Page 75 of Sparktopia
Her face is so contorted with this confusion, I actually laugh. “You must’ve been really stoned. That must’ve been some party.”
“Party? You mean the gala?”
“Kind of a fancy word for a fucking sparkfest, but OK. Call it whatever you want.”
She just blinks at me for many, many seconds. And the weird thing is, she doesn’t look stoned. I mean, for someone who was out cold the whole time I was carrying her up those stairs, she looks like any woman who just woke up after a normal night’s rest and not anything like one who partied so hard the night before, she blacked out.
I extend my hand and take a few steps forward. She looks at it with suspicion, then up at me. “Your eyes.”
“What about them?”
“They’re…blue.”
“So are yours.”
She shakes her head. “No. Not that kind of blue.”
I turn and walk over to the mirror over the small sink. And sure enough, my eyes are shining an unnaturally bright blue. An indicator that the augments inside me are working at the moment. This is what scared her. That’s why she stepped backwards and tripped.
I frightened her.
I let out a long breath, then walk back over to her, extending my hand once again. “It’s just the augments. I don’t know why, after all these years, they’re acting up like this, but it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
Me, on the other hand? Yeah, I’m startin’ to get a little worried.
But I don’t tell her that. Instead I say, “Come on. Get up,” and shake my offered hand at her.
She hesitates, deliberating. But what other choice does she have? She takes it and I pull her up off the ground.
We stare at each other for a few moments, then she pulls the jacket tight across her half-naked torso, dialing down her slutty factor, but only marginally.
But my slutty factor has been dialed up, I guess. Because I’m wearing nothing but a towel and she’s staring pretty hard at me. I chuckle, then turn away. “I’m gonna get dressed and be right back.”
I take the Versi with me, stuff it back into my battle belt, and then grab a pair of tactical pants off a shelf by the sink and step into the shower, pulling the curtain closed behind me.
Once that’s done, I come back out, expecting her to be gone, but find her sitting in my favorite chair near the steel-shutter window.
I downed all my whiskey last night so I don’t have anything to drink but water, there’s definitely no food in the cupboards, and she’s not here for sex, so… I really don’t know what to do with her now that the preliminaries are over.
The chair she’s in is the only one I have besides the spindly thing holding my battle belt, but there’s a weird vibe floating through this room right now so I lean against the wall instead, silently kinda fuming that she took my chair and is causing all this awkwardness.
“Sooooo.” I don’t really have anything to say to her, so that’s all I’ve got.
“So,” she says back.
“Do you… need coin, or something?”
“Coin?” She squints her eyes at me. “Why would I need coin? I’m in the God’s Tower, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So… where the hell is he? You’re not him, obviously.”
“Where the hell is…who?”
“Thegod.” She says this in a mocking tone. Like I’m a literal idiot.
I chuckle. “The god? The god isdead, darlin’. Has been for hundreds of years.”
