Chelen City: Chapter Nineteen, Part Two

 Notes: Oooh, a little more plot before we dive into action...actually, the next round will probably be a Kieron interlude, we'll see, but still--fun!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Nineteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Nineteen, Part Two

 

“Track him,” Elanus said, forgetting to think it as adrenaline washed through him, leaving him feeling hot and cold simultaneously. “I want visuals of his movements for as long as they can be followed.”

[My programs do no allow for hacking into--]

“Fuck off.” Why had he made his personal algorithms so damn law-abiding? “Catie!” Elanus shouted, sending a pulse through the implant to her as well. “Catie!”

[Daddeee?]

“Stop whatever you’re doing, I need help.”

[But we just got to the goooood part!]

“Catie, you—” Elanus stopped. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and considered what he was about to just blurt out at her. His daughter—his daughters—didn’t know that Kieron was missing. They were in the middle of a game, playing with Pol, and if Elanus started getting them worked up, then he would get worked up, and then Xilinn would have to intervene, and everything in his precariously-organized household would go to shit.

The shittier things became, the harder it would be to get anything done. As much as Elanus hated to slow himself down when it came to finding Kieron, he knew that his lover—his fiancé, fuck it, he was owning that term for the foreseeable future—wouldn’t want him to upset everyone on his behalf. That could wait until Elanus had a plan.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said after another moment of gathering himself together. “I just have to redo some calculations. I want you to finish your game, okay? We can all talk a little later.”

[Are you suuuure?]

“Absolutely sure.” He felt Lizzie’s query as well and sent calming thoughts her way. “You girls have fun.”

[Okaaaaay…] They disengaged, and Elanus got to work pushing his tracking algorithm into Chelen City’s network of cameras. He pulled the visual of Kieron up into his implant, starting from his departure on their personal platform, and followed him downtown. It only took fifteen minutes to get to his therapist’s office, so the kidnapping had to happen fairly quickly. But at this time of day, all the cars were going to be packed with people, when did she…

Ah. There, at the second turn. There was a track in need of repairs, everyone was hustled toward another car—except for Kieron. He paused as he began to step off the car, his head tilted like he was listening to something.

Was he being spoken to directly through his implant, or through the com system in the car? If it had been via his implant, Kieron should have reached out to let Elanus know!

Or...honestly, it would be more surprising if he had reached out. Kieron was self-sufficient to a frustrating degree. Still, if it was auditory, he ought to be able to listen in. Elanus dug down into the software, finding the saved audio files and transmitting them into his office until he heard—

“—stay.”

“Why?” There was the dry sarcasm that Elanus both loved and loathed—it was usually funny when it was directed at someone else, but right now he wasn’t finding anything about it amusing.

“Because you want to protect your family.”

Kieron went completely still, his gaze sharpening dangerously. “Are you threatening my family?” he finally asked, stepping more fully back into the car. The doors shut with a faint hydraulic hiss, and then the light in the car went red. “Lockdown engaged,” the automated system said as the lights began to blink.

“No, Mr. Carr,” the third-party voice continued. “I’m giving you the opportunity to get ahead of a problem in the making, one that could threaten your family if your boyfriend lets it.”

Fiance, damn it, Elanus thought grimly.

“What kind of problem are you talking about then?”

“A threat to the security of the entire planet.”

Kieron hummed. “You’re talking about exposing the individual responsible for Elfshot Disease.”

“Do you truly think that a single individual is capable of engineering a population-wide phenomenon like Elfshot all on their own?” the voice asked. “Not everyone is as clever as Elanus Desfontaines, Mr. Carr.”

“What do you know about Elanus?”

“More than he’d like me to, but less than I want. That’s where you come in.”

Kieron shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you anything about him. I don’t care what you do to me, I won’t give you anything.”

Don’t fucking say that! Play along, give them a lead, make them think you’re valuable! Did Elanus have to do a remedial course on how to be a hostage with Kieron?

Fuck him, he should have done it before Kieron got made into a hostage. Rotten-souled motherfucking son of a—

“I understand, and I’m not asking for you to break a confidence. I am, however, asking you to act as an ambassador to Elanus on behalf of all of Gania. We need him on our side for this, and that means making him pay attention rather than presuming he knows best.”

“He often does.”

“Often, but not always.” The voice was silent for a moment. “We’re not monsters, Mr. Carr. If you truly don’t want to work with us on this, we’ll let you go. However, I can guarantee that you won’t regret listening to us if you choose to hear us out.”

“I don’t hear out people who won’t even tell me their name,” Kieron said, but Elanus could read the interest in his body language.”

“I’m afraid I can’t be wholly honest with you until I have you in person. I swear, though, that your location won’t be a mystery to your fiancé. He’ll know exactly where you are, and you’ll return to him safe and sound.” The voice dropped slightly. “This is the only chance I can give you to get ahead of this. The other parties involved are determined to move forward one way or another, and several of them have very firm grudges against Elanus. They’re willing to do anything to remove him as a threat. I had to bargain hard to get the chance to use persuasion first. Please, if you love him, take this opportunity to listen to me.”

Kieron sighed heavily, then sat down on the nearest seat. “He’s going to want to kill me when he finds out I let you kidnap me.”

“I know. He’ll forgive you, though.”

“The hell I will!” Elanus shouted as the car began to move along the “closed” track toward a private spaceport. “You fucking—Kieron, you’re smarter than this!” Why would he make himself so vulnerable? Why didn’t he just walk away? Whatever was going on, it was safer for them to handle it together! Stupid, self-sacrificing son of a—

Well, it was done. And Elanus was going to make sure he got Kieron back so he could lecture him for as long as it took on the stupidity of handing himself over to the damn enemy with no guarantees.

But first, he needed to bring the girls in.

Chelen City: Chapter Nineteen, Part One

 Note: We're back! And diving deep into plot, woohooooo!!! Happy New Year, my darlins!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Nineteen, Part One

***

Chapter Nineteen, Part One

 

Not one to stop and pause after the first step, Elanus figured that as long as he was spending a shit ton of money, he ought to do some more good with it. He used his connection with the capital’s hospital to open up negotiations for the companies doing the maintenance for every administrative hospital on the planet. When their specs were sent along as part of the evaluation packages for sales and mergers, he used the details provided to hack their schedules and their programming and ensured that every other city-run Regen tank disabled its ability to deliver Vitamin E3.

He even ended up buying a few of the better companies, because there was a lot to be said for diversifying your portfolio.

So, that was the most urgent issue taken care of. No Vitamin E3 meant no one new was getting infected with Elfshot Disease. Now, it was time to move on to dealing with Restaria.

Elanus spent a few days obsessively monitoring xir movements, tapping into every camera system he could find and leaving tracers to inform him of whenever Restaria passed that way again. Xir’s home was almost as impenetrable as Elanus’s to invasion, which meant it would take him a while but wouldn’t be impossible. However, it would be greatly aided by some on-location devices, which Kieron had offered to handle the same way he’d done with Caria. But Elanus wasn’t comfortable with that, for reasons he couldn’t name without making Kieron mad at him.

It wasn’t that he doubted Kieron’s abilities, he really didn’t. But Restaria, if xe was the mind behind this plan for now, was capable of some incredibly long-term planning. One had to wonder what xe had foreseen, and whether or not xe knew to expect Elanus’s incursion somehow. Certainly, whoever had attacked his home had managed to take advantage of weaknesses that Elanus hadn’t even thought to address because no one was supposed to know about them.

If Restaria was the person who’d issued the virus that had attacked Catie, if xe was the person behind the attacks on Ryu, if xe was responsible for maintaining the Elfshot program, then Elanus was already behind the curve. Xe shouldn’t have been able to target Catie because no one should have been able to do that, certainly not so successfully. It meant Catie’s abilities had been shared somehow, probably through Deysan, and who had Deysan constantly been trying to court? Moreno, the president. Who held the keys to getting through to Moreno? Restaria.

The odds were about fifty-fifty that xe was behind it all, and honestly Elanus would have preferred a cabal at this point. He didn’t like being out-thought, but he’d allowed his belief in his own abilities to get the better of his common sense.

When you start believing your own myths, it’s time to come down from the clouds.

He’d monitor xer a while longer, paint a picture of xir movements and get a sense of xir schedule and go from there. Until then, he’d look into curing his own Elfshot disease. That meant taking a lot of blood, doing a lot of tests, and spending way too much time in the Regen room with Ryu as he not-so-patiently looked for the clues in his body that would spell a way out of this mess without having to regrow his own damn skeleton.

It was easier to devote time to boring things on days like this. The company was running smoothly, Catie and Lizzie and Pol were, astonishingly, getting along while participating in a self-insert adventure show taking place in a jungle somewhere (Catie had chosen a dinosaur for her avatar, no surprise there, while Lizzie was some sort of effervescent floating sprite), and Xilinn was working through the laborious certification process for citizenship. Kieron had left for his therapy appointment half an hour ago, and Ryu was still unconscious, although he’d be ready to wake up in another few days, so…

[Target movements out of sequence.]

Elanus stiffened as the notification came through his implant. “Define movement.”

[Target has proceeded to Stellar Cabinet two-point-four days ahead of schedule.]

“Shit.” The Stellar Cabinet was a government facility in orbit around Gania, where the president, vice-president, and other high-level officials did a lot of their negotiating in order to evade the appearance of favoritism, the use of listening devices, and, well…just to make themselves look good, honestly. The Stellar Cabinet was gorgeous, a retro-style circular base that had been built over fifty years ago. It was one of the only places in Ganian territory where Elanus hadn’t laid a hand on the technology.

Why was Restaria going there now?

“Purpose of change?”

[Unknown.]

“Extrapolate.”

[The flight manifest includes a weight allowance of eighty-three-point-nine kilograms.]

Eighty-three-point-nine kilograms…what the fuck was that the weight of? Not enough for heavy machinery, but too much for personal belongings…

A query blinked in the corner of Elanus’s implant. He didn’t recognize the sender at first, but the number eventually sorted to one Delilah Farraday.

Kieron’s therapist. How did she get my—ah, as his emergency contact, of course.

Fuck. Why is she reaching out to Kieron’s emergency contact? He instantly took the call. “What’s wrong?” he demanded immediately. “Is Kieron okay?”

“That’s why I’m calling,” she said, and Elanus almost rolled his eyes at the non-answer. “He didn’t show up to our appointment. His personal feelings about therapy aside, Kieron’s never been less than dedicated about making them. The one time he missed, he messaged me over a day in advance, and he didn’t do that this time, so…”

She said something else, but Elanus had already filtered her out. All he could hear was that Kieron wasn’t there. All he could think about was a flight manifest with a weight allowance of eighty-three-point-nine kilograms. One hundred and eighty-five pounds.

Kieron’s weight.

Restaria had left Gania. Xe hadn’t gone far, but xe had gone someplace where Elanus had no connections. He tried anyway, reaching for Kieron’s implant over and over, but all he got was the basic “hold” message. Kieron always shielded his implant during therapy appointments, it hadn’t bothered Elanus when the block went up, but now…

Now it meant that Kieron was beyond his reach. Restaria had him.

Xe had taken Kieron, and Elanus didn’t know what the fuck he was going to have to do to get him back.

One more week off...

 Because apparently my brain really needs it. BUT!

Today, Where There's A Will re-releases on Amazon/KU. If you like superheroes and excellent villains, consider picking it up!

OR, you can email me and I'll send you a copy as a belated Christmas gift. ONLY if you follow me here, ONLY if you email within the next 24 hours, because otherwise my attention span will just crumble, babes.

Happy Boxing Day--I hope you have time to read something lovely :)

 

 

Where There's A Will

Merry Christmas!

 Oooo....Christmas nails courtesy of my bb ;)

No need to celebrate the specific holiday to celebrate the fact that it's a time to be appreciative, and I appreciate all of you! Thank you so much for reading my work and my worlds and sticking with me in 2023. Hopefully in 2024 I'll be able to transition to a different blog host, and if I do I hope you come along. No matter what, though, I hope you're happy, healthy, and safe.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!!!

Cari <3

No blog story today because...

 I'm on day four of a sick kidlet, boooo all around. She's doing a lot better, but I've had--you guessed it--very little time for writing. *sigh* But the baby (ha, what baby, she's SIX oh my god) comes first.

BUT! I do have some cover art to share for a very fun prequel that I'll be putting out in 2024...

Like, HOLY WHAT, am I right!? It looks so good, Natasha Snow is an amazing cover artist and I'm really excited to write this booooook!

Have a safe and wonderful holiday if you celebrate, my darlins. I'll be in touch soon!

Chelen City: Chapter Eighteen, Part Two

 Notes: A little longer today, as we begin to delve into the plotty goodness. Enjoy!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Eighteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Eighteen, Part Two

 

“Do I want to know why you’ve developed a shield that hides people digitally?”

“I don’t know, do you?” Elanus asked as he walked to the office of the chief administrator of Chelen City’s government-aligned hospital. It was a balancing act to go slow enough to speak with Kieron while still making progress, but he managed it. A few more minutes and he’d be there…but in a few more minutes, Kieron would be at the central service replicator for the hospital’s Regen system in his maintenance technician guise. “And you’re not hidden, in this case. Your digital imprint is changed into that of another person, that’s all.”

“But my physical appearance isn’t.”

“You’re the one who told me that short people in service uniforms are never remarked on,” Elanus said, pushing the button for the elevator down to the fiftieth floor. The woman next to him glanced over and smiled. He smiled back.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You absolutely did.”

“Not like that. I’m not short.”

“You are on Ganiaaa,” Elanus sang as he got into the elevator. The woman next to him looked curious, but he ignored her. “Short and stocky.”

“I’m above average height for Alliance planets.”

“And very far below average height for this planet, which is the only one that matters right now because it’s the one you live on.”

There was a pause, and then—“God, you’re obnoxious.”

Elanus grinned. He was feeling practically effervescent today. It was amazing what a good night’s sleep, some quality time with his daughters, and a plan of attack could do for him. “I know. But at least I’m not tiny.”

“This tiny man has and will kick your ass.”

“You would regret it,” Elanus said as the elevator whirred down. Gyroscopes prevented the feeling of movement, so his stomach stayed in place, but it seemed like no one was capable of making a completely silent elevator. “You’d break something and then you’d feel bad and end up waiting on me hand and foot for a month while you recovered from the guilt.”

“I wouldn’t feel that bad.”

“You did last time.” There was silence. It began to stretch, and Elanus wondered whether maybe it had been a bad idea to bring up old memories like that. “Not that you knew what would happen,” he amended. Still nothing. “Honey? Sweetheart? Light of my life?”

“Please shut up.”

Even being sworn at was a relief. “Don’t just go silent like that, you make me nervous.” The elevator stopped and he and the woman both got out. She turned left, while he continued straight ahead along the corridor toward the distant double doors. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine, just…” Kieron grunted. “This casing is a bitch to get off.”

“Use the multi-tool.”

“Right, yeah, use the multi-tool, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, what’s this in my hand? Is it a multi-tool? Wow. How convenient.”

Elanus tisked. “If you don’t know how to properly use a multi-tool, you should have told me before I sent you in. I could have given you a basic tutorial.”

“I know how to use a damn multi-tool, I did maintenance on an entire space station for three years.”

“Not the same thing.” Elanus heard Kieron grunt again and felt a frisson of worry. “Be honest—do you need help?”

“No.”

“I said be honest.”

“I am being honest. I’m fine. I’ll have this done in a—”

“What are you doing in here?”

That wasn’t Kieron’s voice. It wasn’t someone speaking to Elanus either; this was happening on Kieron’s end.

“Just routine maintenance,” Kieron said, sounding bored. Elanus felt himself freeze inside, even as he kept walking—no one was supposed to be down there other than Kieron’s maintenance tech persona right now. “It’s on the schedule.”

“You’re not Feyodr.”

“Nope.” Kieron popped the word obnoxiously. “New management.”

“I didn’t hear anything about a change.”

“Not my problem, man.” No one did dismissive quite as well as Kieron, and for a moment Elanus thought it worked. Then—

“I’m going to need you to come with me to the security checkpoint.”

Kieron huffed a sigh. “Look, I’m almost done here. Can we just—”

“Now, sir.”

“Fine.” Elanus listened to him being led away from the service replicator and grimaced. Shit. This was a hiccup they didn’t need. [Are you okay?] he sent via his implant.

[Fine. Focus on you.]

[If you need me--]

[I’ll let you know, but I’ve got this. Pay attention, you’re about to walk into a door.]

Elanus looked up just in time to stop himself from walking right into the damn double doors. The secretary at the desk to the right looked at him with one raised eyebrow, and he smiled charmingly even as he sent [You’re getting better at accessing the connections, I didn’t even feel you do that.] All he got in return was a sense of smugness.

“Hello,” Elanus said, pushing Kieron’s situation out of his head and focusing on the person in front of him. “I’ve got a meeting with Doctor Kliir.”

“Name, sir?”

“Elanus Desfontaines.”

To their credit, the secretary didn’t seem surprised or interested by his identity in the slightest. “Go ahead,” they droned, and Elanus went back over to the doors and knocked once, then entered.

“Mr. Desfontaines!” Doctor Kliir, on the other hand, was very aware of who he was. She was heavyset for a Ganian, rounded and gray-haired, but her eyes were bright with eagerness. She had a presentation already pulled up on the holo-screen at her desk.

Oh, great. A sales pitch. Eh, it was what he’d let himself in for. Now that he’d invested in part of the hospital, she was going to want him to invest in all of it.

“It’s so wonderful to meet you in person,” Doctor Kliir said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. “I’m Doctor Corinne Kliir. Please, may I get you something to drink?”

“Anything would be good,” he said, fiddling with his own implant until he finally got a visual through Kieron’s. There was a bit of strange overlap for a moment, but then it resolved. Kieron was sitting in a small security office with two other men, both of whom looked rather squirrely.

“Here.” Doctor Kliir handed him a glass. “It’s just water, but—”

“Mind telling me why I’m here?” Kieron asked.

“Mind telling us why you’re not in the system?” one of the men replied pugnaciously.

“Look, all I know is I got tasked to work on this system today, okay? I’ve never worked here before, but my boss told me the paperwork was going through fine.”

“Well, it hasn’t.”

“How is that my problem?”

The guys looked at each other. “We can make it your problem,” the second one said. Elanus could practically hear the knuckle-cracking. Honestly, what the hell—

“—Desfontaines? Are you all right?”

Elanus pasted a smile on his face. “Forgive me, just getting some data in on one of my implant channels.”

“I see.” The administrator went a bit frosty. “If you could please turn it off for the duration of our meeting, I would appreciate that.”

“Of course.” Not, but he’d at least turn it down. He sat, and she beamed and launched into a discussion of how grateful they were for his investment in maintaining their technology, and how much better things could be if he wanted to help them upgrade some of the rest of their tech as well. Elanus forced himself to listen, but he turned Kieron’s conversation into text and continued to read it.

“Look,” Kieron said. “I get it. You guys had a deal with the last guy who worked here, right? Probably, like, a few free vials of Regen from the tank in exchange for not giving him shit?” Judging from the way the security officers stared at each other, he was correct. Bribery. Of course. I should have thought of that.

“I can do that,” Kieron replied. “Not a lot, ‘cause the levels are really strictly monitored, but enough to get you a few thousand extra credits. I get a third of it, of course.”

One of the guys scoffed. “You get to do your job, that should be enough.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“You’re not a native. Just like the last guy.” The man leaned in. “I’ve got a cousin that works in the refugee office. I can have her pull your approval to be here before you even know it. Get you sent back to whatever shit planet you came from.”

Oh, damn. If they’d been looking for a way to rile Kieron up, they’d just found it.

“And I,” Kieron replied frostily, “can report both of you for extortion to my boss.”

“You think whoever hired you is going to believe you over his own people?”

“You don’t know much about who I work for, do you.” The guys looked at each other. “Lifeship Enterprises ring a bell? Elanus Desfontaines? Richest guy on this rock, also dating a guy from another planet? Short and stocky, like me, but way more of a badass?” Kieron leaned in. “They’re stupid about each other, too. I’ve met the little guy, he likes me. He’ll listen to me if I tell him you’re trying to bust my balls here, and he’ll tell his boyfriend. Who do you think will get kicked off at that point?”

One of the guys bristled, but the other one shook his head. “Fuck it, it’s not worth it,” he muttered. “Fine. Split three ways, but it’s got to be at least ten milliliters per person. Got it?”

“Got it. You gonna let me do my job now, or what?”

“Which is why I really think it’s in everyone’s best interest to invest in the latest biobed sensor technology,” Doctor Kliir finished up. Elanus blinked at her. “Don’t you agree?”

Wow, he’d done a terrible job listening to that. Shit. “Absolutely.”

She smiled at him. “Wonderful! Let me show you my construction projections and we’ll get a contract pulled up!”

Wait. How much money had he just spent? Eh, didn’t matter. Not as long as Kieron was okay. Which he was, if the way he was fussing over the multi-tool again was any indicator.

“Sounds great.”