“Oh, you are here.”
I stumbled back, pointing the gun in front of me, as the figure stepped through the gate and into the room. I squeezed the gun’s grip like Dragan had shown me, and a thumbnail-sized display appeared floating next to the chamber. The magazine was full, with twenty rounds total.
“Don’t move,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. The gun was shaking, and I tried to steady it with my other hand. “You move and I’ll…”
My voice piddled out as I saw the pink lights were actually large, glowing eyes. At the same time, a signal came through the mite cluster like an arrow driven straight through my forehead. It surprised me, and I sucked in a breath, but it didn’t hurt or anything. It was just the opposite. The signal sought out some feel-good part of my brain, and I felt happy all of a sudden, like an old friend I’d thought was gone had stepped through the door. Relief and the joy of his being back, the comfort of being in his arms kind of washed over me even though I knew it was all just in my head.
“You’re a haan,” I said.
“Yes.”
His voice was a calm tenor, quiet but confident. The flashing light, I realized, was the flicker from his voice box.
My eyelids drooped, and a loopy smile grew on my face as the gun lowered a few inches. The tingling in my head was branching out, nudging other pleasure centers until I felt a little numb.
“I am not a threat to you,” he said, taking a step closer as the gate collapsed behind him. “You don’t need your weapon.” He had his hands held up by his head so that I could see them, black material draping from his arms.
What with my hunger, my fear, my hangover, and his diddling through the mites, I had trouble keeping the gun from drifting. I’d never fired one before, and it must have been obvious, but I wasn’t ready to put it down just yet. I kept it pointed in his general direction while he waited to see what I would do.
I flipped on the light. My first impression of him was his eyes, which were an unusual sunset pink. My second impression was that he was short for a haan, not being very much taller than me. My third impression was, as strange as it was, that I knew him.
His face was haan-handsome, in that way that made you think of a doll or mannequin. They looked like masks, formed into something almost humanlike, except for the fact that they didn’t conceal anything and were breakable as ceramic. His brains rippled calmly around the edges behind his large eyes, and I could see the dark shadow of his feeding orifice behind his molded lips. His clothes showed off long, lean muscle underneath without being too flashy and he held himself with the confidence and balance of a gymnast or martial artist. The suit he wore was sharp, crisp, and a flawless fit.
My fourth impression was that I’d never dressed after my shower the night before, and was still stark naked.
“Do you always just gate into people’s private rooms?” I asked.
“No.”
His presence in my head trickled through to another part of my brain, maybe on purpose and maybe not, and my face flushed. As I looked into the intense pink of his eyes, the twin ribbed crescents inside his skull shifted. Two smaller masses on either side pulled back, the network of veins around them engorging slightly above his brow. In spite of myself, I was getting turned on.
“All right,” I said, trying to ignore the sudden pang below my waist. “That’s enough. Out of my head.”
He retreated immediately.
“Those are for surrogate bonding,” I said. My lips felt warm when I licked them. “They’re not for you.”
“I understand.”
“Who are you? Are you armed?”
“My name is Nix.”
“Are you armed?”
“No.” He stayed motionless, with his hands still up. I kept the gun on him as I approached.
“Open your jacket,” I said. He did, spreading the material apart so I could see.
“What’s that in the pocket?”
“My tablet.”
“Let’s see it.”
He reached into his coat and removed a slim metallic device whose screen appeared as a mirrored, metal surface. It was an Escher Field tablet. The screen was a small gate field that led to a larger storage area.
“How do I know you don’t have a gun or something in there?” I asked. He swiped the screen casually with one finger, and the metallic screen crackled, then disappeared. He handed the tablet to me.
I took it, and looked inside. Through the field I could see a gap of impossible space above a series of hexagonal compartments. Each one was several inches deep and big enough to reach into. All of them were empty.
When I put my hand in front of the screen, the field expanded and jumped forward a little. I smiled as I swiped across it with one finger, and the compartments on the other side scrolled past. Some were full, but I didn’t get a good look before I stopped the sweep and tried to backtrack.
“Pretty slick,” I said, admiring the gadget. Come Phase Five, I was getting one for sure.
“Thank you,” he said. “Though I think you would not like it if I held you at gunpoint and searched through your things.”
“I think you would not like it if I gated into your room without asking.” I collapsed the field and held the device up between my thumb and fingers. “No one asked you to come here.”
“That is false.” I tossed him the tablet, and he caught it. He stowed the device back in his coat, then lowered his hands by his sides.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You came to Shangzho last night,” he said.
“So?”
“You made a strange claim. Then you indicated you needed help.”
Right. With everything else, I’d forgotten about that.
“And they sent you?”
“Yes.”
I struggled to remember what I’d said and what, if anything, I knew about haan interactions with human security. “Does security know you’re here?”
“My capacity here is not official.”
“So they don’t know?”
“They do not.”
I thought about it, still not sure this was a good idea. I didn’t like the way he’d tracked me down like that. He’d known right where I was, and if he could find me, so could someone else.
“I think I might be okay,” I said carefully. “Just… forget I said anything.”
“Forget?”
“Security took him…You don’t have any pull with that. I don’t need your help.”
His voice box clicked, then began to flicker as a different voice, my voice, came out of it.
“Look, I need help, okay?” I heard myself say. “Soldiers took my guardian. They tried to kill me. I can’t— “ It clicked again, like static, and my voice continued. “I know you could help me. I know you could. If you wanted to you could— “
“Look, I wasn’t thinking straight last night. I don’t think you can really do anything about this,” I said, talking over my own voice. He clicked again.
“One of them was a haan,” I heard myself whisper. “She was pretending to be a human—”
I started to say something back, but stopped. His pupils rotated as he watched me.
“She sent you?” I asked him. “The female from Shangzho last night?”
“Yes.”
“Why you? Who are you?”
“I was obtained from the axial hive in Shangzho to look into this incident.”
“What, at random?”
“Not exactly. Do you—”
“Who was she? The one who took my surrogate?”
“Her name is Ava,” he said. “She is transitioning to become the new haan female.”
“Yeah, well, she’s got the rack for it.”
“What made you think one of your attackers was haan?” he said, ignoring me. “What did she look like?”