.

Sarah was surprised that the old woman was not standing on the deck to greet her.  But the old man who brought her out the scientist’s ship had other passengers and he was gone as soon as Sarah was out of his boat.

“Hello, Mrs. Eastman!  I’ve brought you some nice lilies.”  Sarah called out, but the ship groaned with silence.  She walked around the deck and called down the stairs into the galley of the research vessel. “Hello?”

Sarah glanced around the deck again and then picked up her skirts and stepped down into the darkness below deck.   She was not accustomed to the dark coolness of the living quarters, where the only light came from the shuttered windows.  Sarah saw someone moving by the window and she smiled. “Oh, there you are, Mrs. Eastman.  I have your letters and the commun-“

“I’m not your grandma, sweetheart.”

Sarah stepped back, recognizing the voice and the man on the street.

“Where is Mrs. Eastman?” Sarah darted her gaze over the room searching for the old woman.

The man shrugged, cleaning a knife on a white cloth. “Well, she might have fallen overboard and drown.  She might have been strangled by her own bed sheets and mysteriously ended up in the ocean.  She may be sitting quietly in my volex.  Shall we go look for her there?”

A ray of sunlight reflected off his blade and stabbed her eyes.  Sarah reached one hand behind her feeling for the railing to the stairs and tried to step back to them.  She stepped on her cape instead and gasped as it choked her.

The man didn’t bother to block her escape. “Listen, Sweetheart.  You be a good girl, and step over here and I won’t rape, torture, and otherwise mutilate your corpse.  Sound fair?”

The fear choking her released into a scream that frightened her more than it frightened the murderer.  She fled to the deck, her basket falling as she slammed the door to the galley.  The communion wafers and letters tumbled onto the deck as he jammed his hand into the door to prevent it from closing.  He forced the door open, pushing Sarah back even though she hung all her weight in the effort to close the door.  Still clinging to the lilies, Sarah stumbled away, faltering across the deck of the ship that had once seemed so large to her and was now far too small.

Sarah ran to the other side of the deck, darting behind the bulge of the engine room, a small square on the deck that offered the only hiding place.  She stood there seeing the open ocean all around her and caught her breath realizing what the murderer already understood.  She had no where to run and few places to hide.  She saw a life boat and lay down inside and covered the boat with the tarp rolled up inside of it.

“Listen, Sweetheart.”  His voice was muffled somehow.  He was still below deck. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I won’t chase you.”

She gasped and covered her ears hearing the loud explosions of a gun.  She heard wood splintering apart and the sound of rushing water filling the galley.  She muttered to herself. “He’s sinking the ship.”

The stairs thundered when he returned to the deck and walked a slow circle about the engine room.  Sarah swallowed an unrealized scream when he rolled the tarp away.  He still had the gun and he was pointing it at her.  She pinched her eyes shut, bracing for death.

She heard the click, the explosion, the shatter of wood close to her head.  When death felt too much like life she opened her eyes and saw him smiling down at her, leaning on the edge of the ship.

He pushed the lifeboat to swing it in the air. “Oops, looks like I missed.”

Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the gaping hole in the small boat and then stared at him.

The man left her curled up in the lifeboat he had just destroyed, while the sea he had invited into the rest of the ship began to bubble onto the deck.  From his volex he called. “Good luck getting to shore, Sweetheart.  You should’ve let me kill you.”

Sarah climbed out of the swinging lifeboat and back onto the sinking ship.  He laughed when she fell to her knees in prayer.

3.

The lilies floated away from her black skirts as the ocean claimed the ship falling away from her knees.  Sarah didn’t realize that ships sank so gently and she was surprised to find that she was more buoyant than the sopping wood slowly falling into the deep water.  Her flailing arms would not keep her afloat long and she knew it was useless to cry for help.

So Sarah turned inward, allowing the weight of her sins to pull her beneath the waves.  She chose to recite the “Sinner’s Chant” until she was dead.  The water had filled her lungs by the time she asked for salvation.  She didn’t feel the strong brown hands circling her waist.

She was not aware of her rescue until her face pierced the air and the water fled her lungs.  Her vision blurred and she refused to regain consciousness, yet she felt oddly secure, held out of the water from her waist up.

Sarah felt her savior tugging at the strings lacing her dress together and she thought it was terribly odd for an angel of the Lord to divest her clothes.  She still felt the ties of her cape pulling on her throat and she realized that she would be delivered into Heaven as the Lord had made her.  Only the red cloak, the symbol of her earthy sins, would clothe her.

4.

Sarah realized, when she woke, that her clothing was too loose to be modest and her cape was missing.  She sat up, seeing a dim office with one bright light focused on a desk.  The man sitting at the desk seemed too pale to be human and Sarah lost her breath at the sight of him.  Her eyes caught on the silk scarf twined about his neck and she stammered. “Sir, where am I?”

“I’ll tend to you in a moment.” His voice was lighter than his form.  Sarah could not tell which sector shaped his accent.  He continued writing at his desk.

Sarah swallowed and asked. “Are you the Angel Gabriel or Saint Peter?”

His head jerked up and he stared at her with narrowed eyes.  Then he smiled a soft smug expression. “Neither angel nor saint, I’m afraid.”

“I’m in Hell.” Sarah sighed, reaching her hand to her shoulder groping for the crimson cape that was not there. “My faith was weak.  Too new.  I only found God a few years ago and I was… licentious.”

The man set down his pen and rested his chin on his palm, suddenly interested. “Licentious?”

“I will repay my sins through suffering, of course.”  She looked up, trying to hold her tears back. “Will I remain here for all eternity or until my sins are atoned?  It’s a matter of debate in my church.”

“What have you got worth selling?” He giggled at his own words.  “I personally could return you to your home in a matter of months.”

She lowered her eyes and lifted her hand to the buttons on the loose gown. “Does it matter that I am virgin to men?”

The man finally burst into laughter and stood. “I am sorry.  I should be sympathetic.  Tell me what clothing you wear and I will see that you have it.”

Sarah’s brow wrinkled. “Please, sir, I want only to join my Heavenly Father.”

“Mademoiselle, your sins will have to be atoned some other time.  You are not dead, though you may be in Hell.  You were rescued from drowning, but your dress and identification were quite lost.  You’ll need a new identification card to leave the Lower Parisian Sector, where you find yourself now.  I can get you a new identification card, shelter, food, and clothing, if you work for me.”

Sarah blushed with shame, but she practiced the virtue of patience. “What is this place?”

The man grinned as if he knew a secret. “La Masque.”

5.

Bathed in marble and silk, La Masque would have seemed like an elite business, if it were not for the prostitutes, philanders, and pagans dancing around its elaborately carved pillars and draping themselves over its glass tables.  Sarah was unimpressed by the grandeur. “This place is ungodly.”

The man had not left her side. “If you have a knack for hair or make-up, you may work backstage in our Preferential Lounge.”

“I will develop the knack.” Sarah replied sharply.  Her lip curled when she saw a man at the bar lean over to flirtatiously kiss another man.  “Those sodomites.  Is this kind of behavior-”

The man interrupted, a chilling departure from his previous politeness. “This is the lower Parisian Sector, Mademoiselle.  Careful how you finish that sentence, if you care to leave it.”

Sarah absorbed his words and narrowed her eyes. “It is unnatural… a sin against God; that’s all I will say.”

He pointed to a distant wall, less helpful suddenly. “Go through that white door.  You will find dresses.  Look for a woman named Monique.  That’s all I will say.”

Sarah did not let the man escape her so easily. “When I meet this Monique, who shall I say sent me?”

The man was preoccupied, noticing something behind her and watching it. “Tell her you are from Ice and that you a not a whore.  She will understand.”

Sarah caught his shoulder when he turned to leave, even as she hardened against him. “What may I tell her is your Christian name, sir?”

“I am Ice.” He spoke with an unquestionable authority.  “And I advise you to keep your Christianity to yourself.”

Sarah replied, “It is difficult to keep God’s word to myself.”

“Then it may become difficult to get you out of this sector.” Ice’s pale eyes jumped from her face to someone behind her. “Maloup.”

“Excuse me, but you’ll have to wait a moment before you talk to this-” Sarah turned around to send the newcomer away until she was finished.  Her voice became faint when she saw the tall man with dark skin and blacker sunglasses.

He ignored her. “Are you ready to go?  I told her we’d meet her in an hour.”

“In a moment.” Ice casually gestured to her, looking at a small black planner and seeing not to notice she was there. “Did you need to kill this woman?”

“No.” Maloup shook his head. “The politician was my target.  She’s just some delivery girl from the Vatican Sector that just got in the way.”

“Mrs. Eastman was a saint and whatever she was working on was for the good.” Sarah said.

“The old woman was as human as anyone else,” Maloup replied. “Died that same at any rate.”

Sarah shuddered at his callousness and asked quietly. “Did you pull me from the water?”

Maloup scoffed. “I wouldn’t have put you in the water if I expected you to come out, sweetheart.  Must have been a fisherman.  I went back and I saw your cape floating around.  I picked that up.  Thought it would be a nice prop for a stripper.”

Sarah’s terror shivered into anger and she snapped her face away from Maloup and to the man he worked for.  She lifted her chin with a command she did not feel and spoke to Ice. “I want to meet the man who rescued me.”

“The man who rescued you?” Ice laughed quietly, amused and secretive. “It isn’t possible for you to meet the man who rescued you.”

“But you know who he is.” Sarah did not like being a source of amusement for this man. “I want to know his name.”

Ice shrugged and turned away again. “It’s not up for me to grant that wish.”

Sarah stepped forward to follow him and found Maloup stood in her way.  She glared up at the man and took a breath to steady herself.  She couldn’t find the words to overpower him and he was too uninterested to wait for her, turning and following his employer.  Sarah pulled her cape over her shoulders and walked towards the white door.

6.

“Will Sarah talk to Panya about Sarah?” There was no one else in the dressing room for the Preferential Lounge.  Panya liked to show up first when everything was quiet.  Sarah enjoyed being able to tend Panya’s knotted hair without distraction.

In all the time Sarah had been trapped inside the Lower Parisian Sector, she had never met a girl like Panya.  It was hard to talk to the foreign girl.  The red and green of her hair, as natural as her smile, made Sarah’s voice clump.  Ice had insisted that they become roommates.

“Well.” Sarah answered Panya’s fragmented request. “I lived with my father all my life, in the Britton Sector.  I rarely saw him though.  He divorced my mother.  She was deeply ashamed of it, when she returned to her home in the Vatican Sector.  I always thought it wrong of him once I met her.  I didn’t even know she was alive until my father married again.  My step-mother chased me out and I found my mother and lived with her.”

“This stepping mother, she did not love Sarah?” Panya turned her head to see Sarah.

Sarah straightened Panya’s head again and then swallowed hard and tried to answer. “My step- mother and I had a… an unpredictable relationship.”

“Panya’s mothers loved her very much.  Mother Erro songed so Panya knows many songs from Erro.  Mother Suisuin dance.”

“You father divorced and remarried, too?” Sarah smiled at their commonality.

“I have no father.” Panya answered simply.

Sarah chuckled. “You must have a father.”

“I have Mother Erro and Mother Suisuin.” Panya said stubbornly.

“Oh, nuns, of some sort.” Sarah spoke her simplest. “Were you an orphan?  Without parents?”

The foreign woman turned, laughing with frustration. “No.  Mother Error and Mother Suisuin are Panya’s parents.”

“But two women can’t have children.” Sarah insisted.

Panya faced the mirror again, her face crunching with confusion.  She shrugged and conceded. “Maybe Panya is confused with words.”

Sarah hummed to herself doubting Panya’s decision, but choosing not to speak.  She blushed when Panya took the edges of her red cape between her fingers and said. “Sarah’s has pretty collar.”

“It’s called a cape.” Sarah corrected.

“You wear it always.” Panya lifted the material to her face and rubbed it against her cheek.

Sarah pulled the red cloth away from Panya’s hands. “In my sector, it tells the world that I have sinned and have been forgiven.”

“What bad did Sarah do?” Panya lifted her eyes to Sarah curiously. 

Sarah had been the one who taught Panya the very concept of sin and she disliked the question.  She stared at the green hair she was weaving into the crimpy black. “I challenged the natural order.”

Panya’s face furrowed again with deep thought.  Her voice filled with casual curiosity.  “What in world is this mean?”

Sarah laughed quietly at Panya’s broken attempt. “Oh, Panya, you’re impossibly endearing.”

“This is good.” Panya grinned with pride. “This is meaning Sarah loves Panya, yes.”

“Of course.” Sarah spoke even quieter, twisting the last strands of Panya’s hair. “I love all of God’s creations.  And you’re very sweet, Panya.  There, you’re finished.”

Panya stood at once, tall and towering, and turned to Sarah with a smile as overwhelming as her height.  Sarah bit her lips when Panya stooped to kiss her cheek, a parting gesture that Panya shared with nearly everyone in La Masque.  Sarah held her breath, but even after Panya was gone, the spicy scent of her skin hovered in Sarah’s memory.  Sarah confessed her sins to herself and hoped that five Hail Maries was enough.

7.

Sarah didn’t mean to surrender so easily when Panya kissed her.  She fell into the memory of what waited after a kiss, tripping over the other woman’s tongue until she was lost.  She remembered why she wanted to forget such memories when Panya’s hands parted her red cape to touch the buttons of her blouse. “Panya, stop.”

Panya leaned back onto the arm of the couch, smiling.

Sarah shrank from the woman’s easy grace. “This isn’t… is not right.  Unnatural.  Against God.”

Panya shifted forward again, concerned. “Why?”

“Woman is made for man.” Sarah stood up and walked away. “Two women… it’s not right.”

“Panya never understands this man and this woman.” Panya demanded explanation.

Sarah paced, patting the hair that Panya’s hands had misplaced.  Distance and dogma gave her strength. “God made men and women to compliment each other.  God made man strong and powerful, and fit to be a provider.  God made woman smaller, weaker, but fairer.  More compassionate.”

“Panya is not weak.” The woman protested her voice dark and persuasive. “Panya is strong.  And Monsieur Ice is small and fair.  Is Ice woman?”

“Ice is a man.” Sarah replied.

Panya snorted. “Ice has a flat chest. That is difference.  Woman is round and man is flat.”

“It’s not that simple,  Panya.  We can’t…” Sarah drew a hard breath. “I can’t do this.”

Panya’s strange eyes flickered sadly. “Sarah wants flat-chests.  God means nothing to this.”

“That’s not true!  The last thing I want is flat-chests.” Sarah flushed with her revelation and her quick temper.  She turned away and crossed her arms. “Damn it, this has everything to do with God.”

Panya coiled away from Sarah’s anger, but said. “Sarah is afraid, hides behind God.”

“God is my shield against evil.” Sarah replied resisting the understanding in Panya’s voice.

“God should not make stupid laws.” Panya muttered.

Sarah gripped the edge of her cape, trying to stretch the stiff fabric. “That’s blasphemy.”

“A person cannot love another person?  That is a stupid law.”

“You don’t understand.” Sarah replied, wanting to turn, not daring to look at Panya.

“Panya understands.  God wants babies.  God doesn’t care about love.”

“God is love.”

“Not my love.”

When Panya stood, finally walking towards her, Sarah did not turn.  Sarah didn’t want to fight.  One more kiss would convince Sarah that love was more important than natural, that God was unfair, and that her religion misunderstood the path to Heaven.  She waited for Panya’s hands and warm mouth.

Sarah startled when the door closed.  She was alone.

8.

Ice seemed supremely surprised to see Sarah slam through the door to his office. “Why is it so difficult to find you?”

“I always know where I am.” Ice shrugged. “And everyone else knows they can find me here at the edges of the day.  Why?  You look panicked.”

“Panya has gone missing.” Sarah said.  “She disappeared three nights ago after we- well, not really argued.  There were some raised voices – I haven’t been able to find her anywhere in La Masque.  I’ve been looking for you ever since.  I must find her.”

“Calm down, Sarah.” Ice didn’t look up from the sheet he was reading. “Panya is fine.  You should be happy in fact.”

He set down the paper and leaned forward on his desk, sharing a secret that entertained him. “Panya has found a way for you to leave this sector.”

Sarah closed her eyes to block out the news.  The idea had grown foreign to her and she felt her throat tighten as she answered. “Leave this sector?”

“Yes.  And return to the Vatican.  Panya has found your fiancé.” Ice’s brow lifted amused. “A wood cutter?”

“Yes.” Sarah lowered her head. “I mentioned him once to her.  But how did she find her way?”

“She found me.” Ice replied. “I told her where you came from.  I didn’t expect her to swim all the way there.”

“She just left the sector?” Sarah sat in the chair across from Ice. “But she had no identification?”

Ice shrugged. “The amazing thing about Panya is that she doesn’t care about laws and rules.  Doesn’t understand the limitations people try to make.  You or I or anyone else in this place could walk out whenever we chose.  But instead we stay here, and we wait for a different kind of escape.  But not Panya.  She just strips off her clothes and swims away.”

Sarah wasn’t certain she understood or agreed. “But Panya’s come back?”

“She wasn’t able to give directions back to La Masque.  She had to lead him here herself.” Ice smiled delighting in some tidbit he was not telling her. “It’s so funny.  When she arrived in the Vatican Sector, she wasn’t wearing any clothes.  So they brought her back wearing all red.  Men’s clothes too.  I suppose they had nothing in her size.  Now she refuses to wear her other clothes.”

“She must find the color attractive.” Sarah replied.

“I think it’s because you wear red.”  Ice shrugged. “I like her better in blue.”

“Blue is a color of innocence.  They would view a naked woman as a shameful one and clothe her in red.” Sarah answered bitterly.

“You wear red.” Ice pointed to her cape.

“And you wear blue.” Sarah glared at him and gestured to the piece of sky-blue silk twirled about his neck. “The colors don’t mean much.”

“Well.” Ice pushed out his chair and stood. “Panya is a very affectionate person, very helpful.  You must have told her you wanted to go home?”

Sarah understood he was looking for more secrets.  She refused to give him any more. “I did.”

Ice slipped to the front of his desk and leaned against it. “She would be an easy woman to love, if one found it easy to love women.”

“When is my fiancé coming?” Sarah demanded.

“He is in the High Parisian Sector.  I arranged to shelter her from La Masque.” Ice smiled as if Sarah should be grateful. “We can’t have you going home all in red too.  No, Sarah must leave dressed in white.  When you marry him in High Parisian you will receive a citizenship to his sector. “

Sarah scowled at his sarcasm but said nothing.

Ice paused just long enough. “That is, if you still intend to marry him.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Sarah lifted her head to return a sense of haughtiness to her voice. “Anything to leave this place.”

He dragged his hand over the desk as returned to work. “So much for the sanctity of marriage.  You may leave now.  Phillip Froggs – you remember, the omni-pianist – will drive you to your husband.”

Sarah defended herself. “I was going to marry him before any of-”

Ice interrupted. “I understand.  Marriage is a magnificent shield.”

“I have nothing to hide.” Sarah protested.

His blue eyes snapped out of the file he was reading as if her protests provoked him.  Ice spoke with a quiet viciousness. “You will not see Panya again.  Do you have anything you want to say to her?”

Sarah was stunned a moment by the idea that had brought her to Ice’s office in the first place: Panya would be gone.

“Tell Panya it is a stupid law and that-” Sarah turned her eyes to the floor and changed her direction. “Never mind that.  Tell her I am grateful for her help.  That is all.”

1.

The first time Phillip woke in Andrew’s bed, he felt small and out of place.  The room, like the rest of Andrew’s estate, was elaborately decorated with a mix of dark traditional furniture and state-of-the-art technologies.  This room alone was twice the value of the house Phillip had moved out of three weeks before.  He was now living in one of the guest rooms in Andrew’s estate.

It was far from the first time he’d been in that bed, but he could not remember a time he’d been allowed to sleep through the night.  Andrew usually woke him gently and told him he needed to return to his own room.

When he noticed Andrew was still sleeping besides him, Phillip didn’t feel any more at ease.  His entire body stiffened for fear of waking his lover, and his breath grew tight in his chest.  He had never seen Andrew sleep; a Cunningham shouldn’t have trusted anyone enough to fall asleep beside him.  Phillip was not surprised to find that Andrew slept on his back, arms squeezed to his side and his feet straight out before him.  The military form of the man’s life invaded even his sleep, and the stiffness of his posture made his abdomen draw in and thrust the muscles in his chest and thighs high.

Phillip turned his eyes back to the ceiling, feeling weaker, as if looking at the other man’s ever-coiled muscles drained the power from his own limbs.  He did not like the feeling.  He only remembered feeling it around Andrew.  He tried to move slowly, to leave the bed without waking Andrew.

“What are you doing here?” Andrew’s crisply accented voice slurred at him.

Phillip had barely sat up and glanced over at Andrew and then at the unkempt sheets folding around them.  He combated his awkwardness by smiling. “Well, I guess you fell asleep and forgot to tell me to leave.”

“Of course not,” Andrew stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “I intended entirely on keeping you here.  The cook’s away.  I assumed you would wake first and make me breakfast.”

Phillip laughed. “I’ll bet you did.  I’m just a substitute woman after all, right?”

Andrew chuckled and shrugged. “If not that, then what?”

Phillip felt his humor sink.  Something in Andrew’s tone wasn’t joking. “A man, Andrew.”

“Well, obviously that.” Andrew cleared his throat and curled out of the bed. “Get dressed.  You can’t be here when the servants arrive or there’ll be talk.”

Phillip did not mind talk.  He minded that Andrew did.  Andrew must have noticed his darkened mood because the man smiled. “Come.  We’ll go to breakfast.  I know a lovely place in the Bohemian Sector.”

“Why not here in the Britton Sectors?” Phillip answered swinging his legs off the huge bed and scanning the floor for his clothes. “You always complain about the food when we go-”

“We can’t stay in the Britton Sectors because,” Andrew hesitated longer than he should.  “They won’t be open at this early hour.  The Bohemian is fine.”

“Why not somewhere mid-continent.” Phillip continued to push. “My mother used to talk about this great pub in the Renaissance Sector.  Or the Victorian.”

“The Victorian?” Andrew prickled at the suggestion. “It’s the Bohemian Sector or nothing.”

Phillip glanced to his pile of dirty clothes on the floor and let Andrew win.

2.

Andrew’s roar filled his large estate and Phillip left his room to lean on the landing overlooking the main foyer.  Phillip had lived with Andrew long enough to distinguish one rage from another.  This one, filled with profanity directed at his father, his clan, and his culture, was born from frustration and a sense of helplessness.  Andrew battled his way out of his coat, threw the defeated fabric to the floor, then slammed his hand on the floor as he grabbed the coat again, apparently not satisfied in his victory over the long black trench until he had strangled it with his hands and hung it on the coat-holder by the door.  Andrew left the inanimate objects trembling and stalked towards the stairs.

“Welcome home, Andy,” Phillip chuckled. “Did you have a nice dinner with your Dad?”

Andrew cast him a terrifying glare and scowled. “The man is insane.  All six of my brothers agree, but no one is willing to do anything about it.”

Phillip stood straight again, listening as Andrew punctuated his sentences in a way that was not only angry but also worried. “I arrived late.  He was offended.  Now I must earn back my status according to custom.  Three tasks of his choosing.  Fucking ridiculous customs.  Do you know what he asked me to do as a show of filial devotion and clan respect?”

“I didn’t even know you could show filial devotion and clan respect.” Phillip shrugged.

Andrew did not acknowledge the jest, climbing the stairs with a punishing step. “I must find for him a business that sells dogs small enough to fit inside walnut shells and then give him the business.”

“That’s…” Phillip hesitated for the right words. “A little odd.”

“A little odd, indeed.” Andrew charged past him into his study. “The man’s insane!”

Phillip followed him into the room, because Andrew was still ranting to him. “I would do anything for this family -  Everything for this family.  Steal money, secrets, products, technology, but I don’t know how to steal a business.  Least of all one that difficult to find.  Genetically engineered pets aren’t cheap, neither are genetically engineered plants.”

“Technically, a walnut isn’t a plant.  It’s a seed.” Phillip shrank beneath Andrew’s glare.  He softened his tone, to avoid redirecting Andrew’s temper at himself. “Almost the same thing.”

Andrew ignored him, pacing behind his desk, organizing papers. “There isn’t a business in the world that would sell both genetically-engineered animals and plants.  There would be no need.  Damn him.  And damn this bastard clan culture.”

Phillip stepped back as Andrew abruptly turned and threw a packet of papers off his desk at the wall where they slapped painfully and then slid to the floor.   Phillip retrieved the packet and placed it back on the desk when Andrew sat down and dropped his head into his hands. “I have to do it though.  There’s no way around it.  If I can’t… it will be my brothers I have to deal with.  Damn it.  Half of them would hardly hesitate at the opportunity to attack.”

“At least, the other half would stand with you.” Phillip encouraged.

“No.  The other half wouldn’t hesitate at all,” Andrew replied, turning the packet on his desk to straighten it.

Phillip laid his hand on the papers to stop him from turning it. “We’ll figure this out.”

Andrew handed him the packets. “We also have a surplus of funds we have to get rid of.”

“How’d that happen?” Phillip looked at the papers.

“It came from La Masque.  I’m not sure how.  Ice is incredibly good with his books.  Maybe someone stole more than we expected.  Who knows?  We need to get rid of it.” Andrew laughed. “I thought something that minor was a problem this afternoon.”

Phillip narrowed his eyes at the figures on the page. “How much do you figure it would cost to start up a business?”

“What?” Andrew glanced up at him, surprised by the notion.

“He didn’t say it had to be an established business, did he?” Phillip asked, then pointed to the surplus. “We steal the technology by Monday.  We buy a storefront in the New Age Sector on Tuesday.  We hand your father the deed to Small Dogs with Big Walnuts, on Wednesday.  We drown the puppies and sell the store by Thursday.”

Andrew sank back into his chair, relaxing.  He smiled and said. “Must we drown the puppies?”

“Hell, to be easy.” Phillip sat at the edge of the desk and dropped the packet. “We could just buy the damn things.”

“Are you joking?” Andrew laughed. “It’s much more fun to steal them.”

3.

The rain tapping on a distant roof, barely felt like rain to Phillip.  He was used to the sound of water slamming into a pot whenever it rained and the patter of water felt faraway.  He was not sleeping.  There wasn’t much use in trying to sleep on rainy nights.  The soft distant sound refused to let Andrew sleep and if Andrew wasn’t sleeping chances are neither was Phillip.

When the door, at last slowly began to open, Phillip laughed at Andrew’s timidity. “Andy, just get in here.  You’re a terrible creature of habit.”

Phillip tucked his hands behind his head, remembering a time when he would have jolted upright and soothed the blankets around his legs to make his bed look neater than it was.  He was too sleepy at the moment to make the effort.  Andrew didn’t seem to notice, creeping across the floor with an electric candle and rumpling the sheets after he set the candle on the nightstand.

The moment came quickly when their bodies were bare, but untangled.  Phillip surprised himself by urging a kiss farther and pushing Andrew onto his back.  Andrew seemed amused by the idea of Phillip’s dominance, but twisted his lover back down to the sheets. “I don’t think so, Phil.”

Andrew’s hands plucked against his skin, and Phillip more moaned than asked. “Why not?”

Phillip was halfway to forgetting the words that had passed between them when Andrew answered. “It’s hardly your place.”

“My what?” Phillip’s body fell still under the weight of Andrew’s reply.  The man was kissing his shoulder and Phillip pushed him away. “Not my place?”

Andrew’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling, irritated by the distraction. “I didn’t mean it like that.  Now don’t worry about it.”

He kissed Phillip’s shoulder again chuckling. “I’m not in the mood for fighting.”

Phillip had no reply.  The sound of the rain echoed down ancient corridors and filled silent eaves.  When Andrew reached a hand down to graze Phillip’s thigh, Phillip shied away.

Andrew scowled, lightly. “Phillip, don’t be-“

“Get out.” When Phillip interrupted, the quietness of his voice refused to allow any questioning.  Even from Andrew.

Phillip regretted his command, the moment Andrew huffed out of the bed.  His lover was angry, barely taking the time to gather all his clothes, and Phillip knew it would be a long time before Andrew forgave him.  The moment would hover between them for weeks, but neither man would speak of it for a very long time.

4.

Phillip was not surprised that Andrew didn’t look up at him when he stood to leave the study.  Andrew had been researching a new kind of security system and he would be no good at conversation for at least a week.

“Check the mail.  I didn’t.” Andrew muttered.

“Okay.” Phillip opened the office door and took hold of the mail.  He sank into the comfy chair by the door and filtered through the letters. “A message from your father.”

Andrew lifted his head and jolted to his feet. “It’s the second task.”

“Gee, I’ve never see you get up so fast.” Phillip handed him the letter. “I’m kinda jealous.”

Andrew smirked, showing more amusement in the innuendo than he had in weeks, and tore into the envelope. “He was probably enraged by our response to his last request.”

“You’re happy about that.” Phillip chuckled.

Andrew nodded, not listening, but leaning on his desk reading the request. “What the hell…He wants an ell of apple sliced so fine it will fit through his ring.”

“Oh, he has fancy tastes.” Phillip remarked. “Thinly sliced apple.”

Andrew stared at the letter and paced to the other side of his desk. “Is that possible do you think?  And what’s an ell of apple?  Could that be the core?”

“An ell is a cloth measurement.” Phillip replied quietly. “The Apple is a linen store in the Victorian Sector.”

“How did you know that?” Andrew glanced up at him.

Phillip shrugged. “When my mother wasn’t traveling as a minstrel, she was a seamstress.  I went to that store with Ice once or twice.  They make the costumes for La Masque.”

Andrew rubbed his chin and growled at the sheet. “I don’t like this.  This was too easy.  My father is communicating with you somehow.”

“You make it sound like magic.” Phillip scoffed. “We just got lucky.”

“One never knows with my father.” Andrew muttered. “And anything that involves Sorcier and my father working together can’t be trusted.”

“Who said you’re father was working with Sorcier?” Phillip protested then sighed. “I went to a store with Ice, Andrew.  Ice doesn’t mean Sorcier.”

“Ice is but an extension of Sorcier; he just happens to be an incredibly capable extension.” Andrew returned to his chair and re-read the letter. “When Sorcier was a young man he worked with my grandfather.  He has a lot of history with my family and I don’t trust Sorcier working with my father when I don’t know about it.”

Andrew sighed into his hand and closed his research.  “Maybe something else I did offended him.  My father I mean.  It could have to do with you, since you figured these out so fast.”

“It was luck, Andy.” Phillip laid his hands on Andrew’s tense shoulders and leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry so much.”

Andrew wondered, dropping his head forward and allowing his lover to rub his hands along his neck. “I suppose you’re right.”

5.

“My father sent me the last task.” Andrew spoke with a sudden vehemence as if he’d been trying to speak all day and just now found the words.

They were eating breakfast at their usual restaurant in the Bohemian Sector.  Phillip realized the letter must have come the night before. “What is it?”

“I imagine one of the servants noticed…” Andrew struggled with a deep breath. “This is awkward.”

“He knows about us.” Phillip gasped.

“He knows I have a lover.  He’s mad that he didn’t know.” Andrew replied. “The last task… he wants to meet her.”

Phillip shot a glare across the table. “Her?”

Andrew ignored his glare, or he didn’t notice. “I’ve spoken with Ice about the dilemma.  He suggested that I bring a girl called Monique.”

Phillip sank into his seat. “She’s got Victorian manners.  Good choice.  Your father will like her.”

Andrew stared at the floor. “But she doesn’t know the things you know, and she’d need to.”

“Well, I can’t teach some girl-” Phillip stopped mid-sentence and leaned back into his chair.

“I wasn’t asking you to teach anyone.” Andrew looked into his face, hoping the sincere apology in his voice would make his request clear.

Phillip didn’t understand. “So he’s going to find out about us.”

“I’m not…” Andrew glanced away again. ”He can’t find out.”

“Then what?” Phillip spread his hands helplessly. “Could you just try to be straight with me?”

“We can’t teach her, but you can learn.” Andrew hesitated. “I was hoping… Ice is rather good at… disguising masculinity.”

Phillip stared at the table.  He took a deep breath and then shook his head. “Tell your father that she left you when you told her who your father was.  You did what any good Cunningham would do in the situation and you killed her.”

“He’s insisting I put video recorders inside the robots.” Andrew stated. “He’ll be watching us.”

“He’ll be watching you.” Phillip pushed out his chair and stood.

“Wait.” Andrew started to follow him, but he was aware of the gaze of the other patrons in the restaurant. “Where are you going?”

“Back to La Masque.  You can find me there when you decide you want a man.”

6.

Phillip sat at the omni-piano playing to an empty lounge.  The lights were out and the audience had long since gone home.  He had not seen Andrew for a week at least and he occupied his mind with the complexities of the omni-piano.  It didn’t help him much, especially tonight when he could hear the rain if he listened hard enough.

He played softly and sang even softer, an ancient ballad created by the Celts, distant relatives of Andrew’s family.  Andrew found those ballads soothing. “Tell him to make me a cambric shirt – parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme – without no seam nor needlework, then he’ll be a true love of mine.”

When the front door to the lounge banged open, Phillip’s hands stumbled on the mid-harmony cords.  The melody line continued on it’s sullen path, wheezing to a stop only when Phillip turned towards the door in shock. “Andrew… What the hell… What are you doing here?”

Andrew stumbled in bleeding from a gash in his head.  His suit, usually so crisp and clean, looked like a dog had been using it as a chew toy.  He fell against the keys of the omni-piano, momentarily cuing an orchestra of poorly tuned musicians, then stood and looked to the door.  He shifted from foot to foot with a broken panic, but he spoke with a morbid humor. “I really just got lonely.  It’s raining after all and I’m a terrible creature of habit.”

Phillip pulled Andrew’s dark hair away from the gash in his head. “Were you in an accident?”

“Two actually.” Andrew laughed, flickering nervously in Phillip’s embrace. ”My brothers are on their way.  My father has his best computer assassins working against me.  Even Jack the Giant Killer.  Can you believe it?  I taught that bastard everything he knows and now he’s after me.”

“Why?”  Phillip couldn’t force the idea to make sense.

Andrew’s nervous shifting stilled long enough for him to stare Phillip in the eyes. “Why do you think, Phillip?”

Phillip turned his gaze to the floor and mumbled. “Shit… I’m sorry, Andy.”

“That’s all right.  Don’t apologize to me.” Andrew looked around the empty room suspiciously. “But don’t stay here.  My father has a hit on you, too.  Sorcier can’t be too far behind.  I came to warn you.  To ask you to come with me.”

“Come with you?” Phillip stared blankly at the man before him and then shook disbelief from his head. “I know a place in the Wetland Sector.  You’d hate it.  It’s sunny.  Lots of bugs and old people.  But that’s why they won’t look for us there.”

Andrew seemed surprised when Phillip said, “Sounds like heaven.  Let’s go.”

7.

The rain leaked through the roof in steady drips that seemed to supply a beat to the erratic rhythm of the rain outside.  Phillip curled next to Andrew in their tiny bed and they listened to the water falling into the bucket next to the door.  Andrew chuckled. “I’m not quite used to this.”

“The oppressive poverty?” Phillip turned towards Andrew and smiled. “You get used to it.”

“No, I actually…” Andrew stumbled and then caught himself. “I didn’t mean that negatively.  I meant.  It’s rather odd, I suppose.  I but I feel more… at ease here than anywhere else.  More peaceful.  Not worrying about impressing anyone, or earning anyone’s approval, proving my manhood.”

Phillip laughed. “You think of the damnest things.”

“Only when it rains.” Andrew shrugged, the casual movement rubbing into Phillip. “And the poverty’s not so bad.  Worse than anything I’ve ever had to deal with… but not so bad.”

“Go to sleep, Andrew.” Phillip rolled away from him again.

Andrew leaned against Phillip’s shoulder until the man slipped onto his back. “Well, Phillip, it is raining.  You ought to distract me from my musings if you don’t like them.”

“I don’t mind the musings.” Phillip felt too sleepy to argue and simply yawned. “After I’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

Phillip wasn’t expecting it when Andrew rolled on top of him suddenly in a leisure straddle.  Phillip’s sleepiness vanished and his hand flew to his lover’s hips. “Stepping a bit out of place, aren’t we, Andrew?”

“Shh.” Andrew whispered. “Just play along and pretend it’s always been like this and it always will be.”

Phillip wanted to mock the sentiment, but the ridicule died somewhere inside their kiss.  Perhaps at the place where Phillip wanted exactly what Andrew wanted.

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.

1.

Iris Morgan did not want to betray her lover, but as she powdered her face – the first of many unnecessary coats applied in the thirty minutes between make-up call and curtain up – Iris was not certain she had the choice anymore.

It was delicious when she had been the closest link between La Masque and her father.  When an Intersectoral Police Chief had a daughter who was the most popular lounge singer in a night club he was desperate to shut down, the irony was sweet.  Iris had enjoyed the taste more than anyone.

Leave it to Jack to decide to have a personal crisis and become a police informant.  Jack sabotaged a very promising career as a computer hacker after just one arrest, and that arrest was only for speeding.  Iris remembered the night when Jack had returned to their second-story apartment breathless, slightly panicked, and glowing with redemption.  It took a moment for Iris to make sense of the southern woman’s quick prattle, when Jack said, “They brought me to the Bitton Isles.  I had an assignment to hack into this long distance… never mind.  I thought your father was in a surgery, but he wasn’t.  He was sittin’ right there at his desk.  I walked into his office and he just smiles and says to me, ‘why, my dear, shouldn’t you be at home compromising a long distance surgery.’  And I had to help him them, Iris.  He didn’t arrest me or hold me on any charges and I just had to help him then, Iris.”

Iris hadn’t argued.  She didn’t mind either way.  If destroying corporations illegally wasn’t noble enough for Jack, it meant very little to Iris.  One less thing to worry about really.  But then suddenly Jack needed to do things the right way and she had decided to kill La Masque.  Jack neglected to think about what that particular good deed would mean to Iris.

Iris slammed the pink puff down into her foundation tray and exhaled an angry sigh.  The woman at the vanity next to her leaned closer and asked, “Monique is well?”

“Oh, of course, Panya.” Iris smiled at the Amazon and her childish softness. “Jack has caused me a little distress tonight, that’s all.”

Panya nodded sternly, trying to read between the lines of a text that she probably couldn’t read to begin with.  She said at length, “Monique tell Panya her trouble.  Panya listen good.”

Chuckling, Iris gently petted the other woman’s cheek, “It’s not quite that simple, darling.”

2.

Just a few months before, Jack was completely unapologetic about her life.  She fervently rejected the idea that she was a criminal.

“Well, it just ain’t that way, Iris.  It ain’t.” Jack took her coffee black and scalding, while Iris sat across the table from her sipping a cin-vanillia cappuccino.  Jack barely hesitated to gulp the coffee, ranting on. “It ain’t even criminal.  It’s more like stealing what they ain’t got no use for, if you asks me.  Why my daddy, for years, reads the obituaries with the kind of passion other men in my sector read the help wanteds.  No one in the Dockside can keep a job.  They ain’t fuckin’ allowed.”

Iris giggled into the froth of her cappuccino. “Jack, calm down.  People are looking.”

“They can keep fuckin’ looking.” Jack replied, her volume unrelenting. “My daddy reads the obits everyday and every night, after he fishes all day to make half of what it takes to run a well-fed heated house, he goes out to them fancy cemeteries and he digs up them fancy graves and he takes anything he can from them fancy stiffs.”

“Jack!”  Iris leaned across the table to grasp her lover’s elbow, laughing. “Jack, please. You’re such an embarrassment.”

“And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that neither.  Them corpses ain’t gonna need what they got.  They weren’t born with no gold rings.  God don’t expect to see ‘em in heaven with no gold rings.” Jack lowered her voice now. “An’ what I do ain’t so different anyways.  I just steal.  Climb up into their systems while the big bosses are sittin’ back in their beach resorts and environmentally-protected dome sectors, which us poor folk ain’t allowed inside, and I steal whatever I can that they don’t need, and there ain’t nothing wrong with it.”

Iris clucked her tongue. “My father would disagree.”

“Your father ‘s probably just as bad as them rich assholes.” Jack smiled, purposefully challenging Iris’ devotion to her father.

“My father probably is one of those rich -” Iris blushed a deep red and giggled, “assholes.”

Jack sat back and laughed at the rosy color filling her lover’s cheeks, “Naw, Walter Morgan ain’t so bad.  He goes after real criminals.”

“Like you?” Iris asked, the flirtation in her voice as irresistible as it was unmistakable.

“I ain’t no criminal.” Jack smirked. “I’m an opportunist.”

3.

Later that same evening, they lay together in their apartment.  The awkwardness of inexperience that had troubled the beginning of their relationship had given way to a comfortable intimacy, and Iris lay more easily in Jack’s arms than she did alone.

Iris thought Jack was sleeping until her soft twang broke the silence. “You know, I have to admire your father.  What he tries to do for ever’body.”

“And what’s that?” Iris lifted her head from Jack’s shoulder to look at her lover’s tanned face. “Enforce the social order that keeps the poor penniless and the rich wealthy?”

“Tryin’ to keep people safe.” Jack corrected and lifted her hand to Iris’ pale hair.  Her fingers tangled through her curls and got stuck. “I mean, it don’t help me none.  But I’m an honest kind of criminal.  I don’t generally take from no one that needs it.”

Iris dropped her head back to Jack’s shoulder, staring down at Jack’s rough body.  The cage of her binding left long red lines across her small breasts.  She remembered seeing dark red lines on her stepsisters’ backs and she remembered being slapped for implying that the pain of the corset was not worth the appearance.  Jack’s cuts were smaller and deeper, but when Iris’ drifting fingers wanted to trace the bars, she felt they were just as forbidden.

She said, curling her hands away. “I thought you weren’t a criminal. Just an opportunist?”

Jack laughed and placed a sloppy kiss on Iris’ forehead. “I meant something else.  Other people.  Other criminals take away things that can’t be given back.  Things people need.”

“Andrew Cunningham asked you to hack into a long distance surgery again, didn’t he?” Iris felt her stomach curl away from the idea and she tried to keep her body from stiffening.

Jack noticed anyway and sat up.  Her voice was soft when she spoke, a sudden reminder of Jack’s femininity. “It ain’t… yeah.  He did.”

Iris jolted when Jack suddenly punched the mattress and huffed a loud and angry breath.

“Why do these stupid idiots still do long distance surgeries anyways?” Jack demanded to no one in particular. “‘Specially, when someone wants you dead.  Don’t no one have ‘nough sense to know that their life depends on a computer not fuckin’ up.  I don’t want no doctor half a world away cuttin’ my throat inside out ‘cause of a computer glitch.  Forget ‘bout hackers.  The computer’s dangerous enough.”

Iris whispered, “In some parts of the world, long distance surgeries are the only way people can receive the medical help they need.  They’re much cheaper than traveling to another sector for a surgery.”

“You sound like a text book, Iris.” Jack scowled. “It’s some doctor playin’ video games.”

Iris twisted the small ring Jack had given her, “Did you take the assignment?”

“Hell no.” Jack replied, shrilly. “I ain’t that kinda hacker.”

“Andrew Cunningham must by furious.” Iris felt her stomach twirl in the other direction and she wrapped her arms around Jack with protective worry. “He’s not too furious, is he, Jack?”

Jack shrugged and reached up her hand to clasp Iris’ fingers. “Well, he ain’t got a hit on me yet.  I’m gonna keep my distance from the world for a couple days.  Head back to Dockside for a bit.  Will you come see me?”

“Oh, every day.” Iris promised.

“Not every day.” Jack chuckled. “Just make sure you ain’t followed, all right?”

Iris answered quietly, “I understand.”

4.

“Something bad happened to Cunningham and his computers.” Panya said suddenly, interrupting the quiet of the dressing room.  She was painting green and blue streaks on her face.

Iris glanced over at her and traced the streaks with her eyes.  She could never tell if the make-up was meant to be tribal.  Panya’s skin was dark but the light colors created a more airy effect on an already mysterious face, more like a magical creature than a primitive being. “What did you say, darling?”

“Andrew Cunningham.  Something bad happened to his computers.” Panya repeated.

Iris nodded. “I’ve heard.  Someone tampered with some of his files and he doesn’t know who.”

Panya agreed, sliding a sky blue line from her right eye to her chin. “Monsieur Ice is asking people questions.  But he did not ask Panya anything.  Did he ask Monique anything?”

Iris glanced at the floor and shook her head. “No.”

“Monsieur Ice will not ask Panya anything because he knows that I have no computers.  But Jack.” Panya set down her paintbrush and looked directly at Iris. “Jack has computers.”

Iris shifted in her chair, briefly reminded that Panya was a thinking person.  She heard and understood things that her limited language prevented her from expressing.  Still, she was not as perceptive as Ice.  Iris laughed, preparing her lie for Ice. “Of course, Jack knows about computers.  But Jack’s as loyal as a dog to anyone who gives him more than a few paychecks.  Jack wouldn’t trifle with a man as ruthless as Andrew Cunningham.  He’d have no reason.”

Panya nodded and stood to find her costume.  The other girls had begun to sag into the dressing room.  Soon it would be too noisy to speak to the low-voiced Panya.  Iris stood and followed her. “Why?  Did Ice say something about suspecting Jack?”

The Amazon may have been a foot and a half taller than Iris.  The way her clothes fit reminded her of Jack’s clothing.  Jack wore men’s clothes too big and rolled up the sleeves, something that a small man would do.  Panya did what a big woman would do and wore men’s shirts that fit the length of her arms and the girth of her bust.  The shoulders sagged at her biceps, creating a disassembled look.  Panya shrugged and didn’t look at Iris as she said, “Monsieur Ice say nothing to Panya.”

Iris felt oddly overpowered by the tall woman’s silence and turned back to her mirror to powder her face again. “No, I suppose he wouldn’t.”

Panya kissed Iris’ cheek, her way of saying goodbye. “He did say to Maloup to watch Jack.  Be safe, Monique.”

Iris nodded and looked at the floor.  She waited for Ice.

5.

Iris could not remember the occasion, but she did remember that there were fireworks in the sky and she and Jack were watching from the outside deck of the volex.  Jack had lowered the windows and landed on a wide river and they lay on their backs to watch fire paint the heavens.  That was the night Jack first told Iris about how Ice, as seductive as any woman, had lured her into La Masque.

Jack lay on the deck with one arm behind her head and Iris leaned on Jack, her head supported by Jack’s steadily rising chest.  Iris’ hands lay daintily in her lap as if she didn’t feel Jack’s fingers inching up beneath her dress.

“Did I ever tell you about the witch that lived across the street from my house?” Jack asked.

Iris watched the blue and white stream launch from the center of the river. “No.  I don’t think you ever did.”

Jack chuckled. “Well, right across the street was smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi – the real one.  Not that man-made piece of shit up North.  Anyways, this witch had a house floating in the middle of the river, and I mean, if a witch wanted to build a house in the middle of a river, I sure wasn’t gonna stop her.”

“Sounds more like a floating foundation than magic.” Iris said.

“Could be,” Jack hummed considering.  “It felt different than a floating foundation.  When my dad kicked me out, she let me in her house for a little while.”

Iris sat up. “Oh how dreadful, you never told me your father kicked you out?”

Jack shrugged. “I’d left his house a couple months earlier with a woman named Robin.  She taught me everything I know about computers.  But she was a computer assassin and she was dead by the time I was trying to go back to my dad.  He didn’t like nothing about the situation, though my mama always said he didn’t raise me up right to be nothing but what I was.”

Iris turned her face hearing Jack’s hesitation, resting her cheek against Jack’s chest.  She could feel the tight binding beneath Jack’s shirt that turned her breasts into a flat plane. “Robin meant a lot to you?”

“She meant enough.” Jack never regained her brazen tone, speaking hushed as her eyes mirrored the red and yellow bursts in the sky. “Anyways, this witch that lived across the lake from me.  When she saw my dad turn me out she called me over and gave me a pewter cow.  Then she told me that if I sold it to the right person I could live the rest of my life off it.”

“I suppose she meant to an antique seller.” Iris said. “My step-mother collects antiques from pre-sectors eras.”

“That’s what I figured.” Jack replied. “I was out tryin’ to sell the thing and Ice found me.”

“Was he looking all that hard?” Iris laughed.

“He sure was,” Jack said. “ ‘Parently, he employed Robin and knew about me.  He wanted to see what I could do for him.  Course I wanted no part of it.  I seen what happened to Robin and I wasn’t about to get involved with the same people.  But Ice ain’t one to take no for an answer.  He found a way to sabotage any job I got legitimately.  Made sure I knew what he was up to too.  Then one day, I went out to try and sell that stupid cow again and there he was.  Offered to buy it off me for three beans.”

“Beans?” Iris wondered.

“Huh?  Oh, particlized memory storage unit thingys.” Jack was never one for technical names. “They got the files on them about my ‘signments.  Tell me what I’m looking for when I hack into a place.”

Iris nodded, understanding enough. “And that was it.  He had you then?”

“Yup.” Jack sighed and chuckled, finished with serious subjects.  Her hand slipped farther up Iris’ dress. “Personally, I think he was only so persistent because he wanted to add me to his personal collection.  You know, of women.  He’s got one from just about every sector workin’ for him somewhere.  But he don’t have no one like me.”

Iris laughed at the idea, then paused to consider. “You’re right.  He does have a girl from every sector there.  I mean women that he takes an interest in.  Women he asks about.  We call them his favorites.  I suppose, I’m his girl from the Victorian Sector.  How revolting!”

Jack smirked lazily. “He keeps good care of his collection.  Keeps us all polished up nice.  Like a good collector should.”

“It’s a revolting idea.” Iris said and leaned again on Jack’s stomach, watching the fireworks with a distant worry, until Jack’s slow fingers unsettled her again.

6.

“Monique, you’re already ready for your show!” Ice timed his entrance well, appearing ten minutes before the show when the dressing room fluttered with women and Iris was powdering her face for the last time.  The slender man perched on her vanity and smiled at her, his face oddly reminiscent of a porcelain doll. “And how is my Victorian harp this evening?”

Iris narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly disliking the man who pulled off a coy femininity better than Iris’ lover. “I am not a harp, Ice.  I’m a human.

The man smiled, a slight disagreeing grin that found her too amusing to challenge.

“You just caught me on my way out.” Iris pushed away from her vanity and headed for the main door. “It’s so hot in here.  You really ought to get us an environmental control unit, Ice.”

“I’ll consider it.” Ice slipped off his perch and opened the door for her.

“Such a gentleman.” Iris smiled at his politeness, but her nose crinkled because his slender frame blocked the hall that led towards the main entrance of La Masque.  She turned towards the stage, not yet certain he had not thwarted her on purpose.

Ice pursued her down the hallway. “Have you seen Jack lately?  I have an assignment for him.”

Iris glanced over her bare shoulder.  Ice knew Jack was a woman; he had known before Iris knew.  Still Iris shrugged. “I saw Jack earlier this week.  Not today.”

The hallway seemed narrower and darker than usual.  Iris licked the bitter taste of lipstick and added with a casual wave of her hand. “Have you tried e-mail?  Archaic.  I know.  But always a good way to reach Jack.”

Iris knew she was transparent, even though Ice spoke evenly, without a trace of suspicion. “Jack hasn’t been answering any of our attempts to reach him.”

“Strange.” Iris shrugged again, walking faster towards the dim lights of the stage where she knew Ice would fall silent, either out of superstition or tact. “He must be busy.  You know, Jack is one of Andrew Cunningham’s primary… helpers.”

“I do know that, my dear.” Ice answered.

Iris gasped when a tall man suddenly separated from the darkness and stood in her path blocking the light of the stage.  Maloup tended to lurk wherever Ice went, but he did not usually show himself unless Ice summoned him.

Ice continued. “That’s exactly why we’re having this conversation, Iris.”

Iris refused to let the men intimidate her, trying to remain casual.  She turned to face Ice. “Has Jack done something wrong?”

“She may have broken into Andrew Cunningham’s computers.” Ice dropped his secretiveness about Jack when they left the room, and he leaned against the wall as if offering Iris an escape path if she lost her nerve. “It would be very, very bad for her and for anyone involved with her if the Cunninghams think she’s trying to touch their empire.”

Iris hummed her interest in the remark and forced callousness into her voice. “Does this business threaten La Masque?  You may think me wicked, but my future here is probably more important to me than Jack’s life.  If there’s anything I can help you find out…”

Ice’s expression only flickered a moment when she spoke.  Iris couldn’t tell if he had detected her lie or if he was surprised by her apathy.  He only smiled coolly. “La Masque is run by Sorcier.  Sorcier is not Cunningham.  Just a close associate.  This computer business will not affect us.  Why?  Did Jack tell you that something that might affect us?”

“No, she didn’t.” Iris scoffed. “Obviously, I would tell you if she did.”

Ice tilted his head to one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Cunningham is not a man to play games with, Iris.”

“I know that.” Iris replied. “And Jack knows that too.  She wouldn’t put herself in danger that way.  She’s not much of a vigilante, and Cunningham pays her well enough.”

Ice hummed and Iris could tell he knew she was hiding something.  Iris understood that when he backed away from the subject it was his choice and had nothing to do with her maneuvering. “That’s what I say.  I don’t think it was Jack anyway.  I think it was the intersectoral police getting smart.”

Iris dropped her eyes to the floor, wondering how much Ice knew about Jack’s change in occupation.  Ice didn’t reveal his secrets as easily as she did, “You wouldn’t know anything about the intersectoral police, would you, Iris?”

“Of course not,” Iris shook her head, certain she was more convincing this time. “My father is much too polite to discuss such matters with his daughters.  It’s improper for a woman, you know.  Besides, I don’t see much of him anymore.”

“Ah, forgive me, Iris.” Ice smiled apologetically. “I’d forgotten your father asked you to leave the sector.  Good thing you have La Masque to take care of you.”

Iris didn’t argue and he bowed and walked away. “Have a good show, Monique.”

Iris held her breath, watching Ice and Maloup drift away.  When they had faded into the darkness, she leaned against the wall and sighed with a fleeting sense of relief.

As she sang that night, she noticed the two men sitting near the back.  The distance between the stage and their table turned Maloup’s dark sunglasses into deep empty sockets, but Ice looked more delicate than ever, his hands folded under his narrow chin and his eyes closed as he listened to her song.  Iris tried to imagine the fair man pitying her when Jack failed in her attempt to destroy La Masque.  Maybe Ice would be kind enough to kill her himself with the subtleness that accompanied his every move.  Instead, she kept picturing the man stepping daintily to one side as the Cunninghams rushed on her, carrying Jack’s head on a pike.  For one reason or another, Jack’s face was covered in a tawdry makeup, her lips as red as the blood seeping down from her neck.

1.

Jack Cason sat alone in her computer closet, her head sagging above her knees.  The darkest shape in the white room, she covered her eyes and stared into the false dusk of her cupped palms until her vision adjusted to the darkness.  Iris had told her that this exercise would protect her eyes from the damage caused by staring at a computer screen, and Jack stared into her hands because she believed her.  Iris would have known; her father was a native of the New Age Sector.

Jack blinked into the shadow of her hands, remembering that Edward Cunningham had contracted her to kill Iris’s father.

It was an easy assignment.  The man already lay sedated in Chestern Memorial, a hospital deep in the Anglo-Isles in the Britton Sector, just outside the Victorian Sector.  He was scheduled for a minor throat surgery, preformed by a doctor across a continent and a small ocean in the Edo Sector.  Just a routine solution to a routine disease; Jack would add the fatal glitch that would cause a microscopic scalpel to slit the man’s throat from the inside out.  An easy assignment.

Jack sighed, blinking at the bright glow from her computer screen and setting her hands back on the keys.  She knew the letters to type that would cause an accidental slip of the scalpel.  She knew the letters to type that would carve ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ into his neck.  Yet her fingers were still.

In a moment, she would do what she’d done a dozen times before and fulfill her contract with Cunningham.  Cunningham wouldn’t be pleased that she hesitated.  Even if it was just a moment.  Jack never broke a contract with a Cunningham.

Not even for Iris.

2.

Before Jack met Iris, she never hesitated, running two or three assignments a week.  Not many were assassinations; most were disarming security alarms or moving money from one pocket to another.  The night she met Iris, Jack was picking up more assignments.  The contractor was Sorcier, some kind of second-hand mystery who owned a pleasure resort called La Masque.  Jack usually avoided the fairytale-for-hire, because she’d never actually met Sorcier, just Sorcier’s favorite minion, the man who ran La Masque.  Everyone called him Ice.

He was meeting her in the Preferential Lounge, a place classy enough to make it difficult for Jack to order her favorite beer, which was too low-class for the establishment to carry.  She arrived in time to catch the end of the midnight show.  The last singer was different than the other girls.  She didn’t rely on the mild spectacles of light and smoke available to her.  The omni-piano was softened to the sound and pitch of one instrument.

Jack was not a particularly musical person, but the last singer dazzled her.  There was nothing bawdy or blaring about her song, just a subtle seductive music stolen from the same jazz era that had styled her long black dress.  As sensual as it was simple.  Her voice soared over La Masque’s highest standards.  She obviously deserved to be more than a lounge singer.

“She is very beautiful, isn’t she?” Jack startled at the accented voice and the sliding hand on her shoulder.  The man – slender, pale, and exceptionally graceful – oozed into the stool across from her.

“Ice, you sceered me nearly to death.” Jack grumbled into her beer mug, her eyes darting back to the stage and the glittering singer. “It’s ‘bout time you got here.  Where’s my ‘signments?”

“Why do women only want to speak of business?” Ice leaned on one arm. “Why can’t they be more concerned with little things like hair-styles, nail polish?”

“You’re too jealous of women to be sexist, Ice.” Jack answered, glancing at anything but the man across the table and allowing her eyes to fall on the bar that sparkled with elegance and glass. “An’ if you give me away, I’ll be mighty sore at you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jack.  No one here suspects your sex.  You look more like a man than me.” He stole her drink and sipped at the cold mug.  Then he winced, “This is disgusting.  Do we serve something this disgusting at La Masque?”

“Nope, you don’t.  Ever’time I come here I have to get it run over.” Jack turned her eyes back to the graceful half-dance of the performer. “Give me my ‘signments, Ice, and tell me about that girl?”

Jack didn’t like Ice’s enigmatic smile.  Ice dropped a tiny case on the table and slipped off of the stool. “I cannot afford to stay and gossip tonight, Jack.  Adieu.”

“I ain’t here for gossip.  Now tell me about that girl.” Jack grabbed his arm and held him.  Ice straightened the purple silk scarf around his neck as if she were not gripping his arm, ignoring Jack as she asked, “What’s her name?”

“I’ll tell you because I know you’re worth the effort.” Ice replied. “She is Monique.  She is very beautiful, isn’t she?  What else do you want to know?”

“Nothing.” Jack answered his entrapping gaze with automatic defensiveness.  She shrugged, idly. “Maybe I want to meet her.”

“Monique does not meet people.” Jack sat straighter, when Ice leaned closer and whispered soothingly. “I could persuade her to make an exception, perhaps?”

Jack glared at him and then back to the woman on the stage.  For the briefest moment, the singer’s eyes glittered out from beneath her long bangs and noticed the distant figure watching her from the corner of the lounge.  Jack chewed on her lip then said. “Well…I’ll owe you a favor, I guess.”

“So pleased to hear that.” Ice chuckled and tapped the table. “Send her an iris.”

He vanished into the greater darkness of La Masque before Jack could demand further explanation.

3.

Jack visited La Masque every night for two weeks to see the midnight show.  She brought a single iris every day, and every day she crushed the flower in her own dirty hands before Monique even appeared on stage.  The night before she entered into the third week of her obsession, Jack again sat at her high table in the back, perched on a polished stool, twirling an iris, and drinking the beer so cheap a waitress had to be sent out to purchase it.

The midnight show hadn’t begun yet, and this iris was about to meet the same fate as the others.  Jack set the flower on the table, resolved not to tear up the flower until she saw Monique sing.  She took a great gulp from her mug.

Looking over the top of the mug, she recognized the man who played the omni-piano to accompany the singers walking past her table.  She lurched forward to grab his shoulder.  The man was taller than she was and looked at her with an angry curiosity.  His gaze gentled when she pushed the iris at him and stuttered. “Could you kindly give this to Miss Monique, if you get a moment?”

Jack spent the rest of the night hoping that he didn’t get a moment.  Just before intermission ended, the accompanist passed her table again and said, “Wait in the alloy garden after the show.”

Jack broke into a sweat and swore that she would not go.

But half-an-hour later, Jack was sweating and swearing because it had taken so long to find the garden.  The alloys glinted in the dark, glass vines chiming against each other as the bell-petals of metallic flowers plinked the same melody-less song.  The breeze sparking the flowers did not to cool Jack.

Jack saw her sitting quietly on a bench looking out at the dark waters of the Middle Seine, a man-made section of the river that separated the lower and upper regions of the Parisian Sectors.  From where she was sitting, Monique should have been able to see the lights of the elite opera houses and fashionable restaurants sparkling off the water.  La Masque’s Preferential Lounge was a shoddy imitation of the grandeur across the river.

Jack stepped closer, trying to think of something clever to say about the distance between the shores and the social structure on either side, but instead of speaking, Jack tripped on the loose stones and cut her hand on the petals of a tin rose.

Jack raced against gravity to stand, and Monique laughed, as light and tinkling as the bells hidden in the bushes.  Jack cleared her throat and tried to deaden her blush.  Men blushed differently than women. “It’s uh… nice to see you, Miss Monique.”

“One would expect a man named Jack the Giant Killer to be a little lighter on his feet.” Monique spoke with a delicate accent rooted in the Anglo-isles.  She smiled and turned on the bench, a regal queen welcoming a guest into a magical garden of metal and glass. “I’m glad you didn’t surprise me.”

Jack wandered closer, careful of her feet, and held her cap between her fisted hands as if to strangle the grime from the rim. “I’m the clumsiest kinda man.”

“Clumsiness becomes you.” Monique replied, her eyes drifting over Jack’s features if she were assessing a purchase. “I knew you were short; your shoes never quite touched the footrest on those stools.  But you look… so different up close.  Softer.”

Jack bristled at the words and felt her lip curl in disgust at imminent disaster. “Someone named Jack the Giant Killer ain’t exactly used to being called soft.”

Monique laughed and twirled the iris, turning further on the bench until her feet slipped over the stone between them.  She was still wearing her transparent stage heels.

Jack cleared her throat. “I was told you never met with gentlemen.”

“Well, you know my favorite flower.  You must be Ice’s friend.” Monique lifted the iris to cover her face and stared out over the petals.  She stood when Jack did not reply. “And I’ve decided that I like you.  You seem different than other men.  I find you more attractive for some reason.”

There was a flicker in her pale brow that told Jack the lovely girl knew exactly what it was she had seen that she found attractive.  Jack had not expected Monique to be so coy and it was a surprise that Monique was from the Anglo-isles; the Anglos were not known for being lounge singers.

“Shall we go inside?” Monique offered her arm, genteelly.

Jack stumbled over the words, her eyes slipping down Monique’s glittering neckline and then darting back to her face, ashamed. “Actually, I… I’d just as soon take up your time walkin’ ‘round this sector.  I don’t know it well and… um.”

Monique continued to smile and did not lower her arm until Jack found the confidence to curl their arms together and say, “I’d be much obliged to have a pretty lady to escort me.”

“I’d be obliged to oblige.” Monique smiled, hugging closer.

4.

Jack had never been near the back stage of a theater and she wandered into the dressing rooms of the Preferential Lounge with her hands in her pockets and her eyes on the floor, a physical promise not to touch and not to see.  That did little to protect her from the tall, dark woman who suddenly appeared before her and smashed a hand into Jack’s chest.

The guard, broad woman with uncertain language and expressive features, towered over Jack and demanded. “Who is you and what you want in backstage?”

Jack lifted her hands soothingly. “I’m just lookin’ for Monique.  I meet her for… to walk through the city a couple times a week.  She said I’d find her here.”

The tall woman glared and Jack smiled and asked, “How ‘bout I just wait here for her.”

The guard pointed to a folding chair in the corner of the dressing room, by a clothing rack stuffed with dresses. “You sit.”

Jack nodded, vigorously. “I’ll sit.”

The guard returned to looking at her mirror and opened a plain box.  Jack watched as the woman drew out glittering beads and laid them on the counter.  When the tall woman tugged open her heavy cotton shirt, changing for the show without shame, Jack realized the blue and green pebbles were a costume and the guard was a singer. “Oh, you’re that mermaid act.  I recognize you now.”

The tall woman swung around but her gaze turned from anger to indifference and she nodded. “Panya sing.  You sit other way.”

“I’ll sit the other way.” Jack turned the stiff metal chair to face the wall of dresses.  The neutral clothing staring at Jack didn’t have the requisite luster for the Preferential Lounge; this was where the performers left their day clothes.  Jack glanced over the dresses, counting the different sectors.  The sari belonged to the belly dancer from the Persian Sector.  The simple skirt of plaid and patches looked like it was from the Eyre Sector.  The jeans and t-shirt probably came from the Empire Sector.

When Jack noticed a heavy dress and bustle, she leaned forward to touch the lace and ruffles. “There’s a girl from the Victorian Sector workin’ here?”

“No.” Panya replied instantly. “Is cheap costume.”

Jack looked over to the woman still threading the beads around her arms and neck. “No, I’ve seen mock Victorian’s and this ain’t one.  Even her little boots are tailor-made.”

“Just costume.  Ice buy.  Very cheap.”  Jack slipped farther into the seat when Panya stalked back and picked up the dress to take it away. “It belong here.  Not there.  Stop feeling up dresses.”

Jack put her hands beneath her thighs to prove her innocence and stared at the wall, trying to imagine Monique in a Victorian bustle.

5.

“It’s a shame I only see you once a week.” Monique said, taking Jack’s hand as they walked the snowy streets of the Lower Parisian Sector. “I must be dreadfully boring, since all we ever do is talk.”

“I like talking with you.” Jack shivered in her coat. “Are you cold?”

Monique nodded and replied faintly. “Just a little.”

Before she could protest, Jack’s coat nestled around her shoulders.  Monique laughed, “Now you’ll be cold.  And you’re from a sector more Southern than mine.”

Jack shrugged. “Don’t matter.  I’m fine.”

Monique bumped into her, grinning. “You know you’re one of my favorite people.”

“Ice told you to say that.” Jack concealed her blush.

“Actually, Ice told me I was endangering myself getting into a relationship with you.”

Jack stiffened. “If that bastard threatens you again –”

“Oh, Ice is a sweetheart.  He meant my identity.” Monique laughed, leaned closer, then danced away.  Her hips swayed beneath Jack’s large coat. “My name isn’t really Monique.”

“What is it then?” Jack caught her wrist to hold her.

Monique spun around and pressed close.  Jack’s eyes swelled when Monique pushed their mouths together, almost as if the kiss was only for Monique’s own amusement.  But Jack liked the taste of the other woman’s lipstick and Monique didn’t argue when Jack sank their bodies together, brewing the playful kiss into something strong.

Monique caught her breath by pulling away, stumbling out of her customary grace.  She spoke with a stumbling casualness. “I can’t tell you.”

“Then don’t kiss me again,” Jack replied sternly, pushing her hands into her pockets.

Monique seemed to dislike Jack’s severity and she scoffed, “Why should I not kiss you, if that’s what I want to do?”

Jack said nothing, looking at the cobbled stones beneath her feet.  She stood firm as Monique drifted closer and twister her arms around Jack’s neck.

Monique tickled her nose against Jack’s ear. “You’re trembling, Jack.  Are you cold?”

Jack nodded, but didn’t trust her voice not to squeak if she spoke.

“Most men wouldn’t admit that.” Monique cooed.  “You’re so different.”

Jack lifted her hands to Monique’s waist. “I’m not a man.”

Monique shifted back separating their bodies, but not lowering her arms.  She glanced between their parted torsos. “You don’t look like a woman, Jack.”

“Well, you don’t look much like a Victorian lady,” Jack replied.

Monique glanced away not betraying her own secret, hearing Jack’s voice for the first time as a deep female sound and not as a tenor.  Jack didn’t move as if she were afraid to startle Monique. “My real name is Jacklyn, but I’d ‘preciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

“Don’t worry.” Monique held onto her shoulders even when Jack tried to pull away.  The levity had vanished from her voice; the weight seemed to burden her into a whisper, “I won‘t betray you.  I don’t think I would have known if you hadn’t said…”

“Well, if you kept flirtin’ and… never mind.” Jack tried to push Monique away again, but the woman refused to step back. “I should never have sent that flower.”

“I’m glad you did.” Monique leaned closer, resting her forehead against Jack. “This will take some time getting used to.  Being in love with a criminal was interesting enough.”

“You ain’t in love,” Jack replied.

“You don’t know that,” Monique said, smiling quietly.

“You know if you’re cold, I got a volex.” Jack forced her tone to be casual. “Next time I come by we can take a drive to someplace on the American Continent.  It will be sunny and if we go far enough south.  Warm too.”

Monique nodded. “I’d like that.”

6.

               Three visits later, Jack stood behind the wheel of her volex, staring at the instruments on the control panel and frowning. “Looks like the South will have to wait another week.  There’s a volex followin’ us.  I’m gonna drop you off in the next sector.”

“Oh, don’t please.” Monique insisted, jumping up from the couch behind Jack and leaning on Jack’s shoulder. “I was looking forward to the weather in the South American Continent.”

Jack ignored the woman hanging on her arm. “There’s a man followin’ us.  An’ I don’t like it.”

Monique released Jack’s arm. “If it’s an Anglo volex, it’s just a spy from my father.  He trains all his new recruits by sending them after me.  To make sure I’m well.”

“Your daddy sounds like an important man.” Jack replied. “You ain’t never mentioned him before.  He don’t happen to be related to the Cunningham family would he?”

“The Cunningham family?  I should say not!  The Cunninghams are barbarians.  My family is pure, um….” Monique hesitated in her insulted outcry and finished weakly. “Victorian Stock.”

Jack glanced over her shoulder. “You was gonna say his name?”

“Yes.” Monique smiled coyly. “But that would give away mine, wouldn’t it?”

“Couldn’t risk that in present comp’ny,” Jack grumbled.

Jack resisted when Monique tried to hug her, nudging her off rudely.

Monique took offence. “Don’t be mean, Jack.  I don’t see why it matters what my real name is.  I’m more Monique than anyone else in the world.”

“I just don’t like deceits,” Jack answered and looked again at her consol. “That man’s still at our tail.  But we’re over the Mid-Landtic Sector.  It’s like a big boat, Monique.  Just a big floatin’ rest stop.  You can get home from there easy.”

“I tell you, it’s just a spy from my father.” Monique dropped back into the couch behind Jack.  She said crossly, “You lied about your sex.”

“I have to.” Jack found her excuse weak and added. “And I told you the truth.”

“I guessed it.” Monique spouted back.

“I didn’t keep you guessin’,” Jack mumbled.

Monique’s voice quieted suddenly. “You’ll think I’m foolish.”

“I got theories,” Jack answered, only half-serious. “My favorite is that you’re getting blackmailed into it.  Someone’s got something on your family and unless you sing, that someone will tell everyone. Most likely you made a mistake and got a kid somewheres that no one in Victoria can know about.”

“Those explain it at least.” Monique laughed. “Really I’m just a foolish girl, who became exhausted with her chores, got someone to help her leave them behind, and happened to find a prince along her way.”

Jack looked over her shoulder at the young woman reclining on the couch behind her.  She said fondly, “I’m still leavin’ you in the Mid-Landtic Sector.”

Monique sat up and scoffed. “Who said I meant you?”

“Nobody,” Jack muttered smiling at the control panel.

“Well, I did mean you.” Monique leaned back against the couch, covering her eyes with her graceful hand. “I suppose it’s only fair really.  To tell you I mean.  I do believe you shall hate me for the truth though.”

“All right, you got me in auto-pilot.” Jack stated.

Monique sat stiffly, her ankles tight together, her eyes on the floor. “Do you know who Walter Morgan is?”

Jack suddenly got serious. “Chief of the Intersectorial Police in the Britton Isles.  He’d be the most powerful man in the world if it weren’t for paperwork.  Why?”

“He’s my father.” Monique stated.

Jack blinked at her consol for a moment and then turned around. “What?”

Monique tossed her head lightly to one side. “I was mostly raised in the Victorian Sector, of course, by my step-mother.  I never went without a thing a day in my life.  But I hate the Victorian Sector.  And I hate being a lady in the Victorian Sector.  Of course, I’m not really prepared for much else.”

“That don’t mean much, Monique,” Jack answered, amazed by the stranger behind her.  She took her volex out of auto-pilot.

“Actually my name is Iris.” She ran a hand through her loose blonde hair and then continued excitedly. “If we landed in the Victorian Sector having my hair down would indicate that I was a whore.  And these jeans?” She pointed to the blue denim cradling her slender legs. “Obvious signs of mental insanity.  My step-mother would kill me.”

Jack grinned. “I wonder what they would do to me.”

Iris laughed and leaned forward, draping her arms over her knees. “Oh, probably arrest you for endangering a fine Victorian lady and intend to castrate you.  Upon realizing your true sex, they would throw you into the sea out of sheer terror.”

“So how’d a Victorian lady find La Masque?” Jack wondered.

“La Masque found me.” Iris shrugged and stood.  She hugged herself and wandered to the edge of the volex’s windows. “Ice helped me.  I’ve been waiting for him to ask me to spy on my father.  But he’s never asked me about him.  He promised not to, you know.”

“Well, Ice never breaks a promise,” Jack scowled. “Just finds a way to maneuver around them.”

Iris laughed. “I do believe you’re jealous.”

“I’m worried.” Jack replied. “Ice worries me.  How did he get you there?”

Iris leaned against the window staring at the artificial land floating beneath them. “I met him at a ball.  Dreadful boring thing my sisters dragged me to.  One of Andrew Cunningham’s grand galas.”

“You just said the Cunninghams were barbarians?” Jack stated.

“Well they are,” Iris shrugged. “That doesn’t mean they don’t have exceptional parties.  I know women in my sector who would cut each other’s tongues out for an invitation.”

Jack scoffed. “Didn’t know Cunningham had it in him to be that grand.”

“Andrew Cunningham?” Iris turned with an air of disinterested mocking. “Oh, he’s quite grand.  His balls are the most magnificent events of the season.  The only ones Monsieur Ice ever attends.  My step-sisters thought to tease me by inviting Ice to dine with us.  My score always was the lowest… even when I was trying.”

Iris seemed troubled by this and Jack floundered to understand. “You’re score on what?”

“Oh right.” Iris laughed. “They don’t rate one’s social outings outside of Victoria, do they?”

Jack lifted her eyebrows and shrugged and Iris continued. “You’re judged throughout the night by other guests and the servers and the hosts and when you leave the party you are given a card that tells you how fashionable you are.  It’s ridiculous actually.”

“An’ your sisters don’t help, none?” Jack wondered.

“Of course not.” Iris sneered. “They invited Ice over after I lost my temper at them.  Oh, it’s all so ridiculous.  All the ladies telling such ridiculous stories about him.  He was abandoned on the African Continent and raised as a prince.  He was the son of a wealthy officer from the Berleen Sector and cast out because it was realized he was an illegitimate child.  He was kidnapped by Norse Pirates and after being ransomed back to his father, took control his father’s vessel and steered them back to arrest the pirates.  I lost my temper with them and told them that he was surely nothing more than a man.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Jack chuckled.

“I was quite embarrassed to find he was standing behind me and being the witty gentleman that he is, he asked if there was anything more to be.  Being the quick wit that I am, I told him, of course there was: a woman.” Iris giggled at her own story then finished. “We fell to talking.  Mostly about what it’s like being a prisoner to Victorian morality.  Before I knew what I was doing, I was crawling out the window of my father’s mansion every night and running away to sing at La Masque.”

“And now your father knows.” Jack looked at the consol again and remembered the man following them. “Our tail landed.  Must be trying to convince me he’s not a tail.”

“Oh good.  We can go to the South American Continents, then?” Iris clapped her hands happily.

Jack smiled at Iris’ childishness. “Sure.  You can tell your stepsisters all about it, tomorrow.”

“Oh, they’d be so disgusted with jealousy they would throw me out of the house.” Iris giggled. “Well, I can’t say that.  My father quite understands.  He never really agreed with my step-mother’s ideas about young women, I think.  He wants to send me to a college now, since things failed my step-mother’s way.  She wants to send me to a mental institution.”

Jack scoffed again. “You ain’t crazy.”

“Says you,” Iris replied. “A woman named Jack who dresses like a man.”

“You ever think of leavin’?” Jack regretted the suggestion the moment she voiced it.

Iris shrugged. “I used to dream of the day as a child.  I’m too terrified now.  I may just marry the man my step-mother wants me to and continue as usual.”

Jack stiffened over her control panel. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“His family is notorious for neglected wives.  I would get on well.” Iris giggled. “Those barbarian Cunninghams again.  You remember, Andrew.  He holds the grand balls.”

“He tries to hire me for murders.” Jack stated.

Iris hummed. “I always thought my father’s position had something to do with that proposal.”

Jack swallowed hard. “Iris, you can’t marry him.  You should… go off on your own ‘fore you try somethin’… that’s awful dangerous business.  Marryin’ a Cunningham.  Their wives end up dead.”

Iris said jokingly. “Shall I come live with you then?”

Jack didn’t hesitate. “Yes. That’s what I’ve been gettin’ at.  You can’t marry him, ‘cause I won’t let you.  You come live with me.  We’ll get ourselves a house in the Parisian Sector and you’ll sing ‘cause you want to.  I prob’ly make enough for both of us.”

“It’s a nice thought.” Iris mused, touching each pane of glass as she walked around the semicircle of the volex’s deck. “My father would send money if we needed.  He’s a sweetheart that way.”

“It’s more than a thought.” Jack looked at the pale woman. “You’re just passin’ interested in this whole thing, ain’t you, Iris?”

“Jack, you just learned my real name.” Iris tried to laugh but the sound came out hollow and nervous. “Wouldn’t you rather have time to consider?”

“Just so long as you don’t marry Andrew Cunningham.” Jack stated firmly. “I’d have to kill him, and then I’d end up with my head all made up on some Anglo pike.”

“Well.” Iris giggled. “I can’t have that.  You’ll have to take me to the South American Continent and keep me there until I forget about this whole marriage bit.”

7.

Walter Morgan had sent his daughter money when she and Jack needed it.  He’d been to see them twice a month since Iris moved out of his house and into Jack’s apartment.  He liked Jack and he approved of his daughter’s happiness.  And when the timer in Jack’s office rang, it meant that Walter Morgan, chief of the Intersectoral Police Force in the Britton Isles was half-way through his surgery. 

Jack smashed her hand into the alarm to silence the ringing.  She left her hand limply on the round clock and dropped her head to her arm with a moan listening to the ticking clock. The gradual ticks faded, when Jack hurled the timer into the wall and the clock clunked to the floor.  She stared at the mild dent it made, surprised the machine hadn’t shattered.

Iris would shatter without her father.

Jack unplugged the computer, severing the connection to the long distance surgery.  She put on a heavy jacket and got into her volex and drove around the world so fast that she would circle the planet in four hours if she was not arrested.  She would never hurt Iris.

To hell with the Cunninghams.