I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six (50 page)

HOUSE is chatting away busily as she approaches the cabana, dumps her pails of water out on the sand a few feet away from us, and then wipes her runny nose on her arm.

The sand splashes against Lucan's pristine black armor and I watch him scowl as he brushes it off.

I intervene before he can make a big deal out of it. "Why don't ya build yer castle in the wet sand, HOUSE? It's easier than dragging these pails of water up here."

"I don't like those ships out there," she says, pointing to the cabana roof.

"Those are our ships. It's just security."

She huffs. "They're not all that secure, if you ask me."

"Of course they're secure," Lucan replies with more patience than he did last time. He must figure there's something to my idea about HOUSE being Junco's secret. "They're impenetrable."

"Is that so?" HOUSE asks.

Lucan is about to answer in the affirmative when a plasma cannon fires, exploding several cabanas a few hundred yards down the beach.

"What the fuck was that!" I'm on my feet asking for clarification from the ships when HOUSE puts a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. I tell the ship to wait and scowl at her.

"Did you do that?"

She nods. "I told you they're not secure. It was easy. And if I can do it, then everyone can do it." She stops to look at Lucan. "Right?"

He reaches over and pats her on the head. "I think we've found our secret."

"What's that mean?" she asks.

Annun is standing in front of us, spewing out excuses before I even know what he's talking about. "Tier, I swear, we didn't do that! Arel has no idea—"

"Never mind," I cut him off. "Take HOUSE down to the water and help her build a sand castle."

He stares at me. "What the fuck is a sand castle?"

Sometimes this guy is so stupid. I have to keep reminding myself that he never did a hosting on Earth because he's totally clueless about human culture. "She'll show ya."

I turn to HOUSE. "Annun is a friend of Junco's, he'll watch ya so you can build down by the water, OK?"

She shrugs and begins bossing him around, telling him to take some pails and shovels, and then proceeds to drag him down to the water by the shirt. To his credit he follows and doesn't even balk. I watch her for several minutes, smiling, before I realize that I'm still standing in the middle of the cabana.

"You're a natural, Tier."

I look over a Lucan as I take my seat and grab my beer again. "A natural at what?"

"Fatherhood," he says. "It suits you. Really, it does. It comes easy. Not like me." He stops and I figure we're both thinking about his attempts at parenting.

I laugh a little to myself.

"What's funny?"

"Ya weren't
that
bad. I mean, we lived, right?"

"Is that the standard for a successful clutch? Survival?"

My brows twist at his question. "For avians? Uh, yeah, pretty much. Why? Yer human these days or something?"

"I just wonder, after hearing some of Junco's stories, if it's not a bit extreme."

"I don't get it. Her life was far worse than mine, so you were a better father than Subjack was, that's for sure."

"Was I? I could've saved you a lot of injuries, pain, and trouble if I wanted to."

"Yeah, and I'd have ended up as stupid and weak as ninety-five percent of the population of Earth, Lucan. Stop. We live the way we live for a reason. I'm not unhappy, I'm not scarred. I'm fine. Ashur's fine. Rikan's fine. We're all fine."

He takes another drink. "But tell me, wouldn't you rather have a quiet life with Junco and that AI child down there? Than fighting all the time?"

"What's this about?"

He eyes me for a few seconds and then turns away. "You could change your wishes, you know." He turns back. "And then it won't matter if she's been dissipated. Will it?"

"It's too late now, Lucan."

"Yes, but if we
win
." He stops again and stares into me. "If we win, Raubtier."

I look down the beach at HOUSE and watch her squeal and clap and jump. Arel is there now, helping them build, as well as several more avians from the ship, all with random tools, real honest-to-God avian tools, that move the wet sand around at HOUSE's direction.

"If we win, you could change."

"Maybe. But not is not the time to think about that shit. It's a nice day, this playing and relaxing. But Junco's still gone, the Pillar is still struggling to assemble, and the Halo is not in place. We've got about five days until they reach the Oort Cloud Gate and then we're pretty much fucked. So no more talk about wishes. Fuck the wishes, Lucan. They don't matter because none of us will be here if we can't figure out something fast. And even
with
that fucking Halo, our chances are slim. There's no way we can take them, none. We need a miracle if ya ask me, and from what I've seen, Caleb's boss is not interested this time."

He takes a long swig of his beer and sits quietly, watching the scene play out down by the water for a few minutes before adding anything to the conversation. "All true. But you're missing something these days, Tier, and it's got me worried."

"Yeah? What am I missing, Lucan?"

"Faith."

Annun walks into the cabana and interrupts our conversation. "Where's the food? That little monster wants some food." He smiles as he says it and I can't help myself, I crack one too. She is a little monster, that's for sure. I point to the cool pack. "In there."

He reaches in, pulls a sandwich out, takes a bite and chews.

I wait for it.

"It's good."

I can only laugh. They do grow on you, those disgusting little concoctions. Maybe it's the oat bread?

He takes a handful of sandwiches and some drink bags and heads back to the water. Lili is there now, and Ryse is barking out directions to the various warriors who are busy erecting a second story on the castle.

Lucan gets up abruptly and walks back towards the boardwalk near the buildings. "Walk with me, Tier," he calls over his shoulder.

I get up and follow him across the sand.

He stops at the cement path that winds its way around the edge of the atoll beach and waits for me to catch up. "Amelia is asking for me and Rikan is there as well, so—"

I sigh. "So yer going back to be with
them
, then?" I didn't mean for it to come out jaded, but it does.

"Yes," he says simply, and then puts both hands on my shoulders and stares into my eyes. "But I want you to know, Tier, that you were not the decoy, do you understand? You are not the decoy. In thousands of years of life, you were my one true choice and regardless of what Gib's genetic charts say, you are my one true son."

It almost stops my heart, this revelation. He's never said these words to me before.

"And no matter what happens, I love you and have enjoyed every moment of your upbringing. I wish I'd paid closer attention and kept you home more, to be honest. I missed a lot, I think."

I have no words for this, I just frown and try to hold myself together.

"And if we win—
when—
when we win, I want you to have the same opportunity. Just think about it. I know it's not how you imagined your life, but just think about it."

He drops his hands and I nod out a yes to his request. "I'll think about it."

He smiles and turns to leave instead of disappearing outright. "Will you be back?" I call out before he can make his exit.

"I will be back, Raubtier," he says. "But I will be back in chains."

And then he's gone.

I stand there, the warm tropical wind whipping past my face—half watching the warriors build a sand castle with Junco's HOUSE, half listening to her excited squeals—as I play his last words in my head, over and over again.

He's put it all on me.

Because right now I outrank every being on this planet. And even though at every formal introduction I've ever made—be it with Subjack, or Caleb, or the other alien leaders in the Polar Friendly—I've always declared that my words are Lucan's words, it's never felt real until now.

I am Lucan's one true son.

Chapter Six

I sit in the cabana alone for several hours, just watching the line of sand castles appear along the shore. HOUSE's castle was declared complete a while ago and they've since moved on to the other congregations of avian warriors who have found their way down to the Sargassum resort.

If Ashur sees them all down here fucking off he's gonna piss his pants.

HOUSE gave up and came back to the cabana about twenty minutes ago, stretching out on the sand floor and babbling about her castle, her sunburn, and her missing flipflop for a few minutes before passing out from exhaustion. Her body is sprawled out haphazardly, half on a large multi-colored beach towel and half off.

I'm on my seventeenth beer.

Junco's Pillar hasn't even grown a picometer for more than two hours. Arel pops in every now and then to update me with the bad news. We're off the timeline now. No hope, as far as he can tell.

Hopeless, in fact, was the word he used.

I close my eyes and just sit there, silent and still.

And that faith Lucan was harping on at me about? Well, fuck faith. It's got a whole lot to do with nothing, I figure.

Annun wanders in shuffling around for a beer in the cool sack that has long since lost its coldness. And its beer.

"They're gone," I declare from the shadows.

He turns abruptly and laughs. "Shit, dude! You scared me!" He watches me take a slow drink off the last of the warm beer and then shifts his weight with apprehension.

I know my eyes are glowing because I can see the shadows.

And I know they're not green because HOUSE's face is lit up red. It isn't from sunburn.

"You all right, Tier?"

I take another swallow of beer. "No, not really."

He takes a seat in the canvas chair to my left and eases himself back, kicking out his legs a little, like he's just relaxing with a friend.

"I had a heart-to-heart with Junco once. Did you know that? Back when we were in Fledge together."

My eyes drift back down to HOUSE's sleeping body. It's so fucking unfair that Junco can be so close and yet so far at the same time. It's so fucking unfair.

"Yeah," he continues. "We were both up in the Church the night of the Sixth Fight. Lucan let the 039 give us a party to celebrate and we went over there."

It's such a struggle to even exist at the moment.

"She played piano for us that night. It was beautiful, ya know?" He looks over to me and I can tell he's a little drunk as well. "I'd been watching her fight all those weeks and I'd already formed an opinion of her. In my mind she was like a fucking rabid dog or something." He stops to laugh. "I mean, she was crazy in the Third Fight. I saw her in the maze at one point, wielding that SEAR knife like some kind of ancient avian from the myths and I thought to myself, damn, that bitch is out of her mind scary!"

I smile at this, because she really is. I would not want to fight her and Ashur is damn lucky she didn't chop his head off when he attacked her back in Vegas.

"Anyway," Annun continues, slurring the word a bit. "We both ended up in the church that night and we got to talking about what it means to be a warrior. And she told me something that haunts me."

He stops and leans over with his head in his hands and my interests picks up. "Well, what'd she say?"

He looks up and his eyes are more bloodshot than I remember them being a second ago. "She said she likes who she is and what she can do. And she'd never choose to be anything else."

"Huh," is the only response I can manage to that thoroughly depressing nugget of news.

"And I've thought about that talk we had endlessly, it seems, since she was taken and all this shit's been going down. Because I don't think she meant it."

I toss my empty bottle into the pile and it clinks against the others. I check HOUSE to see if that woke her, but she's breathing heavy and deep with sleep. "And what makes you so sure that wasn't what she meant, Annun?" I drag my gaze over to him and watch him squirm again.