Chaos Theory (11 page)

Max let Kali go, and all but shoved her away. “Your FloBi, the
silver one? I’ve seen you around on it before.” Both males eyed
each other warily, and Max’s chest puffed out a little. “A sweet
ride.”

“
You want to see it?” Blue asked. “Unless Kali thinks that’s
rude–”

“
Stars, no.” Max crowded him back out the way he came. “She
won’t mind. She’s female. She’ll probably check her makeup and
clothes in the VidSee ten more times before you leave.”

“
Max.”

“
You know it’s true, Kal. Show me the bike, Blue. I’ve been
saving for one, but they are impossible to get your hands on in
good condition.”

They ambled out the front door with Howl yipping excitedly,
leaving Kali alone and surly in the hallway. She headed to the
kitchen and on the way unpacked a new suspension unit from the
utility room. Kali set the palm-sized disk on one of the pedestals
standing in a divot in the corridor wall, and locked it in. Holding
the flowers above the silver unit, she slid a finger over the glass
button. A shimmering beam of blue light collided with the ceiling.
Letting go of the flowers, Kali keyed in they were from Blue to her
and admired them, warmed he had bought them for her.

She summoned Howl back into the house and locked
up.

Max punched her a wave and jogged across the street to his
house. From his doorway, he pointed at Blue and motioned “I’m
watching you,” with two fingers.

The front door shut slowly, Max kept them in sight the whole
time.

Kali smiled brightly. “Ready to take off?”

“
He is protective of you.”

“
So?”

“
Were you honest with me about your feelings for each other?
The way you act–” Kali turned and stomped back to her front door.
Blue tried to grab her hand, misjudged the violent swing of her
arm, and missed. “Wait.”

“
No. I’m not into this. It’s a shame, but you’re jealous over
nothing, so we’re done.”

Blue used his long-legged stride to overtake her and block the
door. “I apologize.” She tried to step around him, but he moved
with her. “Honesty isn’t appreciated?”

“
The problem isn’t mine.” Kali scrunched her face up. “Don’t
try and make out like it is.”

“
Then why react like this to a simple observation?”

Exasperated, she fisted a hand at his collar and moved him
aside. “Max never lets a girl disrespect me when they question my
place in his life. That’s why we left so suddenly last night.
Christabella got jealous. Not that I’m surprised, I did warn him to
go by himself. I’ll not betray him by letting you do the same as
she tried to.”

“
Clarifying you’re not in love with Max is a betrayal to
him?”

“
Don’t twist my words. I told you what was between us, and you
obviously don’t accept that.” She shook him and he swayed. “I’m not
becoming more attached to you if you’re going to behave this way.
There would be no point.”

“
Maybe there isn’t. Haven’t made it off the curb, and it’s
already clear you’ll always take his side over mine. I understand.
You’ve been together a long time.”

“
We’ve been friends since we were old enough to crawl, but what
you’re saying isn’t true.” Her eyes narrowed. “There are things we
disagree on.”

“
Like?”

Kali could have thrown in his face that Max was firmly against
this date because of their difference in social standing, and that
she had defended him, but that would be mean. She wasn’t into mean.
“This conversation is stupid. Max will always be by my side. And
yes, I do choose him if this is what I can expect from you.” She
stared him dead in the eye, because she would not be repeating
herself. This was the second argument she’d gotten into within the
hour and she was not impressed. “You can’t be that into me if you
misinterpret protectiveness from a friend as something else … if it
makes you pull away before we start getting closer.”

She let him go and swiped her OmniLock to go back
inside.

Blue crossed his arms over his chest, looked down and
away.

The stab of jealousy he’d felt when he saw Max pull Kali
close, so casual in his affection because he did it all the time,
grew ugly when Max kept mentioning how close they were. He
suspected her friend was irritated she was interested in him. Blue
wanted Kali badly, and the thought she secretly held more than
familial love for Max turned him stony. He had enough complications
in his life then to add a female who didn’t return his strong
feelings. He should have known she’d refuse to put up with his
brooding. Her directness was one of the things that attracted
him.

When Blue’s eyes lifted, they smouldered, because he began to
think of other things he liked, like how she tasted when she kissed
him.

“
I want to explore you, this thing we have. Now I have the
chance, I want nothing in the way.” Blue hesitated. “Wanted you a
long time. My silence wasn’t bred of disinterest.”

Kali opened the door and sighed as she did her thing. “I don’t
like games when it comes to emotion. There is too much of the fake
to deal with already. I want something real.”

“
My heart races at the sight of you. How real is
that?”

She pulled the door closed for the last time. Mimicking Blue,
Kali leaned back on her heel. Her body flushed with heat at the
idea of him exploring her, but she kept her guard up. “You’ve felt
this all that time?”

His jaw worked. “Was afraid if you saw my face you’d react
like everyone else.”

After seeing two distinct reactions, attraction and revulsion,
she didn’t ask for an elaboration.

Was she was being played? Some males were clever like that.
They confused you until you didn’t realise your man wasn’t
brooding, or complicated, he was just an asshole.

Making a small noise, she stepped closer, and peered into his
face. “You will respect me, as I will you. No more tortured,
jealous behaviour. It’s attractive for five minutes then gets old.
If you’re unsure of me, ask, and accept what I say. Lying isn’t a
habit of mine. Understand?”

Blue leaned in, the faintest of smiles curving his lips.
“Absolutely.” He slipped his hand between them palm up. “Start
again?”

Mad to be so fiendishly enamoured, Kali ignored his hand and
slung a leg over the FloBi. Slipping on a black helmet, she slammed
the visor down to obscure her eyes. She was charmed instead of
wary, but it didn’t mean he should know that.

Kali leaned back; fidgety hands gripped the seat as she
waited.

Blue grinned.

11.

Igor was bored. The trance music pumped from the eight-foot
speakers into a crowded room stuffed with sweaty bodies waving glow
sticks and sucking shots of vodka from the navels of working
girls.

Hands crossed over his butch chest, Igor was the youngest
bouncer at the underground club, and at six foot eight with over
two hundred and thirty five pounds of solid muscle he was the one
nobody messed with either.

His white-blonde hair was shaved close to his head, and his
cold eyes raked down possible troublemakers. Those who fell under
his gaze quivered in fear, and inched past as if he were poisonous.
His blank expression and absolute stillness made people think he
was brawn, and no brain, but they would be wrong.

There were things in Igor’s mind the finest minds in the
galaxy struggled to comprehend.

He wasn’t sure how he came to be like this. He wanted nothing
more than to blend in with his brethren, to drink illegally
fermented alcohol, and sleep with fun girls, but his mind would not
allow him that freedom.

He was pushed to learn, compelled to seek knowledge. At least
he had been, the urge had stopped. Igor was relieved, because he no
longer felt as if something was right around the corner. Whatever
he’d been waiting for had turned that corner.

“
I needs take piss,” he drawled to his comrade in his native
tongue.

It was an illegal language, the Alliance recognised one
language, but with so may Colds this quadrant the mother tongue was
spoken freely. The words passed from generation to generation, to
keep something of their culture alive. His ancestors had been
forced to accept Treaty10, and forgo political and cultural
independence, but the people did so with great
reluctance.

His comrade nodded his approval and adjusted his
positioning.

Igor walked through the surging club, not bothering to
shoulder people out the way; they bounced off him like water from a
rock. Reaching the back exit, the door slid open, and he stepped
into the cool night.

He soaked up the wild woods, pulling his snood to cover his
chest and head from the extreme cold. He stamped his booted feet
and tugged on fingerless gloves. The nightclub was located deep in
the OutRim, making it easy to dispose of the bodies of those who
could not handle their narcotics.

He sensed the presence of his companion and held out his
hand.

The leopard padded from the shadows to meet him, crushing snow
beneath her paws. He had seen those delicate claws rip the flesh
from a man’s back with nothing but a listless swipe. A long scar
ran across her sleekly feline face and cut through her right eye,
now a milky, sightless orb. She blinked; her good eye winked like a
topaz star. Her thick coat, heavier and wilder than a normal
leopard, was brilliant white and spotted with deep brown
rosettes.

His fingers splayed over her head and rubbed affectionately.
She had been with him for many years. “Come, Natalya. Walk with
me.”

He rolled his shoulders and strode into the trees, knowing she
would always follow at his side, and so mindful of where his boots
fell.

The blue dark was beautiful to Igor. He wished he’d been born
feral, a baby left to fend for itself in the wild. To be raised by
wolves, or bears, and Mother Nature would have crafted him into an
even stronger warrior than he was now. He sighed, a warrior without
purpose.

He stopped and smiled at a night flower blooming by his ankle.
Igor crouched in the black soil to brush calloused fingers over the
soft purple petals. He inhaled the delicate scent the flower
released. An innate peace that only came when nature surrounded him
stole through his hulking body.

Natalya lay beside him and purred as he ran his hand down her
spine.

They stayed like this for some time until Natalya’s tail
thumped the ground and she tensed. Rolling onto all fours, she
hissed. Her ears lowered along with her body until she was
crouched, ready to attack.

Igor expanded the boundaries of his mind, seeking an intruder
in the dark.

He sensed nothing.

“
Natalya?”

Red light shot from the sky and haloed him, trapping him, a
crushing pressure that froze him on the spot.

He lost time, drifting in a void.

The next time Igor focused, there were bright lights overhead.
A tinkling pinged in his ears, and the bitter smell of minerals
prickled his nose.

Fuzzy, indistinct shapes stood over him with their backs to
the light. He couldn’t work out if the humanoids limbs appeared
overly thin and pale because of his perspective, or because they
were formed that way.

It was cold. That was because he was naked. His back pressed
into a rail thin chair in a reclined position. There were thick
cuffs around his neck, ankles, and wrists. Thicker bands secured
his hips and chest.

Had someone found out what he could do and taken him to
experiment?

Where was his Natalya? Was she safe? Would these beings harm
her?

Goosebumps broke out over his skin, and Igor tried to send out
a sweep of psychic power to assess the room. He was met with a
blockade. It was like trying to push his body through solid
concrete.

He couldn’t send power, but he could receive, and he picked up
hundreds of telepathic touches happening all around him. The purity
of the connection and its vastness was overwhelming.

Thousands of minds screamed for help.

Instead of being swept up into the hysteria, tempting as it
was, he looked deeper, burrowing under the mindless shrieks until
he found
them
,
the ones that held him, calmly sending and receiving thoughts. The
transition was like swimming from turbulent rapids into a placid
lake.

The tinkling noise continued in the background, but a louder
mechanical whirling jerked him back into his mind.

Gleaming brightly, a metal arm swooped from overhead, and
hovered in front of his face. Igor just made out a black dot,
moving closer. He began to struggle in earnest. His head was
immobilized, strapped with metal. His body pinned by a heavy
weight. The needle moved closer to his eyeball, the black dot got
closer and closer. Afraid he’d injure himself, he held his eye
still and felt the give of his cornea as it bent back then popped
forward. The needle punctured his anterior chamber and drilled
through his pupil.