Chelen City: Chapter One, Part Two

 Notes: Guess who had a brain blip and forgot to post yesterday? Same posting schedule for, like, a decade, and I forgot. I blame my interminable cold. Enjoy some girls!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter One, Part Two

***

Chapter One, Part Two

 

Elanus was proud of his home. Not because he’d secured ten of the highest floors in the most scenic corner of the tallest building in Chelen City, which incidentally was the tallest residential building on the entire planet. That was to be expected from someone with his social status. It would have been strange for him to have fewer than five floors, downright odd for him to live on a lower level.

The building itself was very socialist—people from all walks of Ganian life lived within its three-hundred stories, as opposed to other, newer towers which restricted themselves to the ultra-wealthy from bottom to top, or older towers that housed the middle class and lower. The top fifty stories, though, were for people who had money to burn.

Elanus was proud of his corporation and his station in life, but that wasn’t why he was proud of his home. It wasn’t the position of the place, or what that represented. It was that he’d worked hard—he, himself, no decorators or designers helping him—to make it feel like a real home. Like a cohesive living space spread over ten stories. Each story was either one large, single room or split into multiple spaces, but regardless, you could see how they worked together.

His home wasn’t metallic and hard and shiny. It was soft, with area rugs and real wood furniture and art from cultures all over the galaxy hanging on the walls, or in a few cases from the ceiling. His home had warm lighting and hand-woven fabrics and surfaces that showed use. His home had a huge bed that would welcome another body, and two floors dedicated to his two children at the very top. His home was built for family, not exploration or showing off.

Kieron seemed to relax as he moved through the spaces, even though he had plenty to say about what could be improved—another motion sensor here, something to prevent long-distance eavesdropping set into the immense glass windows, a weapon readily available in every room somewhere. Elanus listened and made dutiful notes, but his eyes were transfixed by the way Kieron’s shoulders loosened as they walked, and the tension in his jaw slowly vanished.

Stars, but he was handsome when he didn’t look like he was on the verge of murdering someone.

Elanus knew life with Kieron was going to be a challenge. Ganian wasn’t an overtly xenophobic society, but given how easy it was to tell those who’d grown up here from those who’d been born into heavier atmospheres, you never had to wonder who the aliens were. In a culture already inclined toward stratification of status via class, stratification due to native versus non-native status invariably followed.

It wasn’t as bad as Traktan society—Ganians welcomed people from all over the galaxy to work and live here, and had no qualms about going abroad themselves. But physically, the differences were startling. Ganians were taller than almost everyone around them, that was just a fact. Some Ganians took “taller” to mean “smarter, more beautiful, and basically better in every way.”

Elanus was going to get shit for having a lover—hopefully someday more, but he wasn’t going to push his luck right now—who had been born and raised on another planet. And that shit would spill over onto Kieron. Fortunately the man seemed immune to that kind of subtle insult—or if not immune, at least not the sort of person who took it to heart. You could think whatever you wanted of Kieron, but if you underestimated him, there’d be hell to pay.

“…going to need at least two—are you actually listening to me?”

“Hmm?” Elanus blinked, suddenly aware of the fact that Kieron had stopped walking and was staring up at him now with a warning expression. “Oh, absolutely.” His implant replayed the last ten seconds in a flash. “I completely agree about upgrading the entry unit, and the girls should absolutely have their own by their bays. It wouldn’t do for somebody else’s tech to sneak into their rooms.”

Kieron folded his arms. “Nice save.”

“I was listening!”

“You were replaying.”

“Same difference!” Elanus sidled closer and slid his arms over Kieron’s shoulders. “Are you going to nag me about this? Because I’m not going to lie, that kind of turns me on.”

“A stiff breeze would turn you on,” Kieron replied, winding his own arms around Elanus’s waist. A coy person would have used the gesture to soften their rude words; Kieron wasn’t that conniving. He was perfectly happy to insult Elanus and give him physical affection at the same time without any cognitive dissonance whatsoever. He was unlike any partner Elanus had ever had before.

He could never give him up. He’d die first.

“I’m not that bad,” Elanus said. He rubbed the back of Kieron’s neck, delighting in the way it made his lover close with pleasure. “Certainly not lately. I’ve been far too busy to be turned on by anyone or anything but you.”

“Mmm.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to suggest a return trip to the bedroom, where—despite a few little stumbling blocks—they’d both managed to have a good time. But then a query pulsed at the corner of his implant, with just a hint of whine to it, and he knew it was time to be more sociable. “Catalina is slavering at the metaphorical mouth for a chance to project her latest hundred-decibel aria at you,” he said.

Kieron’s eyes opened as he grinned. Elanus melted a little further. “I can’t wait to see her.”

“Lucky you, you don’t have to,” Elanus said, gesturing toward the nearest window. They walked over together to see two small, sleek ships come in for a landing a few floors up. The wall shivered ever so slightly as they both settled into their docks.

[Whyyy does Lizzie get the top beeerth?] Catie demanded over their implants.

“You didn’t want it before,” Elanus pointed out as they took the stairs up to the ninth floor.

[I needed it for my stuuuuuff!]

“You do not.”

[I dooooo!]

[I can move] Lizzie offered tentatively, but Elanus shut that down before his daughter could jump on the offer.

“You get the tenth-floor dock,” he said firmly. “If you want to trade at some point, that’s fine, but for now we’re going with what’s already established, got it?”

[Daddeeeee!]

“Don’t you ‘Daddy’ me,” he warned as he opened the door to Catie’s dock. It was spacious for a ship of her size, with boxes full of parts on the floor and projection tech in every one of the walls. “You made your bed, now you lie in it. You can—”

“KEEEEEEERONNNNNN!!!!” Catie’s shrill scream of glee drowned out his lecture, and everything else. Kieron, to his credit, held in his wince and went straight over to Catie’s side, laying his hands on one of her walls with a smile.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said affectionately. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Ittt’s good to see youuuu! I miiiiiissed youuuuu!”

“I missed you too, so much.”

Elanus watched the love-fest go on a bit longer, then turned and headed up the lift to the next story. He could have taken the stairs, but his knee was starting to ache. He’d need a targeted treatment before long. But for now…

There she was. His original ship, the cutting edge before Catie, now her own unique sort of technological wunderkind. “Lizzie,” Elanus said with a smile, and was delighted to see her nose go a bit pink.

“Elanus,” she replied warmly.

He came over and patted her hull. She couldn’t feel it the way Catie could, he hadn’t installed that level of responsiveness into her skin, but he knew she saw it. “I’m so proud of you,” he told her, his voice a little thick. “You took such good care of Kieron.”

“He took good care of me too,” Lizzie said.

“Shush and take your compliment gracefully, darling.” Her harmonics made a low, pleased sound. “You’ve exceeded my every dream. You’ve managed things you were never built for, and you did them all beautifully.”

“Thank you, Elanus.”

“I’m going to share some specs with you over the next few days—potential upgrades. You don’t have to take any you don’t want,” he emphasized, “but if you’ve been hankering for a more colorful skin or better responsiveness or a more powerful backup processor, those will all be on the table.”

“I…I’ll think about it.”

“You do that, darling. Then we can—”

“Daddeeeeee!”

Oh boy. Splitting his time between these two floors was going to be…a challenge.

The Tank: Chapter Two, Part Two

Notes: Time for some action! Not a long chapter, but an interesting one, I think :)

Title: The Tank: Chapter Two, Part Two

***

Chapter Two, Part Two

Anton headed back toward the university by way of the river, which truthfully wasn’t a detour so much as pure diversion. He felt like the ground beneath his feet had shifted in a slight yet nevertheless dramatic way, and he couldn’t quite get his balance now. Every rock he’d established in his life, every person and relationship upon whom his foundation of wellbeing was supported, was wavering. His mother was ill, Caroline was working as a spy, and he hadn’t seen Camille in months. He had no serious job prospects yet, and if something didn’t come along fast, he was going to be out of a place to live. Dr. Grable had been surprisingly generous ever since the battle on school grounds with Montgomery, but there was a limit to everyone’s charity, and Anton had no interest in testing Dr. Grable’s.

Even if he got a position as a teaching assistant, he would have to live off campus and give up his laboratory to a new graduate student, and he’d just gotten everything organized to his satisfaction, and his latest experiment was showing so much promise, it seemed a shame to have to take it all down. And if he moved, how would Camille find him again?

Then again, Camille seemed to manage just about everything he tried his hand at with remarkable dexterity, especially considering his disadvantage.

Anton ambled along, not paying much attention to where exactly he was going as he churned everything over in his head. Why bother fretting about his path; it wasn’t as though it was easy to get lost this close to the university. Its tallest tower, the one that held his own lab, was visible for almost a mile in any direction. As long as he could still see it, he didn’t care precisely where he was.

That turned out to be an oversight of some significance, because as he wandered distractedly into the less savory portions of the red-light district and the sun began to set, the tenor of the cat-calls lobbed his way turned from good-natured exhortations to fuck to a darker, more menacing variety of interview.

“Lost, are you lad?”

“Should know better than to wander in these streets this time of night.”

“You’ve a decent pair of shoes there, boy. I want them.”

It wasn’t until a heavy hand descended on his shoulder and spun him around that Anton realized his translation device, a thaumaturgical wonder of his father’s invention consisting of an earring and a mouthpiece, had been translating threats. Bugger me, he thought resignedly.

The man holding onto his shoulder was taller than Anton by half a head, wearing a long leather coat over a grimy maroon vest and brown shirt. He had a grey-speckled beard, and a hunting knife in his free hand. The light from the torches in front of the nearest brothel made the curved edge gleam.

Anton, very atypically for him, didn’t immediately begin to well with worry and fear. It seemed that he had hit his limit for what he could take in one day with Caroline, and staring now into the face of a man who was clearly ready to do him harm, he felt mostly irritation at letting himself ramble into a place so deliberately unsafe.

Such a thought would have felt liberating if he wasn’t secretly concerned about his sanity.

“I would be happy to give you my shoes, sir,” Anton said levelly, holding his hands still at his sides. “Just give me a moment to get them off without waving that knife in my face, please.”

The big man shook his head. “Ah, that’s not how this works, boy. You hand over what I ask for and you do it however I make you. Maybe I’ll make you bend over while this knife rests at your throat, eh?” His eyes gleamed a little in the wavering light. “Or maybe I’ll make you bend over in that alley over there, and we can deal with the shoes once I’m done.”

Well, then. That was it. He’d have to give his newest device a try. Anton was actually a bit excited—in a place such as this, he was bound to activate a residual miasma. “I’ve plenty of money on me, sir,” he said, now reaching slowly for his inner jacket pocket. “You can afford to buy someone to sport with, not waste your time on me.”

His attacker grimaced and shook Anton roughly. “I’m getting mighty tired of you telling me how to—" Before he could finish, Anton pulled a little wooden globe from his pocket. He twisted it, to break the bond in the center and begin the chemical heating reaction that would set the whole thing on fire, then threw it to the ground just to the right of them. Alchemical symbols etched in silver along the wood flared momentarily, before the whole thing expanded and then crumbled into ash in a vague circular pattern. The scent of burnt herbs and hot metal wafted into the air, along with an undertone of something darker. Not just hot metal—iron. Blood.

For a moment, nothing happened, and Anton bunched his shoulders and prepared to fight, because he’d be damned if he was going along with this without a battle. But then…

It started as nearly indistinguishable from the smoke, seeping up from the cobblestones themselves, the face of a beautiful, wailing woman. As she rose and resolved, Anton could make out the rope around her neck. She wasn’t hanging, though. Someone had bound her, and was pulling her roughly along.

His attacker was startled into letting go, and Anton instantly drew back out of range of the spirit’s miasma. The last time he’d stayed within one of these, it had left him sobbing for half an hour.

“That’s Gaily Gertrude,” one of the men nearby exclaimed. “That’s—ah, no—” The ghost was suddenly ripped off her feet onto the ground, right through Anton’s attacker’s legs. She tugged desperately on the rope, trying to stop the pulling, or perhaps pull herself to her feet, but a moment later her head exploded in a mess of blood and brain matter as something rolled right over it.

“Her man shoulda dropped the rope, not left her lying in the street like that,” someone said.

“He never shoulda been allowed to rope her up in the first place! It’s the madame’s fault, she—”

All conversation came to an abrupt halt as Anton’s attacker suddenly dropped his knife, raised his hands to his head, and began to scream. His voice was pitched high, almost as high as a woman’s, and even as the miasma had dissolved he kept screaming and screaming. If the man hadn’t just threatened to rape him, Anton almost might have felt guilty.

Instead, he ran.

The Tank: Chapter One, Part Two

Notes: Moving on, let's meet a new/old friend! The next chapter will delve more deeply into the socio-political situation of the French Empire, so enjoy a bit more light before we get dark again.

Title: The Tank: Chapter One, Part Two

***

Chapter One, Part Two

It took a moment for Anton to muster his ability to speak, his surprise was so strong. “Caroline!” He moved toward her without thinking, his body overcome by instinct. She stepped toward him at the same time, and a moment later they were wrapped in each other’s arms.

“Caroline,” he said again, softer, and she hummed and hugged him more tightly. The S-bend corset beneath her blouse dug into his abdomen, but Anton didn’t care. If she could take it for a day, he could take it for a minute.

She looked beautiful, like she always had. A bit older, perhaps, but the time had only served to enhance her allure. Her dark blonde hair peeked out from beneath the brim of her very broad, ornately decorated hat, and her figure was as sleek as ever, despite giving birth to a baby boy only eight months ago. Perhaps the corset has something to do with that. Anton didn’t know, and he didn’t care. In a world of change, a world of ever-increasing political fear and uncertainty, he was so grateful to be with someone whom he could rely on again. He knew Caroline, knew her like he knew himself, and loved her far more than that.

“Anton,” she murmured. “Darling, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you again, at last. Two years.” She pulled back and pressed her hands to his face. “Two years! How is it even possible? We haven’t been apart for so long in our entire lives! And in your last letter you didn’t even hint that you were coming back, and that’s just—Anton, I thought you never meant to stay away permanently! London is your home!”

The words hit him like a rain, drenching him in care. It didn’t matter that they weren’t entirely positive—Anton basked in knowing that he was with someone who loved him enough to chide him again. “London will always be special to me, you know that,” he said. “But I can’t live on air, and I can’t support my mother with it either. London is not interested in hiring me for what I am worth.”

Caroline disengaged one of her hands to wipe discreetly her eyes. “No one could pay you what you’re worth, darling, but surely someone there must be able to tempt you to return. Heavens, I would pay you to come and work in my lab if it was possible.” Caroline was spearheading a massive research initiative for the University of Edinburgh—a compendium of arcane ingredients and their various uses across the entire body of work that would utterly revolutionize spell symbology for thaumaturges. The key to her funding, however, was that she employ only those thaumaturges who could get approval from the Board of Masters. Anton was not one of those practitioners, and likely never would be.

Anton shook his head. “It’s all right, truly. I may yet return someday, but for now I’m contemplating several different options here on the continent.”

“Anton…” Caroline looked at him closely. “It isn’t like you to dissemble. When you say ‘options’ do you mean that you have offers in hand, or that you’re going to hunt about for an employer the same way you hunted for a school that would accept you?”

Anton pulled back, stung. “Forgive me for not being born into a class that allowed me to step into any university I wanted and get a position there.” That wasn’t fair—Caroline had fought, and was still fighting, against significant and ingrained social bias against the fairer sex. That she had her own laboratory, her own staff and a project of such magnitude, was a testament to her incredible skill.

“I—” Even as he opened his mouth to apologize, Caroline was already waving it off.

“No, that was my fault, I knew better than to simplify things in such a silly way. Of course you did everything you could to stay, I know that.” She sighed. “It’s just frustrating, not having you nearby. You’re one of the best people in my life, and I hate that you’re so far out of reach.”

Her words both touched and saddened him. “But you’ve got your work, and your husband,” he reminded her. “Not to mention your little Sean. How is he these days?”

Caroline beamed. “He is delightful, thank you. Quite a handful, and probably giving his grandmother fits right now, but I couldn’t be happier with him. It’s a relief to have provided an heir as well, honestly, for both Daniel and myself. He is free to spend his time hunting and riding, and I am free to focus on my work.”

“And that makes you…happy?” Anton ventured. It wasn’t really his place to say anything, but the fact that Caroline was settling for “relieved” with reference to her husband spending little to no time with her or their son was upsetting to him.

“It’s my preference,” she said calmly. “Daniel and I are a better match on paper than we are in person. He is a good man in many respects, and he offers me a degree of independence that many husbands would balk at, so I’ve nothing to complain about there. But we have little in common on an intellectual level. It’s better for both of us that we allow each other our own occupations without reservation.” She tilted her head a bit as she looked at him. “And you? Have you found a good match for yourself?”

Caroline knew Anton’s predilections, and it was only for the sake of their habitual discretion that she refrained from being more blunt. Anton was a bit surprised at himself—had he really kept Camille a secret from his dearest friend for two years now? Not in every respect, but he certainly hadn’t divulged their more intimate connection. “No one to marry, I’m afraid,” he said at last.

“Hmm.” Caroline looped her arm through his, passed him his jacket from where he’d abandoned it earlier, and turned them both toward the door. “I think you should allow me to take you out for a meal, as a graduation gift, and speak to me about someone you would not marry for a while. It might do you some good to share.”

Anton smiled and tipped his top hat onto his head. “I think that sounds perfect.”