The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation (18 page)

Rix stared in amazement at her slender torso, stunned speechless. She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra and shrugged her shoulders forward. It fell at her feet with barely a whisper. She hesitated for a moment and brushed at her hair.

Rix stepped forward and cupped her breasts with both hands. They felt softer than he had imagined and warm. His fingers moved with gentle rhythm, and he bent forward to kiss her.

She responded hungrily and clutched him with her arms. Her palm slid up the back of his neck, and her body pressed hot against him as their lips lingered. Rix heard a soft moan but couldn't tell if it was Niko's voice or his own. A rush of raw sensuality overwhelmed him. The world fell away, and his lust for her became the sole focus of his experience. His hand found the small of her back and rested there in the hollow above her naked tailbone. It seemed a focal point in her frame, the place where her tiny waist blossomed into mature hips and buttocks, where the slender girl became a woman.

Their lips parted, and Niko gazed into his eyes, her face flushed, her breath panting. She took his arm and led him back a few steps to a chair by the door. She sat and pulled him up close.

Rix reached for the single button at his waist and twisted it free. He paused, hardly daring to push his luck, but Niko reached for his zipper and tugged it down. Rix felt her roving fingers at the waistband of his shorts, a slow and sensuous tickle. He stared down at the top of her head and her naked shoulders. Nothing else seemed to matter.

Mia woke to the sound of knocking at her door. She blinked her eyes in a momentary panic of disassociation before recognizing the grey walls of her current hovel.

“It's Jimmy, Mia. You have a visitor.”

She sat up, brushing tangles from her hair with her fingers. She unlocked the door and swung it inward.

Rix smiled at her from the threshold. “Mom,” he said, and her chi sang as she rushed into his embrace. His arms were strong, his upper body bulky with muscle.

She pulled back to look at him, holding her hands on his shoulders. He had shaved off his unruly shock of hair, his scalp now a close-cropped brown shadow, his ears exposed, his V-net plug blinking. He wore a tan suit jacket overtop of a white collared shirt unbuttoned at the neck and looked more like a young businessman than the teenage urban hero she had left behind just weeks ago.

“Where have you been?”

“I've been staying with a friend. Just chilling out. I hear you've been roving the universe. Still squandering my inheritance, huh?”

“You look good,” she said. “I wasn't worried.”

He smiled in recognition of the white lie, for he knew her too well. “Not even a little?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Well, you always look marvellous,” he said, and she suspected a similar fabrication. She brushed tears of joy from her cheek with the back of her wrist.

“I'll leave you two to get reacquainted,” Jimmy said.

“Thanks for the scoop, man.” Rix bowed with a genteel confidence that Mia had not seen before. Who was this young man? How did he know Jimmy?

“Yeah, thanks, Jimmy,” she echoed.

“No worries. We'll go out for a bite to celebrate. My treat.”

Rix made himself comfortable beside his mother on her cot. His eyes appraised her closet boudoir, her backpack of dirty laundry strewn on a makeshift desk.

“So, we're in big trouble again.”

“I'm afraid so.”

Rix bobbed his head with recognition. So what else was new? “I'm heading for the
ERI
. They've got an activated sample and I'm going for it. I've pinged them already and demanded to be put in the program. They're doing some kind of experiment.”

“That sounds great. Have you seen your father?”

“I can't be sure. Have you?”

“Yes.”

“He's alive?”

She took a steady breath. Her hands fluttered on her legs like wounded birds. “He's been mindwiped, Rix. He doesn't remember us.”

His face went stony, his eyes hard. A bristle of stubble stood out against his suddenly white skin. He showed no emotion, no teenage angst, no echo of childhood.

Mia ducked her chin, feeling lost and unbalanced. Her stomach felt like a vacant, gnawing hole. Just a few weeks ago she had kissed her boy goodbye. Now, suddenly, he stared at her with adult cynicism and pride. “He teamed up with the Director of the
ERI
. They went offplanet, through the Macpherson Doorway. I went after him . . .” Her breath caught in her throat at the memory. “. . . but I failed. Something went wrong.”

Rix nodded. Old news. Somehow he knew already.

“Did they sleep together?” he asked.

Mia felt tears burn behind her eyes. “What?” she whispered.

“Are you guys divorced?”

“No! Certainly not! How can you ask that?”

“That woman has pirated his system. She's got all his crack-codes, all his secrets. They've joined together into some kind of cyber-freak.”

“You've seen him in V-space?” Mia's heart jumped like a wild bird. “The real Zak?”

Rix reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a faxslip, an official document with registered barcode. He held it up—an airline ticket and hotel reservation. “I didn't think it was him at first, but I guess maybe it was in a way.” He offered the voucher to her trembling hand. “You'd better be careful, Mom. He's pretty spooky.”

M
ia made the short hop to Atlantis through the lower stratosphere aboard a standard commercial jet. The Atlantis spaceport sprawled over an archipelago in the lower Caribbean Sea, controlled at a distance by the Republic of Colombia. The mean temperature hovered close to thirty degrees Celsius most of the year, and Mia perspired freely as she made her way slowly through immigration where her passport and papers were checked by young Spanish-speaking boys who relished their authority without ever appearing impolite. Her attempts at filling out a Spanish customs form on the plane were corrected fastidiously before she cleared the gauntlet.

A young and beautiful black man approached her out of a crowd of sweaty tourists.

“Mia Davis, my name is Umberto,” he said in greeting, and he bent to take her one small suitcase. He wore black pants and a black-and-white polyester shirt with a blue name tag. He checked her hotel reservation and led her to the appropriate taxi, a silver-grey minivan with signs of rust on the wheel wells. She climbed into the front passenger seat and glanced behind her at two young lovebirds holding hands and smiling, still fiddling with their wedding rings. An older couple, sixtyish, sat in the row behind, and they all exchanged pleasantries in English as the driver sped off with both side doors wide open. Instinctively, Mia felt for a seatbelt and buckled up, glad for the confines of her front seat compartment. The gusting air refreshed her clammy skin and quickly dried her clothes as she scanned the tropical scenery on either side of the highway—untrimmed palm trees and thick forests of wild sugar cane. She smelled manure and sun-ripened pollen.

The passengers disembarked minutes later at the Paradise Island Hotel, a small but clean establishment decorated with pink stucco and natural stone, across a narrow road from a vast, white beach. A salty breeze swept shoreward and tousled her hair as young Colombians vied for luggage from the back of the van. Two security guards stood at the door with creased, brown uniforms, peaked hats, and holstered pistols. They inspected her with a cursory nod, and she felt rumpled and haggard under their quick appraisal. She rubbed awkwardly at the tangled thatch on her head, feeling shaggy and unkempt as she made her way to the reception desk. All the tourists seemed to be paired up around her, and Mia felt a pang of loneliness. Why had Zak chosen this exotic venue for a meeting? Why the elaborate courtship ritual?

A young Latina woman with black hair drawn starkly back to a bun took a cursory look at her papers, handed her a keycard, and barked a quick and fluid command in Spanish to the young black man holding her solitary suitcase. He ushered Mia up one flight of stairs and down an open-air hallway where spicy green iguanas scurried along the walls and jewelled hibiscus reached just beyond the railing. In her room, he showed her simple furnishings and a lovely ceramic bathroom and shower and waited long enough for a single American dollar, the currency equivalent of several thousand local pesos. A fruit basket sat on a wooden dresser. The note attached read, “Dinner at eight on the Terrace Restaurant,” in Zak's meticulous handwritten script.

Mia opened a sliding glass door to a small balcony facing the ocean. Two white plastic lawn chairs sat waiting for her under the business end of a humming air conditioner. Only then did Mia smile. The sun was drifting to the horizon behind a forest of palm trees, their long feathered branches dancing in the breeze. Small electric cars and motor scooters drove quietly by, and tourists in colourful garb ambled on the sidewalks or reclined in lounge chairs on the beach. A few congregated around a green-roofed gazebo where drinks were doled out in plastic cups.

A space shuttle launched in the distance off to the left, turning the air to a rough rumble that was palpable on her skin. All eyes on the beach turned in unison to look. Conversations stopped in mid-sentence. Mia imagined worshippers in reverence, new believers in the techno-gods of man. Seconds later the flares disappeared through the clouds as the thunder faded, and husbands turned back to their wives, and children to their fathers.

Mia sat and stretched aching legs. She wondered how safe it might be for an Eternal in Atlantis, feeling vague unease in this strange environment. Mainland Colombia had never signed a treaty with the Eternal Research Institute, and kidnappings were common, but an island spaceport city like this would certainly be well guarded and protected. Zak would never knowingly lead her into danger. Not the old Zak. Not the man she loved.

She checked her wristband, which she had already advanced to local time on the airplane, and rose to shower and dress for dinner. As she passed the fruit basket, she chose a green banana, unpeeled it quickly while she kicked off her shoes and wolfed it down to tide her over. The banana tasted exotic and alarmingly sensual, freshly ripened in the tropics instead of in transit to a northern supermarket. The taste made her feel earthy and alive, vulnerable again to sensation after a long absence. She peeled off her clothes and stepped under steamy hot saltwater.

She arrived for dinner freshened and anxious, feeling like a teenager on a first date. She scanned the crowd for her husband, her lost lover, the missing segment of her broken heart. The stakes were high, but she planned a temperate performance, a modest opening gambit. She would not gush and smother him. Nor could she feign disinterest. She would play the coquette to win him anew.

Her first sight of Zak filled her with growing apprehension. He seemed a stranger, his posture subtly altered, his expression unrecognizable. He wore a black tuxedo with a white ribbed shirt front and black bow tie—an affectation she had never seen in their long years together, and he did not smile the familiar and playful smile that he always used in her presence, even in bad and dangerous situations. Instead, he sat like an undertaker with a sombre pallor as she approached his candlelit table at the end of a long balcony terrace overlooking the ocean. The wind from the beach whistled her scanty dress against her thighs like a clinging wrapper.

She balanced her chi against a blooming fit of nervous agony. Her chest heaved with an uncomfortable rhythm. Her once graceful legs felt uncooperatively rigid, her steps stilted and tentative on heels tall enough for a streetwalker. Her future was on the line.

She posed like a fashion model in front of him, smoothing the wrinkles on her filmy blue dress. She had never imagined flirting with her own husband like a stranger, nor was she sure what rules might apply, but she wanted to press every advantage. She hoped to arouse something more than memories, something primal and basic, something predictably male.

It didn't work. His eyes never left her face as he rose to greet her. He offered his hand like a distant cousin or uncle might, took hers, and shook it with a firm squeeze. All business.

Mia forced a smile nonetheless. “It's so good to see you again,” she said. “I've missed you terribly.” Her breath caught in her throat.

Zak smiled a bland caricature. “Please sit.” He gestured with an open palm. “I'm sorry for everything.”

Mia perched gingerly on her chair, her nervous system still priming for fight or flight. She took a cleansing breath. “I understand how difficult it must seem.”

“I've had a bit of a setback.” Zak pointed to his right temple and twirled his index finger.

“I know.”

“I didn't recognize you on the shuttle, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was . . . that we were . . . uh, connected.” He arched his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders in an attempt at levity, a peace offering.

Mia smiled. “You've scanned the public data, of course.”

“Yes, I know we're married.”

“Seventeen years.”

He nodded. “That's a long time.”

“You don't remember any of it?”

“I'm sorry.”

Mia felt a fresh wave of panic. Her life had been wiped out, her glory days sucked into a black hole. All that was left was a few shards of evidence, a birth date and marriage certificate, a few blood tests and a
DNA
signature. Is that all life comes down to in the end? She did not trust herself to speak.

Thankfully a waiter approached to interrupt her turmoil. He set a wine glass in front of her and added a splash of clear liquid from a carafe.

“I took the liberty of ordering white wine,” Zak said, and when she made no response he nodded almost imperceptibly to her glass. “Is white okay with you?”

Mia tore her eyes from him and took her glass in hand, tasted it quickly, and set it back down. “Very nice,” she said to the short Latino man beside her, who smiled graciously and filled both goblets. He then spewed a lightning quick rendition of the menu in English that seemed baroque with Spanish accent and impossible for her to follow. She fingered the slender gold chain she wore at her neck, a honeymoon present that her husband would never remember.

Zakariah noted her anxiety and ordered a seafood casserole for both of them. He sipped his wine. “It's from Chile,” he said. “Very dry.”

Mia took a mouthful absently and looked out at the ocean, now dark and silent. A steady breeze rustled the palms, and their branches waved in slow dance like hula girls. As their waiter rushed to the kitchen, a young girl approached with a small basket of bread and two plates of mixed-green salad, her face beaming.

“Thank you,” Mia said. “
Gracias
.”

The girl bowed with pleasure, vibrant and innocent, so obviously free of tragedy.

“Were we happily married?” Zak asked when they were alone again.

Mia winced. She forced a swallow of wine down her aching throat. Happily married? It sounded so bland and banal.

“I mean, you know, was it a marriage of convenience, as they say, or politically motivated in some way?”

“My God, no,” she blurted. She covered her lips with her fingers and sat back in her chair, surprised by the harshness in her voice. She composed herself and tried again. “I mean, really, we were as happily married as anyone I have ever known.”

“I see.” Zak nodded, looking somewhat relieved. “That must have been wonderful.”

Past tense, Mia noted grimly. She gulped more wine. “You don't seem like a robot. You're not brain dead.”

He cast his eyes down as though embarrassed at his vulnerability. “I remember how to speak, how to dress myself, and act in public; I remember school lessons from decades ago, lots of vivid details from my youth—just nothing recent. I'm sorry. This is very awkward.”

“I'm not letting you off the hook, Zak.”

“What?”

“You're mine. You belong to me.”

Zak shook his head. “I don't think so.”

“We could start over. You owe me that much. Let's pretend we just met. What do you think of me so far?”

He blinked with surprise. A quick grin played on his face. His eyes moved slowly, lingering on her body. “You're gorgeous,” he said.

Mia recognized that smile, finally, a smile without artifice, and with it she found a promise of hope. “Well, you're pretty cute yourself.”

He blushed and raised his wine glass in salute. “A toast to new beginnings, then.”

“To new beginnings,” she replied.

Their glasses met with a clear clarion ring.

Their server brought two shallow bowls full of stew in a thin tomato sauce and placed them grandly with a bow of courtesy to the lady. He refilled their wine.

Zak looked askance at his food. “How is this a casserole? It looks like soup.”

Mia spooned through her own bowl looking for anything recognizable. “It's supposed to be seafood?”

Zak held up a bit of white meat on a fork. “This is a piece of tentacle. I recognize the ring shape.”

“Calamari,” she said. “So it's just people and places that you can't remember, or what?”

“Well, it's hard to tell what's missing exactly.”

“It must be different kinds of local fish,” Mia offered and tasted a sample. “Not bad.”

Zak took a few hesitant bites and gagged with disgust at a piece of gristle on his tongue. He spit out a white lump into his napkin and placed it on the edge of his salad plate.

“I don't know what that might be,” he offered in apology. “Octopus perhaps?”

Mia shrugged. “It must be a catch-and-release casserole.”

Zak burst out with a laugh, and Mia joined him in a mutual release of tension. The sound of his gaiety lulled her into the past. She felt a camaraderie, a connection, and she clung to it like a talisman in her mind as the first blush of alcohol swam through her blood like an elixir.

“Catch and release. That's good,” he said.

They giggled like school chums and began to chronicle exotic seafood specimens like amateur biologists. They drained a carafe of Chilean wine. Disaster had been averted, and Mia allowed herself the luxury of peaceful imagination well into dessert, when the tone of conversation turned businesslike once more.

“We really should discuss living arrangements,” Zak told her abruptly.

“Well, I don't usually invite men back to my hotel room on a first date,” Mia replied coyly, feeling a pleasant flush of romance in her wine-tingled cheeks.

“My plane leaves in three hours,” Zak admitted and looked at his wrist monitor for punctuation.

“You're leaving already? Just like that!”

Zak held his palms upward with innocence. “I'm in the midst of difficult negotiations,” he said. “I just wanted to get you settled.”

Mia's situation suddenly came into clear focus—a tropical paradise, no return ticket. “So this was merely an exercise in containment,” she stated with flat precision.

“Certainly not.”

“You must have been curious at least.”

“Mia, please. I'm acting in your best interest.”

“You're just as headstrong and callous as you ever were. You're reckless on your own. I'm not letting you out of my sight.”