Tristan CH 13 (Patreon)

Tristan was in the wrong part of the city.

As much as the corporations tried to project an image of perfection, they were incapable of preventing things from breaking down, even the social order. All they could do was push it into a corner and do their best to keep anyone from seeing it.

Not that any visitors who heard about this neighborhood would want to come here; the inhabitants of this part of the city were more likely to stab you than greet you. It might be because they wanted your credits, or just because they had nothing better to do.

The first time Tristan came here, they tried to rob him. He left the broken bodies where they dropped as a warning to the others. Now, they just glared at him. None of them dared come close.

Jack had told Alex he’d be gone all afternoon, for his interview at Glacomel. This gave Tristan all the time he needed to run his errands. He already had the memory slates he need for the programs he’d be creating over the coming days.

Now, he headed to an old building. It might have been an office back when this part of the city was clean enough people wanted to work here. But most of the windows were boarded over, and the brickwork was falling apart. It was one of many buildings coming apart on this road, all of them ignored by the people living here. The people who knew there was still a business inside didn’t live anywhere near here.

He stepped through the missing door and up the stairs. He didn’t see the scanner plate, but he was scanned, he was sure of it. The wall on his right had small holes at regular intervals, almost invisible among the debris encrusted on it. If the person he was going to see didn’t want him here, something deadly would come out of them.

The door at the top of the stairs opened before he reached it. It led to a small room with a human female sitting behind a desk. She glanced at him and indicated the door on the left wall. While he didn’t see it, he knew she was aiming a gun at him. The last time he was here, she’d made unveiled advances. He made certain she knew they were unwelcome. That’s when her Tomakynaseru came out. It was a good gun, accurate, inflicting a good amount of damage and easy to conceal. She didn’t get to hold it long.

He’d given it back to her when he’d left.

Behind the door was a hallway with no security that Tristan could see, and at the end was Harry’s laboratory. He knocked on the glass door, then it opened. It closed behind him, and he stayed by it.

The only thing he recognized was Harry’s computer, a Celara a few years out of date. He knew the rest of the equipment in the room was for bio-genetic work, since that was Harry’s expertise, but Tristan couldn’t hazard a guess as to what they did.

Half the room was partitioned off by a glass wall, behind which Harry was working. Tristan waited for the human to acknowledge him. Harry was old by human standards; the few hairs he had left were white, and he was gaunt. The man reached for a beaker on a shelf, noticed him, and indicated he would be a little longer.

Tristan nodded. He didn’t mind waiting.

In his youth, Harry had worked for the Wandering Medics: a fleet of medical ships going from the site of one catastrophe to another, rendering aid. He’d excelled at creating serums to help the doctors, but he quickly discovered there was more money to be made coming up with various illegal substances and selling them on the black market.

He ended up in prison when his side business was discovered, but some of his wealthier clients arranged for him to be broken out. He settled here, in the shadow of large corporations, built his laboratory, and went back to selling his service to anyone able to afford him.

Harry had been one of the names in Mitch’s files, which had included his complete history and a list of items to be used as blackmail material. Tristan hadn’t been surprised; Mitch preferred coercing people over any other ways of getting things done.

Tristan didn’t care for it. He’d retrieved the items and given them to Harry, as a show of good faith. Then he paid for his services. He realized a long time ago that paying people usually gave him better results over threatening them.

Harry stepped through the decontamination lock. “How did the pheromones work?”

“They performed as you said they would,” Tristan answered. “I’m here for the rest of the order.”

Harry unlocked a cabinet and took a vial from it. “I hope you realize how much work it took to find the right virus for what you wanted.”

Tristan watched the human carefully as he turned and displayed the vial. “Are you looking to renegotiate the price we agreed upon?” His voice had a noticeable edge to it.

“No, no!” Harry replied so fast Tristan knew that had been his plan. “I just thought you’d appreciate the effort this took.”

Tristan’s gaze didn’t waver. “I do,” he said flatly. “What did you use?”

“I started with the Ourobora Flu. It isn’t indigenous, but it’s close enough to something local that no one will question it. I altered it so you won’t suffer any of the symptoms while it incubate in your body.”

“What is the incubation period?”

“Its standard incubation time is three days. I was able to double it. After six days, you’re going to be contagious. You’re going to remain that way for about another six days, depending on how quickly your system fights it. As you requested, it’s only transmissible through bodily fluids, but I can’t tell you how quickly your victim will become infected; it depends on his own resistance. With the modifications I made, the odds he’ll be immune to it are almost non-existent. I still recommend you expose him to it as often as possible once you’re contagious. I hope that works for you.”

Tristan nodded. If Alex became infected the instant he was exposed to the virus, he’d show symptoms six days later. Yes, twelve days was ample time for him to do the reconnaissance he needed, as well as write the programs. If it took longer, it just meant Luminex’s security would be laxer.

“The effect?”

“You wanted something that would sneak up on him, then hit him hard. It’ll start with small aches, nothing debilitating, but he’ll know he caught something. That will last a few hours. I have no way of controlling exactly how long, but within twelve hours, he’s going to be bedridden. Then he’s going to have chills, clamminess, and extreme fatigue for about two days. As long as he doesn’t see a doctor when the symptoms start, he’s going to be out of action for three days or so.

“It isn’t fatal?”

Harry hesitated for a moment. “You didn’t say you wanted it to be fatal. If you need it to be, I’m going to require more time with it.”

“No, this is fine.” If it had been fatal, that would have been one less loose end to deal with, but that wasn’t going to be a problem either. Once he had what he needed from Luminex, he’d dispose of the human himself. He handed Harry a credit chip. “Inject me with it.”

Harry inserted the chip into his computer and waited.

Tristan wasn’t worried about the money being traced back to him if Harry was ever caught by the corporations. Each chip he used had a program he’d written hidden in it. The program followed the money through the financial systems and spread the origin of the transfer over hundreds of different transactions, each one with its own chip ID.

When the corporations had introduced money chips and chip transfers, it was supposed to make it impossible for criminals to hide their ill-gotten gains. Each chip tagged the transaction with an ID that would be traceable back to the chip’s owner. With that, the corporations could always find out who had paid for what.

Unfortunately for them, it didn’t take long for fake chips to find their way into the market, and for ingenious programmers to find ways to corrupt the authentic chips, so they no longer did what they were programmed to. Now there were so many ways around the chip’s security, they were just a convenient, mostly untraceable, way to carry money.

Once he was satisfied the transfer was complete, Harry attached the vial to an injector and applied it to Tristan’s neck. Tristan kept watching for Harry to sweat too much, for his breathing to increase, or his pupils to dilate. He didn’t expect a betrayal at this point—he had paid the human handsomely—but he never trusted anyone completely.

* * * * *

Jack opened the door and smelled food: meats and vegetables. He closed the door, and Alex poked his head out from the kitchen.

“How’d it go?” he asked jovially.

Jack shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” There wasn’t much enthusiasm in his voice.

Alex joined him in the entryway, concern on his face. “What’s wrong? Did they turn you down?”

“Not exactly, but they have other candidates to evaluate before they make a decision.” He looked away. “I really thought they’d take me since that’s where I’m from.”

Alex hugged him. “At least it isn’t outright bad news. When will you hear back from them?”

“They said two weeks. I had to give them your comm number.” He looked at the floor. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.” He smiled. “And that means I get to enjoy your company that much longer.”

Jack looked up at him, a shy smile on his lips. He traced Alex’s cheek with the back of a finger. “Thank you,” he murmured, “I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met you.” He bent down to kiss him.

Alex returned the kiss with enthusiasm. “Think nothing of it.” They separated. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something but sniffed the air instead. “What kind of meat are you cooking?”

Alex cursed and ran to the kitchen. “Your nose just saved the steaks,” Alex told him. “Have a seat. I still have to tend to them for a while. What did they ask you about?”

“They asked about my people,” Jack answered, leaning in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Alex’s back as he moved before the stove. “My planet, what I know about Galcomel, what I thought I could do for them. Lots of stuff I thought was pretty useless.” He moved close to Alex and wrapped his arms around his chest.”

“What are you doing?” Alex asked, smiling.

Jack nibbled on his neck. “Showing you just how grateful I am for your friendship.”

Alex moaned. “Jack, we should wait until after we’ve eaten.” He tried to move away.

Jack growled and held him tighter. He continued nibbling and licking Alex’s neck while undoing the human’s pants.

“Jack,” Alex pleaded through his moaning. “Please, we can’t burn the steaks.”

Jack went down to his knees, pulling Alex’s pants and underwear down. He was going to show him how little he cared about food at the moment.

Alex caught his breath, using the counter to keep himself standing. He missed Jack’s arms around him, but at least now he could look after the steaks. He felt fur move against his ass and looked down. Why were his pants pooled at his feet?

“J-J-Jack!” he exclaimed as he felt the alien’s tongue lick him somewhere very private and very pleasurable.

He quickly forgot what else he had been doing.