“Yes,” I say. “Really. You look ridiculous holding that tiny weapon. Does it even shoot real light? Or is it some flashlight left over from your nanny bot days?”
He straightens his thin, metal arm, points the gun at a storefront, and then his grippy appendage that acts like a hand squeezes the trigger.
A huge burst of fire erupts from the tiny barrel and then there’s a hole in the wall where the store used to be.
“What the fuck?”
“Prince,” ALCOR says in his stern, I-am-the-law-here omnipresent voice. “That is unlawful, and unacceptable behavior on Harem Station. Weapons can only be discharged in designated areas.”
I forgot the bot was called Prince now. I will never call him that. No matter what.
Safety bots appear in vast numbers immediately. Dozens of them. One throws a net over the bot, another shocks him with a taser, and a third is reading him his rights.
I nod my head, satisfied as Lyra’s bot complains loudly.
“What the hell?” Lyra says, suddenly by my side.
I smile at her. Take her hand and just… pull her close. “Got what he deserved,” I say. “Dance with me, princess. I’ve got a jealous streak inside me and right now, I’m thinking up seventeen different ways to kill my brother for trying to steal you away from me today.”
Her smile makes this whole day better. Well, that and the fact that the bot got arrested and is gonna get ripped a new sensor port by ALCOR. “I only had eyes for you the whole time,” she coos in my ear as we press our bodies together and sway to the station music. “What were you and Crux talking about? It looked pretty heated.”
“Tomorrow,” I say. “We can talk about it tomorrow. Tonight I just want to forget everything but you.”
She drops her head to my shoulder and lets me twirl us in slow circles. She smells good. And she’s so beautiful tonight, I suddenly have an urge to get her naked and in my bed. Maybe make good use of her magnetic bracelets.
Hell, maybe I’ll never get out of bed ever again.
That’s a nice thought.
A really nice thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – LYRA
Opinions so far on our first date.
One. Serpint looks hot in his ceremonial suit. And I know that’s totally inappropriate since we’re at a memorial service, but it’s true. He looks so commanding. Everything about him says power. And now that I know what all the various metals and ribbons mean attached to his shirt sleeves, I’m both impressed that he’s still alive and worried about the life he lives.
Alee talked a lot while she and the other borgs were dressing me. And every bit of it was about Serpint. She must be old, even though she obviously doesn’t look it, because borgs don’t age the way full humans do. She’s known him even longer than Raylor. She came to the station just after the brothers and ALCOR opened it for business, so he was young.
I try to picture Serpint as a boy and find it very difficult. There is something hard about him. Something dark, too. Something you either never see in children or if you do, you wish you hadn’t.
I tried to pump her for information about how they all got here, but she didn’t seem to know. Or maybe she just didn’t want to tell me. But I feel like there’s a story there.
Probably a bad one. Or a sad one. Or maybe both.
Opinion number two about our first date.
Meeting his brothers was surprisingly nice. Luck and Valor have some kind of unusual arrangement. Even though I’ve figured out that Serpint and his dead brother Draden had a similar partnership, Luck and Valor seemed different. And that gold bot of theirs? Beauty. She’s just your basic round sphere like my Prince, but somehow she came off sexy. Luck and Valor’s ceremonial metals and ribbons were gold to match Beauty and even more plentiful than Serpint’s, which has me wondering what they do. Do they hunt down princesses, like Serpint? I need to learn more about them before I put all those pieces together.
Tray. Hmmm. I don’t think I have an opinion about Tray yet. I get the feeling he’s ALCOR’s right hand around here, even though Crux is the one in charge. He was always alone tonight, for one thing. No bot, no borg, no woman. He didn’t even hang out with his brothers, just kept to himself off to the side. And he wore no medals or ribbons on his suit.
Which might lead one to think he’s the pacifist in the family. Or he’s weak. But that’s not the impression I got. His eyes are dark, dark violet. And narrow like he had a constant look of distrustfulness in them. Always scanning the crowd. Looking for something. Or super-aware of his environment. And then he’d whisper into the air. To nobody. That’s what I thought at first when I saw him doing that. But then I realized he was talking to ALCOR.