Like Moonlight on Water: Chapter 15

And Splinters

Like Moonlight on Water is the sequel to my speculative women’s fiction novel Daughters of Men. And unless you like spoilers, you’ll want to read Book 1 first.
Or, dive in with the beginning of LMoW here. Paid subscribers will have full access to all chapters and also receive the finished e-book.

Click here for the previous chapter in which unintended consequences revealed a dangerous side effect of Lila’s ability.

» » » This chapter has some PG-13 swearing. « « «

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And Splinters

I am never alone.

Haunting words. Haunted words.

He leaned low over the motorcycle, and it responded like a sentient creature made of wind and metal, eager to please its rider. If only Lila could be as simple to control—for her own good and Eileen’s. But even then, her motivation would never be to please him.

The energy she described had compelled her to walk toward the southern expanse of marsh, and when she refused to go further, it had ripped from her.

Her word, ripped. She described being aware of the duality for a split second, then found herself with Adam. Of course, with Adam. Even speaking his name had exacted a further physical toll, as she became preoccupied with stroking her stomach in a seeming effort to soothe it. A deviation from the nightly bouts of nausea that would be noted by the Servants.

Adam. Her transits always connected with him, Sal was sure. But this…? While she had been awake…? Somehow, Sal needed to help her learn control.

Wandering was dangerous. Not simply for the risk of losing consciousness in a hailstorm—or finding herself stranded in the ocean—but because the fractal had initiated it. And when she returned to her body, what about the fractal? Had it transitioned to another reality? Lost its integrity and simply dispersed? Or…returned.

I am never alone.

His kind did not believe in such esoteric concepts as souls. But he knew the certainty of a soul—the essence of every being—was a truth. Though his team could not quantify or qualify it, though they had no religion or art to describe it, he just…knew it.

And fractals acted independently of their originators, as if they, too, had souls. Dark ones.

He demanded more of the machine and leaned so far into a sharp curve that his upper body crossed the center line—correcting only as a concrete truck barreled from the opposite direction.

"Dumbass!" the driver shouted through his window.

Sal agreed with his assessment. Modulators could repair simple dismembering—with properly aligned pieces and enough energy to sustain regrowth—but they needed more than a smear across pavement to work with. Otherwise the reconstruction process took far too long.

And that would leave Eileen and Lila vulnerable.

His speed reduced, and he entered the town of Kure Beach at the posted twenty-five miles per hour limit. The eighteen degree drop in temperature at Lila’s house was only a modest seven degree shift here, but the accompanying wind had sent most beachgoers scurrying for their vehicles. Only a few resolute anglers remained at the end of the long pier, stubbornly casting lines in the ocean spray in hopes of catching Spanish mackerel or kings.

The ocean’s bounty was not what it once was, but at least in this reality toxic algae blooms had not suffocated the Atlantic coastline and estuaries. Or clogged the water intake filters of the region’s nuclear power plant.

Another mile on the narrow beach road, and then the motorcycle slowed and turned left into a short driveway beside Adam’s black truck. Without a noisy combustion engine to announce him, he took a moment to consider the three-level oceanfront home. Its ground floor was semi-enclosed to allow parking and storage between the pilings, and the galvanized metal roof indicated an effort at maintenance, but compared to its high-design neighbors, the structure was a weathered holdover from decades past.

Upon leaving the military, Adam had purchased this house as an investment project, but had instead lived in it until suddenly leaving for the home he now shared with Cara.

This house also happened to be exactly due south of the tree where Lila had collapsed.

“You’re wasting your time.” Adam emerged from the shadows beneath the house.

“Intriguing greeting,” Sal returned. “Most would marvel at being found or—”

“The only marvel is that bike.” Adam opened the tool box in the truck bed. “Your modulators controlling it?”

Sal grinned and dismounted. “You have a keen eye.”

“They the reason you don’t need a helmet?”

“Yes.”

“And you put ‘em in her.” Adam extracted a hammer and slammed the chest closed. “Like she was a goddamn science project.” He stalked to the side of the house and Sal followed.

“Madeline asked this of me. They are considered a boon to most humans.”

Adam stopped at the elevated platform supporting the home’s mechanicals and rattled the latticework around its base. “I’ve heard that bullshit before.”

“You refer to your government’s programs.” Sal stretched up and skimmed his fingertips across a thick cable connecting the air conditioning unit and electric meter. “Mandatory DNA collection, implants…super soldiers.”

“I lost a—” Adam clamped his mouth shut and began prying nails from the warped wood. “I’m sure you know all about that.”

Unfortunately. “How high was the storm surge?” Sal asked. Disentangling his modulators from the wiring, he considered the height of the platform. Two powerful hurricanes the past season had made landfall at high tide, one during a full moon.

Adam attacked another nail. “High enough to be a pain in the ass, not high enough to destroy the place.”

“The wiring beneath the third floor window adjacent to the balcony is corroded.”

“Flashing must’ve leaked.”

Sal nodded. “The damage is localized to the outlet.” He touched a nail head with his fingertip and extracted the metal. “Modulators can be the gift we intended. Eileen is the same child you offered to parent.”

Adam paused, then wedged the hammer’s claw around an exposed shank.

“She has a parent.” He wrested the nail free along with a clump of splinters. “Two, unless you’ve found a way around that.”

“We have, but she does.”

Adam heaved a sigh and turned. “You’re not going to let me work in peace, are you?”

“She lies to protect you,” Sal said. “Surely you recognize that. After you—”

“Why would Eileen—”

“Not the child, Adam.”

The man’s pulse quickened and he ran a thumb across the hammer’s head.

“After you left,” Sal continued, “Lila had a…an episode of interest. Did you sense anything unusual after exiting her house and before I arrived?”

“What kind of episode?” Adam growled.

“What we call a transit.”

“Explain.”

“No. I might lead you toward a false recollection.”

Sal positioned his forearm across a row of nails and removed seven at once. Then, turning his arm so the nails projected in a spiky row parallel to the ground, he tapped each in sequence to play a scale.

The human was not amused.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There are many things I am not telling you,” Sal replied. “But my inquiry is simple, and I cannot see how a response might negatively impact you—or your family.”

“Or my family.” Adam slapped the hammer against his palm. “But it might hurt her.”

“My team needs data. Anecdotal evidence, provided voluntarily, may be helpful.”

“Voluntarily.”

Sal tapped the nails again, a few high-pitched notes from a classic science fiction film.

“Coercion and extraction are options, of course.” His lips tightened with a suppressed smile, and Adam’s eyes narrowed.

“Okay, how about you tell me something, first?”

Sal spread his arms. “Ask anything you like.”

“What would happen if I chucked this hammer at your head?”

Sal chuckled and the row of nails fell to the sand. “Let us find out!”

Leading the way to the oceanside of the house, he stood in front of the low sand dunes and motioned for Adam to stand near the house.

“Stay well back!” he raised his voice over the ocean’s roar. “My modulators deflect automatically and my control is limited.”

“You’re serious?” Adam bounced the hammer in his hands, gauging the weight of handle and head.

“Absolutely!” Sal stretched his arms wide again. “I will curb my senses as best I can.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but then reopened one. “Remain far away!”

Eye closed once more, Sal tried not to hear the crunch of sand as Adam chose his angle of attack—or the whir of the hammer spinning toward him. The skin across his nose tingled, and his head bobbed backward.

The accompanying crackle of charged air was muffled by the crashing surf and his exuberant congratulations. “Excellent aim! I felt that!”

Adam, wide-eyed and silent, stood twenty feet away beside a piling impaled by the hammer’s claw.

“Shall we try again?" Sal called out. “I will do my best to allow it to touch me,”—he waved toward the piling—“and avoid the house!”

The end results were most satisfactory, but the hammer’s final rebound had skewered the exterior wall of the home’s second level. Together, they surveyed the hole from the living room as the onshore wind whistled and swirled debris across the floor tiles.

“You’re either an asshole or have really bad aim,” Adam speculated.

“Perhaps both,” Sal suggested. “But at least I missed the glass doors to the deck.”

Shaking his head, Adam went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Not what I thought I’d be doing today.” He pulled out two cans of beer and threw one to Sal. “Renters left these. Might as well share.”

The watery beverage tasted more of aluminum than hops, but the cold liquid was refreshing. He drained the can in three long swallows and accepted another.

“Alcohol doesn’t affect you?” Adam asked.

“Anything I consume is assimilated too quickly for much effect.” Sal sighed with regret, “And what humans brewed a millennia ago tasted better. Your modern cultivars are lacking in more than just nutrition.”

Adam leaned against the kitchen counter and watched him finish the second beer.

“About what you asked…” the man said after a few seconds. “I wouldn’t say I sensed anything unusual. But I didn’t want to leave.” When Sal said nothing, he continued, “You knew, didn’t you?”

“I heard your vehicle idling at the end of the road, but you left before Lila went outside.”

The man considered the can in his hand. “She came looking for me?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“You heard what I said to her.”

“I did.”

Adam drained his can and tossed it in the sink. “Maybe I’m the asshole.”

“I would not be here if you were.” Sal placed his two cans on the counter. “Ask me anything.”

After a long pause, Adam straightened and gestured to the hole. “You gonna help fix that?”

While they worked side by side, Adam asked other questions.

—“Are there warning signs when a reality is about to collapse?”

—“How many ships do you have?”

—“Can Servants reproduce?”

—“What’s special about Wilmington?”

—“What about Roswell?”

And Sal answered as honestly and succinctly as he could.

—“Data has not been consistent.”

—“We originally had one primary ship with a dozen smaller craft adapted for Transitioning.”

—“Of course not.”

—“Lila asked the same question…we do not have an answer.”

—“Whatever crashed was not ours.”

Adam threw up his hands at the last response. “Are you an alien, or not?”

Sal magnetized another drywall screw and rotated it into the stud. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“You don’t know anything!” the man exclaimed. “I almost wish you were lying, but I don’t think you are.” His tone conveyed humorous exasperation, but his eyes held more questions.

Suddenly, Sal’s body heated and the sensation of searing flames raced along his muscles. His fingers spasmed, sending drywall screws clattering across the tiles—but then the burn stopped.

“What the hell?” Adam breathed.

Sal wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared at his glistening palm. “I have no idea.” His emotions had been well in hand. “A malfunction…?” Was that even possible?

“And I’m supposed to believe they’re a boon to humans.” Adam scowled, but was distracted by his phone beeping. The text message deepened his frown. “Cara needs me back.”

“A week is a long time for humans,” Sal said. “How can you accept that she still withholds information about Traveler? About our involvement?”

“She’s been through a lot. She’ll tell me when she’s ready.” Adam shoved his phone back in his pocket. “And who says I accept any of this?”

“You could ask me.”

Adam’s fists clenched. “He’s my son, and she’s my wife. That’s all that matters.”

“So Lila keeps reminding me.”

The man blinked and his gaze lowered to inspect his bandaged palm. “I’d say something sexist about women and secrets right now…”

“But you would not mean it.”

“Know that much about me, huh?” Adam pressed his healing wound, scenting the air with fresh blood.

“I know that when humans are ready, answers become apparent.” And when they are not, no truth can reach their hearts.

Adam cleared his throat and began to gather his tools. “I need to go.”

“Would you mind if I stayed?” Sal remembered the sagging lattice outside. “I would like to continue.”

An emotion Sal could not identify crossed the man’s face.

“Lock up when you’re done.”

“Consider it locked.” Sal waggled his fingers in the air.

Adam started to walk away, then rounded back with a grim smile.

“Thanks.” He extended his uninjured hand for the second time that day. “But I still want to kill you.”

Sal grinned and returned the man’s calloused grip. Lila was wrong about a friendship between them.

By the time he left, the sun had set and a deep chill suppressed any indication of spring becoming summer. The ocean wind still carried the warmth generated by the Gulf Stream offshore—but now it buffeted against the remnants of Sal’s interference.

As he parked the motorcycle beneath Lila’s house, a cold drizzle began to fall. The week ahead was most likely ruined for tourists, which did not concern him, but he hoped the tender crops produced on the other side of the river would be spared. Famines had been triggered by less. Triggered by him and his kind. And yet he had not thought twice.

What would he not do for her? For Eileen?

The house was silent except for three beating hearts and quiet breathing. He could sense the child was in a deep sleep. She needed to dream. Lila might allow him to experiment with her modulators—but he would need an excuse so the Servants would not notice.

The cat greeted him as he entered the house, blinking contentedly from atop the bookcase. She had been treated to attentive grooming with a soft brush as a measure of appreciation for her valued status, though she wished Sal would remind her humans that she preferred morsels of cheese.

Lila’s breathing quickened, and he heard her rise from Eileen’s bed. Rather catlike herself, she eased from the room and closed the door silently before padding across the floor to join him in the kitchen.

“Here,” she pulled a plate out of the refrigerator, “You and Eileen both missed dinner.”

His stomach growled in anticipation of the cold sandwiches, and she gave him a weary smile. “Don’t get too excited. It’s just hummus and veggies.”

“Eileen was not hungry?”

“She cried herself to sleep a couple of hours ago.”

He had not sensed it. Genuine sadness, then? Not hysterics…

“Adam?” he asked.

Lila nodded. “She kept looking at her phone to see if he’d texted. Didn’t want me to hug her, didn’t want me to leave the room, either.”

She sat with him at the table and moodily trailed her fingers along the woodgrain while he devoured the first sandwich. When he picked up the second, she sighed.

“Are you going to make me ask?”

“He owns a house in Kure Beach,” Sal said between bites. “Which I already knew from my research.”

“It sounds so polite when you say it like that. Why were you resear—”

He grunted around a mouthful and she reddened.

“Paternity research?”

“Eileen’s conception is a mystery to all, Lila.” He patted the back of her hand then resumed eating.

“And?” she prodded.

He eyed the last sandwich before answering. “It was as you described this afternoon. Beige ceramic tiles throughout the main floor. The public pier is visible from the third floor balcony.”

She swallowed, and the ring of bruises around her neck bulged. At least he had been able to repair the muscle attached to her hyoid when he had merged with her. Ecstasy was a useful distraction.

With effort, he quelled that line of thought. Merging was intimate for him, too.

“The third is yours?” He nudged the plate towards her, but she pushed it back.

“Not hungry.” Her fingers traced the woodgrain again.

“The nausea has passed, has it not?” He glanced at the clock, though he knew it to be nearly ten.

She made a face and pressed her palms flat to the table. “So you have noticed.”

“Of course.” He tapped one hand lightly and she allowed him to turn it over. Her scars were inflamed, bright red and hot. “You know why you feel ill every night…?”

“Well, I’m not pregnant.” Her wry laugh sounded forced. “Unless I’ve forgotten a hot date.”

“You are not pregnant,” he picked up the sandwich. “I would know.”

She snorted. “Like that’s not creepy.”

“I would smell the changes in your hormone levels.”

“Definitely not creepy,” she muttered.

With a sigh, he replaced the sandwich on the plate and motioned to her hands again. Frowning, she turned them both palm up, and he nodded.

“The nausea will pass when you gain more control of your transits.” His tone was light, but her expression shifted from consternation to fear. “It will pass,” he reassured her.

When she had Wandered the night that Cara and Traveler had been returned, one of the Servants had—unknowingly—trapped her fractal. For only a few moments, but long enough to manifest physical damage, not just psychic trauma. Sal was not at all certain that the nausea would pass. Her body might somehow be permanently affected by that nine o’clock ordeal just as her hands now bore scars, but she did not need a conjectural worry on top of real concerns.

She leaned toward him and squinted at his chest. “Is that blood? What happened?!”

“Is it?” He smoothed his shirt to admire the solitary drip. “Just a bit of sport.”

With the first few throws of the hammer, Adam had discovered that small objects stood little chance of impacting Sal’s body in any meaningful way. And even when Sal suppressed his modulators, his control was overridden if the modulators perceived a serious attempt at self-harm.

But rather than raging against technology he could not control, Adam had instead mimicked Sal’s attitude and embraced the farce. Learning. Adapting. And after a half-hour of increasingly absurd efforts, he had finally clasped Sal’s forearm, cross-bodied, for a manly truce—then with a sudden, powerful twist slammed Sal’s own knuckles against his windpipe.

Sal had bitten his tongue, choked for air…and sealed the unspoken promise with a bloody smile. When the time came, the warrior would be ready.

“You look way too pleased with yourself,” Lila grouched. “We talked about this!”

He shrugged. “Even aliens need to expend surplus energy. I used to wrestle with my siblings.”

“Your…how long has it been?”

He waved away her concern. “Time does not mean as much to me as to you.”

She laid a hand on his arm, her usual gesture, and he pulled free.

“You should sleep now, Lila.”

“You mean I should get to work.” Her automatic sarcasm yielded to sympathy. “Do you miss them?”

“No.” He smiled to attenuate his abruptness. “I must monitor your sleep, but tonight, I think listening will be sufficient. If you…need comfort, know that I am close.”

She blushed, and he fought the urge to touch her cheek. She did not blush for him—nor should she.

The cat lifted her head and leapt down from the bookcase to follow him out.

“Sal?”

He turned at the door.

“In the morning, I’ll tell you everything. I promise. I do want to help.”

Keep reading…

Like Moonlight on Water: Chapter 16