New Release: Where There's Fire and Blog Tour

It's HERE!

The second story in my Panopolis series is here! POW! SNAP! WHAM!

Yes, I am actually that excited about it! This one picks up six months after the first left off, following the continuing adventures of Edward Dinges, Villain name yet-undetermined, and his lover Raul, aka The Mad Bombardier. Edward's trying to make a name for himself, Raul is trying to fend off rival Villains and a new big bad is causing problems for everybody.

The fun continues! You can find it here at Riptide: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/where-theres-fire

And here at Amazon: Where There's Fire

One more link, this one for the blog tour. Why bother? Guys, guys, guys...the prize. The PRIZE! Follow along, leave a comment, and the winner gets to name someone in the next book. Villain, Hero, innocent bystander, somebody's dog--we'll talk about it when you win! Come and visit with me along the way. Tour stops: http://riptidepublishing.com/events/tours/where-theres-fire-blog-tour-cari-z

New Release: In Memoriam

Yay, it's here! My modern-day genderbent mythological romance is here!

(say that five times fast, oy)

And because I'm not subtle at all, you can immediately tell which myth I based this story off of just by looking at the cover! What can I say, it's my favorite.

I'm really happy with this one. It's...in a slightly different tone from my usual. There are no explosions, no gunfights, no direct violence of any kind. Whaaaa... but I love it, and I hope you do too.

You can find it on Dreamspinner's website here: In Memoriam

Or on Amazon here: In Memoriam AZ

Want a quickie breakdown of the plot? Read on:

Lee Summers is past expecting to find love. He has a fulfilling career and a few human connections, and he's determined to be happy with those. When he meets Felix Clymenos during a vacation in Colorado, he doesn’t expect to feel so passionate about him. Felix is intriguing, but when he starts to feature in Lee's dreams—and his slowly strengthening nightmares—Lee wonders if it wouldn’t be a better idea to walk away. 

There's a mystery behind Felix's affections and somehow Lee feels like he’s known Felix his whole life. Before they can be happy together, Lee has to know why that is... and what that means for their future.

Redstone Ch. 6. Pt. 2

Notes: More Redstone, yay! Finally bringing two perspectives together. In other words, yes, Kyle gets thrown into prison. And not in the way he'd expected.

PS, new release tomorrow! July is my busy month, I've got...well, nothing else firmly planned to come out until next year.

Title: Redstone Chapter 6, Part 2



***

Getting into the Regen tank at last was a welcome relief. The device closed over Kyle like a cocoon, his body sank into the gel pads and his headrest tilted back to partially submerge him in fluids. Kyle shut his eyes and let the machine do its work, the familiar sound comforting. The liquid was warm on his skin, soaking evenly through the thin cloth of his prison garb, and as his headache and nausea began to recede a little of Kyle’s optimism started to come back. So he might be without mods, but he wasn’t helpless. He didn’t have to be able to do everything at the level of expertise he’d displayed before; he just had to be better than the competition. He could manage that. He could.

Kyle’s reverie was abruptly disrupted by the manual override of the Regen tank. He opened his eyes to see a guard in black body armor, face mask down, push back the top of the tank. The guard reached in, grabbed Kyle around the upper arm and hauled him out of the regenic fluid before he could do more than gasp in protest.

“What are you doing?” Kyle demanded once he was on his feet. He tried to turn and look at the guard, but whoever it was swiftly bent Kyle’s arm and wrenched it high behind him, arching him on his toes. This person’s mods were obviously working perfectly—every move Kyle tried was countered immediately.

“Where’s the doctor?” he asked as the guard marched him out of the med unit and down a sterile gray corridor with inset red and yellow lights. Kyle felt like he was walking down the trachea of some immense beast, and the red and black barred door at the end of the hall was the entry to its tumultuous gut. Kyle pressed back as hard as he could without dislocating his own shoulder. “I was supposed to have a meeting with my lawyer first—I haven’t even finished the Regen treatment!”

The guard smacked a red button on the side of the door. The camera above it scanned both of them for a moment, and then the door began to open. The light inside whatever was beyond the corridor was bright, too bright for Kyle to make out much of the room ahead of him.

The guard jerked Kyle close for a split second. “The inmates like it when new arrivals come in wet and ready,” the metallic voice hissed. “Just think, with Regen for lube you might not even tear too badly. The first few times, that is.” Then the guard shoved Kyle into the light, the door closing with a resounding clang behind him.

Kyle’s eyes adjusted after a moment. He was still in a corridor, but a very short one, leading to a large room that seemed to be full of people milling around a wide, square door. The corridor wasn’t empty, though. Three people had laid claim to it, and before he knew what was happening one of them had grabbed him and shoved him against the small exit he’d just been ejected from.

“Knew if we played the odds, someone’d come in through here eventually,” the man—or person, rather, he looked like he’d lost so many mods coming in here that all that was holding his face together was scar tissue and raw sinew—holding him by his collar said with a sneer. “Always follow the little red lights, s’what the boys in black’ve said to me. Little red lights for naughty little problems they want taken care of.” He had at least a foot of height on Kyle, and he used it to every advantage as he towered over him. “Guess you’re one of ‘em problems, lad.” He leaned in and licked a long swipe up Kyle’s cheek, humming appreciatively at the taste. “Fresh out o’ the tank, too. We’ll squeeze your clothes out into a bottle, and then we’ll squeeze you for a while until we get tired of playin’ around, yeah?”

“Or no,” Kyle choked, and he brought his knee up as hard as he could between the giant’s thighs. The man gave a shocked little moan as he crumpled back and down, and Kyle smoothed his wet hair out of his face and evaluated the other two men, who seemed nonplussed.

One of them reached for him, and Kyle grabbed his wrist, torqued it in a tight circle and sent his attacker toppling over the bent form of the giant, who snarled and struck back at his own companion as he tried to regain his composure. Kyle didn’t have any shoes, thanks to whoever that fucking guard had been, but his shin would do as a bludgeon in a pinch. He cocked his hip back and smashed the giant in the face, grimly noting to himself how much longer it took him to kick now that his combat mods were deactivated.

The third man looked at him and held up both his hands. “I’m not here for trouble,” he said smoothly. He looked as smooth as his voice, his long, neat handlebar moustache as bright as copper. “I just need a little taste of what you’re wearing.”

“The Regen?”

“You’ve got it,” the man congratulated him. “Just a tiny little lick and then I’ll help get you out of this mess.”

“I think I’m managing my mess just fine,” Kyle retorted, but even as he said it his head began to spin. Shit, right, he hadn’t finished the treatment.

“Perhaps you are for the moment. But we’re about to have some more visitors, and they’re not as…eager and incautious as Big Charlie there.”

“I don’t trust you.”

The man laughed. “You shouldn’t trust anyone, my dear, not after getting pushed out through the asshole of this fine facility. Someone wants you dead. I can help you avoid that, for the right price.”

No, this…this wasn’t the way things were supposed to go, was it? Wasn’t something supposed to…to…

“Too late,” the copper man said, with a hint of real regret in his voice. “Here comes the horde.”

 

***

 

Isidore swore when he realized what was happening. Of course it didn’t happen according to plan. Why would it? First Wyl and Robbie were running late, now Kyle Alexander was here early. And he wasn’t arriving in a way that would let Isidore lay an easy claim on him either.

New arrivals happened once a week, always at the same time, same place: the main entrance in the mess hall, in the hour before dinner. The timing ostensibly gave new inmates a chance to find a place to settle before directly slotting them into the routine of Redstone. In reality, it made the fighting rather fierce when newbies came in, because the major players wanted their chances at them first. Kliassne had first dibs on any woman who came through the door, hands down, blood up if anyone tried to argue with her. She didn’t treat anyone well, but if that particular boss had any redeeming feature, it was her refusal to allow other women to be turned into slaves. The guards wouldn’t have prevented it, and when it came to sex, the robots were next to useless.

Rory played the field more widely, and while a few people slipped through the cracks the two of them left behind, most didn’t. One of the few that did was Big Charlie, a wolf with a little pack of his own, not big enough to swat but not necessarily fun to fight with, either. Charlie had friends in high places, high enough that it wasn’t worth it to fuck with him unless you had to, because he’d twist things around and the next thing you knew, it was solitary down in the heart of Redstone. People went mad down there in short order, so it was to be avoided if at all possible.

Kyle was supposed to be in the group scheduled to arrive in fifteen minutes. Isidore was prepared to buy, bargain and steal to get his claim in on Kyle first. He’d hidden away a trove of little treasures in his clothes, things his fellow inmates were sure to want, and he was ready to fight if he failed at that, too. He was positioned near the door, his intent demeanor turning away anyone who might have tried to start a conversation with him. And then…then…

“Side door!” one of Rory’s wolves called out suddenly. “Side door! One young’un, and he’s laid out Big Charlie and his shadow!”

Isidore knew immediately it had to be Kyle. The side door was for people who were supposed to disappear, and if he didn’t get there soon Kyle would be overwhelmed. He began to push through the crowd, which surged along with him toward the little indent on the far wall where the side door was located. He had to play this just right, had to get to Kyle and stake his claim without giving away his purpose, his role. He couldn’t be a protector, he had to be dispassionate about it. How was he going to handle this?

“This new boy’s crazy as fuck, gents,” Pence said with a gleeful smile as he exited the little tunnel. “I suggest you proceed with caution.” Isidore barely spared him a glance as he plunged ahead, only to see Big Charlie and his shadow on the ground, and another person—one of Kliassne’s girls—darting at Kyle with a length of metal in her hand. She was going for his legs, and doing a decent job of it. Kyle looked disoriented, honestly like he was about to fall down. He slid into the wall as one of his legs gave out, and Kliassne’s girl shrieked with glee as she moved in to incapacitate him.

Fortunately, Isidore was close enough at that point to intervene. He stabbed the point of his foot into the girl’s kidney, and the thin layer of iron he’d painstakingly patched into his shoes paid off beautifully as she shrieked and fell to the floor.

Isidore darted forward, took one look at Kyle’s pained but determined face, and made a split second decision. He brought his reinforced palm around to the back of Kyle’s head, smacked it hard enough to knock Kyle out, and scooped him up onto his shoulder in one smooth motion. Isidore picked up the girl’s baton, knocked the next two closest people in their respective temples, and prepared to stand his ground. He only had to last long enough to make a deal with one side or the other…

“A claim?” one of Rory’s men shouted. “You’re making a claim? You? Sharks don’t keep harems, Iz.”

“But a man’s ways can change,” Isidore said. “He’s still wet from the tank. Let me have him without more trouble and I’ll give you his shirt.”

“Klia wants something too,” her girl hissed from where she lay on the ground. “You bargain with her or you make an enemy, Iz!”

“Klia can have the pants,” Isidore allowed.

Fifteen minutes later, he’d carried a bare-assed, unconscious Kyle Alexander past a hundred leering prisoners who nevertheless weren’t quite prepared to fuck with him, down into the heart of Redstone. Even with the boost the residual Regen soaked into his clothes gave him, Isidore was tired by the time he got down to his bunk. He set Kyle down carefully, rolled out his tired shoulders and sighed.

“Well. It could have gone worse.”

Ooh, I'm A Feature!

Hi guys!

Sooo, this month I'm very pleased to be Riptide Publishing's featured author! (insert loud woohoo-ing here)

I have a new release coming out on the 13th, Where There's Fire, and the blog tour for this one--guys. GUYS. The prize is, not to pat my own back too hard, awesome. You need to check this out. I'm giving the winner the chance to name a character in my next Panopolis book. We're talking Heroes and Villains here, which basically means you get nearly carte blanche to go crazy. So go crazy! You can order Where There's Fire here: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/where-theres-fire

Being featured means that my other titles with them, the Rules To Live By anthology and Where There's Smoke are 50% and 25% off respectively. Which is good timing, since you can read the first in the Panopolis series for a discount and then check out the sequel with no waiting! All the info can be found on Riptide's website: http://riptidepublishing.com/authors/cari-z


It's going to be a crazy busy week, I've got Redstone tomorrow and a different new release on Wednesday...hang on tight, darlins' :)

Redstone Ch. 6, Pt. 1

Notes: Oh my god, why am I expanding the cast of characters? WHY? Do I not have enough to do, or something? Am I a secret masochist? Ha, no, that's not a secret, I'm a very open and appreciative masochist, but still, WHY? Enjoy part one of this chapter, guys, it's going to get rough for our boy.

Title: Redstone, Chapter Six, Part One.


***

“Mod deactivation doesn’t hurt.”

That was what everyone said. They were just add-ons to the basic implant, which would remain active for medical and tracking reasons. That implant was a permanent fixture, almost impossible to fully detach from the brain once it was set inside. It allowed the bearer to connect to information hubs and monitor their own health stats. It took a while to get used to, but most people integrated their implants so well they didn’t even realize when they were using them after a few days.

Any mods that got added in on top of the basic functions were the result of money and profession, for the most part. The more mods you could afford, or the more that were demanded for your job, the more that could be packed in there. Generally, doctors didn’t feel comfortable adding a lot of mods until the brain had stopped the rapid development of childhood and early adolescence. It wasn’t an absolute requirement, especially since the brain would naturally adjust the implant’s programming to suit the body’s requirements, but there was evidence of occasional trauma as a result of losing those early mods.

Kyle had been given his first mod at the age of five. That one was for languages, and was the first of four language adaptations he upgraded with. He got his first combat mods from his sister Berengaria at age eight, even though he didn’t really know why or what to do with them. She made him practice for hours, working alongside him with a grim expression. Overall, Kyle had close to twenty physical and mental implant mods, some that directly affected his nervous system, others that tapped into his memory. To lose them all at once would be—

“Criminal,” his head lawyer argued to the doctor even as Kyle was being strapped into the bed. They’d arrived at Redstone an hour earlier, and the first place Kyle had been taken, fully restrained, was the prison infirmary. He was placed in a private room under guard while his lawyer argued for a gradual drawdown of his mods. Demarcos Gyllenny was a high-profile defense lawyer who specialized in inter-familial cases, so Kyle’s predicament was right down his alley. He had been stymied left, right and center though, and ended up bringing on an entire legal team to keep the appeals and objections going back at the central court while he lobbied to stay with Kyle, to ensure that his treatment was fair. Kyle knew Demarcos was working hard to make that happen, but he also knew that no matter the lengths his lawyer went to, Raymond was going to come out on top. He always did. At least, he had so far.

“Studies show that the sort of mass deactivation you’re planning leads to disorientation, nausea and vertigo,” Demarcos went on. “You can’t send him into the general prison population without ensuring that he’s well enough to take care of himself, at least able to stand on his own two feet.”

“I’m not going to become an accomplice to murder, if that’s what you’re implying,” the doctor snapped as he brought over a machine. It looked…old. Like something out of an early space-era horror film, all sharp bits of metal that somehow fit over his head. Kyle shuddered. “I’ve seen Mr. Alexander’s medical files, and he’s perfectly healthy. He can handle a mass deactivation just fine with a little Regen time afterward.”

“Regen just covers up the symptoms—it doesn’t give the brain time to reset itself after such a massive disruption! He’s going to need at least a few days in solitary confinement to recalibrate before you let him go into the general population—”

“Mr. Gyllenny, of the two of us I think you’ll find that I am the one with the medical degree,” the doctor said dismissively. “I know what I’m doing. Mr. Alexander is going to be perfectly all right.” He positioned the machine above Kyle’s head, gave it a critical once-over and nodded. “I’ll give you a few minutes to talk to your client before I do the procedure. It won’t take more than a few minutes to do the deactivation, and you can watch the Regen process afterward yourself to ensure he’s getting adequate care. I trust that’s acceptable to you?” He left before either of them could say anything.

Demarcos ran a hand over his dark brown head, an anxious gesture that Kyle had seen more times than he could count at this point. “Good thing you’re already bald,” he joked. “Otherwise I’d get you there, huh?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Demarcos said, doing a good impression of amused. “I’ve had way tougher cases than yours.” Kyle could see he was lying though, in the slumped set of his broad shoulders and the tension at the edges of his generous mouth. He wondered if he’d still be able to pick up on those physical cues once his advanced information synthesis mod was gone.

Demarcos sat down on the edge of the bed and took Kyle’s hand in his. Kyle held on hard, wanting the contact more than he was comfortable saying. He had gone into this with his eyes wide open, he knew the consequences he faced, he was supposed to be strong…but right now all he wanted, more than anything, was a hug. A fucking hug. He would have laughed at himself if he’d been able to conjure up the breath for it.

“I’m not going to let him put you in there before you’re capable, Kyle,” Demarcos assured him.

“I know you’ll try your best.”

Demarcos frowned. “Don’t be a martyr, Kyle. I don’t need excuses from you as to why I can’t do my own job, you got it? I’m here to keep you safe and look after your welfare until I can get you to trial, not the other way around.”

“Trial, right.” Kyle knew he sounded bitter but there wasn’t anything he could do to stop himself. “Because that’s going to go so well.”

“It’s going to go way better than you think it will, you’ve just got to get there. You hear me? No fatalism, now, nobody’s got time for an existential crisis today.”

“How about tomorrow?”

Demarcos chuckled. “Maybe tomorrow. But just a short one, you got it?”

“Yeah.” Kyle squeezed the other man’s hand one last time, then forced himself to relax his grip. “I’ve got it.”

“Good.” Demarcos rubbed his head again. “All right. No being stoic now, okay? You don’t feel well, you let us know.”

“I will.”

“Good. Good.”

The doctor reentered the room, a frown on his face. “I’ve got an inmate with a broken pelvis to get into the Regen tank, gentlemen, so let’s move this along, shall we?”

Watching his lawyer leave was almost enough to trigger a panic attack in Kyle, damn the doctor’s tutting at the readings that spewed from his device, but he held onto his calm with the skin of his teeth. He wasn’t going to break down, he wasn’t. He was strong, he had to be strong. He could do this. He’d survive; he didn’t have any other choice.

“Take a few deep breaths, Mr. Alexander,” the doctor advised him as he settled at the top of the device, tightening it around Kyle’s head and neck. “This will all be over soon.”

Kyle had time for exactly one deep breath before the first node of his implant was spliced into. From there, it was…

It was like being in a vast mansion, or maybe a maze. It was a familiar maze, all the twists and turns well established. Only this time as Kyle began to run it, corridors that should have been open were suddenly closed off. Inaccessible. Paths he’d trod for nearly two decades were suddenly blocked, and he turned in circles again and again trying to find his way into him, only to be stymied. The main passages were still there, well-worn avenues, but between one second and the next Kyle forgot the name of the martial art he’d studied with Berengaria. He forgot how to load and fire a shrike gun, he forgot how to say I love you in French and Cantonese and Arabic, he forgot…

It felt like he forgot everything. It couldn’t have been everything, of course not, but his mental maze was filled with fog now, even the main passages obscured in places where Kyle’s mind had made connections with his deactivated mods that now no longer functioned. It was like being drugged, and as the machine was loosened and drawn away from his head, Kyle suddenly rolled over onto his side and vomited helplessly. It was like being twirled on a spit, even though he knew he wasn’t moving.

“Damn it,” the doctor muttered irritably. He pushed a syringe of some kind into Kyle’s neck, and the nausea subsided but the whirling sensation stuck with him. “I can’t put you into the tank like this, you’re a mess. Broken pelvis first, then you.”

“My…” Kyle spit to clear his mouth of foulness. “My lawyer…”

“Later, once you’re tidied up. I should have guessed you’d make this difficult.” He left, and a moment later a bot came in and started to clean things up. Kyle stared at it blankly. He should have known what kind of robot it was immediately, he should have known its make and model and capabilities but where those memories resided was just…fog. Slick, crawling fog that stuck tight to his brain and concealed his own thoughts.

Kyle had no idea what was going to happen next. He wondered if he’d known a few minutes ago.

 

Marriage Equality in the US!

As of today, the Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional right of same sex couples to get married in all fifty states!

I'm so fucking proud to be an American right now. Colorado made same-sex marriage legal last October, but I honestly wasn't sure what the Supreme Court would have to say on the issue. And it was a contentious ruling, which undoubtedly precedes a continued tumult in our culture with a myriad of objections yet to come, but...guys. GUYS! This is amaaaazing! The legal benefits that our country bestows on married couples now applies to ALL, and I'm just so happy. Last weekend was Denver Pride, and this was certainly a topic of conversation there. And now...well, you know.

Have a completely awesome weekend, darlins'!

Redstone Ch. 5

Notes: So, I don't really know where this chapter came from. You can consider it bonus content if you want, because it doesn't really fit within the structure of the narrative all that well, but I was thinking about how everyone was getting their little introductions before we jump in and decided to try something with Admiral Liang. I've no idea if it worked, but hopefully you understand a little more about him now.

 

PS, the picture is from an beautiful and enormous Inari shrine in Japan that I visited last month. I just though it applied well to what's going on with Liang in this vignette.

 

 

Title: Redstone Chapter 5

 

***

 

Stephen Liang stood at the base of the four-story pagoda and looked through the open door in front of him. It was a beautiful structure, surprisingly festive with its coruscating red roofs, each one glowing in the sunshine, and the gold trim beneath them curled into watchful foxes. The walls were white, and painted with elegant black kanji that spelled out thousands of prayers for the dead. The room just beyond the threshold where he hesitated beckoned him like a lover, while the gentle breeze across his back pressed him forward.

Stephen sighed. He shouldn’t have put this off for so long, but given the way his week—no, his month—had been going, it felt like a miracle he could even take the time to be here now. He clapped his hands twice and bowed, then reached out and gripped the heavy cotton rope that hung down from an enormous bronze bell ten feet above him. He took a deep breath, then swung the bell. The thunderous hum of it was almost enough to take his breath away. He stepped forward into the vestibule of the temple, and a moment later a warm hand landed on his shoulder.

“It’s been a while since you’ve visited.”

The voice was perfectly familiar, Stephen’s constant companion in his current life and the last vestige of his furthest one. He turned and looked at the speaker, a tall, slender man with white-blond hair and a small smile on his beautiful face. “I’ve been busy.”

His companion nodded. “I can see that.” Even now the algorithm in the machine was doing its work, analyzing Stephen’s brain chemistry and physiology and spinning new threads out from his mind, adding to the tapestries that lined the walls and the frames that filled the room. After some experimentation, Stephen had found that cloth was the best representative of memory for him. It had depth and texture, two things that made resurrecting his older memories easier as the pure images faded from his perception. Plus, you could always add on to cloth, which…he stepped up to the nearest frame tapestry and watched it elongate, watched new threads appear and connect. He stared at the cluster that represented Cody and his friends, all in merry masks as they danced around a distant jewel. A planet far, far away. It was a good place for them, and Stephen was almost sorry they’d be coming back soon.

The brightest, most chaotic cluster in this particular piece of his mind was Garrett Helms, new threads drawn into his burr-like exterior, others being cut off or sloughed away. Garrett Helms was like a seed that tangled in the coat of an animal and was carried off by it, to make a new home in a distant land. Only he had many homes, and many threads. Stephen reached out and plucked one with his finger. For a moment the room melted away, replaced by the memory of his last conversation with Garrett.

“Hummingbird is already in place,” he said soothingly. “Wyl and Robbie won’t be alone.”

“We’re not going to have long,” Garrett repeated, his handsome face drawn and exhausted. “Not even the length of the trial, because Alexander is never going to take the chance of Kyle getting on the stand. No more than a few standard months, and the faster we move the more likely we are to make errors.”

“So we control for those errors,” Stephen replied, not changing his tone at all. He needed to be a bulwark for Garrett, a bastion of dependability in the wake of so much chaos and change. “We add people, we improve equipment, we innovate, we engage. We won’t be taken by surprise, Garrett. It’s going to be all right.”

“You sound like my dad,” Garrett said, but he was smiling now.

“Your father is a wise man, you should listen to him. Get some sleep. I’ll check in with my agents and give you an update in thirty-six hours.”

“I’m not going to sleep for that long.”

“I have a few things to attend to myself. None of us can go without care forever.”

Garrett chuckled wryly. “I guess not. Sleep well, then.”

“And you.” The call ended but even though Stephen was tired, he didn’t head for his bed, he headed for his…

“And here you are,” his companion said as Stephen stepped out of the memory back onto the temple floor. When Stephen looked at him again, this time he was a shorter, dark-haired man with light brown skin and a mischievous look on his face. “But you will take your own advice after this, won’t you?”

“It’s almost time for another visit to Regen,” Stephen said regrettably as he stepped around the tapestry and moved toward the back of the room. More threads were developing, expanding the tapestries that made up the Academy and his underground network of spies. He had a few new potentials in development that showed promise, glimmering like tiny golden beads. “I’ll have to get through that first.”

“I see. Everything is prepared to guide you through the reconciliation, isn’t it?” his companion asked as they ascended to the second level.

“It always is,” Stephen said absently. Ancient gods stared placidly at Stephen as he climbed the narrow stairs. The second level was a purely technical place, the cloth memories harder-edged. This level contained his hard-won skillsets, and Stephen wandered through them and watched the occasional new thread develop here or there. For the most part, though, this place was firmly established, less of a problem than any other level due to it’s static nature. Many of the tapestries had gone dark, shadowed over with age and obsolescence. Stephen tapped one thoughtfully, and a moment later he was…

“Woooohooooo!” The radio crackled with static, but a little disruption wasn’t enough to mask the thrill in Navi’s voice as the glider wings suddenly deployed, abruptly slowing their brutally fast descent toward the moon’s surface. Stephen felt his spine elongate, then snap back into place, and thanked whatever god was listening for painkillers as they leveled off several hundred meters over the icy face of the moon.

The glider wings glowed like platinum in the faint reflection of light coming from Jupiter’s surface. They were on the wrong side to get pure sunshine right now, faint as it was this far out, but the glider was a technological wonder when it came to solar power absorption. Stephen adjusted for their lift and pulled his instrument panel up on the face of his helmet. “We’re going to need to jog right in a few hundred meters, ice plume.”

“Got it.” Flying through the frozen drops of methane was like flying through a sea of stars, so much more immediate and disorienting than pure space travel. Stephen extended one thickly-gloved hand and watched the tiny droplets bounce off his fingers, and grinned to himself.

“Pretty fucking cool, huh Stevie?” Navi asked smugly.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, pretty fucking cool.” He reached a little farther…

And stepped back onto the second level. He almost stumbled, disoriented by the sudden loss of acceleration, but his companion gripped his upper arm and steadied him. Now it was a woman, with kind almond-shaped eyes and grey hair piled high on her head. The voice was the same, though, a masculine baritone edged with warmth. “Shall we move on, my dear?”

“Is there really anything new to add up there?” Stephen asked a little bitterly, but he went. This time the stairs were lined with leering demon faces, fanged mouths gaping with glee as they plunged wrongdoers into torment. The third level was smaller, and packed with so many tapestries that it was all Stephen could do not to run into one as he slowly paced the length of the room, circling around and staring at all his emotional detritus. Many of these were dusty, and some even bore scorch marks, remnants of his less-sane times, when all he’d wanted to do was forget. Only a bare few threads wafted out from his mind, small and tentative, and Stephen ignored them in favor of approaching a long gray cloth that looked like it was draped over a box.

Stephen knew better, he did, but his mind had brought her to him, and it would be disrespectful not to face her now. He reached for the top of the cloth and pulled it back in a rush, and…

“You have to drink.”

Faying shook her head weakly. “I won’t.”

“This is ridiculous.” It felt like he’d been saying this forever, ever since he realized that she wasn’t going to do another round of Regen. “There’s no need for you to do this. There’s nothing wrong with prolonging your life! Why shouldn’t we take advantage of our own technology?”

“You…know why.”

It was about what had happened to him. Of course it was. “That was a one-off. A problem with the machine. They assured me it’ll be fine next time.”

Faying’s eyes welled with tears. “Oh, my dear. You asked me not to tell you before, but I have to now. I know I have to.”

Stephen felt his heart speed up. “Tell me what?”

“It wasn’t…wasn’t the first time.”

“What…” He shook his head. “What do you mean?”

Her breath rattled on a sigh. “It wasn’t the first time you’ve been subjected to Regen. It was the third, with me. The first time we did it together, and when you came out and you didn’t remember anything, I thought…” She paused to breathe. “I thought it had to be an accident. A terrible accident. You did another round right after, to try to fix things. It didn’t work.” Her hand tightened around his for a moment before she couldn’t maintain the pressure any longer. “You were worse. You couldn’t remember the simplest things, my darling. That’s when we moved out here. I taught you everything again, how to speak, how to read. You only remembered a few things, a few people, and none of them—” Her voice caught in her throat. “None of them were me.”

“No,” Stephen said, uncomprehendingly. “No, that’s not possible.”

“It is,” she wept. “It is. We swore it would be the last time, that we wouldn’t use Regen again. And then we aged, but not together. No matter what I did, I grew old faster than you. You knew how it bothered me, and you asked me to regenerate again with you, and I…” Faying squeezed her eyes shut around the tears. “And I did, for more time was all I wanted. But it happened again, and it will keep happening, and my darling…I can’t go through this again. I just can’t. I can’t watch you lose everything and everyone, and lose all memory of me. I just can’t.”

“That’s…how can that be possible?” He felt gutted. “Why don’t I remember this?”

Faying sighed. “We’ve been trying to figure that out for three lifetimes, my dear. I’m tired. Too tired for another one.”

“Faying—”

“You didn’t speak my name,” she said sadly, staring at their clasped hands, hers spotted with age, his…not. “You only spoke his.”

“Whose?”

She pressed her lips together and turned her face away. Stephen leaned over to ask again, to demand she tell him, to beg her not to die, but instead…

He fell onto the floor. The gray cloth lay crumpled in front of him, no box of truth beneath it, just emptiness. He stared at it but didn’t dare touch it again. He didn’t want to see her, to see the hurt in her wrinkled face, too many years of devotion and dedication to him, all subsumed by fatigue and a deep pain in the knowledge that she wasn’t the closest thing to his heart.

“Hey.” A new hand stroked over his head, cupping the back of his clammy neck. “You’re gonna be okay.”

Stephen forced himself to nod as he got to his feet. “I know.”

“You ready for the last level?”

He smiled mirthlessly. “I suppose. Although,” he added as he headed for the stairs, “I don’t know why I keep trying. It’s been so long, I don’t see how I’ll ever add something new to this room.” The walls of the stairwell were pure black, dark like the heart of a black hole, only it was Stephen’s own heart they were heading into. The closest thing he had to a representation of it, at least. The hand rested against his back, warm and supportive, and he wanted nothing more than to turn into it and look at the man it belonged to, but…it never worked. He never saw him, and when he tried to force it, his memory evaporated. He couldn’t make demands, he could only visit time and again and hope that someday, he would see the reality that time and technology had stolen from him.

Inside the room was…nothing. Emptiness, not even a dust bunny in the corner. But the walls echoed with words, words that fluttered through the nothing and made it feel welcoming. The air was filled with the voice that haunted Stephen’s dreams, that he’d programmed every machine he owned with, that belonged to the arms that wrapped around him now. Soft lips pressed gentle to the back of his neck and Stephen closed his eyes, then turned around into the embrace and laid his head against the shoulder of the man who held him.

“I don’t remember your name,” he said quietly. “I don’t remember your face or what we were to each other. But I know I must have loved you fiercely then, to love you so well now. And you must have loved me, because otherwise I wouldn’t want to keep you so badly.”

“I do,” the man said fervently. “I do love you, more than anything. More than everything, I promised you that. It’s still true.”

Stephen nodded, his throat tight with emotion. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I know you will.”

He kept his eyes closed during their kiss, a kiss so perfect he knew it could only be imagined, or perhaps it was the memory of the real thing polished by centuries of renewal and faith. At any rate, he didn’t want to go, but he knew he had to.

“I love you.” I love you, I love you, I love you… It echoed through the chamber until it surrounded him, the sound of his own love, his own heart, and when Stephen finally opened his eyes, he stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom in pure bewilderment for a moment, wondering why he was crying, before reality crashed back in.

“Admiral Liang?” Hermes asked politely in the voice of Stephen’s lover, and he made a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh as he contemplated his own creative cruelty toward himself. “Are you well?”

“Yes, Hermes,” he said, sitting up out of the machine laid out on his bed and wiping off his face with the back of his hand. “I’m fine.”