“You need not worry about your teammate,” the doctor announced to D_Light as he strolled back to the dinner table. D_Light raised his eyebrows to feign ignorance, but then he realized the charade was pointless. Certainly the squirrel had reported back all the mushy details of D_Light and Lily’s heart-to-heart talk. This suspicion was confirmed by the expressions on the faces of the dinner guests.
“Yeah, it’s a shame about her,” D_Light said as he slid out his chair to sit down. “She is rather clever and has proven valuable in our little game.”
“Yes, your game,” muttered Dr. Monsa. “Your teammates have filled me in on it and hence your purpose in seeing me.” The doctor leaned over the table and looked at D_Light intently. “You are quite right about Lily though. Campers are unique and designed to the highest specifications, and thus it is no surprise to me that she has proven valuable to you. I was quite excited to hear that a camper was on her way to see me, so I have given this whole demon issue some thought.”
Dr. Monsa popped an unusual pink fruit into his mouth and continued, juice dripping down his misshapen chin. “As you know, I have all kinds of exotic products here. Granted, most were born here rather than importing themselves, but nevertheless, she can stay here for a while. Since the inner sanctum is a research zone, I have permits for ‘off purpose’ products, and your camper would not be the only one. However, for the permit to apply, I would need to use her in some research capacity.”
D_Light, despite himself, must have looked startled because the doctor quickly added, “Nothing harmful. Oh, nothing that would hurt it, er, her, in any way, of course.”
BoBo rapped her small knuckles on the table. “Father, assign her as a research assistant to me!”
Curious_Scourge scowled back at her sister. “Why you?”
D_Light raised his hand as though in class and said, “Pardon me, sir, but she is part of our game.”
BoBo, ignoring D_Light’s objection, blinked her eyes innocently at her father and said, “She will be my assistant because I thought of it and took the initiative.”
Lyra opened a blink to D_Light, which was auto-accepted. We do not have a quest at the moment, so I don’t see any reason to sweat Lily being occupied by the doctor. Meanwhile, she’ll be safe as his guest.
D_Light pinged approval.
Dr. Monsa nodded. “Yes, why don’t you girls show her around or, uh, have her assist you. You can take turns using her as an assistant, starting with BoBo, who, as she astutely pointed out, thought up the scheme.”
The priest raised an index finger. “Really, sir, I must advise against this. No offense to you,” he said, gesturing toward D_Light, Djoser, and Lyra, “but harboring these fugitives could get you in hot water with the Authority.”
“As I said, the camper, Lily, is a fugitive because she is off purpose. Well, almost all the products in my laboratories are off purpose. How else could I run any of my labs? My creations are evolving all the time, and in this process so is their purpose evolving. Only when a product has been fully developed and ready for market can it be zoned.”
The doctor paused, wiped his chin, and pointed to D_Light and his team. “As for them, well, they’re just playing a MetaGame, a game that I am apparently part of. The Divine Authority need only review my archive on the matter to see the truth of this.”
D_Light raised his hand. “What happens to Lily after the game?”
“She can come and stay with me as long as she is able. That is, until the Authority comes for her, at which point I will have to turn her over.”
Following D_Light’s example, Lyra held up her hand. “Sir, until we get our next quest, what shall the rest of us do?”
“Relax,” said the doctor as he took another sip of nectar wine. “As I said already, you are all my guests.”
The dinner conversation then switched over to the MetaGame. Dr. Monsa was eager to hear the details. He asked many questions regarding the spanker games, as this was a subject he knew very little about. He found the encounter with the fish in the lake to be hilarious. “My house designed those feeder fish, you know. You must send me an archive so I can include it with our promotional material.”
Djoser did most of the talking since he still had ready access to all the memories via his familiar, while Lyra, lacking the memory retrieval and processing power of her familiar, awkwardly attempted to add bits and pieces from time to time. Moocher and Smorgeous, at the behest of their masters, collaborated to stitch together an archive of the team’s adventures thus far, which was delivered to the grateful doctor to review at his leisure.
Throughout dinner the analyst constantly dropped hints to the doctor, including long, deep sighs, throat clearings, and offhand remarks to other guests such as, “I certainly am full.”
Eventually, Dr. Monsa took mercy upon the creature and gave him permission to be excused. The product stumbled over his own tubes in his haste to get back to work.
Soon after, the others left as well. Each of the girls excused themselves with a curtsy and a smile. Djoser was eager to see how Amanda fared, so he followed the clone daughter wearing the blue bow to the infirmary within the garden. The doctor, claiming pressing business, also took his leave. The only ones left at the table were Lyra, D_Light, and the priest. Lyra, having taken to heart the doctor’s advice to relax, had drunk a few more glasses of wine than she normally did and seemed too drowsy to move. She slouched back in her seat, nudging D_Light from time to time, saying things like, “What a good choice you turned out to be.” Otherwise, the priest, as is customary for their profession, did most of the talking. D_Light was not really listening because it mainly concerned the priest’s specialty in divine law.
“Blah, blah…consult on compatibility of divine law and house rules…blah, blah…mostly intermediate-sized houses…blah, blah…nearly always scored in the top twenty percent of my games…blah, blah.” The priest’s voice sounded like someone breathing in and out slowly through a harmonica.
Absently, D_Light ran his index finger along the collar of his skinsuit. The moisture of Lily’s tears had dissipated. He had been trying to open a blink with her, but she was not responding. The priest, who had been ignoring D_Light in preference to Lyra, now looked pointedly at D_Light, which brought him back to the conversation.
“Yes, despite my lifetime of devotion to the OverSoul, I did not make the list. I am now one hundred and seven,” declared the priest.
“You look fine for being off contract for two years,” Lyra half slurred. Slits for eyes, she looked as though she might nod off.
“Oh, I cannot take credit for my health,” the priest insisted. “It is the inner sanctum, the food and water here, the air even. The doctor has infused the very fabric of his laboratory with countermeasures against aging, cancer, and the like.”
D_Light thought this last bit was interesting and said so. Seeing that his audience might actually be listening after all, the priest straightened his back, cleared his throat, and continued in his sonorous tone. “When I found out that I was not chosen by the Potent One, I felt I only had two choices-either live out the remaining few years of my life in decay, or die swiftly in the gladiator pits of the Real Games. At first I was leaning toward the games.”
Lyra laughed lazily. “You would not have lasted a minute in those games. The sorts of players who end up in the pits spend their entire gamespan training for that.”
An infinitesimal grimace passed over the priest’s face, but he then said, “As a priest, particularly in the area of divine law that I practiced, I made many enemies over my lifetime. A great many would have wagered much to watch me fight to the death. As you probably know, participants in the pits receive a share of the bet. You are right, I would not have survived long, but perhaps long enough. I hoped to pass on a great deal of points to my two children.”
“Children?” Lyra exclaimed with a smile. “You have bio-children? How sweet. Yes, I should like to have a little girl someday. What about you, Dee?” She regarded him with heavy eyelids.
At that moment, D_Light received a raw blink request from Lyra. A raw blink was a direct link between two or more minds. It differed from a typical blink, which only consisted of filtered and polished communication; raw blinks let everything in. Raw blinks were rare between players, except between those who truly trusted one another. It was often reserved for lovers and certainly was not done between players of different levels like Lyra and D_Light.
D_Light gave permission, and his mind was suddenly inundated. There were images of skin entwined, of hair and sinewy limbs, of hearts thundering. He was there with Lyra in bed, in the grass, even on the table in front of them.
Her eyes were boring into him, she was biting her lip, and a thin trickle of blood was running down. D_Light was not certain whether he was actually seeing this or if it was just coming from her mind. None of this was appropriate, but D_Light stomped down on his reservations, afraid that it would be sent to her. She was giving him a gift, baring her soul. He would not reciprocate with formalities. Instead, he joined her fantasy, starting by giving her slow, methodical kisses and tenderly running his fingers through her hair. But she was twisting over him, pawing him.
The priest continued, unaware of the silent exchange between his audience. “Blah, blah…Dr. Monsa is legendary…blah, blah…fruits from trees…blah, blah…”
You and I are alike; we are winners apart, but we could be divine together. Give me your love and we will share our strength. Lyra’s words cascaded down into his awareness. The two of them were holding hands while walking through the garden, a garden like the one they were in, except that the plants and rocks were blurry shadows with soft, rippling colors.
The curious thing about a raw blink is that participants feed off each other’s thoughts. One might think of an apple, and the other might change that apple to a peach because that is what they prefer. Then the first participant might take a bite of the peach, but find it crisp instead of soft, and the cycle would continue on in this way. A shared stream of consciousness. In this case, it was a shared daydream. D_Light had used raw blinks many times to brainstorm with other teammates, but this was always in the service of a grinder game. This exchange he engaged in now was less disciplined than that. It was like an erotic psychic storm.
The mutual daydream reset and now they were in the garden holding hands. D_Light was not sure whose fantasy this was. There was a stone bench with thin, flowered vines enwrapping it.
“Blah, blah…help him, he helps me…blah, blah…symbiotic relationships are the purest…blah, blah,” went the priest.
D_Light sat on the garden bench and Lyra straddled him. She was wearing a dress that festooned out and down to the ground, and although he could feel her strong and glorious legs writhing and grasping at him, he could not see them under the silken fabric. She was breathing hard, and D_Light was not sure if this emanated from the incorporeal Lyra who was straddling him in the raw blink or the physical one sitting nearby. In their dream her lips were at the level of his forehead. She kissed him there and on one of his eyelids. The dress was low cut, revealing cleavage and-
Smorgeous pressed into his mind. Master, there is an incoming blink from Lily.
Lyra’s cleavage disappeared as the two of them snapped out of the fantasy. Mentally, D_Light wailed at Smorgeous for the interruption. Lyra, the real one, laughed.
I apologize, master, but your earlier brain pattern suggested that a blink from this sender was highly desirable and therefore-
D_Light interrupted the computer. Just open the blink. Lyra had ended the raw blink anyway, and D_Light felt up to the task of blinking Lily without neglecting those in his physical presence.
The priest paused in his diatribe as he pondered Lyra’s misplaced laughter.
“So, about Lily.” Lyra abruptly began speaking to the priest. “How, in your professional opinion, would we go about helping her out of her predicament?”
D_Light had been wondering the very same thing. Had Lyra picked that up in the raw blink? He did not remember thinking it at the time.
Yes, master, visual data regarding Lily was transmitted during the time in question. Without being asked, the familiar brought up a still image from the raw blink that took place moments ago. There was D_Light with Lyra on top of him as he remembered. Immediately, Smorgeous zoomed in on a portion of the ivory stone bench. There were words etched into the stone:
To-Do List
Save Lily.
Make sweet love to Lyra.
Seize next quest.
How embarrassing raw blinks can be! D_Light suppressed a groan. Certainly, Lyra had spotted this manifestation of his subconscious.
The priest raised his eyebrows at Lyra’s off-topic question, cleared his throat, and asked, “You are referring to the camper? And by predicament, you refer to her demonization?”
Lyra nodded with a lazy smile.
Hi, Dee, did you wish to speak to me? Lily’s thought signature seemed relaxed.
D_Light was surprised to hear his nickname coming from her, so much so that he tripped over his message as he sent it. Ah, I was…I was wondering how you were.
The priest pinched his upper lip and furrowed his brow. “Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully.
It was kind of you to check up on me. I’m with BoBo. She is showing me some of her wonderful projects. Lily sent him a slightly pixilated picture of a large, woolly teddy bear with giant, dark eyes. It is called a nubber, Lily explained. It is supposed to be a pet. Lily paused and then her blink tone changed. So when will they be ready? When I can I get one?
What? D_Light asked.
Oh, I was asking BoBo when I could get one-get a nubber. At this D_Light realized that Lily had been actually speaking to BoBo and that he had overheard it. It was as though Lily were speaking to him on an audio headset from the old days. D_Light quashed his urge to chastise her for being such a nOOb, for not controlling her output better; however, now was not the time for a lesson on blink etiquette.
They should be ready by Christmas. The tone of voice was high and a bit squeaky; it was BoBo. Lily was just relaying what her ears picked up. This was maddening, especially when he wanted to follow the conversation between Lyra and the priest. Glad everything’s smooth, he blinked Lily. Gotta go, talk to you soon. He ended the blink without waiting for a good-bye.
The priest again sensed that he was actually being listened to and so spoke with a more authoritative tone. “The camper has committed the sin of noncompliance, also known as being off purpose, as she is engaged in activity that she was not zoned for.”
“Zoned?” D_Light asked.
The priest frowned slightly, flicked his eyes over D_Light, and then returned his attention to Lyra. “All products are zoned for certain purposes. Zoning is a legal term, historically and commonly used for real estate. For example, a piece of property could be zoned for commercial use, single home residential, multiple home residential, and so on. It was not legal to build an office building on land zoned for residential-”
Lyra interrupted. “What the fuck is an office building?” Her speech was badly slurred.
“Right, okay, never mind about real estate.” The priest pressed his hands flat down on the table. “The deal is this. A product is legally approved for a specific set of uses, which is known as being zoned. If a product goes off-zone, or in other words, if it is engaged in a purpose it was not designed and tested for, it could be harmful to itself or, worse yet, harmful to others.”
D_Light and Lyra affirmed that they were following him with nods and sounds of understanding.
“Lily was designed for purposes…” The priest paused.
“For purposes related to the hunting reserves. Because she is no longer fulfilling this purpose, she has been demonized. If you want to atone for it, you will need to rezone campers-her product classification-for another purpose.”
“Like as a concubine?” Lyra gave D_Light a rueful smirk.
“I think Dee would like to rezone her as a concubine.”
The priest paused as though to consider this. “Given the phenotype of campers, I doubt that would be a good choice, but yes, you could attempt to expand her zoning to include that purpose.”
A sly smile crept over D_Light’s face. “She’s not ‘off purpose.’ She was designed for evasion, which is exactly what she’s doing.”
The priest let out a raspy chuckle. “Nice try. I’ve skimmed her zoning documents. She is designated to be hunted, hunted in specifically designated areas-the hunting reserve. You are correct that she was designed to resist capture. However, her legal problem stems not from her behavior-rather, it is a matter of geography.”
“Fine,” exclaimed D_Light. “So, say I, or we, buy her from the reserve and rezone her for something like a general servant.”
“Assuming the house that runs the reserve spanker game is willing to sell her to you, rezoning is a long and expensive process. A great deal of testing needs to happen. A high-functioning product like a camper is very complex. It is hard to predict how they might fare with a new purpose.”
The priest sent them a few choice case studies of rezoning Homo sapiens — based products. The point figures were staggering. Reading the expression on D_Light’s face, the priest threw up his hands and declared, “Look, I don’t make the laws, I just provide the best counsel I can. Or at least that used to be the game I played.”
Lyra, who had grown bored with the legal speak and feared that she would waste her nectar wine-induced buzz if she did not change the subject, asked about the garden.
The priest replied, “Blah, blah, blah…approximately five milliliters of the password potion every forty-eight hours or you’ll start smelling like food…blah, blah, blah…wasps are frightful, some of them cause temporary paralysis…blah, blah…orchard has a variety of fruits, all are safe…”
D_Light was only half listening as he inspected the case studies for rezoning. He asked Smorgeous to analyze the data to find an “optimum route for success,” but the computer only gave him expensive and time-consuming options.
The priest excused himself. “I regret to inform you that I have a call of nature of my own,” he said with a half smile directed at D_Light. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he left the clearing, D_Light and Lyra turned to face each other. There was silence between them for a long few seconds. D_Light felt himself being drawn into her. He hoped that she would initiate another raw blink.
Master, based on trace compounds I took the initiative to detect, Mother Lyra is 89.4 % likely to be ovulating. In addition, her blood alcohol level is elevated; however, I was unable to determine a reliable measure of this level. Biochemically, she should be amenable to courtship advances. Smorgeous brought up a visual of the Tappin_It_Baby™ Cloud site. Featured on the site were a variety of up-to-the-minute novel pickup lines.
D_Light could not believe Smorgeous had misread the situation like this. Pickup lines? I’m way past that. On the other hand, the line “I don’t gotta grok what’s gotta be good stock” was sort of funny.
I always have your back, master. This last comment had been programmed into Smorgeous years ago when D_Light had fewer friends. He spent hours trying to teach his computer to be more of a companion. Back then, one of the roles D_Light wanted Smorgeous to play was that of “wing man.”
Never say that again, D_Light said to his familiar. Smorgeous pinged confirmation.
D_Light spoke first. “I’m going to kiss you tonight.”
“Oh my!” Lyra’s lips opened in an exaggerated O as though shocked. “Are you sure? Do you wish to assert sexual dominance over your team leader?”
Surprised by her unusual follow-up question, he stumbled a bit over his response but did so with a confident smile. “Er, I do,” he replied.
D_Light took her hands and stood up, directing her to follow.
Lyra giggled. “What about what’s his name, the priest? He’s coming back you know.”
D_Light shrugged and started walking toward a nearby path between the hedges. Lyra resisted halfheartedly, but D_Light pulled her along. Outside of the clearing, the garden was dark. Lyra fired up her glow stick, causing the miscellaneously shaped plants and trees to cast long, perplexing shadows. D_Light was not sure where he was going, but he wanted to get out of earshot of the dining area. The last thing he wanted was the priest joining them. For D_Light, this was a momentous moment. I’m about to perv my mother! he thought. To establish an intimate bond with a noblewoman was a most excellent tactical move, to say the least.
He looked back at her. Lyra was returning his gaze steadily. Her large green eyes were blurred with alcohol, but her vivacity was undiminished. An impression of Lily with a smile and a cocked head flickered across his mind. How he would like to be holding her hand now.
D_Light realized his mood was fading. Smorgeous, seizing on the importance of this encounter, gave his master a boost/aphrodisiac cocktail. D_Light felt the slow tingle of lost inhibition and heightened attraction spill into him, at which point he turned back and embraced her. They were not in a private grotto like D_Light had planned. They were not even hidden under any vegetation. Rather, they stood groping and moaning right there on the path.
Lyra broke away, but she kept her face only centimeters away from his and whispered, “If PeePee were alive, she would tell me this is not proper decorum.”
“Thank Soul she’s dead! Listen to a machine and you’ll end up no better than one.”
“I have a reputation-”
Lyra found herself unable to finish her sentence as D_Light’s lips hungrily latched onto hers, their curious tongues meeting with the gentlest of caresses. The kiss was moist and delicious and possessed an addictive quality that rendered them slaves to the hormonal rush that followed. Slow, passionate kisses quickly gave way to frenzied, lustful ones, and the two fell to the ground as they groped, grabbed, bit, and pulled each other closer. After much of this intensely disorganized fumbling, they made love, or to better describe the act, had sex. The kind of sex that is found in the wildest of places, places like this, where copulation of all forms reigns supreme and the very fabric of the world is dependent on it. And at the height of it all, after D_Light had finally gone over the edge, there was a long seven seconds when everything in his world made sense as he stared into his beautiful mother’s bottomless eyes.
And then he thought of Lily.