Flight (10 page)

By the time we roll into the fourth station it's black outside and we make camp. My stomach has been nervous for the better part of the last hike and Isten is starting to notice me again.

He looks over as he rummages through his pack for some rations. "You having second thoughts, Junco?"

I watch his face as the words come out and I see the apprehension there. He wants this to happen. He wants me to say no, I'm not having second thoughts. "I'm nervous, Isten. I don't really understand what it means."

"Well, then you must have an idea in your head of what it might mean, and you're worried about that. So why not just tell me what's got you bothered?"

I swallow and sit down on the ground in front of the fire, then lean back and rest my hands behind my head to look up at the stars. He takes a seat next to me. "Will I be like your girlfriend? I don't get it. Is it personal?"

He lies back then rolls over so he's on top of me. His face comes down to mine, his lips right at my mouth. "Look at me, Junco."

I force my eyes up to his and they're glowing gold. They look like a sunset. He dips his mouth down to mine but I'm locked on his eyes.

When he talks it's a soft whisper, so low I can barely hear him. "I will never kiss you like this, Junco. If I am this close to you it's because we have to be, it's not because I want to take advantage of you." He pushes his upper body up a little and draws back. "And if I have to touch your wings, or your back, or see your body in ways you'd never normally let me see – it's because we need each other's body heat, or we need comfort, or we need healing."

I swallow and nod, my eyes still glued to his.

"To twine. The word means a couple of things, but for us it will mean we are twisted together. And it's no mistake that you find the word twin in there as well," he stops to brush the hair from my eyes, "because that's how close we will be." He waits for me to talk, but I stay silent. "And it's very personal. I'll have access to you, Juncs. All of you. All the things you're keeping locked away in there," he taps his finger gently on my head, "I'll be able to get them if I want."

I swallow again, then finally look away.

"And you'll be able to do the same for me."

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as he rolls off of me and sits back up.

"So, one more time and then we're gonna drop it for good because you don't force people to twine, that's about as wrong as it gets. Do you want to do this or not?"

I stand up and then reach out for him, pulling him up with me. "I do want to, Isten. I really do."

I feel the relief rush out of him and smile, and then he hugs me. "Junco, you have no idea how happy this makes me. But in a few minutes you will. And if you're lying to me right now, I'll know, so please don't say yes to spare my feelings. It will hurt so much worse if I find out you don't want to do it and you do it anyway."

I laugh a little. "Jeez, Is, I never pegged you for a guy who needs his ego stroked, but OK, I'll stroke it anyway. Isten Aves 039-8, I choose to be twined to you." I look up at him and shrug. "How's that? Good enough? Or you need me to thumb a DNA release too?"

The actual twine procedure is nothing more than a shot in the arm from the view of an outsider, but to me it is a mountain of synaptic charges firing in my brain for the better part of an hour. We lie there next to the fire, him holding me as we let our brains make the connections, the memories begin to exchange. We get used to the new read-out on our vision screens that tells us what the other is doing.

A thought occurs to me, maybe a little late, but what can you do? "Have you been twined to someone else, Isten?"

"Yeah," he says and I feel his sadness so deeply it makes me want to cry. "He died on assignment."

I lean into him a little more. "I'm so sorry. It feels terrible to lose that."

He nods. "Yeah. It does." He turns then and smiles down at me. "But it feels so good to have you right now, can you feel it?"

I reach in and find his happiness and nod. "Can I look around? It sounds funny, but can I?"

"Yeah. That's part of the tradition, the first night you're supposed to find a new memory in the other. Something deep and dark. And just get it out in the open. So," he stops and I feel the anxiety in him, "go ahead. Take a look, then tell me what you find and then I'll do the same."

I close my eyes and he pulls me in, his mind opens, and I can feel the memories glide past. I see his other twine and he respects him very deeply. I move on because I know what I'm looking for and as soon as that thought manifests, I feel him shiver under me.

I find Tier and begin to pay attention, looking for details, asking for more and more, and even though I suspected it for a while now, I choke back the tears when I see her and all my fears are confirmed.

I pull back and turn around to hide the hurt.

Isten turns with me. "I'm sorry, Junco. I'll explain it, it looks a lot worse than it is."

I lie still. "Who am I? Just tell me, Isten. Am I a clone too?"

I feel him shake his head. "No, Juncs. You're not, we checked you out, you're the one. You really are the Seven. Look inside me, you'll see I'm telling the truth."

I do look, because I don't think any of them tell me the truth if they can help it, and I'm satisfied that he thinks I'm the real Junco. "OK, then tell me why that thing is in your memory and how she's connected to Tier."

He turns me around. "You'll look at me for this one, seriously." He stares at me and I nod. "And you won't interrupt or say bullshit, because there is no bullshit between us anymore, Junco. Right?"

I nod.

"If I'm lying you'll know. Maybe not tonight, since it's so new, but it won't take long. I have zero plans on lying to you tonight or ever, got it?"

The firelight dances across his face as he begins to speak and I wait, almost holding my breath, for the truth that is about to come out.

"Iliana is the Seventh member of another clutch of Seven Siblings. Your clutch is not the only one, and it's far from being the first, Junco. It's just that your clutch is the only one left that's
complete
. Iliana's clutch is all dead, except for her. She was—" he stops and thinks for a few seconds, "taken by the MR at some point and turned into an agent. They controlled her, not the RR, even though the RR was the only government that had the original genetics. All the others are clones, Junco. They can't help us. They aren't useful for anything the Seven Siblings are wanted for."

'They why bother making clones, Isten? I don't get it."

"Soldiers. That's why. They make good soldiers."

"What about Moju? How did he get over to the MR? And why did Esta end up in the Eastern Utopias?"

Isten sighs. "They were all in on it, Junco. Every single country. But they don't all share the same goal. The RR wants the Siblings for the prophecy, the MR and the rest of them just want power. And we want you guys for the genetics that will save us. You asked Lucan why he wanted to kill you back on Earth?"

I look up in his eyes and swallow. "Yes. He said he thought I'd be more trouble than I'm worth."

Isten lets out a little laugh. "You are a lot of trouble, Junco. But you're still worth it." He smiles down at me and then his face becomes serious again. "We need all Seven Siblings from the same clutch to change our genome and like I said, we thought Iliana was part of Moju's clutch. We wanted to try and make that clutch work, after all we already had Esta and we knew where Moju was, even if he refused to cooperate with us. And so when Iliana came along and said she was the Seven we were looking for, well – it was perfect, right?"

"But Iliana was lying."

He nods. "She was lying. And we believed her because no one knew about you. All the other Siblings lived in secret, locked up with the military, so we knew where to look. But they gave you a family. Sent you to school and all that shit. No one else did that."

"Esta said she was in some kind of apprenticeship, though."

"If you call being locked up twenty-four-seven with access to one old-ass scholar a legitimate apprenticeship." He shrugs. "It was all bullshit. She was just another prisoner, like all the rest. So they let her have some books and prowl the sphere looking for answers? Big deal. You, on the other hand, had a family, a school, and an actual documented military career like every other kid in the RR."

"What did she do, Isten? What did Iliana do?"

He looks away this time and doesn't look back when he speaks. "She killed my twine, that's what she did." He turns to look at me. "She killed Tanner. And by that time we'd already made mistakes that couldn't be fixed. She had information and we needed to kill her before she fucked everything up."

"I found her reader in Tier's cave. Back on Earth. I was reading her stuff. So this happened a long time before I first met Tier out in the Stag?"

Isten sighs. "Yeah. Years. Tier traded his genetics to Dale for information which connected her to a network of powerful government officials and then we killed her and the entire network without orders."

"All of you killed them? Not just Tier?"

He doesn't answer.

"So, you were all guilty while Tier was sitting in prison?"

"That was the plan, Junco. It wasn't my idea – we agreed. Tier would take the fall if we got caught."

"Does Lucan know this, Isten?"

He shakes his head. "None of the Archers know. We've kept it tight. I said Tanner died in a freak accident. He wasn't one of us from the beginning, but he fit in and he had the skills, so we got lucky and got a nine for a while."

"So, they only know a lot of important people were killed, but not why?"

"Yeah. When they drugged you for testimony after Fight Two, Juncs, that's what they were looking for. We felt so fucking bad."

"Did all those government people know about me?"

"Not at first, no. Everyone kind of figured it out at the same time, that's when we started watching you. Sniper school."

I look up at him, satisfied. "OK."

He waits, not sure what to do.

"Your turn, Is. Go for it, but I'll warn you ahead of time, most of the shit you'll find will be upsetting."

He takes his time, looking at everything, and I feel the anger grow in him with each new revelation. When he's done fishing he pulls a happy memory and I am so relieved he doesn't make me talk about the scary stuff my throat begins to close up as I hold back the tears.

He chooses the hot springs with Tier. He takes me back to the moment Tier finishes telling the Inanna story and I'm leaning against his chest. Counting his breath as it goes in and out. Whenever I am close enough to someone to feel that rhythm it calms me and I count. Counting breaths is like a drug that can bring me down from almost anything.

"Isten?" I ask sometime later.

He's half asleep under me when he answers. "Yeah."

"Why did you want to know about Tier and me?"

He turns and pulls me into him. "Because I needed to know what he's doing with you, Junco. If he's serious or if he's playing a game."

"Well? Which is it then?"

"Serious, Juncs. As far as I can tell, he's serious."

I move around a little until Isten's heartbeat comes through, and then I count him as I fall asleep.

The next day I feel our connection in everything we do. Eating, packing, hiking, his muscles as they strain to climb a rock and get a better view of our target.

When he shoots I shoot with him. I see through his scope, I feel his heartbeat and I laugh a little when I can almost hear him thinking
in out stop
to himself as he waits for the moment. I guess he was paying attention when he followed me through sniper school.

When it's my turn to shoot I feel him again, only this time I get vague references to what he wants me to do, how he wants to correct me. I don't know if twining makes you a better shot than you were before the connection because Isten and I are already pretty awesome snipers. The change for me is more of a mental bond that gives me someone to lean on.

Which is pretty fucking special since I spent almost my whole life being told I had to work alone.

We pack up to hike back down to the rendezvous point and I'm relieved at the loss of the weight of the ammo. The ride back to Amelia takes the rest of our day and when we finally touch down at the 039 we are dead-ass tired. We drag our gear down the steps and into the apartment where everyone stops what they are doing and waits to see how it went.

Isten and I ignore them completely and we both head to my room and fall asleep, twined together on top of the bed covers.

Chapter Eight

The collective smell of our bodies is what wakes me from sleep the next morning. Yuk. I pull myself from Isten's embrace and start a bath, then go back out to the window and stand there trying to look through traffic to see Kadian's apartment. My com buzzes and I fish it out of my pocket, smiling.