Defenders (35 page)

“Does that mean you’re not going to breakfast?” Forrest asked.

Dominique made a show of struggling to her feet. “No, I’m coming. I just want there to be a tunnel between the barracks and the cafeteria. I don’t want to see any more
snow
.”

“I can fix that. Come on.”

Dominique pulled on her coat, hat, and gloves. Grinning, Forrest took a scarf off her coat hook and blindfolded her with it. Laughing, Dominique let Forrest take her hand and lead her outside.

The wind bit her skin, immediately unpleasant.

“Did you see they’re demolishing Disney World?” Dominique asked as they walked.

“I did.”

“I mean, Disney World. The Taj Mahal was one thing, but
Disney World
? Mickey’s home?”

“The bastards.”

“The problem is, they’re not playful. It made sense at the time—if you’re designing killing machines, you don’t want them to be playful, but now that they run everything, it’s a problem…” She stopped short, pulled off the scarf as a flash of insight struck her. It just dropped into her mind, the way some of the best ideas arrived. “Holy shit. I think I’ve got it.”

“What’s that?”

“It.
It.
” The defenders didn’t have a playful bone in their bodies. That meant they would turn their prodigious noses up at video games, theme parks, anything that hinted of frivolity. Never in a million years would they visit a virtual playscape. And just to make doubly sure, she could use one of the obsolete ones. Earth2 would be perfect. Dominique recalled reading an article about how Earth2 had been saved from deletion by a virtual historical preservation group, because it was the first, the oldest virtual playscape to be widely used. If they could get the word out, humans could meet inside Earth2 and speak freely, without fear of being overheard.

“Let’s get inside and I’ll explain.”

With a dozen people watching over her shoulder, Dominique navigated to Earth2. She chose a default avatar and consulted the map. If any people were there at the moment, a central, urban destination seemed the most likely place to find them. She chose a city called Haven and teleported in.

Her avatar—a slim, pleasant-looking woman of indistinct ethnicity—appeared on a street corner in what looked like a typical early-twenty-first-century city. It was deserted.

Dominique directed her avatar to walk.

“You can fly, you know,” President Wood said—Anthony Wood, not Carmine. From the moment they’d arrived at CFS Alert, President Wood had been back in charge, though nothing was ever said. Carmine seemed fine with the change, almost relieved; Dominique wondered if it had been his idea.

Dominique craned her neck to look at the president. “How on Earth would you know that?”

President Wood shrugged. “Do the math. I was twenty-five when Earth2 was all the rage.” He gestured at the old-fashioned keyboard, which must have been at least fifteen years old. “Press and hold the function key, then hit
PAGE UP
.”

She did. Her avatar spread her arms and rose into the air, soaring higher the more Dominique pressed
PAGE UP
. When she got above the buildings she went exploring for signs of life.

There was no one on the streets, no one at the beach resorts, no one in Medieval Village or on Vampire Island.

“
Someone
must visit occasionally. I can check every few hours,” Dominique said.

“Over there,” Carmine’s wife, Nora, said, pointing as the avatar passed over an amusement park.

A lone car whipped around an impossibly steep curve on a roller coaster. Dominique dropped her avatar lower, until they could see a single head inside the car. She found the exit to the coaster, and landed there to wait.

The avatar was tall and slim, a black woman with her head shaved except for a ponytail. She paused at the coaster’s turnstile exit, taking in Dominique’s avatar.

Hi, Dominique typed. Earth2 had an audio function, but Dominique thought it prudent not to use it to start, given their desire to remain anonymous.

“Just what we need, a smartass,” President Wood said. “It must be a kid. Who else would be trolling around in there?” Ha.

Ha. Not quite that important. How old are you? Dominique typed.

“Told you,” Wood said.

Her name was Eclipse, at least inside the game. Dominique was happy to keep it at pseudonyms. She told Eclipse her name was Island Rain, but Eclipse could call her Rain.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Nora said.

Chuckling, Dominique typed, You got it. She followed Eclipse to the coaster’s entrance.

When the key rattled in the gargantuan front door, Kai tensed.

“Mommy!” Errol howled and scrabbled off the couch to greet Lila.

Kai smiled a greeting as Lila came into the living room carrying Errol. Erik followed behind her.

“Was Errol good?” Lila asked, sitting on the couch.

“I was good,” Errol answered, before Kai could.

“He was fine.”

Lila excused herself and headed to the bathroom. Kai turned back toward the TV with Errol in his lap as Erik eased into his giant stuffed chair.

“What is this?” Erik asked, frowning.

“
Forever After
. An old situation comedy.”

Erik picked up the remote and changed the channel to one of the new shows. It was a cop show, with a defender playing the lead. The defender was so bad he was painful to watch, standing out among his professional human costars like a Little Leaguer trying to play shortstop for the Atlanta Braves.

There was no romance in the new shows, and little humor save for the hammy plays-on-words the defenders could understand.

Kai watched obediently until the defender-cop got into a shootout with a dozen bad humans, then he took Errol to bed.

Lila joined him a few minutes later. “Sorry. Erik wanted me to stay until the commercial. I have to get back in a minute.” Glancing toward the closed door, Lila kissed him quickly. “Meet me in the laundry closet later?”

“It’s a date,” Kai said.

As Lila pulled off his shirt, Kai grimaced, repulsed by his own wounds. “I’m just disgusting,” he whispered. The skin was thick and puckered in the spots where he’d been shot, the damage radiating out in starburst patterns.

“Are you kidding me? War wounds are sexy.” She kissed his ravaged shoulder, his caved-in side. “If you had scars from a hernia surgery,
that
would be disgusting.”

He pulled Lila’s shirt over her head, dropped it on the dryer. Her skin was soft and perfect. He caressed her breast with his good hand, took her nipple between his lips. She closed her eyes, arched back onto the washing machine, her breath quick but silent. They were running both the washer and dryer to create noise so they wouldn’t be overheard. Kai slid Lila’s skirt and panties to the narrow strip of floor between the appliances. Lila kicked them off, eased back onto the washer with Kai’s help.

They knew this closet well, could maneuver without making a sound into the three positions that were possible in the cramped space. You could be incredibly careful, incredibly quiet, when you knew you’d be killed if you were discovered.

Kai slid his half hand behind Lila, gripped her ass as well as he could, expecting her to recoil from the feel of what looked like a pincer—nothing but a thumb and index finger on the end of his wrist. She only pressed closer, worked him inside her, wriggled her hips to get just the right angle.

His thrusts were careful and deliberate, both because he didn’t want the washing machine to rock, and because his body was far more fragile than it had been before he’d been shot. Sex hurt now. He could feel things grinding in his injured hip and rib cage, but tried to ignore the discomfort as Lila dug her fingernails into his neck and pulled his face close to hers, her body tensing and relaxing in waves as she whispered incredibly filthy things in his ear. Since the defenders had outlawed sex, it had become a truly forbidden pleasure, something only crazy-reckless people did. It had done wonders for their sex life.

Afterward, they took separate routes back to the living room and told Erik they were going to walk to the Timesaver to get some sodas. Erik glanced their way and nodded before returning to his TV show, giving them permission like he was their father.

It was cold outside, but Kai didn’t mind. When he was outside, away from Erik, away from the TVs that doubled as monitoring devices, he felt infinitely more relaxed, more alive. He inhaled deeply as they walked, looked up at the sky.

It seemed as if the stars should be different, now that the rest of the world was unrecognizable, but they were bright and white on a black background, just as they’d always been.

“I had a game with the usual gang before the tournament,” Kai said as they cut through the fenced backyard of Erik’s house, out through the gate and into an alley.

“How’d you do?”

“Up eleven thousand.”

Lila popped a Tick, offered one to Kai. He shook his head.

“Marcus said this resistance movement is serious. They had to expand Earth2 to hold all the people visiting. It’s packed in there. He said there are rumors the inner circle is planning something big.”

“Something big.” Lila sighed.

“I’m sure it’s not any sort of direct confrontation. Unless they’ve lost their minds, they’ll stick to their plan, borrowing from the Luyten playbook. Conquer the world from the edges, in. Disrupt the enemy; harass them.”

Lila nodded. Not in approval, Kai knew—just acknowledgment. “I’m pretty sure that’s a human playbook. The Luyten borrowed it from us.”

They emerged from the alley, their chins tucked against the cold wind. Lila swept her hair back. “They’re so stupid. They’re just confirming the defenders’ paranoid worldview. It’ll only make things worse.”

“I’m not sure things could be worse.”

Lila glanced at him, must have seen something in his eyes. “Kai, please don’t get involved in this. When the defenders stomp this out, they’re going to use a very big boot.”

“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. For now I’m just watching.” Sometimes Kai had no choice but to push back when Lila made a pronouncement like that.

“The defenders don’t want to admit it, but they still look up to us,” Lila said. “If we play it right, we could get them to back off willingly.”

“They look up to
you
. They hate the rest of us.” They’d had the same argument before, and it was pointless, because they had no control over the rebels’ actions. But Kai couldn’t let it drop. “You can’t let go of that last shred of hope that these monsters will turn into the defenders of your childhood, the heroes who rode in to save the day.” Kai tried to check the sarcasm in his tone. “You know better than anyone: They’re engineered to understand nothing but force.”

“They’re engineered to
use
nothing but force, and to respond to it effectively. They don’t know what to make of kindness. It knocks them off balance. If you hug them, they regress into a childhood they never got to have.”

“Maybe we should launch a hug attack.” Kai threw his hands in the air. “A guerrilla love offensive. Leave bouquets of flowers on their doorsteps.”

Lila didn’t smile. “Keep your voice down.”

“I’m so sick of keeping my voice down. I’m sick of having sex in closets. I’m sick of
Erik
.” They turned onto Monticello Street, which was mostly deserted on the cold night. A few defender vehicles, like tanks with wheels, cruised by. “It’s like Erik is your husband now, and I’m the nanny.”

“I don’t like it any better than you do.”

“You like Erik better than I do.”

Lila stopped walking. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You stick up for him. When I say something mean about him, you don’t agree with me, you make excuses for him.” Wisps of white condensation escaped Kai’s mouth with each angry breath. “‘He’s not as bad as the others are.’ ‘He can’t help it, it’s the way he was designed.’”

“It
is
the way he was designed, and he
isn’t
as bad as most of the others.”

Kai looked at Lila and realized that at this moment, he didn’t like her. It was the first time he’d ever felt that way, and it scared him. “I’m not sure I can go on living this way.”

Lila let her head loll back until she was staring at the black sky. “If there was any way for us to get out of that house, I would pack up in a heartbeat.”

“He won’t let
you
leave, but he’d be happy to see me and Errol gone. We’d probably be able to see you as much that way as we do now.” It wasn’t the first time Kai had thought about moving out, but it was the first time he’d said it out loud, because he wasn’t sure how Lila would react. Now he knew. She looked devastated.

“You would want that?” she asked.

He licked his chapped lips. “I just wonder if it would be better for all of us.”

“You think it would be better for me if I lived alone with a defender? You think I’d be happier with you and Errol gone?”

Kai put his head down. “No. It’s just that, the way things are, Erik is tearing our family apart. I’m trying to think of a way to fix that.”

Lila reached out and took his hand. “The way we fix it is, we don’t let him. From now on, when you say something negative about Erik, I won’t make excuses for him. I’ll pile on. I promise.”

They continued walking. The red and yellow lights of the Timesaver reflected in puddles on the sidewalk ahead.

“Fucking Erik,” Lila said. “Clueless arrogant asshole.”