Saga ~ Whispers of Wire ~ Dear Diary Challegen 2011, OCs, completed 12/14

I am happy because it a) was a nice holiday and b) there is an update now.

The correct reaction to that is probably not throwing your arms around your captor and teacher. But he doesn't mind and pats my back.

"This is just the beginning," he promises softly.

I cannot wait for more lessons to be learned here.

Hechel, hechel! Freu, freu!

 

Possibly, earlybird.

Well, sorry to disappoint, Azure. Next lesson is planned for some time else.

---

[u]27.) 21 BBY[/u]



Visinic Murtode is a thin man with a thin face and thin hair. He looks down on my along his long thin nose and shakes my hand with cold thin fingers. He looks around the room Kom'rk and I prepared as a kind of living room to receive guests in. I never had a room like that. It always seemed a wast of space.

But he sits down and reminds me of a spider folding itself up. He doesn't want anything, but I bring tea and biscuits anyway. That is good manners. Kom'rk has impressed the importance of manners in these dealings into me repeatedly. He knows more than I about my customer. And he thinks it better that way. I would not say he is afraid, because he never is. So I offer biscuits and the long fingers close around one of them like a mantis. Visinic Murtode also knows about being polite. He nibbles on the biscuit and makes small talk. I remember, and dearly wish for, Qail again. She could have done this better than me.

"You must understand that my employer wishes to stay invisible," he says with a thin voice. "This is not a matter to be taken lightly."

I nod and smile. Immortality never is. "I hope he knows that it is not really my field of expertise," I reply. "The current research aims at undoing a change, not changing the code."

Murtode lowers his biscuit like a weapon. "As yet, Miss Nuh. My employer also believes that your research will bring you into contact with knowledge you will need to help him." He looks at the small box placed on the table between us. "Anyway, your reputation precedes you. There are other, smaller matters which you can start on. My employer is confident that you will manage the desired changes easily."

Eyes and hair again. I wonder why people are so obsessed with that. When he has left, I open the box. There are a few datacards and the tasks written on real flimsy. The thin man said he would call again and check on my progress.

Kom'rk leans over my shoulder looking at the samples. It really is not much work and helps me to relax after researching on their ageing process. It takes but a little diligence to find the right clusters. DNA is easy. There are only a few components to it and almost as few atoms.

"It doesn't make sense," he tells me. I agree. There are worlds between altering the appearance and generating eternal life.

"Maybe he wants to gain my trust." I splice a part of the DNA on the screen. "Or there is more to this than he wants us to know." I copy the schematics and give them to Kom'rk. "It might be interesting to know who I am working on."

He turns the data over in his fingers and nods. "You be careful around him."

I can hear suspicion dripping from his voice, but he doesn't know anything for sure. "I will tell you everything," I promise.

But that is not nearly enough. I can see his worry. And then I realise that it is for me. I lower my eyes.

He is a big man and I feel heat coming from him as I stand in front of him feeling smaller than ever. How could I hope to ever hurt a man like that? But he smiles and talks about leverage and mean little tricks, his breath flowing down the side of my head.

I cannot hurt him, but as I try there is no need to fight the crimson.

 

He is a big man and I feel heat coming from him as I stand in front of him feeling smaller than ever. How could I hope to ever hurt a man like that? But he smiles and talks about leverage and mean little tricks, his breath flowing down the side of my head.

I cannot hurt him, but as I try there is no need to fight the crimson.

Boah, cliffhanger! Ah well, knowing you you leave nobody in the dark, confused and also keen to read on.

 

Ok. so if I'm caught up, there's a romance budding with "Big K" (I hate trying to spell his name), and now Palpatine's cronies are trying to find a way to fix his receeding hairline?

Great updates "Big L"!

 

It's all cliffhangers, Azure. Only the cliff changes.
Learnt that from a book, I did.

Sums it about up, Big Ale. Or would that be Pint?
Though I thought Palps was more into talking moisturiser... Also, try as I might, personaly, I keep reading 'immorality' in their conversation.

---

[u]28.) 21 BBY[/u]


Visinic Murtode is making visits a regular affair. He is a neat and methodical man, his long fingers wander over the side of my screen as I show him the first results. He nods his thin head on his long neck.

"How far have you come with my employer's other request?", he wants to know.

"I was not aware I was to start on it already," I reply. "My other work still has priority."

He looks at me as if I was a very interesting mutation about to be deleted. "My employer might not be very understanding."

I scowl. "I told him that I will finish my other project before I start on his. I told him to ask somebody else if he didn't like it."

"You may not understand the position you are in." He watches me over the tips of his finger. "Your say in this might be smaller than you realise."

Kom'rk insisted on politeness so I do not tell Murtode to stick it where the sun is unlikely to shed light. I also don't offer to change that by means of a chainsaw. Instead I fold my hands neatly on the table. "Your employer knew my conditions. I stated them plainly, I will stand by them and I will not change them." I look straight at Murtode, never blinking once. "If he decides to hear things I have never said and expects me to adhere to that, I might be rather unhappy about it."

"You are paid good money for your work," he replied.

But I shake my head. "I [i]will [/i]be paid good money, which is something completely different. It means you do not own me." I indicate the datacard he is holding. "That is finished work."

Murtode inclines his head, but keeps looking at me as if I will be gone from the face of the planet any second. I decide not to do him that favour and offer him some more tea instead. He declines. "You live a dangerous life, Miss Nuh. Be careful your friends do not facilitate your downfall."

I raise the cup to my lips and drink a tiny bit of tea. This, also, is polite. I prefer to have tea from big, sturdy mugs and in huge gulps. I think, I am not cut out for polite.

"You shouldn't have said that," Kom'rk scolds when he watches the tape. He is never around when Murtode visits. It would be easy since the agent is punctual like clockwork, but Kom'rk says it is a trap. He is supposed to be here and trapped. They want to find the connection I have to Kal's clan. We are not willing to give that up.

I hold very still as he reaches out around me and his arm brushes against my shoulder. I don't want to give that up either. I feel his eyes on me as he tries to read my reaction. I try not to have any and keep my eyes on the screen.

"This looks promising," I call up some charts. He listens as I try to explain. I have even given up on simple words. His memory makes it unnecessary to repeat myself.

His hand brushes against me again as he enlarges the molecules. I marked the differing sections and he studies them. It is but one of many anomalies all the samples share. It is tedious to work through all the scientific material published that could help disentangle their function. I wished I was faster.

My nose is pressed hard against the floor. Again. And again I wished I was faster. Or not. His fingers curl tightly around my wrist, his hand pressed against my back and all is fine. I smile into the pain of my nose.

"This will not do." He whispers into my ear. He is right. I know and he knows but I know no help. And this is nice in its painful inevitability. He knows. He loosens his grip and the pain recedes. For a moment all is fine. His hands are the back of my head, on my back, warm. I close my eyes and ignore the tugging. The past is past and this is the thread of the future.

But the crimson won't be ignored. I keeps running up my spine like some

 

You always manage to send shivers up and down my spine with a fanfic like this.

Besides being a cookie monster & jolly good photographer you are a storyteller with powers that are ´unnatural´...



I try to contact you on skype again soon.

 

Hope it doesn't feel too uncomfortable, Azure.
For official shivers I suggest Zahn's Choices of One. *le happy sigh*

---

[u]29.) 21 BBY[/u]



There are three constants in my life: research, Murtode and Kom'rk. Both men show the same degree of determination, though I really wished Murtode would not. He is pushy. His employer is a jerk. I made my point and told my conditions. If he doesn't like it, that is his problem. I am not for sale. And if I was, I know exactly who I'd sell myself to.

"I want to touch you," he says. His hands lie around my face.

I look up at Kom'rk trying to feel panic and elation at the same time and failing. I put my hands over his not sure if I just want to feel his skin against my palms or pry him away. His hands yield easily under mine as I stand on tiptoe breathing a kiss over his lips.

For a moment everything is still. His hands are fast around my hips lifting me up to his height as if I was made of plastifoam. I wish this could last forever, but even with my feet not touching the ground the crimson licks at my toes, clutches at my calves and thighs. I start to squirm in his grip, unhappy about it and unhappy about being unhappy.

Slowly he lowers me back to the ground but he doesn't let go. He takes my wrists and my hands vanish under his and he keeps looking into my eyes. If only it was enough to ground me here and now. I pull at his grip, knowing I can't possibly free myself. But when he lets go I still know that and manage, barely, to trail the tips of my fingers over his palms as my arms snap back and around me.

I hold on to myself, trying to breathe regularly, biting my lip and cursing my past. And he can't even hold me. I know others do it, that it calms down, gives security and comfort. If you are not me. He can only look and I can only curse and cry.

He leaves in the early morning when all my curses are spent. I see him off with a smile because I have nothing else to offer. I am rewarded with one of his hard-edged smiles. I treasure it with the others.

 

I treasure it with the others.


I really treasure this update! PS: Chilla also discovered the beauty of your life journal and the NZ photos. You should take the time to explain your time abroad and your reasons for it en detail. She was very fascinated!

 

Incredible. The struggle with "crimson" and Kom'rk's endless patience (much like Kal's for those he cares about) are such great dynamics.

I am waiting for Kom'rk to unleash on Murtode though...

 

What Corellian Ale said.

In addition, I'm also half-expecting and (considering her fragility) half afraid of an outbreak of impatience and passion from Kom'rk because young men tend to be rather that way.

I do hope he'll deal with Murtode soon, though - because the creep is disruptive for Tera's concentration, and thus any breakthrough in her research would be more difficult - and the poor, charming clone boys do need that breakthrough rather urgently, methinks.

Love this story.

-Red

 

Love your story telling, mysterious and creepy at times.

 

Chilla will have to talk to me, Azure. I am not exactly online much right now. Stupid accommodation. *grumbles*
But there will always be enough time for updates.

I wonder how wise it would be for Kom'rk to go after Murtode, Ale. Palps will probably not be happy about vanishing underlings. But since he seemed to have learnt some kind of patience from Kal, I am positive he'll get to it. Some time.

Luckily for Tera, Kom'rk is not just any young man, NamelessAlien. He's a fully trained Null ARC and though erratic at times, I think they possess a self-control even adults would find difficult to achieve.
Murtode - will be deat with. I think. As will the cure. Some time.

Thank you, earlybird. It is what I aim for - sometimes.

---

[u]
30.) 20 BBY[/u]

Patience is a virtue, especially in molecular biology. I sit and stare angrily at my screen. I have identified the differing sequences. Jaing's system is doing wonders for comparing them and I like it a lot. I told Kom'rk to say thanks again. It is really useful.

He brought more data. Loads of it. There was a smile on his face reaching from the core to Wild Space. I like it when he is happy. And I like when I can contribute to it.

"Halfway through," I tell him indicating the files. There are a lot of anomalies to look into. I still wished I had some unaltered data. It would make things easier as I could preclude some of them. Or so I hope. But I will work with what I have.

"Any of them obviously connected to the ageing process?" Kom'rk wants to know.

I point out a couple of sequences. "H-seventy-eight-b and H-eighty-eight, that's where I worked before so the probability is high." We both know that finding the sequences is just preliminary work. The coding of them is what really matters. But the more I get done the better. The closer I get to the goal, the less they will have to do. And they are so busy lately. Even Kom'rk's visits seem scarce.

Looking up at him I want to memorise his face because I don't know when he will be back. The knife lies in my hand as if I was to carve his face into memory. He shows me how use it and my attempts all fail. But he is patient as always and the knife is mine.

He is so close that I can feel his pulse beating against my skin. "[i]Iviin'yc'shya[/i]*," he whispers and my vision turns crimson. I thrust the knife against him viciously, but he is Kom'rk and there is not much I can do. Still I feel it tear something and then he his over me, the knife skittering away across the floor.

His right hand closes in over my throat, ready to crush my windpipe any second, his left still grips the wrist of my knife hand. His eyes are on black fire and I can see where my knife has cut his shoulder. Blood is pooling there, slowly and tentatively falling down on me.

"[i]Ni ceta[/i]*." The words form somewhere in my throat and find their way past his fingers. They relax a little and I feel myself crying.

His hand moved away from my throat gently, slowly slipping down towards my collarbones. But he doesn't stop there but inches his way down until he cannot fail to feel the starting rise.

I try to move away, writhing my shoulders against the ground as the red flood sloshes against me. But with a sudden he bends down and kisses me. I squirm as the crimson creeps up my legs and fills me with small pains. But he keeps me down. My mouth is on fire, but the crimson does not go away.

He gets up holding me close and showers me with words of black ash. It falls around me like a curtain, shutting out the crimson slowly. I shiver and hang on to the whispers as they cut into my hands like wire pulled too taut.

When I am calm again, Kom'rk lets go and puts me back in front of the screen. Is it strange that work can keep me sane so easily? I smile at him. But I am beat and broken inside, squishy and sore.





* Faster
* I apologise, more like 'I grovel'.

 

You suck us all into a brilliant suspense story. The wires indeed whisper, hon!

(Gut dass es nicht die Telefonleitungen nach NZ sind...ha, ha!)

Enjoy your Middle-earth like dream landscapes and as much short bread as you can eat!

Just remember to up-date regular, to appear on skype & that I can bake short bread, too. I have this wonderful Scottish receipt.



Can´t wait to read where you next up-date leads us to! With your well portioned text bits you are a mean teaser. You stretch your arch of suspense out painfully...

Thanks for being so brilliant and cruel at the same time.

(Isch liebe disch!)

 

Wow! What a couple of intense SOBs.... But at least he knows what buttons to push!

 

Well, yes update... sorry about that, Azure.
But there'll be one next week. Promise.

He better, Ale. Or he'd have a handful of crazy, homicidal woman on his hadns that can't be stopped by the realisation she doesn't have a chance in hell to win.

---

Sorry, no update this week. Here's a link to a story that will tie into the sequel of this eventually and happens to fit right into the time frame now. [link=http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/31758402/p1/?2]Trinkets[/link]
Oh, it's about Walon Vau...

 

31.) 20 BBY


The new data is amazing. It is so structured and everything you could imagine you might need for the research is there. I cannot believe it and shake my head. But the images stay the same, the charts and tables and schematics in four dimensions.

I did not ask where he got it. I never ask and he smiles and looks at the screen over my shoulder. "Going good?"

I nod. "Faster than ever, though that is still slow." I wished I was faster. Though I know what it did to him and his brothers I wish for perfect recall so I could be faster no matter what it'd do to my sanity. They're running out of time and I am so damned slow.

At least the material I work with is fast. It grows like weed and globs of something not human evolve in the small dishes. But it doesn't have to. That it should grow so fast is all I need to know. Another sequence change unsuccessful. Of course I expect nothing else. DNA is complicated and one simple change won't affect much.

But I have to be thorough. I need to exclude the mere possibility. A check on the negative test is one small piece of certainty gained. There are so few of them. I concentrate on finding recessive traits. The change had been manufactured for reasons and one precaution against the products simply walking off and producing more products had been putting the changes in recessive genes.

I hate thinking like that. It is reasonable and abominable. At least, should any clones ever get around to have kids, those would be fine. I wonder for a moment what kind of woman would want a husband ageing twice as fast as her. But maybe that was not really important. Looking at the clones, I know what kind of woman would want such a man.

Globs of cells get washed down the drain the the dishes are disinfected and sterilised for another round of experiments. I work with little thought of anything but the next series of experiments, the next small change and the results that will get washed down the drain after extermination. Certainty in tiny doses, and only things that do not work. I have to keep telling myself that it is contributing too. If only I was better at believing it, too.

"You are doing fine." Kal's voice over a vidless link. "We are getting other opinions, and they all agree with your general outline. Just keep at it, ad'ika."

I nod and feel comforted for the time we talk. His voice has that kind of effect. I believe him when he says I am doing fine. But as soon as he is gone, I stare at the monitors, and globs of tissue and wonder what the frag I am doing. Yes, single switch changes are all tested negative now, but I don't feel accomplished. I have worked out a matrix of all possible combinations, but every computer could have done the same.

"Only you can evaluate them for us and set up a hierarchy," Kom'rk says. "You know what we are looking for."

He does not say 'you know what I am looking for', but I know it anyway. I make my hand linger against his cheek, even when he puts his own over it. "I will find it," I say with more conviction than I have.

He smiles and knows. And as his lips brush my palm, I fight against the crimson in my head.

 

What I love about you most: you create much atmosphere and suspense will a little amount of well chosen words. Like a Japanese haiku.

Greetings Exhaled one (or is is Exhausted one) from morri's laptop and morri's house.

 

You can call me Exhausted one, Azure. Right now it is sure true. Travelling can be such a bother. >.<

Before the update, a small update on Vau...

---

[u]And Then The Past[/u]

It was coincidence, plain and simple. Staying with Skirata for a while after the rescue had seemed not only the prudent but also the polite thing.

The laughter had caught him unawares. Like silver shot through with icicles the past slammed into him. He knew that laughter. It had been rare, precious and the one thing he had worked on endlessly to achieve in his long gone youth.

It turned out to be nothing but a comm call. Kom'rk sat before the table in the main room, looking at a holo transmission. Half a girl hovered over the table; thin, with long dark hair and dark eyes. She laughed again. The walls of his father's house stood around Vau suddenly, and that laughter crept up from the past.

Kom'rk turned around, a movement that brought Vau back to the present. Somehow they always knew when you were around. He acknowledged him with a curt nod not not sure if he took his eyes from the image over the table. From what he knew about the going-ons in the clan he realised that she must be Kom'rk's girl. The kid Kal once saved and who conveniently turned into his personal bioengineer.

Seeing her partner distracted the comm girl asked something he couldn't understand and Kom'rk explained. Her face lit up, she turned her head in the direction Kom'rk had indicated and smiled. Vau knew that smile, as if he had seen it yesterday. She waved and looked nothing like the starved waif he remembered Kal saving. She looked happy and like an exact copy of the girl he remembered from his past.

Vau left Kom'rk to the conversation. And just a little time ago he would have shaken it off as inanity, softness, indulgence. The dead don't return for an encore. And if Axton had been certain in one point, it had been Sheena's demise. Fourteen years. She was already dead for fourteen years. And there was no place marked as her grave, nowhere to go, nothing to remember.

Vau was not even sure if he would have visited her grave had there been one. Not even to return the ring she had once given him. It was too precious still, even if that was another of those selfish notions. But he didn't have to. He might even be able to hand it on, as it should have been. He stopped that train of thought. It was no good, not now, not under these circumstances. Not unless he had certainty.

You didn't flee from the Covent. And if you did, it would mark you and find you. Anywhere. If it took years. And it did. But in the end they had found her, and there were organisations happy to accept a loot and kill order. The urge to spit almost overcame him. Kyr'tsad.

If they had not incurred Vau's animosity already by being bad for business, he would have grown it now. As things stood, he just had to build upon what was already there. If it had not been more than likely the group they had wiped out back then, Vau would have swapped armour with Skirata for a sharp, short and very unsavoury little crusade.

But that was past and had been done years back. He reframed the event in his memory. Not just a job, not just another mission, but revenge and justice in one. And a new beginning. Possibly a new beginning. It was still his decision and his alone. His sister's hand reached out from the past, putting herself between him and the count.

Vau sighed. There was not really a decision, not if it was the truth. There was one easy way to find out. The question was if he really wanted to know. A question he had asked himself only days ago. A question he had even answered in the lonely cold of approaching death. Vau glanced at the place a small box was stowed away safely. And he hesitated.


[hr]

And here's the update:


[u]32.) 20 BBY[/u]


I don't know what they did to him. He was taut and strained when he arrived, as if a string inside him had broken. I don't know how to mend it. I keep feeding him sweet tea and uj. He smiles but I can see that his eyes are somewhere else. "You are the last hope,

 

I am split open and the crimson flood washes over me. I cannot scream, my mouth still closed firm and black, but I writhe, cringe and feel his black pressure against me. There is no way to flee and I cannot hold back the flood, split and helpless, unable to cry even.

Wow. Your sectences are devine!

 

Fiery updates

Inspired by New Zealand or the Phillipines?

 

My sentences are beyond racy, Azure.
But I am happy if you like it.

I already wrote that long ago, earlybird. One of the first parts to come to life. This story is the first one to be very much finished before posting.

---

[u]33.) 19 BBY[/u]



I wake up against a body not mine. I blink a few times for the newness of feeling, but nothing happens. I look over the chest I lie against, watch the steady rise and fall of his breath and know he is not asleep. As if to confirm my suspicion, he puts an arm around my shoulders. And nothing else happens. I smile wondering into how long six hours of sleep translate if you live as fast as he does. His heartbeat seems restless, racing away under my head.

The hand tightens around my shoulder. I let my lips graze against his skin and realise that I can do that. Biting my lip, I put my arm over his waist because I can do that. His lips move against my hair as my fingers trail the outline of his hipbone. I realise I can do that. I can do anything I want. And then I realise, I have never really had a look at a man.

I hoist myself up and stars sparkle in the black night of his eyes as he catches my glance and returns the smile. His cheeks are rough with stubble and his hair is soft, yielding under my fingers like expensive fur. There are lines in the corners of his eyes when he smiles. I trace them and his jaw and the soft skin of his forehead.

The veins at his throat pulse like living beings that go into hiding under his collarbones. I trace his arms, and no matter what say say about being fundamentally the same, he is not like me at all. In his hand mine seems tiny and where he can close his fingers around my wrist easily, I need both hands to hold his. There seem to be no straight lines about him, the curves of muscles play all over his body. I didn't know humans had so many muscles. They all seem visible on him.

His skin is soft, scarred in some places and warm. I lay my hand on his chest and it feels as if energy is moving through his skin and mine right from his heart into my hand. I put my face against his chest and listen to the rhythm of his heart, beating almost twice as fast as mine, but not really. His hand comes to rest on the back of my head, burying his fingers in my hair.

Tentatively I push against it and he yields. I feel his fingers slowly moving down my neck, coming to rest between my shoulder blades. He is indulging me. I can feel it in his eyes. As if it was the most normal thing in the world that I should kneel next to him examining what I got. I realise I love him. I realise that he he knows when I look at his face.

I lean down and place a kiss between his collarbones, just where they don't meet. I let my lips trail a direct line upwards towards his mouth and he simply arches back his head. It is not submission as I place ultimate trust up his throat with smiling lips. His hand moves down my back as if there was nothing on it and doesn't come to rest where it ends. I have a life time of lack and he is living twice as fast as normal men.

He leaves with a smile on his lips that will make my heart miss a beat until I die; I am sure of it. It would even now, as I am reduced to almost nothing but human rubble. The mere thought of that smile makes me grin. There are things they cannot take from you again. Not ever. And I cling to them because it is all I have left.

That night I felt strangely lonely as I curled up under my blankets. Not quite lonely. I thought of my face against his skin, arms enfolding me and clung to the image until I fell asleep.

 

Wizzard of words. You scenes always suck me in, jon!

 

A nice sweet scene with her

 

I like how she feels the pressure of saving the clones from premature aging, and the one guy who feels the pressure more than anyone is telling you to "relax".

Then the next chapter was anything but relaxing... wait cold shower then I will return to read the most recent entry.

I agree with earlybird, a sweet exclamation point to the intense entry beforehand.



EDIT: Forgot to mention the Vau "add-on" earlier. It was a very touching side of our favorite "I care less about the rest of the galaxy than Kal does" grumpy old man. It gives a nice insight as to why Vau needed to latch on to his clones - but without wearing his heart on his sleave like Kal does.

 

Thank you, Azure.

About tine, ain't it, earlybird?

That's life, isn't it, Ale?
But I think they can both relax now. Well, I am not much into fluff, but I thought this story warranted it. Because.
Yeah, Vau is closed up in his little shell. But like all mussles, he's a real softy inside.

---

[u]34.) 19 BBY[/u]



He arrives with that smile that makes my heart jump. And he knows it.
The spring is back in his steps and I can see plans he can't tell me about in his eyes. I put my research into his hands. Finally something worth all the work and worry.

"The tests will take a few months," I say. Proudly I show off the rows of Petri dishes. Kom'rk doesn't come alone. He brings his brother Mereel who is really into this matter. I love discussing the results and further proceedings with him. His mind is overtaking itself. In that he reminds me of Kom'rk. But he is also such a sweet-talker.

"Aw, come on," he slaps my shoulder playfully. "It'll stay in the family." His grin is huge and impossible to resist; I burst out laughing. It never gets boring with Mereel around but I have to be careful he doesn't gobble down all sweets and there's some left in case Kom'rk does drops by.

"Has he been annoying you again?" he asks. "Hopeless philanderer." He glares at Mereel pretty convincingly.

"You have no idea how much." I rub my cheek against his arm. "He keeps correcting my research. It's impossible. I am sure he wants my job."

Mereel snorts. "You wish, [i]vod'ika[/i]."

Sometimes I really do. Murtode is getting ever more annoying.

"I could clone him for you, than you can kill a few of him to relax." Mereel is dead serious.

It scares me. Sometimes he just scares me out of the blue, but he doesn't even notice. Brilliant and black, brilliantly splintered black. I cannot look at him and play with one of the Petri dishes instead. "Thank you, but I don't feel like killing somebody."

He gives me one of those looks saying that I am the crazy one here, not him. Maybe he is right. "You hide behind the impersonal approach of using bioengineering," he says. "It'll kill somebody eventually."

I am afraid it is true. And I have thought of it. Sometimes, alone in the cold nights thinking of Kom'rk and sometimes, in his arms thinking of a dead man in crimson armour. Lives have been compromised and sometimes I feel like lashing out and paying back with interest.

But I am still here and so is Kom'rk. I kiss him goodbye until Mereel makes a snorting noise. But I don't know when I will see him again. It is always too long. I stand on tiptoe and kiss Mereel's cheek. "You take good care of him, won't you?"

He ruffles my hair and laughs.
Then they are gone again.