Dee sat at next to Zeph, now wondering if Yoga pants and a t-shirt was the right choice, among Gizzy, Izleena, and Clutch all wearing high-end dresses, and Zeph in almost a suit. The violinist played in the background, as part of the ocean view deck scenery, as a butler arrived with a tray of gold cloches containing their dinner.
“You look nervous, Dee.” Gizzy mentioned.
“Oh, I’ve just never seen a dining table with a water feature before, and…a lot of gold binding.”
“That’s 6mm bar inlay, hand carved with little roses. Solid one piece purple Lava rock. From Delmar Prime. Gift for my youngest daughter. This is her suite we’re borrowing, she insisted. As a fellow homicideball player, since it’s Clutches birthday, she suggested we use her suite.” Gizzy noted.
“So…how are we outside and not swarmed by bugs and snails…and why is it daylight?” Dee asked, feeling very confused.
“It’s not.” Izleena smiled politely. “It’s a holographic energy shield around the home. Even the sea smell and the breeze is simulated. But the home itself is real, and about 60 meters off the beach.
“Rich people technology, right.” Dee nodded. "So, Zeph told me it was casual dressed.”
“Yea my bad, I didn’t know till like 20 minutes ago when they brought me a suit and said to change. That’s on me.” He nodded as the waiter placed down their trays and revealed them.
“Truffle and Havocian Wellington, marbling grade 7, wrapped in Wagyu, grilled and crusted in black garlic infused Philo, with a duck fat and vintage balsamic glaze.” He proudly boasted. Dee looked nervously at a thick slice of what appeared to be completely raw and very purple “beef” of some kind.
“This is safe for humans to consume, right?” Dee asked.
“Absolutely. Little undercooked for your liking?” she asked.
“I’m just more of a medium or medium-well girl.”
“You can’t cook Havocian cattle. The planet’s average temperature is around 650 degrees Freedomheit. It doesn’t start to cook until around a 1100, and then it gets so tough you can’t eat it. That’s why we wrap it in Wagyu, get a nice sear and crust, that rare pink steak situation and then the raw Havocian."
“Oh my god.” Clutch said, slowly chewing her bite and placing the silverware down to bask in the moment. “I may never be able to eat anything else again.” She said, feeling overwhelmed by the flavor.
“Well, you have to, that’s about 16 grand a serving. You get it once, because you only turn 8 once in your life. That’s a huge milestone in Delmarian culture. First stage of pre adulthood.
“Dee slowly took a bite and froze in confusion, unable to comprehend whether she was revolted by the texture of warm raw purple meat or about to have a religious experience from the flavor.”
As the meal concluded, Gizzy nudged Dee towards the stairs.
“Dee, I wanna show you the kitchen in this wing of the manor. I think you’ll find it fascinating.
“I don’t cook.”
“Just trust me. Zeph is giving Clutch a tour of the house and showing her her training room, she’s gonna be a Homicideball star some day if she gets good enough. Watch the railing, there isn’t any. This home was not built for people who take fall damage from 30 feet drops.” She said casually, following the stairs and marveling at the Olympic sized swilling pool suspended by marble pillars and 3-story deep water seemingly suspended on the sides by nothing. As they reached the topside of the pool area and turned the other way, Dee walked into a gigantic kitchen, hollowed out of stone and turquoise deposits the size of cars, a waterfall and creek running through it, every crack and natural fissure filled with hand hammered gold like gilded lightning veins. They stepped out onto the high terrace, overlooking the island and ocean.
“I think we actually just passed the kitchen.” Dee nervously said as Gizzy stopped at the rail, looking over and silently taking in the view.
“Dee, that right there is your house.” She pointed, “Lighting adjusted and filtered, of course."
“Wait, that’s my bedroom. I should be able to see this place from my room, why don’t I see this place?”
“The same forcefield that keeps shit out and makes it look like paradise from the inside, makes it look like a grassy mountain from the outside."
“So you can just…see right over our privacy fence and about half of our pool area, hu?”
“Ah nobody’s using it, it’s full of bugs and/or snails. Gonna be a while before the surface is liveable again.”
“Are you about to kill me?” she asked.
“Dee, this is where most powerful mothers would tell the woman equivalently over then their barely adult boy that he could do better than essentially a stripper with an IQ of 85. But we both know he can’t do any better, so there’s no point. You can’t steal his card and take his money because he runs on an allowance, and we’d just cut him off, and I’d evict you to a human cubical until you reimbursed it. Really the only thing you could possibly do is cheat on him and break his heart, metaphorically, obviously we don’t have hearts. So I would advise against it. I know you’re a security risk, slept around with everyone, cheated on both of your exes, and I have no idea what arrangement you two have, and that is between you two, but whatever you agree to, I would recommend you follow that agreement. So…date Zeph, be friends with Zeph, whatever floats your boats, but don’t stab him in the back or betray him. He’s a dumbass, but he’s my boy. He’s capable of causing so much more trouble than you ever could, so whatever shitstorms you get into will be likely less bad than whatever did does alone, and frankly you’re less bad than half the women he brings to these dinners, which is both alarming and relieving.”
“So I’m not going to die?” she asked, clarifying.
“Well you’re human so eventually yes, but he’ll move on and find another girlfriend so don’t worry about that. In the meantime, try not to pull that Silverback bullshit again. Otherwise, you may learn just how much special treatment you humans get in that house when suddenly yours are gone, and you get yourself into one of your situations and have to handle it alone.” Gizzy smiled, patting her on the back. “Now come on, let’s finish this birthday party, your friends have their own little party planned in about 2 hours and you surely wanna change into something casual.” She subtly dug, motioning her back to the kitchen.
“Happy 8th birthday! Cheered the subterranean dumbass gang as the party simmered own and Vinn toasted a beer to it.
“You guys have all been great and very kind letting me live here with you. I feel like kind of an asshole for barging in and making your lives complicated, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Don’t feel bad, we’re all misfits here.” Nicole smiled. “You’re better than the last one we bought in.” she joked.
“So, what do you want for your gift? You’re officially a pre-adult.” Vinn asked.
“Well, for my birthday gift, since I’m legally of age to fight in the arena, I challenge you, Vendetta, to the death in honor of my father, The Kraken.” She said, taking on a dark tone and everyone went silently confused.
“Very funny, I see you’ve adopted Nicole’s warped sense of humor. So, what do you really want?” Vinn chuckled.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Gizzy’s head on a plate, but I’ll settle for yours, IF you have the balls to fight a girl in the area. The Challenge is made, do you accept?”
“You’re serious? You’re Kraken’s daughter?” He asked.
“Do you accept!?” she barked.
“No.” he scoffed, almost chuckling at the absurdity.
“Why not? I thought you had honor.” Clutch barked.
“Honor has nothing to do with it. It’s not about bravery or honor, it’s just pointless killing. After all that we did you still wanna defend that asshole’s lack of honor?”
“No, mine! My dad was a piece of shit that stained my name, and I can’t do anything now without that reputation! I can’t go back to the core, this is my way out. I’m following orders, and my orders get me my family’s honor back and my mother’s honor too.” She boasted.
“I thought you were an orphan like me. What kind of mother makes their 8-year-old daughter fight for her own honor? What kind of honor is that? Who’s orders? Hers? The orders of a mother who would risk your life for some bullshit social glory? Change your name, make your own honor, follow your dreams, not someone else’s orders. You escaped the core because of that shit, so let it go.” Vinn insisted.
“She didn’t escape.” Said Gizzy’s voice as the therapy robot strolled into the room. “She was let go, as part of her mission. Let me guess, General One-Fang is your beloved mommy?”
“How did you know?” Clutch asked, looking worried.
“Because I traced back the signal of the bug you planted at my house to the council chambers. Only one female Delmarian there who has a dishonored reputation as a purist, so sketchy, she would make up a daughter to die in the pit for her glory instead of face me herself. General One-Fang has no children. She’s sterile. I have her medical charts. Honey, you’re an orphan, disposable and moldable, vulnerable and young enough to believe in hope, and just old enough to die for someone else’s honor. Your mother…” she said, placing down a hologram cube of the data files. “Died in combat when you were 2. Covert ops, mission gone wrong, honorable funeral. One-Fang buried those files.”
“Liar. I supposed The Kraken wasn’t my father either, and my real father died in battle with honors?”
“No sadly, a good woman was stupid enough to actually get knocked up by the damn Kraken. Shit if I know why, but he’s dead and so is Hyde. I took the head myself, you wanna see the skull I plated in my cigar lounge? You think I’m lying, ask your mother for a DNA test, public hospital. Watch her make excuses and act offended and do anything but agree. Be grateful she’s not. At least one of your parents was a decent person. Vinn won’t fight you, nobody here will fight you, and you’re not going back to the core, so choose your options wisely young lady.”
“You used me too. I was just a face to sell snail garbage. What do you care?”
“No, I didn’t, there’s no damn branding deal. You want that, you gotta earn it playing ball like everyone else. That was a fake plan to figure out who you really were. I knew something was up from the beginning, ran a DNA scan off your hair sample and found Kraken all in there. You think I’m stupid enough to let some random orphan in a high security house like this and just…hang out unsupervised? With DEE? The moment you bugged the security camera, I knew you were an operative, I just didn’t know who was puppeting you, or why. We know who, so why target Vinn?”
“Because my family still has no honor. If my mother is dead and Kraken was my father, then I’m still the dropout, failed military kid who can’t do one mission, whose legacy is nothing. I’ll never find a mate, if I have kids they’ll have no family honor, I have no job skills or money, and no future. I can’t hide from the core forever or go back. I made a deal for my future. If I kill Vinn, I earn a future, even if it’s all bullshit honor, I have options. I have a name. I have respect, and a military record with success on it. I have nothing else to live for!” she yelled, tears streaming down her face.
“That’s not true.” Vinn said. “There’s another way. You’re still not fully an adult for another year, this is your year to earn that. That means you can still be adopted. You could have your family name changed; your honor would be yours to earn another way."
“You can’t be serious.” She said, looking skeptical.
“I’ll adopt you. You’d no longer be part of the house of Murrumughvuur, you’d be part of the house of Gurverdermnerer.” He proudly said.
Dee leaned in towards Gizzy.
“How do they say that with a straight face?” Dee whispered.
“No Idea, it’s just bunny mumble noises, and we all know it.” Gizzy smiled.
“But my military record will still be incomplete, and my one mission a failure. That will follow me for my entire life.” She sniffled.
“I’m sure Gizzy can have that taken off the records if she can show them that you were tricked and lied to by a general trying to spy on her?” Vinn asked Gizzy, she nodded.
“You’d do that?” Clutch asked. “After I lied and spied on you all, challenged you to the death, bugged Gizzy’s house and almost got her taken off the council?”
“Oh honey,” Gizzy chuckled. “Nobody’s getting me off the council. You didn’t almost do shit. You tried, for mommy, but fake mommy sucks at this game of chess, and you didn’t almost do anything to me. You’re not a bad kid, you just have a shitty upbringing.”
“Mom…the General…says you are replacing the council with clones to take over and destroy our way of life.” Clutch said, questioning everything.
“That’s ridiculous and only 30 percent true. I’m not replacing the council with clones, I’m trying to extend the Delmarian lifespan and give people the freedom to choose their medical rights. I’m not trying to take over the council to destroy the Delmarian way of life. Now HER way of life, absolutely. I’m enlightening people and showing them they have the right to choose their beliefs and way of life, not be forced under a purist military, who train orphans to die in pointless battles for them. In that world, you would be taken back and have no rights to anything else but to kill when ordered and die when you fail. THAT is the purist way of life she thinks I’m trying to destroy, and she’s absolutely fucking right. You wanna know the truth, ask me anything you want. I will either answer or tell you I can’t, but I won’t lie to you, make it count. Ask what you need to know, kid.”
“Is everyone here just a clone?”
“Jack’s a clone, Vicki’s a clone, Nicole’s a clone. Dee and Vinn are OG meatsacks. All 3 of them agreed to it. Jack was killed, Nicole drowned, while your father watched and did nothing, Vicki was dying of cancer. So in my world, the one I’m fighting for: If you want to stay dead when you die, you stay dead, and if you want a second chance, you sign the medical forms and get one.”
“And do you own their souls?”
“Souls don’t exist. If they do, nobody ever showed me proof, let alone how to collect them. If they did, I might have a few of my worst enemies in the cigar room but alas, tis’ only myth.”
“Did my father do anything good while he was alive?” she asked.
“Maybe…he made you. We haven’t seen if that’s worth praising yet or not, you’re still deciding that, and you have a long life to do it.”
“How do I know who’s lying to me and who’s my friend?” Clutch asked.
“Oh, welcome to the club. I ask that myself every day I step into that council. Vinn is willing to adopt you to give you a future at his cost, we’re all willing to give you another chance, and if you sign the adoption forms, you’ll see if good ol mommy argues that right or not. That proves her lies. Even Kraken knew the core was a cult, and he was an idiot. Don’t be stupid and go back, to mommy fakest, and the human haters club where you can be thrown into someone else’s fight to die like a meat shield. That same core that opposes Delmarian cloning because you have no soul, is perfectly fine asking for Osirian clone armies to fight for them, and if they could legally do it, they’d clone you 50 times to die in battle 50 times, instead of them. You want options and freedom and honor, here’s your way out. Ditch the damn cult, just like Vinn did, sign the papers, and you can be free and part of a house with honors just like your new father. You want your own glory, train up. Join a Homicideball league, get good at it. Win some games. Or be a model, or a weight lifter, or gardener or whatever the shit you wanna do. That’s what freedom is. Whatever you want it to be. Don’t waste your freedom by choosing to be a slave again.” Gizzy sighed.
“And you…” Clutch said, looking at Nicole. “You’d be okay having a Delmarian daughter?”
“…yyyep.” She said, looking horrified. “Sure would be.”
She added, the faint sound of an asshole puckering among the tension.
“Then I wanna be totally honest about my name. They didn’t call me clutch because I never let my enemies escape my clutch. They called me that because I failed the armored vehicle driving test. I burned out the clutch 3 times in a row, and nobody else could test that day. When they asked why, they kept saying: just ask little miss smoking clutch. And they laughed at me.”
“Well,” Vinn said. “The peers who respect you get to choose your name, and you could have turned on us at any point, but you clutched onto your honor, don’t let it go now.”
Dee sat alone in the kitchen, noticing Nicole approaching and flopping down next to her, the clank of Champaign bottles hitting the counter a little bit hard indicating her already diminished motor skills.
“2 bottles for just us” Dee squinted. “Celebrating or attempting a coma?”
“Well I now have a teenage alien daughter 5 times my size, with military training and highly skilled at lying, espionage and weaponry…and I didn’t get any heads up on that. So Dee, tonight, we both have a drinking problem.” Nicole smiled, tipping the bottle up.
“Well, I’m dating Gizzy’s son…so despite that being entirely my fault as usual, I may have you at least tied for what the fuckery.”
“To the fuckery.” Nicole clinked.”
Gizzy approached them, passing and making her way to the bar.
“Gizzy, Am I gonna be okay? Is she gonna be okay?”
"She’s gonna be fine. The combined evidence that Clutch herself gathered to use against us is enough in the high council alone to get people turned on One-Fang and ruin her credibility. Combined with some online propaganda advertizing and doubt, she’ll either resign with dishonor or stay with no power. The surface should be clearing out at some point soon, popularity of snail products are on the rise. We got this.”
“I meant having an adopted daughter.”
“She’s almost grown up, Nicole. In a few years she’ll be moving out, it’s not like you’re raising one from birth. She doesn’t need a mother to coddle her and feed her and give her rudimentary learning skills. She needs a friend who will just guide her a bit, encourage her, and let her be herself. You’ll both figure it out, with Vinn in the middle. This is just another season of your life, that, as always, you’ll survive.”
“I guess I will.” Nicole said, taking a swig. “Guess I always will.”