Candidate (Selected Book 4) (21 page)

"Dark Skies," I said, my voice low. It was the sultriest voice I had. I didn't know if it was that sultry, but it had worked to good effect in the past.

"Andromeda?"

I leaned closer to her then reached out and captured her hand, cradling it in both of mine. "I find you fascinating."

"You do?"

"Deeply. I would very much enjoy an evening meal together during my soonest opening."

"Andromeda," she said. She squirmed in her chair.

"Followed by..." and I lowered my voice even further, whispering, "a battle of wills."

She actually gulped. Then I lifted her fingers to my lips and kissed them. I looked over her blue fingers into her eyes. "Please say yes."

"Yes," she whispered.

Then I released her hand and leaned back in the chair. "And that is how you ask a human woman on a date."

Then I picked up the visor and settled it back in place. It wasn't until we were back at work she pulled herself together enough to ask, "Did you say 'yes'?"

"Yes, Dark Skies. I said 'yes'."

* * * *

Clover was the event coordinator for the afternoon event, and it was to be in the coliseum. Dark Skies and I had been in the control room for several minutes when Clover said, "Andromeda, I want you to see this in person. Come with me."

She turned for the exit, and I scrambled to follow her. In the hallway, she turned to me. "You are not allowed to see this route." A moment later my visor dimmed, and then she took my arm. We walked quietly for a minute or two, then she pulled me through a doorway and pressed me against the wall.

Then there was snuffling noise. I stood complacently, but when the noise continued, I said, "Clover? Is something wrong?"

"Andromeda," she said. "Jasmine Brighteyes told me what you're trying to do."

"I don't understand."

"I haven't seen Peony in weeks." Then there was more of the snuffling sound. "We didn't know this would be so
hard
."

"Oh, Clover," I said. I reached for her. I encountered tentacle. She tried to withdraw from me, but I followed the tentacles and then pulled her into a hug. A moment later she wrapped around me, entirely around me. And then the snuffling came from all around me, and I realized the sound came from her tentacles.

Then she squeezed tighter, too tight, and I whispered, "Not so tight. Can't breathe." At that, she relaxed, but she held me tightly, snuffling the entire time.

That went on for a minute or two, and then she said, "Catseye do not normally hug with clothing in the way."

I released her immediately, but she didn't release me. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"I am not offended. I am asking permission. I would need to loosen your blouse. We prefer nothing in the way."

"Oh. Oh. Um. All right."

She didn't wait for more. Two of her tentacles slipped between us, and she unbuttoned my blouse. I wasn't quite expecting that, but I didn't stop her. Once it was loose, she slid three of her tentacles inside the blouse. The last wrapped around my neck and basically buried my entire head, a portion wrapping across my face.

The snuffling resumed.

It was quite odd. But I wrapped my own arms around her, finding at some point she'd loosened her own blouse. And so I let my hands find the bare skin of her back.

And we simply held each other.

"Thank you," she whispered eventually. Slowly she unwrapped from me. "I'm going to let you see so you can fix your clothing."

She withdrew from me, and slowly my vision brightened. I looked around briefly. We were in an office, although it may have been unused. There was office furniture but no sign someone used this space.

I turned away from her to fix my clothing. When I turned to her, her tentacles were hidden again, and she looked almost like a human businesswoman.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't plan this. We really were heading for the arena."

"It's fine. Have I just made a new friend?"

She smiled. "I believe you have." She looked around for a moment. "This was Peony's office."

"Oh. I imagine you miss her terribly."

She nodded. "Without her, we're shorthanded. It was already a heavy workload, but now... I could go to visit. I can do most of the work of the next several days from anywhere. But there's just too much right now. If you can help, then maybe you'll be able to do enough. I'd have to work, but I could see her at the same time."

"She can't come here?"

Clover shook her head. "She is needed where she is. They need me, too, and so I am here doing my work and hers, and she is there doing her work and mine." She smiled. "I've never hugged a human before. You taste really good."

"I
taste
good."

"Yes." She turned partly away from me. "Jasmine Brighteyes told me you understood."

"About your tentacles? She showed me hers."

"Yes."

"I suppose that makes sense," I said.

"I had heard humans taste good." She smiled. "We should hurry."

My visor dimmed, and then we were moving again.

* * * *

The arena was set up with a variety of pieces of equipment. The candidate and challenger would be fighting from atop the equipment, set up as a series of bridges, catwalks, and the like.

I looked up, and I could see my cameras flitting around. As I watched, several of them zipped down to follow me from multiple directions, and several more focused on Clover.

"What's going on, Clover?"

"I do not believe this configuration is good. I want us to run the event."

"I don't think so," I said. "It uses the power staffs."

"We'll turn them to their lowest settings," she said. "It will tingle, but that is all, but you should react as if it hurts."

"We're supposed to fight up there." I pointed. "I'm not good at something like this, and I don't want to fall."

"You won't get hurt, Andromeda. It will be fun, and I want a human perspective."

"Use one of the guards."

"She'd kick my ass, as the humans who come here like to say."

I laughed. "Fine."

"We'll play for five points. We'll do the first in the middle, which I think looks good, but then we'll move to the places I don't like."

"Fine. Are we playing for real points or are we going easy on each other?"

"Which would you prefer?"

"If we're playing for real points, then I want to win something."

"Are you offering something when you lose?"

I smiled. "Sure. I'll let you hug me whenever you want."

She snuffle-laughed. "If you win, you get your blanket."

"Really?"

"Three days."

"Oh, no. I'm offering to let you hug me whenever you want indefinitely."

She paused. "All right. But it will be a transparent blanket, as you asked. You won't win though."

"We'll see. I'm motivated now."

"If we're playing for real points, the staffs need to be set high enough to be unpleasant. Is your blanket worth it?"

I sighed and nodded. "Are hugs?"

"Yes."

"Well then."

"You start there," she said, gesturing. "I'm over there. We'll meet in the middle. Don't forget your staff."

We turned backs on each other. I walked to my start. One of the dreaded staffs was there, and I grabbed it. Then it was up a ramp with bars for sides. As soon as I was clear, a cage door slammed shut behind me, startling me. I spun around. "Did you do that, Dark Skies?"

One of my cameras flitted in front of me then bobbed up and down twice.

"Cute," I said. I turned around and proceeded up the ramp.

The bars ended at the top of the ramp, but by then I was a good twelve feet off the ground, and from there the walkway was only a couple of feet wide. The height made me uncomfortable, but I tried to avoid looking down.

The entire structure followed along the curved wall of the arena, then doubled back at an angle towards the middle, then met the opposite side in the dead center. But it wasn't the same sort of structure everywhere. Initially the ramp was firm. Then the walkway reminded me of the metal catwalks you see overhead in some theaters, the ones used to reach the various lights.

But there were two scary parts. One section was built from wood slats, or what appeared to be wood, joined together by rope. It looked like a wood and rope suspension bridge you see in some adventure movies, but the supporting structure was all underneath. There were no sides. And it wobbled as I walked on it. I found it disconcerting.

And there was one section that was supported from above, and this was the part that reached towards the center. The thing is, it swayed forward and back. I had to time it to step onto it and then time it again to step off on the other end.

Clover was waiting for me, and the center section was a round platform about twelve feet across.

I came to a stop facing her but out of striking distance.

"There are two ways to earn points," she said. "If I am able to drive you back into the cage at the beginning, I automatically win. We won't do that today. Otherwise if you fall off, I win a point."

"I'll break my neck if I fall, Clover."

"We wouldn't let you break your neck, Andromeda. If that happened, I don't know when I'd see Peony. Don't you trust me?"

I looked over the edge.

"Oh, you won't enjoy falling, but you won't break your neck. I promise."

I lifted my staff. "I want that blanket, Clover. You're going down."

She laughed and lifted her own staff. "Begin."

I rushed halfway to her, stopping in the dead center. She was already swinging with her staff, but she hadn't expected me to stop, and the end passed in front of me. I used my own staff to help it further, and she partially turned away, over reaching and off balance. I hopped forward and poked her with my staff right in her side.

She yelped and pulled back, but then she swung her staff at me again, and I quickly moved away before she could hit me.

"Turn it up too high?" I asked.

"It must hurt enough you want to avoid it," she said. Then she came after me.

I was the next one to yelp, twice, as she caught me in one arm and then, with the other end of her staff, the other. I fell, but not off the platform. She zapped me twice more before I could fend her off. She stepped away and let me climb to my feet.

"Going easy on me?" I asked.

"I didn't want to drive you off that way. I'd have had to poke you too many times."

"I appreciate that," I said. And then I swung.

I got a few more strikes on her before she unleashed in a flurry of strikes at me. I deflected some, dodged others, then she caught me square in the side, and I jumped away from her, right off the platform.

I screamed, but I only fell five feet then hovered in midair, partway upside down, my limbs all flailing. I lost the staff and screamed for another few seconds then slowly got myself under control.

I looked back, and Clover was standing on the edge of the platform looking at me. "I told you your neck was safe," she said. "Point for me."

I looked down at the ground, still quite a distance below me. "Please don't drop me."

"I'm sure Dark Skies wouldn't drop you," Clover said. "But now you go back to your base and we begin again."

I would be having words with Dark Skies. As I hovered in mid air, it felt like hands wrapped around my ankles, although there was no one there. Then from my ankles I was lifted higher into the air. I squeaked as I hung upside down, and then as she lifted me even higher, I screamed again.

That was how she carried me back to my home base. The top of the cage opened, and she lowered me until I was lying on the platform. A moment later, she dropped the staff in beside me.

I lay there for a while, trembling as I got myself back under control.

"I told you that you wouldn't like falling," Clover called out.

I stood up and looked over at her. She was on the oscillating section, moving back and forth. "Did she have to do it that way?"

"Yes, actually," Clover replied. "That's one of the handicaps. Is it unsettling?"

"Yes." I sighed, collected my staff, and made my way along the path, stopping clear of the end. Clover was on the moving bridge, forward, backward, forward, backward.

"I want you to see if you can keep me from firm footing," she said. "If you don't earn this point, you're going to get another trip, and it will be higher."

"If I'd known," I muttered. But I raised my staff, moved to the end, and held my ground. After that, each time Clover came close, I did what I could to drive her backwards. She kept moving away, so I couldn't push her off, but I was doing a good job keeping her from moving forward, too.

"We have a standoff, Clover."