He felt as though he was submerged in sands warmed by stars when he woke. Sandsa lay there, unmoving, his smile fixed in place, even when the imagined blue sky faded into a grey ceiling stained with water.
‘I love her,’ he repeated the chant from his heart.
He had seen countless mortals across innumerous deserts toil under the fear of speaking that very word; some truly could not return the ardour of the one who had offered it, and others needed time to pry apart their own feelings. Sandsa, confident that he knew which was the case here, whistled some tune he had heard in the Dance Tower the night before and grabbed the grotty threadbare towel that had replaced the significantly cleaner one he’d thrown into the automated laundry system.
The piping hot water in the shower made him think of the deserts at first, but as the spray cooled his thoughts gave way to Callista. He could wait for her to solve the puzzle of her heart. He knew she must feel as he did, fumbling through new and mysterious territory.
He imagined the water falling over her, drenching her beautiful hair but never hiding the eyes that saw into him in a way his father could not seem to. Sandsa’s mind did not stop there; soon he was imagining taking each article of clothing off her until she was wearing only droplets of moisture. Sandsa groaned and rested his forehead on the tiling. A certain part of his flesh and blood being had become insistent, demanding attention, and she filled his thoughts, worsening his situation. That troublesome organ was hard again and the veins along its shaft pulsed with each image of her that flashed before his eyes.
She was in the room with him, he realised.
‘It is my understanding that the female bathroom is next door,’ Sandsa said.
Callista lifted her arms, her hands disappearing to the back of her head where she twisted her hair into a stubby version of a ponytail. One corner of her lips deepened as she smirked, no doubt fully aware that the arch of her back had presented those pleasing mounds of flesh to him. Knowing that he was staring, Sandsa moved his eyes to no avail — the patch of curls at the apex of her legs was impossible to ignore.
‘Never seen a naked woman before?’ she asked with an even broader grin, slinking over to share the spray being jettisoned from the showerhead he was using.
‘Yes, many,’ Sandsa answered, then realised his mistake when she quickly crossed her arms over her breasts. ‘Ah, that is to say…well. Yours is a flattering form and I have never been rendered so speechless.’
Nakedness was something that happened among his people, though mostly it occurred inside their private abodes with their intimate partners. Sandsa had smiled when he had sensed the love between consenting adults, but he had never been able to shake the envy, the need.
Callista’s eyes dropped low, past his abdomen, and then the wicked smirk was back. Sandsa found himself grinning back at her, feeling no embarrassment or discomfort.
Stark, you’re easy to look at, her voice ghosted into his mind. But I really do need a wash after last night.
Sandsa held up the soap. She took it. They washed together, slowly, eyes roaming over each other, hands never straying from their own bodies. To Sandsa’s relief, his member softened by the end of the chore and he was able to assist in towelling her off without becoming too distracted.
Admiring her form as she hid it away again, Sandsa almost missed seeing that dreaded word he had used begin to form in her mind. Before he could comment on it, she blurted, ‘Do you want to get out of here? Ala’s forbidden us from going out on missions at night, but she laid no restrictions on cavorting with daylight — and I know a place or two that you might like.’
‘Are you always so verbose when you are asking someone out on a date?’ Sandsa asked, eyebrows raised.
‘I rather thought we were past just…dating. Especially…’ She paused. ‘Especially,’ she repeated, then lunged at him for a kiss.
He gathered her in his arms, pleased with the sensation of her shirt grazing his nipples. It was electric. After several delightful moments, Sandsa set her at arm’s length, smiling. ‘Let us cavort with daylight.’
‘Put your shirt on,’ she said, grinning as she tossed the item at him. ‘I won’t have anyone else catching a glimpse of the goods.’
He could still hear her laughing when she left the room.
***
Bleary-eyed Kick, having stumbled out of his nest of pillows in the garage, only needed a word or two from his newest subofficer before he relinquished control of a hovercar for the day. Callista ran a hand over the vehicle, noting that its angular lines had been in fashion well over ten years ago. It was hard to ignore that in the poor lighting of the garage, the maroon smeared on its knife-shaped body looked more like old blood than paint.
Sandsa, she noticed, had chosen to forgo his jacket. Callista couldn’t blame him; it did get quite warm during the day in Atsa. She wasn’t quite ready to shed the protective leather — she didn’t have his confidence. He was so sure about everything, including his belief that she would return his feelings.
She settled into the driver’s seat and, when he stared at her, said tartly, ‘I’ve been driving since I was a girl. Have you seen any hovercars out there in your deserts?’
‘Not everyone “out there” gives up tech,’ Sandsa informed her. ‘Some of my — some of the Desine’s followers have permanent settlements as well as hovercars.’
Callista patted the passenger seat beside her. ‘Sit. You can outshoot, out-power and out-talk me, but I’ll be starked if I let you find out that you can out-drive me.’
She took the turn of his lips to mean that he accepted. When she reached for his thoughts, she found an excitable boy, one that bounced across the dunes in his mindscape, kicking up clomps of sand and running into the waiting arms of his — mother. His mind closed abruptly. Callista rested a hand on his knee and retreated back inside her own skull. His fingers wove through hers.
The garage blazed with light as the reinforced door between them and the road slid open. Smiling at Sandsa as he sat up expectantly in his seat, she guided their hovercar outside and almost immediately had to swerve around a smashed vehicle from the previous night, its ruins charred and robbed of anything salvageable.
Judging by his relaxed manner, Sandsa felt comfortable with her driving, though occasionally he would eye the steering wheel with something amounting to envy. Callista rubbed her thighs together, drawing his interest elsewhere. She grinned down the street.
They sailed into the No-Go Zone like any normal couple on a drive, unhindered by lasbolts or Chippers. Though it was early still, the star above them beat down onto the road, forming a shimmering haze above the surface of the tar. No one in this wealthy area would be heading off to work yet. They could afford to huddle inside their protective shells for a little while longer before they emerged, if at all, to tackle another day of trying to outclass their neighbours. Some of them might even consider abandoning their business ventures here on dusty Yalsa 5 and head for richer pastures.
Callista did not need to take Canat Road to reach her intended destination, but she took it anyway.
Lined with grand houses, their facades formed by stones that were meant to give them the appearance of class, this road had once been a daily route bringing her back to the mansion she had once called home. The fence enclosing the house and its immaculate garden was spiked and head-high, not much of a deterrent to the gangs but it probably made her parents feel safe. Callista noticed that the hedges inside the fence were still evenly trimmed. What had she expected — her old prison a derelict ruin after a single month?
It would serve them right, she thought.
Sandsa glanced at her. ‘Callista?’
She blindly groped for her lasgun. The pocket holding it was designed for the larger, heavier artillery that other Maria favoured so she had to dig for a moment to retrieve her weapon. Once she was armed, Callista punched a button; the window slid down. Pinching the steering rods between her thumb and forefinger on one hand, she rested an elbow on the side of the hovercar, taking aim. The ensuing bolt slapped the gate, but then washed away harmlessly.
So. They had some defence against Atsa’s night-life after all.
Callista dropped her lasgun and shook her head. She wasn’t even sure if destroying the gate would have made her feel any better.
‘My parents,’ she explained.
‘I understand,’ he said.
Yalsa 5’s closest star continued to dominate the sky as Callista drove, chasing away the coldest, darkest crannies surrounding them. She blinked; somehow she had forgotten how beautiful the city could look when it was not ruled by shadows and death. After passing more stately buildings, they arrived at Governor Park, its artificial lake an astonishing blue beside the pale green grasses that grew tiredly around it. No governor of Atsa City had bothered to spend any taxes on importing rich, foreign soils so any plants here were small and hardy or designed to love sandy ground. There had been attempts to generate interest in terraforming Yalsa 5 in the past, but it had always been deemed too expensive.
‘Well, it’s no beach, but it’s not a bad place to relax,’ Callista said, then saw the delight dancing in Sandsa’s eyes as he vaulted out of the cockpit. ‘Right. You don’t care what it is, just that you’re with me. Well, enjoy it while you can.’
Unease prickled along her scalp until she swatted at her hair, stamping out the feeling of…premonition? Callista closed her eyes for a moment and balled up her energy inside her, where it couldn’t draw the attention of any passing Chipper.
I need to be careful when they’re out and about, Callista thought. Her skin crawled as she watched Sandsa kneel at the side of the massive concrete container that was filled with sand and a parody of a sea. But the Chippers are always out and about now. Even during the night. There’s no escaping them.
She shuddered.
Sandsa peered up at her. ‘My love?’
The endearment was like a punch to the chest.
Callista looked away. ‘Please…don’t. Don’t say that. Not yet.’
Not yet… The words bounced around his mind, infecting her own thoughts. Not yet.
***
‘I love coming here,’ Callista said. The bowl-shaped boat they had rented from one of the vendors on the edge of the lake coasted around the perimeter, guided by artificial currents instead of an engine. ‘It’s also the largest body of water in the city so expect some would-be athletes swimming around later.’
Sandsa scooped up some of the cool water from the lake, watching it trickle away between his fingers. He cupped yet more of it in his hands and tossed it onto his face. His eyes stung from the chemicals that kept the lake clean but he declined the cloth that Callista offered him, instead leaning over the edge of the boat to continue studying the surface of the liquid. He tossed a tendril of power into the shallow waves, tunnelling down for the sand beneath them, then felt his eyes widen as the water threw something back at him.
Impossible! Water is not in my domain! he thought.
Fingers clawed into the collar of his shirt, pulling him back into the boat. Callista patted his cheek. ‘No, we’re not here to get wet.’
‘We’re not?’ Sandsa asked, his gaze finding the children treading along the edge of the lake in their colourful swimming costumes.
She laughed and shed her clothes. For a moment, Sandsa was confused, then saw that she was not entirely naked. She was now adorned in a small, two-piece swimsuit of her own. Once the outfit, mostly black with some silver swirls, was exposed, Callista leaned back against the cotton linen covering the seat that ran around the rim of the boat. She was sunbaking, Sandsa realised, bemused. It was not something his people did in the deserts — the sun was something to be avoided when it seared skin and stole a man’s vital fluids. Some novices, in order to attain priesthood, ventured into the bare sands with only the Magic and a shred of fabric on their backs, embracing the delusions that came with dehydration, to better commune with their desert god.
Callista exposed her skin for the mere pleasure of it. Would she still want to do that when he took her into the deserts?
Sandsa shook his head. No, he was done with that life. In an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts, he cast his gaze around the boat and found a techpad that someone had left on the seat. Its screen lit up beneath his fingertips, revealing lines of text. He offered the device to Callista who laughed when she laid eyes on it.
‘Someone was reading a romance novel on this techpad, looks like,’ she said, turning the device over in her hands. ‘Seeking the Stars. A classic by Atsa’s own Julia Love — this one’s old. Ala might make fun of my lack of experience, but women with more lovers than her still bawl their eyes out when reading this.’
‘Is it a sad story then?’ Sandsa asked, reaching for it.
Callista chortled, relinquishing the item. ‘Oh, no. The lovers escape on a starship bound for Enoc — it’s a planet some days from here — so that they can be together against their families’ wishes.’
Sandsa turned his face up to the sky, peering through the atmosphere, to the stars and planets and other celestial bodies rotating in the grip of gravity or fleeing it with wild abandon. His companion brought him sharply back into his body when she said, ‘I used to think these books were a load of nonsense.’
‘And now?’ Sandsa asked.
Callista smiled. ‘I’m starting to think Julia undersold some parts.’
Her mind was suddenly filled with text that swiftly morphed into black and white sketches of two bodies merging into one silhouette. Sandsa added colour to the images and fleshed them out, literally in some cases, to illustrate what he knew of the act. Callista drew away from him.
‘Will we find out if she undersold that?’ Sandsa asked her with a grin.
‘Maybe.’ Callista gave him a sly sideways glance. ‘If you’re good.’
Sandsa chuckled and continued to page through the book, taping a finger on the edge of the screen to do so. He found himself entranced by the thoughts and sensations the characters experienced during intimate scenes. He knew his people in the deserts enjoyed sex, even when they did not wish to reproduce, but had long considered it beneath him. This book made it sound delightful. His palm skimmed a sensor on the bottom of the techpad, taking it back to the front of the book. The dedication sprang up on the next page.
To my eldest, for whom the sands rise and fall
To my youngest, for whom the trees bend and sway
To the one who scarred me, please set me free
Sandsa dropped the device. It struck the bottom of the boat with a muted clunk. He knew, he just knew. But still he asked, his voice rising in pitch, ‘Who is this Julia Love? Is she…is she still here? Is she…’
Is she dead or is she alive, old and withered but still alive?
Callista blinked, the skin over her forehead creasing as she sensed the turmoil within him. ‘That’s a more interesting story than any of the tripe she wrote. It was just a pen-name — she used the sale of her books to bankroll the Maria so we could take over the city. I suppose even enemies of the Maria bought her work. I don’t know of any other gangs who’ve used legitimate fundraising, though to be honest, no one knows all the clans that have existed over the centuries.’
‘Go on, go on,’ Sandsa pleaded.
‘Julia Ine was our Clan Leader,’ Callista said, sitting up to stare across at him.
Ine. She had used her former husband’s name.
Sandsa nodded. ‘And? What happened?’
‘The Alcazaar killed her — that’s how they ended up ruling Atsa,’ Callista told him, her words hesitant and soft.
Sandsa coiled his grief back inside his gut. He stuffed every other feeling and exposed nerve in there with it, slamming his defences shut.
‘Will you tell me why this hurts you so much?’ Callista asked after several tense seconds of silence.
‘She…meant something to me,’ Sandsa said, his chest aching.
‘No kidding. What else?’
But how could she understand? It had been more than fifty years since his mother had lost her binding scars and her former husband’s immortality. She had then apparently come here, where violence had robbed her of her life before old age ever could. For him it was recent enough to still be raw, a blister that chafed against any dressing applied to it. To Callista, his mother’s death was something that happened before she was born; it was a mere detail, a fact. And he was far too young to be Julia Ine’s progeny in her eyes. Callista was openly derisive when it came to the gods. How would she look upon him when she knew what he was?
He had barely opened his mouth, still not sure what he could say, when a spray of water shot up from the surface of the lake and smacked across their faces. Callista was on her feet in an instant, her lasgun up and ready. Only after glancing around the boat did Sandsa recall that he had not brought his weapon. It was something he carried for show, so the Maria would not suspect he had something else in his ‘personal arsenal’ — a phrase he had picked up from Bock, though the teenager seemed to think his own particular arsenal contained abilities that could entice a woman into his bed.
‘You filthy Alcazaar!’ Callista shouted as the three hoverbikes responsible tore away, churning up water and sending children scrambling onto the prickly plants ringing the lake. ‘Come back, cowards! Or are you afraid to face clanspeople who don’t hide behind Chippers?’
The bike in the centre of the formation swung back around immediately, its flanking vehicles reacting a little slower. The leader of the trio was clearly the man on the largest machine. He was wearing a ridiculous neon blue top hat that was kept in place with a cotton strap and his clothes were colourful, trendy, and bore no apparent gang logos.
‘Maria scum,’ he said, tilting his head to one side to regard them with flinty eyes. ‘You’re the cowards! You ran from the fight last night and you didn’t even offer me a dance, Dancer.’
Callista lifted her chin. ‘I notice you’re not denying that you’re in with the Chippers, Cosmos. What did you offer them? Oh, I see.’ Sandsa sensed Callista dart briefly into Cosmos’ mind. ‘You pay the medical bills for the injuries they sustain at night. And you pay them better than the Agency does. Interesting.’
Cosmos turned his leer onto Sandsa. ‘You’re the one the Maria trotted out last night, yeah?’
‘Yes,’ Sandsa answered.
‘He’s Bolt — could put one right between your eyes before you even blink,’ Callista said, moving in front of Sandsa.
Cosmos smirked. ‘What, without a lasgun?’
Callista threw an exasperated look at Sandsa. He would have offered a sheepish smile had he not sensed the true intent behind Cosmos’ pursuit of them.
He knows, Sandsa told Callista. He saw me deal with his clanspeople and the Chippers last night — that or someone informed him of my actions.
You left witnesses? Her brown eyes were as narrow as the edge of a blade.
I…
Callista snapped off a shot with her weapon and burned a hole right through Cosmos’ hat. The fabric smoked faintly for several moments. Callista grinned. ‘Looks like my lasgun works just fine. What is it you want, Cosmos?’
Cosmos pulled off his hat to inspect it, scowling. Once he’d set the damaged object back onto his head, the man jabbed a finger into his own chest. ‘Me? I can live without this guy joining our ranks. But my Clan Leader can’t. He wants Bolt. He wants him by day’s end. And he’ll have him.’
‘Your Clan Leader expects me to walk into Alcazaar headquarters and swear in blood to a gang I have no interest in joining?’ Sandsa asked, reading Cosmos’ feeble mind. ‘I will not do that.’
‘You can’t refuse him,’ Callista muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
‘I can.’
‘You’ll plunge us into an all-out war!’ She turned to him, her expression fierce. ‘The Alcazaar will use this to end us!’
‘They can try,’ Sandsa said, lifting his hand the way a Chipper would.
Cosmos flinched and ducked. Sandsa smiled, dropped his arms to his sides and waited for the relief to cross the man’s face — then threw a violent thought at him. The Alcazaar clansman tumbled into the water. After Cosmos started berating his cronies, they hauled him back onto his bike and fled. Callista’s ensuing laugh was harsh and belied the fear Sandsa could feel coursing through her veins.
He wrapped her into an embrace and rested his chin on the top of her head, soothing her with his presence. She clung to him like a weed on a rock, desperate to remain anchored. After a while, he said, ‘I came here for you. Not to involve myself in Atsa’s gangs, not to destroy the life you have here — though I would not argue if you suggested we both disappear among the stars like the lovers in that book.’
‘We wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d killed everyone in the tower and covered your tracks,’ she moaned into his shoulder.
‘I wish I had killed them all,’ Sandsa murmured. ‘They deserve it, for what they did.’
The fury seeped from inside him, bathing his tongue in bile, coating his skin. He had stayed his hand last night. But no more. Not now he knew they had killed his mother, ended her life before he could touch her one last time.
Callista’s palm grazed his cheek. ‘Sandsa. I’m here for you. And I’m sorry. I’ve sensed how you feel about ending lives and I…I just said that.’
‘A lot can change in a day,’ he said distantly.
‘Yes, it can.’ She sighed. ‘I really wanted to spend the day with you, showing you the places I loved in my childhood…now we’ll have to return to headquarters and report on this.’
‘This “all-out war” won’t start until tonight, is that correct?’ Sandsa pressed. ‘We can surely enjoy ourselves for now — and we are both capable of defending ourselves.’
A wry smile twisted its way over Callista’s face. ‘You’re a terrible influence on me.’
Despite agreeing to stay out in the sunshine with him, Callista remained tense as she drove. Her fears were not unfounded; it didn’t take long for the vidscreen on the console to show the vehicles pursuing them.
‘Looks like the Alcazaar want to get in early,’ she said flatly.
Sandsa swung a look over his shoulder, spotting the hovercar that was chasing them — and the other two flanking it.
‘Do we have enough weaponry to repel them?’ he asked.
Callista snapped her teeth together. ‘Are you kidding? They always get the best armaments. Still, Kick does tend to add a few modifications…’ She punched a button. ‘Kick, you there?’
‘You’re stuck with me,’ Bock answered cheerfully.
‘Bock, this is serious — we have three Alcazaar hovercars bearing down on us and I need to know what secret lasguns Kick may’ve stuck on this thing.’
‘Holy Creator shit!’ Bock exclaimed.
‘Take the next right,’ Sandsa instructed and, when Callista kicked up an eyebrow at him, he explained, ‘A nightclub operated by the Zatzat clan is in this district. It is a good deal closer than our headquarters.’
‘Zatzat?’ Bock’s voice echoed through the communications system. ‘Them? They ain’t gonna look twice at you, let alone blast some Alcazaar for ya.’
Callista slammed a hand on the console, narrowly missing a few buttons. ‘Enough! I need to know about the weapons! I can start steering towards the nightclub but it’s no good if we are blown to pieces before we get there.’
‘I can protect us,’ Sandsa told her.
She shot him a wild look as she pulled hard on the steering rods. The hovercar swerved violently as a large lasgun bolt sped past them, close enough to send the stench of scorched plastic through the cockpit. Leaving Callista in charge of avoiding any further blasts, Sandsa clambered into the rear of the hovercar, pressing his palms to the back window. There was no point in hiding what he could do, not anymore. He ground his teeth together until his jaw ached.
The next lasbolt was a direct hit — or would have been had it not bounced away, shattering the patch of tar it struck. By then Callista had located the weapons systems, though judging by the delicate coughing sounds the tiny lasguns made, they were not going to inflict much damage. Sandsa frowned and sent a larger, stronger burst of his powers.
One hovercar lifted, as though picked up by a giant hand, then listed lazily through the air before it smashed into the buildings on both sides of the road, again and again. It tumbled onto one of the other hovercars. Sandsa turned his attention to the last pursuant, only to see another three vehicles screech in from side streets, all of them mounted with much larger lasguns. These were manned by clanspeople who hung desperately onto the triggers so as to not be dislodged. Sandsa reached for his destructive powers — and stopped. He felt a petering lifesign in one of the ruined vehicles; someone was dying, because of what he’d done.
He hesitated.
But then he saw her.
A beautiful smile, a gentle hand brushing his cheek…it did not matter who it was, Callista or his mother, this was someone he had to protect. Sandsa heard the strangled cry and distantly noted that it was his own. Scattered grains of sand that had wended their way onto this road for centuries, ever since the forcefield protecting Atsa City from the elements had begun to fail, rose from the tar and merged. Angry, hungry for vengeance, a roaring tornado engulfed a hovercar and, moments later, spat out the vehicle’s skeleton. Mindful that any of his followers in Atsa might see or feel this use of his powers, Sandsa swiftly let the tornado drop.
‘What was that?’ Callista said as she steered the hovercar closer to Vom’s nightclub.
A line of Zatzat and other clanspeople were already stretched across the street outside, their hands held up to the sky. Sandsa started when he felt a thick rope lash around his heart, his soul, his being — then Vom threw up a wall of sand, aided by his brethren. The oncoming hovercars slowed, stopped, then started reversing.
‘Sand fleas!’ an Alcazaar hurled through the loudspeaker affixed to his cockpit. ‘You won’t be so lucky tonight when we send the Chippers after ya!’
As they soared away, their insults and hoots bounced back towards Vom who merely swatted at his face, as though dismissing an insect. Moments later, the wall of sand dropped.
Before Callista even began to steer the hovercar towards the gutter, Sandsa threw himself out of the cockpit to approach — his people. It was as though acid was filling his eyes, burning them, and he saw thousands of splintered images of these men and women — all of them starting their lives on the sands, all of them gifted. He knew each of them, knew their hearts…my children. They had called upon him to activate their Magic — and he had answered.
Sandsa nodded at Vom. ‘Your interference is welcome and noted.’
‘Rather generous of me, yes!’ Vom’s smile looked painful. ‘You didn’t turn up for your first shift last night, but the way I hear it, you’ve been too busy tangling with the Alcazaar. Starking jenat — fools mistaking your Magic for Chipper abilities are they? We heard the rumours.’
Sandsa supposed that it was going to come out at some point. He shook his head. ‘They’re not mistaking anything — I possess both sets of powers, though I have no chip.’
‘Can all of you run around throwing tornadoes and sand walls at people?’ Callista asked, marching to stand beside Sandsa. She eyed the Zatzat and their companions, her hand clenched on her lasgun.
Vom laughed. ‘What? No! To accomplish such feats, you need at least twenty people behind you, as you see here.’
Callista glanced sharply at Sandsa. I saw what you did back there. The tornado. You made it by yourself.
Callista, my love, that was Vom and his people, not me, Sandsa told her but he kept his gaze on Vom, unable to look at her, in case she saw the lie in his eyes.
But she’d already read it from his mind.
You’re lying to me, she said, frowning.
Sandsa grimaced. I’m sorry.
Her words became accusatory. What are you hiding from me, Sandsa? What’s so important that you can’t tell the woman you supposedly love?
She deserved an answer from him. He wasn’t sure he could give her one.