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  She cursed herself for that pivotal moment when everything could have been different if only she’d listened to the cautionary voice inside. But, no, she’d gone off with her usual impulsiveness and look where it had landed her. Tied up on a bed in a poorly decorated hovel.

  How could she have ever imagined Danje wasn’t what he claimed, a university student from a similar background to her own, who loved to dance and wanted to change the world?

  “Comset on,” she said to activate the device. “Ja-hun.” Nothing happened.

  “You’re awake.” Danje’s voice startled her. She’d thought she was alone in the room, but he moved into her field of vision from wherever he’d been standing. He crouched down by the bedside so they were nearly on eye level. “Don’t be afraid. This is temporary. Your comset has been deactivated, of course.”

  “Wha…?” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard, trying to work up some saliva.

  “This isn’t really about you. But a point needed to be made. Your father has to understand how we feel, and that change doesn’t come about without some suffering, you see?”

  “I.A.?” she croaked. Insurgent Alliance. Blinking, she cleared her vision so she could focus on his face.

  “No. A.R. ‘Anu Reborn.’” He cocked his head. “You’ve heard of the movement?”

  She started to shake her head, but it hurt like hell so she stopped. Leelah groaned.

  “Sorry. I put a Dartex patch on you. The narcotic is pretty primitive and has some side effects ‑‑ dry mouth, dizziness, headache.”

  “Hnh,” she grunted. “What do you want?”

  “A.R. is nothing like the collection of barbaric lowlifes who make up the Insurgent Alliance. Those cretins squawk about equality for all. We want quite the opposite. Anu needs to take its rightful place as the center of the known universe, the light at the heart of the Free Worlds.” His smile was so white and pretty in his handsome face it was almost impossible to take him seriously. If she hadn’t been trussed up on a bed, they might have been having this discussion over a cup of chamti on a college campus.

  “The older generation on Anu has been happy to be part of the Free Worlds alliance. But there are many of us who recognize the need for Anu to assume its rightful position of authority in this universe. While men like your father try to accommodate everyone and end up pleasing nobody, simply treading in place and getting nowhere, Anu would control the other planets as they need to be controlled.”

  “I see.” I see you’re a fucking loony. Again, she tested the strength of her bonds, wiggling her fingers and picking at the tape as best she could.

  “Don’t bother.” He glanced down at her hands. “Even if you freed yourself, you couldn’t get out of the room.”

  “Where am I?”

  He reached out and brushed her hair back from her face, sending a chill down her spine. “You don’t really want to know that. On the chance that your father complies with our demands, we will let you go, but only if you don’t know where you are right now.”

  But I know who you are. You’ll never let me live. For the first time, the extent of the danger she was in hit her like a meteor in the gut. She realized she might have very little time left. Oh, Goddess, help me find a way out of this. Ja-hun, find me.

  “What are your demands?” Keeping him talking seemed the right thing to do. That way if she did manage to escape, she’d have useful information to share.

  “To start with, Anu must become the seat of the government instead of NewEarth. We understand the transition must take place over time to prepare people for the new order of things. Once that’s established and Rogent has become a mouthpiece for our policies, eventually he can step aside and an Anuvian leader will take charge.” He waved a hand. “Chandre’s plan is much more detailed than that, of course, but that’s the general idea.”

  Leelah could only assume Chandre was the leader of the movement. She wondered how many members they had. Was it a prevalent organization on Anu or only a few extremists?

  She felt terribly guilty. She’d fallen right into their trap, allowed Danje to walk off with her right from under the tightest security in the universe. But how could she have known that a guy she met at Burdah’s party, the son of a diplomat, would be part of a terrorist cell? Burdah had introduced her to Danje. Was he a part of this?

  “Burdah said he met you in a college class. Is he a part of your organization?”

  Danje laughed, the sound as musical as wind chimes. “Of course not! Only pureblood Anuvians are recruited.”

  “Of course.” Her lips stretched into a strained smile. “Uh, does your mother know about this?”

  He scowled and still managed to look gorgeous, which was really creepy. “She’s part of the problem, not the cure. She insists on working with your father and the rest of the Worlds in the Federation. No, Mother is definitely not a part of this.”

  He rose from his crouch and stretched. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  She nodded.

  Danje walked to a coldchest in the wall and withdrew a bottle of water. He tossed it up and down in his hand as he crossed the room toward her. “You know, I was this close to having you at Burdah’s party, but I figured I’d wait until the party moved to the beach. It would be easier to slip away then. But your skan-ji bodyguard fucked up my plan.”

  The slur he’d applied to Ja-hun was the most derogatory epithet for humanoids considered racially inferior. Leelah had rarely heard anyone use the term. Her friends didn’t think that way. She bit her tongue and kept silent. Defending Ja-hun was the least of her worries right now.

  When Danje offered the water bottle to her, she spread her fingers indicating her helplessness. She couldn’t lift her hands far enough to reach her mouth ‑‑ not with them tied to her feet. He started to unscrew the cap, and she knew he was going to hold her head and feed her the water.

  “Please, can’t you at least separate my hands from my feet? It’s so uncomfortable, and as you said, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Danje paused a moment then nodded. “I guess it won’t hurt.” As he pulled out a knife and sliced through the industrial strength tape connecting her wrists to her ankles, he added, “You know, I’m not a violent person at heart, and I hope we can get through this with you unharmed.”

  Okay, Mr. Naïve. If you think your buddies will let that happen, you’re a bigger idiot than I imagined.

  He helped her to sit and offered her the water again. Her wrists were still bound, but she could take the bottle between her hands. Leelah guzzled water, spilling some down her chin in her haste to quench her deep thirst. When she was finished, she held the bottle back toward him. “So, I guess this means you don’t really have that Kingset vid.”

  “Actually, I do.” Again that creepy smile. “I happen to have it on me, too. Do you want to watch it?”

  “Sure.”

  While Danje took the chip from his vidlib and popped it into the old-fashioned vid machine, she scanned the room for any possibility of escape. The place appeared to be a motel rather than a room in someone’s house. All the furnishings were outdated, including the ancient vid screen. Danje was puzzling over the knobs and buttons, trying to figure out how to make the machine run.

  Leelah swung her legs off the edge of the bed onto the floor. She probably couldn’t run past him and make it out the door without being caught, but there was an antique halo-lamp she could pick up and bash him over the head with if she got a chance. She calculated the distance as the Kingest vid finally appeared on the patchy screen.

  A wave of sound blasted through the small room, and Danje instinctively yelled, “Sound down” at the vid. Of course, the old machine didn’t respond to a vocal command. He bent over, fiddling with the controls.

  Leelah rose on shaky legs and hobbled a few steps toward the lamp. Danje was completely concentrated on the machine and with Kingset blaring, didn’t appear to hear her. Inch by inch, she moved toward the halo-lamp. Her body was drenched
with sweat, and she wiped her palms against her dress so they’d be dry enough not to slip on the lamp ‑‑ if she ever reached the damn thing, and if she could wrap her hands around it with her wrists still bound together. She didn’t even want to think about how she’d manage to cross and attack Danje with her ankles tied together and a full-length gown further hobbling her.

  Danje got the sound adjusted to a moderate level just as Leelah reached the table with the lamp on top. Simultaneously, the door of the room burst open, and Ja-hun lunged inside, firing his zynpher at Danje. A flash of light, quicker than lightning, pulsed from the weapon to Danje. For a moment, he was illuminated in blue as the force field surrounded him, eyes open wide, one hand clutching an old-fashioned remote device for operating the vid screen. Then he dropped like a stone, falling to the floor with a soft thud.

  Leelah froze with her hand reaching for the halo-lamp.

  Ja-hun crossed to Danje’s stunned body, crouching beside him. He checked his pulse and searched him for weapons before rising and turning toward Leelah. His dark, almond eyes were hard and the set of his face stony as he walked toward her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, but remained frozen in place. “You’re here!”

  “Yes.” He moved close, eyes scanning her from head to toe. “He didn’t hurt you?”

  “No. I’m a hostage. He’s part of some crazy group that wants Anuvian dominion over the universe.” Finally breaking from her spell, she reached toward Ja-hun, showing him her bound wrists.

  He made a sound in his throat that sounded like a growl and pulled a knife from an inside pocket. As he sliced through her bonds, he muttered, “Damn zynphers. I should cut his throat.” For just a second, he was scarier than Danje. Leelah had no doubt Ja-hun would kill Danje without hesitation if he wasn’t a vital link to the Anuvian terrorist group.

  The moment her hands were free, she started to throw her arms around Ja-hun’s neck, but he seized her wrists, stopping her. “No. Letting myself get distracted from my job is what brought us here.”

  “Ja-hun ‑‑”

  “Come on.” He pulled on her wrist, and she stumbled and fell toward him.

  “My ankles, too.” She lifted the hem of her skirt to show him.

  He crouched at her feet to cut through the tape around her ankles. The cold blade of the knife pressed against her skin and his warm hand gripped her calf. “Don’t be angry,” she pleaded, but he didn’t answer.

  Leelah caught the shadow of movement at the door a fraction of a second before a man entered. The Kingset vid covered the sound of his footsteps or Ja-hun probably would have heard him. “Hey!” was all she had time to say, before another zynpher flash flared through the room directly at Ja-hun’s back.

  He fell over sideways, sprawling at her feet. “Don’t shoot!” She held her hands up in the air at the same time as she dropped to her knees. The man in the doorway was followed by a woman. Both were Anuvian. They glided into the room as gracefully as dancers.

  The woman called out Danje’s name and ran to him, dropping down by his side and cradling his face in her hands. In the brief moment that the man watched this scene, Leelah reached down and grabbed the knife Ja-hun had dropped.

  She had less than a moment to decide whether to try to conceal the weapon and bide her time or act immediately. Instinct told her that playing for time was not going to help Ja-hun. The bodyguard was expendable, while she, the hostage, was not. Likely the man would kill Ja-hun and move Leelah to a new location.

  All this passed through her mind in a nanosecond before she launched herself to her feet and across the room toward the man with the zynpher. She tripped on the folds of her gown but regained her balance and raised her arm with the small knife in her hand.

  He saw her from the corner of his eye and raised his arm to deflect the blow, but it was too late. Her aim was true, and she drove the blade into his arm as deeply as she could. Blood gushed in a red fountain from the wound and splashed over her hand still gripping the handle.

  The force of her blow made him drop his weapon, and he grabbed for the knife with his other hand. Leelah let him have it, falling to her knees to gain the zynpher instead. The gun was more lightweight than she’d expected as she lifted and pointed it at the terrorist. Now, how the hell to trigger it? She’d never fired a zynpher in her life.

  The woman by Danje’s body entered the action, raising her weapon and sending a flash in Leelah’s direction. Luckily, her aim was off, and the magnetic field encompassed the wall where the vid screen still played, freezing the molecules of the electronic device and making the screen go black.

  Shenje, why couldn’t she have ever learned anything useful in life, like how to shoot a damn weapon? Leelah’s searching fingers finally found the trigger on the smooth handle of the zynpher and pressed. She shot a bolt at the male Anuvian standing directly in front of her, who had just pulled the little knife blade from his arm. He fell down and lay still. There was no residual twitching after being hit by a bolt from a zynpher.

  Still on her knees, Leelah dropped to her stomach and rolled to shield herself behind the man’s sprawled body. She fired again. The bitch shot back at her, and this time the two magnetic fields met in midair, making a mini light show before canceling each other out.

  Leelah held her finger down on the trigger, firing bolt after bolt of energy at her opponent. Surely, one of them would find its mark. She wondered if a person could die from too many zynpher hits at once.

  Finally, she released the trigger and took a look around her.

  The woman lay half across Danje’s body, unconscious or maybe dead. Leelah wasn’t going to go and find out. She stood up on legs trembling so badly they could hardly support her weight. She crossed to the woman and plucked her weapon from the floor near her hand. Leelah gazed around the quiet motel room ‑‑ four bodies and her.

  She went to Ja-hun. His dark lashes rested in two lush crescents on his cheekbones. His black hair fell across his forehead. She knew he was merely unconscious, could see his chest slowly rising and falling, but his stillness frightened her. Squatting, she pressed her fingers to his neck and let the strong, steady pulse reassure her.

  Once more, she tried to activate her comset with her voice, but it was dead. Whatever Danje had done to it had knocked it out of service.

  Comsets were programmed to the voice of their owner, so she couldn’t use Ja-hun’s or one of the terrorists’ devices to call for help. Leelah didn’t feel she was out of danger yet. More of the Anuvians might be coming. She wouldn’t leave Ja-hun while she went for help, and she couldn’t drag him with her.

  For one moment, she crouched there, shivering and undecided. After the series of instant decisions she’d just made, this little problem felt like one thing too many. She couldn’t think what to do. Then she saw a comset on the table by the halo-lamp ‑‑ an old-fashioned set, not an implant. She’d rarely seen one and wasn’t certain how to use it. Picking up the device, she said, “Comset on.” There was no response. But when she saw and pushed a small button, a ridiculous robotic voice asked how it might help her.

  “Nigeri Stedman.” It would do no good to give her father’s name since his comset connection wouldn’t be available on a public set. Leelah brushed her hand idly through Ja-hun’s hair as she waited for the slow connection to go through. A moment later, she heard the familiar voice of her family’s security director. A rush of relief swept through her, and her eyes stung with tears. “Nigeri? It’s Leelah. I’m in big trouble. Can you come get me?”

  Chapter Seven

  Ja-hun sat staring at the jabarta pieces laid out in front of him. “I can move this piece laterally but not straight?” he confirmed with Leelah.

  “That’s right.” She sighed and rested her chin on her hand, gazing across the board at him. “You know, you’re making this more complicated than it has to be. Jabarta is so simple children play it.”

  He frowned and considered his options. “I don’t want to make t
he wrong move and lose. It is a game of logic, not chance.”

  “You’re leeching the fun out of it by the second,” she whined, flopping back into her chair and rolling her head against the back. “Make a move already!”

  “Excuse me if I’m a little slow for you. Try and remember I’ve never played this game in my life, and I was recently zapped by a zynpher, which tends to scramble one’s thinking for a while.”

  “Ooh, poor baby. I’m too hard on you.” She leaned forward again and reached across the game board to stroke the side of his face. “You’re supposed to be resting, and I’m making you strain your brain.”

  Her hand felt good and cool against the side of his face. For some reason the zap with a molecular field had heightened all his senses so that every touch, smell, sound, and sight seemed magnified and fresh. It was very strange, like finding out he’d been blind all his life and was only now seeing clearly. The medic had assured him the effect couldn’t possibly be caused by a zynpher and suggested he might be having some emotional reactions to being shot.

  Ja-hun thought the idea was ridiculous. There was nothing emotional in his entire makeup, which was why he was able to pull Leelah’s hand away from his face and push it back toward her. “I told you, none of that. I agreed to play your silly game, but there will be no other interaction between us. It’s over.”

  “You mean the sex?” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper, although they were alone in his bedroom. “Because you think you can’t be my bodyguard and keep me safe while you’re involved with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good thing you’re fired then, isn’t it?” Her mischievous smile made her eyes sparkle. “That’s right. Daddy says you’re no longer in his employ. So you can feel free to fuck me all you want.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Fired. After the fiasco at the ball, did you think he’d keep you on?”

  He felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Whether killer or guardian, he’d never been fired from a job in his life. He drew a deep breath and set down the playing piece he’d been hesitating over for several minutes. “That’s it then. I may as well pack.”