Chaos Theory (13 page)

“
Existence began with the sudden expansion of energy. Not by an
invisible power that made something from nothing.”

“
I’m saying the singularity that sparked creation is the Higher
Power. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, Blue.”

“
Energy is not sentient.” He was exasperated. “You can’t say
bundles of raw power floating around in their most primal are
conscious and alive.”

Picking up the gauntlet he’d thrown, Kali raised her eyebrows.
She rolled over and leant on her elbow. “Excuse me? Is it not
universally agreed that what we are is energy moving so fast as to
form particles, which form molecules, which form matter, and make
us solid?”

He hesitated, on shaky ground. Blue knew he’d somehow walked
into a trap of his own making. That had never happened before.
“Correct.”

“
Then how can you tell me energy is not sentient when you’re
nothing but energy at your most basic.” Her point made, Kali
sniffed and lay down. “Somehow we’ve managed to separate the idea
of life and energy. We force the concept of existence into the
corporeal, and struggle to make everything fit into our perceived
dimensions. The tiniest of subatomic particles move at speed beyond
what we can see to make our world appear solid. That’s all. There
is a stunning order to it, such beautiful refinement. I think of
the Higher Power as wild energy, a harmonious balance of light and
dark, pushing and pulling to keep the universe alive. That it’s
everything, and everyone anywhere that has ever been, and will ever
be. If that’s not divine then I don’t know what is.”

Blue was riveted. Hearing her talk infused him with warmth.
She had a rational mind, but refused to think within the
limitations logical thought could set. Acting on impulse, something
Blue only did when it came to Kali, he poked her side. “You’re not
going to let me win this argument.”

“
I don’t expect to change your mind, so don’t be presumptuous
and try to change mine. I could hear the moment you decided I was
wrong in your tone.”

“
Alright.”

She flushed at his amusement. “I warn you not to get me riled
on something I care about.”

“
No warning needed, I enjoy your thinking.” Blue paused. “And I
like the sound of your voice.”

“
Thanks,” she whispered. “People say they’d like to be smarter,
but they don’t realise how alone it can make you feel. It’s like
talking to myself sometimes.” She fisted her hands. Confessed, “I’m
lonely.”

Rocked by the pain in her voice, Blue’s fingers crept along
the blanket until he found that delicate fist, rigid and trembling.
He curled his larger hand around her smaller one, and held
on.

His fingers encountered something hard and
rope-like.

“
What’s this,” he asked, lifting her wrist so he could
see.

“
A bracelet I found on the street when I was a minor. I put it
on and never took it off. I like it. It’s actually worth a ton of
credits at auction, because it’s made from real leather. You know
cows? They were pretty much wiped out during the forth war. They
still have some in specialist habitats for mass breeding like they
did in the twentieth, but they don’t do so well in the artificial
atmosphere. My parents spend thousands of credits on imported steak
twice a year on their birthdays.” It was a simple braid, blackened
with age, and tied in a knot. “Here.” Kali sat up and undid the
knot with her teeth. She tied it on him. “You have it.”

He blinked. “Why?”

“
You know why.” She blushed, and lay back down. If he’d studied
the traditions of her Caste as he claimed then he would know such a
gift signalled her preference of him. “Think of me when you see it,
and remember tonight.”

His face brightened. “You are considering my offer …
my offer
?”

At his delighted confusion, she laughed aloud. “Truth is, if
you didn’t ask, I’d have broken tradition and asked you to consider
me. A relationship is a two way thing.”

Blue caught her arm and wouldn’t let go. Wanting to give her
something in return, he undid the tie around his wrist, put it on
her, but still didn’t let go of her arm. Her skin felt smooth and
he liked touching her. “Mine’s worthless,” he explained when she
stared at it with a funny expression. “It’s just red and grey
string. Like you, I’ve always had it. My mother gave it to me when
I was a boy. I’ve never wanted to take it off.”

Kali considered the implications of this. He claimed not to
need to parents yet he cherished a bracelet given to him from his
mother.

She enjoyed the strength and character Blue continually
surprised her with. Her gaze drifted to his lips, and she
remembered the kiss she’d started, but he’d most certainly
finished. She shivered at the memory as a flush of heat crept up
her neck.

“
Blue, do you know what a chastity belt is?”

“
A device injected into a debutant to keep her pure. The
nanobots inflict minor pain when mild sexual stimulation is
achieved, and great pain when major sexual stimulation is achieved.
The desired effect is to prevent coitus, and keep the debutants
hymen in tact for her chosen groom.”

“
That’s some, ah, seriously detailed information you have
there. How do you know so much about them?”

“
I know everything.”

Kali’s mind didn’t quite manage to swerve around that
conversational grenade. “Everything? You need me to tell you that
is impossible?”

“
My memory is eidetic. I absorb knowledge at an accelerated
rate and anything you ask I generally have enough secondary or
indirect knowledge of similar or closely related information that I
can make an educated guess with tremendous accuracy.”

“
So not everything,” she argued, her mind turning over like a
stalled FloVe. “Could I ask you anything and you’d have an
answer?”

“
Ask.”

“
Even–”

He grinned. “Ask.”

Kali rocked on her knees, tapping her lip in sets of three.
“Do you know why they had such a hard time terraforming Neptune
when Mars was so easy?”

“
They never did. Neptunites are born on Karas, a fully
self-contained floating space station that allows the inhabitants
to feel like they are living on the planets icy water surface. Most
do not know this unless they meet a Neptunite, or move to the
planet itself. Considering the low birth rate, and lack of
emigration applications it is the most undesirable of settlements,
and will likely be defunct before the century turns.”

Kali’s eyes swivelled as she grappled for something else to
throw at him. “What’s the Jovian orbital inclination?”

“
One point three zero five to elliptic.”

“
I might just believe you.” Setting that aside, she got back to
what started the conversation. Her smile died. “I don’t have
one.”

“
Most people don’t.”

“
Maybe that’s the case in your Caste, but it’s pretty much
standard in the world I live in.”

“
Never knew that.”

At the staggered look on his face, Kali knew she’d made a
serious error. Nobody would be that shocked. “We’re talking about
chastity belts again, Blue, not eidetic memory.”

He blinked. “Why? We determined its function.”

Kali kind of nodded agreement and rubbed her temple, looking
away from him to catch her breath and figure out where she went
wrong with this seduction attempt. She just wanted a kiss. It was
proving more complicated than explaining how the human mind
experienced difficulty visualizing elevated dimensions as proposed
in super symmetric string theory because they only move in three
spatial dimensions, like she did for her finals thesis.

She counted to thirty, and Blue kept looking at the stars,
making no move towards her.

Kali twiddled her thumbs and wondered if she wasn’t being
plain enough. “I only have one encounter logged on my BeepMe
profile,” she blurted. “In case you hadn’t looked.”

Blue studied her, trying to reason what Kali was thinking to
bring her to voice these seemingly disconnected statements. “I saw.
Me too.”

“
Oh.” She wiggled around. “Um, stellar.”

Kali still wasn’t quite sure what she was doing wrong. She
didn’t know how to suggest they kiss without being subtler than she
had been. Maybe that was the problem; she had instigated the kiss
they shared. She could just kiss him again, but what if he began to
think she was easy, or too forward?

Giving up, Kali rolled into Blue. She cupped his face, and
placed her lips on his. It was supposed to be a gentle touch, a
playful caress that would tell her if she was becoming even more
attracted to his body as much as she was his mind.

The moment Kali touched her mouth to Blue’s she got
lost.

She pressed harder, and slid onto his lap. Her knees hit the
ground either side of his hips, and her front moulded to his chest.
She gasped when the tip of her tongue swept over the seam of his
lips and tasted him. His scent was lovely. Crisp, and comforting,
like spring. It was a smell so unlike the manufactured, sickly
sweet fragrances HiCaste males were drenched in. She felt his
strength beneath her, and that his body was merely a vessel for his
brilliant mind turned her on like nothing before.

She wiggled closer and her nose nudged at the frame of his
opticals. She pulled away, whipped them off, and dumped them on the
blanket.

The dramatic azure of his eyes was stunning. They made
everything else recede into darkness.

They stared at each other, breathing hard.

Blue grabbed her head and dragged her back to him. His entire
body exploded into life, and he wrapped his arms around her to
return the kiss. His heart raced and his muscles locked. Delicate
citrus notes seeped from her warm skin. Her body was fragile, but
she had the will of a warrior, and the mind of a scholar. Years of
dreaming about her hadn’t prepared him for the sparkling reality.
Blue had met no one like her; bright and accepting while remaining
principled. Prepared to fight for what she believed in yet equally
ready to accept the views of others.

His hands travelled down her sides and he rolled them, pinning
her under him. He found her hands, linking their
fingers.

Kali’s tongue touched his then stroked his fang.

No fear; acceptance.

Reeling, Blue’s mental barriers dropped and their energies
surged and entwined.

With her eyes closed, clear as day, Kali saw a ball of flame
tearing past balls of bright green in a vast light-speckled
darkness. It was a meteor. White-hot it moved so fast.

Ripples of awareness tore through her. She winced at the
acutance her senses were driven to. Pleasure that hurt. She felt
everything around her, as if her senses became sonar, picking up
waves that were bounced back to her.

Kali pushed Blue flat by the shoulders and crawled over him.
Slipping a hand under the hem of his top to his lower stomach she
thrilled when his abdomen tensed under her palm, the ridges of his
abdominals rock-solid.

Minute vibrations shook between them, from inside them. A
force burst from their joined bodies like a shockwave, bending the
grass, and blowing the smaller debris embedded in the earth as if
pushed by the wind.

Blue was on fire, his mind in a whirl. Everything he’d thought
he’d known imploded as his cells fired and came alive. He felt
complete. This was what he’d been missing, the final connection to
life he’d been seeking.

Something unknown roused.

It locked onto them, and honed in on their position. It drew
nearer, using their mental signatures as a homing
beacon.

The creeping sensation of being hunted snapped Blue from
completely tumbling off the precipice of mindless pleasure. He
closed down the psychic energy flowing between him and Kali, and
the link dissipated leaving them weak and dizzy.

Disorientated, Kali jerked her lips from his. Their fingers
were entwined, legs tangled, and their hips fused together. She
stared down at Blue’s lips, swollen from their kiss. Mesmerized,
she lowered her head to reclaim them but froze when the look on
Blue’s face penetrated her lustful haze.

Lips parted, eyes round, he was horror-struck. The lingering
sensation of being watched creeping him out. “Get off me.” Blue
released Kali’s hands and pushed her off. He shot onto his feet,
shaking, and his head swung side to side as he searched the
heavens.

Flat on her back, Kali peered into the sky too. She wasn’t
sure for what she searched, but sensed something was hiding. She
felt weak, sick, like she had crash-landed after traversing a
turbulent atmosphere.

“
We’re leaving.” Blue tugged on his boots. “Hurry,” he urged
when he saw she wasn’t moving. He crouched and flung food back into
the bag they’d brought.

Kali rolled onto her butt and put on her boots. Her hands
shook, and when she stood she lurched with vertigo. It was hard to
concentrate, to think straight. Her body was on fire from that
mind-bending kiss.