Fight for the Future Read online

  Tiana held out her hand to Kest. “I hope you and I will spend more time together soon.”

  Kest shook her hand and smiled, unsure what to say.

  The three of them left, leaving Kest and Ayleana with Daniels who was finishing a second helping of lunch.

  “You like to run when you need to process things, right?” she said.

  Kest nodded.

  “How far do you think?”

  “At least ten miles,” he said, blowing out a deep breath.

  Chapter 17 — Committed

  The sun was two handspans past its zenith when Kest slowed to a walk as they approached the brine pool. They’d started out walking for the first quarter hour—since he’d just eaten lunch, and felt like keeping his pace conservative. Ayleana had coasted along with him, darting off to explore something that caught her attention at times, but always returning after a few minutes. The sun bounced its rays off the terrain, and Kest was glad for the hat and sunglasses. Amber had given him a pair of tri-shorts, promising him she hadn’t worn them since they’d come out of the wash. Then, she’d asked if he needed proof of her healthy skin condition in the area where he’d be sharing intimate contact with her clothing.

  Almost used to her humor now, Kest had only grinned

  Ayleana wore a t-shirt and a mid-thigh length tennis skirt that concealed her tail from distant or casual observation. The swirls on her legs could pass as henna art he supposed.

  Hot and sweaty, Kest gave the pool a wistful glance in time to see Ayleana cut into the water in a racing dive. Kest kicked his shoes off to the side then peeled off shirt, hat and sunglasses to follow, slicing through the water, luxuriating in it sweeping down his body. When he glanced forward, he was just in time to see Ayleana right in front him as his face plowed into her bare torso. He came out of the water surrounded by her laughter.

  “Oops, I’d forgotten how little mobility your necks have.”

  “I haven’t forgotten who I’m talking to,” Kest said, wiping salty water from his eyes. “You don’t forget... anything.”

  “Yeah, but it was funny,” Ayleana said, grinning.

  “Human girls usually wear a top when swimming, ya know, right?”

  “I’d rather people look at my mammary glands than up my skirt,” Ayleana said with a wink.

  Kest looked. The skin of her torso—including her demitasse-sized breasts—matched the human norm. If she kept limb motion within human norm too, men, at least, would be too busy checking out her tits to notice anything else. In appearance, if she were human, she might have just crossed the border of puberty. She looked more mature without clothes than when wearing her normal baggy ones.

  “See anything ya like?” she said, splashing him in the face.

  “I was trying to decide if they’d attract any attention,” he said, grinning and splashing her back.

  “If I acted like a human girl, I'd make you pay for that remark,” she warned.

  His feet slid out from under him as her tail jerked on his ankles. Since he couldn’t free his feet, he grabbed her around the waist and stood up. When his face came out of the water, his eyes were on a level with her chest.

  Nipples of Valentine chocolate and cherry swirled in his eyes. Ayleana's hands rested on his shoulders. Kest looked up and met her eyes, looking at him thoughtfully.

  “I admit, your strategy is sound, he said after a long moment.

  ”You are wise to say so.” Her tail wrapped around his waist. “You may carry me to dry land, good sir.”

  A fresh-water shower—next to the pools—rinsed the brine from their bodies and the sweat out of Kest’s t-shirt. They sat on the concrete border to let the sun dry them. Kest sat by Ayleana’s feet—facing her—then put on his hat. “So, that talk then,” he prompted.

  Ayleana nodded, but didn’t speak right away. At length, she began, “Please understand that I know you haven’t had time to process all the things that have happened since we met. Also, after I’ve told you what I have in mind, you might need time to consider it. What I’m proposing will ask a lot from you, but it will offer unique opportunities. You’ve already agreed to be my business partner in music, but this would mean a more permanent arrangement.”

  “Ayleana, I know you wouldn’t have made contact and come out to me for something little. So, I’ll try to keep an open mind. Just go ahead.”

  “Okay. Remember how I told you that my kind can’t survive on a diet of plants?”

  “Yes, like ethical vampires, but not.”

  “Because we need certain things in our diet that come from other living creatures, we chose what we feel is a fair way of doing it. Thousands of years ago, my people stopped being hunters and parasites in favor of symbiotic arrangements. At first it was with animals from our own planet, but as we became spacefaring, we chose instead to form arrangements by mutual agreement rather than domestication when possible. Though we could offer a cow or a dog an arrangement they would agree to if they were rational, they aren’t.”

  “So you are about to extend an offer like that,” Kest said.

  Ayleana nodded. “Yes. But you need to know this offer is not only about physical sustenance. It's a relationship, offering friendship, support, protection and most of all a common purpose.”

  “Are you talking about the music? Is that a common purpose? I love music, but—”

  Ayleana shook her head. “No Kest, that’s not it. But music can be a means to a common purpose. I’m talking about the reason you pushed so hard in SST, why you started the Roda group, why you read history and political science in bulk, why you watched Requiem for the American Dream from the SST media library every week for two years and read every book by Noam Chomsky ever published, and the compassion and anger that rolls off your body like perfume when you see injustice.”

  She stopped with a shuddering intake of breath. “That’s the common purpose I’m talking about.”

  Kest sat transfixed by how she looked at him.

  “This relationship I’m proposing will disrupt your life plans. It might last years, decades, even centuries.”

  “Centuries?” Kest said. “You mean it could span generations and continue with my children?”

  Ayleana shook her head. “I mean you and I.” She spread her fingers wide. “In pursuit of the common purpose, I can offer longer life; a healthier, stronger body; protection; resources; friendship.” She gave a soft smile. “But you will also walk a dangerous road in the fight. Life may end up being short for both of us.”

  She stirred as though uncomfortable for a moment. “Jonah says it's impossible within the current norms of society to have a family or a romance with the demands of a relationship like I am proposing.”

  She sighed. “The relationship and the goals will take everything you have and demand more.”

  A cactus wren called to its mate. The mirrors creaked behind him in unison as they tracked the sun.

  “You should think about it,” said Ayleana.

  Kest rolled to his knees and sat on her lap. He took her face between his hands. As she sat very still—he pulled her lips to his neck.

  “It’s not just blood,” she said.

  “Whatever,” said Kest. “Eat one of my kidneys if you have to.”

  The touch of her teeth on his neck felt like a kiss.

  Chapter 18 — Short Honeymoon

  “Dearly beloved,” Daniels said, straightening his tie and jacket. “We are gathered here today to witness the union of Kestrel Tashquinth-Avsar and Ayleana nii Riniana Tiana in... What do you call this again?”

  “Daniels!” Ayleana said, her voice going up at the end in a warning.

  “I just think there should be some ceremony attached to this arrangement,” Daniels protested. “I mean, how do I know this lout will take care of my little... she demon?”

  Ayleana stood and leaned over the table placing one hand on either side of the serving plate full of fried tilapia and bared her teeth in his face. “I drank his blood. Is t
hat ceremonious enough for you?”

  “Erm.”

  “Good, now sit and eat.”

  “Did he just call me a lout?” Kest said.

  Amber and Jonah burst out laughing.

  Tiana stood up and walked over to Kest. “Well, I have a gift for this young symbiont,” she said. “Stand up, sir.”

  Kest obeyed, standing to face her and glancing at the others around the table in the utility room—now transformed into a private dining-party venue.

  Tiana wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, and there was tongue, lots of tongue. Amber and Daniels hooted and tapped their spoons on their glasses.

  When she let go, Kest looked at her with wide eyes. “Thank you?” he said.

  “Always a good response, Kest,” Jonah said. “You might not want to phrase it as a question though.”

  “Say it like you mean it, Kest,” Ayleana said. “You don’t get a present like that every day.”

  Kest bowed a fraction. “Thank you, Tiana. It was a lovely kiss, and I’m sure I’ve never had one like it.”

  Tiana, about to return to her seat, turned to look at him. “Aylie didn’t tell you, did she?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Aylie didn’t tell you I would give you a virus.”

  Ayleana giggled. “I told him he could expect a longer life span. You never said you would deliver it in public with a French kiss.”

  “I have a virus?”

  “Yes,” Tiana said. “Don’t kiss or otherwise share bodily fluids with any humans for twelve hours, though Amber would be safe enough. Most of the genes you are getting were hers in the first place, and she would need a virus that would work on her immune system.”

  “Yeah! Now I get to welcome the young symbiont to the family too.” Amber stood and marched up to Kest. “Relax, gorgeous. It’s all part of the ceremony... like kissing the bride.”

  A blush started below Kest's collarbone and flooded to his scalp as Amber pulled him close and kissed him all the way down to his tonsils. Somewhere in the middle of the long, long kiss—he stopped caring about, or even listening to, the cheers and cutlery tapping on the stemware.

  When it was over, Amber stepped back and grinned at him.

  “Your genes?” Kest said.

  “Right, so maybe you’ll be just as hot as you are now in a century.”

  Amber turned and walked back to her chair as Kest watched her go, mesmerized by the back of her dress and everything that went with it.

  “Speech! Speech!” called Daniels.

  Ayleana stood and raised her hand. “I promised him protection,” she said.

  Relieved, Kest sat down as everyone laughed. He leaned over, whispering in Ayleana’s ear. “Why her genes?”

  “Both her parents were children of level-one symbionts on both sides,” Ayleana said. “Amber's the only one with the gene from both parents, and it made something unique—an even longer lifespan than nii could engineer. That’s why she is only now starting a family that she needn’t expect to outlive. After seeing saw her grandfather go through that, she hunted for Tiana until finding her. It took eighty years.”

  “Eighty.... How old is she now?”

  “You expect me to tell you personal stuff like that?” Ayleana raised her eyebrows.

  Kest shrugged.

  “It takes a few years to learn to kiss like that, I suppose, eh?” Ayleana said with a laugh.

  Kest felt himself blush again. “Was I that obvious?”

  “If it hadn’t affected you, I would have been worried about your health, since I already know you’re attracted to the opposite sex.”

  “The nose again?”

  “Of course. Hurry and finish eating. We have a ton to talk about before tomorrow.” Ayleana reached for her phone, responding to a ringtone beyond his hearing threshold and looked at the text message. “It’s a message from Alex. He says album sales on our website just passed twenty thousand. You may want to talk to our lawyers about your tax options. We should discuss that too when we finish the more immediate concerns.”

  Kest turned his attention back to his supper. He had no idea how much money twenty thousand albums sold meant.

  He looked at Ayleana's phone, realizing hers worked way out in the desert when his didn't. AND they were inside a Faraday protected building.

  “Hey! How does your phone work out here and in here?”

  Ayleana grinned. “Sat phones with relays for inside. Don't worry, you'll get one too.”

  The tilapia, just pulled from the aquaculture pond an hour ago, was delicious.

  A few minutes later, Amber came by and handed Ayleana a key.

  Ayleana looked at the tag attached to it and grinned. “Ooh!” she said, dangling it in front of Kest. “We get the VIP suite! Looks like we’ll get a honeymoon tonight after all, sweetie.”

  ~~~{}~~~

  Ayleana ran her fingers down the length of Kest’s spine, checking the adjustments she’d made when optimizing his spinal alignment. Since those were holding fine, she measured the cushioning between the vertebrae, sending a one milliliter dose of the compound Tiana had showed her into the tissue surrounding the spine. The compound would help tone the resiliency of the disks.

  His leg muscles were looser since she’d relaxed them with a massage and healed the worst of the knots he’d developed with imperfect stretching technique and grueling workouts. She’d coach him on those another time though.

  “I’m going to turn you over, Kest. Don’t help, because I want everything the way I have it now.” She rolled him over on the king-sized bed.

  The bone bruises were almost gone from his ribs, but she injected the sites with more bone repair compounds. It wouldn’t hurt to have them stronger if something happened on another day.

  When they’d gotten to their room, she’d presented her idea of touring with their music as a way to recruit new members to SST. The notion was to encourage people nearer their age to resist the onslaught of the otherness-phobia mind-disease the political parties encouraged.

  Jonah and Tiana had shown her the analysis of how hard it was to change the thinking of most humans over thirty-five, depending on indoctrination and personality. Most young people could change their thinking if they tried, but older humans resisted that. Imbedded in a network of like-minded relationships, they chose instead to burrow into the ruts of their ideas like ticks digging into skin crevices.

  Kest had liked the idea of steering people to the communities the SST foundation was organizing. They would meet lots of people on tour. Ayleana’s idea of vetting their sincerity from the way they smelled made him laugh in a way that had nothing to do with belittling it.

  Ayleana looked down at Kest, relaxed and dozing on the bed as she repaired and patched his body. She decided to wait for another time to stimulate muscle development. It would be better to consult him about how to go about that.

  She ought to bring in Tiana for a consultation too. Kest was young and in good shape. At least she wouldn’t have to go into the deep repairs Tiana had done for Jonah before the two of them had paired. When she’d described that procedure to Kest, his wide-eyed response had been, “Holy colonoscopy, Batman!”

  The reference to the mythical heroic character was fuzzy, but she would do deeper research later to clear that up. With her tail, she flicked out the flames on the candles by the bed and slid her body alongside his. Kest wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. Ayleana tugged the blanket over him. It relieved her he wasn’t affected with the strange reactions of shame some humans had about their naked bodies. Cuddling skin-to-skin reminded her of home. She drifted into slumber, her face tucked into his neck where she’d had her first sip of blood direct from a symbiont. The memory, playing back in her mind, made her shiver.

  Chapter 19 — Sex on the Beach

  When she woke before dawn, a long download from the memory crystal awaited her attention. The biggest developments in the life of Riniana Tiana twenty centuries ag
o were her body’s change into reproductive maturity and the attentions of a young male nii, Xilonia Tindata. Their relationship wasn't quite at the sexual stage yet, but memories of the feelings associated with it were odd since her present body had not passed threshold.

  Sexual desire.

  She considered. Was it disturbing that her feelings for Kest and her interest in him were not very different from what Riniana had felt for Tindata? She liked Kest. A lot. He was creative, purpose-driven, smart... as smart as most nii. The only thing that differed between him and Tindata was a lack of the urge to copulate with him, but that was normal before threshold.

  Nii symbiosis with other humanoids was uncommon, but not unusual. But, adding the even closer step of sentient primate was something her memories had never encountered, so far. Maybe her branch sister would know.

  She thought back to the way Rinia mother had been with her symbionts and the aroma of her satisfaction and regard for them. None of them had been humanoid though. She flipped to considering Tiana’s relationship with Jonah and her mind came to a halt from which it took three deep breaths to unfreeze. With Jonah, Tiana—as close as you could get to a look into Ayleana’s own future—smelled the way Rinia mother did when around Rinia father.

  But...

  Ayleana slid from the bed. She almost forgot to snag a kilt to cover her tail before going out the door and running to where Tiana and Jonah slept. As she approached the room, the fragrance of an adult female nii in full sexual arousal and near orgasm poured into the hall. Ayleana had encountered them like this before, but until the last memories of Riniana Tiana had filtered from the crystal, she’d never considered what it meant. This was beyond expectation.

  “Branch Sister,” she called in nii, still running toward their room. “I need to talk to you, RIGHT NOW.” As Ayleana reached the door, it opened, and Tiana stepped into the hall, tugging a bathrobe over her tail, drenched in the rich, musky perfume of sex.