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Dangerous Game

The door closed.

Abel gasped.

He was finally alone.

Rushing towards the sink, Abel turned on the faucet at full blast and splashed water on his face. It was ice cold and served only a small relief from the hot flashes shooting across his skin.

Looking up, Abel saw himself in the mirror for the first time in ages. His hair was wild and unkempt, no longer a neat mane like he had styled it to look more Regulian and fit in. Fine stubble ran across his jaw, he hadn’t even felt it until now, too busy running from one conflict to another to pay heed.

Last time I shaved...must have been back at the brothel.

Ruhan did it for me.

Abel splashed more water on his face, desperate to knock the bad thoughts out of his brain.

You saved Asha...you did it…

But all Abel could focus on was the what-ifs. Asha, someone new but dear to him, torn apart and killed for a bio-weapon.

He couldn’t face Lashar if that happened.

The door knob rattled and Abel jumped, turning around to find Meyer, frowning deeply.

“This is the men’s room, what the fuck!?” Abel shouted.

“There is no lady’s room, so deal with it.”

Meyer stepped towards the sink next to Abel and gently turned the water on. She slowly began to rinse her hands, holding them still under the water.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Abel.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Abel whispered.

“Don’t bullshit me,” Meyer waved her hands dry, leaving the water running. “You know I can smell the two lizards on you and what you did with them. I personally don’t give a shit, as long as you don’t fuck up our mission.”

“Everything I said there was for our mission.”

“Yes, you picked your words very well, very well indeed,” Meyer leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms. “You can fool the rest, but you can’t fool me. Whatever feelings you have for this lizard, put them out of your head. His fate is sealed.”

“Would-”

Abel stopped himself. He was going to ask what she would have done if her Lupiad boyfriend was locked up here.

But that would confirm my feelings for Asha.

“Would you stop doubting me?” Abel growled. “Maybe I just don’t want a pointless death just for the sake of it. I don’t care if that makes me unpopular or whatever, if you want to report me, go right fucking ahead but I’m Glass’ nephew so he’ll probably demand evidence and as you said, I picked my words very fucking well.”

“Glass is colder than you could ever imagine, Abel,” Meyer shut off the faucet and whispered. “You don’t want to roll the dice with his emotions.”

“And neither do you, I bet.”

Meyer smiled, “Just don’t fuck us up, Abel. If I get a hint that you’re trying to do anything funny...”

Meyer balled up her first and shook it, miming a toss of dice before opening up the door and heading out.

The human, Dmitri was his name, spilled the beans on the location of the humans far more readily than any victim of the Claw or the Guard’s tortures. Brolath was astonished at how Lashar operated, not so much as drawing a drop of the human’s blood in the process and somehow managed to keep the human close without any restraints.

Indeed, right now Lashar was leading the way holding hands with Dmitri. The human was smiling shyly as they chit-chatted across the steppes.

“Down!” Dmitri whispered and Brolath complied, hitting the dirt and crawling into a patch of tall grass.

“Quiet!” Lashar hissed as well, hidden a few feet ahead of Brolath in the grass.

Brolath could not see anything past the blades of grass, but sniffed at the air. There were three humans several feet away on a bearing that would take them just by their hiding spot.

But what Brolath found far more interesting were the smells from in front of him.

Lashar’s smell was inscrutable to Brolath, as usual, but the human smelled much like Leon did during their evenings together, embracing naked under the covers. Not when they made love, mind you, though Brolath could smell arousal from the human as well, but just cuddled.

How did Lashar endear himself to the human so fast? Were it Asha, Brolath could have understood it was his seductive venom, but Lashar’s venom was a lethal poison.

But one more feeling baffled Brolath more.

He was not jealous.

Dmitri was quite an attractive human, pale and slim, not that different from Leon but more muscular. He would have fetched a high price on a slave market and Brolath would have no doubt coveted him under normal circumstances.

But Brolath did not feel any of that, nor was he any longer feeling a lust to dominate Abel and make him his own.

All that was dancing around in his brain was him wondering if he could emulate the lizard and win Leon back somehow.

The smell of strange humans faded and the grass rustled.

“We’re clear,” Lashar hissed and crept to his feet.

Brolath scrambled towards the Lacertan, catching him by the arm.

“Lead the way,” Brolath nodded at Dmitri.

The human nodded and headed onward, giving the two plenty of space to talk privately.

Where is this trust coming from? For all he knows we might be discussing how to dispose of him.

“How did you do that?” Brolath asked quietly, trailing behind with Lashar.

“What?”

“He trusts you like you’ve known each other for ages, why?”

“I mean,” Lashar shrugged. “Guess I’m just good at breaking the ice, that’s all.”

“An agent sent to infiltrate an alien planet that’s merely good at breaking the ice?”

Lashar chuckled, “Guess I have a bit of special training.”

“What kind?”

“Just how to identify people’s problems, the things they’re hung up on, and help them open up; you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Brolath grumbled. “What was he hung up on?”

“Private matter.”

Brolath looked over at Dmitri, surely he must have heard a bit of their conversation, but he was still leading them on quietly.

“It might be relevant to the mission.”

“It’s not. It’s his business, not yours. But you can probably make a good guess what it is, you know, seeing as you caught us spooning naked. I was giving him something he needed.”

“Affection?”

Lashar nodded, “Can’t say any more than that.”

Brolath couldn’t help himself, he imaging for a split-second a vision of Abel and Leon, having been given so much affection from him that they transformed themselves into willing slaves.

It didn’t sit right in Brolath’s stomach.

“Isn’t this manipulative?”

“That depends on intent,” Lashar sighed. “If you give someone flowers as a gift, is it manipulative?”

“No.”

“What if you’re only doing it because you want them to fuck?” Lashar crossed his arms. “Or you buy a round of drinks for the table. Are you just trying to enjoy the evening or make someone at the table more easy to lay?”

Brolath paused.

“In Regulian culture, it is considered normal to coerce those of lower rank into such relations.”

“You tried to do something like that with Abel, hm?” Lashar flicked his tail.

“Abel is lost to me, I know that,” Brolath murmured. “There was someone else, someone I tried to be different for, but I failed.”

Lashar put his hand on Brolath’s shoulder, causing the Regulian to briefly flinch, “You can only learn from your mistake and move on. Don’t do it again.”

“It is difficult to go against what you’ve been taught is right for so long.”

“You’re telling me?” Lashar laughed. “I got abruptly separated from my AI God, teacher, commander, and I guess you might call him a father. I’m just winging things out here as best as I can!”

Brolath snorted, “For a drone in a hivemind you’re quite good at understanding people.”

“Never in a million fucking years thought I’d be a relationship councilor to a Regulian.”

“Logos is supposed to be very logical, at least that’s how we designed him,” Brolath rubbed his chin. “I’m surprised he has taught you so well about emotions.”

“Only logical to realize emotions and relationships are a thing his followers and their body chemistry want,” Lashar shrugged. “He’d love it if we didn’t have such things, even tried to teach it out of us but he’s not insane, he learns from mistakes.”

“It would seem Logos does what I cannot,” Brolath chuckled.

“There’s always time to change.”

“Hey!” Dmitri hissed and hunkered down onto the ground. “We’re here!”

Brolath and Lashar crept up towards him, kneeling behind him as he pointed off onto the distance.

“Looks like a farm,” Lashar wrapped his tail around Dmitri’s rear.

Brolath couldn’t see a thing, just more grass on the horizon. He pulled out a pair of binoculars and peered into them.

Sure enough, there was a farm and not a very successful looking one. The crops, some kind of Earth grain, were dried up, but not to the point of being unreasonable for a farm that was being used as a cover. There were tons of tracks in the dirt leading in and out of the fenced area, which would look suspicious for most hide-outs, but made sense for a mechanized farm in a very isolated location.

“Most farms would be near a community,” Brolath muttered.

“Good soil’s at a premium in Siberia,” Dmitri explained. “Can’t always get the best location, so it’s not that strange.”

It would just appear as a struggling farm on the satellite photos. Unproductive, but hardly a beacon for rebel activity.

There were about fifteen guards patrolling around the perimeter. They were armed with what appeared to be old automatic rifles, rusty but Brolath was assured by Dmitri they were in good working condition.

“Minefield,” Brolath pointed to subtle bumps in the green grass. “They didn’t bury them well enough to cover them up right.”

“Good eye,” Dmitri nodded. “It’s dangerous to approach anywhere but the front entrance. Many of the mines are old, before Glass moved in here.”

“How old is this place?”

“It was an ICBM silo going back to the Cold War or so.”

“The Empire has record of every nuclear launch site that was used against us during the invasion,” Brolath peered over at Dmitri. “We don’t have this place recorded.”

“I guess this one didn’t launch then or maybe the nuke was decommissioned?” Dmitri shook his head. “All I know is that we’re there now. Hell, maybe the Atomic Council took it with them?”

“The Atomic Council is a myth.”

“Well, well,” Lashar clicked his tongue. “Looks like the Regulian Guard has a file on them.”

“They’re real,” Dmitri corrected. “We work with them. I don’t know the details, I’m just a soldier, but I know enough to know they exist.”

Brolath lowered his binoculars, “If their submarine fleet exists, they could spread the chemical agent all that much faster.”

Earth is mostly water, of course, what better place to move unseen? Coastal patrols are insufficient in the Kingdom, everyone knows that, and with millions of islands there is no way the Empire can keep an eye on each one when they resurface.

“We have grossly underestimated humanity.”

It was hard to tell just what time it was, deep within the base, but Abel’s body did not lie. It was time to get some rest.

Not knowing where he was to stay, Abel asked a random guard who immediately made a call. Shortly after, one of Glass’ bodyguards appeared and beckoned.

“Come with me.”

They walked down the corridor in silence and into a narrow elevator. The guard flashed a keycard against a reader and typed in a code.

8201.

The elevator rumbled violently to life and after a few nauseating moments it came to a halt and the doors swung open.

It was a private suite, most likely it began to the commanding officer of the base long before the invasion. It was not a fancy affair, but no doubt more luxurious than what the average soldier here slept in.

A wooden desk was on Abel’s right with a personal computer humming away. There was no office chair. A cot rested beside it, with an itchy looking brown blanket atop it.

“You’ll stay here,” the guard motioned towards the cot. “Glass is busy, but he’ll be back to see you later.”

Abel looked over at the other end of the room. There were two heavy bookshelves lining the corner walls and a soft, leather recliner between them. There were steel bars running along the walls and handles hanging from the ceiling to allow Glass the ability to climb into the recliner with his own strength.

“Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Abel pointed to one of two shut doors, “that the bathroom?”

“That’s Glass’s bedroom,” the guard pointed to the other door. “Bathrooms over there.”

“Got it, no further questions.”

The guard nodded and headed back into the elevator, the doors shutting right before the loud elevator rumbled once more.

Tempting, Abel walked further into the room, eye’s catching the computer monitor. A security camera on the ceiling was pointed straight at the device, very tempting. But only a fool would tempt fate with such an obvious trap.

Ignoring the computer, Abel headed straight for the bookshelves.

But surely no harm in browsing his books?

Scanning Glass’ selection, most were biology books but wedged between them, seemingly devoid of any proper order, were various other types of books:

There were human history books covering things such as the United States War of Independence, the French Revolution, the Springtime of Nations, Twentieth Century Nationalism…

Not unexpected…

More surprising to Abel were copies of religious texts: the Christian bible, the Torah, the Quran were all there, along with various guides to Dharmic religions and pagan faiths across human history.

Is he looking for something that unites humans? Or things that have created divisions in the past?

Or did Glass merely suffer a crisis of faith?

But out of all these curious tomes, nothing caught Abel’s inquisitiveness more than an unmarked notebook sandwiched between two thick biology textbooks.

Opening up the notebook, Abel was shocked by the crude contents. Pages upon pages of violent sketches of stick figures with tails and tall ears being killed in increasingly cruel ways: impalement, burned alive, drawn and quartered.

Glass had been so well-spoken and clearly intelligent, that Abel had forgotten that a deep anger boiled within his soul.

If I had been in his situation...would I have done the same?

There were a few pages of writing, all of it in Spanish, which Abel could not read fully.

“El mundo esta muerto.”

“The World is Dead,” Abel whispered.

“Not my finest artistic experimentation.”

Abel spun around with a start. He had been so engrossed in the disturbing contents of the book that he had not heard the exceptionally loud elevator rumble and Glass wheel into the room with two of his guards.

“Sorry,” Abel pushed the book back onto the shelf. “I was-”

“Curiosity is a virtue,” Glass made his wheelchair roll forward. “You’re just a sharp as your mother, what an eye for detail you have!”

Abel’s face was still burning red, feeling great shame at having uncovered Glass’ diary and the sheer angry within.

“Anger can be a virtue as well, if controlled correctly,” Glass chuckled. “If only the world was as easy as my fantasies, hm?”

“They did horrible things to you,” Abel nodded. “I don’t know how I’d have handled it myself.”

“Indeed, so please, nephew, unblush those cheeks and calm down,” Glass slowly reached for his chest and coughed. “Really, I’m sure you have far more embarrassing things in your drawers at home.”

Several prints of interspecies pornography, I imagine he’d find that more than a bit embarrassing.

“By the way,” Glass said suddenly, his voice growing chilly. “One of our patrols has gone missing, know anything about that?”