When Tom arrived at the I'na compound the next day, his body chilled. Silence followed him as he walked to the group of I'na outside one of the spiraling towers. A rusty door was wide open. Investigators came in and out of the door, holding bags of evidence. They were robots. Seward still hadn't implemented robot peacekeepers, but this was the FBI's dime.
"Oh," Letic said when he saw Tom. "It's you."
"It's you," Tom replied.
Letic turned back to the spire, sighing. "You did a good thing."
"I'm sorry, wait. Hold on." Tom tapped his ear. "Say that again? I didn't quite catch it."
"Don't push your luck, human." Letic wore a wide smile.
"Wouldn't dream of it." Tom paused to watch the police with Letic. He felt more comfortable around Letic than he had in the past. At first, he'd felt like he was drowning with unbridled animosity. Now there was something between them. A common goal. "Where's Inaraa and Iilo?"
"Iilo is with FBI, and Inaraa with Elect. Ass-chewing."
"That sounds delightful." Tom winced.
"She's in there." Letic pointed to the old Victorian. It peeked out from the sheets of glowing white and pulsating gems of the spires, a reminder this wasn't Inaan anymore. This little area used to be a dark shadow of the past. Tom assumed the paints once were vibrant, but now with sun and age, they'd dulled into browns and yellows.
Tom moved from the crowd, watching over his shoulder for anyone looking. Curious, he wanted to see what the Elect was saying. Bought politicians were never the best, and if he could hear some of them, maybe he could pass that to the FBI. Not that Parker wanted him doing this. But Tom really didn't much care what Parker wanted. That, and he was just downright nosey. Attorneys had dangerous affairs with drama; they skirted the edges while their clients went for the punches.
He climbed the first stair, cringing when it groaned beneath his foot. No one noticed. When he felt it was safe, he went up the stairs and checked the door. It was unlocked.
Inside, the walls were barren. I'na junk lingered on the floors, parts of their spaceship and tools. Tom picked up a hunk of metal from a dusty table, turning it over in his hands. Carved into it were silver symbols that shimmered in the light. It reminded him of I'na skin.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Tom dropped the metal. It went clattering to the floor and split in two. He looked up to see an I'na woman on the stairs, her purple hand coiled around the banister.
"Oh shit. Oh shit, I'm sorry," Tom said.
The woman had a wrinkled face, a thin neck, and large eyes. Her hair was clipped back in a high ponytail with a giant red gem on the hairband. The gems weren't just for energy; they were part of I'na fashion. Tom wondered if the size of the gem had anything to do with her status. Inaraa's gems were small, but she had several. This woman only had one, but hers was large.
"I hope that wasn't important."
"It was only the official record of all Elect proceedings throughout our journey through the stars." She spoke with a clipped accent. When she descended the stairs, it was like she floated. She stood before Tom, her gaze directly level with his.
He shifted uncomfortably.
"Do you have a copy?" Tom asked, cringing.
"No." She bent down, picked up the metal, and snapped it back together. "But it's not broken."
"It may be wise to get a copy. Ya know, in case curious, clumsy humans come by." Tom scratched the back of his neck. He knew from painfully embarrassing experiences that he wasn't exactly smooth outside of the courtroom. This woman wasn't going to buy into his dopey charm either.
"Humans aren't allowed in here." She pointed a long finger at him. "You will get out."
"Inissa!"
Two double doors opened wide to expose a long table and I'na sitting around it. Inaraa looked between Tom and the woman, Inissa.
"I'm sorry, he's with me." Inaraa came out, snaking her hand into the crook of Tom's elbow. "We never told him to stay away."
"This is a house. Do humans go into each other's homes uninvited?" Inissa looked down her long nose at Tom. He felt like she could gobble him up and still have room for seconds.
"He's been helping Iilo, so—"
"Oh!" Inissa put her hand on her ID. "He's that one. Please get rid of him."
"Hey!" Tom was prepared to argue, but Inaraa yanked him from the room and out onto the porch.
She slapped her ID a few times, cursing. Inaraa didn't seem the type to display frustration so openly. To see her straining like this had Tom panicked.
"So, did I like, violate some sacred tradition or something?" Tom asked.
"You pretty much killed my career." Inaraa shrugged. "It's fine. I couldn't get the votes anyway. They'll ask to remove me and then I'll be as in the dark as everyone else. Fucking damn it!" She grabbed a braid and twisted it. "I was working on getting them to vote to keep the FBI around. Except Xue has no next of kin, so they're going to ask the investigation to stop."
"They can't do that. A crime's a crime. That's state prosecutor's job to decide."
"But we're I'na. We're supposed to have our own jurisdiction."
"Sure, but when a federal crime's been committed, that becomes federal jurisdiction." Tom could sway to this dance all day. He knew his way around the law, and boy did he ever love both criminal and civil procedure. "Who is she, anyway?"
"Translated, she's our Heart. But we call her the Scou'luu'nae."
"Does that mean heart?" Tom asked.
"Roughly. She's like everyone's mother? The glue that holds us together. The heart of it all. She's not someone you want to piss off. Which you did. By the way."
Tom leaned his butt on the porch railing. He winced when he heard it creak and eased off just a bit. He should've thought better before galivanting into the Elect's place of business. And Inissa mentioning it was someone's home? He wondered if she was the one who lived there.
"Lovely." Tom sighed, running his hand back and forth over his hair.
"You do that a lot," Inaraa said. "The hand thing. We don't see many humans who do, but you do."
"Oh, uh, I don't know." Tom shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from doing it again. "Just something I picked up in the military."
"Iilo!" Inaraa said, her face turning a warm purple.
"Inaraa. Hey, Tom." Iilo smiled and Tom's whole world paused.
Tom waved his fingers before he slammed his hand back in his pocket. He was absolutely about to rub his hand over his hair again. He pictured Iilo from the night before, soft and asleep. Tom looked to his boots, clicking them together while he listened to the siblings talk.
"We should visit the Lincoln Outreach center," Tom said abruptly. "It's killing me not knowing if there's a bigger picture here."
Iilo's face lit up. The freckles on his face hummed, stars on a living, breathing backdrop. He inched forward, his hand coming to rest on Tom's chest.
It sent jolts up Tom's spine.
"Parker said not to go looking." Iilo pulled his hands back, pressing them against his own chest. He looked between Tom and his sister, his face paling.
"Honestly? Fuck him. I need to know what's happening."
Inaraa laughed and said something in their language. Tom got to stand there and pretend he wasn't an idiot for not understanding. He felt it didn't work as well as he hoped.
"Human always make trouble," Letic said from the garden below the house. "I saw you went into Elect house."
"Yeah, I learned pretty fast that was a bad idea. Why didn't you stop me?"
Letic laughed. "Curious what would happen." A lovable bastard. Tom would best describe Letic as a lovable bastard.
Inaraa stood up, tossing her long braids behind her back. "Well, him slipping in without either of you probably just cost me my job. But that's beside the point now."
"We're gonna go to the Outreach center," Iilo said to Letic. "Have they found anything in Xue's things?"
Letic shrugged. His brows reminded Tom of a Disney villain. They never settled on his face; they just always judged. "Not know. Robots don't answer me when I ask questions."
"That's probably why Parker brought in the robots," Tom said.
"Scheming over." Letic grabbed Iilo's hand and pulled Iilo over the porch railings.
"Iilo!" Inaraa came over to the railing, watching with wide eyes. "Seriously? Right in front of the Elect?"
Letic and Iilo were rolling around in the grass, both smiling and laughing. It reminded Tom of siblings, two boys just roughhousing. I'na were all about touch. Iilo touched Tom's face, his hands, and his chest. Letic and Iilo played with unabashed friendship. Tom watched the smile on Iilo's face, his own cheeks heating up. He'd never thought he'd admit it; he'd known, but admitting it was a whole different step. Tom had grown to adore Iilo. His passion. His story. His touch. It felt like a betrayal on some level, to himself or to the world. But he liked Iilo. A moth to a flame stood a better chance than Tom now.
He just didn't know what to do with that revelation.
"Okay, you two zulei, let's go back home." Inaraa picked them up by their ears, and the play fight was over.
"Zoo what?" Tom asked.
"It's like when humans say monkeying around. The zulil was a troublemaker on our planet." Iilo nodded, apparently proud of his explanation.
Back inside Iilo's home, Tom followed Iilo into the kitchen.
Iilo padded around the room. He touched the oven, opened a few metal cabinets only to have them slam shut. Tom waited, watching patiently. Iilo's behavior was unusual. He seemed like a cautious person, but here he moved in erratic gestures. Nervous, maybe.
"Can I tell you something stupid?" Iilo asked.
"Of course."
"I never saw a zulil. I don't even know what they look like. My whole life on a damn spaceship and yet we still remember all the names of the animals we had, even if we don't even know what they looked like."
It hadn't been nerves. It had been rage. Tom couldn't imagine a universe where he didn't know where he came from. Roots were important, even if he'd traveled far from them. Indiana wasn't the best, but it had a kind of character that Tom was proud to be from. Hard-working and a little stubborn. Without the Earth, without knowing his world or about elephants, what would he be like?
"That must be very disorienting for you," Tom said, because he didn't know what else to say.
"I don't know the kind of clan I had. It's me and Inaara left. We changed so much when we were on the ship. We sacrificed a lot just to survive. A lot of that was our culture. When we needed more space, we got rid of the art first, then the books. By the time we got here, we'd lost so much of our own planet." Iilo played with the hem of his shirt, a dingy gray thing that said MARSHALL. "There's a nice hill close by. You can see a mountain in the distance. I go there to think a lot. Wanna come? It's kinda like where we went that one day."
Tom ruffled Iilo's hair, laughing when Iilo crouched to hit him in the sternum with his exoskull. "Woah there! That thing is thick!"
"C'mon."
*~*~*
When they arrived, Tom remembered why he'd moved to Nebraska. Tall green grass swayed in a lazy dance. The sky sprawled out above them, stretching across the horizon to where their eyes couldn't see. A mountain slept beneath the sky's bend, gray in the distance.
Iilo sat beside Tom, their shoulders close.
"Remember when I told you about the guy who died here? From our blood?"
Tom's heart squeezed. He vaguely remembered it. It was why it'd been important for Tom to help. Immunity allowed the I'na the freedom to relax a bit around him.
"He'd gotten blood in his mouth and died a few days later. His lungs crumbled away." Iilo sighed, lying back.
"God."
"Why do you say a god's name so much?" Iilo's brow quirked, lips pouted.
"It's just—it's just a human thing. I dunno. We're not supposed to say the Lord's name in vain, but maybe I wasn't. Maybe it's a short prayer. I don't really know. I'm not really the most religious person."
"The Elect had to fight off a full-on lockdown on the settlement. It was an accident, we swore. Some kind of tribunal or something happened. Ruled an accident, case sealed up. So your government left us alone. But I know they're watching us. Sometimes I even wonder if this is payback."
"It's not. Someone bad is out there, and I'm pretty sure they're not with the government. It'd be happening all over the country if it was." Tom knew more than ever how important it was to speak to other I'na, especially at the Lincoln Outreach Center. He had to be sure this wasn't happening everywhere. Feeding Iilo false information could be devastating, and Tom didn't want to mislead him.
Iilo smiled the kind of smile that pulled at the lips but where the eyes looked out of place. The sunlight lit up his freckles. They glowed, purple, pink, green—all glittering across his skin. His ID dim, Tom could see the grooves in the skull more this way. He reached out, unthinking, running his fingers along it.
Iilo's eyes fluttered shut.
"Sorry. I should've asked." Tom's cheeks heated.
"It's okay. I didn't mind."
"You're born with these?"
"Yes. It's an exoskeleton. We've got two layers of skull or whatever right here." Iilo tapped the skull side of his head distractedly.
"They're cool." Tom gave Iilo's exoskull another pat.
"If our secret gets out, I don't know what'll happen." Iilo went pale.
"We'll get through this. You're not alone anymore. Just remember that." Tom nudged Iilo's shoulder. He was always so surprised when Iilo didn't fall over. But then he remembered when he'd carried Iilo home, the power behind such a small frame.
"I don't want to take you to see his family," Iilo said.
Tom frowned, knowing who he was. The I'na he'd killed.
"At least—not yet. Not with all this happening. I don't know what they'll do, and I don't want you to leave me."
"Hey. I'm not going anywhere." Tom had contemplated for a long time on what he'd do with moments like these. I'na were affectionate, but when Iilo looked like this? He knew he had to do something. He took Iilo's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, matching it with a smile. His hand was small and cool, and for the first time, Tom didn't think about frantic hands that clawed for his throat in the Louisiana heat. He just thought about Iilo and his soft frown.
Iilo looked up at Tom with large, shimmering eyes. Purple filtered into his cheeks and his neck. He bit his lip, looking away.
Tom's heart panged, a pointed reminder that he couldn't often control how he felt. Iilo was a lost bird, trying to navigate his life in a world he didn't know, longing for a world he'd never seen. He'd tumbled into Tom's life and Tom hadn't stopped to appreciate what that meant. Standing here, his hand holding Iilo's, it was more than just friendship.
Tom was healing, and so was Iilo. They both had skeletons in their closets. Both had fears ruined by the harsh realities of life. But that was part of life's journey. The way people navigated life, how they chose to tell their stories—that's what made life worth living.
Tom had a story. It started with a glowing ship in the sky and a shot that was said to echo around the world. It met twists and turns, foxholes in swamps and shitty service where he couldn't call his dad to tell him he loved him, just in case. But the river kept flowing and Tom's story was still going. It brought an I'na into his practice. It brought him a friend.
Tom squeezed Iilo's hand again, and then let go.