Page 23

Zorn

By the next morning, the lack of actual clothing, the threadbare blankets, and a few hours of standing on the freezing floor in the damp cold has sapped my energy and taken its toll. Whatever the reason, I’m close to torpor.

My thoughts are sluggish, my movements are slow, and I can’t feel Zoriss anymore.

I huddle into a ball, trying to retain my body heat, but without the internal mechanism to increase my own temperature, it’s a losing battle.

Soft footfalls coming down the steps catch my attention. It’s not Billy’s usual heavy tread, but perhaps she’s being stealthy.

“They’re leaving me in charge when they go into the next town to get supplies. They need a better vid cam to send our manifesto out to the world. You eat worms and shit, right? I can ask them to get you some at the bait and tackle store.”

“I’ve grown partial to hamburgers and buffalo steaks,” I say through rubbery lips.

“Huh,” she laughs, “that’s a good one.”

I don’t have the energy to argue. I won’t eat this close to torpor, anyway.

“They’re going to key the lock to my biometrics before they go. I had to argue with them, but I convinced them they didn’t want you to burn up if tragedy struck.”

“Good thinking.”

“I haven’t slept. I’ve been watching porn. I’ve made a list.”

“Mmm?”

Bodily functions begin to shut down in torpor. Evolution got one thing right, the least essential systems go first. I doubt I’ll be able to get an erection. It would be stupid for my blood to go there when there are so many more important places for it to flow.

“Billy, we have a problem,” that came out as a whisper.

“What?”

Now she sounds interested. Wouldn’t want to cut short exploring all the activities on her list, would we?

“I’m going into torpor.”

No reply.

“Look it up if you need to.” I take a long slow breath, then continue, “I won’t be able to get hard unless I’m warmer.”

“Fucker. Don’t fuck with me, snake.”

“Look it up.”

She stomps upstairs and comes back quickly. Or maybe I fell asleep.

“Here. I took it off my own fucking bed. All I know is you’d better be able to get it up.” She shoves a thick comforter through the bars. It’s through sheer force of will that I heave myself off the bed and grab it before it touches the cold floor.

I drop onto the mattress and cover myself with not only the two thin blankets, but this heavy comforter folded over on itself. Its warmth penetrates me immediately.

“Wog?”

My eyes dart to her. She’s holding up a glinting knife.

“Don’t fuck with me. A deal’s a deal,” she threatens.

“As long as we’re talking specifics, let’s agree that I’ll be out of this cell when we begin our . . . trade agreement.”

“No. If I let you out you’ll run.”

“Did you just see me? I’m not running anywhere. You were very smart, Billy. By withholding the blanket you forced me into torpor which means I’m too weak to harm you. But we can’t begin our . . . exchange until I’m on the other side of those bars. Or the deal’s off.”

“Don’t do the deal with me and you’ll be dead before they get back.”

I see that her young and innocent face, the one I saw when I met her, is a disguise. What lurks underneath is one greedy, demanding, self-indulgent female. I need to respond with just as much compassion as she’s shown me.

“No deal and my cocks will be as much use to you as a sock.”

She stomps back up the stairs and I pull the covers over my head and breathe into the dark warmth of my cocoon.

This will never work. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Let’s say that Billy keeps up her end of the bargain.

And let’s say that I get through her porn-driven list before her gun-toting friends return from their mission to retrieve a working vid camera so they can upload their barely intelligible manifesto to the Internet. Then what?

I run miles barefoot in the cold trying to find a friendly face? There don’t seem to be many of those on this planet.

If Mary hadn’t realized my wrist-comm held a tracker, Annora could have found me, but it’s lying in a ditch somewhere. Did I just assume Annora is coming to find me? That’s a mighty bold assumption considering my last words to her were disrespectful. No, they were downright hateful.

I’m alone. No one could possibly be coming for me, none of these females is going to show me the slightest compassion, and I’m too close to torpor to fight.

There were long moments on Pythian when I knew I was dead. It was freezing and I was bleeding badly. But Zoriss was out there and I could feel his determination to find me. I always had the tiniest hope of rescue. I have none now.

Annora

“We found him!” Drennan crows over my comm.

“I’m pretty sure we know his coordinates.

We used satellite footage to get the license plates from their vehicle in Yellowstone.

After some more high-level sleuth work and pouring over additional satellite images, I think we’ve found him in a house near Prosperity, Amity. ”

“Great. Oh my God. That’s so great. Give me the coordinates and I’ll meet you there.” I’m so full of adrenaline my hands are fluttering.

“I’m not stupid, Annora. Nor do I want to be fired from this job. We’ll tell you how it went after we’ve retrieved him.”

“I’m on my way to Prosperity even as we speak, Drennan. You might as well tell me which house.”

“We’ll be there in less than two hours.” She terminates the comm.

I drive toward Prosperity, gathering information from my computer and nav system as soon as I set my coordinates. I know what the hover-van involved in the kidnapping looks like. If I have to drive by every doghouse, outhouse, and henhouse in the county, I will find my male.

“Yeah!” I exclaim to the inside of my van. “My male! Wanna make something of it? Jason? Eric? Hugh? You want to argue about it?”

A picture of Zorn in torpor flashes through my mind.

It was cold last night when I was assembling my bots on the grass surrounding my van.

The idea that those bitches could have already killed him flies through my brain, but I chase that thought away.

Pictures of him being tortured are dispatched just as quickly.

“I’m coming, Zorn. Hold on.”

Zorn

“Okay, wog. It’s time,” Billy announces less than a minute after I hear a van hover away.

I try to think of anything I’ve ever wanted to do less than this.

Even when the pirates dropped me at Annora’s cottage and escorted me inside, I never had this much dread.

Perhaps if I hadn’t just experienced the sublime connection I shared with Annora, I could convince myself that this was a disgusting adventure.

Now I know it’s nothing of the sort. It’s purely disgusting.

“You hard yet, Newt? Better be.”

The dim light glinting off her eyes hints of some dark emotion. Glee? Is she taking some sort of sinister glee from forcing an abomination to thrust himself inside her? Could she possibly think this will fulfill her?

Perhaps the males died out on this planet for a reason. Perhaps it has something to do with females like Billy.

She sashays down the steps in her undergarments.

Again, my mind throws comparison pictures at me.

Lovely Annora tearing off her clothes for me, an expectant look of desire in her eyes, a smile playing on her luscious lips.

We were two equals planning on doing something beautiful together. It wasn’t sordid like this.

We both stand straighter when we hear a hover approach. Her friends couldn’t be back already, could they?

“Shit! Give me your blanket,” she demands.

I sag onto the mattress, sitting on all three blankets, my ass giving her the answer.

“Give me a fucking blanket!”

I don’t know why the females have returned, but I know my deal with Billy is off. Since I’ll receive nothing from her, I have no desire to give her anything in return.

“I’ll tell them you were about to rape me,” she threatens.

I just cock my browridge at her and lean back against the wall.

After she runs up the stairs, I hear rapid-fire talking. Over the past day I’ve heard eight distinct voices speaking up there. Right now, I hear five.

Snatches of conversation drift down to me.

“Why are you half nekid?”

“Mary had a funny feeling . . .”

“Didn’t think you should be left alone with a desperate male.”

And, of course, the ubiquitous, “Wog.”

I imagine I won’t see anyone until Mary gets back from the store and the crazy bunch of them come down to film whatever it is they have in mind. I assume they’re going to kill me on camera. It would be a dramatic statement and get them lots of publicity.

I breathe deeply and try to settle my mind. I reach out to Zoriss one more time. Although I can’t feel him, perhaps he can feel me. I send him all my love and gratitude. I warm myself with memories of my convalescence after he rescued me on Pythian.

He later described my rescue in such detail that even though I was already in torpor I can imagine the faint crunch of footsteps on the snow and his fatigue as he carried me back to safety.

I don’t know if I ever felt his love as strongly as when we laid side by side after my rescue as he huddled next to me sharing his warmth as I was being doctored.

I send that to him now. All that love and gratitude. I pray he’s still alive.

I send my love to Annora, too. Although we have no psychic link, perhaps she’ll feel it. Even if she doesn’t, it warms me to send it her way. I love her. Of that, I have no doubt.

Annora

Did I promise to inspect every doghouse in the county?

Well, I’m being true to my word. I’ve got my Artificial Intelligence scouring satellite and drone footage for the van, but until that investigation comes through for me, I’m looking for Zorn the old-fashioned way—hovering up and down every street.

I almost don’t believe it when I find it. There’s the same red van that spirited Zorn away from me in Yellowstone. I drive by the house, praying no one was looking out the window. They’d certainly know I’d found them.