Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (8 page)

“
Thank goodness. Good choice, by the
way.” Maeve couldn’t think of how to address Dmitry; a problem she
frequently encountered. She slipped into her habit of familiar
conversation, unburdened by any kind of pronoun
whatsoever.

“
Thanks. Dem, would you mind throwing
some of that bread over here, you greedy bastard?”

“
Your wish is my command, gorgeous.
Make sure that vat of grease and meat makes it over my way before
our guest thieves it all.” He tried smiling his most innocent smile
at her, hoping to convince himself to calm down in the process. By
that point, she was feeling slightly more talkative.

“
Well, at least you have something
else to think about now.” She stared at Dmitry innocently. His
heart dropped into his shoes.

“
What do you mean by that?

“
Hey, you two, how about getting to
what we’re actually here for?”

“
You have something you want to talk
about? Have at it.” She tried to achieve an air of patience, made
difficult by the torrent of emotions running through her
head.

“
You said you wanted to have something
to do. Naturally the thing to do is to bring you up to speed, help
you learn everything you’ve missed, and perhaps, in the process,
discover a means for all of you to make new lives.” Her head jerked
up at that.

“
Great. Like college? I already have a
degree, you know. Though it’s quite possibly utterly useless to me
right now.” She ripped a piece flat bread and waded it through the
spicy stew. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be crabby. This just sucks,
not knowing anything, feeling like nothing is ever going to be
right again.”

Dmitry knew exactly what she was talking
about. Starting over, in any sense of the phrase was the hardest
thing he’d ever had to do in his life. He’d had a career already
going, but Rebecca had gone before he could start the elusive
family. Six years past, he could still see her every time he shut
his eyes. He wondered how much more intense it was for Maeve, if he
even dared to want to find out. His best friend was, at that
moment, offering her some sympathy. Something from the depths of
the counseling handbook, doubtless.

As in…life goes on, it perpetuates, the job
of the strong is to lean into it, shoulder the weaknesses of those
around them, and trust in fate to play her hand fairly. He was also
in the process of fleshing out a rather detailed list of ideas for
her, and for her friends as well. It was an offer of schooling, and
exploration of future plans from that point onward. Maeve smiled
politely at Tark’s idea that this would all be so terribly easy to
fix. He was kidding himself.

He avoided mention of anything that might
bring celebrity, much less outside attention. Tark was not the type
to encourage the wholesale marketing of anyone, but Dmitry knew
that it would be more than wrong with these people to push them
into the public eye. It would be incredibly risky, given the
current political climate. It made Dmitry wonder why exactly it was
that Tark would be offering anything to these people at all. Surely
it would become noticeable before too long. He’d have to talk to
Tark about it later.

“
...I should probably get back,
because, regrettably, I am only on my dinner break. Besides,
there’s no telling what could happen with O’Leary running the
show.” Dmitry started to rise as well, but was shoved back down
with a firm hand. “You are still off-duty, my friend, take the
night, show up tomorrow at zero eight hundred or so. It’s not like
we’re hurting for help. Just…behave.” The last part he spoke
quietly into Dmitry’s ear. He tried to have faith in his best
friend, otherwise, he would have taken Maeve with him instead. As
it was, Dmitry merely nodded, looking benign. Tark left, and the
two of them sat in silence for a full minute. He was trying to
think of something rude to say to her when he caught her watching
him with a peculiar expression.

“
What?” He was leery. She’d cornered
him into reacting, rather than him being able to take the
reins.

“
I was just trying to decide what kind
of personality you have.” She wanted to spar verbally, eh? He
decided to play.

“
And what was your conclusion, doc?”
Maeve was wading into untested waters. She held back, almost
frightened of where she knew she was headed, but not afraid, all at
once.

“
You’re what one might call an Alpha
male. It’s not all that complicated a conclusion, you know.”
Outside their small dining area, it seemed everything had stopped,
that nothing and no one else existed any longer. Maeve felt her
palms begin to sweat. This was not quite the reaction she wanted to
be having.

“
Humor me, I’m not all that bright.”
Dmitry seemed to be turning up the confidence level, filling the
air between them with false modesty.

“
Somehow I doubt that. When I asked
you to not address me by any title, you didn’t apologize the way
other people might have. You’re cocky. And unless you have a
wedding ring hidden in your watchband, if you’ll pardon me, it
would seem you’re single, perhaps deliberately so.” He gritted his
teeth momentarily. Not about to get into
that
story, not here, not now. Smiling
guilelessly, he moved to outflank her yet again.

“
How do you know I’m not married?” She
shook her head, and pulled her trump card.

“
You forget who I’ve been spending my
time with. Your colonel talked about his girlfriend and you
nonstop. I was beginning to wonder how you figured into their
relationship.”
He
was cocky,
hmm? Well, she was holding her own in good fashion, he thought
dourly.

“
So what does that make you?” Holding
off on offering his own observations, he searched for a chink in
her armor. He was curious about what opinion she might have of
herself. This question was not the key. He watched her fix a
thousand-yard stare onto the adobe walls.

“
Me?” He nodded, though she wasn’t
looking. “I guess I’m an Alpha too. Suited for someone of the same
level of intensity only. I think I destroyed a few relationships on
my way through the obstacle course of romance, if you could call it
that.” She swirled her drink thoughtfully and brought herself to
meet his eyes. “Maybe I should have a warning label. ‘Biohazard’,
something like that.” She looked away again, and Dmitry
chuckled.

“
Seriously? That wouldn’t really have
entered my mind about you.”

“
The trick is knowing who you really
are, but not letting anybody else see it.”

“
Is that what my problem
is?”

“
I don’t think you know what your
problem is.” She gave him a steel-edged smile. He choked a little
on his third whiskey. Perhaps it was time to have a glass of
water.

“
Perhaps you should help me figure it
out.”

He was being deliberately provocative,
trying to draw her out of the reserve she was desperately clinging
to, not unlike the jacket she was refusing to remove thus far.
Against her better judgement, a certain part of her was getting
sucked in by his goofy banter. The rest of her was choking back
laughter, though she’d never have admitted it.

“
You’re very humble too. A quality not
often found.”

“
My best quality is my humility.” This
kind of exchange wasn’t usually his forte. He couldn’t explain why
it was that he even interested in someone who was trying to match
him, wit for wit. But there it was, instead of being put off, he
was finding it to be a turn-on. This could be a problem. Tark’s
last words to him echoed back to his brain. Screw it. What Tark
didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“
Why don’t we get out of here? I
haven’t had an official tour yet.” She grinned amicably while he
stood up, just as the proprietor was entering to enquire as to
their enjoyment of the meal, the ambience, so forth.

“
You are leaving us, then, going to
enjoy the rest of the evening?” He and the server gathered dishes,
noting the absence of food anywhere to be seen. He was pleased.
These officers would be back yet again, all three hopefully, maybe
with more friends next time as well? Certainly,
certainly.

“
Yes, my good man, we thoroughly
enjoyed ourselves. I’ll recommend it to all, with honors.” Dmitry
was feeling munificent, grandiose, even. He threw down a large
amount of currency, snaked an arm through Maeve’s, and strode out
self-assuredly.

He knew where he was headed, weaving a
direct path through bodies across a brightly decorated square. As
though they were sailing through open air, they came down to a
section that reminded Maeve of European market squares. On a
corner, between a Romanisch restaurant, and something like an
alley, a recessed but open doorway issued forth familiar sounding
noises.

“
Am I completely off, or is this place
a club of some sort?”

“
You’re not off. This place has decent
drinks when the barkeep is upright. Some dancing, some sitting;
whatever you want, basically.” The thought occurred that he might
point out what she actually wanted, but it was probably out of
line. He didn’t want to take a haymaker to the jaw right
then.

They walked inside, and found a blast of
heat to greet them. The music was infectious, full of the essence
of the station. People laughed, danced, and held each other,
finding bonds; everyone making the night theirs in their own way.
She checked what she was wearing against the unspoken dress code.
She was nicely inconspicuous, the ageless color of her black
clothes further blending her into the shadows. The bar was rampant
with people, the air heavy and thick with the fetidness of so many
bodies pressed into one small space. Dmitry tapped her, breaking
her concentration.

“
I’ll be back in a minute. What do you
want to drink?

“
Just have a glass of something red.”
She scoped the scene further, deliberately unaware of Dmitry’s
scrutiny as he waited at the bar. She crossed her legs, an act of
holding herself in, but she did it slowly, drawing one leg up the
other, not even conscious of her own movement. There were other
thoughts insistently crowding her mind. She felt overwhelmed still,
and yet, maybe it would help to cut loose and go nuts for
once.

Her past was cloudy, but she knew that fun
had never been very high on her list of priorities. The flashbacks
had receded for a while, leaving their fingerprints all over her
brain, faded photographs of memories. If she thought back,
painfully hard, she could not even recall the last time she’d worn
a dress, or acted like a woman. She had an idea that, despite her
contentment with the way her life used to be, she needed to crawl
out of the wreckage of what she had been. At that, she decided to
set reminiscence aside, and stay in the present.

Dmitry leaned against the bar. He found
himself thinking about what was under the dress. And then whether
he should be thinking like that. She’d been up and moving around
for such a short time. Never mind that Tark would probably kick his
ass. Perhaps these things just ought to play themselves out. His
thoughts settled, he plucked up their drinks, and headed back to
the table. The glasses thunked onto the tabletop. Maeve looked up
at him quizzically.

“
Let ‘em mellow for a minute. Let’s go
dance.” She looked up at him, and his hand. She took it, stood, and
squelched nervousness. He had a firm grip, and a possessive
embrace. She had some difficulty surrendering control, however, and
he noticed.

“
Are you going to let me lead, or
what?” He gently guided her into the proper positioning. He noticed
nervousness behind her confidence; it was peering through the
shrouded distance between them.

“
I’ll let you know. I haven’t done
this in…ever.”

۞

Elsewhere, situations were rising like a
tide. The other five former human popsicles (as they had taken to
calling themselves) had split off into their various chosen
activities for the evening. Jemi and Leif were collected by O’Leary
and his long-suffering, involuntarily appointed companions. Jemi’s
sense of humor seemed particularly tried that evening as Tim
bounced alongside them, flitting through subject matter with
breathtaking rapidity. He hardly gave anyone a chance to respond to
one question before asking the next five.

Finally, after assuming that his excited
state was due to lack of food (or oxygen to the brain), they turned
themselves toward a casual eatery. At least with his mouth full,
they figured, he would be forced to talk less. Another of his
friends met them there. Haleh Rahimi, a young first lieutenant in
the infantry patrol forces. She was O’Leary’s direct opposite in
temperament and a welcome and calm presence, in Jemi’s opinion.

۞

A Buddhist temple awaited Josh, Grace, and
reluctantly, Antonio, in the arboretum. Josh was a little in awe of
the structure, made even more impressive by the flanking vegetation
of mangrove and papaya trees. It was cut from asteroid rock;
ancient stone that seemed to give off its own energy. The monks
were working in the monastery’s garden, but they broke off as soon
as their visitors arrived for the evening meal. The gentle sounds
of chimes and the natural setting surrounding them draped a sense
of contentment over them. Only Antonio was having difficulty
relaxing. He was sharing his concerns with Grace, as they ate.