Page 9

B efore we reach our hosts, three men step into our path.

Two rat-men and ... something that ain’t a rat.

He’s a Mod, no question. He’s a male, no question.

Obvious since he’s only wearing a loincloth, which I hope he’s stuffing, since the bulge he’s sporting there couldn’t fit into any woman, Mod or no.

And since it’s an easy guess that he’s the Domni Fox Acker’s mentioned, I’d guess that he’s aiming for something canid in fucking with his genes.

But it looks to me like he missed the mark.

He’s an albino. Red eyes, patchy white fur with pink skin showing through.

Where the rats have the claws and ears and whiskers, but not the tails, of their namesakes, Domni Fox has a tail.

It doesn’t look like a fox-tail, though.

It’s a wide, white flap of skin that hangs to his knees. Looks more like a beaver than a fox.

However unaesthetic his physical combination, it pales against the ugliness of his expression.

I sweep Kez behind me.

“Lightfoot,” the fox-man sneers, and it’s the first time I’ve heard Kez’s street name used as an insult.

“Dom,” Kez says over my shoulder .

“Word’s out on you, b. Foxes don’t need to bother with you.” He draws a long, black claw across his throat. “You already dead.”

I punch him in the snout.

It’s a good punch. I hit him with my left hand, so he doesn’t see it coming. I can’t hear the crunch of bone over the Flaming Pink Flamingos’ pounding beat, but I feel it in my knuckles.

He drops to his knees. Cups his bleeding snout. “Bitch!” he screams.

I’m not one to kick a man when he’s down, but if he calls me a bitch again, he’s getting a boot to the head.

I tilt my head to look at his rat-backup. Show them the knife in my right hand. “Want some?”

One of the rats holds up his paws. The other glances at the man on his knees and backs away without a sound.

I lead Kez around the bleeding Mod. Lean over as I pass him. “You’re right,” I tell him. “You’n yours don’t need to bother with Kez. She’s my problem. Anyone who fucks with her is dead.”

The albino leans forward, scrabbles one hand in the sand of the cavern floor and clutches a handful.

He’d better not be thinking about throwing sand in my eyes.

I pin his hand to the floor with my boot. “Bad dog,” I say. I twist my heel, grinding down until I feel bone snap. “You do not want to fuck with me, pooch. I’m not a dog person.”

I leave him cradling his broken bones and escort Kez to dinner.

Acker pushes off the wall of the tunnel from where he’s been watching us. “I appreciate the lack of bloodshed.”

I nod. I appreciated his heads-up. One thing I don’t want to do while in the Deeps is piss off our host.

We follow Acker down the tunnel, which has been floored with permacrete, but still retains its natural walls, including a fabulous curtain of grey flowstone running from the three-meter ceiling into a crevice in the floor.

It looks oozy and butter-soft, but when I touch it, it’s hard, damp rock.

At a branch in the tunnel, Acker turns south, through another airlock door, this one standing open, and into a room that may have started a cavern but has been shaped into a living area.

The floor is level and softened with a deep, maroon rug.

The walls are holopainted. Clusters of furniture define a lounge, bar, dining room, and a curtained bedroom.

A whisper of dry air kisses my cheek. Climate control.

It’s all more advanced, and more comfortable, than I expected.

Two people rise off the couches when we enter.

One is a small, unModified girl. The other is Captain Match.

Kez warned me about him when I told her Acker had invited us to the Deeps.

He’s a rat-man: grey and brown fur mostly hidden under military-style fatigues.

He sports a full mane, the same way Acker does, and the fur around his cheeks and chin hangs into what I’d guess passes for a beard among the rats.

His fur is grizzled and frosted; he’s not a young rat.

However he looks, he’s easily recognizable by the metal apparatus he has in place of a left hand.

Kez tells me it’s a flamethrower, his weapon of choice, and that he uses it exclusively on the unModified.

Since I’m a Mod myself, although my modifications are not as obvious as the Whites’, I don’t think I have much to fear from Captain Match. Kez isn’t modified, though, so she’s unlikely to be Captain Match’s favorite person.

Acker introduces Captain Match first, who nods at me, but offers his right hand to Kez and when she takes it, raises her knuckles to his lips and gives her a gallant bow with a murmur of her street-name, “Lightfoot.”

Guess respect counts for more than genes in Captain Match’s book.

Acker introduces the girl next, and although I should have expected it, given that we’re in what is pretty obviously Acker’s inner sanctum, her name takes me by surprise. “This is Grace.”

I bow to her, since I’m still not sure how the rats view cross-gender touching.

She holds out her hand and I shake it, while using the opportunity to observe her.

She isn’t beautiful. Oh, she’s pretty enough.

Nice little body in a form-fitting, artfully slashed and holobroidered unisuit.

Head of soft brown curls. Heart-shaped face.

Nothing Acker couldn’t find on a hundred other girls.

Then I look into Grace’s eyes. Long, almond-shaped, hazel-colored eyes.

Unmodified, unremarkable, except that they’re full of all the wonder in the universe.

Same thing I see when I look into Kez’s eyes.

Grace’s soul is right there in her eyes.

Open, almost innocent. And I understand completely what’s driving Acker to make that his.

Fuck.

I pass her over to Kez quickly, since I do not want to be on the receiving end of those eyes for long, particularly with the little monster still at half-mast after that sexy dancing.

The Kuus rat-men smelled much too fucking well for comfort.

Acker’s senses may or may not be that keen, but the last thing I want is for him to smell any arousal when I look at his girl.

Once the introductions are done, Grace asks if she can get us anything to drink.

I let Kez order first, to see if she orders booze, and when she sticks to nectar, I follow suit.

Getting drunk with the temptation of Grace nearby would be a bad idea anyway, but if we’re throwing fire later, it’s safer to be sober.

Captain Match engages Kez in conversation immediately, leaving me free when Grace returns with our drinks.

She hands a bulb to Kez, then stands looking up at me, holding my bulb without offering it to me.

The eye contact makes me uncomfortable, even more so because I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.

There’s absolutely no guile behind the come-on in her eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mister Hauser,” she says softly.

I very, very carefully give her blank face as I correct her. “It’s Snow.”

“Oh.” She pauses. Contemplation flickers across her face. Looks like an alien emotion. “Sorry, that’s right. Mister Snow.”

Not like Kez after all. My kitten’s known my real name almost from the beginning, but she’s been extremely careful never to use it where anyone could overhear.

I gather the rats also know my real name, but Acker and Tiancha have been careful not to use it.

Whether out of respect or to preserve it as a bargaining chip, I don’t know, but Grace either ain’t that smart, or ain’t that politically savvy.

“Is that for me, Grace?” I tip my chin at the drink she holds.

She nods but doesn’t hold the drink out to me. “Did you know that Tiancha can see the future?” she asks.

No, I didn’t know. But it makes sense, since Acker calls her his ‘Wisdom.’ Retrogenned modifications often cause unanticipated changes in brain chemistry, but precognition is extremely rare. Psychosis, on the other hand, not so much.

Grace continues as if I’d answered her. “She says you’re going to save Acker’s life.”

“Does she?”

“So I’d just like to say thank you in advance.

” She looks up into my eyes and smiles. A real smile, a smile that has the full force of all that sweetness behind it.

My balls clench, because trained on me, that sweetness is sickly.

It’s not for me, that sweetness. The only sweetness I want or need is Kez’s, and no one but Kez should be looking at me that way.

Grace stretches up on her toes and leans in to plant a kiss on my cheek.

I slide away a step, so she kisses air. Take my drink from her. Kez will go fucking nuts if she sees Grace kissing me. I don’t know how Acker will react, but there’s absolutely no need to find out.

“You’re welcome,” I tell her. Turn slightly at a touch on my elbow to find Kez back at my side, sliding her arm through mine. Her j-dar is in fine working order.

“Captain Match is just telling me about Java,” Kez says. “Do you remember him?”

“Yeah, Kuus Pack,” I respond, grateful for the diversion.

I turn a little more to face Captain Match, not quite turning my back on Grace.

I don’t want to snub her, but I also don’t want any more eye-contact with her.

Or to give her any more opportunities to touch me.

I don’t care how the dinner seating is planned.

I’m fucking not sitting anywhere near her.

In fact, I might sit with Kez in my lap. “Went down the same time as Tyng Two.”