Page 27 of Inceptive (Ingenious #3)

27

WILL

A month had passed since the rescue team had arrived—team being an understatement. Transport vessels and barges crowded the lake. Barges had decks that served as landing zones for aircraft that buzzed on and off like insectoids as hundreds of scientists, engineers, and medics with astounding biotech assisted the Islanders.

The team had arrived with enough clean food to feed the Islanders and enough nanotech to treat the infected. Unfortunately, thousands in the late stage had died on the second ship, which was towed out and incinerated.

Will hadn’t attended the funeral service for the ship. Elliston had revoked his citizenship for treason, and Fort Hope had denied his requests to live in the meeting hall’s guest room. The council and the voters had rejected the request, not the mayor. Though no accusations were leveled at the mayor, Fort Hope knew he was unnaturally fond of Will.

The commander had declared neutrality between the Island Federation and Fort Hope until all facts were analyzed. Both sides had as many strong justifications for their behavior as they had terrible wrongs to answer for.

Dante’s sanctuary housed orphans with bots attending to their needs. Once certified clean, Islanders were flown to the transports on the lake and went through orientation. The Triangle Alliance—which its citizens preferred to call the Triangle—promised them land, but not for free. They would repay the government by cultivating the outland and working for the Triangle.

Four transport missions were planned before the next flood season began, and storms rendered the lake unnavigable.

Fort Hope’s initial gratitude cooled when they learned about the Triangle’s sexual proclivities. Polygamy and same-sex marriages scandalized Fort Hope. The people clung to their traditions. They rejected invitations to the Triangle to study their genetics and determine if they could have healthy offspring with the Triangle’s citizens, whose men outnumbered women. Fort Hope’s women feared being turned into breeders.

Though offered a room with officers on a barge, Will chose to live in his old room above the Wild Pony Saloon, pouring drinks for the Triangle’s soldiers and crew who’d brought kegs of their own beer, cider, and gins. When Will tended bar, Islanders shunned the saloon. Despite the outcome, they called him a traitor for injuring the gunner and siding with Fort Hope over his own desperate people. They despised him for faking his own death and causing his revered father months of grief, then humiliation when Will was reported alive on the Trading Post.

At least Will would have a job in a city when he moved to the Triangle—teaching music in one of the academies. He wouldn’t be mingling with Islanders divided into settlements in the outland. Islanders had demanded land since the domes surfaced. Now they got land. Large stretches of uncleared land with rivers, animals, bugs, valleys, and hills. Land unsuitable for cane and for academics and politicians who didn’t know what dirt was.

Meanwhile, Will poured drinks and chatted with patrons from the Triangle, and every time the doors swung open, he looked up, longing to see Zach. He understood the upheaval in Fort Hope. Shops and homes had been vandalized. Residents had to move back into their homes. The farm basin’s harvest was ruined. The women believed the Triangle’s people intended to kidnap and brainwash them into breeding. Zach’s messages were brief and impersonal.

The commander and his colonel—who gave Will permission to call them by their names, Max and Beau—visited the saloon nightly to relax with drinks and discuss the placements for the transportees. They talked about their husbands. Beau’s Jagger had used his hybrid intelligence to create the nanos that treated the Islanders. Max’s Quiggs was a genius with aircraft and inventions. His newest project would be announced at the meeting hall, with Will invited to sit in the front row.

Max and Beau complained that their husbands found research more arousing than sex.

The soldiers always tipped Will generously and asked if he’d enjoy having company in his room at night. Their admiring eyes followed him, and their hands accidentally lingered when he handed them a drink.

When he’d asked Beau if a bodyguard was needed, Beau had laughed. “Nah. You’re pretty and single. It’s no crime to lust after you. Tell a man no, and he’ll find a willing soldier to fuck. The men pursue you because you look like a lonely man who needs fucking.”

“Say what?”

“You don’t have to love the man you fuck. Max fucked many men before finding his Quiggs. But Jagger and I… we loved no other before our wedding. When I thought him dead, I couldn’t jerk off.”

Will’s face flamed. “I’ve no problem jerking off.” The words came out loud and defensive.

From every table, a man rushed to the bar for another drink, waving the high-end currency of the Triangle at him.

“Take the tips,” Beau suggested. He sat on a bar stool and enjoyed the banter.

I’m jerking off with you tonight, so you might as well be there…

I’d like to see how you look when I’m naked…

If you need a roommate…

If it’s true we are what we eat, I could be you by morning …

“Ah, finally, a chance to meet you.” The older man walking toward the bar spoke with the melodious accent of one born in the Triangle’s underground high-tech sanctuary. Midnight blue strands threaded the heavy plait of silver hair falling to his waist. He wore the blue tunic, stretchy gray pants, and butter-soft brown boots of a civilian. He held out a slender hand to shake. Will had mistaken his age. The hair was a shining platinum blond, not silver. The hand was smooth, and the grip was strong. Up close, the long oval face was unlined, with high cheekbones, a flawless nose, and no hint of extra fat. His deep-set, penetrating midnight blue eyes matched his brows and the dark strands in his hair. The man was stunning.

“You’re Will, yes? I’m Jagger.”

“Beau’s husband?” Will dropped the hand because he preferred that his own hand kept its fingers unbroken.

Belle’s claws clacked the countertop as she left her bowl of nuts and flapped her wings at Jagger. “Bad Beau, bad Beau.”

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Jagger ordered a tall ale and sat on his husband’s lap, pecking his lips. “What’s my Beau done now?”

“I want to buy a chick when Belle lays a clutch. I offer a good price.”

A midnight blue brow lifted. “Dammit, Beau. Our farmhouse has no room for another pet.”

Will stroked her raised crest. “Belle can’t travel to the Triangle with me. It’s too far. Dante said her chip will fail.”

“My Jagger fixes chips,” Beau boasted.

Belle perked up. She coyly played with the plait of hair. “I am a pretty bird, yes?”

“Yes, you are.” Jagger smiled.

“You fix my chip, and I give you an egg. Want to live with my Will. Love my Will.” She batted her lashes at Jagger. “I give you very best egg.”

“Please, my Jagger?” Beau hugged his husband.

“I’ll chip her for Will because he saved you from the sonic blasts that would have deafened you. But no egg.”

Belle sped back to her bowl of nuts, cackling.

Jagger regarded his husband. “She’ll lay unfertilized eggs without a mate. Have you forgotten how mating works?”

“Yes. My mate is busy and falls asleep when we play.” Beau squeezed Jagger’s thighs.

“Get a room!” came the hoots.

“Our room is on the barge.” Beau pouted. “Need a room now. Jagger will have messages and make excuses before a shuttle flies us there.”

Will handed Jagger the key to his room. “Fix Belle. She’s a bad bird, but I love her.”

Jagger palmed the key. “Where’s your room?”

A bot rolled into the saloon to deliver data to Jagger. It had a squat body with multiple limbs and a pair of legs that bent backward at the joint like a chicken’s. Its swiveling round head with red eyes scanned and recorded. Islanders admired the advanced tech, but farmers distrusted them. It streamed data to Jagger, then rolled away.

“Ignore it,” Beau begged.

Belle followed the bot out. She loved pestering them. She flew circles around their heads and cackled when their arms twisted around their bodies, trying to catch her. She hovered, flew backwards, sideways, and shot forward like a rocket. A couple of miffed bots had singed her. She’d gifted their swiveling heads as accurately as their lasers.

The swift exchange of data with the bot puzzled Will.

“Just ask me,” Jagger said.

“What are you?”

“A modified human. Except for my eyes, brows, and some bluish strands remaining in my natural platinum hair, I’ve regressed to my human form. But my mind has merged with a living intelligence that looks rather like a tiny jellyfish. Together, we’ve become a network that absorbs, retrieves, and analyzes data faster than your Dante. It adores Beau. Especially the physical side lighting up our neurons. Perverted little jellyfish, but I love it.”

Will blinked at his legs.

Jagger laughed heartily. “I’ve never grown tentacles.”

“Does Quiggs have a jellyfish inside his head?”

“Quiggs is Quiggs. Pure genius. A true descendant of the founder who organized the concept of the sanctuaries under the guardianship of intelligent networks with mandates to protect the humans they served. Your ancestors designed Dante based on the Triangle’s concept of a guardian for humans. Don’t ever bet against Quiggs when he comes out of a brain fog.”

Beau whined, his hands stroking Jagger’s thighs. “Ten minutes.”

“His feral blood is never satisfied.” Jagger rolled his eyes at the whistles as Beau carried him over a shoulder upstairs.

“Place a towel across the bed, please.” Will threw him a clean bar towel, which Jagger immediately used to swat Beau’s ass.

Will wanted the open love and affectionate banter the couple shared. The flirting resumed with his longing sigh.

Hey, Will, have you ever had a three-towel night? Would you like to?

Will expected a room reeking of spunk. His bed was untouched. His communication screen on the vanity blinked with a message.

Commander Max Bronn invites William van Diehn to attend a public council meeting this afternoon as a delegate from the Trading Post.