Dallas looked at the apartment door. It was nondescript, insofar as there were many like it on either side of the hallway. It was special in that it was a door in the most opulent multi-hab building in New Avalon.

He checked the number again on the doorway, and held his wrist up in front of it to make sure no one was doing anything they ought not- like switch door numbers as a prank or something equally silly, as Dallas himself had done to others when he’d been a decade younger.

Satisfied, he touched the finger-sized panel on the doorframe.

A minute later, he heard the maglocks undo themselves, and the manual deadbolt pull back in the slot.

The door opened.

Slowly.

Dallas’ older, middle brother Austin stood in the doorway. He was dressed in what would be for most people a thoroughly dramatic outfit and style. His hair was long and flowing in a small river of dark locks, cascading down from his forehead over his forehead and past what newcomers often mistook for a pair of perpetually brooding eyes. He wore a casual, flowing white shirt that would have looked far more at home on the cover of a trashy romvid set on Old Earth a thousand years in the past, and dark pants with knee-high boots with about a dozen thoroughly unnecessary buckles on the side.

“Frater!” Austin said in a soft, welcoming voice as he threw his arms wide. “So glad you are here! Please, enter my-”

“Humble abode,” Dallas cut him off, pushing past him and into the apartment. “Sure, will do. You got what I need, frater senior?”

“Er-” Austin said, pausing in the doorway with a befuddled expression on his face, “certainly. Why don’t you-”

“I’m already in, Austin. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for the whole ‘I’m such a serious artist person thing right now. I’ve got to pick up the poem and get to Secunda. She’s not answering her comm, so I’ve had to leave messages,” Dallas said, looking out at the city skyline and the horizon beyond that from his brother’s high apartment window.

“Yes, Dallas. About Secunda…”

“I’m finished here, Austin! I’m leaving! And I’m bringing her with me!”

“Well, if you…”

“She’s beautiful, you know.”

“I’m sure she is, Dallas, but…”

“I’m the luckiest guy in the system!”

“Some might say, but…”

“I’ve raided my trust fund, so money won’t be a problem.”

“Well, good to hear, but…”

“And now, when I get the poem from you, all I’ll need is transport. And I *know* where that’s coming from!”

“Dallas! Could you hit the pause key for una secunda? And I mean the time unit, not your girl.”

Dallas turned back to see his older, more elegantly dressed brother. “What?” he said. “Did I forget something?”

“Dallas,” Austin said, using the voice one might use with a child who’d just picked up a live hand-grenade, “before you move on this, I- there are some things you need to be aware of. Some new…ah…variables are in play that you’ll need to plan around.”

“Like what?”

“You want off this rock, right?”

Dallas nodded.

“With the girl you love, yes?”

“Austin, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Look, have a seat. Not too comfortably; I just had those couches cleaned, and I can just tell you’ve been to the lower levels. Good. Like a drink? Hungry? Fine. Dallas, fater minor, have I *ever* given you bad advice?”

“Depends on the subject.”

“Fine. The hov-car was a bad choice. But about women, I mean?”

Dallas paused. “No. Not that I recall.”

“Remember that little gal, when you were thirteen? Blond hair cut into a staircase?”

“Oh, Morgana. Yeah, she was a piece o’ filtercarb. Treated me like I was trash.”

“Right. She thought she had you, and then you saw who she really was. Did I warn you about her?”

“Well, kinda.”

“I told you she’d never dump you, but she’d treat you badly.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Fine, yeah.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“What’re you flying at, Austin?”

“I’m your elder brother, Dallas. Your frater senior. I’m terrible at logistics; still trying to figure out exactly why the military strategy used at the rim of Alderbaran was successful. But I am good at picking out an outfit that’ll impress the ladies, because I know women.”

“No argument there. That’s Why I’m here for your poetry.”

“Exactly. Moreover, I do know you, and I’ve got a pretty good line on a lot of people in our city.”

“And?”

“I’m going to ask you some blunt questions, Dallas. And to help you best, I’ll need blunt answers. Are you ok with that?”

Dallas nodded.

“You and Secunda, your girl. Have you two slept together yet?”

“What?”

“I told you: blunt.”

“Fine. No! She said she wants to wait.”

“I see.”

Dallas paused. “And I want to as well.”

“No, no, that’s fine. There’s all manner of very, very good reasons for choosing that, especially at our station. But, Dallas, are you aware that you are the first man in her life she’s ever made that decision with?”

Dallas’s eyes narrowed. In the space of a second, his expression became one Austin had seen far too often among friends in his life.

“Secunda is pure, Austin. Just like me.”

“She has told you that. But the people I’ve talked to say otherwise, frater minor.”

“You’ve been spying?”

“Spying is such an ugly word.”

“Only when it’s true!”

“Dallas, I was at a party. Lots of nobles like us and a few climbers. Suddenly this fellow showed up in front of me with a smile on his face and his fourth or fifth drink in his hand. He asked me if I was your brother. I said yes, and then…”

“What?”

“He said he was Secunda’s former lover.”

Dallas was quiet. Austin made a quick look at the table to make sure there were no blunt or sharp objects on it, and kept going. “He said that she’d dropped him like a bacla cat with a malformed newborn when you started paying attention to her, and that she’d grown skilled at manipulating men of the upper classes, but not quite enough to become more than a mistress. Until now…”

“Austin,” Dallas said quietly.

“That it was a joke among the young nobles you slum with that she was telling you she was as inexperienced as you, as innocent as you, and that you’d read too many books about romance and the like.”

“That’s enough, Austin.”

Austin wanted to say more, but stopped when he read the expression on his brother’s face. “Fine,” Austin said, “I tried. You’re twenty. I can’t stop you. Wouldn’t if I could. The poem you wanted for her is rolled up in a scroll on my counter.”

“Thank you,” Dallas said, standing. “And Austin?”

“Yes, frater minor?”

“I don’t want you to speak of this again. Not to me, not to Huston or Pater. No one.”

“Dallas, before you go? Primus, my tongue isn’t the one you have to worry about wagging. Secundis, even if that lowlife was telling the truth? A history like that wouldn’t disqualify a girl from being a good wife to you or another. Lying out of love to spare you pain doesn’t either. But a lying heart? That’s another matter entirely.”

Dallas looked at his brother for a second. He then grabbed the sack with his money, scooped the rolled-up scroll from the counter and made for the door. “I’ve got to go,” he mumbled.

“Det tibi deus sapientiam, as Mater used to say.”

Dallas left, the door slid shut.

Austin waited until he heard the click of the maglock at his door before he pulled out his comm.

“Did you hear that?” he said into the mouthpiece.

“I heard,” Huston’s voice chipped back. “What now?”

“Now, we wait. Our frater minor is going to do some investigating of his own. When he finds out the truth, it’s going to be very interesting.”

Huston paused. “Define ‘interesting.’

“Remember the 2-D history vids we saw about the third world war?”

*****

Dallas waited until the elevator had gotten him to the bottom floor of the building before he took out his own comm. He called a horse and waited for all of two, sweaty minutes before he pulled out his comm again and punched the key he’d had memorized for months now.

“Hello,” said the most beautiful, silky voice in the world. “This is Secunda Mata. I’m not available to speak right now. Please leave your complete message on the phone, and we’ll speak soon. I promise. And a promise made is a debt unpaid!”

The beep sounded. “Hi, beautiful,” Dallas said, his mouth feeling dry, his tongue too big. “Hey, uh- we need- need to talk, dulce. Please call me back. I’ve- I’ve got some wonderful amazing news for you! Amazing. I’m coming by, so please be ready for me. I-”

The yellow hovercar had pulled up. Painted red and blue with a white-horse logo on the door, it had been evidently battered and scraped by life and years on the street and under the controlled elements. The driver was overweight with a vapa-gar sticking out between his teeth, and looked at Dallas with silent expectation. Dallas looked, hung up, sauntered over to the horse, opened the door and slid into the back seat.

“Where we going, pard?” the driver said through his clamped teeth.

“Seven-five-fifteen,” Dallas said, his eyes glued to the picture of the girl on his comm screen with frizzy blonde hair and blue eyes, set perfectly above her high cheekbones. “Fourth sector.”

“Heh,” said the driver, without even punching the code in to his nava. “Prima-Secunda.”

“What?” Dallas said.

“The restaurant. Right in that area.”

Dallas paused as the horse rose in the air and moved into one of the travel lanes. “You know the place?”

“Everyone does, kid,” he said, chuckling under his breath. “Everyone. Hold tight.”

****

To Be Continued…