LEGACY RISING (18 page)

The third doorway in the hall led to the washroom. Or what appeared to be a washroom, though Legacy had never seen a washroom such as this. The gleaming tile floor. The expansive mirrors. Bouquets of flora, just like the stuff throughout the castle. The clawed feet of a gigantic porcelain sink, lined in robotic implements, pistols of soap and sponge arms. But the sink had somehow come removed from its countertop and was standing alone.

“A detachable sink?” Legacy queried. “That seems awfully unsanitary.”

Kaizen grinned. “It’s . . . not a sink, Legacy. It’s a bath.” He reached for its spigot and wrenched a valve, loosing what, to Legacy, seemed a torrent by comparison with her own spigot, back at Unit #4. The shimmering liquid, cleaner than any she’d ever seen, too, was billowing with steam. “Trust me. You’re about to be the most relaxed you’ve ever been in your entire life.”

Kaizen plucked a rose from one of the decorative vases, casually pulling the petals away and sprinkling them into the water. It filled the room with a dizzying yet subtle aroma, and made the water exceptionally beautiful.

“Have you never seen a rose before, either?” Kaizen asked, knowing full well that she had not. “Well, all you really need to know is that they’re very red.” He plucked the final petal from its head and stroked the velvet blossom across Legacy’s cheek. Her eyelashes drooped. “And they’re very soft. Here.” He took her hand. “Let me help you. Step up.”

Legacy lifted a leg and climbed into the bubbling tub. Chills ran up her legs. She hadn’t known that her feet had been clammy until they were submerged in this water.

“Isn’t it extraordinary,” he whispered into her ear. “Here. Lift your arms now. Just relax. Let’s get rid of this.”

Suddenly so drowsy--it had been a long, eventful night, and she hadn’t slept yet, and the heat reminded her of this, uncoiling her bunched muscles into loose ropes--Legacy lifted her arms and closed her eyes.

A delicate rip traveled up her back, and her eyes bulged open.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Kaizen leaned over her shoulder, and she saw a small knife in his hand.

“Relax,” he reminded her. “Just relax.”

Legacy took a deep breath and closed her eyes, feeling less certain now.

Kaizen swept the knife along the right sleeve of the tunic, then along the left, and the thing fell away from her body, crumbling into his hand and then tossed to the side.

Legacy’s cheeks flooded with blush. She was standing in the column of steam, hair loose on her shoulders, utterly nude.

“Re-- ahem-- relax,” Kaizen reiterated, clearing his throat when his voice cracked. “Just . . .” He abandoned her side to twist the faucet shut again. “Sink into the water, and let all your worries float from your body. This tub will do all the work for you.”

She had to admit, she was curious. What would it feel like, to be enveloped in the gentle heat?

Legacy lowered herself into the water, and an involuntary moan slipped from her mouth.

“I t-told you,” Kaizen replied. She heard the washroom door open. “Just close your eyes. Let it carry you off.” Then, the washroom door closed, and she was alone.

Legacy reclined along the edge of the tub and obeyed.

A sponge skated automatically along her shoulder blades, trailing lather down her back and chest. Her experience of washing herself, to date, had been cracked slivers of soap bars only giving a cursory scrub to her skin. But here, liquid soap drizzled and was tenderly massaged into her scalp, then flushed out with cups of hot water. She felt as if years of stress, much less dirt, coursed from her. She could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips and toes now. The sponge plunged into the water, separated her legs, and scrubbed each foot, each calf, behind each knee, and then along the inner thighs.

When the sponge moved to her most private part, it brushed gently back and forth, and Legacy couldn’t help but allow her lips to gape and her head to fall back onto the porcelain rim of the tub. She still felt sensitive and unsatisfied from the foreplay Dax had started. Her hips tilted subconsciously back and forth against the pleasant pressure, and the mechanism responded, massaging with more vigor until Legacy bucked and uttered a small, sharp cry, climaxing--if that’s what it was. She’d never experience this before, but it was as if a fantastic weight had settled on her, and then been alleviated.

She sighed deeply, and the sponge hesitated before retracting into the air.

The cleansing complete, she simply floated there for several minutes, eyes closed, smiling. Sleepy. So sleepy. Wow. The wealthy really did have everything.

A door opened, pulling her from the ink of near-dreams.

“Are you ready to get out?” Kaizen’s voice came from across the washroom. “I’ve got your towel.”

“Yeah,” Legacy replied with eyes still closed. She sighed one last time. She wished she never had to leave here. She’d forgotten Dax in this moment, just as much as she’d forgotten Kaizen in the reconnaissance of Old Earth. For all the adventure and strife Dax offered, Kaizen had an all-consuming luxury at his beck and call. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Legacy stood, her heavy eyelids opening. She was light-headed with exhaustion now, and Kaizen wrapped her in a large, white towel. Even the towels here were decadent.

As he helped her from the steaming basin of rose water, Legacy noted that his right sleeve was soaking wet to the elbow, and realized, with a hitch in her breath, that it hadn’t been the mechanical sponge utensil. It had been him. He had been the one to finish what Dax had started.

“I brought you something,” he said when they returned to his chambers. Before, she’d been too angry to observe her surroundings, but now, with the euphoria of the steaming bathtub deep in her muscles, she took in everything. The plush carpet. The sprawling bed. The polished desk. The wide open bay window facing out onto the castle grounds, opposite the fireplace. “It’s silk,” he went on, opening his armoire. “I noticed you’re always wearing, forgive me, but—I noticed you’re always wearing such coarse fabrics.”

Legacy was on the verge of rebuttal when he turned, holding a strapless, loose, burgundy-colored shift dress, light, casual, yet sensual and elegant. She lost her breath and nodded. She didn’t even want to tell him that he shouldn’t have. Instead she said, “Thank you.”

He came to her, gently unwound the towel, and pulled the dress over her head. Again, it was something she’d never felt before. This material was so fine and gossamer, it brought to her realization how crude the material of her best dress was.

“Thank you,” she said again.

His finger traced her cheekbone. “You’re welcome.” He stared down at her for a moment, at a loss for words, and his eyes darkened. Then he swallowed. “Come with me to see the conservatory!” he invited, brightening.

Legacy gave a slight shake of her head. “Don’t you have earl things to be doing?” she had to ask. “Your coronation is tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“It’ll be fine,” he evaded.

“But I’m a prisoner, I’m blacklisted, I’m a known insurgent,” she pressed. “You can’t just take me on a tour of the archipelagos! Kaizen.” She met his eyes. “I shouldn’t be here, and you know it. You can’t just hide me.”

He held her gaze, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Just come to the conservatory with me. I have to show you our birds. I just have to. If anyone sees you, I’ll lie, okay? I won’t tell them about Old Earth. I won’t. I’ll tell them that I’ve kidnapped you. I’ll tell them that I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’ve totally lost my mind, all because you never returned my message.”

Legacy’s eyebrows twisted with sympathy. “Kaizen,” she said softly, apologetically. “I just—You know—”

“I know,” he interrupted coldly, attempting to cut her off, unwilling to hear the words from her mouth again. “I know you can’t.” His countenance shifted, and she saw the way he shook it off with real effort. The purposeful breath he took, the squaring of his shoulders. She recognized the gesture as one of her own. “It’s all right,” he concluded firmly. “I just want you to see the birds.”

Legacy nodded. “Okay,” she allowed. “Take me to see the birds. And then I have to go home.”

              The conservatory wasn’t only florid; it was overgrown. It was misty with the humidity of exhaling plant life, deep, textured green punctuated by the starbursts of blooms in all colors, from teal to lavender. The walls were fogged glass, its seams a tarnished bronze in the process of a vigorous polishing from tiny, spider-like bots. On this island, as on the other three, automata of all shapes and sizes were hard at work. Bots who resembled children trundled to and fro in the conservatory, merrily watering every plant.

              Kaizen led the wide-eyed, overwhelmed Legacy toward a narrow, spiraling staircase of metal, which had yet to be polished and was still quite tarnished, saying, “The birds are never down here. You’ll see them up at the top.” He beamed, so different from the man who had told her once, only days ago, that she had better sleep, because she never knew when she’d be fed again. Now he held out carnations for her to smell.

              They reached the second level of the conservatory: a catwalk from which one could view the tops of all these trees.

              “Where did you get these?” Legacy wondered breathlessly.

              “These what?” Kaizen asked, looking around as if she was seeing something he hadn’t seen before, hidden among the trees.

              “Real trees,” Legacy explained.

              “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered flippantly. “They’ve been here as long as I’ve been alive. They must be awfully expensive, though, don’t you think? I’ve never seen another, except in Celestine. There! There they are!” He pointed excitedly and Legacy struggled to follow the trajectory of his finger.

              Huddled on a branch together, side by side, were two small, round, feathery animals. The pair were pale, yellowed green, with pink-splashed faces. Legacy only recognized them as birds because they were similar in appearance to colorful mechanical birds. Except, of course, these were alive. They nuzzled one another with soul, with intent. With choice.

              “Lovebirds,” Kaizen told her. His voice was close to her ear. “They mate for life, you know. That’s what I was told, anyway.” Legacy felt his chest brushing against her back, and saw his hands folding over the railing of the catwalk. She suddenly knew what was coming next. “That’s why we call them that.”

              Legacy whirled and planted her hands on Kaizen’s chest, pushing him gently but firmly to arm’s length. “You said you knew,” she reminded him hotly. “You said you knew that I couldn’t!”

              “I know!” Kaizen exploded. The lovebirds shrieked and fled. “God damn it, Legacy, I know you can’t. I just—” He closed his eyes and seethed, as if rooting for something in his system, rooting for something to tear loose. “You make me feel like . . . Have you ever seen an automaton that’s been overwound?” he asked.

              Legacy shook her head.

              “They fly to pieces,” Kaizen went on thickly. “Their gears spill out, their springs all pop, and they can’t think anymore until somebody fixes them.” He opened his eyes and looked at her squarely. “That’s how you make me feel. And I can’t—function since I met you.”

              “I’m sorry,” Legacy offered. It felt hollow, even to her own ears. What good did apologies do?

              “The automata are a lot like the royal family,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. “They’re all on a grid together, and when one goes out, the others feel it. They’re all connected to the castle, all the time, no matter where they go—just like me. And when a key is turned too hard—everybody breaks. It throws the whole grid out of whack. That’s me right now. You’re right. You shouldn’t be here. My father would kill me if he knew. But I’m . . . going crazy, and making terrible decisions. And the only way to take a problematic bot out of the equation? Stop ruining the system? Is to remove its key.” He grimaced. “That’s what my father wants to do to me. Rip my heart out. He’s using you as a bargaining tool, you know. When he suspended your sentence? Let you go? It was because I agreed to this stupid song and dance. This coronation,” he sneered. “Pledging my allegiance to the crown. The rest of my life to this damn island.”

              Legacy gaped.

              “I’m sorry,” she said again. This felt less hollow.

              Kaizen looked to her with an acute misery. “I know,” he said again. “I know you are. Come on. Let’s go. You can wait in my room, where no one will see you, and I’ll gather a sentry to take you home.”

              As the couple walked back through the castle and up the rotunda, Legacy watched the automata, all moving in strange sync. One approached another who was moving slowly, and spun its key tight again. Another automaton removed a tapestry and tossed it from the second floor to the first; another turned and caught it, as if they could really “see” each other somehow.
They’re all connected to the castle, all the time, no matter where they go . . .

Kaizen opened his chamber door and ushered her inside. Legacy staggered sleepily as she stepped past him. She still hadn’t rested at all from her trying escapade on Old Earth.