Thrice Uncharmed (Wynne d’Arzon) (7 page)

With what she'd figured out about the adults, Wynne found herself wondering if the reason Servumen were servants wasn't necessarily because there was anything wrong with them.

Maybe it was because they were
normal
.

And if that were true, just what had been done to Wynne's brain?

Wynne took deep breaths, struggling not to panic and lose her periodic table defenses — elemental abbreviations, those were easy — with the appalled realization that she was likely every bit as freakish as Hector. Her brain had been changed into something not entirely human, but her abilities just hadn't manifested yet, for some reason.

Why hadn't they manifested yet?

Hector's eyes widened momentarily — pointedly — and he gave a little shake of his head.

Wynne knew she was disappointing him — that much of why he helped her was surely that she could keep up with him, to some degree — but she couldn't follow, not this time.

She didn't
want
to understand.

Tugging the tie around his neck with one hand, with the other he swiped the brown beverage from his father's hand and downed it in a gulp before his father could stop him, then handed the cup back. "Mmm. Thanks for the Kahlua. I think my tie's too tight. Do you know how to fix those, Wynne?"

She stared at him, shock-still for too long.

He smirked — an easy, friendly expression, with no sense of the
Pull yourself together
that was behind his eyes — and nudged her shoulder. "Arzon to Wynne. It's my debut. Did you not expect my father to be here?"

"I didn't think about it," she answered shakily, recognizing the opening as the save it was.

"You get your snack?"

"Yeah, thanks." She remembered how the best lies, in things she'd read, had truth in them. "Odd flavor, though. Have you had cinnamon before?"

"Your mother's favorite."

Wynne blinked. "It is?"

"The system must've… glitched," he suggested, the pause saying that the mistake was no glitch.

She decided against asking for an explanation. It was probably something frightening like Wynne already being deleted from the Layuman registry, anyway. "Um, right." She shook herself and focused on him. "Um, tie?"

"Yep," he said, cheerily. Which was creepy. He was never cheery. Quietly amused, sometimes. Cheery? Never. "Need some help with the tie. Excuse us. We'll be right back."

"No need to rush." The sly smile the governor gave his son said what he
thought
they'd be doing, and he caught her by the arm.

She tensed and tried not to shiver.

"Really," Governor Hector Primuman the Third insisted. "
Don't
hurry back."

Hector Primuman the Fourth gave his father an inscrutable glance. "Our attendance has been logged then?"

The governor's smug smile was appreciative of a message sent and received. "Of course."

Hector gave his father another look she couldn't read, this one longer. "We'll be back," he said flatly. "Soon."

From the startlement that crossed his father's face, Wynne assumed he wasn't usually so obvious about his distaste.

Before she could figure out how to respond, Hector pulled her away from his father, who let them go. Wynne didn't dare say anything as they quickly headed out of the annex, toward Hector only knew where.

She cautiously lowered her defenses—

"Os: Osmium," Hector continued immediately, giving a little shake of his head. "Ir: Iridium. Pt: Platinum—"

Au: Gold
, she thought, and resumed the mental recitation.

They reached the wall of a building, a habitat Wynne recognized because she'd grown up a Layuman and knew all the colony blueprints. Hector glanced at their surroundings as if measuring something off, then stepped up to the building, a bit of wall with a bright yellow smudge on it.

Wynne frowned and rubbed it with her thumb. The stain didn't come off.

"Turmeric," Hector explained, smiling slightly. He glanced around again, adjusting his glasses, and jabbed two centimeters left of the smudge with an elbow.

She jumped. He winced and resumed walking along the wall, rubbing his elbow.

She stared after him for a moment, then ran to catch up. "What was—?"

They stepped around an external support for the building, and she spotted a door where one
wasn't
in the blueprints.

Hector went right up to it, casually gave a quick rap with the back of his hand, then opened it. He glanced back and jerked his chin to say
Go on
, and she slipped past him.

He followed, and the door shut, sealed, and melded into the wall behind him. Wynne stared.

"Bi-metal. That's one name for it, anyway. It has two shapes, and it hops between one and the other when the proper impulse goes through it." He smiled, evidently pleased. "I'm not supposed to be able to modify its settings."

"How…?"

Hector shrugged. "Only telekins make it, so I assume there's some special aspect to it that can't be accounted for by conventional physics."

Wynne blinked blankly, then glanced around, realizing they were in the 'private' section of this particular habitat… and it felt like someone's private garden. She looked to Hector. He went to one small plant she didn't recognize, tore off a leaf, and stuck it in his mouth. He didn't chew, just held it on his tongue.

His
garden?

He indicated the plant. "Peppermint?"

She shook her head.

He accepted that with ease. "Good for headaches."

Wynne bit her lip, then decided to go ahead and take the opening. "I give you headaches?"

Hector snorted and shook his head — more as if his answer didn't matter, rather than denying altogether that she caused him pain.

He seemed… relaxed, more so than he usually was. It was less unnerving than the earlier cheer, because this felt more real — but that reality was itself disconcerting, because it meant he
trusted
her.

"That rumor's true, then?" That the private sections of the habitats were free from all surveillance.

"Which…?" He glanced at her in inquiry. "You can speak, here. This one's mine."

Wynne bit her lip, reluctant out of habit. "Are you sure it's… safe?"

"Yes," he answered, without hesitation. "As I said, this is
my
area, my… territory, as it were. They make sure to assign safe zones to…" He grimaced. "To those like me."

But what are you?
she wondered.

"Gives us somewhere safe to unwind, after…" He glanced away, adjusted his stance and glasses. "I'd prefer if you speak, when you can. Less of a headache that way."

So she
did
cause him headaches. "The psychic stuff makes your head hurt?"

"Psychic?" He sounded faintly amused. "I'm not meant to be a reader. I'm more a…" His expression tightened. "I'd rather not say."

Two years earlier, their instructor had said, 'I'm sure you could kill me with that brain of yours,' and Hector had admitted to knowing he'd eventually be able to sleep, after he killed someone. Wynne could guess where his talents lay.

"That's all right," she said quietly.

"Thanks." He stared at the ceiling, which had ivy growing over it. "My father wants me to seduce you."

She glanced around at their private, off-the-grid surroundings. "I'd rather not be seduced, if you don't mind."

He nodded, still staring up and not looking at her. "The alternative is that they'll
make
you like me, and that can break a mind. I'll be in bad shape myself, soon enough. I don't want to… Sorry." He glanced at her and away — a little guiltily, she thought. "I don't suppose you'll forget I said that?"

"Why would they break you?" she asked instead. "Because you won't seduce me?" And why were 'they' so desperate? She and Hector
had
just reached Dyad.

Hector sighed, shaking his head. He looked away, red tingeing his cheeks as if he was embarrassed to tell her, "The genegineering used on me is known to cause fairly rapid degeneration, after adolescence. My grandfather's alive, you know. He just hasn't been able to walk since around Tetrad. He tends to stay in his…" Hector indicated the habitat around them.

Wynne did some quick math. "Your father isn't crippled." And he was past Tetrad.

"My father is impotent. I was conceived in a petri dish. They decided to revert to G2 modifications for me because they were known to produce the desired…" he gave a little smirk her way, "—psychic abilities."

She followed what he was saying quickly enough. "They're throwing us at each other because they want to be able to use your grandfather or father as genetic donors if your genegineering's had further unintended side effects." She frowned. "But can't sperm and ovum be frozen?"

"Not with the genegineering Primumen have."

Wynne felt distinctly horrified, because that was something that would only be known after learning it the hard way. "So you're your father's only child…"

"Because my fellow petri dish siblings failed to survive freezing." He adjusted his glasses. "No offense, but I try not to think about that much."

She imagined he had enough troubling him without also fretting about that.

She frowned. "Why am
I
an only child? And Bridge?" The colony needed numbers. Wouldn’t their parents have been encouraged to have more children?

He didn't answer for long enough that she thought he wasn't going to. "Bridge was thought sufficiently unintelligent to both encourage your own study and give you minimal distractions to your grooming to be an ideal mate for… a particular person."

She blinked, unsure which was more frightening: That she
did
have siblings, or that she'd been groomed since conception to be Hector's Partner. "That's… disturbing."

He snorted, which reminded her that he likely dealt with
more
disturbing things on a regular basis. Like assassinations.

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

"So," she said hesitantly. "The options are to let everyone think you've seduced me or to let my emotions get tampered with until I can't function without you?"

Hector fiddled with his glasses. "
Seduce
does have more than one meaning."

Wynne had to think through that one, but once she did, she thought she understood. "Make everyone think I'm falling for you on my own, and they'll back off?"

"Temporarily, at least. Hopefully long enough for…" He didn't look at her.

He knew, then, that she would be fleeing Arzon as soon as she could.

She didn't want to hurt him, but saying nothing would only hurt him more in the long run. "I don't love you, you know."

He shrugged. She might've thought it good-naturedly, if he'd not fiddled with his glasses as he did so. "Of course not. You don't know me."

Wynne bit her lip. Pressing seemed mean, but she felt it would be more cruel to put off the conversation. "Don't you know me, though?" Did that mean he loved her?

He stared into the distance. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I do."

She had the terrifying feeling he was answering both questions, spoken and unspoken.

And when he gave her a sad little smile, she
knew
he was.

About the Author

Cara Lee
is the name used for the dystopian works of Misti Wolanski (who otherwise writes outright fantasy). Technology, biology, propaganda, and the moral implications of all three have fascinated the author since she first noticed how people with power tend to abuse it. She now writes stories that explore control and the boundaries where helpful becomes hurtful, and vice versa. At least, that’s what she does when her cat isn’t trying to sneak sips of her coffee.

Also from Astraea Press

Prologue

They were on their fourth game of poker. The air was tense; they played in silence, speaking only when they had to.

The burly man glanced at the five cards in his hand, his expression unreadable. “I’ll see you.” He took a drag of his cigarette and waited.

The woman sitting next to him studied her hand of cards and sighed. “I’m folding.” She placed the cards face down on the table, crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

They both watched the bald man on the other side of the table. He
looked at his cards and frowned. The burly man took another drag of his cigarette and sent a spiral of thick smoke into the air. Then a shrill ring broke through the silence, making them all jump. The burly man grabbed his nanophone and the others waited as he flicked it open. The air was electric with suspense.

“Yes,” he said brusquely. He was silent as he listened, then replied, “We will leave immediately.” He switched the phone off, threw his cards down and stood up. “It’s on,” he said, scooping up the handful of coins in the middle of the table and putting them, and the phone, in his pocket. “Let’s get going.”