Partner

I dragged my feet on this. So. Much. Unfortunately we won't find out what Rel is thinking until Wednesday likely. As... my netbook is on battery because my university sucks with supplying outlets. So no insight there. It doesn’t take much to figure who Edno is talking about. Although I don’t think he fully realises what he’s doing.

I read Shoe's review and was like, good thing the meeting with Edno clarified for her! And then realised I hadn't updated this yet...

I’ve been wondering what to do with myself after Partners and Sequel end. It’s something that has to be asked as… well a few of you have been talking about the ending and it is starting to wind down. I might have an idea.

On a side note, having Una poke you for eight hours kind of makes you want to gouge your eyes out. The guy knows how to get attention and… unfortunately he focused on getting my attention. Non-stop porn is NOT as exciting as it sounds.

Read, Review and Enjoy.



Edno wasn’t ready the next afternoon. The female delivered a healthy… mesa. Essuan and Lillow went to bed after the babe was born, early the morning after Edno was supposed to arrive. When Edno arrived shortly after the announcement of the birth, the males were ruffled and Violet had just enough time to run upstairs to fetch Rel.

They gathered in Mik’s apartment, having borrowed a kitchen table from Souse’s apartment along with several chairs and a spare teapot. Tea was made, vegetables and finger foods were placed out as they waited at the table for Edno and Rel.

Edno arrived before Rel, sitting quietly at the table. He looked haggard, but he was clean shaven despite his shaggy, tired look. Tea was set in front of the older man and it wasn’t long before Souse had made Edno a sandwich and had pushed it in front of the man, urging him to eat. Souse was worried about his partner, actually, honestly worried.

“So. Working for Raya-”

Edno was in the middle of sipping his tea when Mik spoke, the man held up a hand as his swallowed the mouthful, “I’ve been asked not to mention names, especially his name.”

“Why, we all know who-” Rel walked in and Mik trailed off.

Of course, Rel didn’t know. And it wouldn’t be the strangest request Mik stuck to, so he looked down at his tea and tried to focus on something else. Like. How Muan was doing that thing again. That thing, where he claimed everything insight, where he acted like everything was his.

Stupid.

Rel glanced about the room before settling in a chair beside Paw. The young man was growing out his beard and it made him look years older. Mari didn’t seem to like the look, however, as she grimaced and immediately looked away from Rel.

Tea all around, the group settled into everyday talk and snacked on the foods on the table. Once everyone had had their fill of food and the tea cups had been refilled, everyone sat back and looked at Edno.

“You’re a new face,” Edno said to Rel, who sat across the table.

“My name’s Rel,” Rel muttered before he motioned to Muan, “that’s Muan.”

“Ah,” Edno looked like he was trying to recall something, like Rel’s face brought up a half forgotten memory, “Well, I suppose you all want to know what I’ve been doing over the past few months.”

Souse, still playing mother hen, placed another plate of food in front of the older man and urged him to eat. Edno glanced up at Souse, over his glasses, with a look that made the Sidhe huff and take the food away, down the table to set it in front of Muan. Who began stuffing his face like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Rel gave Muan a sideways glance, but immediately looked back at Edno.

“I’ve been working with the Tele family on a new project of the heir’s.”

“They’ve named an heir?” Rel asked, sounding almost bored. Which just made the question all the more dangerous because Tele had been, and still was, Rel’s only rival. The only people who could compete with the boy genius was… another boy genius.

“Yes. He called what we were working on a toy, said that he had the components, he knew it would work, he just couldn’t get them to obey.”

“Nanobots,” Rel filled in for Edno.

“Yes, nanobots, complex organisms to you or I but-”

“Is there a kill switch for these nanobots?” Rel asked, “How exactly does this child,” stressing the word child, “expect to control them, to stop them from mutating and evolving, adapting to their surroundings to consume everything in sight?”

“I wasn’t working on the kill switch… Rel, did you say your name was?” Edno frowned at Rel, “oh, by the gods, you aren’t Rel DeAniege are you?”

“Yes, I am,” with the arrogance of a Sidhe in a pissing contest, Rel looked calm and relaxed. From Paw’s pointed look from Rel, to Mik, Mik safely assumed that Rel was using power. The young man didn’t need to get in a spat to win a pissing contest, a flick of his mind and Edno would be down.

“Ah,” Edno licked his lips and sighed out, closed his eyes for a moment. Whatever the older man did, Paw’s head snapped around, a confused, startled, horrified look on his face, “well. Shall we continue?” That was not Edno. Well. It was. But it. Wasn’t. But it was.

Mik gave Paw’s shin a kick under the table. Paw chewed his bottom lip, seriously considering all angles before he shrugged, “is Edno. Just done something… strange…”

“Strange how?”

“He’s removed himself from sight,” Rel growled, “hiding something.”

Edno shrugged, “attacking me would be an attack on Him, are you sure you want to try my master? We were all hand selected by the heir, we were all sworn in as … followers, let’s say. Our lives, our freedom for the safety of the toy. None of us knew all of any part, we never saw a whole,” Edno set his hands on the table, studying them for a moment, “but he kept making me practice what I just did, said I’d need to use it, if I ever met you, Rel. You look like your father, but younger, it had me confused for the longest time. Must be the beard.”

Rel went dark red in anger. Obviously the beard would go.

“I can tell you I worked on the trigger, I can tell you that my roommate was working on writing the chemical signature of PCT so that it was smaller than the nanobots.”

“PCT?” Rel looked confused, “it’s a common chemical. He’s likely just using it to repair his toys. Nearly everything in our society has PCT in it. From the windows to the wax on the food, to the clothing we’re wearing.”

“A nanobot fused with PCT could nullify any repairs ever needed,” Paw murmured, “could also end… everything. World hunger would no longer be needed, linking base chemicals with PCT and you’ve got food. Link a virus with a PCT and wars could end over night.”

“Could it,” Mik sat forward in his seat, “Be used to destroy the world?”

“No,” Edno shook his head, “There was nothing destructive about the bot, the heir himself was working on the order sequencing.”

“How is he linking it to the- he’s already linked it to the nanobots,” Rel sighed out.

“Was he the one who sold to the Valeasans?” Paw’s voice went up a pitch in fear.

Edno shook his head again, “no. The colleague working on the connection sold it to the Valeasans, and he was fired on the spot.”

“Fired,” Rel muttered, “or fired?”

“As in let go. The heir shrugged and said that only the gods could judge a man and sent him on his way with his pay. He’s very… optimistic for a genius,” Edno looked right at Rel.

Rel growled in response, standing from his chair as Muan stuffed the last of a sandwich into his mouth with one hand and grabbed Rel’s wrist with the other. Whatever passed between the two, Sidhe and people, Rel clenched his jaw and sat.

Who the hell was dominant? At times it seemed Rel was, at others Muan was. Paw had once said that a pair had to be on equal ground, that neither could be more dominant or more submissive than the other, if it was to ever work out. Yet they were bouncing back and forth.

“Enough bickering between the two of you,” Violet snapped, “Water must froth to get to the big waters but it must also return to being a calm pool. Now is the time to calm and quiet,” Violet looked at Mik, “least we all lose something precious to us.”

And all of a sudden the Sidhe decided to get up and leave. Paw patted Mik’s shoulder, gave him a peck on the cheek and led Violet and Souse up to the green room. Leaving Taln, Tuhn, Koln, Mari, Mik and Rel at the table. Rel watched the Sidhe go, obviously uncomfortable amongst his own kind. Mik felt a moment of pity for the young man, so alienated he couldn’t sit with people of like feelings.

Rel’s green eyes flickered to Mik, shadow casting over them for only a moment before he looked away and to the kitchen. Annoyed.

The young man didn’t need his pity and certainly didn’t want it.

Mik knew an inserted thought when he felt it, though he wasn’t entirely certain how he knew that Rel had inserted that thought. He couldn’t believe how like his own thoughts it sounded. Souse gave nudges to manipulate people, Rel imitated them and inserted the imitations into the person’s mind. Like a chameleon changing his colours.

Like Paw leading conversation with just the right words.

“He said that in a month, or so,” Edno sighed out, “he would be releasing his toy on the mass market. That it would change the way we looked at toys. All the pieces have to align, he said, and if the gods be willing, that which is most precious …” Edno shook his head, “he trailed off there and got an odd sort of smile on his face, like a grown man in love and he said ten days.”

“Ten days until what?” Rel asked, “he tries to destroy my companies? Again?”

“No,” Edno looked at Mari, then at Rel, “no, nothing like that. Doesn’t seem the type.”

Mari’s cell vibrated loudly against her hip. The woman snatched it up and answered the call, walking towards the doorway as she started her ‘uhhuh’s and ‘yes, of course’s.

“I have to talk to Paw,” Rel snapped, walking off towards the green room.

Mik watched the young man go before he looked at Edno and whispered, “So let me get this straight, some genius named Raya is talking like Paw talks, making strange nanobots and you don’t think he’s going to destroy the world?”

“Ra would never destroy the world, Mik,” Edno whispered back, “he may save it from itself. But there isn’t a malicious bone in his body. He sees Mother and no other as god. The boy loves the world more than his own mother.”

“More than the one he’s waiting for?” Koln asked.

Edno shrugged, “only time will tell.”


.