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“Hear what?” said Finch. Greg turned full around to face both man and Squire.
“Do… do robots understand humor? Is that a joke?” said Greg.
“No… no joke… it’s…” DA-Vos’s yellow tint deepened, brightened, to show his concentration on something unheard to the others. “Do what? You want me to… no. I said no!”
Greg’s hand flew for his pistol too late. The sharpened spearhead arm of his own partner pierced him through. The Squire pinned his gushing back to his desk. When Greg slumped away, it turned its light, now crimson metal face on Finch, too shaken to move. It’s arm reconfigured into an open-ended barrel, swimming with prismatic light. DA-Vos’ body opened as a black steel blanket around his partner just in time. The Squire fired three shining lasers before it moved on to another officer, at another desk.
“Remain quiet, and still, Mr. Finch,” said DA-Vos’ voice, inside the black dome of his reformed mass. His purple face-light glowed in the dark.
“A-alright…” Finch whimpered. His partner’s body kept him safe from the Fusion rays, but only muffled the screams. He could still hear every last one of his fellow officers blown away, skewered, and incinerated by their Squire partners.
In the lavender dark, Finch felt every word about the bond between partners like a knot in his stomach. He felt rather differently about his luck, too.
-
Major General Christopher Droan. It sounded so impressive. It sounded so profound. Just what his dad would have wanted for him. What it didn’t sound like was just what it was: a magnetrain ride from the literal and figurative forest of high-rise towers in Beijing to a pointlessly huge office. It wasn’t always this way. There were times, before man-machine partnerships had become standard, before the WCC supplied their Precincts with Fusion equipment, when Major General meant what it sounded like. Missions. Firefights. Eradication of the last few fringe groups still that opposed the World Crisis Council. Still, Chris left his desk full of cases to manage, with a certain skip in his step. He hung by a muscular arm from the overhead rail of the speeding magnetrain with a grin on his face. He would trade it all again, for what he had now. The Precincts and their Squires could have the sprawling cityscapes of layered apartments, offices, and vertical garden terraces. He had his apartment on the sixteenth floor, where he raced to now, and his apartment had the only thing he really needed.
“Sheba!” Chris popped the lock on their apartment door with his key card. “Did you get my message? I’m so sorry I’m late!”
“Late?” Sheba cut him short. He followed her voice with a chuckle, to their kitchen. “This show doesn’t play without the both of us. You’re never late.”
“I’d consider myself lucky to be your stagehand,” Chris laughed. Then he turned the corner, saw her, and the words ran right out of his head. Her dark, smooth skin shone a mixture of silver from the Fusion tube lighting overhead and orange from the candle on the table. When she stood, dark curls spun around the, rich golden-brown rings in her eyes. She gave Chris a spin of her fierce ruby dress. The fabric swept up to flash her full thighs. She opened her arms to the chair pulled out for him.
“Oh Sheba, you didn’t have to…” Chris struggled to find anything he could say to feel he deserved this.
“Of course I did! We never had our proper engagement dinner!” said Sheba, “Now sit. I’m sure you’re starving, and I’m itching to get out of this dress.” Another wink was all it took to pin Chris to his seat. He wasn’t even sure what it was she’d made, with how quickly he inhaled it. It was delicious, though.
Around him and Sheba was a vortex of colliding worlds. This was a newer apartment complex, wired with Fusion tubing for all the modern commodities a young couple could want, in 2350. After relocating to an office to get an apartment away from the barracks, though, Chris and Sheba could only just afford furniture and decorations. The two found themselves unexpectedly grateful for the storage locker of collectibles Chris’ father had left them. His love for antiques had passed to his son but created a jarring visual as decor in their apartment. Silver food storage units defrosted and froze food in seconds, beside an old clock that still ticked. An oven could cook a piece of meat through in four blinks while a deep-cushioned rocking chair creaked in the living room. Anything beat the barracks, though. Over these past months, Chris and Sheba had even come to love it - differences had never been an obstacle for them.
“I hope you aren’t too tired,” said Chris, when at last he wiped the corner of his mouth.
“Not if you’re willing to do most of the work, after your long day,” said Sheba, red-lipped smile glistening. He’d been excited since he walked in, enthralled since he saw that dress; Chris couldn’t wait another second. Sheba leaned back in her chair, feigning the helpless damsel. “Oh, Major General, please whisk me away,” she moaned. Chris hoisted her up in both arms and carried her to their bedroom.
“Consider yourself whisked,” he whispered. He caught a glimpse of himself in the glass panes of a window on the way. His hazel eyes jumped out from the sharp lines of his face. His tufts of auburn hair swayed across his tan skin, already glinting with a certain thrill. The briefest thought crossed his mind: what did I do to deserve this? He followed the teal glass tubes of Fusion lights down the hall and laid his fiancée on their bed, beside another candle. He flipped the lights.
Chris crawled over her and slipped his smile between hers. Warmth bound them together, then wetness. Their lips locked, loosened, and grazed. Sheba’s legs slid apart so Chris could take a knee between them, like he’d taken a knee for her in their favorite park. He worked his mouth down her neck, feeling the pores prickle alive. He kissed the ridge of her breast, her stomach, all the way down to those dark thighs. With her heat still on his face, he slipped the skirt of her dress up. The arch of Sheba’s shoulders to help get it off told him she was ready. She snapped up and seized his clothes into two claws of long nails. She tore them off and tossed them away with deft grace. Sheba’s arms locked around his neck and pulled him down. She reached for the pulsing muscle between his legs, and put it against her. Chris pushed gently inside.
Chris and Sheba let out a deep breath together. The next minutes, hours, bled together in a churning sea of emotion and physical sensation. Tense muscles. Warm skin. Lips. The graze of fingers across nipples. Sheba crossed her legs behind Chris’ hips to take him in as deep as she could. She arched her back again and clasped her fingers with his. Their love yanked the bed from the wall before Chris gave five last deep rocks and the two shared moments of climax, seconds apart. Bursts of colors played behind the closed eyes of concentration while they gasped and throbbed and groaned. Almost immediately, Chris collapsed beside his fiancée.
“Amazing…” mumbled Sheba, legs still trembling with aftershocks of pleasure.
“I know… and I don’t even have to try,” Chris joked, to a slap on the arm. He rolled over on his side, to gaze into big brown eyes. He and Sheba worked together to unwrinkle the sheets over them both.
“Are you… excited?” asked Sheba, to break the amorous silence.
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“Not quite so much as I was minutes ago,” said Chris. Sheba’s eyes went wide with disbelief, but he had to get it out somewhere. The others at Chris’office were hardly the humorous type, at least around the Major General.
“About the wedding, Chris!” said Sheba, which of course, he knew.
“You mean the wedding planning. And as a matter of fact, I am,” Chris assured her. He sat half up when he realized his mistake. “Not that that means we have to figure it all out tonight.” Sheba laughed at the honest panic in his voice. He knew they could, too, if he gave Sheba the reins. Two of her favorite things: planning and a wedding, especially her own? But Chris wanted to be part of it, too.
“How about a location?” Sheba prompted. Her eagerness was irresistible.
“How… specific do we need to get?” said Chris.
“Let’s start with which planet,” said Sheba. Though he’d grown in a life with two worlds, Chris had never left Earth, and so the notion was still a culture shock for him. When he and Sheba were dating, and she first told him she hailed from the big red marble, rather than the blue one, he couldn’t believe it. She seemed so human - more than that; charming, provocative. Before he met her, Chris had believed his father’s old prejudice that people born in Mars’ colonies would be more… alien.
