Lyra interrupted. “What the fuck is an office building?” Her speech was badly slurred.
“Right, okay, never mind about real estate.” The priest pressed his hands flat down on the table. “The deal is this. A product is legally approved for a specific set of uses, which is known as being zoned. If a product goes off-zone, or in other words, if it is engaged in a purpose it was not designed and tested for, it could be harmful to itself or, worse yet, harmful to others.”
D_Light and Lyra affirmed that they were following him with nods and sounds of understanding.
“Lily was designed for purposes…” The priest paused.
“For purposes related to the hunting reserves. Because she is no longer fulfilling this purpose, she has been demonized. If you want to atone for it, you will need to rezone campers-her product classification-for another purpose.”
“Like as a concubine?” Lyra gave D_Light a rueful smirk.
“I think Dee would like to rezone her as a concubine.”
The priest paused as though to consider this. “Given the phenotype of campers, I doubt that would be a good choice, but yes, you could attempt to expand her zoning to include that purpose.”
A sly smile crept over D_Light’s face. “She’s not ‘off purpose.’ She was designed for evasion, which is exactly what she’s doing.”
The priest let out a raspy chuckle. “Nice try. I’ve skimmed her zoning documents. She is designated to be hunted, hunted in specifically designated areas-the hunting reserve. You are correct that she was designed to resist capture. However, her legal problem stems not from her behavior-rather, it is a matter of geography.”
“Fine,” exclaimed D_Light. “So, say I, or we, buy her from the reserve and rezone her for something like a general servant.”
“Assuming the house that runs the reserve spanker game is willing to sell her to you, rezoning is a long and expensive process. A great deal of testing needs to happen. A high-functioning product like a camper is very complex. It is hard to predict how they might fare with a new purpose.”
The priest sent them a few choice case studies of rezoning Homo sapiens — based products. The point figures were staggering. Reading the expression on D_Light’s face, the priest threw up his hands and declared, “Look, I don’t make the laws, I just provide the best counsel I can. Or at least that used to be the game I played.”
Lyra, who had grown bored with the legal speak and feared that she would waste her nectar wine-induced buzz if she did not change the subject, asked about the garden.
The priest replied, “Blah, blah, blah…approximately five milliliters of the password potion every forty-eight hours or you’ll start smelling like food…blah, blah, blah…wasps are frightful, some of them cause temporary paralysis…blah, blah…orchard has a variety of fruits, all are safe…”
D_Light was only half listening as he inspected the case studies for rezoning. He asked Smorgeous to analyze the data to find an “optimum route for success,” but the computer only gave him expensive and time-consuming options.
The priest excused himself. “I regret to inform you that I have a call of nature of my own,” he said with a half smile directed at D_Light. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he left the clearing, D_Light and Lyra turned to face each other. There was silence between them for a long few seconds. D_Light felt himself being drawn into her. He hoped that she would initiate another raw blink.
Master, based on trace compounds I took the initiative to detect, Mother Lyra is 89.4 % likely to be ovulating. In addition, her blood alcohol level is elevated; however, I was unable to determine a reliable measure of this level. Biochemically, she should be amenable to courtship advances. Smorgeous brought up a visual of the Tappin_It_Baby™ Cloud site. Featured on the site were a variety of up-to-the-minute novel pickup lines.
D_Light could not believe Smorgeous had misread the situation like this. Pickup lines? I’m way past that. On the other hand, the line “I don’t gotta grok what’s gotta be good stock” was sort of funny.
I always have your back, master. This last comment had been programmed into Smorgeous years ago when D_Light had fewer friends. He spent hours trying to teach his computer to be more of a companion. Back then, one of the roles D_Light wanted Smorgeous to play was that of “wing man.”
Never say that again, D_Light said to his familiar. Smorgeous pinged confirmation.
D_Light spoke first. “I’m going to kiss you tonight.”
“Oh my!” Lyra’s lips opened in an exaggerated O as though shocked. “Are you sure? Do you wish to assert sexual dominance over your team leader?”
Surprised by her unusual follow-up question, he stumbled a bit over his response but did so with a confident smile. “Er, I do,” he replied.
D_Light took her hands and stood up, directing her to follow.
Lyra giggled. “What about what’s his name, the priest? He’s coming back you know.”
D_Light shrugged and started walking toward a nearby path between the hedges. Lyra resisted halfheartedly, but D_Light pulled her along. Outside of the clearing, the garden was dark. Lyra fired up her glow stick, causing the miscellaneously shaped plants and trees to cast long, perplexing shadows. D_Light was not sure where he was going, but he wanted to get out of earshot of the dining area. The last thing he wanted was the priest joining them. For D_Light, this was a momentous moment. I’m about to perv my mother! he thought. To establish an intimate bond with a noblewoman was a most excellent tactical move, to say the least.
He looked back at her. Lyra was returning his gaze steadily. Her large green eyes were blurred with alcohol, but her vivacity was undiminished. An impression of Lily with a smile and a cocked head flickered across his mind. How he would like to be holding her hand now.
D_Light realized his mood was fading. Smorgeous, seizing on the importance of this encounter, gave his master a boost/aphrodisiac cocktail. D_Light felt the slow tingle of lost inhibition and heightened attraction spill into him, at which point he turned back and embraced her. They were not in a private grotto like D_Light had planned. They were not even hidden under any vegetation. Rather, they stood groping and moaning right there on the path.
Lyra broke away, but she kept her face only centimeters away from his and whispered, “If PeePee were alive, she would tell me this is not proper decorum.”
“Thank Soul she’s dead! Listen to a machine and you’ll end up no better than one.”
“I have a reputation-”
Lyra found herself unable to finish her sentence as D_Light’s lips hungrily latched onto hers, their curious tongues meeting with the gentlest of caresses. The kiss was moist and delicious and possessed an addictive quality that rendered them slaves to the hormonal rush that followed. Slow, passionate kisses quickly gave way to frenzied, lustful ones, and the two fell to the ground as they groped, grabbed, bit, and pulled each other closer. After much of this intensely disorganized fumbling, they made love, or to better describe the act, had sex. The kind of sex that is found in the wildest of places, places like this, where copulation of all forms reigns supreme and the very fabric of the world is dependent on it. And at the height of it all, after D_Light had finally gone over the edge, there was a long seven seconds when everything in his world made sense as he stared into his beautiful mother’s bottomless eyes.
And then he thought of Lily.
CHAPTER 29
The angel Jacob was standing deep inside the synthetic shell of his mother ship. Although a few of his kind resided on ships that floated in space, Jacob’s ship carved through ocean waves just outside the sight of land. Waterborne ships were far more resource-efficient than the space-going variety, and so when conducting missions on earth, they were often an optimal choice.