Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One

Notes: Yay, more Elanus today! He's about to go get him some answers...maybe. I might throw a wrench into the works... ;) 

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One 

***

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One

 

“Catie, show me the feed again.”

Catie complied, piping in the completely unsecure secured feed that connected to President Marco Moreno’s cell. As a man whose empire had just collapsed, whose house of cards had tumbled down in a pile at his feet, Elanus expected to see him mourn. He expected to see him rage. He wanted for him to scream and cry out and suffer, and his expectations were more than met.

Moreno had been elected for a few reasons: first off, he was likable. He projected an air of enticement and affability that could turn the most hardened hearts a bit softer in his presence, like the incredible con man he was. Second, he had the amazing ability to convince people he was doing work for them even when it was clear, undoubtedly and crystalline clear, that he was only working for himself and his cronies.

Even now, after Caria had ousted him and was working with the interim government with complete transparency, there were still protestors who showed up outside the prison chanting his name. Most of them were poor; many of them were xenophobic. Moreno’s wealthy backers had fled, but the embattled lower classes he’d convinced he could elevate (as soon as he got rid of the sick, and the alien, and the over-educated) stood by him to the end.

It was a good thing Elanus had no interest in being a fascist tyrant. Otherwise, it would be so easy to step into this man’s shoes. He knew the right things to say and how to say them; he knew how to appeal to the broad masses, how to give just enough to make himself look like a rich prospect, how to assuage the glitterati and appeal to the poor at the same time. He was afflicted with Elfshot, which made him less of a catch, and was marrying an alien, another tick against him, but enough money could smooth those bumps over. He could do it. He could rule this whole fucking planet, and he could rub his rule in Moreno’s face.

He wasn’t going to, but goddammit he could.

“How badly do you want to punch him right now?” a warm, familiar voice murmured in his ear. Elanus turned to look at Kieron, leaning up close against his chair with mischief on his face.

“So bad,” Elanus confessed. “I can’t even tell you.”

Kieron nodded. “As autocrats go, he’s not the worst I’ve ever seen,” he said, shrugging as he wrapped his arms around Elanus’s shoulders. Elanus welcomed the touch, but there was something about it that sat badly with him too. Kieron before had never initiated contact like this—or he had, but rarely. Not unless he thought there was a good reason it was needed. Kieron now, though, was far more tactile than Elanus had expected.

Had he been this way on Trakta? When had he lost it? Or was he just making an extra effort to get Elanus and the girls on his side again?

Fuck off, you’re already on his side. It was true, Elanus was, but…he couldn’t say he didn’t miss the prickly version of Kieron, either. The one who growled like an angry catterpet whenever you tried to touch him, but eased into your embrace and eventually went pliant under your caresses.

They hadn’t slept together yet. It had been a fucking month, and they hadn’t slept together. Or rather, they slept together but they weren’t having sex. That was longer without than they’d gone even in the very beginning of their relationship, when they didn’t really like each other but were terribly attracted to each other all the same.

Elanus missed it terribly, but there was some part of it that felt like taking advantage. He couldn’t bring himself to initiate it, and Kieron hadn’t either yet, so maybe that was the best way to go for now.

“He’s not as bad as my grandfather,” Kieron went on. “Or maybe my grandfather wasn’t as good as him.”

“Just a different type of violent,” Elanus said. “And they both got overthrown in the end, didn’t they.”

“I suppose so.” Kieron stared at the screen a moment longer, watching Moreno walk across his cell floor with his hands clenching in his hair, then patting it flat again, over and over. “What’s next for him?”

“Caria wants a public trial.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Kieron glanced at his face. “What don’t you like about it?”

“I should like everything about it. Public trials are a cornerstone of democracy and the rule of law.” Neither of which was really in effect here on Gania, but at least with Moreno they could genuflect in the right direction. “But I don’t want to give him all those chances to grandstand, either. Moreno is a shithead, but he’s an eloquent shithead. Caria’s strong and does her best, but she doesn’t have the same level of charisma.”

“True,” Kieron said. “Hmm. Would any assassin take the contract?”

A contract on the embattled president of Gania? Elanus laughed. “Ryu might.” Ryu was mobile again after intense physical therapy, and feeling much sturdier with his new skeleton. He’d been practicing his skills non-stop, to the point that Pol was starting to try and copy some of them. They’d turned it into a game of hide and seek (and kill, without the actual killing) in the girls’ hangars, which was a terrible amount of fun for everyone involved. “He’s pretty upset about everything he had to go through on behalf of the man.”

“So he should be.” Kieron paused. “I don’t suppose he can testify against him.”

“Unfortunately, no. We don’t have that kind of chain of evidence.”

“Is it possible he could walk?”

Elanus considered it. “With a jury trial? It’s not impossible, I suppose. He’s well-liked, and he’s been quick to heap blame on [name] now that they’re presumed dead. Unless we bring xir back, we can’t guarantee anything.” Even with xir here, they couldn’t guarantee Moreno would go down for his awful, inhumane crimes. “And I’m so biased, since so much of the evidence revolves around Elfshot propagation, that I’d never be invited to testify.”

“Mm.” Kieron looked at him again. “What do you want to do, then?”

“I want…” I want to go back in time and shoot this motherfucker through the head before he gets it in his brain to run for office. I want to eject him out of an airlock, cause a fatal flaw in one of his routine vaccinations, take him out of the picture before he becomes an issue. I want to wipe him and his influence off the face of the city, the continent, the world.

I want him dead. “I want to talk to him, I think.”

Kieron nodded. “Lucky for you, you know the interim president. I bet she can get you a meeting.”

“I’m sure she can.” Assuming Elanus wanted one that was above board. He wasn’t convinced of that yet.

After all, if he decided Moreno had to die, it would be easier to see it done unofficially.

 

Skip Day Because...

Hey darlins, It was an "oof" weekend followed by an "oof" start to the week, and I don't have the togetherness to muster up a blog story today. I'm sorry! I know I left it on a cliffhanger (not really, lol, but it would be nice to know what happens next) and I will be back at it next week. One note--I'm going to do my best NOT to rush this. A kind reader pointed out that I've gotten a little hectic with this story, and while I'm excited to finish it, the story itself will be best-served by me going slow and not skipping over the resolutions (or the revolution). So while it'll be fun to start the next one, that's not going to happen for some time. You're stuck with Elanus and Kieron and the girls a while longer! And we'll definitely be reading about them again in the future :)

Pick the next story!

 And now, while I have everybody's attention...

I'm going to do a non-sci fi story for the next one, since I need to collect all the Bonded books in one place, edit them, and get a series bible together. So I need something to do here in the meantime. I was looking through some of my folders a few days ago and found numerous covers that I bought that still haven't found a story home. So let's pick one and go from there!

Chelen City: Interlude: Lizzie

 Notes: A little Lizzie interlude to tide us over before the finale. I couldn't leave her to suffer!

Title: Chelen City: Interlude: Lizzie

***

Interlude: Lizzie

 

He was here again.

It was the seventh time in the past two weeks he’d come to her. The first few times he spoke for a while before finally leaving, and she thought he’d given up after the third one, when he left with [[tears you made him cry you’re a terrible person]] a sad expression. But then he came back.

It would be easier if he gave up.

[[you miss him you’d miss him even worse you liar, you’re even lying to yourself that’s so stupid]]

He’d stopped talking so much. That was fine; she didn’t want to listen to him [[she has every audio file he’s ever spoken in a special place right next to her central cortex where she can listen to the whisper of him]] but even though he didn’t say as much, he still sat down beside her. Sometimes he accessed things on his tab or his implant, but more often he just leaned his head against her hull and kept her company. Not even Pol wanted to keep her company much these days [[you say you’re too busy for him too but you’re not, you’re just boring and angry and sad and no one wants to be around you not even Catie]]

Catie still talked to her every day; in some ways Lizzie and Catie were never separate. Their cortexes were combined so often right now, working for Elanus, that she could practically do her sister’s calculations for her. But she couldn’t, actually, because Catie didn’t do things the same way Lizzie did. She was much better with people, which was why she was helping Elanus handle the media while Lizzie focused on accessing Moreno.

[[make you pay for taking away Kee, I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU]]

She’d already made it so that he couldn’t leave Gania. Apart from the fact that doing so right now would trigger a clause in the constitution that made him ineligible for office and obliged to step down for dereliction of duty, she didn’t want him to escape justice. Elanus would get justice. Elanus was the only one who loved Kee as much as Lizzie di- [[no I don’t love him I don’t love him, I don’t, I can’t, he doesn’t remember me I’m nothing to him so he has to be nothing to me now but I miss him, I miss him, I MISS HIM]]

Thanks to massive infiltration of the identity matrixes at the ports and a black-market bounty on the head of any third party who attempted to exfiltrate the president, Moreno’s efforts to leave had been blocked. And today…today was the day he would fall. Today the presidential mansion was finally going to lose its last layer of digital protection. Some of the pieces had been there for centuries, intertwined with traps and triggers that would do everything from causing a citywide blackout to starting a negative cascade in the stock market. Anything to create confusion, to make it easier for the president to sneak out.

But no. Lizzie had found them all, every connection, every thread, and cut them ruthlessly. Caria Jayde was marching toward the mansion right now, a groundswell of followers with her, the media treating her like the darling Elanus had persuaded them she was. Elanus wasn’t present there, of course; he wasn’t going to be a part of the overthrow and arrest. He couldn’t be.

There were so many crimes to be laid at Moreno’s feet, but the greatest of them were the perpetuation of Elfshot Disease, and the murder of his vice-president. There was plenty of video to back that up, and it had been playing non-stop for the past news cycle. Few people thought to ask about the other person who’d been there with xir, defending xir [[forgetting everything important, all the people who love him, all for that AWFUL FU*(IE*UE(#WE*H)@E>>>>……--------reboot]]

“It’s going to be okay.”

Lizzie’s code blipped. She pulled back from her observation of the march to register the feeling of Kieron’s hand on her hull, stroking gently. Why? Why was he bothering? She was fine, she—

Was trembling. Ripples resounded up and down her hull, little tremors that made her joints flex just enough to buzz in places. She was shivering. Quivering. With…what did she feel?

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Kieron said, rubbing soft circles into her colorful synthskin. It took a moment for Lizzie to realize that her skin had turned gray. She’d been shiny white ever since the accident, reflective and cold and not colorful and bright the way she liked to be—had liked to be [[green is your favorite because its his favorite, you love it because he told you about grass and trees and the color of Zak’s eyes, the same as Pol’s eyes, green green green]] but serious. Firm. Unwelcoming. And now she was gray and trembling, and Kieron was with her.

He didn’t remember her, but he was comforting her. He didn’t know her, he couldn’t love her, but he was still with her. Over and over again, he’d been with her. Come to her. And all she’d done was push him away.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking in there, baby, but whatever it is, please, talk to me about it,” Kieron said, and there was pleading in his voice. “I’m here for you. I know I don’t remember everything about you and about the things we did together, but the love is still there. Every time I think your name, I know I love you. Every time I see you, I feel like my heart’s opening for you. All the things I’ve watched and heard, they all tell me what a wonderful person you are. You’re the best, honey; you’re my girl, and I’m your Kee. You saved my life.”

He leaned his forehead against her skin. “You saved me. You’re amazing, do you know that? I would be lost without you. Elanus would be lost. We’d all be messes if we didn’t have our Lizzie.”

It takes a moment for her vocals to come online. “K…kee?”

He smiled and patted her hull. “Hey baby.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I don’t want you to be scared,” he said. “I feel so bad about that, I can’t even tell you. I don’t want you to be afraid or lonely or feel like you aren’t loved, because you are. I love you so much, I swear. We all love you.”

“But you don’t—you—humans love as a result of shared experiences or certain archaic types of kinship, not…not…”

“Baby.” His voice cut through her babbling. “Are we sharing an experience right now?”

She could feel the heat of his forehead against her synthskin. It made her feel cozy. “Yes.”

“Then we have one. And we have way more, too, and just because I don’t remember them right now doesn’t mean they don’t count. They do. They do, so much. I love you, Lizzie.”

“I…”

“You don’t have to say it back,” he told her, then smiled. “But I think you might feel it too.” Where they were touching, her skin had turned grass green. “It’s going to be okay, Lizzie,” he said again, and this time. This time [[maybe he does love us maybe he loves us after all, maybe he…Kee Kee Keekeekeekeekeeeeeeeee]]

Lizzie wasn’t sure what kind of sound she made, but she felt color burst across her skin, and she felt the pressure sensors register Kieron’s grasp tightening for a moment, and she knew.

She knew he loved her. Even though things weren’t the same anymore, he loved her.

And she loved him back.

Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 Notes: A little resolution, a little preparation, and we're slowly winding down this one, my darlins <3

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 

“I want to talk with her.”

Elanus opened his eyes slowly, pulling his consciousness out of his implant matrix and letting all the algorithms he’d set into motion continue without his oversight as he focused on his fiancé. “Good morning to you too,” he said. “You want to talk to…who now?”

“Lizzie.”

Ah. Elanus pinched his thigh with his thumb and forefinger, a dirty little trick to get him fully back into his body in a hurry. Some people dissociated when they felt pain; Kieron was among them, with pain representing little more than a mental exercise for him. It was the opposite for Elanus. Pain disturbed him in a major way; he didn’t like it, and so whenever he felt it he wanted to get rid of it as fast as possible. A little pain got his blood pumping and his brain operating at top speed, which he felt like he was going to need for this conversation. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, though.”

Which had surprised the hell out of Elanus, but he wasn’t going to make his girl do anything she didn’t want to. As soon as Lizzie had found out Kieron couldn’t remember her, she’d shut herself off from him completely, shunning even the mention of his name or any of his updates. Not even Catie could force her way past the barricades Lizzie had erected around the mention of the man she loved as a father.

“I know,” Kieron said. “But I think she might need to.”

Elanus sighed. “You don’t know that. You don’t know her. She’s not some random person you met on the streets; you two have had adventures together that were formative for her, and she’d having to deal with the fact that those adventures only exist in her mind right now. You need to give her time.”

Kieron glared at him. “If you were serious about her mental health, you’d have found her a therapist.”

Elanus was stung. “She doesn’t want a therapist. What good have therapists done any of us lately, anyway? Look at what yours got away with.” Or her wife, whatever—same legal entity. Both of them were currently under house arrest, a palliative gesture by Moreno that would amount to nothing because Elanus was going to tear his throne down and burn it to ashes no matter what.

“Just because mine turned out shady doesn’t mean every therapist will. Besides. You refer to Lizzie as a girl. A child—someone with a juvenile mentality.”

Elanus didn’t like where this was going. “Yes…”

“Then she shouldn’t be making all her own health and wellness decisions anyway.” Kieron crossed his arms. “If I’d gotten my way when I was thirteen, I would probably have ended up killing myself before a year was out.” Elanus flinched. “I didn’t get my way; I had to undergo a metric ton of therapy in order to stay on Trakta, and I hated it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t help.”

“Look at you, remembering more and more about your life.” His past, specifically. Kieron remembered almost all of his shitty childhood, yay, and almost all of his years on Trakta at this point. Finding out Zak was dead had been traumatizing all over again, and he’d yet to remember anything specific about his relationship with Elanus or their daughters. All he seemed to understand was that when he thought about them, he loved them.

For Catie, that was enough. She dealt well in abstracts; Catie was ephemeral in taste, mood, and programming. She could accept that Kieron had both forgotten her and that he still loved her without any sort of dissonance, for which Elanus was fucking thankful.

Lizzie, on the other hand, was a creature of concrete ideas. She liked hard data, evidence, things to review and store away and reference. Feelings weren’t enough, in and of themselves; they needed to be supported by facts. And the facts, to her, were this: Kieron didn’t remember her or any of the things they’d done together. That rendered his love for her moot; he couldn’t truly love her because he didn’t know who she was.

Elanus had been arguing against her point ever since she made it, but…Kieron was right. Elanus hadn’t pushed very hard because, well…Lizzie seemed so adult. What even was her age, anyway? How could he even track her mental development with any sort of reliable metric, when there were only two beings like Lizzie in existence and one of them was content to remain, mentally, a young child? Lizzie didn’t want to talk about Kieron, she didn’t want to acknowledge he existed, but that just wasn’t healthy. She loved Kieron. She adored him; Elanus was pretty sure Kieron was his younger daughter’s favorite person. It wasn’t good for her to pretend like he was gone, or dead, or had never existed. All that would do was leave a hole in her sweet little heart, whatever form it took.

“She might not say anything,” Elanus pointed out.

“That’s fine. She doesn’t have to. She just needs to know that I’m there for her, and I’m going to make an effort whether she listens to me or not.”

“That sounds incredibly frustrating for you.”

Kieron shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever been through.”

“Given that the things you currently remember include your completely abysmal and abusive youth, I don’t think that’s an endorsement.”

Kieron, damn him, smiled at that. “You’re really sweet, you know that? Sometimes I’m not sure what you see in me, but then you talk to me like this and I know there’s got to be something special between us.”

Ow. Having a literal hole punched through his heart might hurt less. “I love you.”

“I know.” Kieron came over and kissed his forehead. “You tell me every time I see you. You make sure I don’t languish in the darkness alone.”

Oh, you asshole. “That’s what you think I’m doing with Lizzie, isn’t it.”

“I think you’re giving her every opportunity to talk to you, or Catie, or even Pol and Xilinn,” Kieron said. “I also thing they’re not the ones she has an issue with. It’s me. And Restaria, but xe’s gone.” Xe was gone as of yesterday, off to Olympus in one of their transport ships, and Elanus was fiercely glad to see the back of xir. “Let me do what I can to mend the bridge.”

Elanus sighed. “It’s not your fault, though. You didn’t mean to forget her. She knows that, she understands that—”

“She understands it intellectually, but that’s not the same as feeling it.” Kieron kissed him again. “If you really think it’s a bad idea, I won’t do it…yet. But I think it would do both of us some good, eventually.”

As long as Lizzie didn’t throw a tantrum as big as a minor moon, yes. “Do it, then,” Elanus said, looping his arms around Kieron’s waist and pulling him in close. Kieron hugged him immediately, and Elanus felt a headache he hadn’t even consciously registered begin to die down. God, Kieron’s hugs were a drug. “But don’t get upset when she doesn’t talk to you.”

“I won’t,” Kieron promised. “I can be patient with her.”

And hopefully Lizzie will be patient with the rest of us.