Chapter Four

“AND, COLE…” THE interviewer, Steel Daily, flashed a too-white smile. He turned to where Cole was pressed into the corner of the couch, squished next to his bandmates. Cole had quickly come to realize that interviewers were all cut from the same cloth. Too shiny and too invasive, all with a smile so wide that Cole was always surprised that the shark’s-teeth didn’t show.

“Yes?” Cole asked with a blush. After two weeks of enduring interview after interview, he was slowly getting more used to the process, but that didn’t mean he was ever going to be comfortable with it.

“Tell us a little about yourself!” Daily tittered. “No one really knows all that much of your past.”

Cole tilted his head slightly to the side to study Steel Daily and his blinding white teeth. He had been asked that question before, but never with quite the same inflection as this particular interview. Daily was asking as if he were an interrogator instead of simply an interviewer. Cole was expecting something similar to happen fairly soon, but not during an interview.

They were due at Kamura, in three days, where they would be playing two concerts during their weeklong stay, one on each of the two big continents. Both concerts were totally sold out. They had a couple of days for travel and tourism added in to fill the time.

Cole blinked once, as if thinking, and tapped his middle finger on his knee twice before leaning forward.

“What do you want to know?” Cole asked.

“I’ve done my research, and I simply cannot find any record on what planet you’re from!” Steel Daily opened his mouth in a gasp as if this were a great travesty.

Since Cole’s record was confidential, the news didn’t surprise him. That someone had the resources and took the time to dig deep enough to realize that there wasn’t a record available to read was the only clue Cole needed. He rubbed his chin and bit his lip, knowing that he was blushing, and this time he used his shyness as an excuse to stall.

“Um, well I was born on Roma. That’s Colony Two,” Cole explained, picking out the parts of his file he had been told were safe to share if this sort of situation came up. “I ran away when I was seventeen and found work as a janitor on Lacustrine.” After which he and Dayton had been recruited and trained by their current organization, but there was no need to tell Daily that little detail.

“Ran away from Roma?” Daily exclaimed, gently touching his fingertips to his lips in feigned shock. “How horrible. What happened?”

Cole could feel his blush growing. He glanced toward his bandmates for help, but they were clearly just as curious as Daily was, so no rescue would come from them.

“I fell in love,” Cole finally said with a shrug that did nothing to hide just how red his face was. The audience almost cooed at his admission. “But on Roma you can’t chose who you fall in love with.”

“Boy? Girl?” Daily asked. “Your audience is dying to know!” he added with a meaningful glance to the enthralled live studio audience.

“Boy, which was the main problem. Roma isn’t exactly progressive when it comes to free love. Being gay is illegal there. He’s also Jewish, and interreligious fraternization with the small Jewish community was also a big no. My family turned me out, my church wanted to have us stoned, and the police were about to arrest us. We snuck onto a cross-galaxy shipping vessel and requested political asylum when we stepped off at Lacustrine.” Cole knew his voice was strong, and his face, though still red, echoed that sentiment. It hadn’t been a great time in his or Dayton’s lives, but they’d had many long, happy years since, and Cole was at peace with it all.

“Can you tell us a little about the boy?” Daily asked when it became clear that Cole wasn’t going to say any more about his past.

Cole shook his head. “No. I don’t want my fame causing him any harassment back home. We’ve been happily married for four years, and that’s all I’ll say on the subject.”

That wasn’t the most Cole had ever said in an interview, but it was the most time spent focused solely on him to the exclusion of the rest of his bandmates. Cole was just glad he had gotten so much practice interviewing over the past weeks so he wouldn’t stutter or stare stupidly and make himself look suspicious. Still, he had been advised to tell as much of the truth as possible; it was actually one of the earliest lessons they taught in basic training. First, so anyone doing a real background check wouldn’t get alarmed, and second, so he wouldn’t get his stories mixed up.

“I’m sure the ladies and quite a few men are sorry to hear you’re taken. And how were you recruited into the Four Kings?” Daily asked, finally moving into familiar territory again. He had asked the other three the same question earlier too.

“Well, I was working as a janitor, and I was cleaning up a late-night coffee spill out on the front steps of the building. I guess I was singing and a bigwig walked by and heard me. Handed me his card and told me to come to auditions the next day. Now here I am.”

“Fascinating!” Steel Daily said with another too-white flash of shark’s teeth. “Well, that’s all the time we have tonight, folks. the Four Kings! Their next concert is in three days on Kamura. Check out our website for a contest to win tickets.”

Music played over the sound system, signaling the credits. The Four Kings all stood and smiled, waving happily at the audience for one last camera pan over the couch until the stage lights suddenly flipped on and the show was over.

“I guess he liked you, huh, Cole?” Sol joked with a grin as they walked offstage into the green room.

Cole nodded, then shrugged.

“Yeah, confused me too. But, hey, that’s what you get for being the lead singer,” Sol agreed with another smile that said he didn’t mind.

They returned to their ship for the long journey to the next galaxy and to Kamura. Cole settled into his bed, the recording of Dayton’s latest message playing in his ears, as he tried not to worry about everything that was about to happen. He had three days to prepare, and then just a little longer to avoid being caught. The extra waiting time only made him more nervous.

Cole missed Dayton more than ever, but he was glad Dayton was safe back home on Lacustrine instead of traveling into certain danger with Cole.

 

P WAS WATCHING the holographic projection screen with bated breath. L, seated calmly next to P on the couch, wouldn’t take her eyes off Cole’s blushing face as he glanced through his eyelashes up at the interviewer. Steel Daily turned to include Cole in the interview, and Cole, natural that he was, couldn’t stop the bashful glance that inadvertently and marvelously entranced the viewing public until they were die-hard fans.

Finding Cole had been a neat bit of luck. J knew from all his years in the agency just how difficult finding an operative like Cole could be. J just had to look at the rest of the band to see the difference. Despite J digging through their ranks of experienced agents and new recruits, Cole was the only fully trained operative on the mission. The rest of the band had all been read in to the operation in case of an emergency, but none could do what Cole could. Z, standing against the back wall of the meeting room with J, couldn’t help grinning at Cole’s image every time Cole blushed or stuttered. Z particularly enjoyed the authenticity of Cole’s wide-eyed honesty and clear bewilderment over his sudden fame.

They all watched as Cole studied Steel Daily before answering his questions, and none of them missed when he blinked, tapped his knee, and leaned forward.

“There’s something about Daily that Cole doesn’t like,” Y said, noting that the pay-attention signal had been given.

“Steel Daily is watching Cole too intensely,” Dayton said from his chair in the middle of the room, carefully watching Cole’s every move. “He’s made Cole uncomfortable.”

The next question cemented Daily as more than just a curiosity in J’s mind. To know that Cole’s record didn’t exist meant that someone with the capabilities to dig something like that up must have informed Daily. That Cole could pick up Daily’s tells so quickly was reassuring though.

J looked sideways at Z, who nodded. Z would do the follow-up on Steel Daily. Finding out just who was funneling Daily the information and exactly what Daily was giving in return would be useful on their final report.

It wasn’t necessary for Cole to give the danger confirmation signal to alert J of the situation, but he rubbed his chin and bit his lip anyway. Dayton sighed worriedly and hunched his shoulders. Dayton was not someone whose outside reflected his inside. He was whipcord thin, thinner than Cole, but he didn’t look gangly even though he was nearly six feet tall, thanks to his broad shoulders and defined muscles. He had black hair and brown eyes, as well as a nose that could use some reduction surgery, but his cheekbones and his smile made him vibrant. One glance at Dayton and J saw someone who was strong and beautiful. What his outer appearance hid, however, was his fiery personality.

J had been in his office when Dayton had thrown the door open and stalked in, his body vibrating with rage and fear.

“What are you doing to Cole?”

J hadn’t known how to answer the question at the time, but luckily Z had followed Dayton into the office.

“Can I help you, recruit?” Z had asked sharply, but Dayton gave Z such a scathing look that Z was forced to back off.

“He comes home one day saying he’s going across the galaxy to sing?” Dayton snapped with a sneer. “He wasn’t assigned a vector, yet he’s going on a mission?”

“It’s a matter of planet and galaxy security,” J murmured, trying to placate an irate Dayton.

Dayton hadn’t left J’s office until he received permission to be part of the mission every step of the way. He couldn’t be in the band or ride on the ship with Cole—it would raise suspicions since artists didn’t generally cart their employed lovers across the galaxy on tour—but Dayton would be in every tactical meeting and would join them in watching Cole on holovision. He was a trained recruit and had the security clearance, and he had ended up being a huge help in getting Cole ready for his role. All of that was why Dayton was currently seated in the room, watching Cole maneuver around Steel Daily like an expert.

“He handled that quite well,” L said with a firm nod.

Dayton scoffed. “You should meet his parents. He fooled them into letting him sleep over a number of times before we got caught.” He adopted a bashful look, reminiscent of Cole at his shyest, and glanced through his lashes up at two imaginary people. “I’m meeting with Dayton for a school project. It might run late, so I may not be back until morning prayers,” Dayton said with a shy fidget and in a higher tone to mimic Cole. “We weren’t even in the same classes,” Dayton said, back in his own voice and with a sly smile. Z had read their file, so he knew this was true. He also knew that Cole’s skill with deception and Dayton’s skill with planning had been the deciding factors for their initial recruitment.

“He won’t be getting caught this time,” P said firmly, still staring up at the holograph as the credits rolled and the band left.

J sincerely hoped P was right, because the next stop for the Four Kings was Kamura, and their second venue on 501b had the primary target. J pushed away from the wall, nodding politely to P, L, Y, and Dayton, before leaving the room. Z followed but was uncharacteristically silent as they walked through the halls and out of the secure areas into the main office. Z was worried about Cole as well, but their plans were too far along to turn back now.